The crafting mouse

Dear friends,

It's looking more and more like there will be no pictures of family gatherings or craft bazaars and such that include me.  Strolling around taking pictures is too much like being on stage. I am a mouse. I've always been a mouse. Sneaking around, keeping quiet...never wanting to be clearly seen. Yep, that's me.

I unintentionally frightened a gentleman at the craft bazaar. He was bending down trying to read the labels on Shelby's jam and jellies when he saw my eyes looking back at him. I was sitting behind the table, hidden by the little stair-steps filled with jelly jars.

I did get one sweet picture...

This is Paula, the Pastor's wife. She was very nice and had the sweetest smile. Sorry that my one picture is blurry. She bought the bonnet and matching apron and said she just might wear them to work one day over her scrubs, for her patients. Paula is a Registered Nurse. Bet she is a good one, don't you?

Shelby's jams and jellies were a big hit, and many jars sold. I sold all my small dolls, a couple of aprons and a few bag holder. I left the bazaar happy, so all is well.

None of my little angel garlands (cut from empty chicken feed sacks) sold, but then, most of the time I kept them covered, thinking folks might laugh at them. :( I did give one away.

Hopefully, I am not as awful as I make myself sound. Rarely do I sit at a craft sale. Standing is much better and smiling at folks has always been easy for me. Mostly I just act like an idiot when someone hands me a twenty dollar bill and I have to give them change.

Better get busy this early Monday morning. Eli has an appointment with the groomer...and speaking of the old sweetie-pie.

"I really really want to try that fruit cake too, okay?"

Love,
Henny

Another bowl of stuff

Standing here at the kitchen window this morning thinking about you and the blog.

Oh, I do appreciate your comments so much and wanted to reply to each one. Feels like a conversation when I read and reply.

However! I've just spent another day away from home. Good grief! Have you ever known me to do so much traveling? :)

Shelby had a good idea. "Lets get together and bake fruit cakes", she said. "I'll get everything we need at Costco, and you come over here. It will be fun". and it was! 

We got the cakes in the oven...three hours at 275 degrees. We had three hours to spend, so we drove to Costco and had a big slice of pizza for lunch, then went by "Everything but Grannies Panties", a really neat thrift store in Durham.

Darn it! Once again, no pictures but as a reminder, this is Shelby a couple of years ago, in her great big kitchen built for baking.

I did manage to get a picture of another bowl of stuff. :(

Anyhow, I don't have long to tarry here. The church craft bazaar starts at noon today. I've got to get busy; get the animals fed, the house straight, the car loaded, and be at the church around 10:00.

This means I will be gone most of today and all day tomorrow. There will be pictures this time, if I have to pay somebody to take them for me! (got to make a little money first). 

Back to the kitchen window, I wanted to show you the three little cuttings of Christmas Cactus. Poppy's sister, Pat gave me them when we were there last Sunday. Pat had three huge Christmas Cactus in her sun room...really huge! She told us they were the same plants that belonged to their mother. I'm sure hoping these will root. That would be neat.

and my little bun bun sleeping in the window...

Okay, I'm going to work now. Thank you dear sweet friends.

Love,
Henny

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