Christmas on the Farm

Better late than never...  Thought I'd share some of my Christmas preparations and sights with you.

While digging through some boxes in the basement, I found these old poinsettia and holly sprigs.  Since this grapevine tree gets so much weather, I figured they'd be durable enough to dress it up for Christmas.

 

This love-seat rocker faces the drive, so I decided hanging the wreath on it would brighten this corner of the porch.

We have decided that this tree we planted last year will be our official outdoor Christmas tree.  It's a bit bigger than the one I had lights on before, so new lights are on the list for next year.

Of course, Sadie always has to supervise Mr J's projects, but she's not alone today.

Even the shrubs are dressed up for the holidays!

I love my fiber-optic tree... no ornaments.  I just plug it in and enjoy the colors.  And I can see the outdoor tree through the window.

Mr J's lodge has an annual Christmas party with Santa.  Grands #1 and #2 are too old for this kind of stuff, but #3 and #4 love it!

And they still love camping out in the living room!

The older girls love exploring the woods.  I think they made the mistake of letting Sadie lead the way and came out in a big mess of hedge apple trees... OUCH!

...and no gate!  Luckily Mr J keeps a wide path cut all along the fences.

Even though we didn't have a white Christmas, the days following were spotted with snow showers.  Here's one we drove into taking the grands home.  I took this because it drives Mr J crazy when I pull out the camera in the car!

I agree with Dorothy... There's no place like home.  I love our driveway at night.  I'm always looking for the deer in the headlights.

The snow seems to be getting deeper as we get closer to the creek.  I can tell we're getting close to the house...

I can see the little Christmas tree.  And since we've no place to go...

Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow!

Wooden Spools and the Pickle Jar

Hello, I'm back!  Hope you've all had a wonderful Christmas holiday.  I've been quite busy and haven't posted in a bit.  Some of you noticed.  I have quite a lot to catch up on, so I'm going to break it up into several different posts.  Today, it's recycling because this happens to be the first picture taken since I last saw you...

You know how I love these old spools.  They come in handy for so many things around here.  These are super heavy, with double two-bys on each end.  When sitting flat on the ground, these spools are about bar height.  One of them is going next to the high side of the pool.  I'll probably add some weather-proof stools and an umbrella.  Look for the finished project some time this century.

A fellow country person saw these and said that he knew a guy that used them for quail pens.  He cut a large hole in the center for a shelter, and then covered the ring with wire.  So now Mr J wants to raise quail!  Geesh!

This is a project I'm working on now.  (Yes, after Christmas.)   I found this small tree skirt while putting away some Christmas stuff.  It fits perfectly over one of our smaller wooden spool that I use to elevate the tree.  Plus, I'll have secret storage during December!

The gold thing is the base of our fiber-optic tree.  I will be cutting away the skirt from the center so that the fabric doesn't get too hot from the bulb in the base.   If you enlarge this one, you can see a small hole where the cord for the base comes through.  It was already in there!  How perfect!  I will stain the wood in the center and put edging on the skirt where I cut it.  I'll try to remember to post a picture of it when it's finished.

We haven't yet finished the walls in the basement.  Mr J wanted storage for his pool table supplies.  He added a few drilled holes and some left-over paint...

The smaller spools are from our fence wire and rope.  Being the perfect size for a five and three-year-old, these have been claimed by the youngest grands as stools.  I guess I'll pretty them up and upholster the tops to match the living room decor.

OK, I did promise a pickle jar...

I've been relearning to knit and crochet.  I had one skein that would not pull from the center, so I had to pull it from the outside.  (Knitters will understand.)  I don't like tossing the yarn around, especially when their are shedding animals in the vicinity.  I remembered this pickle jar.  A full 5 or 7 oz skein fits perfectly and feeds out very easily, keeping the yarn clean and tidy!

I love reading blogs about how you all have recycled items that would otherwise be tossed in a landfill.  To me, finding a way to use old items is a fun hobby.  Let me know about some of your favorite repurposing.

Non-white Christmas

I really, really wanted a white Christmas.  The tiny bit of snow we had a few days ago is all melted.  Today's forecast was rain, followed by rain.  I was watching the drizzle when suddenly the sun shone brightly.  I ran to the other end of the house with my camera...

I guess God felt bad about me having no snow.

I think a full rainbow on Christmas is kinda cool!

Merry Christmas to all...

My Remarkable Hand

In a recent post, Hey, Yogi... just call me Booboo!  I made a reference to a MySpace posting about my hand.  Leslie, over at My turn to talk and My turn to rant, requested that I post the entire MySpace essay.  So, in the giving spirit of Christmas, here you are, Lesley...  the entire story from March of this year:

 

Today started out typical, until I heard the BOOM!  Well, come to think of it, that was pretty normal too.  My mother-in-law fell again.  She gets very impatient and forgets she can't always walk.  WHile trying to make it four feet to her stash of peppermints, she fell and hit the back of her head on something and got a nasty cut.  Hubby called me to help.  That's when I found her sitting in the floor with the back of her head wet with blood.  After locating the source of the bleeding, I held the heel of my hand firmly against it while she sat pleading with me to have Hubby and my father-in-law pick her up.  With both of them having previous back surgeries, she had no choice but to wait on the ambulance.  Besides, she hit hard enough that perhaps we shouldn't be moving her around.

The ambulance cresw arrived (a few familiar faces) and carried her off to the local emergency room.  After the CT scan showed no problem and she got a couple of souvenir staples in the back of her head, Hubby brought her back home.

During this ordeal I got a message from my daughter.  It seems Grand #3 was running a temp of 104 and shaking!  Her preschool called Mommy and Daddy at work.  Daddy was on his way to pick her up and take her to the doctor.  I was going to be in Middletown anyway for the choir concert (Grand #1) so I would get to see her and give her a dose of Nana!

I drove Dani home after the concert to find Grace still running a fever.  Her body was like a hot roll right out of the over.  She crawled into my lap and wanted to give me one of her squeezy hugs.  She wrapped around me and laid her head on my shoulder.  I put one arm around her and my other hand to the bafk of her head and rocked her as I always do when she's feeling lousy.

It dawned on me that the hand that applied pressure against the wound of the seventy-seven-year-old woman in the floor was now the hand that cradled and comforted the four-year-old with the fever.  I stopped typing just now to gaze at that hand... that hand I take for granted every day.  It's remarkable.  My God is so amazing!

Christmas Has Gone To The Dogs!

Dogs Decorating A Christmas Tree

Think Tiger Has Too Many Chicks?

Mr J and I have neared divorce over his chicks!  It's not that he has the chicks, or really even how many he has...  It's that he's let them run wild around here!  Imagine the grief it would bring to Elin  (and my heart truly goes out to her) if Tiger let his chicks run wild around the mansion, like Mr J or this guy...

OK, maybe it's not the same, but I've also experienced tremendous grief.  Just take a look at the destruction Mr J's chicks have caused in my territory!  (click to enlarge any photo)

  I had started some young plants here to fill in the open space.  They're gone now.  The border and decorative rocks are all but buried in the mulch, while the barrier that's suppose to be buried has been pulled to the surface by the nasty birds' scratching.

Let me interject here that I do not like chickens.  As much as I love animals, I do not consider chickens in the same catagory.  I do not like chickens.  I love fresh eggs.  I like chicken.  I do not like chickens... plural...  as in alive and running around outside my house!

See the big hole right smack-dab (whatever that means) in the middle of my lemon thyme?

No, I didn't put the hole there as an architectural element.  Those dad-blame (whatever that means) birds did it!  They dug holes in the centers of most of my plants. 

My red sedum has suffered the most damage.  Just look at this...  

See the big bare spots?  ...the chunks of bark laying about?  This sedum is much more prone to breakage than the thyme or other plants.  Here, the chickens have removed every bit of it that was above ground.  Fortunately, it is hardy and will probably grow back. I'm really hoping the white spots are just some left over snow flurries that managed to snuggle into some shadowy crevices.

In this corner of the sidewalk and driveway, I had a nice clump of Japanese blood grass... had being the operative word here.

Notice again the revealed weed blocker, and the way the mulch is scattered over the jelly pebbles.  The mulch used to be just around the grass and on the other side of the border rocks.

Now that I've told you what my garden used to look like, let me tell you what the chickens used to enjoy... running free.  They are still free-range.  It's just that their range is smaller than it used to be.

Here is what they used to have...

The big hen house is in the foreground.  The north end of their pen runs between the little red house and the horse trailer.  (That's Benji coming up the drive.)

In this photo, you can see a distinctive line in front of the hen house, but behind the waterer that is sitting on the pile of bricks.  (keeps the water cleaner)

 That is where the fence used to be.  We extended their area up almost to the barn, as seen in this next shot...

Their area actually goes past the side of the barn.  Mr J has a compost pile over there.   It is like a five-star restaurant to the chickens.  So now they have free access to it.  It's full of little critters they eat.

On a sad note, Mr J has lost one of his hens.  She was a beautiful golden lace.  We don't have a clue why she died.  Mr J wonders if she got into something there in the tall grass by the barn.  FIL has dropped a lot of nails around there and Mr J found some broken glass. 

Here is a close-up of the feathers on another golden lace hen...

He will miss her...