Everybody's Concentrating...

Remember playing with Lego Blocks?

Here's my grandson Mark with the "airship" he built out of Lego blocks.

And, his cousin Abbey helped him build the second picture. Not sure what they called it. Looks like a flying house to me.

These are the same Legos my 21 year old son built things out of many years ago. Lego blocks are timeless. And expensive, I might add.

Check out what they are selling for on Ebay now.

Snake Fishin'

The boy's Poppy  and son Tim went out Thursday afternoon to check out an old well we have on the 80 acre homestead. They were thinkin maybe we could get it up and running, since it is a drilled well, without too much expense involved.

They took something to measure with so they could get an idea of how deep it was also.

My daughter-in-law Jennifer went along to capture it on camera for the blog. When Poppy  climbed into the block structure surrounding the well, they met a fellow resident they weren't expecting! Wonder who was most surprised?

So my brave  son went and got a fishing pole to reel the offender out. Whatever happened to picking him up with a stick ?

You'll be glad to know they let him loose to find another day. That's for all you snake lovers out there!

Now all we have to do is take the sample of water to our local health department to be tested to see if it is drinkable. And eventually maybe we can get off the rural water network and be more self-sufficient! As long as I have plenty of drinkable water and enough hot water to keep my long soaks in the tub going, I'll be happy.

Happy Thanksgiving!!!

Hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving!! The boy's Poppy  and I had all our kids and grand-kids home but the ones that live in South Carolina and we ate and visited and ate some more. It was a beautiful day for a family get together and I hope you celebrated with your loved ones too.

I cut up my turkey the night before and baked the dark meat that night and saved the breast to put in the oven this morning with some of my grandmother's dressing around it.

Then I baked a ham, made sweet potatoes, homemade noodles, brocolli and rice casserole and the gravy. The rest of the girls made the pies, rolls , scalloped potatoes, corn with cream cheese in it and salad. My little grand-daughters even got in the act and made wonderful, chewy brownies.

My daughter made a special cranberry relish that her husbands now deceased mother always made. We want to keep that tradition alive in honor of her memory every year.

Everyone lined up eager to eat all that good food. And we ate, laughed with one another, and ate some more. That's what life is really all about. Faith, Family, Friends.

Only thing left now to do is TAKE A NAP!!!!

The Hunting Party...

My son and his brother-in-law and their boys stopped in for a few minutes during their "quest for the elusive deer" this morning. What a great way to spend time together and do those "manly" things that men do. And it gives the fathers time to spend with their sons and teach them things they need to know. Not to mention, the benefits of having meat in the freezer to eat all winter!! I am not a great fan of deer meat, but I do love deer summer sausage. What a great morning to be alive!!!

Fathers, take your sons out in the early morning hours and sit in the woods. Take a camera if you don't like to deer hunt. Spending time with each other is whats important! Faith, Family, Friends....that's what life is all about.

Haulin Gravel

Every winter you need a 4 wheel drive to get in and out of our drive, so Poppy  borrowed a dump truck from some of our friends and headed to our local quarry. I realize not everyone has a friend with a dump truck, but it sure saves money to not have to pay the hauling fee! I had never been to a quarry before so I went along to take some pictures so some of you other "city" people can see how this is done.

First, you have to climb up in that thing, which is no easy feat. And I learned the hard way, you don't want to reach up and grab that tall shiny thing by the door. It is hot!!!

At the quarry they load the gravel with this thing, which might be called a loader. Ha. Ha.

By the way, Poppy  was drooling all over the place over this piece of equipment. Don't ask me what it is, I too have never been to one of these places before.

After you are loaded, you drive across this little bridge which is called a scales and you are weighed so the people in the little building can figure your bill.

Then you go back home and drive up and down your drive dumping gravel as you go.

The grandkids thought it was great fun to drive with "poppy" in the big truck.

Bring on the rain and snow!!! I shouldn't get stuck getting in and out this year!!

How to survive during hard times? Use each others resources and save money!!

I have been canning so many "meals in a jar" that I am running out of places to store them. I even have boxes of tomatoes under my bed. So Poppy  dug out the ole tool belt and built shelves in my closets. I don't need all those clothes anyway.

My "surviving hard times" advice is to begin going to someplace like "aldi's" and start buying extra canned foods every week. And catch the weekly sales and take advantage of them. No one knows what the price of food will be in the future. Think a little further down the road and have more than a weeks supply of food in the pantry at a time.

And make you a pantry of your own somewhere. We are getting ready to go into winter weather and I am remembering last winters ice storm and how the power went out. Grocery shelves were stripped bare in no time.

Take stock of what you have on hand. If you would lose power tonight and had to live on what you have in your house for a week, how would you do? Got any flashlights? Got any batteries for those flashlights? Matches? Candles? Heavy blankets? Electric ones won't work.

Keep a emergency kit in your car. I like to keep a heavy blanket, flashlight, and a candle in a can in mine. Which reminds me. Your local Red Cross has kits that you can buy just for that purpose. And the money goes to a good cause!! Check it out. But most important of all GET PREPARED!!!

That's a lot of crap...excuse me manure for my garden!

I caught the boy's Poppy  as he was unloading the second load of manure for my garden. What makes your garden grow? Manure and more manure!!! Once it is spread on the garden and gets plowed under, it will be just right for

next years growing season. But stink.....whooeeee! Not

sure how farmers live around that!!

Surviving Hard Times Lesson: Prepare your garden in the fall by adding whatever nutrients are needed. And add manure to your fall garden so it can decompose down over the winter. Your garden and flowers will love it. I planted lily bulbs one time in a raised bed that had lots of decomposed manure in it, and the next year I had lilies higher than my head!!!

Almost graduation time...

It's Sunday evening and I'm doing my son's laundry so he can head back to school. He graduates from the Police Academy on Dec. 11 th. It's what he's wanted to do since he could talk. I'm very proud of him!!

My son got a deer!!!

Here's a couple pictures of my son Kevin and my grandson Caleb. They are really excited about the deer they got! I've heard and seen several deer hunters out today around the 80 acre homestead. This one wasn't shot on our property though. Good job guys!!

What a beautiful day to rake leaves with the grandkids

My grandson Mark and I were talking last night about today being the first day in November and Thanksgiving and Christmas would soon be here. He wanted to know how long that would be, but told me to "don't tell me in weeks Nana, tell me in days. I don't know how long weeks is." Now, that is pretty smart thinking for a 5 year old! I too can relate better when you count time down in days!

We raked some leaves today. One of the down sides of living out here in the woods is all the leaves. I've tried mowing them and raking them both. They get so thick that you can't see all the limbs that fall off through the winter. And you know what hitting those can do for a lawn mower! 

So here we are just enjoying the beauty of this wonderful fall day. Seasons change. Life changes. People change. Choices are made each day, sometimes good, sometimes not so good. Making choices...

Will you be proud of the choices you are making in your life?

Fall Photography...

We went down and took some pictures of my daughter and her family this evening. Come March we'll be adding a new little baby boy to the family! When she was little she wanted five little boys and she might just get her wish!

Isn't that precious?