Yard Work and Such

After I wrote my post last night, I decided I was going to get some yard work accomplished today. Well unless it was raining, which it wasn't at all. It looked like this.

 

A blue and white puffy cloud day. With this nice fresh air and it felt wonderful to be outside.

I told you that this was going to be a project. Here is it now. A little before and after.

 

Sasha likes nice clean places. Isn't it nice? Now, ask me if Ron and I can move? Or stand up
or walk. We sound like old creaky gates. I hula hoed down the driveway. He decided to take the weed
eater and strap it to himself and then he raked piles while I was cleaning down the driveway and when I got
that done I came and raked and picked up piles. Elliot mowed the lawn and Ron got out the tractor and did a little tractoring and I have my first square. I have to break every thing down in squares and that way I can work and get every thing done in that square. Don't ask me why this works for my brain, but it works and I tell Ron I could conquer the world if I could do it in squares.

Then of course, it started raining. It didn't last long and we are back to a puffy cloud day.

While I was dragging a trash can through the front yard to get to the side yard, I passed my very weedy
flowerbeds. Look what I spotted.

Isn't it gorgeous? I think it is a Freesia. Just growing there pretty as a picture.

I do like surprises in my flowerbeds. I had no idea when I planted these, I don't remember them from last year but I must have planted them for Emilie's wedding.

I do wish I could work like that eight hours a day. A gardener broke down in front of the house when I was taking the trash can out to the road, you have no idea how I wanted to ask him since he was already broke down would he just like to grab his weed eater and go to work? I didn't. I just hobbled back down the driveway to put up tools.

Now I have to stand up and start making sounds like I am cooking dinner. But the way I look at it, spring training started today. Now onto March!!!

~Kim~

 

" Who bends a knee where violets grow
A hundred secret things shall know.
---A Charm for Spring Flowers," Poems Rachel Field, 1957

A Weekend Post

 

Today I drove down this road that is next to the almond orchards. I thought they would be in fuller bloom, but it did cool off this week. It still smelled heavenly.

I took out the road, but it makes it too small.

I used to live over here and we always had a good garden and fruit trees because there would be so many bees in the orchards. Out here, where we live now,  we just don't have the bees, just the little wild orchard bees.

I got my store all filled up this week on Etsy. I added new rugs. 

Pattern by Bird in Hand Primitives

Mother Earth by Maggie Bonanomi

I know it is early for pumpkins, but I needed stock in my store. So I just added it

.

It is a Kessie Pattern

Sharon Smith Mrs. Rabbit

I feel like since this is a cold weekend I will sit with this giant of a rug on my lap and bind it.
I have my current rug, and I am still deciding if I like it or not.

Another Kessie Pattern.

I took some photos today. I will show you a couple of pretty ones, and then my nightmare picture.

A Lupin, There used to be so many out here. I was so happy to see this one.

My secret nightmare. The whole darn place has weeds like this. Millions of them. I panic now when I go outside and I am sick at my stomach because do you know how many hours I will be working to get it looking like this:

 

Now you know the secret behind my fear of spring. Aw well I have done it so many times before, I can do it again. It just seems like such a long , long way down that fence row. It is just as bad the other way.

 

I just had to show you this table with this rug on it. I really, really love my table.

I hope you have a wonderful weekend.
~Kim~

February 10, 2015

My thoughts on marriage.

"Being married is a gift. It is ordained by Jesus, it is the picture of Jesus, the bridegroom, and
the church is the bride."
"Marriage is a total surrender of self. This means sacrifice. There is nothing about a marriage that self sacrifice won't heal. Give up your right to yourself. Take up your cross daily. Follow Me, ( Jesus)
Daily choosing to be loving, leaving, cleaving and being one flesh...Daily.
---I was being a hard hearted wench and needed to get my brain back in the game. ---

Thinking On Thursday

 

I have no idea where this week has gone. It is more like Whew!!! Is it Thursday already? Has your week been like that? I think we must have won the skunk battle. No new digging for over a week now. Unless of course, the skunk was/is a momma skunk and she has had babies, and just hasn't ventured to the outside world. I still go out and put the chickens to bed every night. I am the worst coward, because I forget about locking them in, five days out of seven. I forget to go out when there is light in the sky, and have to take a flash light with me. I have this vision of me walking up on a skunk and it getting me. Then having to stay outside in the cold, buck naked while Ron spays me down with skunk deodorizer and then drip drying and then getting washed in the hose.

There is no way I would come in the house and have that smell everywhere. So far though, I haven't seen one face to face.

 

I have been hooking and binding rugs all this week. I can tell it has been a lot as my hands woke me up this morning aching. Or it could be the change in weather. We have some more storms coming to us. We are almost at our yearly total for rain. Hold on to your seats. Here in the town I live in, we have had 4.11 inches of rain. A normal year, is 4.19 we are right now 98% of normal. I was very excited to see that. With the next couple of storms we might be ahead of the game. I thought you would be excited to see how little rain we do get compared to other places. It is after all a desert. albeit, a blooming one.

 

I was driving this week, the almond orchards are almost in full bloom. It is so pretty to see when they are blooming and the petals are drifting down like snowflakes and the ground is white with the blossoms.  I need to go back and take pictures of them. In the movie McFarland, they did a very nice job I think of portraying the central valley and how it looks when you drive the 99 Freeway.

 

 It is almost time to change the calendars. We will get winter next week after all of the warmth we have had for February. I am glad to get a bit of rain and snow in the mountains. I hope you have a lovely Thursday.

~Kim~

 

" Change is a fine thing; growth is necessary in our ideas, our institutions and our way of life. And
yet I think we should be very careful not to become a regimented people, and not to discard the value
of individuality."
---The Book of Stillmeadow, March, p. 112
Gladys Taber

Rainy Days and Mondays

Happy Monday!

We had lots of nice rain last night. I could only think of the song Rainy Day and Mondays and that poem called Rain in the night. I thought it was a good day to revisit it. I hope you have a wonderful Monday.

Rain in the Night,
Raining, raining
All night long,
Sometimes loud, sometimes soft,
Just like a song.

 

There'll be rivers in the gutters
And lakes along the street.
It will make our lazy kitty
Wash his little dirty feet.

 

The roses will wear diamonds
Like kings and queens at court;
But the pansies all get muddy
Because they are so short.

 

I'll sail my boat to-morrow
In wonderful new places,
But first I'll take my watering-pot
And wash the pansies' faces.
---Amelia Burr---

 " How precious is Your lovingkindness, O God!
Therefore the children of men put their trust
under the shadow of  Your wings."
(Psalm 36:7)