Complaining again!

Poppy mowing around the green pond...

Maybe we could hire somebody to bring in a bulldozer and push the whole darn yard down hill and into the pond.  

The bamboo grass has taken over the yard and garden. Looks like a horror movie. I fully expect to wake up one morning and find the entire cabin woven into a web of bamboo grass with no way out.

The squash bugs have killed the cucumber, zucchini, and yellow squash vines, and we still have not had the first red tomato from our garden, not even one! The tomatoes rot on the vine before ripening. Just been one of those summers.

But wait! There is still sweetness...

Our neighbors, Kristine and Robert, gave us six baby guineas.

 All baby animals are adorable, aren't they?

Simply adorable!

and while we're out around the chicken lot...

The hens like watermelon just about as much as I love watermelon.

I love the little black hen in the middle with her feathered legs. She was hatched just this spring. Why, she just may be the real "Chicken Little".

Guess I had better get up from here and start thinking about something to cook for supper. If it were up to me, Pizza Hut would deliver a large pepperoni  pizza, with bread sticks on the side. :)

Love,

Henny

Lots of skipping around here...

Just as I was beginning to catch up with the fun blogging stuff, I go and start building a chicken pen. 

I know, my back! But moving slowly and carefully, using the little gardening bench, and crawling around on my hands and knees to cut the wire, well, here it is. 

Not perfect or pretty, but it will keep out snakes, rats, skunks, and hopefully, any other predator sneaking around looking for an easy meal. 

The rabbit wire fence is four feet high, buried about three inches all around, and has wire on the top. I've just "had it" with predators!! 

Not much in the yard to brag about. This spot maybe looks okay. This heat and humidity is awful. The camera lens fog up the minute I walk outside. Maybe we're keeping the house too cold.

Eli heard a booger early this morning!

Did you ever play the game, "ain't no boogers out tonight"? 

Oh gosh, I especially remember once when Shelby, Jackie, and I were young and at our cousin's house. All of us kids were out after dark playing "ain't no boogers out tonight". Such screaming and hollering and running. It was Sunday evening and we knew that at any minute mama would yell that it was time to go. She would call us two or three times and we kept right on playing, but when daddy yelled that it was time to go, we got in the car. The game wasn't any fun until after dark, and once it got dark we knew we would be going home soon, so we had to play hard and fast!

Better stop right here! I have another darn appointment with the back doctor. I probably won't mention anything about building a chicken pen in the last two days in 97 degree heat. :(

The kitty cat picture for today is this...

Smokey looking "ve-ww-wy, ve-ww-wy scary early yesterday morning.

Love,
Henny

Another slack attempt at catching up

Good gracious! Did I not say, about a week ago, that 'tomorrow' there should be something worth posting seeing as how Shelby and I were planning to meet in Wake Forest?

We did meet, right there in the parking lot of a nice Goodwill store. It was fun. We talked and laughed, founds some things to buy, and had our usual lunch of a "Happy Meal" from McDonald's. Yep, we believe in going all out for lunch. 

Shelby loves Jan Karon, so when she spotted these books on a shelf in Goodwill, well she had to buy them and, of course, give them to me. Shelby has all of Jan Karon's books and says I should not read these until I've read the second book in the Jan Karon Mitford series. You may remember, I read the first one last winter and absolutely fell in love with the people of Mitford. Why, I toyed with the idea of leaving here and moving to Mitford. I wanted to meet Father Tim and some of the others. :)

Might show you too, the tomatoes Shelby picked and brought me...from their garden! These have been soooo delicious! I've had a tomato sandwich for lunch every day since Tuesday. Only one tomato left! 

So far there has not been even one ripe tomato in the teeny tiny garden...lots of green ones though, and plenty of green beans...

Got these snapped and cooked yesterday, so this morning when our friend Nellie stopped by, I gave her half the potful. Poppy says we would never have eaten that big dutch oven full of beans. Nellie is always so appreciative. Makes you love doing things for her, and look what she brought me...

a sweet little bouquet of flowers she picked. We sat under a shade tree in the front yard for an hour or so talking, and Poppy too.

Let me tell you, one of the cats, don't know which one, has turned this vase of flowers over twice already! Twice!! I have the tablecloth in the dryer as we speak!

Guess that's about it for today. I'll be around to visit and catch up.

Love,
Henny

Waiting on a call...

Stargazer lily the storm blew over, in a scrawny little flower arrangement. After taking this picture, the other blossom opened.

"You won't hear me complaining about the heat this summer"!  That was my boasting back in March or April when it seemed like winter would never end. Well, who knew it would be this humid and wet all summer, making the heat almost unbearable. 

It's like the rain forest!  I don't think the grass here has dried out even once this summer. It grows like crazy and is hard to mow, choking and stalling my little push mower.

Maybe, just maybe, there will something worth posting tomorrow. Shelby and I are supposed to meet in Wake Forest today. We live forty five minutes apart and yet never see each other. When Mama died in 2007, Shelby and I agreed that we would get together at least once a month, but has it happened? No, life is too busy!

Hey, if I look like I am in pain here, it's because I was.  "worried and in pain"! Remember about three months ago when Shelby carried me for the MRI. We did get a good laugh. Shelby said, "here, lets take a selfie, and they say to get a good selfie, you need to look 'up' at the camera". So here's our selfie. 

Shelby said she had to go to the garden first this morning and would call me after she had picked the beans. Well, that may be a while. Their bean rows are about half a mile long, nothing like the beans growing on the little wattle fence in the teeny tiny garden.

and a kitty cat picture...

any chicken left in that Tyson's box?

nope!

Better get busy. Shelby might be a fast bean picker!

Love,
Henny

Not hardly worth posting! :)

Another nail biter!

Oh no! It's thundering again!

Glad Poppy is home and I'm not alone. My intent was to get Bun Bun and Fiona in their cages before today's storms rolled in. This storm slipped up on us.

a pond or a golf course?

It's the pond! The county extension agent did come out and look at the pond. It's planktonic algae, he said. We learned too that if a pond needs lime, it will not respond well to fertilizer, and Poppy fertilized the pond early this spring. We need to spray the pond with an algaecide and when the algae is gone, add lime. Sounds like work to me.

Never finished this post yesterday as the thunder and lightening continued until late. I talked Poppy into going with me to put the bunnies in their cages. I felt like lightening might not strike me if he was with me. :(

and a kitty cat picture...

Smokey, sound asleep in the teeny tiny sewing room. If you are wondering about the ugly quilt, well that was my first try at making a quilt. I used Poppy's worn out flannel shirts, jeans, work pants, and cheap muslin. Poppy and I were living in an apartment while the cabin was being built in the late 1980's. I sewed it together by hand and it has actually held up through many washings.

Gosh, can I get any more boring! Hope you will come back. 

Love,
Henny 

A shot and a storm!

Weetie checking out our new swimming pool on the pond...

Quite a trip it was yesterday...to get that injection. With my back hurting and my nerves on edge, you see, I have a fear of needles, my blood pressure went up. Got the injection anyway, but while I nervously waited, stretched out on the table, this loud pounding rushing sound filled the room. Rain! It was rain! Pouring rain! A thunderstorm even! We were on the third floor. Oh great! hope lightening doesn't run in on any of this equipment!

On and on this storm went and was still going full blast at 5:05 pm as Poppy ran through the pouring rain to bring the truck to the front entrance to pick me up.

Here's the rest of the story! Poppy said, hold on, we're getting out of this traffic and ahead of this storm, which was moving northeast, toward our county.  What's the fastest way he asked, that will take us by Johnny's Barbecue. We'll have a barbecue plate for supper tonight. Well, Hold on I did! 

We pulled in the driveway at home with our plates, just about the same time the thunder and the lightening and the rain pulled in. This was one black threatening scary looking cloud.  Wind and rain and that streaking kind of lightening that ends in a pop of thunder that makes your hair stand on end!

The wind lifted the umbrella straight up and out.

and the chairs blew uphill and scattered, one more farther up at a tree.

camera lens are fogging up, but the arbor almost blew over.

and the poor, poor Stargazer

and if you noticed all the green on the pond, it's algae. Awful Algae! Our county extension agent is coming out this week. He thinks it is environmental...all the rain and run-off we've had.

these two seem a little concerned about swimming in such water

In no way am I saying this was a severe storm. Severe storms take lives and destroy homes. What we had was just a scary thunderstorm with high winds!!

happy the wind left the sunflowers standing and the garden intact.

and a sweet picture...

this little bee held on tight through the wind and rain.

If you're still here, thank you. Sometimes I don't know when to hush and end things.

Love,
Henny

Beans and lilies and me again

Prettiest flower on Henny Penny Lane!! and right now, the only flower on Henny Penny Lane!!

Guess I will be getting another steroid injection in my back today. Didn't want to say anything, but yep, the pain is back.

Probably overdid it in the garden and the yard after getting that last injection. It just felt so darn good for that pain to be gone.

Glad for the little wattle fence, built by me :), while the pain was gone. I did manage to pick enough beans, while standing, for a dutch oven full...which I cooked and shared with my friend Nellie.

Shelby said to me just yesterday, "well, you can't be picking up cinder blocks anymore".  "I haven't picked up any cinder blocks lately", I said, "everything but the cinder block, maybe".

"I want to be able to work"! My Aunt Nannie Mae, who worked hard her whole life, used to say that she wanted to "fall in the harness". Me too, dear friends!

and back to the loveliest flower here. Last summer when this Stargazer lily bloomed, it spoke to my heart. Mama loved these lilies! Out I went and bought a pack of bulbs and put them in this flower bed...

actually, this was the newly prepared flower bed about three years ago. Anyhow, I couldn't "leave well enough alone", as mama used to say. The rose bush on the left grew and grew and then early spring of this year I desperately needed a spot to set out that big peach tree that had outgrown it's pot up at the teeny tiny garden. So, a big hole I dug and in went the peach tree, which by the way, loves this spot!

now, same flower bed, and where are those lovely lilies...

puny and weak, struggling beneath the peach tree. If my back gets well, I will move these bulbs and put them in the front of this bed. That would be perfect! Location, location, location!  Just had to say that. Those words actually fit here, don't they? 

Wondering if you're still here as I ramble on. Better try standing up and getting a few things done. It's mighty slow going right now.

Love,
Henny

A word or two from Henny

Remember last summer, the yard long green beans that grew in the teeny tiny garden, and all my excitement

well here they are again. Another row of yard long beans. No beans yet, but pretty little blue flowers.

The red Impatients up at the long legged tower are growing and looking prettier. Oh and look...

These two old windows have been stored in the shed for years. I've painted them to match the tower legs and they need cleaning, but how would these look hanging on those long tower legs?

Doesn't look possible from this picture, but the windows, turned sideways are exactly the same width as the tower legs. I think we could turn them into something cute.

For some unknown reason the pictures don't want to stay centered on this post. I did not plan the post to look this way.

This big pretty sunflower volunteered and came up in the garden. Sunflowers just look happy, don't they?

This computer is making all the decisions on this post! I'll sign off here and get busy. Hope to return soon.

Love,
Henny

Just a short visit

 Look who wants to say hello! It's Little sweet Rosie. 

Actually she was telling me to hurry back with the goat food. Somebody let us run completely out of Rosie's favorite little goat pellets, so I had to run to town. 

That got me out of cooking supper tonight too. Poppy gave me a twenty and said bring us a fish plate from Johnny's Barbecue. That was fine with me after a long hot day in the 94 degree heat, having another yard sale.

We did good today, even better than last Saturday. Why, someone stopped by and bought almost all of Poppy's knives and scopes and hunting stuff. That was fun!

Why, it's Smokey on the trailer? He helped us again today.

Under our feet all day! But I wouldn't have it any other way.

Dear friends, here it is almost 10:00 and bed time. Poppy must have dozed off in his chair. Guess I had better get all the animals settled in for the night. Thank you for visiting. Hope to be back tomorrow and catch up.

Love,
Henny

Dishes and aprons

Somehow I managed to finish sewing up another bonnet...

and a few aprons too...

this gold one looking a little like fall.

Sometimes it's fun to open the old china cabinet door and just look at everything, kind of like playing with a tea set. 

That's my special little teacup and saucer on the top shelf, a gift from Sharon at Rivercrest Cottage and that one on the middle shelf too, with the pretty dogwood blossom.

Sharon must have changed my luck, because recently I found this pretty bird teacup and saucer.

 and finished this apron too in swirly purple and lavender.

old fashioned calico is usually my favorite.

and do you see what's wrong with this apron? It's plain as day looking at this picture, but in the teeny tiny sewing room with the log walls...this fabric sure looked like blue print on black background, so I got busy and trimmed it in black . I've made this mistake before. 

That's about it for today. Poppy will be home shortly. Better make a sandwich or two. Hope to visit again soon.

Love,
Henny