Poppy and the old GRAVEYARD

Got the "to do list" rewritten neat and orderly. It's 7:30 a.m. Poppy is at work. I've made the bed, put the dishes away, cleaned two litter boxes, swept the kitchen and laundry room and, as only a Virgo would understand, made sure the corners and edges are even on every folded and stacked item, visible in the house! It's a morning ritual! No uneven towels hanging on racks around here! There may dust on the cabinets but all my ducks are in a row!

Let's see, 'Dancing with the Stars' was on last night. Action that keeps these two entertained.

Poppy carried the camera with him turkey hunting last Saturday . 

Maybe half a mile from our house, deep in the woods, there is an old graveyard with tombstones dating from the 1700's. 

Hard to read now, but looks like 1886 and 1900 on this one. One of the stones here says the Reverend Amos Jones.

Poppy passes this old graveyard going to an open field to hunt.

Ivy covers most of the graves and stones.

If you walked far enough through these woods, you would come out at the back of a little white church called Jones' Chapel. I've always figured the Jones' buried here are some of the same set. It is sad to think of the people buried in these old graves in these woods.

Back to reality and my 'to do list'...next is cranking up the mower and mowing from the back of the house down to the pond and behind the old dog lots...then do a little gardening. That should pretty much do me in!

Thank you for visiting. Hope to be back soon.

Love,
Henny

Killing time while it rains!

Here it is noon on the first day of May and what is it like here? Cold and rainy! We have 56 degrees and it has rained since we got out of bed this morning. It's quiet. Eli and Smokey are sound asleep on the front porch. Good sleeping weather. 

Poppy in his camo is sitting in front of the TV waiting for the rain to stop. He is off work this weekend off to turkey hunt again. Me, I'm waiting for the rain to stop so the turkey hunter can get out of the house for a while.

Guinea Winnie was scurrying up the path to tell Henny Penny that the sky was falling. The sky is not falling said Mr.Rooster. It's raining!

The Iris are opening. All the same color. Years ago I ordered Iris bulbs in mixed colors from a nursery catalog. That first year there were some unusual colors but now all the Iris look the same. Weird.

The teeny tiny garden is pathetic! It has simply been too cold for vegetables to grow. Even the squash and cucumbers seeds have not sprouted. The yard long beans are through the ground but then who ever heard of a bean not coming up. Next week should be just what the garden needs...sun and temperatures in the low 80's for the whole week! That should make a big difference.

Yesterday I raked a little shortcut path through the woods to the teeny tiny garden and greenhouse.

The rain has slacked off and Poppy has finally gone hunting. I had planned to vacuum, but hunting and searching through the cabinets for something to snack on sounds better. I'm on a roll, you know. This rainy day is about shot anyway! : )

Love,
Henny

News on the well house and such

Good gosh! Would you look at the leaves, and look at this ugly mess! It's no wonder I was depressed the whole month of February! This is definitely a "before" picture. 

You may remember back in February when the pump in our well stopped working and we were without water. We called the pump and well digging folks out and had a new pump installed. You may recall too that the well cover fell apart as it was being taken off, and how happy that made me. I don't like those little wishing wells. 

This was a couple of years ago before the old well house fell apart.

When Poppy said a friend at work was going to build us another well cover,  I jumped right in and said it had better be "big"! Something that looks real. I wanted a well cover like Aunt Berlie used to have. Now Aunt Berlie's well cover was big enough that she and I could carry our straight chairs out and sit and crack walnuts...under the cover of the well.

Poppy's friend delivered this late yesterday. It took four men to get it off the trailer.

I did say "big"!  We can't sit under this one but maybe it looks more real. It needs leveling a bit and painting. I'm thinking a dark walnut color, the same color I plan to paint Poppy's shop. 

The shop was supposed to be barn red but it turned out orangy looking. Now that we're living in a red house, I'm thinking the shop needs to be another color...maybe dark walnut.

Okay, I'm off to make bowls if ice cream. I can't seem to get off this roll I'm on...let see who can get the fattest!!! Have you tried Turkey Hill's Box of Chocolates? Honestly, well it's indescribably delicious. :) You need to buy a carton!

Hope to be back soon. 

Love,
Henny

Not so peaceful!

The peaceful little cabin in the woods...or so it would seem!

Wouldn't it be nice if everyday life was as peaceful, beautiful, and perfect as pictures on a blog?

Of course no picture here, but this is more typical. Poppy ready to leave for work turns on the porch light, looks out and says, what's that Eli is chewing on? I look out and say, looks like the lining from your Crocs. Good grief, says Poppy going out to take it from Eli. Poppy yells back to me, it's not my Crocs, it a little rabbit and it's dead.

Now Eli can't go off the porch during the night and for sure bunny rabbits don't come on the porch. This was the doings of little Smokey. Smokey killed that rabbit, brought it on the porch and Eli stole it from him.

My first job of the morning was to have a decent burial for the little bunny...which left me feeling very sad indeed.

Pulling myself together, I hurried and finished with the housework and went to work in the garden.

Around midday on my way inside, I happened to look up and there on our teeny tiny porch, lo and behold...a BAT!

Right there over my head!! Shiver!! This bat hung there all day with Eli, Weetie, Smokey, and me going in and out, noisily opening and closing the door.

Poppy got home around 4:00 and as he walked up the steps I showed him the bat. He was excited and wanted to get a closer look so he opened the front door and put down the load he was carrying, turned around and the bat was gone. Seriously, GONE! After hanging there all day! Good thing I got a picture. 

Do you think old sweet Eli will ever outgrow his teddy bear? These pictures were taken just last night.

He is such a big sweetie pie.

Smokey is the only kitty we have that will curl up in the rocking chair for a nap. Looking all sweet and innocent! Wouldn't hurt a flea!

We may have rain coming in this afternoon. Guess I need to do a few things outside while the sun is shining. I appreciate your stopping to visit. And again I'm sorry for not replying to your nice comments. It feels like you stopped by and I was not home. 

Love,
Henny

A little cooking, a little posting

Down behind the shed...today at the teeny tiny farm.

Not much need in starting this post with supper cooking and cornbread baking in the oven. Oh well, I'll get a word in here and there. Are collards good to eat this time of the year? My Mother would say "no"! She was probably right. Mama thought collards were best eaten in cold weather. Collards are not fit to eat until after a frost, she would say.

Anyhow, the collards in Food Lion looked good to me so I bought a bunch. Like Mama used to do, I cut off a piece of pork ribs and cooked it in the pressure cooker. Then used the broth and fat from the ribs to cook the collards in the same pot.

Might as well go on and make this a fall meal, after all it is feeling more like fall than spring these days.

So here we have fordhook lima beans, collards, ribs, cornbread, and that huge sweet potato in the foil came from Shelby and Jimmy's farm and is big enough for the both of us.

I  write about the teeny tiny garden and the teeny tiny house so now you see I cook teeny tiny meals...if only I were teeny tiny!

The sun decided to come out late this afternoon and must have felt good to the guineas who have been out in the cold rain all day.

Supper is finished and the dishes washed. I've walked Eli, shut the guineas up and fed corn to the ducks. Oh, and while playing with Eli in the goat lot, a hawk swooped down right there in front of us and almost grabbed a guinea. Quite a close call!

Look, I'm as tall as Big Boy!

Eli says, we're pretty worn out now. Thank you for stopping by and we will be back very soon.

Love,
Henny

Strolling through the yard

Somebody has been under that big Azalea.

Seriously, I did not put that blossom there. I talked Poppy into taking a quick walk, with Eli and me, around the yard to look at the flowers and see how nice the yard looks after my mowing for the last two days!  Funny how you don't realize how badly the yard needs mowing until you get started. It was absolutely snaky looking!

The Gardenia bushes along the back porch look terrible. The unusually cold temperatures this winter and last winter almost killed them. Two years ago the Gardenias were beautiful. Long stems covered in sweet smelling blossoms. I'm wondering if these will ever look good again.

Smokey follows...climbing trees and hiding here and there.

Thinking, "what can I do next?"

This is the first Azalea Poppy and I planted. It is huge now!

Kind of pretty in an unusual way.

Looking at flowers is mighty tiring. Simply wears a fellow out.

And look who slipped out when the front door was left opened this morning.

I've been mowing and working on the garden this week. You must be awfully tired of seeing the yard and the Azaleas. Hopefully, soon there will be something worth seeing in the teeny tiny garden. The yard long beans are up. I need to come up with some kind of sturdy trellis for the beans to climb. 

Thank you for looking in. Hope to be back soon with something new and more interesting. 

Love,
Henny

Early morning fog

The clock alarmed at 4:20 this morning. Yes, Poppy's vacation is over. He had to be at work at 6:00 a.m. By the way, wonder when my vacation is going to start! At 6:00 I was washing sheets and out hanging the bedspread on the clothesline. 

It's cool here this morning and the steam or fog over the pond made for a good picture. Looks like soon there will be lots of Iris in bloom...another reason to bring the camera out. I might as well add AA Batteries to the grocery list. :)

No only are the flowers thriving this spring but the weeds! Good gosh! Look at the red rock path around the Iris bed and down to the bridge...It is overwhelming! 

At least once while the snowball bush is in bloom, I have to stand underneath and look up at the blue sky. My excitement for the day, that is unless I walk up on another snake.

Where are you off to in such a hurry? I kinda like it under here...we might catch a mouse.

Need to get up from here and get busy. I've got to run to the grocery store...AGAIN! Then, hopefully I can work outside!! Thank you for visiting.

Love,
Henny