A HALLOWEEN SPECIAL

Halloween on Henny Penny Lane...

For Halloween, my daughter Lynn did something with her journal called "October Daily," where she did a journal spread each day in October. Her journal is about witches, learning more about what happened in history and how the witch-hunt craze became so horrible and widespread. The journal is also fun and full of bright paper, sketches and old images. This particular spread is about my twin sister and her being born in what they called a "veil."

Lynn's journals are amazing, but this "October Daily", to me, is super amazing. One of my favorite entries is Episode 7. You can see Lynn's Episode 7, and others, on YouTube at abitofbirdsong.


Thank you dear friends, and HAPPY HALLOWEEN!!

Love, Henny

String, and other odds and ends

Oh my goodness! I have four, maybe five new followers...and all at once! Thank you! Could it be that adorable little mouse with lint in his little whiskers? :) Whatever the reason, I appreciate you very much!

Got an update here on my ball of string...

2019

Can you believe this is every string off every bag of animal feed we've bought since moving into our little log cabin here in the woods, in 1989.  

2015

Can't help but smile and think about mama every time I add a string. You know how mamas are.

Way back when the string ball was about the size of a wad of gum, I was proudly showing mama and telling her my plan to save every string. She said, with a serious voice, "Well, I don't blame you. You never know when you might need a little piece of string".  That makes me laugh, and makes me miss her.

Pretty dumb of me not weighing or measuring the ball. It 's hard to tell much difference looking at the pictures.

Anyhow, been busy in the sewing room trying to get things made before the next craft show in November.

Thought a few little girl's pinafores from this old pattern might sell good again...

but what tattered, ragged old pattern pieces. (have two of these patterns)...

So I made a folder from an old feed bag (whatever would I do without those feed bags :)) anyhow I pulled out every pattern piece, pressed them with a warm iron then put each piece in numerical order and in the folder! That was more fun than sewing!

and speaking again of figs...

one more ripe one hiding near the top. Surprisingly, the fig tree put out a second crop...

 which I doubt will ripen before the first frost.

Guess that's about it. Oh, from the teeny tiny pantry window...

Hope to be back here real soon.

Love,
Henny

Should I even publish this!

Would you look what a difference a little rain has made...

it's now looking more like the month of October, and Fall, and has put a touch of gold in the trees.

Got a new sunflower poster to show you...

I loved the other one, with the huge yellow sunflower and a big bee, but it was laminated and the glare was just too much. 

Oh, thank you for the comments on my last post. There were a couple of questions...

Rian, these little fig trees are sprouts from our "Brown Turkey" fig...

Oh gosh, I love fresh figs too. Love eating them right off the tree. So happy to finally have a fig tree growing and producing big sweet figs.

Pilar, I don't put leaves inside the greenhouse, but do add them to garden and around the pots inside the garden. I'm kinda like Tasha Tudor when it comes to adorable little mice...

In fact, I have rescued two of them here on our teeny tiny farm, and posted about them,  (under "labels", see posts called "Mouse Rescue") if you would be at all interested. Just don't tell Poppy :)

Here's another adorable mouse...

a little birthday gift from my daughter Andee.

M.K., Oh my goodness, thank you for the nice compliment. I do have good luck rooting cuttings but, it is just "luck"! I sure don't feel very knowledgeable about anything. :)

The rooted fig trees are from little sprouts broken off the stump of a fig tree that had been chopped down. I haven't tried rooting a fig cutting yet but plan to try.

For roses and box woods, and most other shrubs...I take clippings about six to eight inches long, cut off most the leaves and any buds or flowers and put the cuttings in a bucket of water to sit for thirty minutes or so. Fill pots with potting soil and stick a cutting in each pot, firming the soil around cutting, and water well. I keep these newly potted cuttings near the outside faucet so I will remember to keep  them moist.

I've never had any luck rooting little short pieces of plants, or if the cuttings begin to dry out. A neighbor trimmed her yellow knockout roses and brought me all the trimmings. I was tickled to death. I trimmed them and made several pots but none of them rooted. I suppose the cuttings were not put in water soon enough. Also, cuttings root easier in spring and early summer.

Oh, MK, this is how I root cuttings. I'm sure there are better, more professional ways. 

Wish I had all the money back that I've spent on plants that didn't make it, the thirty years we've lived here. I would have a little spending money!

Good gosh! Time is flying! Hope to be back real soon.

Love,
Henny

Garden plants and things

Wonder how long it will take me to wear out this pair...

Boots from Bass Pro Shop. Rubber boots are just the best thing to wear, working around here. So easy to slip on and off and leave on the porch, and besides that, I love boots!

Best too for things like washing the little greenhouse, which I finally got around to doing...

Looks much better now. It was covered in red dust from the road.

I'm about to get all the potted plants moved inside the garden...

for winter keeping. Raking leaves and adding them to the garden and tucking them around the pots help keep them through the cold months. 

Small pots and newly rooted cuttings I put inside the greenhouse.

You may remember the "Fairy Rose" I dug up a few weeks ago that was smothering in weeds...

All of them have really come out and this one has a bloom. The blooms are pink but this one shows up as white. You know, I wound up with six of these Fairy Rose bushes.

Knockout roses are blooming again too.

Three small fig trees

The teeny tiny garden looks mighty empty now but I suppose it needs a rest...

A few more wheelbarrow loads of leaf mulch and it will look all warm and cozy for the winter. 

Gosh, if you want to see time fly just sit down at the computer! Here it is bedtime again. Hope to be back here real soon.

Oh, speaking of warm and cozy...

When I opened the curtains early yesterday morning, Eli was curled up on the cot on the back porch.

Love,

Henny

Smokey and a big red apple

Looks like ole sweet Mokey is about to outgrow the rocking chair...

actually, somebody put that rooster pillow in the chair and took up most of the room.

Don't you dread the morning you're scheduled for blood work and can't have your coffee? Wouldn't be so bad if I were a late sleeper, but I'm not.  I'm usually putting the coffee on at 4:30 every morning.

Anyhow, I was at the doctor's office at 8:00 when the receptionist unlocked the door. One guy beat me in, but still I was done by 8:30. The mug of coffee waiting in the car was cold but delicious.

Shoot, I was in Walmart shopping before 9:00. See the Red Delicious apple I bought...

Red Delicious apples bring back lots of memories...especially of Christmas. There was always a big one in our Christmas stocking on Christmas morning.

and Mama's fruit bowl was always filled with Red Delicious apples. She used to wash and dry the apples, then with the dish towel, polish each one until it sparkled. Apples way too pretty to eat.

I bought only one Red Delicious, for me, for old times sake. Then bought a bag of Sweet Tango and a bag of Ambrosia. So many new varieties to choose from now. Do you love apples?

Not much of a post but I need to get back in the sewing room and try to sew a little. I appreciate your visiting.

Love,
Henny

  

A Really Cool Sports Car

Poppy and I were sitting on the front porch when this really cool sports car pulled into the driveway...

Why, it's our neighbors...Fred and Ann!

Let me tell you a little about this sports car, this 1958 MG Roadster, and our neighbors...

In 1988 when our log cabin was being built, Fred was busy building their log home just down from us at the end of the path. He built their house!

That was also along about the time Fred bought this 1958 MG, which looked nothing like it does now.

Wow! Over 30 years ago! Fred and Ann raised two children during that time and now have two grandchildren.

What a neat surprise after all these years to see this really cool sports car on the road, and Fred did the restoration himself. Gosh, what an accomplishment! He must be so proud. 

Okay, Poppy's truck. I've just got to tell you this...

Poppy went to the hardware store in town to pick up ten bags of mulch. Pine bark mulch, I reminded him!

So he got home with 10 bags, thrown haphazardly into the bed of the truck causing some of the bags to lose a nugget or two.. 

"This is not pine bark mulch", I said. "These are nuggets. I don't like nuggets"!

The following day we carried the bags back to the hardware store where a sweet nice young employee said he would go replace the bags of nuggets with pine bark mulch. 

When we got home Poppy got out first and opened the tailgate on the truck. He laughed and said, "come here, you've got to see this. That young guy has got to be a Virgo! 

The bags were all stacked right side up, lined up and perfectly straight.

Boy, time flies! Here it is bedtime. Thank you for visiting. Oh, it's thundering...and we've got rain. Yay!!

Love,
Henny   

A day in the yard

Dear friends,

I fully expected to pull up my blog and find that all of you had left me. Sure hope you're still there.

I've been in the playhouse today...why, I've been all over the place today!

We've had a couple of cooler days and of course, I went crazy...cleaning the garden, moving plants around, raking leaves, cleaning out the teeny tiny greenhouse, stacking pots...

Why stacking pots took a while and I'm still not happy with the look. Sometimes I think being a Virgo will drive me crazy! :)

and leaf raking! It's way too early for that! But did you see all the leaves inside the playhouse? Our entire yard looks that way. It's this dry weather! We need rain!

Mama used to say, "oh it will rain again. It always does". Well I sure hope mama was right. It is dry as a bone here. 

The guineas kept me company inside the garden today. In fact, they got a dust bath just inside the garden gate.

Oh, that one strange looking plant left in the garden is "Horseradish". It has been growing all summer so now I need to read how to harvest the root, and then grow another. Whew!

Here's another thing! There's always something needing to be rescued...

I went to get a bucket of compost from the bin, which is dry as a bone too, and pulled up this tall skinny pitiful looking weed. But wait, that outer shell looks like an English walnut! and look at the long root, reaching from under my thumb all the way to the fig leaf...

This was the top of the plant. Did I mention pitiful? Oh, this little nut tree just has to live. I will keep you posted.

Look what I found while cleaning up the garden....

Remember the beautiful Leek that grew and grew then burst into a ball of tiny flowers? Her remains. :( Hopefully one of these tiny seeds will product another beautiful lady.

One more thing to show you...

Poppy was deer hunting and found this unusual mushroom in the woods.

and this is how it looked the next day...

sorry for the poor quality. The picture was taken with Poppy's little flip phone.

Okay, this is it. Thank you for stopping by. My plan is to do better at posting and visiting, and I mean it! 

Thank you, new followers. I do love my blogging friends.

Love,
Henny