About Madison!

It's time to let the chickens rest a bit and move on to something else...like bragging a little about my Granddaughter Madison. Actually I have two beautiful granddaughters, Madison and Michaela. 

Andee recently sent me this picture of Madison, taken at the senior prom. She will be a junior next year but was invited to the senior prom this year. Madison is the cute one on the far right of the girls. I am crazy about this picture...and crazy about Madison...

You hear it all the time, but children grow up way too fast. I wanted to keep Madison little forever. 

Back in the 1950's (yep, here we go again!) we were spending our two weeks vacation at Folly Beach in South Carolina. Daddy loved to play bingo at the beach and while we were there he won a "Bonnie Braids" Doll for me. I was tickled pink! I'm sure you all remember that Bonnie Braids was Dick Tracy and Tess Trueheart's baby daughter...from the Dick Tracy comic strip.  Anyhow, in this next picture of Andee and Madison, Madison reminds me of my Bonnie Braids doll.

One Saturday morning Madison and I were on our way to Walmart. She was spending the weekend with Poppy and me. She was around two years old. Anyway, Madison was strapped in her car seat. I was driving and in the turning lane to make a left turn into the Walmart parking lot...had my signal on and waiting for one more car come past, that was creeping along...I said in an slightly irritated voice, well come on slow poke, and Madison said, yeah, my Dad calls them losers. She was a sweetie pie alright!

Thanks for letting me brag a little. Aren't grandchildren special!

Sweet Pea and Popeye have made it safely through two nights together.

Love,
Henny

The Saga continues

Animals are so very much smarter than a lot of people give the credit for. Guess that's why I worry about those that are abused and neglected.

As long as I have been around chickens I have never known a rooster to literally take a baby chick under it's wing like a mother hen. Popeye had done just that.

All day I have worried about and constantly checked on little Sweet Pea, and every time I looked in on them, Popeye was hovering over Sweet Pea, scratching for food and calling him. 

Night time has been my biggest worry. Popeye sleeps on a roosts about five feet off the ground in the bantam's lot. Sweet Pea had been sleeping under Olive's wing in a nest box low to the ground. Where would Sweet Pea sleep tonight?

Right at the edge of dark Poppy and I went out to close the chicken house door and check on everything. There was Popeye waiting in that raggedy old box that is nailed high up on the wall inside the lot. The same old box where Sweet Pea was hatched. I guess he figured he and Sweet Pea would be safe there, but Sweet Pea could not get up that high. I lifted Sweet Pea up and he snuggled right up under Popeye's wing. I'm telling you, I've been on the verge of tears all day over this baby.

We are now wondering if it could have been a rat that killed Olive during the night. A snake for sure would have eaten the baby chick. Maybe we will know tomorrow. Poppy set a rat trap inside the chicken lot after the chickens were all safely in their house for the night.

Okay, thanks again for listening.

Love,
Henny

Another snake!

Some mornings it just doesn't pay to get out of the bed. Here it is 9:30 a.m. and I have already had to bury my little Olive. That's right. Sweet Pea's mama. 

I had put Eli in the goat's lot to play when I heard a loud chirping sound. The cry a chick makes when it's lost from it's mother. I thought maybe Sweet Pea had gotten out of the pen so I went to check. There was little Olive lying on the ground dead. Probably another snake. I don't understand why the snake didn't eat Sweet Pea. I feel like crying. Popeye seems to be caring for Sweet Pea and I'm keeping a close watch for that snake to come back! 

Looks like Popeye is saying...

"Boy, I'll do the best I can"...

"Okay"...

"You sure mama's not over here?"

I need to correct something from my snake story yesterday. Poppy said, Mel, that was not a "big" snake that had the duck. Actually, it was a small snake, to be fighting with a large duck. All snakes seem big to me! We have had snakes kill our hens before. A snake will smother a chicken by putting it's mouth over the chicken's head. I don't understand why because a snake can't swallow something as big as a chicken. Not a rat snake anyway.

Thank you for listening again. Like they say around here..."if it ain't one thing, it's another!" Hope to be back soon...

Love,

Henny

Strange noises

Sure wish I had a picture for this tale! It happened yesterday around 3:30. I was on my way to the compost bin with a pot of kitchen scraps in one arm and a large pan of bean ends and strings in the other when I heard an unusual bumping and knocking sound. I stopped and listened. I heard it again. Was there some animal in the shed? I put the pans down and ran back to the house yelling for Poppy. Listen, I said to Poppy, lots of times I get excited and my imagination runs away with me, but I heard a strange noise. It sounds like an animal trying to fight it's way out of a wooden box. Poppy gave me that look, like "yeah right! Will you come with me? Wait, he said getting the shotgun from the corner. We walked back to the shed. Poppy stepped back a little as he reached for the lock on the shed door. I held my ears and shut one eye. The door opened. Nothing! But then we heard the noise again. The bumping was coming from under the shed. We ran around back. There was Nellie, the duck, desperately trying to free herself from a big rat snake. The snake was biting her and holding her by one leg. Both Nellie and the snake were only partially visible under the edge of the shed. Poppy aimed the gun. This time I held both ears and closed both eyes. The gun fired. Did you hit the snake or the duck I asked. The snake! Nellie was free. The snake was dead. Nellie looked flustered. She wagged her tail, like Muscovies do, looked at us both and went back under the shed. The bumping had been Nellie fighting this snake, protecting her nest of eggs. It was some fight and I think the snake was about to win. 

It makes me sad to see anything killed. Anything! But in a case like this we had to do something.

This is the back of the shed. There are lots of small feathers on the ground near the old barrel. Scattered, I suppose, during the fight...

Nellie is the duck in the back...

Okay, on to something else. Like "Sweet Pea". He's growing and he is not going to look like his mom or dad. This chick has "Big Boy" written all over him...

Just a quick story here. Sunday afternoon I sat down in the living room. Poppy was in his chair watching the race. Weetie was asleep on the couch and Eli was dragging out toys. Well, if I ever sit down, I drop off to sleep and that's exactly what happened. After sleeping about fifteen minutes I woke up. Poppy was asleep, Weetie was asleep, and this was Eli...

I've got beans canning. Better get busy. Thank you for visiting.

Love,
Henny

Just rambling

There is a small thrift store I enjoy going in whenever I am in Henderson and since I was in Henderson picking up a prescription Saturday, I stopped by. I spent less than four dollars and came home with two good tee shirts, three pairs of socks, and these...

These eleven squares cost me eighty cents. Not bad. Oh, you know what would be pretty? An old fashioned looking quilt.  Yeah right! I really need to start cutting up stuff to make a quilt! As mama used to say, "there's not room to lay a pin down now". Everywhere I look in this house there is a pile something waiting to be mended or washed or ironed or put away or hauled off or emptied or picked or canned. A quilt would be mighty pretty made out of these squares. October seems like a good time to start on this.

You know my clothesline broke a few days ago. Poppy put it up again by wrapping it around two trees. It sags a little but serves the purpose.  I drug up the perfect old board to lift the sagging line and keep the sheets from hanging too close to the ground. Old folks used to do that your know...use an old board to lift the clothesline...

By the way, the little red house is growing on me. The color is looking more and more like redwood and that's a good thing...

Better get going. It's a job around here at bedtime getting Bickett set up in the laundry room for the night, and Weetie in the front porch swing. Eli has his new waterbed and fan and ten dollar bone on the porch for the night. Once all these are situated, Dumperoo comes out from under the sewing room bed to eat, drink , and roam through the house all night.

Thank you for stopping by.

Love,
Henny

Queen Anne's Lace and Daddy

On my way to town this morning I noticed a few Queen Anne's Lace blooming. Only a few. Some years we have them all along the path. Queen Anne's Lace was my daddy's favorite flower. Look at the ants on this one...

Someone recently posted about this beautiful flower which made me think of daddy. Daddy used to warn us about Poison Hemlock which looks a lot like Queen Anne's Lace. He said we could tell if it was Queen Anne's Lace by the dark flower that is found in the center. Poison Hemlock doesn't have that. I love an old dirt road...

Daddy loved nature. He loved to go for long walks in the woods and was always picking up unusual rocks. Sometimes mama would get tired of him bringing in rocks and leaving them around everywhere. I remember her, a time or two, throwing some of the rocks out the back door thinking daddy would never know the difference and find them again. Don't they say it's the little things in a marriage that drive each other crazy? :)

Daddy could name just about every tree and every plant. There was no excuse for us kids not knowing all there was to know about every reptile, butterfly, insect, wild animal, tree, plant, or rock because there was a book on each of these things in the bookcase.

I love this old old picture of daddy which I've shown before. Probably taken long before I was born. He was a big fisherman too. Loved it! Sure wish I had more pictures of mama and daddy.

Here's an old one from the early 1940's. Always with a cigarette. No wonder he died so young with a heart attack...

Daddy taught me a lot. He is the reason I love being outside so much of the time. I was in ninth grade when this picture was taken...

This post was going to be about the garden and how much we need rain. The Queen Anne's Lace changed my thinking...

Thank you for visiting.

Love,
Henny

Canning and listening for a train whistle

My wish for growing green beans in the teeny tiny garden this year is coming true. I picked enough beans Tuesday to can another seven jars yesterday. That gives us fourteen quarts so far...

The tomato vines are covered in tomatoes but none are ripe yet except for this small, not so pretty one. The peppers are doing great. I'm growing my first, and favorite, orange bell pepper and I just can't wait to pick one. 

The beans already need picking again. With this hot humid weather again today, and a chance of storms, plus Hurricane Arthur heading up the North Carolina Coast...well, the beans will have to hang there until late tomorrow. 

Hope watermelon is not bad for dogs. Eli loves it and apples too. Maybe he just loves anything we are eating...

Notice the spot of yogurt on the table leg? Who know what will have to be replaced in this house by the time Eli is full grown.  But he is so sweet and so smart and so worth the trouble. Bickett says he is not too sure about all that...

Do you ever have one of those day where you have lots, maybe too much to do and you just don't want to do any of it! That's me today. I'm in one of my traveling moods. Good thing there are not any railroad tracks near by, because like my Uncle Lloyd back when he would hear a train whistle blowing in the distance, I just might drop my hoe right here in the field and take off running and catch that train.

Better hang around here and get to work!

Love,
Henny