Getting Caught Up

Mums

During the summer, it is hard to work in my front flowerbeds. This year, they really got away from me. After the scorpion being in the house, I decided the flowerbeds were going to have to be cleaned. I shudder to share this as you will see just how out of control the flowerbed had got.

Before

 You can't tell where the lawn stops and the flowerbeds begin. I don't think I have ever let them get this bad.
We worked and worked. Ron is always a good sport and he helps me thank goodness. He used a shovel and I used a hula hoe. Together we got it cleaned.

After

My bulbs had really multiplied. I gathered them up so I can divide and replant. I have that on my list of things to do next week.
Here is my bucket of Iris bulbs.

Almost a five gallon bucket. I only planted 10 bulbs when I moved here. They really like it. As I was digging and sorting and dividing. I thought of my mom who was an incredible gardener. I was thinking of how after her tulips, and daffodils and things like that bloomed she would always dig them up and store them all summer in the freezer. It doesn't get cold enough here to get good blooms but she did, because she did that and she always used fish emulsion when she put them in the ground in the fall. It is funny how when I am  working like that memories flood back like it was just yesterday.

I was and am too sore to do anymore work. So I started working on a little rug by Notforgotten Farms
I was looking at photographs of wild turkeys, and I had never noticed how much wild turkeys and guineas resemble each other. Here is my latest rug, Old Tom

Pattern by Notforgotten Farms

I downloaded an App for my phone for Librivox. Right now I am listening to a book called A Woman Who Went to Alaska. By May Kellogg Sullivan. She lived there during the gold rush years from 1899 to 1900.
I have listened to such fun things that are in the public domain. I really enjoy hooking and listening to books that I might not have ever even heard of before. 

I have had these cans of pumpkin in my pantry. I decided yesterday, to make a pumpkin pie. The only thing I changed this time was I used pumpkin pie spice. Instead of all of the other spices. Ron and I between ourselves at a whole pie!!! Most of the time I end up throwing pumpkin pie away. I really had to use a bit of self control and of course being so sore, to not make another one. I love fall.

It feels nice to get things back into shape.( I am glad that round is a shape.)  Thank you so much for stopping by,

~Kim~

if you just go on dreaming then it stays a dream and becomes stale and dead. But first to dream and then to do isn't that the way to make a dream come true
Meindert DeJong

Keepin' It Real!

 

It is Thursday afternoon, and I have been trying to do a post all day. I hope your Thursday has been very nice. Mine has, I have just been scattered brained. Do you ever have those days, when you have so many good things going on it is hard to settle down? I finished the pillows I was working on this week. They turned out cute I think, at least I hope the boys like them.

 

I am going to an open house for Bumblewood tomorrow so I will give the pillows to them then.

This morning when I got up, and I always make Ron's lunch after I start my first load of laundry. Just my routine. I turned around to go get something out of the pantry and on the counter was this. Just like this with the arrow pointing at this jar. 

Here is a better shot of the note. 

He added air holes just in case it wasn't dead.

I started laughing as I ran in the bedroom to get Ron where he was getting ready for work to come see.
We both stood in the kitchen laughing and then he took the lid off. The poor thing was sadly deceased.

Later, when William came in to get his things for work, said, " I came in to get some water and I stepped on it in my bare-feet in the kitchen, it skittered off to the cabinets. He said, I told Elliot because he was going down to get water too." Elliot knows how I have a fondness for seeing things like this, caught it and it was in the kitchen this morning. The pest control guy was coming today, so I saved it to show him. The pest control guy we have makes it all worth it. He gives the right kind of shivers. He lives fairly close by so he is always freaked out at the wild life we have out here. This is a first though. We never had one in the house before.

Without giving anything away, One of these guys isn't married, the other one is married to Emilie. One of them bought a piece of jewelry. Soon very soon, I hope to be able to say, I get to add another member to our family. I am sort of  really, really happy. I told Ron this morning, " Mr. Bennet, God has been very, very good to us." I guess that isn't very good as it makes me Mrs. Bennet. ( You have to know the Pride and Prejudice with Colin Firth to know this line best.)

 

  I have to be very, very careful, that I am not like the girl in this picture and don't count my chicks before they are hatched. I am just counting a tiny bit though.

Wishes do come true!

Thank you so much for stopping by,
~Kim~

Wynken, Blynken, and Nod one night
Sailed off in a wooden shoe —
Sailed on a river of crystal light,
Into a sea of dew.
"Where are you going, and what do you wish?"
The old moon asked the three.
"We have come to fish for the herring fish
That live in this beautiful sea;
Nets of silver and gold have we!"
Said Wynken, Blynken, and Nod.

---One of my favorite American Poets, Eugene Fields first published in  1889

Today on Tuesday

 

Isn't October lovely? How are you today? Have you been busy, getting things ready before winter comes? I managed to get my porches cleaned and my windows washed. Fan blades are all clean and walls washed. We had some really warm weather so we cleaned carpets too. I feel all set for cold weather now. I felt like a criminal washing my porches with water. I haven't done that since about May. Everything was coated in dust.
The water police drove by after I had put up the hose. I was so happy, I had the water hose put up by then. Here is a little political pointer. What ever you do do not give up your freedom to the government agencies that are in place like in California. Do not loose your freedoms to fish, or lizards or sagebrush. Last year Ron registered our wood burning stove, This year we got a letter, stating that we must have it inspected and must pay a fee to use it. It continues to become more and more totalitarian. Okay rant over. I have said enough to have some agency knocking on my door. Hello George Orwell.

 

Here is my pillow that I made. I am still trying to decide if I want to put it in my store or just keep it. I like it and since I am on a pillow making kick, I am making our grandchildren pillows for their beds. It is a good thing I had the practice when our kids were at home making things by sixes. Now making things by nine is no big deal. I am very blessed, don't you think?

I am still working a bit on my Give Ye Thanks rug. This is such a big rug.

I think it is the biggest rug I have ever done. Mrs Rabbit was big but this one is so much bigger. Lots more going on in it. I had to put it on the free standing frame because it is so big I couldn't keep it in my lap.

Just odds and ends today. This is one of my first rugs. I like to look back at my old hooking and I still keep this one out on my table. Life continues to be full of surprises at every turn. Thank you so much for stopping by and sharing my life. I appreciate each and everyone of you and each one of you continues to bless me.

Have a lovely day today,
~Kim~

I cannot endure to waste anything so precious as autumnal sunshine by staying in the house."

[Notebook, Oct. 10, 1842]”
― Nathaniel Hawthorne, The American Notebooks

A Perfect October Day

 

It is a perfect October day. It is cloudy, we had a front move in from Alaska last night. The song sparrows are outside my office door, singing and it is lovely and quiet. I have the doors opened and finally jeans and a long sleeved shirt. I imagine by the afternoon, it will be back to shorts and a T shirt but for now, it feels like fall. We still have unsettled weather around with thunderstorms in the forecast. Bliss. The Canadian geese continue to fly overhead. I am enjoying seeing all of the different birds flying through.

 

 Do you love Mums? I know I sure do, and this time of year, I start pining to plant some, I love all of the colors in the fall. Ron planted my sweet peas for me in the garden yesterday where my tomatoes were. He is such a better gardener than me. He worked manure into the soil and then worked it all in before he planted seeds. I am not very kind to seeds in my garden, I am more of the type of gardener that says, " Buck up there, you need to work hard to get down in the hard dirt to make yourself stronger!" That is why he always has such nicer, longer lasting gardens than me.

 

I hope your day is lovely. I fixed biscuits and gravy this morning for breakfast. This was a first for me. I just normally buy that package of gravy mix at the store. I have I am embarrassed to say, never made gravy from scratch like that before. It turned out perfect. So did my biscuits. I felt pretty happy about it. We don't normally eat like that anymore, but today just felt like it needed a celebration of some kind for the lovely weather.

Happy Sunday!
~Kim~

The irony is that the more we fight age, the more it shows. Paint on a 50-year-old face brings to mind a Gilbert and Sullivan comic figure. Smooth the cheeks, and suddenly the ear lobes and hands look out of place. Do we run around in October, painting the gold leaves green?
Karen DeCrow