Winter

Winter

Thursday, August 18, 2016

Summer Days

My first summer sunflower. Finally. I have waited all summer to get some blooms. These little guys would look great lining a border. Or in a small pot. We are in the midst of our fifth heat wave. I have lost count of the fires. This morning the air is thick with smoke and it smells like burning trees and houses. The sky each morning is so red. Soon though, the rains will return.

This morning as I was opening blinds, the first thing to see was a line of men across the street. Staring at my house. That is the way it looked from my vantage point. They were going to get the ground all ready for cement. We will have sidewalks. Just like town.
When I was a girl, I wanted to skate. So bad. Everyone was skating. We lived out in the country and the only place to skate was the sort of road we had. Which didn't work that well. My Aunt and Uncle lived in town and they had miles and miles of sidewalks to skate on. I would sometimes get to go over and skate.
I loved living out here and having my horses and the lovely freedom I had, but having a sidewalk life would have been perfect. Now I think by the end of the day, real sidewalks!!! I think I still have my rollerblades.
I just don't know about trying them out. It hurts a lot more now when I fall down. Which I still do with regularity.


This summer Ron and I have been learning to make Kombucha Tea. We made our Scoby which took a few weeks. Once we had that then we brewed more tea and now here is our latest batch.

Its growing another Scoby. We are going to be getting it put into bottles just as soon as it has the flavor we want. In the meantime we have a lovely health/food/grocery store called Lassens in town. I make my weekly trek over there to buy bottles Kombucha Tea. It just so happens to be in the same shopping center as Hobby Lobby. I have been watching for this rooster who I named Wallace to go on sale. He did and now he is gracing my dining room table.

Wallace
I love his polka dots!
Do you know it is hard work trying to make a house look all comfy and cute? I find I have got really rusty at that skill. Most of my walls are still bare.

I have been AWOL from my blog because my pictures have become all scattered and I end up being at my wits end trying to find where they have gone. I take them and then they disappear from the place they used to go and do you know that on my computer right now I have a war going on between Google, Microsoft and my Norton virus scan. All are fighting for control. I am the one who ends up being the one who can't use my computer. Writing a blog takes me so much longer right now. I need to tell my webmaster but he is so busy working right now, I just hate him to have to come home and look at my computer. I make him do other things like watch Bigfoot videos.

I hope you have a lovely Thursday. Time to go outside in the smoke and ash and take care of my hens.
Poor girls. Summer has been hard on them. Fall is around the corner. School started back yesterday and Elliot and Peter return to school on Monday. I have my new planner and my new Bible Study. I am ready for September!
Have  wonderful day,
Kim


"To start with there was Shora. Shora was a fishing village in Holland. It lay on the shore of the North Sea in Friesland, tight against the dike. Maybe that was why it was called Shora. It had some houses and a church and tower. In five of those houses lived the six school children of Shora, so that is important. There were a few more houses, but in those houses lived no children— just old people. They were, well, just old people, so they weren't too important. There were more children, too, but young children, toddlers, not school children— so that is not so important either".---Meindert DeJong The Wheel on The School.

Best book ever!! Anything written by Meindert Dejong is a feast of wonderful thoughts about life. They are children's fiction but I think you must be an adult to appreciate them.

11 comments:

Debbie said...

awwww kim, your flowers are beautiful, like getting a bouquet just for me!!! i am intrigued by the tea making, something i would enjoy!!!

Pom Pom said...

I adore The Wheel on the School!
Aw! I love your new roo!
I broke my wrist rollerblading one Thanksgiving.

Unknown said...

Wallace is the prettiest rooster ever! Your Kombucha looks very nice! You're braver than I am haha. I hope they're done with your road soon. I went to Lassen's on Tuesday and it was such a nightmare trying to get down your road.

TexWisGirl said...

i like your rooster. i like hitting hobby lobby about once a year and perusing all their cool stuff. :) happy sidewalks!

Christine said...

So at last a dream is coming true for you and you can skate on your own sidewalk! We were at a roller rink last week and I fell hard! Ouch! Just so out of practice!
Glad you found Wallace and brought him home!

Julia said...

I love, love your rooster. I think I need another one, lol... I'm curious about your home brewed tea. It must be a healthy drink. Is it tasty?. You got me curious...

The first time and the last time I put on roller skates was when my youngest daughter Christine was still living at home. A good thing I tried them in the house before going outdoors as I couldn't stop and the end of my roller skate smashed right into the gyprock wall and made a big round hole. Of course we both broke down in hysterical laughter but then I had to patch the wall and repaint it. haha

I hope that your air clears up soon. It must be so annoying breathing that smoke. We have had rain so frequently this summer that the lawn is still green. Usually this time of year, the grass is brown on my front lawn. We got about 25% more hay this year because of all the rain. It was cold and then extremely hot and cold again that my peppers grew tall and green but only a few peppers.
Have a great weekend.
Hugs,
Julia

Gumbo Lily said...

Your sunflower is beautiful. And so's your rooster! Sidewalks sound pretty nice. My grands would love to ride their bikes on a sidewalk.

Wheel on the School was one of our favorite read alouds here. I need to find it for my grandkids who love books. Thanks for the reminder!

Rugs and Pugs said...

My heart goes out to those affected by the fires. So sad to lose everything. I'm not sure how one recovers from that.
Beautiful flower pics as always.
Hugs :)
Lauren

Three Sheep Studio said...

I can't imagine waking up every day and knowing huge fires are raging all around me.
Your rooster is fabulous !
Love the sunflowers.
We love our sidewalks ! Bike riding, walking, sidewalk chalk and yes, even shoveling snow to keep them clear !
Rose

GretchenJoanna said...

I agree about DeJong. He is the greatest! One time when I was at my daughter's house they were in the middle of reading ,The Wheel on the School every night before bed. This is to the 6 and 3 year olds :-) Anyway, because I was the honored guest and I like to read, they let me read aloud two or three nights. I was in heaven.

When I was growing up we didn't have sidewalks. There still are not sidewalks there and I can't imagine that there ever will be. We had roller skates and we tried to skate on the road but it was SO rough, you could not really get any momentum going with all that traction, and it roughened up the wheels really fast, too. That was in the days before roller blades. I never did become a very good skater.

Janettessage.blogspot.com said...

My morning glories have just started to bloom this year, I have missed them. Your flowers are always so pretty. I, too, have been making Kombucha. I need to work on my next batch. I found some wonderful fun jars to put it in and flavors. I will watch how you are doing it and learn. We went to the skating rink, but I didn't skate, I miss it. Have a great end of summer.