Cleaning up the Mess!

But first, I am so happy that the month of February is winding down. Out feeding chickens this morning, I noticed buds on the Flowering Quince. 

Be still my heart! I can hardly wait to feel the warmth of spring again...to hear the frogs down at the pond...and see grass that needs mowing.

Awww, speaking of the pond, we'll sure miss our old Miss Ducky. Sadly, she passed away last month...

The teeny tiny pond won't be the same without her. This was her pond for at least 15 years, and she stood guard and protected it daily. It was funny watching her swim out to meet any wild duck that might stop by...explaining to them that she was in charge here. She was our sweetie pie. 

Another bit of news from January that I forgot to mention...

Our sweetest boy Eli turned 12 years old. The books say that's pretty old for a Pyrenees. He is doing well except for those big back legs which have become very weak. We keep looking at those wheels or wheelchairs for dogs but those made sturdy enough for a Pyrenees are expensive. :(  

Still dreaming of Springtime, this is the little playhouse of my dreams...

Hope I won't get into trouble using this picture from off the internet. It's just so beautiful!!

Okay, about cleaning up the mess and what a mess it was! Remember my brilliant idea of using every towel in the house to make walking paths over the packed snow and ice?

Well, it took days for these towels to thaw up enough that I could pull them apart. Seriously! Frozen towels cannot be pulled apart. I used a potato rake to pull each towel from the ice and ground frozen beneath it. Chopped a few holes in the towels too!

That wheelbarrow packed with frozen towels facing the sun...stayed here for two days without thawing. I finally had to carry buckets of hot water from the house and pour over them.

Even though the sun came out the days were cold and the ice stayed around. The fun part was setting up a little laundry area with an old bench and No. 2 tub. My hands were more than a little chapped and dry after all this. Oh my gosh...there were bird seeds and sunflower seeds and gravel all frozen into the towels! My goal now is to buy all new towels and save these for future ice storms. :)

back to spring being just around the corner...the Jonquils are coming up...

I raked pine straw from off the dam and covered the bare winter ground around them. At least, it looks a little warmer for them. 

Guess I've kept you long enough friends, well, that is if you're still here. Sure do appreciate your visiting.

Love, Henny

Uggg! This weather!

 No siree!! You will not hear me wishing for snow any time soon!! I am scared to death trying to get from the front porch steps to the chicken house door...slick as ice out there!!

No soft, fluffy snow here! We have sleet, and freezing rain, all packed down hard and slippery! Poppy went to the mailbox yesterday...

There was no mail and no sign of tire tracks that the mail had run. Going in the opposite direction here, takes you into town. In case you're interested. :)

 

                  

I started this post last Tuesday and here it is Saturday! The ground is still solid packed ice and we're waiting now for the next snowstorm. 

We are not used to weather like this...ice covering the ground for a week and now a major snowstorm predicted for today and tomorrow! 

So afraid of falling, I had to come up with some way to get to the goat lot and chicken house...

Well, necessity is the mother of invention! Our towels will probably never come clean but that's okay. We need a stack of new ones anyway. This idea works perfectly!! The towels stick to the ice and the top feels like walking on grass.

This pink one especially won't come clean! I had spilled a cup of coffee on it before adding it to my path. :) The damp towels stick to the ice better. 

One more weather-related item and I will hush about it...Take a look, if you will at the weird icicle...

Okay, I'm done. You Northerners are probably thinking, "she doesn't know anything!!  and I bet you're right!

Staying inside now, Ugg!!! I was bound and determined to finish this apron that has almost broke me from sewing altogether...

First, this apron has darts. Darts! I don't like making darts and the ones in this apron are odd and hard to get right. Then I had to sew the pocket on twice. I made the ruffle too short and had to take it completely off, add another length and gather it all over again! Then I pinned the bib to the skirt, sat down to sew it on and had pinned the bibb on backwards. Whew!! 

I've made a few teeny tiny pinafores and bonnets. These used to sell really well at the farmer's market. Don't know why I stopped making them...

Well, it's 10:41 am here and a few tiny snowflakes have started to fall. Guess I'll go prop up at the kitchen window, watch the birds, and finish off the bowl of popcorn from last night. :(

Want to mention though, I was looking back at the comments on my last post, the one just before Christmas. There were some very nice comments that I am just seeing. Thank you! And South Carolina girl, I enjoyed reading about the wormy Hickory nuts. The panful on our front porch may have worms but are too frozen to move around. :) 

Thank you, dear friends.

Love, Henny

Come on in friends, and Merry Christmas!

Good grief! That door really needs painting. Anyhow, not much planned here for Christmas this year. In fact, we have nothing planned. Guess it will be just Poppy and me. 

This is the first year ever that I didn't put up a tree in the living room. I did, however, put up a small tree on the teeny tiny front porch...

It's hard to get good pictures. The porch is small, and I can't back up far enough. :)

Poppy cut a big cedar limb, that needed to be cut anyway. It grew out over the dam and got in the way of his mowing. Anyhow, I had a big No. 2 tub of green cedar to use for decorating...

My friend Karen made the pretty Christmas pillows and gave them to me. I love them!

And here's the old cupboard filled with cedar that doesn't show up too well...

Oh my gosh, I left my dusting rag in the chair! We did get another Santa poster for the big old barnwood frame. A windstorm year before last ripped the old one into pieces. 

That's about it for outside. Let's go in, I'll show you my pretty polished red delicious apples...

It just wouldn't be Christmas without them. I buy a two or three every time I go to the store...I've eaten one almost every day in December. Reminds me of Christmases long ago when we got a red delicious apple in our stocking. 

and I bought a small Poinsettia for the table...

So, this is my little Christmas post for December 2025. I mostly wanted to wish all of you a MERRY CHRISTMAS! 

Thank you for putting up with me for another year. 

I love you and appreciate you dear friends. 

Henny

 

If I hurry...

I just might get this, and one more post done before Christmas! I'll tell you what!  I've had "The Night Before Christmas" going through my head since the day after Thanksgiving!

Like outside trying to rake up a few leaves and going over and over in my head, "as dry leaves that before the wild hurricane fly, when they meet with an obstacle mount to the sky",

and, seeing the moon early mornings while out with Ellie lately, "the moon on the breast of the new fallen snow, gave a lustre of midday to objects below".  One of my favorite poems for sure! 

Moving on to more important things :) My scissors...

and this isn't all of them! There are scissors in the greenhouse and in the shop, in the kitchen, and laundry room, in my car, and a teeny tiny pair in my pocketbook! These 5 are in my sewing room. Opening the new pack of 2 yesterday (the smaller ones on the far end), made me think of my aunt Berlie...

That's her, 3rd from the left in the back row. My dear Aunt Berlie! I loved spending nights with her. She lived alone in a big old house that had an attic. I loved cutting out of an old catalog...we would go up in the attic and find an old Sears Roebuck catalog, bring it back down to the sitting room, where the heater was toasty warm, and Aunt Berlie would start looking through drawers for a pair of scissors. "I know there's a little old pair of scissors here somewhere", she would say. 

Scissors! we have so much of everything now, don't we?

Anyhow, Shelby and I, well now it's Shelby, Karen, and I were vendors at the Christmas Bazaar last month. Karen makes the most beautiful doll clothes...

Karen was bound and determined to have 50 outfits made before doing craft events. Her set-up was so pretty! Her husband Norm built the clothes rack...

and you know Shelby with all her baked goods and jams and jellies..

Customers always flock around her table. And a little glimpse of my stuff, such as it is, as mama would say...

So, a craft event really gets me going! I've been sewing just about every day since...making a few new things too!

Not much going on outside these days except trying to rake up acres of giant oak leaves! It's raining and cold today, still in the 30s as I write this. My little greenhouse, full of plants I hope to keep alive through the winter...

Need to end this but I did promise Smokey to show you this picture. You see, I forgot it last time and he especially wanted Precious to see it. You know Precious has her own blog. :) 

Thank you, Dear friends.  I appreciate you all so much. I always mean to reply to each of your comments. Where do the days go! Oh, my new Santa poster arrived this week and is hanging on the front porch. Anxious to get out all the Christmas decorations. :)

Love, Henny

This week and last down Henny Penny Lane

 Well, this week has started off wrong. I have a doctor's appointment at 3:00 today so it's hard to get into anything. That comes from my dear mama...

"I just despise to have to go anywhere on Monday", she would say, "it ruins the whole week. "How Monday starts off is how the whole week will be".

No doubt, mama had been cleaning here, or maybe she had rolled her hair and tied a scarf around the bobby pins.  This was taken back in the 1940s in Summerville, SC.  I can see the moss hanging from the trees in the background. 

Anyhow, last week I went into a cleaning frenzy starting in the living room which lasted three days...

Oh my gosh! It's the bottles and deer heads and turkey tails and the ruffled valences, so many things to collect dust...

Couldn't help but remember the old Country Living Magazines and Jo Northrup who wrote "Simple Country Pleasures", a one page feature each month. 

In one issue she wrote about spring cleaning where she carried all the baskets down to the pond for a washing then putting them in the sun to dry...

I carried my baskets in the wheelbarrow to the water facet, gave them a good washing then into the sun to dry...

So, here it is Tuesday morning already. Didn't get to finish this post yesterday. A 3:00 appointment in Wake Forest is too late in the day. I was dark getting home...thanks to the time change it gets dark right after lunch now!

One of our neighbors, over the river and through the woods, actually, across the path and through the woods, stopped by with her two granddaughters, Abbie, and Evie, to see the bunnies...

They are such sweet girls. Abbie is holding the white bunny, Daisy, and Evie is holding the gray bunny, Sage. 

Poppy and I got busy and finally put a new top on the rabbit lot...it has a new 10' x 10' tight fitting top covered with the new green tarp on top. It's a warm, safe, and cozy home...

It's amazing how many places won't let you adopt a rabbit now unless you agree to keep it inside. Rabbits love being outside! Daisy and Sage seem so happy running and playing. Randall Rabbit, Daisy, and Sage all have cozy houses inside the lot. The wire and shadows make the 10' x 10' lot look crowded but actually they have lots of room to move around. 

and this time of the year it's so pretty around the bunny lot. Like this tree in front of their lot. I was looking up...

Poppy has a chair next to the bunny lot where he sits with his gun waiting for a trophy buck to walk past. Don't worry, he won't shoot a deer there. :) but he did get this good shot of the house from down there...

I get started on a post and don't know when to quit so I will hush now. Thank you for visiting, if you're still here. 

Love, Henny 

Black Walnut Trees along Crabtree Creek

Poppy fills his pockets with black walnuts as he leaves the deer  stand and walks along the creek coming home...

Gosh, it's been 30 years since I picked up black walnuts there. Poppy has permission to deer hunt that property. Here's a smaller black walnut tree growing there too...

I want to shell some of these walnuts, and the hickory nuts too but talk about a job!! Wouldn't a taste of these wild nuts be delicious?

 And the tall hickory nut tree that grows along the path on our property...

I'm the one who gathers the hickory nuts...

Add a few ears of dried corn from the garden and...

it makes for a pretty, old fashioned picture. Do any of you love "old fashioned" as much as I do? Sometimes I think I should have lived back in the 1800. (didn't miss it by much, did I) :)

Look, I finally got around to putting up a few fall decorations and got to use some of the dried corn stalks from the teeny tiny garden...

The corn stalks were almost too tall. The dark red mum...

isn't it pretty! Andee brought it to me in September, and the buds have just opened up! I love how mums smell, do you?

I want to show you this tree root I found in the path. It must have fallen off a logging truck. To me, it looks just like a giant spider...

Can't you just see this thing on the side of an old barn or house...

Gives me goosebumps. What do you think, Willie??

So far this fall I haven't decorated the old cupboard, but I did find at Goodwill, the most perfect pitcher, it matches the big heavy dishes...

Hope you will pardon the dust. It is so dry here and when a car or truck goes up the path well, it's like a small dust storm settling over everything. Dust, dust, dust!!

Okay, I've gone on and on about stuff...everything is so pretty in the fall, even covered with dust, so here's few pictures from around the pond...

Guess I should have waited for the leaves to turn more, but I'll be back. :) 

Thank you friends. 

Love, Henny