In Our Neck Of The Woods (Part 2)…

I’m sorry it’s taken me three and a half weeks to get around to posting part two of my original post, but life has been busy!  I only thought the month of May was busy, with all of its celebrations. Then came the month of June, with Father’s Day, an anniversary, and our garden kicked into high gear. I’m here to tell you, things got a little bit crazy in our neck of the woods!

Before going forward any further, let me back up a bit to the month of May and show you one of my favorite Mother’s Day gifts.  My daughter-in-law has a good sense of humor, don’t you think?

I’ve named this little lady “Bertha Big Butt” and we’ve gotten quite a bit of enjoyment out of her, so far…  For the first few days, everyone thought “Bertha” was me–bent over and tending to my flowers 🙂 Actually, I do have a polka-dotted dress…but it’s blue.

Come to think of it, “Bertha” reminds me of a story [our former pastor once told] about the lady who came walking into church, one day, with the her dress accidentally tucked into [the back of] her girdle!  Heaven forbid!  The other day, I was actually headed out the door, to church, when Ed told me to turn around and look in the mirror.  Yep, you guessed it–my dress was tucked inside the back of my undies 😦  Thank goodness for observant husbands!

Let me back up a little bit further and show you one of the cute little wrist corsages the children [of the church we’ve been attending] made for the mothers of the church, for Mother’s Day.  I thought they turned out nice.

I was invited to help with this project, and I enjoyed having lunch with the ladies, getting to know them, and helping the children create these corsages.

Now, fast forward to the month of June, and the week before Father’s Day and our 45th wedding anniversary.  I felt lousy almost the entire week, but on Thursday I finally rallied…just in time to take a beach trip!

On the spur of the moment Ed and I threw our beach chairs into the back of the van and headed for St. Simon’s Island–totally unplanned.  We had a great time, celebrating our anniversary a few days early.  We ate bar-b-que sandwiches for lunch, and spent the afternoon relaxing under the shade of our favorite oak tree.  I didn’t take a single picture, but the view was still the same.

Ed and I celebrated our 45th anniversary (and Father’s Day) in church, on Sunday, June 18.  Without God’s mercy, Ed wouldn’t even be here to celebrate with me, so there was no better place for us to be than in church.  We drove to the nearest Kentucky Fried Chicken restaurant, after church was over, and enjoyed our traditional anniversary meal together.  Later, we drove home and celebrated Father’s Day, too.  It was a busy day!

Suddenly, the day after Father’s Day all of our garden was ready to harvested!  We’ve never had this happen before, but our corn, butter beans, tomatoes, and peas were all ready to be picked and canned at the same time!  Ed and I worked several twelve to fourteen hour days in a row.  At night we fell into bed, exhausted, and this is what my kitchen has looked like for over a week:

this table has been totally filled, twice, with rippening tomatoes

Day one – ( 2 of the 7 buckets of corn we picked)

day four – some of the 3 bushels of butter beans we picked and shelled

more butter beans and the first of the peas

We’re well into week number two, and we’re still picking and shelling peas, as well as canning tomatoes as they ripen!  Our green beans and some of the tomatoes may have drowned, but the rest of the garden not only survived, it has produced beyond our expectations. I promised God if He blessed us with a good harvest, we’d share the bounty, and we have.

We’re so grateful to our daughter and our granddaughter for their help in shelling all of these peas and beans.  One day, the four of us sat and shelled beans for six straight hours!  We all went to bed with sore thumbs.

Things are now winding down with gardening and canning, so the end is in sight!  A few more days and the spring gardening season of 2017 will be history.  Did you notice I said “spring gardening season”?  The fall gardening season is already underway.

Ed already has two rows of sweet potatoes planted!  We’ll be adding a few more things to the fall garden as the summer goes on.  Oh, and our grapes will be ripe around the last of August!  It’ll be time to break out the jars and make a little grape jelly. The fun never seems to end in our neck of the woods 🙂

 

 

 

A Summertime Hodgepodge…

1. The first day of summer rolls in later this week. What are ten things you’d put on your list of quintessential summer activities? Will you try to manage all ten this summer?

I’m not sure I can list ten things, but here are my favorite summer activities: (1) sitting under my favorite oak tree at St. Simon’s Island while admiring the view (of course!), (2) buying a new beach ornament for my ‘year round tree’, (3) having a family cookout, (4) picking blackberries and making jelly, (5) watching the hummingbirds feed, (6) making/eating a BLT made with home-grown tomatoes, (7) making fresh flower arrangements with zinnias/sunflowers from our garden, (8) picking, cooking, and canning a variety of vegetables from our garden and (9) celebrating our wedding anniversary.  (I almost thought of ten!)

 

home-grown tomatoes

Celebrating anniversary #45

Flowers from the garden

Food for hummingbird

Blackberries for jelly

steaks

my favorite view

2. Do you collect seashells when you’re at the beach? What do you do with them once you get them home? What’s your favorite place to comb for seashells? How many of these ‘best beaches for hunting seashells’ have you visited? Which one would you most like to visit?  Calvert Cliffs State Park (Maryland), Jeffrey’s Bay (South Africa), Sanibel Island (Florida), Shipwreck Beach (Lanai Hawaii), Ocracoke Island (North Carolina), Galveston Island (Texas) and The Bahamas

I used to collect seashells from the beach, and display them in a pretty jar, at home.  I don’t collect them anymore, though.  I still display a few of my favorite seashells in a bowl and I hang some on my ‘year round’ tree, during the months of July/August, when it’s decorated in a beach theme.

I think the beaches of Florida have the prettiest shells of anywhere I’ve been.  I haven’t visited any of the ‘best beaches’, but I’d love to go to Sanibel Island (in Florida) or Shipwreck Beach (in Hawaii).

3. At a snail’s pace, shell out money, come out of your shell, go back into your shell, drop a bombshell, happy as a clam, clam up…which ‘shell’ phrase could most recently be applied to some event or circumstance in your life? Explain.

“At a snail’s pace” describes the way I move every morning when I first get out of bed.  I’m not currently taking Nsaids for my Rheumatoid arthritis, and it’s much harder for me to get up and get moving in the mornings. (Nsaids are very hard on the digestive system, and I’m trying to give mine a break) The struggle is real, folks.

4. What summer activity do you dislike? Why?

Here in the south, the temperatures hover in the high 90’s for most of the summer.  We also have these annoying insects called gnats and mosquitoes.  Therefore, I dislike any activity that requires my presence outside after 9 a.m. or before 7 p.m. unless it’s in a place where there are no gnats or mosquitoes.

5. What’s something you see as quickly becoming obsolete? Does that bother you?

A lot of things crossed my mind, but I’m going to say correct spelling and grammar!  Yes, it bothers me very much!  It’s downright painful to read some of the posts I see on Facebook.

Random:

This summer, there’s a new phenomenon happening in our little neck of the woods, and it’s called “Tattnall County Rocks”.  It all started with one woman and a Facebook page.  One very talented lady decided to paint a few rocks, hide the rocks all over the county, then post clues on her official “Tattnall County Rocks” Facebook page giving hints about where the rocks were hidden.  This activity has become very popular, very quickly, and people of all ages are now painting, hiding, and finding rocks!

Whoever finds a hidden rock, posts where they found it, and usually takes a picture of the rock. Then they either hide the rock somewhere else, or hide another painted rock to replace the one they decide to keep.  Then they post a clue concerning where their rock has been hidden.

It’s an activity designed to get children and their parents outside and moving–together.  It also challenges them to see what kind of rocks they can create.  What a neat idea, and it sounds like fun to me!

Our granddaughter and her mom went out and joined the fun, last week.  They found three rocks using the clues they’d read on Facebook.  They are currently in the process of painting more rocks to replace the ones they found, since granddaughter, Madison, wanted to keep the rocks she found.

A Flag/Father’s Day Hodgepodge…

 

Happy Wednesday!  It’s been a couple of weeks since the last Hodgepodge, but it’s back, and I’m glad!  As always, I’m thankful to our gracious hostess, Joyce, who keeps The Hodgepodge up and running.  Here are today’s questions:

1. The Hodgepodge lands on June 14th this week, Flag Day in the US of A. Do you fly your country’s flag at home? Sometimes, often, or every single day? Have you ever visited the city of Brotherly Love (Philadelphia)? Did you make a point of seeing The Betsy Ross House? Have you ever made a trip to Baltimore? If so, was Fort McHenry on your itinerary? (where Francis Scott Key was inspired to write The Star Spangled Banner)

We don’t fly a traditional American flag, but I have two patriotic garden flags that I fly around Memorial Day and the Fourth of July.  Does that count?  I’ve never been to Philadelphia or Baltimore.  I’ve spent all of my life here in the deep south.

2. Red flag or white flag? Which have you encountered most recently? Explain.

Recently, I’ve encountered both.  Let’s just say someone else waved the red flag, and I waved the white flag, and let’s leave it at that.

3. Are you a stay in the car listen to the end of a song kind of person? What kind of person is that?

Yes, I’ll stay in the car and listen to the end of a song, if it’s one of my old favorites I haven’t heard in a while.  I’m not sure what kind of person that makes me.  Sentimental, perhaps?

4. What are some of the traits or qualities you think a good dad possesses? In other words, what makes a good dad?

In my opinion, a good dad should be “hands on” from the start.  In other words, one who’s not afraid to change a diaper, give a bottle, or rock a crying baby.  He should be patient, nurturing, loving, and unselfish with his time, but he should also be willing to discipline, when necessary.

I’ve just described my husband, Ed.  He changed our baby’s diapers before I did, and did his fair share of bathing, rocking, and feeding, as well.  This was a tremendous help to me, and helped him build an early bond with our children.  No matter how tired Ed was, he never said no when one of the children asked him to do something.  In fact, I don’t remember him refusing them anything they’ve ever asked of him, even now.  Ed even returned our daughter’s wedding dress, after her wedding was called off.  How’s that for a good dad?

What’s an expression you associate with your father?

I can’t remember any specific expressions, so I’ll just tell a bit about my daddy.  He was very devoted to my mama, and loved her with all his heart. He had a good personality, and got along well with everybody.  He had a tender heart, and cried easily.  He also had a ‘green thumb’ and could grow a beautiful vegetable garden.  One funny thing I do still remember about him was, upon first hearing the term “chicken fingers” (strips of breast meat) he thought they were talking about actual chicken fingers 🙂  Daddy passed away 26 years ago, following a long illness, shortly after his 65th birthday.

5. What’s one rule you always disagreed with while growing up? Is that rule somehow still part of your adult life? Is that a good or bad thing?

I can’t think of a single rule I disagreed with while growing up.  (I’m a ‘rule follower’ at heart.)  My parents actually gave me very few rules to follow. I had to clean up the kitchen every night, take care of my bedroom, and, occasionally, I had to help clean the rest of the house.  That was pretty much it.  Oh, and I had to be home from dates by 11:30–but Ed could stay at my house as long as he liked because our time together was so scarce. (Ed was in the army, and wasn’t around much)

Random:

us, with the pastor who married us

This coming Sunday will be Father’s Day, but Ed and I will also celebrate our 45th wedding anniversary on that day.  Yes, we married on Father’s Day, 45 years ago, just three short weeks after Ed was released from the army and I graduated from high school.  I’m so thankful to God for bringing us together!  We’ll be celebrating with our customary trip to Kentucky Fried Chicken (and the beach).  We’ve been celebrating anniversaries with KFC every since our wedding night–when the store manager gave us our first meal as husband and wife for free.

us, last year, with our complimentary gift bucket from KFC

In Our Neck Of The Woods (part one)…

It’s been a while since I’ve written an update post, so I thought I’d write about what’s been going on “in our neck of the woods”, so to speak.  There’s a lot to write about, so this will be a two-part post.  In hind sight, I probably should have entitled this post, “The Merry Merry Month of May.”  We did a lot of celebrating!

We started out the month of May with a birthday celebration.  Our oldest son turned thirty-five, on May 10, and we celebrated–twice!  His wife hosted a family party over the weekend, then we gave him a second little party on the following Wednesday night, at church.  Both celebrations involved good food and fellowship.

the birthday boy, flanked by our grandchildren

This year, we celebrated Mother’s Day at our daughter’s house.  She really went above and beyond getting ready for the occasion.  She spent almost a week decorating for the occasion, and everything looked so nice for the occasion.  I really wish I’d taken a few more pictures!

one of several displays  (that’s Ed and me with our moms)

I think our daughter enjoyed having company in her brand new kitchen, and we sure enjoyed eating the delicious food there!  The menu was bar-b-que chicken, with all of the trimmings, and it was a group effort, so everyone contributed.  Here’s a picture of me with my “babies” who aren’t so little anymore!

Mother’s Day 2017

I’ve forgotten the actual day, but somewhere around the middle of May, this little cutie graduated from K-4 at Busy Little Beavers preschool.  In case you couldn’t guess, the program had a western theme 🙂  I was so proud when Chase actually read a book, as a part of the program!  It’s good to start them reading early.

Chase was also awarded the “Busy Little Beaver” award, which is the equivalent of a “Principal’s Award”.  We’re very proud of our little Chase, who’s not-so-little, these days.

Of course, Memorial Day wasn’t far behind Mother’s Day, and, once again, our daughter offered to host the family at her house.  I appreciated this so much, because it gave me a break from hosting duties,  once again.

our hostess with her holiday table

We celebrated Memorial Day, a little early, with another cookout on the Saturday afternoon before the holiday.  The weather was beautiful, and we enjoyed being outside.

Ed and me, relaxing

watching the “grands” in the kiddie pool

watching some volley ball fun

Unfortunately, the Memorial Day weekend ended on a bit of a sour note when our son-in-law came down with the stomach virus!  Our daughter-in-law has been the only other family casualty of the virus, so far.  We’re all still holding our breath!

Meanwhile, I went to the dentist, on the day after Memorial Day due to a mild, but persistent, toothache.  He couldn’t find anything wrong with the tooth, but he prescribed a round of powerful antibiotics, just in case it was too early to spot an abscess (on x-ray) or in case a sinus infection could be causing the problem.  Within two days my tooth felt better, but Oh. My. Word, the side effects of the antibiotics have been awful!!!  I’ve been nauseated for five days.  Thank the Lord, today is the last day of taking them.   Now, if I can just avoid the deluge of yeast that usually follows antibiotics!  I’ve been faithfully taking  good probiotics, so we shall see.  I’m also hoping my toothache will become a permanent, fading memory, otherwise, a root canal could be in my future 😦

There’s also been lots of activity in and around the garden, this month, but that’s a post I’ll save for another day.  Until next time…

Have a great Monday!