HALLOWEEN!!!

Bet you can't guess who this is!?

Poppy's horrible old Halloween mask, the one he used to scare me with every Halloween, finally melted and the eyeball fell out. Thankfully!!

For years, on Halloween night I dreaded getting home from work, way out here in the country. Poppy was either hiding behind a tree or would jump in the back of my truck as I drove down our long dark dirt road, and he was always wearing that scary old mask and carrying an ax.

This one makes me laugh!

Happy Halloween from Poppy and me!

Love,

Henny

Happenings on Henny Penny Lane

Don't you appreciate having really "good" neighbors? 

Eli and Weetie never fail to let me know when the horses are coming up the road. Yay! it's Robert and Kristine!!

They rescued these four horses and have given them a good home. Feeding them good and giving them lots of love and attention. Robert said he finally got that pony he always wanted for Christmas when he was just a boy. Kristine says, this is a dream come true. They would let me ride too, but I am so afraid. It takes all the nerve I can muster to walk up and pet the horses. Oh, and they are so sweet.

Robert and Kristine brought us five, fifty pound horse feed bags, filled with horse manure for the teeny tiny garden...with a promise of more to come. You know, I've been talking about doing something to improve the garden soil...this just might be it! Robert says this will help me grow tomatoes like they grew this summer. 

So, I've cleaned up the teeny tiny garden and spread the horse manure, but left this one sweet little Cosmos still blooming. Out of a pack of seeds, only this one grew, fell over and rooted itself. I couldn't bear to chop it down.

then I moved all the little started plants that might freeze this winter into the teeny tiny greenhouse...

to be warm and cozy for a while.

I suppose it's beginning to look a little like fall here, even though most the leaves are still green on the trees, or brown on the ground. No pretty colors yet.

I put the feed bucket on the car and picked up the rake and could not stop until the driveway was raked clean of brown leaves...

Yesterday I noticed the camellia bushes are in full bloom around the back porch...

the ground was pink with fallen petals...

Poppy and I planted these one gallon potted Camellias back in the mid 90's...

 we must have picked the right spot...

Guess that's about it for now. I've been working on the bunny's pen again...a really fun job. I need to post about the bun bun's again and show you how much Miss Penny has grown.

Thank you for your friendship!

Love,
Henny

Our special trip to Missouri

Poppy and I do very little traveling so hope you will understand my excitement over a little drive through the mountains, with my $99.00 camera.

We enjoyed our trip to Missouri, tiring as it was, driving straight through...fourteen hours on the road, then having only two days, Friday and Saturday, to spend with Windy, Brian, and the grandsons. We left Missouri at 4:30 Sunday morning to drive home. Why, to me, riding fourteen straight hours was more tiring than walking nine miles at the Fair.

We were still in North Carolina, near Mount Airy, when we reached the first mountains. I was so excited to see Pilot Mountain, but friends, I had no idea the beauty we were about to drive into

as we entered the West Virginia Turnpike. I mean 88 miles of nothing but up and down and around and through, and I do mean through! the beautiful mountains...

two tunnels that cut right through the mountains! You know, I'm not crazy about tunnels or long bridges over lots of water. I must have said to Poppy a hundred times, "could you slow down just a little...especially heading into a tunnel going 70 miles an hour,  for goodness' sake"!!!

These are not great pictures because every one of them were taken through the car window. Why, there is no stopping on the turnpike and besides that, we were on a mission...get to Missouri!!

About half way there the clouds got dark and stormy looking. So the second half of the trip was on a mix of rain and mist

and fog in places.

unusual black clouds moved low and fast, in front of the white clouds.

It was the edge of dark when we saw the arch, and knew we were getting close.

We were up early Friday morning and off to see Jacob and his school's marching band compete in the Bands of America Super Regional Championship in Saint Louis. 

It was great, just great, and out of 65 competing bands, Jacob's came in 12th. It was exciting. We all were mighty proud.

Handsome Jacob and his grandpa...Poppy.

Saturday morning we were out and about early again, this time to watch Luke play football...

Is this not just about the cutest football player ever! This was an important game for Luke. If their team won, they moved on, if not this was his last game of the season...and they won, big time!

Okay, you know how I love little mice...well, never would I have imagined cuddling two grown rats...yes that me holding Becky and Ellie...

These are Luke's pet rats. They live in the cutest little cage in Luke's bedroom.

Becky and Ellie sleep together in their cute little swinging tent, which looks a touch chewed...but then, these are rats. Sorry, but I thought they were adorable and enjoyed playing with them.

I will end this post by showing you Windy's spider plant. It was beautiful!

She had planned to give me a cutting...one of the little spiders to start, but in all the excitement, we forgot. I just love the sunlight coming through these windows. There is no way any plant could grow this pretty in our dimly lit log cabin. 

Okay, if you are still here, thank you. Crazy, I know. We visit St. Louis Missouri and I come home and post about holding two rats. Guess it takes very little to make me happy.

Love,
Henny 

A boring bit about the Fair

Might as well go ahead and say it, "I did not ride the hobby horses at the state fair"!

Shelby and I walked and walked. We ate fair food.  We talked and laughed. We visited all our favorite places, like the village of yesteryear. Why, we must have walked past the merry-go-round a dozen times. 

The best excuse I can offer for not getting on the merry-go-round is being worn out at the end of the day. There were two empty seats here...

so we decided to sit and listen to the bluegrass music for a while.  Sometimes you don't realize how tired you are until you sit down. The music was good. We sat there probably 45 minutes. It was late afternoon, so we decided to start on that long walk back to the car, instead of around the fair grounds again.

Shelby checked her Fit Bit and friends, we had walked nine miles. Nine miles!!

Had to get a picture of this tall lovely lady passing by.

Tuesday was the fair. Wednesday we packed. Thursday morning at 5:00 we left for Missouri...but will post about that later. I've bored you enough for today.

Hope you haven't totally given up on me. I've got lots of catching up to do. Aren't the days busy! This morning the car has to be taken in to be serviced and inspected. Yesterday, it was a trip to Henderson for Poppy...always something! :)

Love,
Henny

Neither did we ride this newest, tallest Ferris wheel! Next year, I am riding the hobby horses...right after we eat the plate of fried dough with powdered sugar!

I enjoyed your comments about making lasagna, and that comment from Denny! Oh my goodness! Bless your heart. Being a newlywed and putting all at work into making that lasagna! Bet your husband gave you a big hug. And Peg, making three batches at once! I do want to try it again and use mozzarella and parmesan cheese. You know what got me started thinking about lasagna in the first place was when my sister Shelby...

called and asked, "do you have a copy of Mama's lasagna recipe"? Shelby misplaces recipes occasionally. I wonder why".  So, while we talked I searched through every cookbook and recipe box in the kitchen and was about to give up when there it was.

In my mind, I had been searching for a lasagna recipe on a sheet of copy paper from the 1970's where the ink had turned a purple color and faded terribly. Remember how awful copy paper used to feel back then, and how the ink faded over time? So, a while back I printed mama's recipe onto a little 3 x 5 card and filed it away.

We all thought mama made the best lasagna ever and the recipe is simple, here's mama's lasagna recipe...

1 lb. hamburger                 2 eggs
1 can tomato paste            1 ctn. cottage cheese
1 can whole tomatoes       2 T. parsley
2 T. sweet Basil                  1/2 cup grated
1 tsp. garlic                              cheddar cheese
1 onion                                 sliced cheese
Lasagna noodles

Brown hamburger and onion. Add salt and pepper, garlic, tomato paste and tomatoes. Simmer 30 minutes. Cook noodles and drain. In separate bowl mix cottage cheese, parsley, eggs, and grated cheese. In a glass pan put a layer of noodles, layer of cottage cheese mix, layer of the hamburger mix and last a layer of sliced cheese. Repeat each layer. Bake at 350 for 30 minutes.

Whole tomatoes did not sound good to me so I used a can of stewed tomatoes. Also, the recipe does not say what size carton of cottage so Shelby suggested we look on line for other lasagna recipes using one pound of hamburger and cottage cheese. Most of the recipes called for 32 ounces. Anyhow, it was really good!

And speaking of Shelby! Tomorrow is that big day Shelby and I look forward to all year long...going to the NC State Fair! I've got to get up early early so we can be there when the gates open.

That pretty merry-go-round, well Shelby and I plan to ride one of those horses tomorrow. We threaten to ride every year but then I back out. If we get there and can't climb up on a horse, we'll just sit on a bench and ride around and around. That's Shelby in the green shirt when we were there in 2014.

Back in August, Shelby and I were talking about the up-coming fair in October. I've been concerned that the steroid injection in my back would wear off and I would be in pain again. Shelby said, well listen, if that happens, will you ride in a wheelchair and let me push you? I suppose so. :-  Actually, I've been feeling great...no pain!

One other bit of news...Poppy and I will be leaving Thursday morning for a few days in Missouri to visit Poppy's daughter and her family. Hopefully, we will get to see the youngest grandson Luke play football on Friday night, and then on Saturday, see Jacob play the base drum in his high school marching band. 

This is Windy, Brian, Luke and Jacob

Thanks for listening. I just go on and on about things. Why it's a wonder that you even stop by. So, thank you.

Love,
Henny

We will be home next Monday.

We had a nice visit

Eli sure enjoyed having company yesterday; said it was good to have some younger folks here for a change.

This is Grandson Daniel and his girlfriend Miriam.

and Miriam is just as sweet and pretty as I had been told she was...and she can run too, Eli said.

Daniel loves to fish and even though the pond is still muddy from Matthew, he gave it a try. Got a bite or two, but never brought one in. He is quite the fisherman though and has brought home some big fish.

Weetie fell in love with Miriam too.

We fed the fish and eventually got three large catfish and a carp to come in close to the pier.

Drinking more pond water.

and resting in the shade,

and Weetie too.

I put a big pan of lasagna in the oven for lunch and it turned out really good. Would you believe that was my first time making lasagna from scratch? It was! Hopefully, it won't be my last. But guess what I did, layering the lasagna! First I put in four lasagna noodles, overlapping. Then I spread half the cottage cheese/egg/parsley mixture, then spread half the meat/tomato mixture, then the layer of cheese slices...and started on the second layer. All finished and feeling mighty proud with that last layer of sliced cheese on top, I looked around and there sat the other four noddles in the pot. Gasp!! I had to carefully remove the layer of cheese slices, and carefully dip out, spoonful by spoonful, the meat mixture, and then carefully dip out the cottage cheese mixture...then start over with that darn layer of noodles and put everything back in place. That's pretty normal for me though...and it was time for our company to arrive. 

Everything worked out fine and we enjoyed the day. The chocolate pie turned out pretty good too.

Poppy was with us for a while but yesterday was the first day of deer season, well, regular gun season and he just had to get into the woods.

Thank you for stopping by.

Love, 
Henny

Trying to keep calm

Have you ever spent an hour or two writing a post then decide it's just not what you want to say, so you delete the whole thing? I did that very thing yesterday. Got to venting about the neighbor's dogs killing our little white guinea, you know, the one that climbed the ladder every night. Poppy saw the whole thing, but could not get there in time to help. Better stop here, before I get wound up again.

So, Mr. Scarecrow scared away the owls during the night but sadly there was nothing he could do to scare away the dogs.

The teeny tiny garden still had a row of okra trying to grow and a basil plant. Yesterday I finished cleaning up the garden. 

Here's the basil. Once it is dried it may not be fit to use but it was fun clipping and tying the little bundles to hang...and it smells so good. Don't know how those oil lamps got moved out of place. Things like that drive me crazy.

That's about it for now. We may have company later on today. My sweet grandson Daniel called and said he wants us to meet his girlfriend. Daniel is the oldest of the grandchildren and very special. Hopefully, I will remember get my camera out. Better get busy and at least wipe the dust off things!

Don't you just hate people who bring home dogs and then don't take care of them. I blame the stupid owners of the dogs that are killing our guineas more than I blame the dogs. I'll hush!

Love,
Henny

Checking in...

Wanted to let you know we're still here since Hurricane Matthew blew through. Our electricity, phone, and internet service went out on Saturday during the storm and was restored just yesterday. We got at least seven inches of rain, lots of wind, and had a couple of dead pine trees fall. All and all, we fared very well compared to what the poor folks south and east of here went through, and are still going through.

Hard to believe the sky can be this beautiful, the day after a hurricane. 

Poppy put up a corn feeder and a game camera on the far side of the pond so we can watch the deer. Look what the camera caught...a beautiful blue heron, in flight. I love it!

Now I feel bad putting up any fall decorations because of all the people whose homes are under water right now. It's awful, it's sad, and unbelievable to see the pictures on the news. 

Anyhow, Walmart reduced their mums to $1.97 so I bought four pots. Here, finally, is my little fall creation...

Weetie said hold on a minute, so here's another one, with her...

and this next picture is just because I love hay!

Two bales to unload. The goats got some...

Rosie is still a little pig...a sweet little pig.

I then carried a big arm load of the hay inside the chicken house to make it nice and dry, and comfortable, after all this rain. My goodness! What a wet nasty mess everything has been!

I've missed reading lots of your posts and will be catching up. Thankfully, we had our generator during the storm, but that didn't help with the phone and internet service.

Love,
Henny