A quick visit

I don't know where five days have gone, but that's how long it's been since my last post. Maybe I've just been busy opening and closing curtains.

Angel garlands. I cut these from paper chicken feed sacks. After painting them, I added a coat of Mod Podge and hung them in the laundry room to dry. These will go on my table at the craft bazaar Friday. Once the Mod Podge dries, the angels will flatten out.

We are having unusually warm humid weather for the end of November. 71 degrees today and 92 percent humidity. Poppy and I actually heard it thunder once, and tomorrow there is a chance of thunderstorms.

It was a good day to move the hen and eight chicks out of the old doghouse and into a pen on the ground. Mama hen was restless and needed to scratch in the dirt. 

Luckily, I caught them all...tricking them into small cage with cornbread crumbs, then moved them to a pen on the back of the old shed.

Ms. Hen was tickled to death to get a dust bath. Sitting four weeks in that doghouse was tiring.

The chicks thought maybe mama had gone mad. All that kicking and throwing dirt and dust everywhere.

The chicks are in the lot I built last summer from rabbit wire. I've covered one end with a tarp and hung the heat lamp above their straw bed...

making them a warm cozy corner. Once this front passes, we will have more cold weather.

What's wrong with me anyway! Sunday, Poppy and I went down home to Moore County. We were invited there by his sister Pat, to have Thanksgiving dinner at their house. All Poppy's family was invited, and most all of them came.

Here's the funny part...out of all the people and food and good times...the only picture I took was of the big bowl of mashed potatoes sitting on the stove. Pat said she peeled ten pounds of potatoes before going to church Sunday morning.

these potatoes were delicious. I'm telling you, I can't make good mashed potatoes...not even using only three potatoes, but these were buttery and delicious.

Both Poppy's sisters, Frances and Pat, are great cooks.  Oh, and look at that dish of macaroni and cheese!

I simply don't have the personality to go round snapping pictures of everybody. It embarrasses me. So the mashed potatoes will have to tell all. 

while we are on the subject of kitchen stuff...I ran in the Goodwill store one day last week and found this pretty butter dish.  Wonder how long that little rose bud handle will last, around me!

Better get up from here. I will be around to visit and catch up. 

Love,
Henny

Thanksgiving surprise

Look what I found hiding in the back corner of this old dog house! and in this cold November weather! 

Why, Ms. Hen, it's the wrong time of the year to be hatching babies!

I happened to look out the laundry room window and thought, what is that on the porch of the old dog house. So, I walked outside and found four baby chicks shivering and trying desperately to get back inside. (see the two little legs on the left)

After helping the tiny little babies, I got my coat and went to work, with my mind racing...what to do first. I got a little cornmeal and scratch, and crumbled a piece of whole wheat bread into a flat dish, then found another flat dish for water. Got that done, then pulled out the old heat lamp and drop cord and hooked it up. Whew!

That heat feels good!

A door! The house needed some kind of a wire door. Thank goodness, the cats were all asleep in the sewing room! Didn't take me long to cut a piece of rabbit wire and make a little door to keep the babies from falling out, and the cats from going in. 

So far, I've counted eight baby chicks, and mama hen is still sitting on what looked like six or seven more eggs.   

This is the little hen that flew over the fence every day to hang around in the yard with the big yellow rooster. Lately, noticing that she had quit flying over, and thinking it unusual. Guess I should have thought about it a little more.

It was about dark so this is not a good picture. There is wire over the door and it's warm inside. 

What a sweet surprise on Thanksgiving!

Love,
Henny

Reading

I forget to read! 

Seems like every time Shelby and I go in a thrift store, she finds another Jan Karon book. She has read and collected them all, so now she picks them up for me.

I am not a big reader, and I'm sure it shows in my blogging...my third grade vocabulary. :) When we were growing up, Mama used to say, "Shelby keeps her head stuck in a book all the time", and she did. I didn't have time to read...too many dolls to think about, and playhouses to build. Why, it was more fun to sit outside in the leaves, on the sunny side of the house daydreaming, than to sit somewhere reading. All through school I read only what was absolutely necessary to get a passing grade and lots of the time, didn't even do that much. Sure wish I had done better back then. 

It was Shelby who talked me into reading the book, "At Home In Mitford". I loved it and could hardly put the book down. A while back, she gave me Jan Karon's second book, "A Light in the Window". Reading the first sentence or two of this book put me right back there in Mitford with Father Tim...it felt like being home. I read several pages before turning the book over on the coffee table and going to the kitchen to start supper. Not once, since then, have I thought about the book. I simply forget to read!

Hope it warms up a little soon. We are on day four of cold weather. It was 27 degrees again this morning. 

It will be just Poppy and me here tomorrow with no big plans for Thanksgiving. We will be going down home on Sunday for a big dinner with some of Poppy's family.


Hope you all have a very happy Thanksgiving!

Love, 
Henny

Persimmon Pudding

Where are all the kitties this cold morning? 

there's sunshine going to waste here.

I've been so wrapped up talking about leaves lately that I forgot to mention how our little trip turned out. The one Shelby and I made up through the country last week. 

We met our niece Vicki and her two sons, Seth and Clay, at the church cemetery. We put new flowers on mama's grave and visited at our brother Jackie's grave. Jackie is Vicki's dad.

Vicki brought us the fourteen bags of frozen persimmon pulp. I bought 4 bags, Shelby bought 10, of course.  

So, here's my try at persimmon pudding... 

It's delicious, but not quite right. Good old fashioned persimmon pudding has a certain texture that is hard to describe. It's moist and a little sticky with a dark shiny look. It's a pudding that can be cut into squares and eaten without a fork. It is not cake-like at all.

My persimmon pudding is a touch too cake-like, and here's what I did wrong...Mama's recipe calls for plain flour...I used self-rising. Mama's recipe calls for buttermilk...I used whole milk.  I'll be prepared and hopefully, get it right next time.

Here's mama's recipe...

Persimmon Pudding

2 cups persimmon pulp

2 cups sugar

1 cup buttermilk

3 eggs

1 stick melted butter

1 tablespoon vanilla

2 cups plain flour

1 tsp. soda

1/2 tsp. salt                bake at 300 for 1 hour

Do you think the days are going by faster now? Seriously! Seems like all I do is open and close curtains.

and speaking of curtains, I put the curtains up in the living room again. With this cold weather, it just feel cozier and warmer.

Supper is cooking. Poppy is hunting. Better go check on things...and close the curtains! Night time gets here mighty early these days.

Love,

Henny

A very windy day!!

But no, I was so sure there would be no colored leaves for us this fall...

it's funny how on Friday I worked my fingers to the bone raking and hauling off the last pile of leaves from the front yard.

Then yesterday friends, the winds came. BIG WINDS! A cold front dropping down from Canada, they said. It was actually pretty to stand outside and look up at a sky full of colored leaves, swirling and blowing, covering everything!

leaves everywhere!

it's hard to see the wind, but looking west behind Poppy's shop, the sky was dark and stormy looking and the wind blew. We got only a sprinkle of rain, not even enough to settle the dust.

Penny worried that the wind might pick up her little pen and blow them away.

and Poppy said, at times, he thought the wind would blow him right out of his tree stand. Eli was glad when he came home.

That was yesterday. This morning the sun is bright, casting a golden glow through the trees...making me want to delete this cloudy post and start over with a bright sunny one. That's me! Never satisfied!

Maybe you've noticed my blog list is back. There are still a few blogs to add. I must be very careful and not do that again!    :( 

Hope to be back soon.

Love,
Henny

Cats in the sewing room

One good thing about this time change is having more time at night...being able to cook supper and get the dishes washed, and closing the chicken house door earlier too, which means more time to sew at night.

So here I was, in the teeny tiny sewing room last night by 7:30...me and the cats, of course.

I've signed up to do a holiday craft bazaar December 2nd and 3rd at a church just up to road. 

So, thinking I needed to finish up a few dolls, I turned my back for just a minute to pull a basket off the shelf in the closet, then turned back around to find this...

Poppy is always saying, "Mel, you sit things too close to the edge. Just this morning I moved your coffee cup back. It was just balanced on the edge of the table".

Got all the  fabric pieces squared up and put back in the box, turned around to pick up my basket and....

Dumperoo had made a bed there. Needless to say, I didn't get a lot done last night. I did get four sets of tiny clothes cut out to sew onto the dolls...tonight maybe.

After all my talk about not having any pretty colored fall leaves...here's looking out the back door...

Not spectacular, but still pretty. The maple tree in the center was damaged back in 1996 when Hurricane Fran came through. We should have cut it down, but I love a maple and had hopes for it.

Now I'm excited because there is a Pileated woodpecker living there. See the two holes near the top? With the binoculars I can see him going in and coming out.

Okay, I'm getting back to work now. Thank you for looking at my blog.

Love,
Henny

Persimmons!!

Thank you Mari. Thank you Kimberly. New followers to my blog...I appreciate you all so much.

Gathered another little handful of colored leaves, as mama would say, "such as they are", for the table on the porch. 

Thank you for looking at my blog and for the sweet comments. I wanted to reply to each one, but...I've got to be at Shelby's this morning at 9:00.

We're going to drive through the country, stop at a thrift store or two, then head on to the cemetery where mama is buried and put new flowers on her grave. Our sweet niece Vicki is meeting us there. 

This is Vicki! Wow, look at the persimmons! She has been gathering persimmons that fall from this huge tree in their grandma's yard, removing the seeds, freezing and selling the persimmon pulp for 5.00 a bag. That's a lot of work for 5.00 but she has made over $200.00!

Vicki has saved some bags for Shelby and me. Can't wait to make a persimmon pudding. I've got mama's old recipe and have tried making the pudding once...which turned out awful. Persimmon pudding is delicious...if it turns out right and has the right texture. All the country folks up that way know how to make it, and Vicki makes a perfect pudding! Miss Vicki blogs over at "get fit by 50 and other things".

Okay, better get busy...here it is almost 6:30!

Love,
Henny

Sweet Daughters

Can you believe it? Can you believe how time flies?

Those fun days with Lynn and Andee have come and gone and here another week has begun...

What a special couple of days we had together...

and Eli thought this visit was planned just for him.

Weetie says, "Andee belongs to me Eli, you stay over there with Lynn"!

Oh my, we ordered pizza for Friday night and then stayed up until after midnight talking and laughing. 

Friday, when we finally got out of the house, we stopped by Goodwill first. I then suggested we run by another little local thrift store, "Safe Space" and as luck would have it, they were having a five dollar bag sale!! We all filled a bag. One of us filled three bags!! (it was Lynn)

We made it back home in time to walk Eli and play with the the goats. Did I mention that Weetie loves Andee?

Rosie was a trip! She really put on a show, acting like she was some big mountain goat...butting those horn and standing on her hind feet. I snapped picture after picture but never got a good one.

I sure hated to tell my girls goodbye

There is a hint of color in the trees. Guess this is as good as it's going to get this fall...

Thank you for visiting. I'll be around to catch up, once again. I'm missing my blog list! Suppose the only thing left to do would be add each one of you back, one at a time...

Love,
Henny

Thinking about you all!

Been thinking all morning, as I cleaned around sleeping animals...

how I simply had to post a little something on my blog.

Poppy left at 5:00 this morning, going down home to deer hunt with his nephew. So, I have been cleaning. I'm excited. My daughters, Lynn and Andee, are coming to visit. Rarely, do we get a chance to be together, just the three of us. It will be fun having them here for the night. Anyhow, Lynn calls us the three musketeers. For sure, we will find time to go in a few thrift stores.

How can such a big dog curl up in such a small space?

Well friends, guess what I've screwed up now on my blog . Somehow, I've managed to delete you all, my "blog list". Lynn says maybe she can figure it out, and put you all back. :(

and good gosh! By any chance have you looked at the "Labels" on my blog? There must be five thousand of them...why, I've got stuff labelled, for instance...cupboard, old cupboard, antique cupboard, front porch cupboard, cleaning the old cupboard...that kind of thing. I'm in the process of straightening that mess out myself. Oh well, it takes all kinds. 

Thank you, friends. Hope to be back soon! 

Love,

Henny

Oops! and here's the rest of old sweet Smokey...

Cupboards and shelves

 I know, here we go again! Talking about the old cupboard that sits on our little front porch. I love this old cupboard, (thank you Pat), but want something different to display on the shelves. Something old fashioned. Any suggestions? I suppose it held dishes many many years ago but since it's on our little country porch, well, what do you think?

I've put another coat of Tung oil on the cupboard. If you promise to overlook the dust, you can have a peek inside at the bottom shelves...

 Canning jars. Lots of canning jars. Dust settles quickly on things when you live on a dirt road, especially in dry weather. Why, you can imagine how much space these canning jars were taking up in my teeny tiny kitchen. 

I like cabinets and shelves. This one you've seen before too. Poppy and I found it at a flea market in 1989, the year we moved into the cabin.

Now I see what I don't like about that sugar bowl and cream pitcher on the bottom shelf...that creamy color.

This cabinet was built to display dishes, but we needed a bookcase. Over half these old books need to be pulled out and carried to the thrift store. Do you recognize the rooster in the painting?

That would be Big Boy. Pam, a dear sweet friend who reads my blog, painted the picture and sent it to me. I love it. Thank you Pam.

and my little thrift store desk in the sewing room. Later, I found the hutch at another thrift store and added it. Funny how you notice things in a picture like those purple colored books on the left. Those have got to go! 

Well that's my post for today. It's about dark here and only 4:50. I stay confused for a week or so after the time changes. Of course, I stay confused most of the time anyway.

Thank you visiting. Please do come back.

Love,
Henny