1909 Farmhouse - Our Life

Getting used to the silence~~

2011-06-30T17:54:00.002-04:00

This morning I had a bit of that old vertigo. As I slowly sat up, I remembered the last attack about two years ago....and that made me remember Murphy. On that morning, I sat up in bed only to fall completely sideways. Murphy, sensing something was not quite right, got up onto the bed and laid closely beside me until I could sit up; then he walked beside me where I could place my hand on his head to "center" myself. This morning, the attack was not quite so bad as to have me falling sideways; this morning, there was no Murphy there.

Two weeks ago, this would have brought tears to my eyes. This morning, I was actually able to think about my Murphy - picture him in my minds eye - without having to push the thought hurriedly away to avoid wrenching sadness. Its the same with our Indie. I can now almost actually look at a photo of the two of them without wanting to cry my eyes out. Now, I can sit for a moment and remember. I'm getting used to the silence. I'm getting used to having only two dogs gathered at my feet.

An almost silent house...

2011-04-20T13:30:00.003-04:00

I've spent the majority of the last four years of my life with three labs and a tripod; a rabbit, two to three cats and an ever-growing flock of chickens. The pets have helped me deal with the process of becoming an empty nester; all that maternal stuff that needs to have an outlet went to the animals and the noise of cackling hens, crowing roosters, purring cats, and panting or snoring or tussling dogs can replace the sounds of multiple teenage voices on the phone, tv's or radios blaring from various rooms in the house.

Funny how you get so used to noise that silence is louder to your ears then the noise is. Today, that silence is pretty loud. No Murphy panting. No Indie playing with Callie. And only the occasional chicken or rooster in the background because we thinned the flock last week (giving all our game hens to a friend leaving only Little Roo and his five reds).

Labs are known to their owners as "Velcro Dogs". They have to be as near to you as possible and in a group of several will push and prod and wiggle to achieve that position. This meant that whatever chair I sat in was not always stationary. Today, instead of my wheeled desk chair slowly being pushed to one side or the other because there are four dogs lying at my feet, jockeying for that place where they are actually touching me, there is only Callie lying there (King is upstairs somewhere). When I gathered eggs this morning and watered my veggies, only two dogs went out the door with me and trailed along behind me. This will take some getting used to.

There is a poem for parents about how they should cherish crayon markings on the wall and fingerprints on refrigerators because those who leave behind such evidence quickly grow up and out of your house. I wonder if there is one for pet owners who suddenly find their world filled with less of all that comes with those pets? Things like dog hair and water spills and frequent requests to go outside and the stampedes that sometimes took place while going out the door........

I pretty much gave up on dog hair free floors over the last four years - I learned to live with evidence that remained behind when one or more of the dogs tanked up on water from one of the dishes strategically placed throughout the downstairs. I learned to let the dogs go out the back door before me to avoid getting trampled. I used to get aggravated sometimes at night when one by one the dogs would come and ask to be let out instead of being able to stick to the outing schedule that they all followed when they were young and healthy. Last night, I kept waiting for Murphy or Indie to ask to go out one last time before bed....instead of aggravation there was sadness.

Today, the fact that I haven't vacuumed for two days isn't as obvious as it would have been three weeks ago. I haven't stepped in three puddles of water before I've had my second cup of coffee. I was able to half heartedly go back to the old rule of "I go out the door before you dogs" when I went to gather eggs.

I'll get used to it. Callie and King will stop moping around and I'll hear the sounds of them playing somewhere in the house. I'll get used to floors that won't have water spills all day long every day - that vacuuming twice a week or maybe even once a week will be sufficient. I'll stop bracing myself for the stampede that was always a part of going outside with the dogs. And also to the fact that my wheeled desk chair stays in front of the keyboard instead of slowly but surely being pushed to the left or the right..........

From three labs and a tripod to one lab and a tripod - in less than one month

2011-04-19T12:38:00.004-04:00

RIP Black Indie Boy - October 2001 - April 2011. We didn't get to spend your first three years with you and we spent a year undoing all the damage that was the result - but for the last seven years, you've slept where you wanted, had all the toys you could ever wish for, chewed through dozens of soccer balls and been one of the loves of our life. We will miss you.

Indie came to us the weekend of Hurricane Jeane in 2004. His previous owners were retiring to a place where pets were not allowed. They'd lost his "brother" to cancer a year or so before and wanted to place Indie in a good home. That home was not supposed to be this old farmhouse........

Our daughter was 21 years old and moving out for the first time. She and her friend Brandi were renting an old house in town and David and I felt she needed a dog for protection...and so Indie came to stay in the farmhouse for the three weeks we were painting and helping the landlord put in new flooring in that rental house.

There was only Murphy here then. He'd been with us since the previous January coming to live with us just two weeks before we moved here, but was already known as the Dog in a Million. We'd seen his intelligence in so many different ways - and as lifetime dog owners, knew that he was exceptional. We'd watched him reassure our Shanna when he came to live with us and watched him wait while she slowly let him take over her chores. But we were a bit nervous introducing him to Indie - we didn't need to be though..........

Indie was very very frightened the day Nikki and I brought him home. He refused to get out of the back of the truck - sitting there with a ball in his mouth and drooling terribly...for about 2 hours. Adding to the problem was the rain that was starting to come through ahead of the hurricane. Nikki sat in the truck with him and finally lifted him forcibly out and into the yard. David and I had Murphy in the front yard waiting for the introductions.

Indie came hesitantly along with the leash held in Nikki's hands. Murphy immediately sat down without being told. Indie, shaking, kept barking and growling. Murphy simply sat still. Then, he stood up, turned around, and sat with his back towards Indie. Indie slowed down the shaking and the barking and took a few tentative steps towards the sitting black lab that towered over him when standing. Murphy then laid down. And Indie came closer. Then Murphy rolled over onto his back exposing his throat to Indie. And Indie sat down. And the two of them entered the house.

Over the next few weeks, we learned that the hints we'd gotten that first day of his timidity were actually who Indie was. He refused to put the ball down unless he was eating or drinking. He wanted to be in his crate all of the time. After a few days, we had to resort to withholding attention unless Indie put that ball down. We learned that by nature, Indie was always timid. The ball and the crate were his security objects. He never went into a room by himself. It would take months for him to feel free enough to do so and almost a year before he'd put the ball down (to trust that we'd pay attention to him without him first having to bring us a ball). Our vet explained that this was all the result of excessive crate training.

The last day before Nikki's move, we took Indie over to the house to introduce him to it while we finished up the last touches before moving in the furniture. He was glued to my hip - shaking. We'd taken Murphy with us and he was all over the place - trying to encourage Indie to explore the house and the yard. Indie wanted nothing to do with any of it.

When it came time to load up and head home, I said "Let's go, Indie" and he raced from the bathroom just off the kitchen and out the front door, across the front porch and jumped over the bushes - hit the ground once and bounded up into the truck. Nikki and I just looked at each other...both knowing that Indie was not moving into that house with her. And so, the farmhouse became his home. He got to stay in the place that David called Doggy Disney World.

Over the next year, we worked very hard to help Indie get over his timid nature. Realizing that Indie's dependence on the crate was unhealthy mentally, we folded it up and put it away, but still he slept downstairs alone each night. It was time to teach him how to use those stairs---we got him up pretty easily but going down was a different story. I sat at the top of the stairs with him while Nikki stood at the bottom calling him. We reversed positions. We left him up there. Nothing would get him back down those stairs. And that is where Murphy comes in again....

Finally I called Murphy upstairs - he bounded up them. Then I said "go back down Murphy" and he bounded down them - Indie watching wide eyed, that ball in his mouth and drool dripping. Murphy turned around at the bottom and barked. Indie barked back. Murphy bounded up - then down...and barked. And Indie barked. Repeat six or seven times. Finally, Indie stood up and made his slow but steady way down those stairs - and up them at bedtime and down again for breakfast. He never ever would bound up them like Murphy or move down them with any speed at all but he learned.

Indie would never be a normal dog - much less a normal Lab. But, he was who he was and we all loved him for it. Although he learned that he didn't need a ball to get attention, he had other ways of getting it - especially after King and then Callie came to live with us. Whenever we came in the door from outside, he was always the last to enter...and then he'd lay right down in front of the door and your feet. You'd have to give him a hug and a stroke or two before he'd move the rest of the way into the house. When he felt he hadn't gotten enough attention for too long - he'd come over and sit on your feet. He was special - a mentally deficient Lab with lovable quirks - always silly but obviously very happy with his lot in life.

We've lost both Murphy and Indie in less than one month. Murphy to seizures that took his personality away and Indie to the effects of poor breeding and old age. Indie's hips went first about 18 months ago, then his elbows (both of which are genetic but with proper breeding of dogs that don't have the issues can be avoided). About a year ago, he developed a fatty tumor that we had to choose to ignore due to his age and the risks of surgery. And lately, his sight had begun to go. But Indie's personality? That was always there.

He could barely move - he slipped while going out and down the stoop steps - he hadn't slept upstairs in about 6 months or so (the steps that he never really got good at maneuvering were beyond his reach) - but at night as he and I sat in the living room watching TV, he roll onto his back and grin that doggy grin tail wildly wagging. Callie learned to bring him the ball and lay down to play with him or the rope to play a gentle game of tug of war. Every now and then, she'd race around the yard or the house to let off the steam that she used to let off with Indie running with her but then back she'd come to lay down and play with him some more.

I'd been putting off making the appointment for Indie. For some reason, it was harder than the call for Murphy. Murphy's personality was slowly disappearing with each seizure - we had had a long goodbye with Murphy - but Indie's personality was still there in full force. - every single silly, happy bit of it. I'd watch him struggle through the day and think "I'll call tomorrow", but then at night I'd see that grin and watch that tail and the next day would pass without me picking up the phone.

But last Thursday, as I watched Indie playing with Callie and watched him slip on his way out the door, I had a revelation. Indie was never going to lose that personality - in his mind, he'd aged as far as he would ever age. Excessive crate training, a lack of personal attention and not enough freedom to roam and learn about the world during his first three years of life had retarded his mental capacity. There would never be a day when he'd look at me, like our 15 year old Shanna did, and let me know he was ready. And to let him keep on suffering was unfair. I was doing it for me and for David and the kids.....and not for him.

And so, I finally made that call. I brushed him one last time. I told him how glad I was that he'd come to live at Doggy Disney World and that I would love and miss him always. And I will.

In honor of Our Murphy

2011-04-05T13:33:00.004-04:00

Two days before our cruise, we had to make the difficult decision that it was time to let go of our Murphy. The epilepsy that he'd been suffering with for the last two and a half years was getting the best of him. We'd had to increase the meds to control the grand mals and were now seeing liver damage in his test results. Each seizure lasted a bit longer and his recovery time was getting a lot longer (the last time was more than 2 hours of non stop pacing and barking). His rear legs were so weak that he stumbled up and down the stairs into and out of the house and often fell. My guardian dog, the one who was always at my back, had reached the point where the slightest stress caused mini seizures. The time had come.

Our home is a lot quieter now. I didn't realize that he made so much noise - panting, "talking", and always on the move making sure the house was secure when David wasn't here to take over the job for him. A dog like Murphy doesn't come along very often and we were blessed to spend the last seven years with him at our side. RIP Our Murphy.

Past posts about our Murphy.

Our Murphy

How King became a tri-pod

Cruising March 2011

2011-03-31T13:17:00.005-04:00

We were blessed to take our first cruise as a family just last week. It was the vacation of a lifetime - we got the call for an upgrade (with the difference between the cost of our original room and the upgrade going to charity) and were so lucky as to be in the Owners Suite on the Carnival Fascination. We made memories we will never, ever forget.

Create a Free Slideshow

The State of Our House part two

2011-01-30T10:26:00.002-05:00

There's a new table in the dining room and a bureau temporarily against the wall where the piano used to be; the guest room is painted and the bedroom suite is upstairs in the Master.......

There is still a spot in the living room where a chair should be.....but Papa's chair is coming "home". Members of Dallas' new church have been generously donating all sorts of things; things that include a recliner and a sofa and matching chair! So, I gently reminded him that since he really didn't need three chairs in that rather small living room there was a great big hole in ours that was perfect for that chair! And he agreed. We'll have to wait until we go to visit or he comes home, but its nice to know that chair with all its memories will be back here soon. (It's still Dallas' chair, we're "borrowing" it until he has room for it.)

As for the guest room - it needs a mattress set and nothing has been hung up on the walls as of yet. We decided to use some photography our friend John Binkley did for us a few years ago and we're waiting to get it all printed and framed and hung. We've chosen shots of the old barn and the ancient Ford tractor that hasn't been used in years along with a couple of other shots that John took for us. Other decor planned for the room includes some antique toy trains and various linens made by David's mother on her loom.

We found the "new" table on my birthday while we were actually looking for some bedside tables that would go with the "new" suite in the Master. Although we found several tables that would have worked, nothing really said "buy me" - mainly because I'm leaning toward using un-matching tables that will give us a "pieced together' look while David is thinking more traditionally.

After visiting several antique dealers in town, we stopped by at our favorite store "A Step Back In Time"; we always leave this one for last because 90% of the time, it is here that we will find exactly what we are looking for....even if we didn't know it until we saw it. Going in to look at tables for beside the bed, we found the perfect one for the dining room. We've shopped here for so long that the owners have become friends and they know that "scale" is the most important thing we have to think of when we buy something for this house. So when I mentioned that we would also be looking for a farm table in a few weeks and he simply said "go look in the back room" off I went and then David heard that "oooh" that means he's doomed.

Tucked away in that back room was the perfect table - scale just right, drop leafed, perfect color and not so valuable that four dogs, three cats and various visiting teenagers would make us nervous every time they were in the room. Despite the fact that our original idea was to put the farm table in the kitchen and move the current kitchen table into the dining room - this table was perfect for the little used dining room. While not being used for eating or serving, it is long and narrow with the leaves dropped... filling the room while not obstructing the traffic flow.

The dining room is actually a walk through room; you go through it to get to the living room. Unless the table is "just right" you have to walk around it. This table is "just right".

As is the norm around here, every project takes a bit longer than we planned and gets revised as we go along; the finishing touches always get put on hold as we focus on the other areas of our life in the country - from chickens to gardening to simply deciding that today the front porch is calling. Three weeks ago we were in chaos wondering how in the world we'd put this place back together; today I find that I can walk through all the rooms and see what they are to be in the near future.

So the update to the original post regarding the state of our house is this.... its getting there....and like that dining room table, it is close to being "just right"........I'll post some photos soon.

The State of Our House

2011-01-05T09:29:00.003-05:00

There is a missing chair in the living room and until yesterday there was a table top filled with Christmas decorations that needed to be organized and packed away until next Christmas. Dallas took the chair with him to Georgia and to his new house.....

Papa's chair went with Dallas.......

There is no longer a table or piano in our dining room. And there is an 1890's bedroom suite temporarily in that room.

These two pieces are also now in Dallas' house
(note the "junk" on the piano - that was from the office renovation)

At first glance the kitchen looks like it looks 11 months of each year but don't look in the cabinets just yet (with all the holiday cooking and multiple dishwasher emptying by folks who don't live here, things were not always put back in their correct spots....reorganizing the cabinets is on the "to do list"). The table that had another group of Christmas decorations has been cleared........

The empty bedroom upstairs now holds all the Christmas stuff and awaits my getting up the energy to get up there and finally get it all packed and away. And then get to painting that room so that the furniture downstairs can be brought upstairs....

In my younger days, the fact that this house is in such a state of disorganization would have driven me crazy. Now, after living in this (almost) constant construction zone, I'm so used to furniture being in the wrong place; I'm so used to only seeming to achieve 2/3rds of any particular day's "to do list" that I roll just a bit easier through it all.

But, David and I are both ready for a break from all the construction and the accompanying disorganization; this year we've decided that we will not undertake even one major project in this house. After this bedroom is painted and furnished again, we will go shopping to replace the missing furniture and then spend this year finishing up the little details around the house that await our attention. Only one project even remotely resembles a major one and that is the gazebo - we'll roof it and screen it this spring....and then enjoy using it while we plan Next Years Major Projects.....

The gazebo project started several years ago but left unfinished -
this year, its the only project on the list.

About that piano............

2011-01-02T15:05:00.006-05:00

January 1st 2011 - Our son Dallas moved into his first house. It comes along with his first "real" job as a Music Minister in a church in Georgia and will hopefully be where he stays as he finishes up his Bachelors and works on his Masters.

January 2nd 2011 - Back home after a yesterday's 12 hours of driving the U-Haul trailer up to help him move into that new house and be ready for Church this morning and then on the way back home picking up the Antique Bedroom Suite we bought to replace his bedroom furniture.

Reality hits.

Actually, it gave its first little tap yesterday while I was setting up his new kitchen. The Pastor was there and asked Dallas and his friend Mystie to sing something for him. As I listened to them just like I've done many times in our home on that same piano, I suddenly realized that by letting him take that piano - he'd never play it in OUR home again. He's the only member of our five member immediate family that mastered it. I tried. For years, I tried. But it is simply not my thing.

Dallas taught himself to play on that piano just like my brother Kirk taught himself to play on that piano. Almost everyone who has ever been to our house in the past 12 years has heard Dallas play it. Before him, there was Kirk playing every time he came to visit or Mom playing it just as she did when it lived in her house while Kirk and I (and Amy) finished growing up there. Ask almost any one of my high school friends and they'll tell you stories of my extended family gathered around that piano singing our hearts out.

This was his High School Graduation Party - he had disappeared - everyone else was outside -
I found him inside playing the piano all by himself....exactly where I knew he'd be.

Its old. It is permanently a half step off. It has keys that stick and keys that simply won't work any longer. Part of it has been stripped of the almost black finish that it had when Mom first saw it against a back wall of the store she was in, covered by an old blanket and then talked the owner into accepting $70.00 for it.

Its been through several floods - a few of my high school friends could probably tell stories of us being at my house with buckets after a downpour bailing out water from the garage that would become a Family Room a year or two later. Laughter with a touch of fear always accompanied us as we worked to keep that piano safe from the incoming tide.

It was wheeled out onto the back deck where David and I held our Wedding Reception 28 years ago so that 18 year old Kirk could play it while Struby played bass and two other teenage boys whose names I can't remember all played the music for our guests. I wish I had a video of the clouds that night as they threatened rain and moved so quickly and beautifully over us as we celebrated our wedding; or a recording of my mother softly praying all day that it wouldn't rain - please don't let it rain.

We haven't had that particular piano all my life. There were several. One of my first memories from childhood was standing beside my mother and singing "Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, Sweetest Name I Know" as she played piano. I remember the laughter as I missed the note on the third Jesus...badly...and how she softly sang it for me and had me do it again. I think I was about 4 years old. I know I was no older than 5 because that piano soon would be left behind as we moved to Germany for two years.

There was a piano in Germany too. We were always around that one as well but now there were young men stationed there who served under my Dad and spent a lot of time at our home. Some of them had wives; most of them didn't. I remember Rod playing "Come Home, Its Supper Time" as my mom called over the balcony down to the "common" below where Kevin played with other kids to tell him to come in for Supper. I remember Mom, Dad and Rod practicing "Its Not An Easy Road" to sing it a Church one Sunday. I practiced my first ever solo in that same church on that particular piano.

When we came back after three years overseas - there was another piano for the eight years we lived in Ohio (in three different houses~) then it was sold in a Whole House Auction as we prepared to move to England for another year abroad.

And then there was this piano. There was always a piano. Now there isn't.

Reality hit.....when I realized that Dallas wouldn't be playing a piano in our home.

As I listened to him and Mystie yesterday; I thought to myself "I shouldn't have let him take it - we should have gotten him another." But I pushed that thought aside and kept on setting up his kitchen. I didn't mention it again until the drive back to Florida - the look on David's face made me realize that he hadn't thought about it until that very moment. You see, he's been a part of my life now for almost 31 years - he's watched my Mom, Kirk and Kevin (when he was home and me and even Amy and my Dad sometimes sing around that piano. He's sat and listened to Dallas play it for the last 12 years. And now he won't...at least not in this house again.

It really is a funny thing - how a parent goes from believing they'll be devastated when their children leave home when those children are small to being ready and excited for them when the time comes for them to actually do the leaving. I spent the last two weeks reassuring my friends that I was fine about Dallas really truly leaving home for the first time. And I was - until that piano was played in that new home he left us for.....

The piano's new home

Let me clarify - I'm still fine about it all. He's doing what he was called to do. He's 24 and he's ready and so am I for him to be out on his own to do the final bit of growing up that only really comes when you are responsible for your own place.... for keeping that electric on and the water flowing and the phone connected....

He needed to take that piano with him...and I needed for him to take it. I knew that that big empty house he was going to would not really be home for him until he could sit at a piano and play. I would have been second guessing myself if I had told him he couldn't take it...every time I passed it as I walked through the dining room I would have thought - it belongs with him now.

I can always get another piano but why? Without someone to make music on it, what is the point? Dallas will come home to visit and he'll miss his piano and I'll miss the music but unless he's here to play it would just be sitting there. Its just the music....I'll miss the music that piano made whenever Dallas is in the house....

I miss the music already especially since he's been home for the past two weeks playing it off and on all day every day. But Mom still has a piano that I can hear HER play and when Kevin or Kirk are here we can all sing around it and I can pop "So Piano" into a CD player or listen to my IPod to hear Kirk play.....and the road to Dallas' house isn't all that long when I feel the need to hear HIS music. And when he comes home for visits? Well, its a good thing he plays guitar.......and that a guitar is lot more portable then a piano!

Christmas Day 2010

(And since Hunter plays guitar - they'll still be family making music together - just a little bit differently then in the past.)

Happy New Year

2010-12-31T13:52:00.001-05:00

Goodbye to the year of replacing both heating units on the 6th day; goodbye to the year of discovering that sometimes family members can choose to be greater enemies than a stranger ever could; goodbye to the year of canceled vacation plans based upon poor planning by an employer; goodbye to the year of needing brakes on both vehicles as well as new tires.........

and Hello to a new year filled with promise.......

99% complete.....

2010-11-01T10:10:00.006-04:00

I'm typing this in our brand new office....or least brand new in terms of its flooring since the uncovered walls have 100 year old siding on them (the paint color is new) and the ceiling is 100 year old beaded board (but with a couple of new coats of paint)....anyway, I'm a happy camper!

The "old" office - you can't really see it here, but you stepped down four inches when you entered the room - my desk now sits where those chairs used to be. You can just glimpse the Roll Top desk shoved into a corner of the room because of its size...

I knew that raising the floor four inches would make a huge difference to this room, but I underestimated the actual impact it would have on the how we view the whole of the house now - despite this room being a closed in porch it now looks like it belongs in a way it never did before. Not to mention that the insulation that now is between the sub floor and the new floor has made a big difference in the temperature of my usually bare feet.

As usual, the project went longer than expected - and as usual there remain a few items to be completed - like the crown molding and the framing in of the window - but my fear that we wouldn't be loading in until a few days before the rush of Thanksgiving didn't happen...again, I'm a happy camper.

We "borrowed" a few pieces of furniture from other rooms in the house...like one of the matching Lazy Boys from the Living Room....the plan was to put Papa's chair in here but that chair was built for a large man to relax in - it is perfect for Dallas who is built much like Papa was - but not a very comfortable chair for a smaller person to sit in and read for hours on a rainy Sunday afternoon. So Papa's chair replaced the Lazy Boy in the Living Room and I now have a perfect reading corner....the photos that hang now on this wall were borrowed from the staircase photo wall - temporarily. (The new window displaced a lot of the photos that hung there - once its framed in on that side I'll replace the photos in these frames with genealogy photos and hang these back up on the staircase wall.)

These photos were taken with my cell phone because it has a wide angle feature that my digital doesn't - so the quality is not as good as I would like - please ignore the glare from the lamp...that sits on the vanity table mentioned in the next paragraph....focus instead on the how the floor is now the same level as the kitchen floor and how I now have a perfect reading corner.....the more observant among us might notice that the valance hasn't been hung back up in this window yet - that's because the rod "froze" during storage for reno and needs to be replaced - I'll get to it....eventually.

An old vanity table that used to sit beneath a window in the Living Room now serves as an end table for that Lazy Boy....it was supposed to be temporary until I could find an end table at one of the antique stores, but I like it much better in this room....so I think it will stay.

There are now three bookcases where there used to be only two....with Dallas and Nikki now out of the house, we had an extra upstairs in Hunter's room - shoved into a corner where it really wasn't needed and didn't do much for the look of his room - so I dry brushed it to more closely match the other two and placed it in the middle of that matching set....its shorter than the others which created the perfect spot to put some of my genealogy binders that are too deep for anything but a custom made bookcase as well as some of the Civil War and Revolutionary War books that we have collected through the years. It's also deeper than the others and allows for the smaller of my binders to reside in it (rather than the old handmade set of shelves that I used before).

Another cell phone camera shot - a bit dark but you get the idea......the desk is directly across from these bookcases....which have empty spots for the photo boxes and smaller photo albums and additional genealogy binders that I plan on purchasing over the next few weeks - the plan includes getting all the hundreds of family photos organized and out of the various bureaus they currently reside in all over the house - and to get the genealogy paperwork out of the two baskets you see in this shot.....that's the plan anyway....

Perhaps the best thing we did was put the Roll Top portion of the huge desk into the eave and simply use the bottom of it in this room. This old Roll Top is huge and was perfect for our old house with its soaring ceilings and open floor plan...but it never really fit in this office. Dallas will get it when he eventually has a house so in the meantime, I have to make it work. Using only the bottom half of it allowed us to place it against the window wall...which in turn allowed me to bring in that Lazy Boy and vanity table.....but most importantly allows me to see out the windows as I putter away at Genealogy or work the DNA project, write letters, pay bills or whatever else I have to do.....(I can't wait for the Camellia trees to bloom...but in the meantime, I enjoy the hummingbirds and cardinals that flit around just outside....)

Finally, a view out the windows of the fields....

The new furniture arrangement even allows for the return of the printer cabinet that has been upstairs serving as a bedside table since we moved in....freeing up my desk top from having to hold that printer.....

As I said...I am a happy camper. I love this room. Maybe I'll get back to blogging more regularly now....

"Breadbasket of Democracy"

2010-10-05T13:11:00.001-04:00

This country is divided politically. Its not the first time, nor will it be the last. But, there is a lot at stake this time.....how our future will look to our children is the issue.... and its not just those social entitlement programs that are the heart of it all.

If a Conservative and a Liberal could sit down and talk long enough...if the conversation didn't end in anger.....they'd find they have a whole lot in common; there is a common ground between some of the better ideas of socialism and the freedom that is the bedrock of a Democratic Republic. Both Conservatives and Liberals agree that Corporations have gained too much power in this country in too many aspects of our daily lives. Both Conservatives and Liberals agree that we should help our neighbor in need. Both Conservatives and Liberals agree that special interests have too much control over not only our elections but also the pockets of the career politicians we have been electing. Where we really differ is in how much the Federal Government should be in our daily business as we go through life in our chosen state of residence and what the long term consequences of too much Federal power will be for our country...and how to control the corporations that have allowed us to enjoy so much of the lifestyle Americans lead today as compared to the rest of the world.

Today I read an article that, in my opinion, shows the reality behind what I just wrote. It's opening paragraph sets the tone of the article - "IN THE NEW RED-BLUE LEXICON of American politics, the Red River Valley of North Dakota seems aptly named. This is football-on-Friday-night country, where Clear Channel Radio sets the tone, and patriotic themes blend smoothly with corporate ones. Broad and pancake-flat, with topsoil measured in feet rather than inches, it possesses some of the most prized agricultural land in America. The roads run straight, the pickup trucks are big, and the immense Massey Ferguson tractors that ply the fields come equipped with global positioning system guidance, satellite radio, and quadraphonic sound...."

The article shows a tentatively held balance of power between Corporate Capitalism, Government control and the power of the citizen to be protected from the over-reaching of the first two. If you can take the time to read it all the way through, you'll see what most Conservatives believe America should look like...with Corporations aiding the citizens through employment, services and products and the local government doing the same but ultimately, decision making falls on the people who reside there. "Socialist" enterprise can be found there in a publicly owned Grain Mill rather than a privately owned mill and evidence of corporate activity exists but, at least where it concerns farming (and feeding the world) corporations are banned (they cannot farm in North Dakota). In other words, the state operates on a non corporate economy.

The real subject behind the article is genetically modified wheat by Monsanto, the makers of Roundup and Roundup Ready Wheat and Monsanto's attempt to patent the Wheat. There are a lot of articles that could be googled and read on the subject of genetically modified "life forms" and the attempts of the large corporate seed industry to infringe upon the freedom that farmers have historically had to "seed save" or "brownbag" from harvest to harvest. But, the entire article echoes the cries being heard at Town Halls across this country as we all realize that something must be done to protect individual rights while still allowing our national economy to flourish. Its about decentralized power of our government and also about reigning in the power that corporations have over us when the government sides with corporations over its citizens.

If you read the whole article, you'll see how Federal power tried to worm its way into the local scene...under George Bush, a Conservative and how a corporation tried to affect the economy of an entire state at the expense of the local farmers. A corporation had, it seemed, found its way to block the will of the state with the support of a Republican administration, peopled with career politicians. But, the locals fought back with Town Halls...its not quite over yet but there is hope that the locals will be the victors when all is said and done.

When all is said and done, centralized power in DC is dangerous. When all is said and done, too much corporate power is dangerous. Both infringe upon the freedom we are promised in the words "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness". When the greater good begins to deny those freedoms our Founding Fathers and brothers and sisters fought and died for, its time to go back to focusing on localized issues in our government. What is good for those in New York is not always good for those in the "Breadbasket of Democracy".

This article isn't just about our Democratic Republic and its economy...there are other things to be concerned about...like the ever increasing supply of genetically modified plant and animal life that is contaminating our food supply. While we fight over our national politics and disagree over global warming, there is a silent battle over our food supply being waged across the world...its time for all of us to start paying some attention. Organic farmers are being sued by corporations; our Federal Agencies are pouring non-pasteurized milk into the dirt while saying that there is nothing in our constitution that allows us to choose the foods we eat and the liquid we drink while allowing Dairy Farms to have diseases that are causing food born illnesses in our population, but hey, its pasteurized milk.

Its time to think local; its time for term limits; its time for public financing of campaigns. Its time to investigate what is really going on behind the national scene of our country....its time to band together politically and change our towns, our counties, and our states and then the national side of it all should begin to come together as well. One size does not and never will fit all....and the real beauty of these United States is the freedom to live in whatever town or county or state suits you best with nothing more than a change in Drivers License ... a way of life that we've enjoyed for more than 200 years is at stake with each new power grab that succeeds whether it comes from centralized federal control or multi-national corporations.....and so is our food supply.

http://www.homesteadersway.com/foodsafetywarnings.htm

BTW, you are aware that Monsanto produced Agent Orange right? Doesn't it make you wonder just a bit about Roundup Ready Wheat and other plant forms they're developing?

Read more about Monsanto:
http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Goliath_and_David:_Monsanto%27s_Legal_Battles_against_Farmers

a bit of history~~

2010-10-04T13:08:00.002-04:00

The first few weeks we lived in this old house were both wonderful and difficult. The biggest issue for me was that I have a touch of vertigo and the height of the bedroom ceilings took some getting used to. I'd get up in the morning and have to touch the bed frame until that little bit of dizziness passed; then take a few cautious steps until I adjusted to the confines of a 100 year old house that was nothing like the very open modern house we'd spent the previous 13 years in. It took about 2 months for me to be able to just get up and get moving in the mornings. Dallas, who has inherited the family's tendency for vertigo, had much the same issue.

The downstairs (with its small rooms) didn't affect my vertigo but I sensed that it could very easily have caused a claustrophobic feeling but for two things - the back porch had been converted into a mudroom with three large windows and the original front porch had been converted into what would be my office essentially adding an openness to the floor plan that hadn't always existed. I remember telling my mother that I wouldn't have been able to live here otherwise.

Our original intent in buying one of these old houses was to do a complete restoration to what it would have looked like when it was built; actually living in this one quickly made us realize that that would not be the path we would take. The hardworking farmers who built this house would actually have spent very little time inside it; it sheltered them from winds and rains but their days were spent outside working the fields by hand and selling their produce to diners and shops and at roadside stands and the sun going down found them seeking their beds and not spending the evening hours watching T.V. If they did relax in the evenings, it was likely on one of the three porches (maybe there was even a fourth that we don't know about) to escape the summer heat of Florida..it is unlikely that they sat inside a house without an air conditioner even during the extended days of spring, summer and early fall. Rooms were built for function, not comfort...they were built for easy heating and catching the breezes, and holding the light for as long as possible...not for inside living anymore than absolutely necessary. Enclosing those porches were modern touches and ones that I needed to remain intact despite our original intent.

The office, as I've written before, was actually the front porch and entry to this house when it was built. The driveway that now runs about 10 feet from that side of the house was a road that cut through the fields in those days. Sometime in the 1940's, the county decided that they wanted to put in a road going the opposite direction from the one the farmers used and so they used eminent domain to take some of the property that ran beside the house for that purpose.

The four families whose land they were taking fought it for a couple of years, but in the end the "man" won and the new road was put in. The three farmhouses most affected were then not facing the road. Only two of those farmhouses still stand today - ours and our farmer across the street; and both of them had front porches put on what used to be the sides of the houses. Ours went on pretty quickly after the road went in, but the farmer across the street only added his within the last ten years making do prior to that with the changing out of a "side" door to a more formal front door and stoop.

Although many of the old farmhouses had staircases to the second story on the outside of their homes, for some reason, our farmer had the staircase put inside. You entered the house from one of two exterior doors - doors that now lead into our kitchen on the one side and our living room on the other and then there was that window that we just uncovered that looked into the dining room at the foot of those stairs.

That old front porch and entry was simply designated the side porch and entry by our builder/farmer until the wife was an elderly widow living with her son. When her health began to fail and she couldn't make it up those stairs, they enclosed the old front porch to make her a downstairs bedroom. It was a simple job requiring only that one wall be built and although that wall was added, she never slept in that room. When her son died several years later, her grand nephew bought the house, covered the exterior siding with sheet rock and added four large windows to the exterior wall and used that room as a TV room; they left the original front porch floor in the room and covered it with area rugs. And the old stoop is still right where it always was giving us a glimpse of what used to be.

The room is an odd shape since it was a small front porch - its 9 x 16 - long and narrow and most folks who visited us were confused by its placement and its shape...they sensed that it used to be something else, but couldn't quite figure it out. And so we'd tell the story of that strange yet comfortable room and we planned to rip out that sheet rock and expose the history of the room - and almost seven years later we've done it. It is what it is - a former front porch, enclosed to suit the needs of the families that have lived here - with the siding and that window now exposed you know what you are walking into ...... and it is I think, actually my favorite room in the house.

Walking around deciding~~

2010-10-03T10:56:00.010-04:00

whether we liked that new paint color or not~~Actually, that verdict is still not in but we're getting closer. We like it when we're in the room and when we're looking at it from the door on the living room side of the room but, when we're looking in from the kitchen? Well, that's the view we're not quite sure works.

That first day of painting, we all loved the color despite its being a bit deeper then it had looked in the can. But the next day, after the walls were covered with their second coat, is when the uncertainty started creeping its way in. I knew immediately that it was that dark green bead board ceiling that was causing the issue but no way was I repainting that thing a different color, so we had to figure out how to make the wall color work or change it.

You can just glimpse the dark green bead board ceiling that is causing the issue with the paint color. The ceiling is visible from the kitchen but from the living room, you don't see it until you actually enter the office.

I knew we'd hit that point in decorating that you sometimes see on those HGTV shows....you know...when the homeowner says "I hate it" and the designer says "wait till it all comes together"....and so that's what I told the family while I secretly crossed my fingers behind my back. While the boys went off to Marching Band Camp and David went to work, I'd sit and stare at the room from the kitchen table convincing myself that I was right ... it would all come together...somehow...because I loved that wall color and knew it would look fantastic next to the wood of the bookcases, Papa's chair and my desk....and no way was I going through all the work required to paint that ceiling a different color.

I went ahead with the trim painting and it started to look better once the light green (that I've never really been happy with) was all covered with the new reddish one but still I was starting to think I may just have to sand down that bead board ceiling and paint it a much lighter color after all because no way was I losing that wall color.

And then, I moved into the kitchen and started painting the trim in there with that new reddish one and it started to work. And it hit me...the walls in the kitchen are Benjamin Moore White Sands and that was what was needed in the office to tie it all in, and I didn't need to spend days on that ceiling. We'll have to frame in all four corners of the office and put crown molding along the ceiling to cover up all the joins - when that goes in painted White Sands, it will break up the currently overwhelming color in that office; add in the ceiling fan blades and the blinds that are nearly an identical match to the White Sands paint, and we'd be fine. But I still knew that it would need another step to make it really work because of the view from the kitchen - it was just too jarring to the eye when you came in the house through the mudroom door and entered the kitchen.

Still sitting at the kitchen table, staring into the room while imagining the trim painted White Sands, the ceiling fan blades back up along with the blinds, flipping through magazines for inspiration, I made a decision. I decided that painting below the chair rail in the mudroom the same color as the walls in the office, will tie the mudroom, kitchen and office together for the eye of the beholder and avoid that "wow, you painted the office and I'm not sure I like it" look from those who enter our house. (And even better, it will serve to hide the evidence of the rough treatment the mudroom walls get from tossed shoes, backpacks, and dogs who shake off rain....).

Two years ago, I ran out of ideas for the mudroom walls and just painted them the same White Sands as the kitchen, but with the chair rail and moldings all going red. I tried to do a faux bead board look below the chair rail but it didn't work out; I'm glad that the office Reno actually helped me decide just what to do with those walls. (Let's hope it works out and I can tell the family that it "see...(it) all came together" - and uncross those fingers!)

And so, with the ceiling given a fresh coat of its dark green paint, with the walls painted and the trim painted, David started to frame out the floor in preparation for the new hardwood floor.

There's now insulation between those boards; before this renovation, the floor was the original wood flooring of the old front porch - no insulation at all...made for very cold winter days and a vast supply of slipper socks.

Which brings us to where we are with the room today. The floor is stained and drying; the finishing was supposed to take place yesterday but the rain put it off and now, today, I'm not in the mood to work in that office. So tomorrow the finishing touches begin on the flooring and then in two weeks, we'll get on the trim. We're hoping for a November finish to the room...but I'm not holding my breath...just as long as its done by Thanksgiving, I'll be happy~

This photo was taken after dark on Friday so the coloring is not quite right and the image is a bit blurry - but imagine White Sands trim up the corners....big baseboards (not the cheap modern ones that were in the room before) and lovely bookcases and soft lighting...that's what I'm doing anyway. Here's to being done by Thanksgiving!

About that office...

2010-09-30T12:31:00.003-04:00

I'm sitting here in the midst of falling sawdust; David is sanding away at that office floor that we laid three weeks ago and have just gotten back to. And of course, I'm kicking myself for all the cleaning I did yesterday in the kitchen because that sawdust has seeped through the covered doorway and is even now settling on all the furniture. After 7 years of life in an (almost) constant construction zone, I should have known better. But, I wanted to get ready for the fall decorating that I plan on doing this weekend while David's at work and H is at a band rehearsal and that decorating didn't include the spiders (and their cobwebs) that have crawled in and tried to make homes in all the nooks and crannies of this kitchen.

Despite the sawdust, I'm glad that we've been able to finally get back to the office; like most of the projects in the house restoration we have been living with, it has had to take a back burner to the rest of our life and has stretched out the time we had planned to get it done. While typically life slows down a bit during the daytime with the resumption of school, that didn't happen this time around. David's work schedule allows him two to three days off each week during which we normally make great progress on our projects, but he's had back issues and with a family member needing some help with a broken foot...not to mention Hunter's crazy schedule.. we're entering month three on the project. Yesterday, while I was cleaning I suddenly realized that I haven't posted an update on the work that has been done in that room, so over the next few days I'll try to post some of the photos that I did remember to take.

With an unemployment rate of 11 plus in Florida, and teens and college students being some of the hardest hit in our area, Dallas wasn't able to go back to his previous summer job so we put him to work earning his dinner here. He not only took over the yard work, but also did a lot of the deconstruction that goes on before you can get to the reconstruction that you really want to do. So, he and Hunter tore down most the sheet rock that our previous owners had put up over the original exterior siding:

David helped the boys in the early part of the job...we'd been waiting seven years to uncover an original window that we knew existed behind that sheet rock. Closing in that porch and adding a bathroom on to the house in the 1960's had meant that the dining room had no windows in it at all. We plan on putting one in the one exterior wall of that room, but that is down the road a bit. In the meantime, we couldn't wait to see how big that window was and to see just how much light would be let into the dining room once it was exposed again.

It was much bigger than we expected but then so was the light it let in....(the wall where you see the crosses hanging is where we'll eventually add an exterior window...the junk on the piano? ... all from the office so please, no comments on decorating style~~)

This next one is looking from the dining room into the office. The size of the window meant that we had some thinking to do about what we were going to put in it. The original plan was to put in a stain glass window from one of the local antique stores, but since these are steep stairs and teenage boys have been known to race down them and fall, well, we decided that stained glass would be 1) too expensive and 2) too dangerous.

The window was in just the right spot and will be just the right size for an elbow to go straight through it as someone tumbles down those last few stairs in their race to the bottom, so while David and I rethought it all out, the boys kept on exposing the siding. We didn't know what to expect...as most anyone who has worked on one of these old houses knows, opening walls can lead to all sorts of things. And we've already experienced finding cut joists leaving a bath tub basically hanging in mid air without support...so we were glad to see this when it was all down...

The siding was in really good shape considering it's 100 years old; we could see where pieces or sections had been replaced over the years, but about 95% of it is the original wood. Other than some caulking and wood puttying, there was nothing major to worry about. So, then it was on to just what was going to go in that window opening.

Several years ago, a friend of ours bought another old farmhouse in Georgia; there was a barn on that property where it seemed that every thing the family had ever owned and no longer needed or wanted had been stored. We helped a bit with the sorting of the things stored there and our friend pretty much gave his helpers anything they might be able to use. We took home a glass block window and have been storing it ever since. We planned on using it in the downstairs bathroom when we get around to rebuilding that room, but now, it seemed to be the perfect solution for that window opening. I did a bit of research to see when glass block had first been used to make sure that it wasn't completely inappropriate for this old house and our less than 100% faithful restoration of it. And then we placed it in and lived with it for a few days....

And decided that it was perfect...

It lets light into the dining room while still giving some privacy to the office and its a lot safer than stained glass.

Once the window was in (but still unframed) it was time to begin working on the walls; the boys puttied and caulked and sanded for what I know seemed like weeks to them and finally I was able to get in there and re-paint the bead board ceiling and the 100 year old siding.... and then, walk around for days trying to decide if I liked the new color we'd picked out....

More later.......

A clean house is

2010-09-18T17:22:00.003-04:00

a sign of a wasted life.....I don't know who said it...I've seen it around for years and I always despised it. Mostly because I had a job - an unpaid job - and part of that job enabled me - and in some ways required me - to keep a clean house and I was damn proud of it. And not only was I proud of it but it allowed me to end my days feeling relaxed and calm and not pressured by a disorganized mess surrounding me.

For most of my married life, I've been a stay at home mom. I've worked at various part time jobs through the years as our finances demanded or our children and their position in our lives allowed. I taught music privately and directed choirs and musicals and I performed; I managed a couple of insurance and/or real estate offices, led Cub Scouts and coached soccer, ran an in home daycare and even for a time, cleaned other peoples houses. And I kept a clean house. Most of the time.

So I resented that quote. I felt it belittled me as a a mother who chose to stay at home with my children rather than send them to daycare. We made sacrifices as a family in order for us to afford for me to stay home. And I felt "judged" on all sides.

If my house was too clean I was wasting my life. If it was dirty, then I was lazy because I didn't have a full time paying job outside the house. If it was somewhere in between (which it always seemed to be when "certain people" would drop in!) ...well, there was judgment in their eyes too (with their own unorganized, somewhat dirty houses justified by their paid job I guess.)

But that was before. This is now...after I tried and failed to implement and stick to my resolutions for this new school year. This is now when living with this many animals - two of them ill and old and making messes we didn't have to deal with in their healthy younger days - requires a lot of work. This is now when so much other stuff that isn't quite so noticeable requires my attention and time.

Now, I kind of like that quote. When I steal time in the afternoon to sit on my front porch with a good book or a magazine or even just to look at the hawks soaring overhead and ignore the vacumning that needs doing or the floors that look as if they've not been mopped in a month or the spiders that found their way into that same corner in the mudroom.....When I take a day to just run around with my husband checking out this new fishing hole or going dream shopping or just driving around to look at old houses....

Of course it helps that I have only one real neighbor and that most of my friends and relatives live so far from me now that they wouldn't think of just dropping in and catching me with a dirty house....

The Day After~~

2010-08-24T12:16:00.002-04:00

Did I mention that a relative had broken her toe? No? Well, one did - and so the first day of school was, for me, spent running errands for that beloved relative (who shall remain unnamed) with my niece~~ it topped off seven days of running around crazy trying to get it all done....! The rest of my day was spent responding to text messages from Dallas about college financing, dorm room assignments and the like and a conversation with a friend whose child is going through a difficult transition on top of beginning high school this year. And all through the long day, the back of my mind was on Hunter~ did he find all his classes? {Yes} Are any of last years friends in those classes? {for the most part, NO!} Did he know anyone in his lunch period {Yes}....and so on.

This morning I got to come straight home after dropping off Hunter; I got to have a cup of coffee in peace (after it took three tries to get the percolator to actually percolate!)...and then I dove into Hunter's room for its real new year cleaning....and boy was that fun! (Need I say more of a 14 year old's room?).

Am I still hearing a monologue in the back of my mind? Yes! Because today my youngest will not be through with school until 7:15 (marching band rehearsal).....its just a little bit different though from yesterday's....He found all his classes so that's okay; he'll make new friends and be okay; he'll have more than just that one friend at lunch soon and be okay.....and I trust that band director - so not seeing him until after dinner will be okay too......!

The new year is off and running - there will be some adjustment that I've been through before but am not really ready to go through again....those who've been through it know what I mean - that independent streak that's been making itself visible in my middle schooler is going to get bigger and more noticeable with every new day....!

My resolution? Embrace it, cherish it~~two have already flown the nest and survived it - this one will too....and so will I.

Happy New Years Eve~~

2010-08-22T07:05:00.006-04:00

No I haven't turned over the wrong page in a Day Calendar and no, you haven't misread the title - I said it, Happy New Years Eve...at least in my little world.

Tomorrow is the first day of school for both our boys; Dallas took off just a little over an hour ago for his last semester of college (maybe - it might take two) before he finally gets that Bachelors Degree and Hunter starts High School tomorrow. And for me, that means my New Years Day celebration is tomorrow.

I've never been much on the traditional New Year celebrations - now I AM talking about the one that falls on the first day of the calendar year! Nor have I had much use for New Years Eve celebrations. Growing up an Air Force Brat usually stationed far away from family and with parents who did most of their socializing in our Church, New Years Eve was a night of staying at home, eating something a little special, and well, going to bed near our usual bed time. I have not one memory of our actually doing anything on the Eve or even on the Day...until my senior year in high school (when my best friend convinced me to go out with her to Big Daddy's - a disco - gag - and I was so bored that as everyone else cheered the clock's ticking, I popped folks balloons with my cig ~~).

After college and meeting David, I did spend a few New Years Eves out and about and a few New Years Days doing something "special" but as the children arrived - as we took parenting on as our most important task in life - we spent those holidays in our own home - sometimes with friends and sometimes not. Mostly, I just took down the Christmas Decorations.

My memories of the real new year always are tied up with that first day of school beginning with my own childhood and then seamlessly, with my own children. New clothes, new papers, pencils, pens and folders; new teachers and new friends and more times than I was always comfortable in my own childhood - a new school and new friends. Getting back to a schedule and a routine; reinventing myself if I felt the need or the budding of a new interest and yes, making those "new year" resolutions.

So, as I gather up the energy this morning (after a week of sorting, locating and packing up Dallas in between the shopping trips, car registration trips and birthday celebrations) to venture up and clean the room that Dallas spent the summer in, I wish you all a Happy New Years Eve............

Life in a constant (almost) construction zone~~

2010-07-05T18:33:00.001-04:00

Getting ready to begin on the office; I've been to arrange-a-room at Better Homes and Gardens and figured out the new furniture layout and I have a pretty good idea of the paint colors to come.....but now, for me...its the really hard part - getting it all organized BEFORE we empty the room.

I've learned over the six years of almost constant construction to sort through things before we unload the room and find storage for a full room s worth of stuff for a couple of months - by the time the project is completed and we're moving the furniture back in, I'm too exhausted and excited to take the time to really sort...things I planned on throwing out, giving away or keeping in storage end up right back in the room.....

I spent today going through years of saved magazines...Country Living, Country Home, Hobby Farms and Hobby Farm Homes, Traditional Home and Southern Accents.....among a few others. I've been clipping out gardening articles, photos of things I like and recipes and then placing mags in the recycle bin. Next on the list is to fill binders with the articles and photos in protective sleeves....that's tomorrow's chore. And then, its put the bookcases here and the desk there and the chair in that room......and the wall hangings....well, I haven't figured that part out yet........And then its tear down dry wall and expose the electrical and lay the new flooring and.....

One last look at the current version of the room...........

Here we go again.................

Fathers Day 2010

2010-06-20T10:10:00.003-04:00

Hunter made scrambled eggs, toast, a pot of coffee and served it all with a delicious homemade blueberry muffin (baked by Dad yesterday!) .... all the while telling us not to expect much from the breakfast. Its his first year to do it all on his own - the last 2 years, Nikki and/or Dallas were in the kitchen with him...but Nik's out in her beautiful beach house and Dallas was leading the music at church this morning. While telling Hunter "its the thought that counts," Dad was surprised at just how good those eggs tasted.

Hunter's grown up a lot this past year - he's become the chicken master (the only one of us who can get those eggs out from under the almost constantly brooding Hecky Pecky without getting pecked) and learned to scramble up or fry fresh eggs for his own breakfast; he's "graduated" middle school and will head off to the high school in the fall (made the honor roll again I might just add with a bit of pride) and grown to be about 1.5 inches taller than his Dad. He's also doing his own laundry as of the first week of summer vacation - a "transitional" event from child to almost grown up. And as he made that breakfast this morning, I was a tiny bit sad.

David and I have been lucky - while most of our friend's children have grown up and out of their parent's homes, we've been able to extend our time with our adult children. By the time he and I were our kids ages, we had a mortgage and children and our parents were true empty nester's for the most part.

Looking back, I remember preparing for Nikki's tenth birthday and thinking "we've only got eight more years with her" (little did I know~~)....two years later, she's heading off to middle school and I 've got another baby at home ....and life sped up. When she entered high school, I only had a minute to feel sad before life wrapped me up in its busyness...Dallas followed her to high school two years later but I still had a little one at home and soccer games, and marching band practice, and football games .... life marching forward left me no real time to feel sad that my children were growing up.

And then we moved here. David and I were fulfilling a dream of our own, beginning to build the life that would be ours AFTER raising the two older children. It was a bit of a wrench leaving the house we'd spent 13 years of those children's lives in....but we knew better than to put our own dreams on hold for much longer....in those hectic pre-move days and then those even more hectic post move days of making this house our own, I had little moments filled with grief where my heart would speed up and my breath would catch and a tear would maybe squeeze its way out of the corner of my eye.

Dallas had to finish his senior year so he stayed in the old town during the week and only came here on the weekends; that summer he and Nikki were Camp Counselors at a YMCA camp and were only home on weekends - and Dallas headed off to college that fall. Those few moments where the grief of entering the empty nesting stage took hold on me were mostly because I felt we'd ripped his childhood home away from him at the wrong stage in his life - that he'd never feel that this was his home...only the place he visited his family occasionally. Although David never said much, he felt the same in quiet moments....At some point during that first year here, Dallas quietly assured me that this was his home because WE were here.....and I began to relax where he was concerned. Six years later, I know with all my heart that this IS his home, the place he longs for when life at school gets tough and he just wants to lay his head.

Nikki turned 21 that fall and moved out for the first time - little did we know that she'd move back in three times over the next five years....the final time being a time she needed to just lay her head and heal from some of life's harder knocks....and heal she did...surrounded by nature, working in gardens, learning to live with quiet and peace and finally, perhaps most importantly, learning how to enjoy her own company and listen to her own spirit.....with this last move out David and I could watch her go confident that our home - our love - had helped her finally be ready to really spread her wings and fly the coop.

Which brings me back to this morning, watching our baby cook breakfast on Fathers Day for the first time all by himself. I had a moment where I thought to myself "only four more years with him"......and then I remembered a few things.....

That turning 18 doesn't mean they leave home completely
-
That this is "home" where he'll still want to lay his head until he's fully prepared for life
-
That he's finally doing his own laundry, cooking some of his own meals, and that soon...he'll have his drivers license and can make those long runs into town for that thing we just can't do without until the next scheduled trip ....

and then I smiled.....and thanked God for a wonderful husband who was a great dad to our kids - and for the blessings he's given this house and the children He's allowed us to raise...........

Well begun is half done.....

2010-05-31T17:05:00.003-04:00

to quote Mary Poppins.......its a quote I use with my kiddos all the time. But, even though we always consider any job "well begun" it doesn't always turn out to be "half done"....or maybe it does and its just the second half that we have issues with.......it could just be that life in a 101 year old farmhouse with four dogs, two cats, eight chickens and four to five humans living here on and off requires constant upkeep (ask me and I'll tell you all about it).....and we do try to have a social life you know.

We emptied out the Harry Potter Cupboard under the Stairs on February 22nd 2010..that was the "well begun" part.....half done was probably week two (way back in March) and then .......life got in the way.....by that I mean that D came home from college, our camping trip came sooner than we thought, our garden starts took more time and energy then we planned for, April and May were filled with end of the middle school years functions and....well, I already wrote it...life got in the way.

The cupboard is painted and shelved, and the shelves are filled with various wonderful (and not so wonderful) things............but the floor hasn't been sanded and finished just yet. David and I got tired of staring at all the normally stored items spread out throughout the dining room and I got tired of not having sufficient storage in the kitchen (and with D coming home, that becomes a real issue with grocery shopping). So, we loaded it up and procrastinated finishing the job.

And so, we shut the door on our February 22nd - May 20th project (that was supposed to take 3 weeks or so~~~)..................

Next on the list (after we've caught up the yard work and completed the many May (done!) and June social commitments that fill up our calendar) is the office. We're insulating and laying new flooring over the sub-floor (it used to be the front porch years and years ago before eminent domain changed the side of the house to the front!) and we'll empty out that Harry Potter Cupboard then and get on that flooring....at least that is the plan.........

Maybe this time "well begun" will actually be "half done"......doubt it.

The act of letting go~~

2010-05-04T13:11:00.012-04:00

expeditious adj. Acting or done with speed and efficiency. (efficient adj. 1. Acting directly to produce an effect: an efficient cause. 2. a. Acting or producing effectively with a minimum of waste, expense, or unnecessary effort.b. Exhibiting a high ratio of output to input.)

preservation - noun- The careful guarding of an asset: 2. The act or a means of defending. protect - To keep from being damaged, attacked, stolen, or injured; guard.

When one is placed in a position of power, any power - whether it be by a simple act of trust within a family or group or whether it be by the laws of the land - there is a duty to act in a manner that honors the position and upholds the best interests of those over whom you hold that power. I've borrowed the terms and definitions shown above from a particular group of state statutes but they suit for almost any circumstance in which one person has control over a situation in which the outcome affects others.

In recent months, our family has found itself in a place where power and control were given to one person - and we've watched as all of the above terms were ignored for the personal interest of that one person entrusted with that powerful position. We've watched as the duties entrusted to one person were delayed time and time again; we've spoken to those with whom that person did business and learned that in at least two instances, they were informed that "time is of no issue" in the acts they were employed to perform. The first command in the honoring of the position - that of "acting with speed and efficiency" was ignored.

We've watched as the physical things placed under the temporary control of this one person deteriorated for a lack of maintenance as the letter of part of the law was followed while the spirit of it was ignored. That which was already in need of repair deteriorated devaluing that in which others shared an interest as the words of those who placed their trust in this person were twisted for defense of allowing the deterioration. The second and third commands in the honoring of the position - that of "preserving" and "protecting" were ignored.

We can only hope that eyes are opened and things change in the future - because we have exhausted our attempts to protect, preserve, and expedite what someone else was "trusted" to protect, preserve, and expedite. We have come to terms with the loss that will be experienced in this situation - most importantly the loss of trust and the the loss of any real hope of a future relationship. We leave this in other hands knowing that all that could be done on our part has been done; those who failed to listen, to heed, and to act bear that responsibility now if they choose to finally open their eyes and their minds to the truth behind the manipulation and lies.

There is freedom in finally reaching the point where you can say "I've done what I can". There is a peace in letting go of the burden of "needing to do something". Laughter can once again become part of the equation when you've reached a point of "letting go" and letting the One who is the true Power behind the situation take over............

Yesterday morning, as we drove about doing our errands discussing the fact that we'd reached the point where we'd begun the act of letting go, we had the radio playing quietly in the background - David suddenly turned up the volume and with a little laugh asked if I'd heard "this song" yet...... as the chorus came we both began laughing because it perfectly described what we'd like to do in reaction to this situation......imperfect folks that we are....

This post temporarily hijacked by an Imp who likes to stir things up and then slip away - I fought the Imp, but the Imp won........

There hasn't been much laughter regarding the situation we found ourselves in the last 8 months - it has been a time of mourning not only the loss of a family member to death, but the death of any hope of a meaningful relationship with the rest of the family....it was a relief to laugh together as we listened to this song..........

And with that, resolving to pray in the proper way, we now get back to our regularly scheduled lives knowing we've done all we can do................

Saturday's Storms

2010-04-27T12:00:00.003-04:00

David was out finishing up in the shed sorting through paint cans; I was inside finishing up the Corn Relish I'd just made for dinner; the clock said 6:00 p.m. - that was when it happened. It was a good thing that I was done with the chopping of onions and peppers - Murphy, my constant companion, always guarding my back, jumped about 3 feet and bumped into my legs.

Later, as we lay in bed with the windows open to the after storm breezes, we heard a tree fall. If you've never heard one fall slowly, it can only be described as the sound of a car turning on a dirt road in slow motion. David got up to see if it was one of our many pecan or cypress trees. It was too dark to see anything and since we knew it hadn't hit our barn, shed, coop or house, we went on back to sleep.

Yesterday morning (Sunday), our Farmer Across the Street called to say he's got something to show us and that he'll be needing our help with that something....so we finished up our coffee and grabbed our flip flops and headed across the street...

This cypress tree was planted by the grandson of the owner of our house as were many of the trees on our Farmer's property today. Our farmer's children climbed that tree and sat in its branches reading books and hiding from the many chores they faced each day. It was about 70 years old...and it was huge and beautiful and shaded a patio that held tables and chairs and a brick oven and barbecue.

Over the next few weeks, a whole lot of neighbor helping neighbor will be going on across the street - the calls have gone out and the chain saws and other tools of clearing out and logging the debris are being cleaned and readied. There's not much hope being held out regarding the rescuing of the furniture that now lies under that huge tree - but there's a shed that was missed by inches and house that was missed by a few feet.....and a lovely couple that will be getting a lot of extra company for a while....so all is well.

An unplanned break~~~

2010-04-26T12:49:00.002-04:00

Yesterday's storms did some damage - lightning struck an ancient cypress tree in the center of our Farmer Across the Street's back yard and took that beautiful tree down....right on top of his barbecue and patio seating. We'll be using the chainsaw and riding tractors to help him get it all cleaned up............photos later.

A Break from my Old Furniture series~~

2010-04-25T08:17:00.001-04:00

Our veggie gardens are planted; we got them in weekend before last - a bit later than normal but the chill that remained in the {not so gentle} breezes allowed us to procrastinate jumping into the busyness of our outdoor life for a bit longer.

We did a lot more planting from seed this year; in the past we've purchased a few packets of seed but the majority of our veggies were grown from the little plants you can pick up at the nursery. Most gardeners in Florida don't start their seedlings inside - our sunshine and warm ground means we don't have to - and if you wait until the pecan trees are showing their buds, then you can be pretty certain that you'll have no more frosty mornings.

I guess I thought that that (planting seeds out in the real sun and not under lamps) meant a quicker germination process too, but I've had to practice patience. It wasn't easy. I kept telling David that my little raised kitchen garden seeds weren't germinating while his field garden was apparently going gang busters. I was ready to run to the nursery and buy seedlings but David kept reminding me that I was practicing patience...like I said it wasn't easy.

Suddenly, as I backed out of my parking spot on Thursday morning, and glanced to my garden, the miracle had taken place - little green things were sticking up all over - squash (planted with seeds for nasturtiums), cilantro, celery.....most of what I'd planted could now be seen! Today (Saturday) though, I've yet to see my sage or my sugar snap peas make any appearance. Tomatoes, peppers, lemon balm, marjoram - those are coming along beautifully so I had a pretty good run with my first attempt at planting a garden primarily from seed. And, I 'll head to the nursery again sometime this week for a second go at that which failed to germinate.

We've begun planting fruit bushes this year as well; a raspberry and blueberry bush are the start of our growing something other than citrus (we already have oranges, kumquats, and lemons thanks to the previous owners). And we'll be buying a deep freezer and a food dehydrator to go along with my canning this year to begin a combination approach to "put up" our produce.

All of this venturing into new (old~) ways of doing things has a purpose. We're slowly making progress on becoming as self sustaining as possible - for a variety of reasons. For the fun of it; for our own health, for the planet and perhaps more importantly to be prepared for any local or national emergency that could bring on a food crisis....

Americans and Europeans have become so accustomed to a vast supply of foods to choose from at the large grocery chains, that we have become disconnected to the supply chain. Unless that store takes in its produce from the local farmers, that produce travels by train or by truck from somewhere else in the country or even from another country. Fuel prices and weather conditions affect both the price and availability of our foods (like the deliberate withholding of water from the California farmers that has affected the food chain already - all to save a wee little fish - although the Representatives were bribed by DC using a promise of turning it back on ~ but that's another post).

Think for a minute of the impact of that volcano and its shutting down air travel over a great deal of the world - although our news media spent their time reporting on the poor stranded air travelers imports and exports were affected by this too. The affect will be temporary and will slip by almost unnoticed but watch prices rise on certain products as attempts are made to recoup the losses.

What about an epidemic that shuts down communities? Or another hurricane such as Katrina? Are you prepared to feed your family if any of these occur? Or do you have complete faith that our government will be able to respond to take care of you? Let's think back to Katrina and then consider the recent report from DC that went out to local officials warning that they were not to expect FEMA or other Federal help for 46 - 72 hours in an emergency. Don't count on the media to give us adequate warning of a shortage in the food supply either - they barely mentioned the affect of the volcano on those imports or exports focusing instead on those stranded travelers.

We've gone a long way from the the Boy Scout motto everyone used to quote - "be prepared" - we've come to expect to be able to buy anything and everything we need at Publix or Walmart or Winn Dixie.... in my opinion, its time to wake up and start to live in the real world which includes the possibility of a disruption in the supply chain from any one of the things I mentioned above - and probably more that I've not thought of. And if that's too paranoid for you - just remember this winter's affect on citrus fruit from Florida including that most popular of fruit the tomato - been yet to one of the restaurants that is now charging for that item because of its shortage this season or picked through the damaged fruit in your grocery's produce department?

Finally and perhaps more importantly in this economy - our government has been printing money and artificially keeping down the rate of inflation but inflation will come - lets pray its not in the double digits like it was in the late '70's and early '80's or in hyper inflationary rates like Brazil and other countries have experienced in the past....but shouldn't you be prepared just in case?

David and I have shopped in bulk from places like Sam's and BJ's for most of the last 20 years - it takes awhile to get it all in order when you shop that way and in the beginning it is a bit more expensive than weekly or bi-weekly shopping. But, the reward will be experienced even if no emergency ever occurs - about 2 - 3 times a year, I can look in the freezer and the pantry and the staple supply (tissues, cleaning products, toiletries) and at my store of fresh veggies and say - we don't have to shop this payday....and that's a good feeling. And eventually, you find that you're spending less each month on groceries than before you shopped in bulk. So, even if you're one of those who poo-poos those of us who are moving toward self-sustainability, shopping in bulk would be a good thing to consider in this unstable and uncertain employment environment for anyone. (Some economists believe unemployment rates will not go back down to what we knew in the past and that while people will probably move on and off the unemployment rolls the changing economy and need for an increased level of education for the "new" jobs scene will keep more middle aged, middle class Americans unemployed).

We're concentrating on stocking up on things like flour and sugar and peanut butter and other long life products - our goal is to have the ability to go for three months without needing anything other than a trip into town for milk......and even that need is something that we hope to outgrow in the future by having a goat or a milk cow to supply our own.

Its not that difficult to prepare for self sustainability - it just takes a little more effort. And there's nothing more peace evoking then knowing that you can feed your family whatever comes your way and maybe even feed a neighbor or two who's hit hard times.................

Old Furniture - Antiques~

2010-04-24T09:29:00.002-04:00

Every now and then, David and I splurge on an antique - you know, the kind of furniture you don't find in an old barn or buy for a few bucks from a roadside junk dealer - we fell in love with this next piece shortly after we moved into this house. We saw it in our favorite antique store but couldn't really justify a splurge in the amount they were asking for - after all we were dealing with the aftermath of our previous owners employing roofers who were good plumbers (and guys who cut main support beams under a bathtub instead of moving the plumbing over a bit). A year or so later, we saw they still had the piece and for the same price - we offered half of that and when the owner bit, we jumped.

This next one we splurged on last year when we helped out the economy by buying our first flat screen TV.....I'd procrastinated on replacing our fat TV with its high pitched squeal for months because I couldn't decide what to use as an entertainment center in this old farmhouse - nothing seemed to be "just right" until we suddenly hit on the idea of an old sideboard.

Since I have a dry sink in my dining room and a side board in my living room, and old bureaus spread throughout the house where ever they can best serve our family's needs, it probably won't come as much of a surprise to see that I don't mind mixing periods of furnishing.....this was labeled a "Victorian Coffee Table" in the antique dealers showroom - all I cared about was the stain and the scale of it.

After buying our lazy boy couch and chairs a few years back (in its old fashioned fabric), I needed to find a "to scale" coffee table for the narrow living room - one that looked like it went with the couch and chairs. It took me 2 years to find it (meanwhile we lived without). I've never before in my life put a piece of furniture on a credit card, but I did it that time. It needed to be small (this one is) and it needed to be sturdy to stand up to wagging tails and wiggling bodies of the four dogs that crowd us for attention when we eventually sit down to watch TV in the evenings (and this one has).

I have been looking for the right end table(s) for the past three years - I used my Longaberger Laundry Basket with its lid turned upside down beside on of the chairs and placed the other one next to the green bureau during my search. The same issue had to be dealt with as with the coffee table - it had to be scale and it had to be sturdy. I knew kind of what I wanted but just never found anything - so we made do.

When we rearranged the living room last fall, I continued to use the laundry basket between the two chairs. David inherited the table in the photo from his mother recently and although its scale is just a tiny bit off, it looks as close to perfect between those chairs as anything I've seen during my three year search. Perhaps it was meant that I couldn't find anything........

Old Furniture part four

2010-04-23T08:22:00.001-04:00

One of my most treasured pieces of furniture, this writing desk belonged to first my Cousin Jay Frank McLeod and was inherited by my father at Frank's death and passed onto me about 10 years ago. Frank passed away when I was a little girl and while I have no memory of meeting him; he's had an impact on my life that goes beyond this desk because like me, he was a genealogist. Tucked away in all my research are notes he made on small scraps of paper as he traveled to what is now McLeod Water Park in Mississippi and to North Carolina trying to learn all he could about our immigrant ancestors.

Part of it is missing and it has a hole in it where my father accidentally fired off his shotgun, but that's its story.....and so it stays just the way it came to me.....some of those bits of paper with Frank's notes on them are in those drawers along with old photos of my kids and my siblings and parents and treasured old birthday and anniversary cards handmade by our kiddos through the years....every now and then, I make an attempt to organize what's inside of it, but always get bogged down in the memories or remember a trail I wanted to follow in my genealogical research which sends me off to my computer....maybe one day I'll actually clear it out and organize it all....

This tall beautiful piece was handmade by my father in law in the 1980's - their house is now 101 years old just like the one I live in. Unlike my house, their original galley kitchen was renovated to include the former screened in back porch opening the space up to look more in keeping with the size of the rooms in the rest of their beautiful home - and then Big Ed built this cabinet to sit in an out of the way corner. Over the years, David and I had forgotten that it had been hand made by his father and unfortunately, it wasn't until we began to empty out the house last month that David recalled it. David said that as soon as he put his hands on it and got a good look at the details, it came back to him.....and then of course, my memory was jogged as well. The pottery that you can just barely glimpse was all done by David's mother and most of the cookbooks that now reside on the shelving were also given to me through the years, including the last Christmas gift she gave us - The Bread Makers Apprentice.....a book I use regularly.

Pieces of old furniture like these two...well, they surround you with a sense of belonging...a connection to your past and a bridge to your children's future....they make our house a home. Its as simple a story as that............

Old Furniture part five

2010-04-22T08:26:00.001-04:00

This little rocker lives here for now because my little sister can't bear to let it go out of the family - she claims that one day, she'll have room for it and take it away. Her memories are tied up in this chair - Grandma McLeod once sat in it while 3 year old Amy spun her 'round and 'round until Grandma couldn't take it anymore and begged her to stop - its the only real memory my much younger sister has of our paternal grandmother and she doesn't want the chair to go away.

While I sort of reluctantly agreed to keep it for her, I've come to love it quite a bit myself - its a great place to spend a rainy afternoon reading in my office or simply day dreaming while I stare out the wall of windows at the fields that surround our farmhouse. That granny square pillow holds memories for me - those crocheted squares were once part of a tea cozy made by our Nana (Jessup) and given to me when she passed. The much used cozy was falling apart when it came to me so I removed the heat proof lining and using my own crocheting skill (taught to me by Nana) repaired the unraveling yarn and used it to cover an ugly old throw pillow and placed it in that chair.....and when I see it or snuggle up in that chair for a good read its not hard for me to travel back in time to the mornings when I'd crawl in bed with Nana while Granddad went to prepare a morning cup of tea which he served the two of us along with a biscuit (or what we Americans refer to as a cookie) as we lounged in bed for a little bit longer. Nana would tell me stories of Mom while the two of us enjoyed those last moments of peace before the busyness of our day began.....this was a tradition that we enjoyed whether we were visiting them in England or they'd flown to the States to visit us.....

See that piano? (Please ignore the stuff that covers it - its the Harry Potter Cupboard things~~~) That was the one my little brother Kirk learned to play by ear on.....and now its the one where Dallas did the same. Despite taking lessons for two years in college and trying again and again to learn to play on my own, I still can't play well enough for anyone to sit and listen ...but still I keep that piano. Its so old that it can't be tuned (its always a half step off) and several of its keys stick or are broken but still Dallas plays it when he's home from college. I debated from time to time getting rid it but every time I mention it, someone says "no way" - even my friends from high school won't hear of my letting it go because they have memories of mom playing and me singing or Kirk and I messing around playing Heart and Soul or something like that.....and so, because of its stories...it stays.

The table was Mom and Dad's and purchased after we returned to the States from our year in England (1976) - it was old then.....after it was given to me, I sanded it down and varnished it with 6 coats of spar varnish - put your glass on it - you can't harm that old table. It doesn't really suit this house but I can't seem to part with it....I see a farm table in my kitchen in my minds eye...and the round kitchen table where this one now sits....but unless I can pass this on to one of my own kids, I just can't seem to let it go. Visions of birthday parties, Christmas and Easter Dinners assail me when I think of putting it out....and so it stays.

Old Furniture part three

2010-04-21T08:47:00.001-04:00

This bureau fills a corner in our living room -

We picked it up from a road side junk dealer for a few bucks - it still has three of it original "wheels"and its original paint; one of the drawers was broken in pieces but we took it up to a friend's wood working shop and replicated what couldn't be fixed and made it usable again. It stores all the electrical bits and pieces we can't seem to remember what belongs to what - a few of my genealogy folders are also stored in it along with old family photos in their protective covers.

The candle set was a gift from David and I to his mother several Christmas's past - my mother in law tended to re-gift you with things you had gifted other family members when they passed and in this case, we were re-gifted this set. I love the various ways it reflects the light throughout the day in this tree shaded, porch bordered room. The mirror is one of a set of two bedroom mirrors that my interior designer stepmother picked up many years ago - they graced the windowless living room in our last house and help to reflect light in this dark living room today......

This china cabinet was picked up from that same roadside junk dealer - it was in several pieces when we brought it home but its glass was undamaged and its scale was perfect for our storage starved kitchen. As we carried it inside the house, my then 15 year old nephew Jeremy asked me a question that went something like this....."uh, Auntie Lori.....why did you buy a broken china cabinet?"..... David broke out the vices and glued and doweled it back together over several weeks and then we stripped it and stained it and stuck all our stuff in it....the dog treats and cat food hide in the bottom while behind the glass sits various dishware and old bottles we've found in past treasure hunts.....the drawer holds all my tea towels and linen napkins and dish cloths....behind it hides the electrical panel that the previous owners put in the kitchen (!) and my husband refused to go through the extra effort and expense of moving when we had the electrical updated. And that nephew of mine...what did he think when he saw it on his next visit down? "Now, I see why you bought a broken china cabinet......"......perhaps another lover of old furniture was born that day......

Old Furniture part two

2010-04-20T08:16:00.002-04:00

This piece greets you as you enter the back door......

We found this one five years ago; a friend of ours had just bought an older house on about 3 acres just over the Florida/Georgia line. An old barn sits at the back fence line and it was filled with treasures just waiting for all of us to begin the hunt; it seemed as if the family who had lived there (since the house was first built) had never ever given away anything - it all just went back to that barn. There were sewing machines, irons, boxes of old school books including primers, destroyed photo albums, Vaseline glass, bureaus, beds, and even silverware. Our friend gave anybody who wanted it the freedom to put on steel toed boots and gloves and start going through it all to find treasures buried in there beside the junk.

This handmade piece was not found until our second, or maybe even third, trip up there....it was without a doubt built to store tools or other items and probably began its life right there in that barn. After we brought it home, it stayed out near our own old barn waiting for me to decide just what I'd do with it - before it could be refinished, it needed to have what seemed like hundreds of nails removed and then a good stripping of years of old paint. I worked on it from time to time - pulling out those nails and stripping it a side at a time. I painted it first one color and then another, but I never could seem to decide just where it should be placed and that made it impossible to decide what color it should be. I also asked David from time to time whether HE wanted to use it in his shed - like our friend, he didn't seem to need it - but I just couldn't let it go.....someone had built it for their needs and I just knew that eventually I find a place for it to do a job for me..........Finally, last year I painted it the same green that is in my kitchen and brought it inside where David added chicken wire and hinges - I initially used it for those counter top appliances that I don't have room to keep out and it did that job really well.....but its current job is to hold my jars and canning stuff and baskets filled with flashlights and work gloves and one used to gather up our eggs. It took five years, but I think it finally has found it's place in our home.

We found this piece in that old barn too. We use this one to store our bath towels in the small sitting area upstairs - although our upstairs bathroom has a linen closet by the time you add all the personal toiletries of the people living here plus tissue and paper towels and glass cleaner etc...there's room for only a few towels. We didn't refinish this one - instead we used a product we found in an antique store - you simply wipe it on and it lifts the dirt and drips of paint off over time - come back a week or so after application and give it a good rub and the original finish can be seen. The drawers give an indication of the age of this dresser and I wonder why someone would simply toss it out to the barn - the details are lovely and its ability to function has not been lost ..............

Old Furniture part one~~

2010-04-19T08:36:00.008-04:00

Twenty eight years ago David and I moved into our first home - a little ranch starter of block and a brick facade; I think the heated area was around 1000 sq ft - but it had three bedrooms and two baths and a garage. The opportunity to buy the house came up as we were planning our wedding and looking for a place to rent....the monthly payment would be less than rent so we jumped on it...moving up our wedding date because in those days, you had to be married to co-sign a mortgage ......we intended to stay there about three years before selling and moving on - three years later we had a toddler and one on the way and three years ended up being eight instead.

Like all newlyweds, I dreamed of filling the house with beautiful matched pieces but the reality was that in the beginning, the house was filled with the cast off furniture of others -most of it in its last days - the couch and chair used to leave a trail of stuffing behind us after we'd sat there for a time - Dave's parents gave us one beautiful antique dresser but most of the things were beyond restoring and would only last a short time - we had places to sit and were newly married and owned our home so we didn't complain - but I could hardly wait to pass them on to the next person who needed them and replace them with new things. That green bureau was the only piece of furniture in that house that I loved and in my eyes, made everything else look cheap and ugly.

As time went on, we did buy new furniture but with our tight budget, those pieces were certainly not top quality and we quickly learned that we were wasting our money; we were now dreaming of moving into an old farmhouse one day and time and experience saw the beginning of our love affair with old, (perhaps abused) quality furniture. We began to haunt garage sales and flea markets and eventually snapped up another couch and chair from an estate sale and slowly we began to fill our house with new old things that held up with constant usage or looked as if they had a story that could be told. When we moved into our second house 8 years later, we had more room to fill and stepped up our search for previously loved pieces. Pieces have come and gone over the years replaced by inherited furniture or pieces more suited to our needs at that particular time, but that green bureau still stays on.

Today, twenty-eight years after we moved into that first little starter home, 90% of our furnishing are old castoffs that we've reclaimed from old barns, front porches, flea markets, garage sales or antique stores. Certain things like couches and chairs and mattresses are "new" and a few pieces are inherited family pieces but many of them are reclaimed, restored and loved for all the nicks and dings...I'm a long way past wanting a house full of matching brand new furniture and I wouldn't have it any other way.

I've been meaning to do a series of posts on the beauty of old furniture. ever since I started blogging....and this week I'm going to try to actually do them.....let's begin with that beautiful antique bureau from David's parents all those years ago...........

What you can't see in this photo is the gentle curve of the front -
try as I might, I just couldn't get the right angle to show it off.

That bureau was left behind by the folks who owned my in-laws house when they bought it in the 1960's; my mother in law refinished it adding an antique technique shortly after they moved in to the house. In 1982, they gave the piece to David and I for our new home. While I have always loved it, it seemed to always be overlooked in our other houses even though it was always in the public living areas - when we moved in here, it suddenly became a conversation piece.

We were literally moving our things in as the previous owners moved theirs out - they'd already rented a place until their new house was completed because of the last minute termite tenting of this place; the weekend before closing, they'd agreed to let us in to do some prep work (plywood put in the eaves among a few other things) and move some of our more precious pieces in - and this was the first piece. Joan said to me when she first saw it "you must have known you'd one day have an old house". Over the weeks as folks came down to visit and see the place - everyone of them commented on the bureau as if they'd never seen it before. Perhaps that's why my in-laws previous owners had left it in the old house when they left - it just belonged there - for 19 years, it languished in our "new houses" just waiting to once again live in a setting that suited it best.

That chair beside it? That was Papa's chair; it was the chair in which he sat holding my children while he read them "The Night Before Christmas" every Christmas Eve until he passed away in 1997. Its a recent addition to our home with the passing of my mother in law last August. Of all the things in her house, this was the one thing our children wanted most. It, like that green bureau, has a story to tell................

Christmas Eve 1996 - Big Ed or Papa as the grand kids all called him,
passed away on January 10 1997

How not to sell a house~~

2010-04-18T15:07:00.002-04:00

We've sold two and bought three - houses that is. When I was in college, my mom began to sell Real Estate during summer vacations and then after school while trying to decide what exactly I was going to do next - I did a lot of "showing" with her, watching her guide her sellers towards simple staging and then writing up those darned contracts. Years later, after buying this house, I worked as an office manager for the Broker who helped us get here - I drove him and the agent so "detail crazy" that he hired me after the deals were completed! So, I have a bit of experience in how to sell a home and get the top dollar - even in a market THIS bad. In this age of satellite and cable TV, there really is no excuse for anyone not knowing how not to sell a house....not to mention the internet.

I mean, look at the shows on HGTV - you've got "Designed to Sell" which is a great one that could teach anyone what not to do when you're trying to get what your house is worth - like, leave it filled with junk that covers the tables in every room.

I learned from my mom way back in those early days that when you're showing your home to potential buyers you remove every single thing that you don't have to have to live your daily life....minimalism is the operative word here. Both times David and I had houses on the market, we had five plates, five coffee mugs, five glasses, five bowls and one fry pan and one pot in our cupboards ; we lived without our toaster oven and blender and food processor for those days of marketing - everything else was boxed up and on shelving in the garage or stored at a relative's house temporarily. We had two towels out per person, one set of sheets per bed in the linen closet and one set on each bed.....most of the children's toys were boxed up and in the garage as well.....the family portrait wall was re-hung with one large print that I picked up for a few bucks at the dollar store...the hope chest and a couple other pieces of furniture were stored elsewhere....the house was "staged" with as little furniture, counter appliances, and personal junk as possible.

The goal of course is to allow the buyer to see their stuff in your house; to make it seem as if there is ample storage even if there really isn't and to stage each room to show its potential even when that is well, limited.....and gee, you're going to have to pack all of that stuff up anyway aren't you? So why not do it before you market the house....anything else is really just procrastination and certainly a deterrent to selling your home quickly and at the best possible price. How can you expect a buyer to overlook the tables loaded with junk? Unless that buyer is someone like me who can see beyond all of that to the hidden potential buried beneath your junk and your lack of maintenance? You can spend a Saturday watching HGTV and see that most buyers aren't like me......anyway.......

Even worse is when the job of packing up and moving things out is started but not completed before marketing - it makes the seller look desperate to unload the place and down goes the offer price..............and some agents won't show your house again if they don't like the state they find it in the first time.....

Cosmetic issues should be taken care of too - I mean come on - was this an old leak or a new one? It send alarm bells ringing in the buyers head and means a lower offer will be made if they decide to place one.... how much is a gallon of paint and a few hours of your time worth? Several thousand folks - several thousand. And if you know there's a leak issue that you haven't repaired - get an estimate and offer that amount as an allowance for goodness sake - buyers who know what an issue is going to cost usually will NOT lower their offer when there is an allowance already on the table. Letting your buyer see that leak evidence and not giving them a dollar figure to repair the problem is just asking for them to take you for a ride......

And then there's this issue - I mean COME ON....you think you're going to get the best price for your house when the buyers see this as they come up the driveway? They're immediately calculating the cost of replacement before they've entered the building....down goes that offer.....

Again, a new door is not that expensive when you think of the total picture your potential buyer is seeing as they calculate all the work that they would need to do to your house before they could even begin to make it theirs. Some buyers, like David and I, who were specifically looking for an old house to renovate and restore can over look the various issues - but we're going to drop our offer accordingly - you can take that to the bank....!

Selling your home "AS IS" is one thing - it sends a message to the potential buyer that you won't be nickled and dimed to death with minor repairs that come up in a home inspection AND that you won't be responsible for any structural issues AND that you've already factored in those to your asking price - when you know there's a roof issue - you offer an allowance for that issue - again you're sending a message that you know the value of your house and won't be accepting those low ball offers .... Ignore all of this and compound it by placing your home on the market with junk everywhere, with cosmetic issues that jump out at first glance and you've got no one to blame but yourself when those low ball offers start coming in fast and hard.

Lecture over~~

April 18 2010 - where'd the time go?

2010-04-18T12:18:00.003-04:00

So, I've done it again - I've been away from blogging for almost 2 full months. Its not that I didn't have anything to say - its just that I couldn't seem to make the time to sit down and put it down. After the coldest, longest winter in my history here in Florida, we've finally begun to have warm afternoons - warm enough for us to get outside and reclaim our land from the ravages of that winter. And, because of the warmth and the sunshine and the amount of work it took to do that reclaiming - our Harry Potter Cupboard Under the Stairs project hasn't progressed very far at all - neither of us could see working indoors when we could be outdoors.............planting our veggie gardens, adding honeysuckle and confederate jasmine to our fences, pressure washing the weather beaten house, shed, gazebo etc.....taking a bit of time to head to the beaches, the farmers markets that are back in full swing.....or just sit on our front porch taking in the azaleas and amaryllis in full bloom surrounded by the snow bells that bloomed later and lasted longer then usual.....

I took photos of the start of the project - but never took the time to upload them - until this morning -

The Harry Potter Cupboard Under the Stairs....

The interior of the door is the only door in the house that hasn't ever been painted -

Going in to take down the remaining plaster

Over the past 6 years - plaster has periodically fallen on its own -

David opened up this part for additional storage

The original flooring

This kept distracting us from getting on with the job

and this too....

Taking over after seeing David's note - pressure washing goes much faster
when you take turns...the love note didn't hurt either.

And then there's the added distraction of hanging with the chickens....since getting our flock down to one rooster and 8 hens - the hens like to hang with us when we're outside while Little Roo (so named because he was the low man on the totem poll in the beginning....not anymore though) hovers around the perimeters of the scene.....

See this handsome gal? She or one of her sisters gives us this....

Look at the size of that egg..........

The Harry Potter Cupboard

2010-02-22T09:43:00.003-05:00

We're big Harry Potter fans 'round here; we were a bit late to the party but once we joined in, we never left. So when we first saw this house and its cupboard under the stairs, our first thought was "we have a Harry Potter Cupboard". Everyone in the house from the youngest to the oldest calls that little closet by that name.

When we wandered the house, peeking into eaves and closets to figure out how we'd store the belongings of 5 people, the previous owner peeked in with us and gave us details of each place - whether it had been repaired in any way or simply left in the state they'd found it in 11 years earlier. The Harry Potter Cupboard was in its original state - plaster had begun to fall off the walls and ceiling and the flooring lay a good two inches lower then the floor of the dining room - it was the original sub floor. There were two home made shelving units being used by the P.O. to store cleaning supplies and tools; she told us that those were the original kitchen shelving - bending over to look closely at them, we noticed that a can opener remained attached to the bottom of one of the units. I've since brought those units out, one into the mudroom to store shoes and baskets (to collect the change, the keys, the receipts and other miscellaneous items we seem to hoard each week) and one into my office where I use one for storing my genealogy work (the can opener remains there for all to see~).

But, other than that, the Harry Potter Cupboard remains in much the same condition as the day we moved in....less a whole lot of plaster which tends to fall down with little notice. But, that's about to change since that cupboard is project number one on our list this year. Last year, as I painted the stair risers on a cold windy day, I noticed that I felt a draft - I grabbed some caulk and did the best I could to hold us 'till we got around to that little room. The stairs are in the middle of the house so we'd never really thought that it could be contributing too much to the drafts we experienced and that we systematically attacked during our first years here.

This year showed us the error of our thinking and let us know that the little room might have been something we should have tackled way back when we first moved in....since January 1st, we've experienced a very, very cold winter by Florida standards - and the winds we live with brought with them a wind chill that made it seem so much colder. During that 11 days of below freezing temps - and while we had no heat for 4 of those days, I realized the extent of that room's affect on the inside temps. Walking past the closed door one morning, I literally heard the wind and felt a large draft coming from that room....I immediately grabbed a blanket and draped the door allowing a huge puddle of fabric to lay against it on the inside - I placed a door stop on the outside to keep the door from shifting open and like that it stayed for close to two weeks. And its been like that a few days since......

This weekend, we emptied out the cupboard and spread its contents around - items now temporarily reside in the unused downstairs shower, on the dining room table and along every available open space in that room.....the project is on!

Old houses....

2010-02-18T16:24:00.003-05:00

David and I took some time out of what has been a very stressful two weeks around here to do what we used to do all the time but never seem to be able to do anymore - go on a drive about! I've written before how we spent almost three years looking for an old farmhouse to bring back to life; we used to put H on the school bus and hop in the car and spend the day traipsing through overgrown lots upon which stood abandoned farmhouses. We'd throw our steel toed boots and a pair of sneakers in the trunk to change into from our flip flops.....it was most fun when we did the exchange....Just before we'd head home to meet H off the bus, we'd head to the little building used by the woman who ended up being our agent on this house and asking her all sorts of questions about the houses we'd seen.

Things have changed in the six years we've been here - now when we can find the time to go on drive about, we don't look for old farmhouses to buy and fix up, now we look for ones that we can maybe salvage some of the old bead board or window trim or built in armours to use in our house. Two years ago we struck gold with a house that was being torn down and snagged, with the owner's consent, window trim and bead board and a few other things that now can be seen in our house. But this isn't a post about salvaging....its related in a way yes - because even when we experience the joy of salvaging materials from another old house, we feel a degree of sadness at the loss of the old home and the history that goes with it.

There were, in our way of thinking, too many of these old buildings abandoned in this area six years ago. Today, there are even more. We see too many beautiful old houses with rotting scaffolding where someone had started to fix up the beauty but it appears their money ran out. We see houses where there were still family's living in them a year or so ago, now joining the abandoned ones.

When H was in 3rd grade, his classmate and family were chosen for Extreme Home Makeover in the little town we live near; the show didn't just build that family a new home..they also helped several of the neighbors with improvements and repairs - sometimes sprucing up a sagging front porch or repairing a whole roof. This energized the little town and we began to see improvement everywhere, down every street you could see it.....now, the signs of this economy are all too evident as we drive through the proverbial one stoplight town.

As we stopped to fill up the car and then drove slowly through the streets looking at the old homes, I wished I had brought my camera and I was glad that I had not. And its not just the houses in the town that are once again neglected for a lack of money and perhaps even a lack of optimism, the main street, once filled with what looked to be the promise of revitalization, is almost dead - like the homes we saw down the side streets, broken windows and rotting scaffolding dot the scenery.

There are some who say that these homes and buildings should not be saved, that they'll never be energy efficient or they're too far gone to even begin to work with them......but I can't see it that way. I only see the history that we could learn if only...as they say...."the walls could talk" in these buildings. As we've found out personally, its way too hard to get the grants that are out there and even with the tax rebates so often offered, if you make too much money you typically don't qualify and if you do qualify, well, then you have to have the money to make the improvement before you get the credit.....and as we've seen on our drive about - this, plus our current economy, makes for too many abandoned, history filled homes and buildings.

An Alternate Reality?

2010-02-16T12:16:00.004-05:00

There's a bang at your door. You stumble there, peek out the peep hole and see uniformed men and women with stern faces carrying a great deal of equipment and clip boards....you open the door and hear "mam, we're the environmental police and we're here to rate your compliance with the new environmental laws. Please show us 6 months worth of energy bills or sign this form so that we can get them from your utility company." They enter the house uninvited and begin to look at the light bulbs in your ceiling fan and lamps and over head light fixtures all the while marking things down on their clipboards. One or two of them ask to see your attic and your utility closet while you see that outside, your heat pump and a/c are being looked at. Next, you're asked to escort one of them to your laundry room; they're opening and shutting your windows and use some kind of blower to measure the air that escapes under your front door. They're looking at your thermostat to see just what you've got your a/c or heat set at. Almost as suddenly as it began, its over. You're handed a paper while someone slaps a label on your front window visible from the outside.

Does that paper say you passed the inspection? Or is it a citation dictating what must be done to bring your home up to code and the fines you'll pay for everyday of 'unlawful occupancy" of your home until you bring it all up to code? Were you trying to sell your house? Well, if you were and you weren't up to the new codes, you'll have to pay to bring your home to code before they'll authorize the sale to take place.

Is this an alternate reality that exists only in conspiracy theorists minds or is this perhaps in the future for every American? If cap and trade passes, its our future....unless of course the individual states stop it....or the voters vote these people out of office and start completely over.

I can hear some of you saying, "but Cap and Trade is dead; the Party of No stopped it". I wish that that were the truth, but its not. Those in Washington are still talking about passing the house bill in the senate sometime this year and if you listen really carefully, you'll hear the Environmental Agency threatening that if it isn't passed, that agency will just regulate the things in the bill into being. The bill says that 90% of homes and buildings in this country will be brought to code in 5 years from the effective date of the law. What exactly are the new codes based upon? The California Codes of course....you know, that state that is bankrupt at the moment because of their building and energy codes and the one that is forcing the farmers of California out of business to save those wee little fish? Anyhoo, how will they accomplish this making 90% of homes and buildings meet the new codes in five years?

First, by establishing new building codes that will be 30% higher then the ones in affect now and forcing every seller of a home to bring the home up to code before they can sell it and incur a fine for every day the house is below code. Second, there will be mandatory inspections of every home and building in the country with fines for every day that the inspected house is under code. Third, if the states don't comply, the federal money will be cut off. One federal employee stated that we needed "a swat team to sweep a street in a neighborhood and replace every window of every building on that street" and then move on to the next street until every home in America had new windows.....can't pay for it? Out you go.

I once had a friend say that she was willing to pay more money for her energy usage if it saved the world.....but she refuses to take steps on her own to become pro-active in her own life to help save the world. She wants the government to force her to do it......plus said she "the government will give me a subsidy to help me out". I asked just where she thought that subsidy would come from....her answer wasn't "the taxpayers who don't qualify for that subsidy" and she certainly didn't comprehend that a whole lot of folks making only about $32,000 annually would be the ones paying for that subsidy in higher taxes. Not to mention Candidate Obama's own words that under his plan for the new energy reality in this country "electricity rates will necessarily skyrocket".

I urged her to read the bill herself; I gave her information on the true cost and affect on all Americans in job losses, in liberty losses, and she said "don't give me your statistics....change is coming...get used to it!".

While David and I voluntarily spend oodles of money retrofitting this old house to save not only it but save in what our own footprint does in impacting our world, this woman wants the government to mandate her compliance hoping that when it does, it'll also give her the money to be compliant. She doesn't count the cost in her liberty of when and how to buy and sell her property; she doesn't count the cost of forced retrofitting of her own home before the government gives her whatever subsidy they'll allot her when she files her 1040 in April.

And too many Americans share her mindset.....while the rest of us watch every facet of our lives becoming more and more under the control of a government that uses our money to jet to Copenhagen and stay in exclusive hotels that most of us could never even contemplate setting eyes on.......all the while pointing their fingers at the Corporations that employ us and shaming them for the same things they themselves are doing.

What's your mindset? Are you willing to live in a country where you're fined everyday for "unlawful occupancy" in your own home? Or are you of a mindset that says "hey, I need to make my home energy efficient because its not only good for the environment but good for my pocketbook" and then lay out a long term plan to get it done?

Don't believe that America will set up a system of Green Police? New York has already done it.....and it may be coming to your town. Don't believe that you just might be forced to retrofitt your window by a swat team? Read up on Cathy Zoi at Obama's Department of Energy......

An alternate reality or fundamental change? Read the bill while remembering that the EPA has said it will regulate these things if the bill isn't passed and then you decide. If you still need some help, it might serve the whole country if you took the time to read the constitution and remember what it was to protect us from.............the tyranny of an out of control government.....!

Will (someone's) real kitchen please stand up?

2010-02-15T15:07:00.002-05:00

Okay, I know that I've done a whole lot of complaining about the kitchen in this old house...like how bugged I am by the fact that the previous owners put in a 1980's kitchen in a 1909 house when, if I understand it correctly, they started from scratch for goodness sake! Or how the cabinets are not standard size......etc. and so on....!

Over a year ago, I talked David into letting me paint the damaged cabinet exteriors to get me by until we gut the whole room and start over...I've yet to get there. Its a daunting job on its own but factor in that we don't have a workshop to do the stripping, sanding and painting in...and the winds we get around here that limit the outside work we'd be able to do and well....I've been putting it off. And I'm beginning to think I may not get to it until we do the gut job....because now I've got tile issues....as in, they're rising up in rebellion!

Anyway....I do a lot of cooking and baking (we bake our own breads 95% of the time) and without even re-visiting the issue of inside cabinet storage, the counter top space is a lack we live with as well. I've currently got my counter top appliances stashed everywhere...some in lower cabinets, some in a open cabinet and some on the counter's.....with the end result that I have to remember where I've stashed what! Too frustrating. So, I've been looking for some inspirational photos of kitchen's like mine where busy cooks live and work....but all I've found are kitchen's where everything is hidden to make it look bigger and brighter and well....to be honest....unused...! I want to see a real kitchen where all the appliances are out to be used and appreciated....and there don't seem to be any out there.

So, if any of you out there have less than perfect kitchens with appliances out in the open (and flour spilled down the doors...you know, a real, used, kitchen) ......feel free to share them...

I wanna go back to high school~~

2010-02-05T11:32:00.003-05:00

I have never ever wanted to go back to high school - college maybe, but never high school. Last night was 8th grade night at the high school. About 30 minutes into the presentation I turned to my friend and said "I wanna go to school here". Suddenly the dread I've been holding at bay with each thought of our baby entering high school became excitement at the very same thought.

The world will be opening up for him next year - he'll still be playing trumpet with the addition of membership in the Marching Band and with the opportunity to be in Jazz and Concert. But his major focus will be on Aerospace Engineering through a program offered by Embry Riddle. He'll earn college credit beginning in 10th grade.

There are various other "Academies" within the school, as there are in all the schools in the county - no teenager attending that school will lack the opportunity to come out with college credits or even full certification in an area that will walk them right down the aisle and into a career. You can walk out with certification to be a Para Pro in the schools or with certification to begin working with technicians at that local airport and so on and so on.....Internships at NASA, Cadet training in Sea and Land Rescue......what a world of opportunity is being provided to these teenagers - we can only pray that they ALL take advantage of it.

The energy and excitement that was evident in all the teachers could not help but produce the same in all of us parents - you could see on the faces of those listening and watching the same feeling that I felt.....

I wanna go back to high school!

A Triumph of Tone Deafness

2010-01-28T12:42:00.003-05:00

It is to me a new and consolatory proof that wherever the people are well-informed they can be trusted with their own government; that whenever things get so far wrong as to attract their notice, they may be relied on to set them to rights."—Thomas Jefferson January 8, 1789.

There was a lot of talk about whether or not the President would move center right after Scott Brown was elected to the People's Seat in Massachusetts - I was on the side of those who thought that there would be no movement in the position of this administration and sadly, I learned last night that I was correct.

"And to those Americans whose support I have yet to earn - I may not have won your vote, but I hear your voices, I need your help, and I will be your President too. " - President Elect Obama November 4 2008

The answer to the question "can you hear us now?" was all too clear last night - no he didn't hear us either recently or when 55 million of us did not vote for him in 2008 - the elections in November 2009 and Scott Brown's victory last week are no more than "campaign fever" to the man who said he was our President too.

Never mind that it was the Independents who basically swept him into office (nationally and surely in Mass) and a majority of those same Massachusetts independents who raised their voices symbolically in last weeks vote to let him know that they were not behind the health care reform bill that's still on the table or his increasing the burden of debt on the head of every single American alive today to more than $30,000.

Never mind that nationally more than 50% of the people say the same thing. This President has shown the audacity of arrogance in that he still thinks that we're against it because he hasn't been out there enough; we just aren't smart enough to understand that its riddled with bribes and taxes on the middle class instead of true fixes to real issues we face; that we, as a nation and as individuals just can't afford this health care plan - that energy bill - a new jobs bill that goes into affect before that freeze on spending for 2011; and that we're gullible enough to keep believing that its the Republicans who keep on saying only "no" just because he and his pundits keep saying it over and over again.

He told his party "don't run for the hills" which was the same as if he had said to them "don't listen to your constituents - they just don't understand what is good for them....lay your head on the block if you're up for re-election - don't stand in the way of my legacy of "fundamentally transforming" this great nation ~ ".

We got the answer to our questions - in arrogance that he is right on every portion of his platform and in an ear deaf to the voices of more than half of his people - he will force through a health care bill that will burden the very middle class he claims he "hears" and he will force through an Energy Bill that will - in his own words - "skyrocket" electricity bills for that same middle class - he will continue to borrow from China while he explodes the debt this nation holds while at the same time he blasts the previous administration for that same sin.... we can only hope that the moderate democrats in congress will be as tone deaf to his call last night to lay their heads on block as he was to the voices of the people he took an oath to serve.....and if not, November is only 10 months away at least for a whole lot of those congressional members.

The "Next Time" theme in the State of the Union Speech.....

What I do and don't want~~~

2010-01-27T14:37:00.002-05:00

to hear from tonight's State of the Union...........

I DO want to hear that some CUTS to spending are on the table as well as a "freeze" of non defense spending...I mean when you've raised spending by 12% in last years Omnibus Bill and by 54% in the Stimulus bill (also of last year) then a partial freeze isn't going to do much with our federal debt.

I DON'T want to hear about how George Bush is the one to blame for every thing that this administration has done - he shares the blame but the President might like to remember that a whole lot of the members of Congress were there during the last eight years (unless of course they spent their time on the campaign trail having ghost writers sponsor bills for them....but that's another story).

I DO want to hear an admission that back room deals were made not only by Reid and Pelosi but also in the White House (Big Pharma and the Unions) - you know, take some real responsibility for why the health care reform bill is opposed by the majority of Americans.

I DON'T want to hear about how the Republicans obstructed the health care bill from passage - acknowledge that Scott Brown's election to the peoples seat of Massachusetts is what finally stopped what had already stalled because of the inability of the progressives to come to a compromise with the moderates in the Democrat Party.

I do want to hear more "our", "we", "us" in this speech;

I don't want to hear "I" and "me" and "my" more than those other words. Because he was right when he spoke in Ohio and said "its not about me"....it isn't. Its about us and our future; its about our children and their ability to live in a country where taxes are so oppressive that it affects their ability to increase their standard of living and whether our grandchildren will even recognize this country when they begin to find jobs and start families.

And, I plan on listening to this speech with the Lazy Boy in lounge position with my eyes closed.....so I don't have to watch the constant head turning required to use a teleprompter. I don't care that he uses one but he needs to spend less time on the head turning - its does a number on my vertigo.....

Life in the Country~~

2010-01-26T12:51:00.002-05:00

Life out here surrounded by fields can become a bit insulated - we are sometimes more in tune with the seasons then with "real life" in the neighboring towns. Daily life mirrors to a great degree the Almanac...for instance, I've watched for the Cardinals to reappear in the gardens and suddenly as if on cue, they arrived on the 24th....suddenly the raccoons are much more active in the night hours. Venturing into our small town to visit the Meat Market or the Farmers Market or the feed store can sometimes be a jolting re-emergence into what's occurring close to us but not yet affecting us in any measurable way.

We've developed what may be a growing friendship with the owners of the meat market - discussions held while our orders are being filled have led to an awareness of the many things we have in common, not the least of which is a shared wedding anniversary date (and a tendency to show up at the same place and the same time for a celebratory lunch when that anniversary rolls around~~). We've been concerned for their small business since the price of gas first shot up to over $4.00 which resulted in the area restaurants suddenly experiencing a loss of their regular customers (their bread and butter so to speak) and then their ordering less meat from our friends. Our friends haven't said too much, but we noticed when they stopped accepting checks because of the number of bad checks they began to have to deal with; we noticed that too many times, we were the only customers in the shop where before there was an almost constant stream. Today's visit was just a bit different.

Although once again, we were the only customers in the shop, we were there very early in the business day for that store so at first we didn't think too much about it, but it seemed that today, our friend needed to unload some of the burden he carried. We learned that restaurants are bouncing checks or going out of business...and there appears there is a fear that our little meat market may not survive the year.

Things have calmed down for us a bit financially - Dave survived two rounds of layoffs at his job and our daughter - a casualty of the declining restaurant business two years ago and now having to work two jobs to survive, has gotten on her feet well enough to move back out. Dallas' student loan situation was solved (for the present term - we'll deal again with it for next fall). We've breathed a bit deeper and a bit more calmly and fallen back into the gentle rhythm of our life....

It's still bad out there though for way too many of the "main street" folks. Let's hope that the focus of the present administration is more on the jobs that main street needs then on jamming through a bill that the majority of Americans, regardless of political party, just don't want passed.

Rasmussen
Friday January 22 2010 - 58% oppose the present bills before Congress

Gallup
55% in favor of suspending the current bill and working with Republicans on a new bill.
Pollster.com
for a look at all of the January polls.

"Birthers, Baggers and Blowhards"

2010-01-25T10:45:00.005-05:00

Some days blogging can be downright difficult; it could be due to some hardship that you're presently dealing with or simply a lack of anything important enough or funny enough or interesting enough to write about. Sometimes, there are too many things going on in the mind to even begin to get anything coherent onto the screen. I admire those journalists who have to come up with something every single day and whose job depends on it for their ability to wade through it all....if (sometimes) nothing else.

I'm about half way through my daily chores at the moment and while I worked on those I was trying to sort out my thoughts....it went kind of like this..........

Washing up the breakfast dishes and gazing out the kitchen window "I could blog about how brown everything is after our 11 days of freezing temps" which then led to "I could write about that electricity bill that just came in the mail".......followed by "shoot, everyone is experiencing brown everything and higher energy bills - that's not interesting, that's a downer".

Heading out to the chicken coop "I could blog about the de-worming process...never mind" or "...write about how silent it now is around here with only one rooster instead of five - no I'm not ready to blog about my four missing babies".

Then of course there's always what going on in politics which I was reminded of as I took a coffee break and watched a bit of news.....I could definitely blog about how one political "contributor" referred to those who were against the current health care reform bills as "birthers, baggers and blowhards"..........but if you want to read about that you'll have to read my other blog~~

Project Time~~

2010-01-23T11:16:00.002-05:00

It's coming. I'm not certain I'm ready for it. But Dave's already talking about this springs projects and he's begun making his lists. I've begged for a bit more time and he's reluctantly agreed but I can see that I'll be lucky to get four weeks of rest before he's ready to begin.

It used to be that I was the one chomping at the bit to get started but that was back in the beginning of our time in this old farmhouse....back when the floors were either covered in horribly damaged lino or carpets that were way beyond their lifespan. We've since uncovered all of the wood flooring or put down new flooring where necessary in the main living areas of the house. And with the exception of our kitchen, I'm pretty much content with where we are at in our reno....not permanently content, but temporarily content.

The state of the floors when we moved into the house in 2004.

If David was ready to do our kitchen, then I'd be right there with him. I'm constantly saying to anyone who cares to listen that it is NOT a cook's kitchen. It's not even a good kitchen for those who don't do much cooking but still have to have cupboards full of food and bake stuff and staples. Usually the family hears my mumbled complaints after groceries have been brought into the house....the cabinets are too shallow and not tall enough - regular sized dinner plates don't fit well, tall bottles of Olive Oil or bags of bread flour have to be laid or leaned to fit. I'm not sure where the P.O's got these cabinets but they're NOT standard cabinets. If you walked in and just looked at my kitchen you would think that all is well and I've got lots of storage space...but you would be fooled.....as I was until I began to move in our kitchen things. Counter space is also deceiving...we've already extended the counter space once and I still need more....I'm so ready to redo the kitchen...but, we can't do the kitchen yet for a variety of reasons.

Although there were no major issues with this 100 year old house when we moved in, there were issues that needed to be addressed - things that aren't visible to the naked eye. As we tackled each of these jobs, we also designed the room where the work took place. This next job is one that's been on the "list" since we moved in but it, like the kitchen, was way down at the bottom - until last year that is.

It's not even going to be a huge job - my office resides in what was once the front porch of this house; you enter it either from what was originally an exterior door to the kitchen or from what used to be the exterior door to the living room (a french door now separates it from the living room).

This photo was taken before we moved in - look how young Hunter was - sorry -
I'm using it to give an idea of the doors - looking through the office, you can
see the door into the living room.

A wall of windows now exists on the exterior wall that was put up in the 80's. You step up from the office into both those rooms because the flooring in there is still the sub floor of that original front porch (the ceiling is the original bead board of the front porch). The project includes putting in a layer of insulation and then real wood flooring over the sub floor. We'll also be going into the interior wall to handle some minor electrical issues that we learned about during the insulating of the attic last year (when suddenly my ceiling fan quit working~) ... but I'm just not ready to empty out that room and find temporary homes for two large and one small bookcases, a large roll top desk and three chairs.....My little office that looks out over the fields and where the Camellia's are in bloom right now...the room where I write this blog, read my books and magazines....it's bright and its sunny and it helps me get through the winters. And I will feel the loss of using it daily.....

Looking into the office today (from the living room)

It's been a pretty rough year for us both emotionally and financially; our sanity has been saved to a large degree by the peace that we find both inside and outside this old farmhouse. Four more weeks of that peace isn't too much to ask......is it?

Calm after the storm....

2010-01-22T11:39:00.004-05:00

We don't worry about tornado's in Florida too much; even when we do have them, they're usually quite small especially since I have memories of the huge tornado's of Indiana and Ohio...but yesterday, well, I have to admit that I was pretty darn shaken up.

I had my annual hair appointment yesterday morning - cut and color and as most women know, that is several hours worth of sitting in the salon (and I'm exaggerating only a little bit about it being an annual thing with me~~). Yesterday, we all knew the weather might get a bit rough but I don't think most of us expected it to be quite that bad....I began to wonder as I watched it turn dark as night out the salon window and watched the street lights turn on one by one at 1:30 in the afternoon. Driving out of the parking lot about 15 minutes later to head out to pick up Hunter from school, I turned on talk radio to get some weather news.....! Tornado's and funnel clouds were being reported from Duval, to Clay, to St. Johns county....school dismissals were being held for bus-ers and walkers and they were asking the parent pick up folks to wait a bit to head out for their kids. Twenty five minutes from home and only about 10 minutes from the school, I decided to get to the school asap...and then decide whether to drive on home or take shelter in the school.

In hindsight, I should probably have remained at the school (where they kept all the kids for an additional hour and fifteen minutes~~) because as Hunter and I raced home, they were reporting tornado's heading our way from two different sides of us....we saw one funnel cloud as we crossed over I95......

We made it home just before the rains and winds hit our place...driving up the country road and looking at the sky our little house appeared to be in the middle of a circle of clouds.....all the dark and dangerous looking ones seemed to be circling us......I know that part of it was the illusion of safety that came because I could see the end of our rather harrowing drive home but the house looked sheltered in some way from the chaos that surrounded it....

We stashed our stuff and shut windows and doors as the first bit of rain came down, we watched as debris began to fly and hit those windows and we listened to the silence of a house in which the power has failed making us more aware of the howling winds just outside......Two hours later, it all calmed down and we ventured out to check on the chickens equipped with our raincoats and mud boots.....and spent the remainder of our day talking to family and friends and being grateful that when all was said and done, not too much damage was being reported......the only thing we lost yesterday was a few hours of Internet connectivity......I wish the Haitians had been so lucky.

6 reforms I'd like to see in America's heath industry

Uhm...its not about George Bush anymore ~~

2010-01-20T08:26:00.003-05:00

Restless Patriot: INSURRECTION!!!!!!!!!!

And its not just about party- just as the Tea Party folks have been saying all along. Because we have an entrenched two party system, party enters into it, but it doesn't define it by any means. Our government is "for the people" and "by the people". 55 million of us did not vote for President Obama and his far left agenda and some of those who did vote for him didn't understand just what he meant about "fundamentally" changing our country. Some of those who believed he'd be non-partisan and put the negotiations on CSPAN and all the other things he promised are now realizing that, as Nancy Pelosi admitted, those words were just "campaign" rhetoric......the change really talked about was a one party ruled parlimentary system where anything and everything was shoved through regardless of what "the people" thought about it.

"Without debate, without critisicm, no administration and no country can succeed and no republic can surive" John F. Kennedy April 27 1961

While the dems have been crying to the public that the repubs were obstructing the passage of health care, the truth was this - repubs had no power to obstruct anything. There was no debate because the dems did not need ONE Republican vote for any bill they wanted to pass (unless of course they wanted to lie that one vote made it bi-partisan). For those of us who may have forgotten our American History or Political Science classes and temporarily believed the lies.....here's the reality of our government prior to yesterdays "insurrection".

House Total Seats 435 Representatives

Votes Needed to Pass a Bill 218 Yes Votes

Number of Dem Seats 256 (+38 votes needed to pass a bill)

Number of Repub Seats 178 (-40 votes to stop a bill)

That's the reason that all the "debates" held over health care were behind locked and closed doors with the President, with the Unions etc.) They didn't need to discuss anything with any Republican in the House. Repubs couldn't stop the bill's passage.

Senate Total Seats 100 Senators

Votes Needed to Pass a Bill 51 Yes Votes

Number of Dems 58 (+7 needed to pass a bill)

Independents (vote Dem) 2 (giving Dems 60 votes to stop fillibustering)

Number of Repubs 40 (-11 votes to stop a bill)

That's the reason that all the "debates" held over health care were behind locked and closed doors....... and that's the truth behind the spin of the Dems (who said the Repubs have stopped passage of this bill).

Watch the spin over this election - they'll make it about George Bush; they'll make it about Coakley's campaign; they'll make it about us "just not understanding the benefits we'll all get from this bill". They'll want to deny that the public is no longer the apathetic group of folks it used to be.....we're getting educated...not only about them but about what the goal of some them actually is (to "fundamentally" change our Democratic Republic by not letting a "good crisis" go wasted) and not only about that but about what our Founding Fathers warned us about in the Federalist Papers. We're remembering or learning for the first time (depending on just when we went to the Government Schools in this country) what our Constitution actually says.

The truth is that this health care bill was stopped by the fact that some of the elected Democrats still care about "the people" who elected them and will live under this reform - and it is these Democrats that will hopefully stop this bill in its tracks now. It is these Democrats who will force this administration to go back to the table and pass REAL health care reform and not a bill riddled with bribes that favor certains groups of citizens and harm others. IF they were listening to us yesterday......

As Ted Kennedy's "seat" goes back to the People of Massachuchetts, its ironic to read the words of his brother about the importance of debate. Seems the Party of John F. Kennedy lost its way and we the people will force them to find it again......come on November.

Proving myself~~

2010-01-19T16:01:00.005-05:00

I just got a certified copy of my birth certificate in the mail today. The original one has been lost since 1982 when David and I applied for our marriage license - we used it that day and no one has seen it since. But, I haven't needed it. Until Now.

It would be awesome if I could write that we'd planned some lovely trip that required a new passport - but nope, that's not what it is for. I need it to renew my Florida Drivers License....never needed it before, but need it now. Suddenly, despite living here since 1976 and getting my license then, I have to prove who I am. I don't only have to bring in my birth certificate, I also have to bring in my marriage certificate because I got a name change way back then....!

And I just can't renew online - I have to go in to have a vision test - despite the fact that I have one of those annually through my health plan....surely if I have to dig out my marriage license, and send off (and pay $12.50) for my birth certificate my receipt from my last annual eye exam should be sufficient, but no....I have to lose hours of my day to prove that I am not blind.

So why do I suddenly need to prove that I'm an American Citizen and a legal Florida Resident who had a legal reason for her name change..... is this a further intrusion of the Feds into our States rights?....Oh, I know that the "official" reason is something to do with homeland security......by 2017 we'll all have to have "official" national ID cards (read our Driver's Licenses or an ID card from the DMV) to enter Federal Buildings and board a plane. Supposedly, its also to make identity theft harder.....yeah right.

And to add insult to injury....the fees for renewing my license have more than doubled...from $20.00 to $47.00.....and if I go to the combined office of tax collector in the town located closest to me instead of to the larger town where the offices aren't combined - I have to pay an additional tax collector's service fee of $6.50....which I'll do simply because there will be no line to stand in when I go there....the increase is supposed to be for Road Improvement - wait a minute weren't the Stimulous Funds supposed to provide infrastructure improvement with shovel ready jobs to keep the unemployment rates down....? Well, wasn't it?

And those fee increases? They weren't the only ones imposed on Florida residents since September 1 of 2009 - our tag registration costs nearly doubled as well - we paid $47.00 in 2008 and $78.00 in 2009 (times 3 all on the same day in November- happy birthday from the Government~~) Let's not forget the fishing and hunting license tax increases....and the new requirements for those fishing licenses which include types and places of fishing that didn't require licensing in the past..........and starting on the first of this month - our employers now pay a 78% percent increase in unemployment taxes....(a result of the federal mandate to extend unemployment benefits because the Stimulous Plan hasn't delivered~~) can you say "more layoffs" or at the very least - "no hiring"? In 2009, one small business owner paid $3,188 in taxes. Next year he’ll be paying $10,098 for the same number of workers.

Hey, Florida Politicians! Are you watching the race in Mass today? Are you listening? Regardless of who wins today's race, there is a message that is being sent to you here locally - not just to Washington. With 11 % unemployment in this state - with folks who can't afford to put groceries on their tables fishing to feed their families, you keep increasing our taxes and fees......if you haven't heard us yet, November is on its way.

Rant over!

What to blog about today.....

2010-01-15T10:01:00.003-05:00

There's a lot of stuff racing around my mind today ~ so much that I can't even begin to think of only one subject to blog about....so, instead of fighting it....

Around the house - We're down to 9 chickens now - 8 hens and 1 little Roo....despite trying to re home the five other roosters, in the end, they went to rooster heaven by way of one of our local farmers. David wanted to put them in our freezer, but I just couldn't do that....yet. So we called our hay supplier (with whom we barter eggs for hay) and he came over and took them off our hands for us. (You may remember we had 9 Roosters to start with, we've kept 1 and re homed 3.) The four Roos were beating the tar out of each other, stealing most of the hens food and destroying everything in their path - not to mention the constant noise making as each tried to gain the Alpha position. The Roo we kept is the sweetest of the bunch - beaten up very early on by his brother, he stayed close to the hens who seemed to favor him over all the rest. It's a whole lot quieter 'round here now~~

Watch this race - No, not Nascar.....the Massachusetts race. Not since 1972 has a Republican been voted into the Senate in this state. But a poll today has Scott Brown ahead by 4 percentage points. Could it actually happen? And if it does, will the present leaders in DC get the message? So far, they've ignored the Polls, the Tea Parties, the emails and letters and faxes and phone calls. I have to hope that even if the Democrat somehow pulls this out, those leaders will get the message anyway. The majority of Americans don't want THIS health care reform bill with its bribes (the latest being that the Unions will be exempt from the Cadillac Tax and the rest of us will pay for it for them~~) and its unintelligible length and its not-broadcast-on-CNN-lobbyist/special interest dealings.

Who's your favorite Founding Father? Can you name just one? Can you eliminate one for another or is there something that stands out about each of them that makes you admire him just as much as you admire another? Or do you, like so many of the "political analysts" or T.V. hosts today, attempt to write them all off as "white landowners"? If forced to choose one, which one would you choose? And would you base your choice on the context of the time they lived or by the context of the time in which you live? A lot of folks don't realize just how long it was after the Revolutionary War that we actually had George Washington as our President. A lot of folks don't realize that he really didn't want to be the leader of this new country. A lot of folks don't realize that some of those who lived then wanted to establish a monarchy instead of a democratic republic. And a whole lot of folks don't realize that we face much the same debate today only now its total socialism instead of a monarchy that lies in the balance. In my humble opinion, we all need to do a little bit of historical research before anyone judges Sarah Palin on her answer to this particular question....if only so that we don't accept at face value the spin of those who seek to make her look stupid or evasive..........

Redneck Woman?

2010-01-14T08:29:00.003-05:00

Old Centennial Farmhouse: Slow as Molasses in January

Are YOUR lights down? Those Christmas lights I mean.....! Ours aren't...although we aren't turning them on in the evenings anymore. Every time I drive past our house to get to the second driveway, I hear that song in my head...you know the one about the Redneck woman who leaves them up all year long?

So why are they still up? Is it because, like Joni over at Old Centennial Farmhouse, I don't want to see the bareness of a wintered in farmhouse? Nope, its because its just been too darn cold and windy outside to take them down! The wreathes that hung from the porch railings and the ones that hung on the fences and gates only came down on Tuesday....when my husband took advantage of the sunshine and a break in the ever present howling winds to venture out and grab them up..... I would have left those wreathes up until spring...after all that song didn't say anything at all about beautiful green wreathes tied up with a colorful bow!

I'm usually ready for all the Christmas things to come down because the clutter gets to me after a while....but this year, since I used a minimalist approach to decorating, there wasn't an issue with clutter and it was a bit harder to put it all away. The Tree was the hardest though.

Since re-arranging the living room this past September, I was anticipating putting up a long, tall, fragrant tree in a corner that now was going to be perfect for it. It was a different corner from where we'd been putting our tree and I just knew that it would be a beautiful sight. And it didn't disappoint me - I moved out the comfy red chair and the fake palm tree right after Thanksgiving dinner (well, not quite that quickly but almost) and put up that beautiful, perfectly sized Fraser Fir and spent hours curled up staring at it each evening.

So, taking down that tree was hard. That corner now looks bare and cold and...sad. Instead of putting back the comfy red chair (which is really too small and low for it) I've temporarily filled that corner with that fake palm tree surrounded with our front porch plants brought in to escape the winters winds....and I'm busy going through magazines for some ideas on how to fill that corner once those plants go back outside. Here's hoping I can find something to place in that corner to fill the next 11 months until I get to put back up a beautiful, colorful, and shining Christmas Tree.....(and if I'm really blessed, that wood stove that I almost got last week will be roaring away too!....okay, I promise that I'll try not to talk about that wood stove again......I'm letting it go.....)

Countryside~~

2010-01-13T16:31:00.002-05:00

It was time for our bi-weekly trip to the Tractor Supply (actually, it was past due for it - we'd lost last week to the heating drama unfolding around the place~~) so about an hour before time to pick up Hunter from school, David and I loaded up and headed to town. I absolutely love this trip in to get our dog and chicken feed and salt for the water system - the store is loaded with country clothing and accessories and lots of magazines with Labrador to Chicken to Pig based titles. While David or one of the boys load up the feed and the salt, I usually browse either the aisles themselves or the magazines. I've picked up Countryside a couple of times before, but never bought it. The wood stove on the front of the January/February cover caught my eye and kept it even over the lure of beautiful chickens or gorgeous labs on several other mags.....so home it came with us.

As I ate my lunch, I read through the first quarter of it....notice that I said "read" and not "looked" ...that's because it's mostly full paged articles with black and white images....this magazine is about the content and not about snazzy photos and expensive advertising.....and I loved it...No flipping from page 5 to page 21 to finish reading an article.....no turning of page after page of ads to get to the words I want to read.

Basically, this bi monthly magazine is for homesteaders or those who wish to live off-grid, but there's a whole lot there for those of us still plugged in but hoping for more self sustainability in our lives, more simplicity in our family life, more nature to keep us healthy and wise.

I can't wait for after dinner hour tonight when all the human and animal souls are fed and bathed and watered and bedded down for the night and I get to curl up on my sofa with a cuppa tea and my cozy afghan and finish reading about cooking on a wood stove.......(can you tell I'm still a bit in mourning for the loss of the wood stove I almost got last week?)

The Misery Index~~

2010-01-12T10:03:00.002-05:00

Day 11 of freezing temps - Our dogs are following the sun spots around our house. Built in 1909 (or somewhere there-abouts), our old farmhouse has 28 windows (or 30 - I can't seem to get an accurate count and can't seem to figure out why that is, but that's another story...) - unlike the new McMansions which typically have only front and back windows, there are at least two windows in every room and therefore, windows on every side.....and the dogs follow the sunshine~

It's cold down here in Florida (just in case you haven't been watching the national weather because you're so caught up in it where YOU live). And we are all feeling some of that Misery Index that we hear about in political punditry. Used to the wetness of swampy air we Floridians are all feeling the affects of living inside with heaters drying out all the air we breathe. Several times a day, I step just outside to breathe in the freshness of that outside air - its a bit like our dogs following that sun around the rooms of this house...I'm looking for something that alleviates that misery just a bit.

As Hunter and I drove home yesterday, the news man gave us warning from the Power Company that our electric bills will probably be double what we're used to.....that's pretty scary since December and January's bills usually are already double what we pay the rest of the year down here......

Many of us are still caught up in the mess of this recession - some are still without a job, some have just rolled off the Unemployment Rolls, some have just gotten a job but are making less than they were before and a whole lot of folks who kept their jobs have lost hours, salary, bonuses etc. ....now here, in Florida, we're looking at crop loss - personally, we have lost our oranges, lemons and quats - I'm still holding out some hope for our strawberries, but not too much. So, doubled energy bills and higher prices for all of Florida's fruit produce......unemployment at 10.8%......3 terrorist attacks in less then one year......a deficit that is unfathomable to most of us.....

That Misery Index.....it will have an affect/effect on things....like, let's say, our already shaken belief in global warming and the Cap and Trade bill that will come back on the table this year - these freezing temps in many corners of our world are more indicative of a mini ice age than global warming and when we think of the email scandal where data was "hidden" to avoid having to explain to folks why temps have actually fallen over the past 11 years instead of risen~

As for me...right now I'm just going to act like my wonderful fur kids and just follow the sun spots around my house......and dream of better days and the warmth of a Florida spring.....

Looking Back ~

2010-01-12T08:39:00.001-05:00

I didn't blog once in December. Not once. Which means that I didn't post any photos of decorations, gift sharing, mini bike riding, go cart adventures, family gatherings....none of it. So, I thought that before I move forward, I'd just share a few of those photos.......

This year's Tree - partially decorated - it ended up being the best photo of it this year maybe because it was taken by our friend John Binkley - a professional photographer.

Our Christmas Eve celebration was different this year with the passing of David's mother in August - we went into St. Augustine to enjoy hot chocolate or Mocha's and view the Nights of Lights......

It was a "Chicken Christmas" for me -

The Dogs enjoyed their annual bag of toys - which lasted about 15 minutes - they don't chew the rest of the year but for some reason, they destroy the toys Santa brings.....

King, our beloved Tri-pod, actually managed to save this one for about 5 days......

This was the face to remember - this child never shows excitement on Christmas morning......except for this year when he saw......

THIS~ and then got to do this

I know its a blurry photo, but these guys were acres away from the house - over by the John Travolta house (where they filmed the last bit of the movie "Lonely Hearts").

David and I enjoy the new toy as well....in this photo I'm explaining to him how I just barely escaped a bad turn.....and the 6 foot ditch that separates us from the tractor.....scared myself quite a bit....for some reason, my brain doesn't compute the fact that there is a brake on the handle......and I keep using my legs to stop the thing....practicing on straight runs now before I venture out into the fields again......

There's about 100 more photos I could show you - Christmas Eve wishing at the fountain in St. Augustine or my sister, my brother and myself with our families having a ball the night after Christmas at Winter Wonderland......but, its a New Year and time to move forward...

signing off so that I can get those 2009 files put away and set up the new ones for 2010.....oh joy~~

"The Rest of the Story" and a Moral of sorts~~

2010-01-11T11:57:00.003-05:00

I'm a Floridian.....I like sunshine and warmth....I live here because not only do I like it, I need sunshine and warmth.....my last two posts have centered around warmth......this one concludes the saga of one family's efforts to survive 10 days of freezing temps when 60 degrees is considered uncomfortably cold to them.....

A sight not usually found in Sunny Florida - this is the faucet
just off our front porch - this icicle lasted three days.
There's a new one there this morning.

Remember that upstairs unit I wrote about....the one that kept the upstairs warm while the downstairs froze? The one that was replaced only three years ago? What exactly happened to that one? Well, the compressor burned out....because someone who used to live here had decided they wanted to double filtrate the internal unit (which had not been replaced three years ago) and put a filter in a place it wasn't designed to go and wasn't visible to us or to any of the service technicians that have visited us over the last 6 years here. That filter probably caused the compressor to go three years ago and definitely caused it to go on Thursday....the unusual situation in which Floridians find themselves running a heater 24/7 brought the double filtration issue to a head....and left us with another huge bill 8 days into the new year and another installer here on Friday afternoon. I won't even describe the state of that filter....

The good news is that both heaters are working now....we'll get a tax credit for 2010...we're much more "green" then we were previously because we've now got a puron system instead of a Freon one....and even though our dreams of a wood stove have been put off for a bit...we'll eventually spend Christmas snuggled up around one that has a kettle of hot chocolate or a pot of wassail bubbling away....

Let me end this with a moral...you remember how the stories we used to read in school always had a moral teaching.....Don't attempt to double filtrate a system that isn't designed for double filtration.....and if you buy a previously owned house....make sure that you have a technician specifically look for evidence that someone {stupidly} tried to do it.....

And if you live in our neck of the woods.....we highly recommend Powell Heating and Air........

Feeding the chickens warm mash - not something we do very often here in Florida.

A warm {but poorer"} Lori signing off~~~!

The hunt for a Wood Stove.....

2010-01-10T11:04:00.003-05:00

Vermont Castings "Encore"

See that? That's the Wood Stove David and I wanted to put in our living room - right where the original fireplace would have been located....IF the previous owners hadn't taken it and the chimney out/down during their own time in residence here. In the interest of self-sustainability, I want one that I can cook on and we both want one that is EPA approved for its efficiency and emission levels. David and I began the day with a certain level of excitement and I must admit to visions of spending next Christmas around a beautiful and warm fire with a pot of hot chocolate or wassail bubbling away on the stove dancing in my head.....and so Monday morning, influenced by the weather predictions of at least 7 more days of this freezing weather (not to mention the thought of just how hard the rest of this winter would be), we got out the phone book and put on our long johns and ski jackets and dug out the gloves and then, headed to town to find us that stove. Only to find that all of the retailers here locally have gone out of business.

We stopped in at one business that operates without inventory and will put in the stoves for you, but ordering it? Well, he assured us that if we ordered it online he would install it for us and he also recommended the exact wood stove we'd been wishing for....so we headed back to our cold home to see about ordering online.

Ordering a Wood Stove on line is not really an issue but waiting for it would be. While a lot of the online stores didn't charge you shipping, there would be a three week wait time to receive the thing and YOU are responsible for its unloading....in three weeks we'll probably be back up in the 80's down here...and I needed heat asap. There is one dealer in the state of Florida that will sell you one of these beauties, but...they want almost a thousand dollars more then the suggested retail price of Vermont Castings....that left us with the option of ordering on line and waiting until almost spring...

So we set about looking at used stoves and smaller ones and less attractive ones and antique ones and......we realized that a lot of the stoves are actually illegal now. You have to check with your local and state authorities to be certain that you can purchase and install certain makes and models. Now, we could probably get away with installing one of these ourselves...at least for a time, but with Cap and Tax in the works (or increased regulation by the already far reaching EPA if Cap and Tax dies in the Congress), eventually we'd have to replace it or pay fines or go to jail or who the heck knows....And to be honest, the EPA threat doesn't weigh as much on our minds as the safety issues of installing a wood burning stove ourselves and well, despite our being Conservatives who don't believe Al Gore and his global warming hysteria (hey, are you cold right now?) we do subscribe to the idea that all of us should take steps to become less destructive of this planet God has blessed us with .....so after an afternoon spent in my freezing office searching out our internet options, back to the discussion table we went.

Adding up the costs of ordering a wood stove online and then paying for someone to off load it and then install it, we realized that we could replace the downstairs heat pump/ac unit for just about the same amount of money.. and a whole lot faster. So, Tuesday morning we had a heating company out here....they thought they could probably fix our unit and they tried...we had heat for about an hour and then whamo, it fried the part they had added....! We placed a call to the company and the owner was at our house about two hours later and we'd agreed to put in a new system....on Wednesday morning, as we waited for the installers to arrive, the upstairs unit stopped blowing warm air. We turned it off and waited for it to unfreeze.....turned it back on and...nothing. We repeated that....and nothing. We now had no heat whatsoever in this house. The temperature plummeted to the high 40's downstairs and to about 55 upstairs....David and I bundled up and called the company to report that our second unit was now not working.....

To make a long story short...the downstairs system went in on Wednesday....but we had to call an electrician to bring the wiring up to code....but that also meant that we could add heat strips to the heat pump and bring our efficiency rating from a 7.5 to a 10.5% rating.....that's a good thing. Wednesday night and Thursday, the outside temps only allowed the new unit to warm the house to about 67 degrees....it just couldn't get it any warmer..after they added the heat strips late on Thursday afternoon we had the house temp downstairs to 72 degrees....I opened those blinds and curtains and as I looked outside at the views I love, I was in heaven..as long as I stayed downstairs!

To be continued.....

What a week~~

2010-01-09T09:37:00.007-05:00

Since the whole country is feeling the Canadian Blast right now, I'm sure that its not news to anyone that Florida is experiencing way below normal temps at the moment....what makes it really out of the ordinary is the length of time we've been stuck in these frigid temps. Typical Florida winters include a day or two or maybe three of freezing temps, one hard freeze if we're lucky (because that helps with controlling the bug population) but this is day eight for us down here. On New Years Day, I began taking down the Christmas Tree in capri's and a t-shirt but ended the day in sweats with slipper socks, a warm and cozy crochetted afghan and a space heater in the living room and an open range in the kitchen.....

and it went downhill from there. As I went around the next morning shutting blinds and pulling lined draperies I felt all the drafts that we'd missed to date in our restorations of this old house so I added towels to the windows and covered the vents.....and I listened to the weather reports. You see, we knew that our downstairs heating would never keep up with temps that hovered around 30 degrees and so we'd shut it off completely to avoid the high cost of running it and were hoping to make it to spring before replacing it. Every now and then, I would head upstairs and warm up because that 3 year old unit was working wonderfully........then. I knew I could handle two or three days of being shut off from the views outside my windows - I knew I could warm up upstairs if I needed to and our kitchen, in which we have completed the re-insulation projects, was warm enough with the range open that I could continue to make meals and do dishes and keep this house going......but then I saw the predictions.....and started thinking that maybe, despite Al Gore's repeated warnings of global warming, that perhaps, this winter, I'd not be getting that warm up outside in two or three days.....and I knew that I'd never make to spring without begging the doctor for some happy pills.....from Friday to Sunday, I still had hope, but as darkness rolled in on Sunday night, I traipsed upstairs (carefully, to avoid tripping on the warm robe I had on over my sweats and slipper socks and slippers....) to talk to David....

"Honey, let's go tomorrow and see about putting in a wood stove downstairs. I know we thought we'd wait until spring to do all of this stuff, but, well, you go to work where its warm and Hunter goes to school where its warm and I, well, I guess I could go hang out at Walmart every day until it warms up....".

To be continued.....

Giving Thanks

2009-11-17T09:50:00.004-05:00

There's something going 'round at Facebook...a whole lot of thankfulness. Someone came up with the idea that we post one thing we're thankful for each day of November.....it a great idea and a lot of fun to read....however, its not as easy as one might think. The first few days were easy, but each day gets a little bit harder to think of a post that is original....of course, there's nothing wrong with repeating that one is thankful for a roof over their head or a good marriage or wonderful kids but, hey, try to dig a little deeper and it is hard not to become a bit introspective.......I wonder if the one who came up with the idea realized that for some of us, this would be pretty thought provoking?

So, here's a few of my "I'm thankful for" posts (all written after I ran out of things that were easy to say I'm thankful for...)

November 13th: Today I'm thankful that I've aged enough and experienced enough to know that revenge is a dish best served cold - patience is a virtue - and God is always in control.

That one came about because of a few things we've been dealing with lately...things that brought out the Mama Bear in me but things that I could not act upon.....I had to be patient and wait for the comeuppance of the ones who were dealing out the issues....and I've had experience enough to know that that comeuppance would eventually come ~ and since God is in control, it would come about in ways much better suited to the situation than I, in any anger or hurt or feelings of betrayal or protectiveness, could ever hope to bring about.

November 16th: Today I'm thankful for the siblings God blessed me with......I didn't know how lucky I actually was until very recently!

Again, this one has a lot to do with some of the things we've had to face lately....while we fuss and moan at each other (or each others spouses) from time to time, we don't engage in character assassination - or blame each other for our own actions. The total family relationship is by no means a perfect one, but all in all, I'm thankful for the relationships we do have within the whole. I've realized over the past few months that how we were raised, how our parents dealt with us and with each other in times of stress or game play or any other facet of our lives truly does have an affect on how the siblings as adults will deal with each other. If we were taught that winning at everything (not just sports mind you!) was more important than how the win came about...then we learn to fight dirty and without empathy for the damage we inflect on others. If we are taught to rush, without much thought beforehand, into something just to wrest control of the situation out of the hands of others, then honesty and integrity are sometimes sacrificed.....and we don't have the ability to understand why others will now view us with suspicion and mis-trust. And if you are not taught that the manner in which you win can affect future relationships forever, then you don't understand why your "I want to have a relationship with you after all of this is over" is met with a total lack of reciprocation of that feeling.

Like I said, once you've said that you're thankful for all the things that come so easily and you find that you have to dig a bit deeper for real gratitude, you might just get a bit more thoughtful about the less obvious blessings that you take for granted.....

So, most of all this week, I'm thankful for the parents that God blessed me with - parents who taught me empathy and compassion and that winning isn't everything and that how we treat our siblings does matter...........

And the little blessings that we also sometimes forget to be grateful for?

Today: Hunter and I got to watch the shuttle take off yesterday from the MacDonald's parking lot....the best view of it we've ever had....I'm thankful that I decided to take him there for a treat after school - otherwise we'd have missed it completely - life is full of little blessings disguised as coincidence.

Here's a challenge for bloggers - try to come up with one thing you are thankful for every day for the remainder of this month......and don't be too surprised when after a few days, you have to dig a bit deeper.....

2009-11-16T11:40:00.002-05:00

This will be a different kind of holiday season for our family.....there have been a few changes over the past year that have me wondering just how we'll handle this years holidays. I sensed this change a-coming last year as I decorated for Christmas silently and constantly praying that my father would survive his latest hospitalization and as I pondered my little sister's transition from a jet setting wife to a home loving mother.

While I haven't spent many Christmas or Thanksgiving days with my father since I've married and become a parent, it was different with my little sister ~ 14 years my junior, she has spent nearly every major holiday at my house since she was 8 years old (not to give away her age but I've been married for 27 years~~). She moved away this year~and she'll be moving into her new house Thanksgiving week ~ we haven't even discussed Christmas plans in all the hustle and bustle of her move.

Add into the equation that David's mom passed suddenly on August 2nd and now our Christmas Eve tradition will be changing as well (all but two Christmas Eve's in 27 years have been spent at her home).

As I puttered about this weekend bringing out the few Thanksgiving decorations that I own, I wondered how we'd deal with all of this change. I worry for my kids and my husband and know that they will take their cues from me......and so I pray that I can somehow help them through a strange holiday season and help them remember all the reasons that we celebrate those days in the first place.............

Simple, filling dinner

2009-11-16T11:09:00.005-05:00

This was the first recipe I followed way back when....I was a 16 year old living in England attending Swadelands in the village of Lenham (Kent)....and I was taking Home Ec....I hated the sewing part of the class, but I loved the cooking and baking portion of it...especially the taste testing that followed.....

The day we learned this recipe, I came home and made it for my family's dinner...it was a hit. When Dave and I first married, I cooked it once for him and he hated it so it was never cooked again....last night I had a craving for it and told him and Hunter they could eat eggs(!) if they didn't want to eat what I had made for dinner......lo and behold they loved it! (Reminiscing, Dave and I think that I probably used generic goods and cheap sausage back in our newlywed stage so use the good stuff~)

...anyhoo, this is a wonderful meal for a busy day where there's really no time to cook.....prep time is however long it takes you to open two cans, chop an onion, add some seasoning, stir, lay sausage and put it in the oven.....

Preheat the oven to 350
Open a can of good baked beans and add it to a casserole dish
Open a can of fire roasted garlic tomatoes and add it to the dish
Chop a small to medium onion in large pieces and add it to the dish
Add a tablespoon of dark brown sugar and salt and pepper to taste
Give it all a really good stir
Lay any good brand of sausage (links or dogs) across the top
Bake for 45 minutes.....
Enjoy!

This was a big hit last night with the H man who passes up baked beans 99% of the time....(he didn't feel like making his own egg!)

Sorry for the lack of photos.....we ate it all before I could snap any~~

A dish served cold~~

2009-11-13T11:56:00.002-05:00

Years and years ago, when I was an Air Force Brat moving from school to school and continually having to make new friends, I learned a lot about being patient about some things. Most of the time, I was the only "new" girl in the class, but every now and then, especially as I got into middle and high school, there'd be a whole lot of us "new" kids. When there are a lot of you, its harder to assimilate into the groove that's already been established through the years and years these other kids all knew each other; the newbies all tend to hang together until they find their own niches in the social structure of the school.

I was about 13 the first time I really experienced this and I sort of rushed into a close friendship with one particular girl. My mom and dad didn't like her much and tried to encourage me to slow down until I really knew who she was but I didn't listen. There were four of us who were all new and were hanging together. I was content in that group of four, but the one I was the closest to wasn't; the first time I really saw this was at my 14Th birthday party. I wanted a sleep over with just the four of us - she encouraged me to invite a few other girls over and suddenly, the other half of our group of four newbies wasn't coming to the party. I took their excuses at face value, not realizing that "my" friend had told them that I really didn't want them there and that I really only wanted the other girls I'd invited. A few weeks later, my friend completely turned on me and was hanging with those others she'd encouraged me to invite.

Suddenly, I was not liked by her "new" group of friends and the other two girls wouldn't speak to me either. I struggled through the end of the school year lonely and heartsick at the betrayal. My parents told me to just be patient because her true colors would eventually come out as long as I didn't do anything to justify any of her lies against me. It was hard, but I listened and I waited and .....

Shortly after the beginning of the next school year, that not so good friend's "group" approached me and began to apologize for the way they'd treated me the past year explaining that over the summer, they'd learned who that other girl really was.....my revenge was served cold and I didn't have to do a thing to have it served. That group of friends became very close to me over that year and that year was one of the best ones of my childhood (and then we moved....again!).

I didn't forget that lesson and through the years have quietly waited for tides to turn - for those who throw the first lying accusation out to be found out. I've learned that those who accuse others usually are the ones actually doing the dirty deed - its called deflection - and if you wait long enough......well, like I said, its a dish best served cold~

Fall Cleaning~

2009-10-20T08:24:00.001-04:00

I missed spring cleaning this year; I'm not exactly sure why although I think it may have been all the energy we expended on the chicken coop, the new fence, transplanting etc....the fact that I missed that annual frenzy of housewifely energy was becoming more obvious by the day. But I'm on it now~

If you could see into my office, you'd notice brown bags strategically placed against the wall; if you could see into my kitchen, you'd notice that I've spent the morning cleaning copper and silver pieces that have been hidden in the bottom of the China Cabinet for a couple of years (I just didn't have the time to clean them regularly during the major home renovations that we've been undertaking for the last five years, so I hid them from view). And over the years we've lived here, I've been adjusting my attitude regarding accessories due to the dust that finds its way into the house from the fields - this means that a lot of items have been tucked into eaves and drawers and cupboards where they're simply taking up space.

I'm slowly sorting through all the stashed away things that I've been ignoring for way too long. I'm trying to decide if I have the energy to hold a yard sale, rent a flea market booth, or just load it up and take it all to Goodwill.

Like many folks, we could use the extra few bucks that a yard sale might bring in - I'd like to raise enough money to pay for the new satellite/cable jack that needs to be put in to accommodate the new living room arrangement.....that would make me feel really good about that expenditure....but, I just don't know if the things I have are worthy of the effort of organizing a sale or would even bring in enough to cover the cost of a flea market booth.

The new living room arrangement - we bought a cable at the Depot
and its running around the room, taped down......

We don't get much traffic down our road but we've sold a few things without ever even putting a for sale sign on them...just park them near the road and folks stop to ask if we're selling. We've given away a few items like that as well.

Anyway, regardless of what I end up doing with all these things, I'm trying to be a part of the "50 Things Project" - you know the one where you find 50 things to give away or sell to un-clutter your life? And as I go, I'm doing my spring cleaning...er, fall cleaning...and that's a good thing in and of itself.

More photos of the new living room arrangement

The wall the TV used to be on (ignore the red ball please~)

The opposite side of long narrow room - and the space heater I'm
so glad we bought last week considering the fact that our heater
is not working AGAIN...but that's another post.

Our Murphy - who snuck in that red ball you ignored earlier~.

Okay, I admit it.....

2009-10-19T08:32:00.001-04:00

I'm in love with my chickens~we had them growing up but I certainly don't remember them being so much fun and I know I don't remember them all having such distinct personalities. I knew I had strong feelings for these little things, but it didn't really hit me until we gave away three of our babies to the neighbors across the county road. The little girl that lives down there wanted chickens, so we gave her chickens....and my heart groaned as I walked away from them in their new coop.

One of the Little Roo's

You may remember the arrival of the 13 baby chicks last June....how I played classical music as a lullaby to get them to quiet down in their crate? Remember how we lost four of them - 2 to crooked beak and two who just spasmed and died on us? Well those 9 survivors got a hold on me.....maybe because of their odd looks.

Two Baby Roos - perhaps

There were several different kinds of chickens at the babies old home; there was a Game Cock and a Big Rhode Island Red Rooster to service those several different kinds of hens and, as a result, our babies, well, who the heck knows which of the two Roos were the dads of those and who were the moms. Allowed to Free Roam 2.5 acres, those hens all laid in the same place and when enough eggs were laid, one of the hens would decide to take over the role of Mama while the others continued on their with their merry, free roaming life. Our babies certainly show in their strange looks this communal living arrangement.

We believe this is 2 Hens and 2 Roos, but we're just not certain yet.

We're still trying to determine which are Roos and which are hens....we think we gave our neighbor two hens and one Roo, but only time will tell the truth of that. We're waiting for the Roos to try to crow and then, my heart will groan again...because those Roos will have to be rehomed.

I never would have believed I could become so attached to chickens.

Project Updates....

2009-10-08T09:24:00.005-04:00

Not too much to report really; projects have been put on the back burner this year for various reasons. The only real project has been the chickens and their sanctuary.....

The original coop

We started out behind the eight ball - no coop, no feeders. We decided to use salvaged materials to build the initial coop and hoped to keep that ideal all the way through the process. We used a dog pen donated by a friend, the now departed Easter Bunny's hutch and although most of the chicken wire was salvaged, we did have to buy new on the hardware cloth. A tarp served as a temporary roof and was laid over a chicken wire base. And we eventually bartered fresh eggs for metal roofing scraps from a friend in the roofing business. (We're also bartering eggs for hay to line the floors!)

We knew that once winter came a-knocking, this would not be sufficient shelter for the chickens - it does get cold here in North Florida - but it was more the raccoons that concerned us then the cold. (We've been camping where raccoons opened up coolers and pantries so we know just how persistent these things can be.) Once the cover crop comes down and the fields lie empty for a few months, the raccoons come a-calling and during the winter months, will likely be a real issue. Although there are three layers for these critters to get through, the raccoons especially are persistent and would find a way in if we left even a small space vulnerable to them.....and then came more chickens. And we knew that not only did the original coop need to be reinforced, but an additional coop would be needed.

David began to make trips up to a Granite company that gave away their shipping crates - but this was a very slow process and by the time he'd framed in the new addition, we knew we were running out of time to secure the chickens. In the end, we opted for privacy fence sections to serve as the outside walls. Although we hoped to salvage these sections, we weren't able to do so and had to let our ideal of a coop made almost totally of salvaged materials go.

There's still a bit of work to go but a raccoon will have a very hard time getting through the fence sections, the hardware cloth, the chicken wire and the dog pen to eat my babies....and they'll be warm this winter too.

Now, what color should we paint it? I'm thinking RED....in honor of the barns I remember from childhood.............

Caramel Apples and 'a tha

2009-10-02T09:51:00.004-04:00

Here in Sunny Florida we've actually had some indication that it is Autumn. The last several mornings have been in the low 60's and we've been in the high 70's or very low 80's during the afternoons. I've just gotten apples and caramel for later this evening...and even bought some hot chocolate.

Tonight's Eighth Grade Night at the High School Football Game....H gets to play with the Marching Band through the tunnel, the Star Spangled Banner, the Alma Mater song and some of the stand music....and stand on the field to play a piece after the half time show....I can't wait. H on the other hand is quite nervous about it all. We've spent the week with extra practice time and re-assuring him that he will do fine; telling him he'll have a whole bunch of fun and begin to really anticipate being one of the marchers. He's still not convinced if our "on the way to school" conversation this morning is any indication.

He doesn't remember when Dallas was Drum Major and our Friday Nights were spent at the local high school games. He was too young back then. But David and I remember and we're ready for the games to begin!

Its Fall and its time for us to be a part of the Friday Night Lights once again...........

Fall 2009

WOW, it's Thursday already~~~

2009-10-01T15:14:00.003-04:00

not to mention that it's October 1st already! Where is all the time going? Seems like this year just got started and here it is approaching the holidays.......

I can't explain away the past several months, but the last two days, I've been enjoying the first of our fall weather and transplanting outside, setting up Fall Decorations on the front porch and since I last posted, I did exactly as I said I would and ventured up into the eave to get some empty boxes....I made it a whole 5 inches inside before I turned around, shut the door, and left the room.....good thing I'm set to do a real sort out of this old house because I couldn't get more than five inches into that room! No way I could find those empty boxes that were stacked so neatly last January as we put the Christmas decorations away....not without enlisting a couple of the males around here to give me some help moving a single mattress, a box full of who knows what and a couple of tables etc. Seems like someone has been adding things to that eave behind my back! That's what happens when you have a 25 year old moving in and then moving out, then moving in again....and a college kid coming home, bringing home stuff, going back and not taking all his stuff!

Anyway, I had to make a temporary change in the plans in order to get sorting.....my dining room table, the drop leaf in the Living Room, the piano top...all are now covered with stuff to be sold at a yard sale, given to friends and/or charity.....and even if all that stuff isn't in neat packing boxes I still feel pretty good. There are a lot more cabinets and drawer and cupboards to go through before I'm finished though.

Much to my surprise, David didn't give me too much grief about moving the heavy Lazy Boy sofa and chairs to see if my new arrangement will actually work....seems he wants the room more cozy himself. AND, it looks as though it will work...of course, we haven't actually sat down of an evening with three kids, assorted friends, four dogs and two cats to put it to the real test....so, I took the suggestion of a reader and went to Home Depot and came home with a long cable to do a test run....I'll let you know how it goes and maybe even get some photos up here (I've been lazy about that lately....haven't even shown the newly done Master Bedroom yet! The chicken coop is also due for an update - considering it now looks nothing like it used to - its been re-enforced against raccoons, skunks and coldish weather- a future posting - but no promises, mind).

I feel the need to...........

2009-09-28T10:23:00.004-04:00

re-arrange furniture, get some boxes and have a yard sale, get my life back on track.

I think my recent postings have made it perfectly clear that we've had a heck of a couple months around here - a death in the family that brought to a head some family issues from waaay back, issues getting our middle child back into his classes this fall, my sister moving to North Carolina and so on and so on. I've also been pretty clear on the fact that I'm finally feeling like we're regaining a bit of control (yeah right~) over it all again. But, as I look around the house, I'm feeling crowded...which is quite strange actually since Dallas is back at school and Nikki is house-sitting now for the sister that moved away from me (how DARE my baby sister do that?). But, strange again is how in another way, I don't feel cozy enough.....

First of all, we've done a lot of collecting of new old things since we moved here and as we brought in those new old things we just sort of shuffled things around - putting this in that cabinet or in that eave - and its now reached the point that I can't find anything! I've been saving things for Dallas that I've suddenly realized he may no interest in at all......so, today's itinerary includes heading into the eaves and grabbing any and every empty box I can find and then to get sorting. And then, a conversation with Dallas to see what he would like me to keep for him.....Nikki's already received most of her family things and they're kept in her storage unit in town awaiting her own housekeeping set up sometime in the near future.

And then there's that living room. That 14 x 24, long and narrow living room. I love cozy. I love seating arrangements that allow not only for family movie viewing but family conversation that doesn't result in a stiff neck for one or more of said family. I love that....but I haven't been able to achieve that. We don't watch a whole lot of T.V., but when we do, we'd like to be closer than 14 feet from the T.V. screen.

I thought that moving from a 27 in. screen to a 40 in. screen would at least fool us into thinking that we were more cozy then we actually were, but.....no way....14 feet is still 14 feet and it feels like it. The four windows, front entry door, doorways into both the dining room and office sort of limt me just as much as the dimensions of the room....So what to do?

I've been back to Better Homes and Gardens Arrange a Room and plugged in all the measurements of walls, windows, doors and furniture and I think I may have figured something out.....but of course, the wall where I want to move the T.V. has no cable/satelite outlet there .....so I have to call that company and have them come out and put one in. Have I ever mentioned how much they like coming out here, crawling under this house, searching for the wire/cable that was put in by someone who really didn't know what he was doing (or so they all say)?

Before I call that company and have them suffer going under the house (and me suffer from having to pay them for it) I really need to figure out if what Arrange a Room indicates will work will actually work....and that means I have to convince David to move the furniture to try it all out....and then move it back again until the outlet is put in (if the new arrangement works) and then, hopefully (because it did work), move it all back again! Have I ever mentioned how little patience David has for moving furniture around? Wish me luck....please.

An epiphany....of sorts~

2009-09-26T11:05:00.006-04:00

Yesterday, I had the trusty Rainbow out and gave the downstairs a thorough cleaning...chasing itsy bitsy spiders again along with dog and cat hair and the general dirt that comes with living surrounded by fields. As I cleaned, I realized something......I was doing a thorough cleaning........

With four dogs, two cats and sometimes what feels like too many people living here (I mean, we were empty nesting there for awhile ~ sometimes, I just have to shake my head~) I really have to sweep and/or vacuum every day to keep up with this place. I've been known to show up at a diner to meet a friend for lunch with a swiffer cloth hanging out of my back pocket.....(I've given up swiffers recently...doesn't fit the budget anymore).

Last year, I broke down and bought a Dirt Devil vac to do the daily clean up in order to avoid having to drag out the Rainbow, fill it with water, and then drag the canister thing around all the rooms of this not very open planned farmhouse. While I at first enjoyed the feeling that the house was really clean because of that thing, it didn't take too long to realize that I felt like I was actually working harder....but I didn't figure out the reason for that until yesterday. I know, I'm slow that way sometimes...........I figured it all out because, like most of the cheaper vacuums do, that Dirt Devil gave up the ghost because it just can't handle the hair that three labs and a tri-pod put off. So I've been pulling out that Rainbow at least once a week again.

While I was using an attachment to vacuum the window sills and the blinds and to reach up into the corners where ceiling meets walls, it hit me.....those corners weren't that bad. That Dirt Devil doesn't have any attachments. ...and that Dirt Devil was so easy to grab and use that I had been pulling out the Rainbow less and less over the last year. As I used another attachment to get the dust off of bookshelves and tables, I realized that those things had been being neglected as well.....no wonder I'd begun to feel that I was always playing catch up in the house cleaning department.

Those inexpensive cleaning aids aren't really so inexpensive when I factor in the time I lose in making up for using them instead of the really good deep cleaning items.....A thorough cleaning with the Rainbow once a week and the use of an old fashioned broom and dustpan the rest of the days actually saves me time; a damp cloth and a bit of vinegar or ammonia or lemon juice does the job even better than that swiffer.....I was being fooled by the daily use of a machine that only allowed me to get up the most visible of the invading dirt.....and a disposable cloth that made me feel as if the house was clean when really, there were dusty bits all over the place waiting to catch a breeze and fly up and away to take over the place.

An epiphany of sorts....or maybe I just should have remembered that my mom always told me...do the job right the first time and save yourself time and aggravation later!

The back door............

2009-09-23T14:17:00.003-04:00

Can I tell you what it means to once again live in a house where the back door signifies more than just a way to access one's back yard? In a way, maybe in a disjointed way to others, it signifies where we are as a society to me.

We always hear how the heart of any family home is the kitchen but in today's modern sub-division world through which door do we typically enter our homes? From that front door....historically the door through which formal visitors and those seeking to either gain our business or give us bad news about a soldier sought entrance into our private spaces.

What do you visualize when you hear the words "concrete jungle"? It used to bring to mind a city where the only green you ever saw was in a potted plant or a roof top garden barely glimpsed by anyone not blessed enough to access it or in a "central park". Now, it makes me think of the newer subdivision that are going up. Drive into some of these neighborhoods and all you see is the blacktop of the road, the concrete of the driveways and the garage doors at the top of those driveways. Many of the homes have no green between the street and their front doors at all. It is from that as much as anything else that David and I ran from when we moved out here 5 1/2 years ago.

In way too many of those homes, you drive up the road, and then up the driveway, park and then walk the concrete straight to the front door-past one or two potted plants and then open the door to enter straight into the formal living room. While that used to be the way that others (like those specified above) entered our homes, now everyone we know enters those homes that way.

While walking up that driveway, it sometimes seems that if you were unladylike enough to spit to your left or to your right, you'd be able to hit the houses on either side....are we living in the city or in a sub-division? - it's becoming harder to differentiate between the two.

I think its very sad and part of the reason why we no longer truly socialize with those who live next to us...instead we sometimes confine our socialization to those who are not living "cheek to jowl" with us. It's also part of the reason that a middle school principal once asked my father what wheat made when he saw the field of it planted next to my father's farmhouse in South Carolina. When the extent of your exposure to green is what you see in the produce isle or the home depot garden center, one tends to forget what farmers really produce.

When family and friends come to our house, they drive past fields planted with produce that will soon grace the grocery isles; they enter our driveway through a sea of green, drive past our vegetable gardens and after they park, they walk across a field of wild grasses and edible weeds and then follow a small stone pathway to our back door. They enter our home directly into our kitchen, just as I did back in Ohio....the scents of cooking immediately greet them (on most days.....~~) ....

Just as in my childhood, the front door is reserved for those who don't know us personally....and they are welcomed into the formal area of our home.....but even they pass fields of green and not a mass of ugly concrete....

Its no wonder that as society begins to surround itself with concrete and separates itself further from the realities of where our food comes from that we hear of California farmers being forced out of business in order to save a wee fish, that we want the government to regulate us into being "green" instead of doing it ourselves. Its no wonder that instead of neighbor helping neighbor....like back in the day when a barn raising brought out all the neighbors for food, laughter, hard work and fellowship, that we seek to be charitable by allowing the government to increasingly tax us and call it "compassion" or "empathy" and accuse those of us who oppose it of a lack of compassion and empathy.

We watch the Lion King and glory in our so called understanding of the "circle of life" while at the same time we have forgotten how to provide our own food; we've forgotten how to exercise compassion and charity by our own hand instead of depending upon a government to do it for us....

Forgive me if I appear to be rambling... but my back door and the family that entered into last night and my trip down memory lane yesterday sent me off on this track.....

Fall- Day One

2009-09-22T14:34:00.003-04:00

Despite the fact that its the first day of Fall, we're having a summer time meal - spare ribs on the grill, tater salad and devil-ed eggs! It's Florida remember? We're still in the high 80's or lower 90's round here for at least another two or three weeks....We'll still be eating summer fare for all of those weeks, but I'm getting excited anyway.....

Despite the fact that my pumpkin patch got eaten up by some kind of pest (that seemed to have left my Roma and Better Boy fall crop of tomatoes alone), I'm ready for fall to arrive. I've been going through magazines and cookbooks for crock pot meals and big pot on the stove soups. I love cooking in the winter......I love that you can start dinner so early that you enjoy the smells as you putter through the other daily chores and that as the kiddos and the hubby come in from their day away, they walk into a home that smells delicious.

Part of why I love providing that sense of homecoming connected to a season and a scent is based upon one year of my own childhood. My ninth grade year of high school was spent in an old farmhouse that my folks were renovating in Ohio. My little sister Amy was born that year and my oldest brother had just turned 18 and was preparing to go out on his own. It is a year that held both joy and heartache for our family but it is one that is stuck indelibly in my heart and mind.

My high school was over-crowded and there was no funding to build a new one; the school board decided that they would split the day to accommodate the student body - 9th and 10th graders went to school from noon to 6 p.m. and the older grades took up the 6 - 12 a.m. slot. I loved it.

Even then I was a night person, so sleeping in was very nice; there was the added bonus of being there in the mornings with just my mom and my baby sister. Most of our school activities took place in the mornings - rehearsals for talent shows, concerts etc, but these were at the most once a week or even on a time limited basis. But the best part was getting off the bus in the evenings.....

Going to the bus stop each day was filled with the afternoon sun's warmth while arrival back at around 6:30 p.m. meant that the sun was down and house lights were on. As I walked across the fields to our old farmhouse, I could see my mom in the steamed windows and in the warm light of our big country kitchen. My belly was always empty as we went straight through classes with no breaks. There was so something peaceful and reassuring about the sight of those steamed windows that I would pick up my pace not so much because of the cold but because I was so ready to open that back door and enter into the heart of our home. As I pushed open the door I'd be met with the excited yapping of two poodles and the big smile of an infant sister and the laughter usually centering around the antics of the younger brother (sometimes scooting that baby around the floor on some kind of makeshift something or other that he'd come up with...). Mom would quietly turn and welcome me in as I heard the evening news on the telly in the living room where my dad and older brother were usually sitting. I'd hang up my coat and stash my books and we'd set the table and soon, we'd all be sitting together and discussing our day.....

I've never forgotten entering that old farmhouse during that fall and winter...I've never forgotten just how anything upsetting that had occurred during my time away from that house just simply faded away as I walked across those fields and anticipated the sights and the sounds that were waiting for me just inside that back door.

While summer is great and nothing tastes better than food grilled outside and served with a fresh salad and just baked French or Italian bread, the fact that my kiddos and my hubby enter a warm kitchen filled with the scent of something that has been cooking for hours will always have my heart yearning for Fall and Winter evenings a month or so into the heat of those long summer days.

Here's to shorter days, steamed windows and the sound of that back door opening and the words "oh, that smells wonderful"...........

Good thing I didn't make any promises

2009-09-21T10:25:00.003-04:00

....to write every day. I try not to make too many promises; like Mary Poppins said "promises are like pie crusts, easily made and easily broken"...at least that's the way I remember that quote. Its been a long time since I've sat and watched that movie with my kids - although it was a favorite in the old days....anyway, the important part is that the sentiment is remembered if not the exact words.

We've been busy playing catch up around here which leaves me little time to get on this computer and write something. I get on to check emails and visit FB and then I'm off again. The cover crop is down so yard work is a high priority - the kiddo is back in school so homework and projects and dinner's that are on time are back in the mix. And we're still fighting the pests in the garden....my entire pumpkin patch appears to have been eaten by pests in about a 24 hour period of time....and that hawk that I wrote about a month or so ago? He's been back with a few of his friends. Seems like maybe there is a "hunting" routine with him.....I've been keeping track of his appearances and it seems to be every three weeks - last week, the 22 was the "loud bang" that let him know he's not really welcome here since the BB guns weren't doing the trick....the chickens are very smart though and find cover whenever he's around....so far we've been very lucky that he hasn't gotten a free meal.

I've been spending my free time reading up on the investment world~reading self teaching guides so that I can be more knowledgeable in the future and hopefully avoid losing our nest egg like so many others did in the past two years. We were among the lucky ones who lost only a bit of our investments but it made us aware that it was time to be a little less trusting of how someone else was handling our future. I'm even thinking of taking a class or two ~~

Anyway, that's what's been happening in our neck of the woods......

Where to start.....

2009-09-05T16:53:00.003-04:00

Okay, so this summer we had all three of the kids here, four dogs, two cats, twenty chickens and lots and lots of rain - among a few other distractions - like building chicken coops and .....

I've fallen behind on just about everything; you name it and I'm behind on it.

I already posted about the yard situation and I've made a start on that, but there are puddly spots that cannot be mowed and the yard is so damp that I've decided not to risk using my electric weed whacker just yet (and the gas one is still in need of some surgery). Our rose bushes are overgrown, our Confederate Jasmine are overgrown and the Elephant Ears are taking over the gardens. And to top it all off, its coming up on Banana Spider season - time to get the BB guns cleaned and ready........

Inside we've got a bug invasion; whenever we get a lot of rain, the spiders move right on in. I just spent most of the day with my trusty Rainbow Vac chasing down spiders from the crooks and crannies of this old kitchen; mopped the floor and now its time to start dinner. I think I'll stay in my clean kitchen tonight and just ignore the fact that the rest of the downstairs looks like I've started my Halloween decorating.

On a brighter note :) - a new kitchen light fixture has inspired me to get this old house spic and span so that I can finally get on to painting the cabinetry. Choosing a new light fixture has been another of those decisions that I kept putting off - you know, like I did the new T.V. and how to house it in the living room? But, just like the squeal of the speakers of the old T.V. forced me to finally get with it, the fact that I've been without a kitchen light since, oh, about the beginning of July, kinda made me stop procrastinating and make a decision. The days are shortening and I found that I couldn't see to chop onions and garlic....so, a new light fixture was purchased yesterday. It's a really good one for a cook whose eyesight was never all that great to begin with - it has task lighting!

I'll try to post a photo tomorrow, but no promises - after all, I've got rose and jasmine bushes to get under control and spiders to chase down and - oh great - another limb the size of a small tree just came down on the chicken coop...............

Everything is just a bit.....off.

2009-09-03T10:25:00.002-04:00

This has been a really "off" year; it seems that everything is falling under the one step forward two steps back rule.

We've had so much rain that our summer veggie garden became a battle ground of me against pests and the poor plants barely produced enough for our family to consume. And now my fall garden is getting drenched again. This time, I'm ready for the bug battle and am armed with some stronger weapons. This was not the year to try to go completely organic.

We've had a summer in which one after the other, all of our yard equipment has either perished or required expensive surgery to recover. First the riding mower went, but that was okay because we had two push mowers and two strong sons to run them. When one of the push mowers then perished from old age, we relied on those two sons and the remaining mower....until two weeks ago when that one decided to retire as well.

And, three weed whackers also decided to give up the ghost - one after the other. Our yard has almost taken back its pre-us look...it doesn't take long for nature to re-claim its property.

We've been lucky though in at least one area; the hundreds of acres of potato fields that surround us are usually stripped of their cover crop mid August but this year, it all still stands. Its growth was stunted from the rains this year and it never reached its usual 7 plus feet normal height, but it kept the field mice and snakes out of the property which is a good thing.

I'm pretty sure the rains that destroyed millions of dollars of potatoes this past spring are the reason the cover crop still stands. The farmers plant in a way that none of them reaches harvesting point at the same time and the market isn't flooded so it appears they have rotated their planting schedule to help some of those harder hit farmers get an earlier harvest. Since our farmer was one of the lucky ones who was already harvesting when the 7 days of rain hit, he didn't lose much of his crop.

That works for us as well. Once those fields come down, all the critters who've hidden from the summer heat in them come out to play....in our yard. And with our issues with lawn tools this summer, they would absolutely love our overgrown ditches and knee high grassy yard....

I'm off to the repair shop to pick up our riding mower and if I'm lucky, the rain will hold off long enough for me to make a start on reclaiming my yard....wish me luck.

Will this end up as more than just an unpublished draft?

2009-09-01T07:14:00.003-04:00

I haven't posted much this summer~I've written but I haven't necessarily posted.

Whenever we've packed up to move to a new home, I would always end up going back through my diaries and journals and getting caught up in the memories of those days past. And in each journal there were gaps of time where I didn't write at all. Those gaps in time matter only to me-until I wrote this today, no one but me knew they were even there. What was it that was going on in my life that caused me not to write? Was I just busy or was something weighing heavy enough on my mind that I just couldn't write it down?

A blog is different than a diary or a journal. Other people read it. The fact that I'm not writing is out there for anyone interested to see. And that makes it even harder to write some days.

During this gap in writing there has been a whole lot going on in my life that caused me not to be able to finish the drafts that I've begun. The times I sat down to write I found that either the words wouldn't come or that they were words dwelling on the times we are living in, the uneasiness over David's job situation, worries over my parent's health and in the end, the sudden death of David's mom and the initial aftermath of her death. No matter how I tried, I just couldn't seem to keep the blog focused on this old house and our efforts to restore her or the joys and tribulations of trying to learn how to raise chickens.

I think I'm coming around now. School has started - D was able to work out the issues in his financing at the last minute, H is in his last year of middle school, and N signed up for classes working towards her Vet Tech Certification. David learned that he will remain employed and he's been able to begin the process of grieving for his mother and my own parent's health seems to have stabilized finally. And Fall is just around the corner!

Fall is my favorite season; I've always looked at the first day back at school as more a time for resolutions then January 1. That feeling I had as a child of starting fresh with each new school year has never left me. I planted my first ever pumpkin patch and am itching to get out the fall decorations-perhaps all of this renewed energy will translate into daily blogging again. Maybe I'll finally video the little Roo's as they practice their crowing while at the same time they begin to establish just who is going to be the Alpha. No promises, mind, but there is some hope~

What's for breakfast?

2009-08-13T11:56:00.005-04:00

Its been five months since we first brought chickens into our life - five months of coop building, poop scooping, and traveling the learning curve - and this morning we've enjoyed the rewards of all the expended energy - EGGS for breakfast!

We'd been watching for the "egg squat" that occurs when you stroke the back of a hen that's ready to lay; we'd been listening for the "egg song" that sounds out when they begin to lay...and the last week of July we began to see the squat and hear the beginnings of the singing....every morning, we approached the coop with cautious anticipation.

The first hen laid last Sunday morning - from her roost - so that egg went - well, there's no other word for it - splat. The next morning, the golf balls that were sitting in the nesting boxes did their job and there was a nice brown egg waiting for us. On Tuesday, there were two eggs and yesterday there were four - one more hen to go and all five of our originals will finally leave the category of "free loader" and enter the working world.

Mama however is still in the "free loader" category even though we know that she is laying - somewhere. She went broody on 12 eggs about a month ago in a nest she'd built behind the a/c unit but since then, we've been unable to determine where it is she is laying. The new coop/hen house is almost complete and once the nesting boxes are built in that one, we'll have to lock her in until she begins to lay in them...otherwise, it might be time for the freezer........

Our 3 Little Hens are just past 12 weeks old and won't be laying until October at the earliest and the Babies should be ready in December or January - among this bunch we think we have four Roo's.....the two Little Roos are trying to crow and I love to sit on the front porch and listen for that sound ~ both are beautiful little men but one will eventually have to be rehomed...as will the Baby Roo's....

Anyway....fresh brown eggs for breakfast....yumm....

Do I really know you?

2009-08-07T10:20:00.006-04:00

I knew you as a child - we grew up in the same house, sharing the same family dynamics - good and bad. Emerging into the individuals we each would end up becoming. Were you a sore loser way back then? Perhaps, but are you still that same sore loser now, some 30 years later in actuality or only in my memory of the child you used to be? Are you now gracious in defeat and humble in victory and am I so blinded by what I think I know about you that I cannot see who you are today?

I'm not writing to any one of my own siblings - I'm really just thinking through writing which is a part of who I am today. I've always journal-ed and now use this blog to reason my way through certain aspects of my life and not only to share our life in this old house. And this dynamic of families and how the adult children relate after leaving and finding careers and marriage and becoming parents themselves has always sort of fascinated me.

Its natural - each time my three siblings and I get together, we tell the old stories....in our childhood my brothers always won every game we played and I was that sore loser. But do they realize that now I laugh away defeat and accept the fact that I don't have a poker face, that I just can't seem to improve at darts no matter how hard I may try? Those never defeated brothers were part of my training ground for life......

Over the past five days, I've heard my husband say to his own siblings "you don't know me" several times. Living in separate states for more than 30 years, his statement couldn't be more true. The handful of times that these siblings have been together during those years could never reveal to any of them just exactly who their brothers or their sister have become as adults yet each still views the other through their memories of their shared childhood. These adult siblings have no idea of who the spouses of their brothers or sister really are either because they've too often viewed those spouses through the prism of their own memories of their siblings.

That child we used to be is still in there....our early experiences shaped us all into who we are today, but none of us have remained stagnant. We have continued to be shaped by the life we each have built that is separate from that childhood base we shared. Some of us have become better losers or more trustworthy or maybe more accepting of things and less judgemental while for some of us, unfortunately, the opposite may be true.

If I could have one wish today, it would be that we could have a do - over of this past Monday. I would wish that steps had been taken that would possibly have avoided a lot of what has gone down these past five days. I could wish that these particular siblings knew each other in adulthood the way they knew each other in childhood -that they had shared more fully the experiences that have brought them each to today.....a whole lot of pain could have been avoided if only they had not been blinded by their memories of childhood.

My hope for all of you today is that you take the time to look at who your siblings really are....those things that used to irritate you in childhood may be the very things that your sibling has used to become a better person. No, none of us has evolved into a perfect human being - we all still have traces of that temper or that judgmental attitude, or a tendency to exaggerate a story but we are all much more than who we were as children.

We need to know our siblings as who they are today and we need to warily tread our way through family dynamics because words hurt and can never be taken back; actions once taken cannot be undone; trust once broken may never be regained. Emotions out of control may take a long time to reign back in. And family can hurt each other more than friends and strangers ever could.

It wasn't always bad.....

2009-08-06T15:43:00.003-04:00

I didn't always get along with the woman, especially as I grew older and more likely to speak up in defence of myself, my opinions, my choices and grew less likely to remain silent to avoid a scene. Twenty-nine years ago it was a different story - we got along quite well and enjoyed each other's company....as long as I agreed with her or kept silent if I didn't...and feeling my way through the first years of adulthood, respecting her experience if not always agreeing with her opinion, it was easy to do.

The first year of my marriage to her son, my own mother was in England caring for her father as he faded away from the cancer that raged through his bones - the woman stepped in - I had a bit of a health scare and she stood beside me every step of the way. During those early years, I worked just down the road from her house - most summer days found me on her back porch sharing lunch before I headed back to complete my work day.

At the birth of her granddaughter a few years later, things began to deteriorate - something not unusual in most families - I wanted to do things the "modern" way and resented her interference in this raising of my first child. I tried to set boundaries, she continued to step over them and our relationship suffered. There were disagreements and there were outright fights but after a cooling off period, we were talking and laughing and enjoying each other again...until the next time.

As I neared 30, I was less tolerant of her lack of respect for the boundaries her son and I set. We spent less and less time together over the next decade. As I grew more confident in myself, she lost more control over me and the times we spoke only when necessary became more and more frequent. By the time I reached my forties, the relationship was clearly damaged beyond hope of ever going back to that time where we could be friends and companions.

But, it wasn't always bad and as we prepare for her funeral now I try to remember those early days when we laughed and discussed religion and politics and agreed to disagree on some points and found we were in perfect harmony on others. I try to rise above the pettiness that has erupted in the days since we learned of her passing and remember that if, in the end, we had nothing else in common, we loved the same man.

Scarecrows, BB guns and ......

2009-07-18T17:42:00.004-04:00

a Hawk...I just put together a make-shift scare crow and placed him smack dab in the middle of the front yard....he won't last too long considering he's really just a Halloween decoration but he'll have to do until we pick up our next bales of hay and can build a couple of real ones.

That Hawk has been hanging out since about 4 p.m. yesterday and has really put a damper on our fledgling routine as chicken "farmers".....we've been rotating the older chickens out to free roam the fenced in property during the day and putting the month old babies out in the coop for some exercise...this has worked out really well for us until Mr. Hawk decided to push his way into the party. Today Mama, the Originals and the Littleuns had to stay in that hot pen all day and the babies stayed locked inside the mudroom.....until the smell of it all got to me.

Out we went with BB guns and all four dogs and roamed the yard with the big girls for an hour - then my boys stayed outside and shot some soda cans with their BB guns while I went online to research deterrents for that unwelcome visitor to find that Scare Crows were on the list......

Tomorrow, we begin to construct two large ones mounted on movable bases that will be rotated around the yard throughout the days.....it's going to look a bit like Fall around here all the time I guess, but I won't complain...I think the things are adorable. Also possibly on the chore list is to hang DVD and CD disks from all the trees - apparently they work like those bags of water to bedazzle the predator and make him unable to focus well enough to actually swoop down on his target.....

As our transplanted to the fence line landscaping grows into more bush like appearance, this will also provide hiding spots for our hens and roos to protect themselves from aerial attacks.....at least according to the Ag Extension Office website that I've been reading. And of course, our labs, ranging from 65 - 90 lbs each will also provide a deterrence factor......also recommended was the constant playing of a radio to put the idea in the Hawk's head that we are out and about in the yard with that BB gun.....

I know there are some who would say "keep the chickens in the coop yard" but for us, that defeats part of the reason we are taking these steps into world the chickens ....we wanted free roaming birds that eat what nature provides, birds that enjoy the life they lead and who enhance the life we lead...and locking them up in a cage all day is not part of the plan.....if I wanted eggs from unhappy penned in chickens, I can buy them all day long at the grocery......

So, its BB guns and movable Scare Crows and Country Music on the stereo for us..........

Update: So far so good.....Mr. Hawk hasn't been seen in three days now.....we're keeping up the vigilance but it appears there's too much noise and activity 'round here for him to want to even perch near us...........

Sad news....3 of the baby chicks lost yesterday~

2009-07-11T11:54:00.002-04:00

We have been initiated into the hard part of chicken care~deciding to humanely put down deformed or suffering chickens. Our two crooked beaks were obviously not getting enough nutrition; each day saw them weaker and weaker despite holding them in our laps to feed them mash. Each evening saw that their beaks were a little more crooked and the hard decision was made. After one last meal and a snuggle, the deed was done.

Yesterday morning, I noticed that one of the littlest of the chicks was lethargic...she was being stepped on and jostled by all the others, so we removed her to another crate and gave her a bowl of mash and fresh water. After several hours, she still had not eaten or taken any water. I held her to see if I could force feed her - no luck. Same with the water. Nikki brought out the stethoscope and checked her heart rate~ it was very fast and irregular. Suddenly she threw her head back and gasped for air....she was gone a few minutes later having lived a few days short of 4 weeks.

From 13 babies to 10 in a few hours; such is the life of one who has chickens. A sad day.

Chickens? What chickens?

2009-07-08T14:23:00.006-04:00

It's hard to remember how life was before chickens. Mornings were easy going; the only thing really important after coffee was getting the H-man to school on time. There were no coops to worry about~no squawking from the outer reaches of the yard to remind me that someone, well a bunch of someones, were ready to get out and about already. There weren't a lot of chirps and peeps coming from a little pen in the mudroom letting me know that pine shavings, water and feed required refreshing. I'm here to tell you that twenty-four chickens of various ages require a lot of attention....but I'm not complaining....who would have thought that I would adore these little things? All I imagined during life before chickens was having fresh eggs~I never realized how much entertainment would be had along while I waited (increasingly more impatiently) for those eggs....

This was taken this morning - three Originals were escaping the rain in my chair....

The other two were under the table~~

Nor could I have imagined the challenges involved in integrating new additions to the family...

Bringing in Mama and her five little~un's required some quick thinking~Mama was extremely over-protective of her babes - she flew feet first at my babies and was teaching hers to be afraid of me. After a week of trying to allow her to acclimate to the coop and the Originals, we took her babies away from her and set them up in the mudroom. She spent the next three weeks roosting up in a tree above the safely fenced coop; flying up into the tree before we even put the Originals in for the night. Visions of owls and other predators disturbed my sleep - I fully expected to find a pile of feathers instead of Mama every morning as I walked out to say good morning to my Originals. We needed something to lure her into the coop at night with the others.....treats weren't working at all.

Then came the babies....thirteen of them....joining the little-un's in the mudroom. The challenge here was the noise level of 5 little-un's separated from their Mama and thirteen 2 day old babies....this challenge was easily met....Classical Music on a small radio.....

After two weeks of separation from Mama, we began to take the little-un's out to the coop/play yard during the day and to bring them back in at night....Mama hung around the coop for a day or two and then slowly began to wander the yard with the Originals - finding cozy but cool spots under azaleas and rose bushes to laze away the afternoons...but still, come 6:30, she was up in that tree. I began to wonder if I would worry about her every night of her life.....even leaving her babes out there for the night with the Originals didn't lure Mama in at night......

The little-un's roosting on the opened coop door

It became obvious that Mama wanted to be as high as she could get at night....so we put in a new, much higher roost this past Sunday....and we put the Originals in the coop earlier than usual....to our surprise, Mama followed them right on in and within a few minutes was up on that roost content as could be.....and every night since!

Mama finally in for the night.....

The babies are almost fully feathered....which means that in a day or so, they can also go out during the day to the coop/play yard.....so today, the little-un's were allowed to "escape" into the great unknown (the back yard :) to wander to their little hearts content.....Mama immediately came over and began to forage with them; just a little over an hour later, I can see all 11 of the chickens out there foraging together..... we've made a lot of progress in these last three weeks!

Dallas and Hunter are unloading some wood from the trailer as I type this.....salvaged wood from packing crates obtained from an ad on Craig's List (love that thing~~) that will soon help us enlarge the coop and play-yard to accommodate the babies. That enlargement will include a "nursery"....so hopefully, there will never again be chicks in my mudroom.....but that radio is always ready to play some more Classical~~

Crossed fingers, crossed toes and .....crossed beaks....oh no!

2009-07-07T12:25:00.003-04:00

Remember the 13 two day old chicks that we took into our home about 2 weeks ago? Those adorable little bodies that loved Classical Music? Well, they're still here...all 13 of them and growing and eating and listening to music and getting feathers ~ all but 2 of them have lovely, normal, little chicken beaks.

I'd never seen crossed beak before nor even heard of it...at least that I remember. Perhaps my dad humanely took the life of any that we had growing up or perhaps we were among the lucky ones who never saw this defect and so never had to decide what to do with these afflicted ones.

One of our littlest ones has a severe crossed beak...its off to the vet today with Nikki to see if putting it down is best or if we can try to trim the upper beak and use Panetran to try to release the jaw muscle that pulls the lower beak to the side. A second chick has a moderate defect - I believe this one will survive as long as the Panetran can do its work.

I didn't plan on this....it makes me sad. But, as these chicks will likely be picked on by the others and almost certainly have nutritional deficiencies, the most humane thing may be to put them down....

Okay, I admit it.....

2009-07-01T14:14:00.003-04:00

I'm a homebody.....

David and I made a whirlwind trip to South Carolina with H for a family reunion; while I loved every minute of seeing my family, eating my cousin Tammy's delicious southern cooking and drinking wonderful wine....each time it got quiet..each time I had a moment to think.....I wanted to be at home.

I saw my chicks out of the corner of my eye as I sat on the patio with my wine; I heard the sighs of our pups as I stretched out in one of the most comfortable beds imaginable at my cousin's home......and although there was a precious kitty laying snuggled up to me, it wasn't my precious kitty.....

Like Dorothy.....I believe that despite the wonders of this world....there's no place like home.

Project Updates....

2009-06-25T15:08:00.005-04:00

Its been a while since I've written a project update - mostly because of how busy we've been - but also simply because many of this years projects were put on hold due to economic factors. And due to those economic factors and recent legislation under discussion in Congress, some of our planned project have shifted.....more to self-sustainability then originally planned.

This years planned projects.....

1. Chickens.....this project is going gang buster's....we started with 6 chicks, no coop, no run, and well, behind the eight ball......however, since bringing those first babies home in March.....we've built the coop and pen/run, got the food and watering and cooling systems running almost to perfection and even increased our flock......Mama and her 5 chicks have been here two weeks today - we separated them, bringing her chicks into the mud-room because Mama was not integrating into the flock very well. One week after separating her and her babes, Mama is much more friendly and her babes are no longer afraid of us. AND, our friends (to whom Mama used to belong) showed up last Thursday morning with 13 two day old chicks for us to adopt! Our mudroom smells like a barn again! Plans are to begin selling eggs next spring.....we've had a great deal of interest in that endeavor and are working towards it now. A second coop is in the planning...............

2. Insulation....this one is half completed....and most likely will not be completed this year after all....the most important part was completed back in April...adding insulation to the (barely insulated) attic. We've noticed a difference in the running time of the upstairs a/c unit if not yet in the electric bill. Next to be completed are the two closets - the Harry Potter Cupboard (under the stairs) and the upstairs utility closet...both retain some of their original plaster which is too far gone to restore.....underneath the living room may not get done this year.

On a good economic note...we got the insulation on Craig's List.....for about $250.00 less then we would have spent.....love Craig's List ( but you have to be smart about it.....don't pick purchases up alone and certainly don't have folks come to your home unless there is no way to avoid it!).

3. The Master Bedroom....this was the last room in the house to get on the project list.....the walls, ceiling, and flooring were not restored by the P.O's and as is usual for David and I, "our" room kept getting pushed further down the priority scale. It got a coat of left-over paint (from our old house) about three months after moving in and then nada....until about three weeks ago. We've decided against refinishing the floor just yet and instead are laying a moisture barrier and thick padding and a carpet....half of this room lays over the front porch and we're just not ready to tear it or the original bead board of the porch roof out to finish insulation there...that will come later. Since the four dogs sleep in there with us most of the time, the carpeting etc. will also provide a noise buffer for the living room which is under half of the bedroom...currently I watch TV in the evenings to the accompaniment of dogs snores and twitching feet from rabbit dreams....! Photos to come of this one......

4. Downstairs bathroom - this one, well, this one was on last years project list and the rising cost of gas and building materials last summer caused it to be put on hold....this year, much the same except there's the additional costs of a college tuition that keeps increasing and the extra cost of a daughter who has moved back in and then...well lets not even discuss the cut backs at work.....

5. Increased veggie production.....this one is going fairly well. We lost a great deal of our initial plantings to the 7 day rains that we barely lived through ; ) and the resulting slugs and other pests....our attempts at going completely organic were thwarted......we're persevering until the fall plantings and have hopes that that will be a much more productive season.

Looking to the future....self sustainability was an idea, a fun, hippie inspired day dream when we moved here five years ago. It was fun to think about the challenge of going greener..being good stewards of this beautiful earth that God has blessed us with. Today, it is increasingly apparent that it may be more of a necessity then we ever would have thought.

I've been studying the Cap and Trade Legislation and it concerns me more and more....the costs associated with this behavior modification plan are frightening.....I read about the lines outside help centers for those unable to pay their power bills in this economy and then read about the increased cost to the average family to heat and cool and run their household if this bill passes; I read about the tent cities popping up around the country and then read about the job losses (105,000 per year according to one report) that will come about as a result of Cap and Trade......and I find myself researching wind and solar generators, building a greenhouse for year round growing of our own veggies, building a rain catcher, planning an outdoor oven (wood) for baking bread and other things...and already we are putting up a clothes line....and washing our dishes by hand.....!

Goodbye Easter Bunny~~

2009-06-15T19:26:00.002-04:00

At 7:15 p.m., we discovered that our beloved Easter Bunny has joined our departed Shanna at the Rainbow Bridge. Aged 5 this year, Easter enjoyed the last weeks of his life by running free around the back yard in company with three labs, 1 tripod, 2 cats and 11 chickens. He passed peacefully in his sleep surrounded by his newest companions.

A Bunny Tale~~

2009-06-15T11:00:00.005-04:00

Easter was a gift to Hunter from his grandparents. We thought about providing him a friend for companionship but the thought of breeding bunnies or the cost of spaying or neutering to avoid that breeding were huge deterrents (costs more than to perform on a dog or cat). So, Easter made do with us and the labs for companionship.

Our old yellow, Shanna, was the perfect mother; it didn't matter what species the baby was, Shanna mothered it. Easter used to lay on her back and snuggle up in the middle of her forearms. When Shanna passed, our Murphy took over that position......a bit disdainfully, but allowing that it was just another of the jobs that he took over from our departed girl...like newspaper pick up.

Easter had a hutch outside and he spent his time divided between that and visits inside to socialize.....in five years, his feet never touched the ground - we carried him between our house and that hutch. Occasionally, we discussed building him a run on the ground, but fears that he would dig a hole and disappear outweighed our desire to provide him with a larger playground....so he hopped around our mudroom or the boy's bedrooms for exercise....

And then came the chickens; while surfing the net to learn all I could about Coops and Play yards, I noticed that someone had posted a question on one of the forums...."Can rabbits and chickens share a coop and yard?" I was elated when I saw that the answer was an unequivocal yes....................

So Easter went out with the chickens ~ and soon made it perfectly clear that coming inside the house was now not necessary. He spent the night out there about a week before the chicks were banished from the mudroom.

Then came the time to begin allowing the chicks to free-range....what about Easter? We needed to leave the coop open during free range so the chicks could run back to safety.....did we bring Easter inside the house during that time or leave him to free range as well? He's an old man now and totally dependant on us for his feeding ~ would he try to escape or would he be content to wander?

So we decided to experiment......setting up our lawn chairs with iced tea or sodas, we opened up that gate and let the critters out.....Easter followed the chickens and immediately went on expedition. He didn't dig, he sunbathed. He still doesn't dig and he still sunbathes....

Five weeks later, Easter has found his special spots in the yard.....he likes to lay behind the hot tub first thing in the morning......then he moves to the sand that surrounds the fire pit....then he goes back to the hot tub and shades under the steps....and during a horrific thunderstorm on Saturday, he took refuge in the old mule stall in the barn....coming back out with the sunshine when it finally came back out.......

Although at first, we had to catch him to get him back in at night, over the last few days, just like the chickens, he's begun to head back to the coop about 6 p.m. for dinner......

If I'm honest, Easter has been a source of guilt for me the last five years.....the sight of him in a smallish hutch - all alone - has niggled at me....those trips inside the house to socialize were attempts to make up for his alone-ness.....I am relieved to see that his last days as part of our family are much happier for him and less guilt ridden for me......

And if I'm totally honest....I'm very glad that he doesn't come inside anymore - rabbits shed worse than cats and dogs together...and rabbit hair floats....and sticks.....and they chew telephone cords.....and table legs.......

Living in the boonies

2009-06-14T12:14:00.004-04:00

where you and your chickens, dogs and cats are the only livestock for acres and acres means that every time you step outside, hunting pests zero in on you for the attack.....mosquitoes and flys being the most vicious......

You have to get creative unless you want to carry a bottle of chemical pesticides around with you, or spray yourself and your fur and skin kids with Deet every time you walk out the door.....and since we're attempting to go Green around here, that's not something we're too keen on......

We've found a few ways to combat the pests as naturally as possible....the chickens are helping to control a lot of the insects in the gardens;

during certain seasons we tuck bounce sheets into our back pockets and the necks of our shirts to keep the gnats away from our eyes and noses, when outside, we burn citronella oil in torches tucked here and there to keep the mosquitoes at bay, and we hang these beauties all over the place.........

Something about the sun sparkling off the water and the gentle movement of the bags in the breezes that flow in from the fields bedazzle the flys and cause them to stay away......

the chicken coop, a natural place of attraction for the flys, benefits greatly from these sparkling, swaying bags. The back door requires almost as many bags as the coop does......and our veggie gardens are less fly invested as well after hanging the bags.....

the water evaporates rather quickly so about every four days I have to refill the bags but the effort is worth it.

And this is our experiment for this year....these are called mosquito plants.....or citronella plants...we purchased four of them to hang around the gazebo and hot tub.....the jury is still out on whether or not they'll help to repel mosquitoes.....I'll let you know.

What's it gonna cost?

2009-06-13T12:03:00.005-04:00

As a follow up to an earlier post about the Cap and Trade Bill, I thought I 'd post a link to The Tax Foundations Family Calculator.......you can plug in a bit of info and see just how much the Obama Plan (which wasn't going to cost us one single cent in increased taxes) is going to cost your household per month. Just in case you're paying attention. :)

Our increased energy bill? $114.00 per month or $1373.00 annually......wait a minute....didn't Senator Waxman and the Environmental Agency claim it would cost our household just about what a postage stamp a day would cost us? Let's see....$.44 x's 30 days = $13.20 a month or $158.40 a year......I think they understated it just a bit considering that our month tax bill will be almost as high as their promised yearly one..............

to figure out your households tax burden, click on the post title or

http://www.taxfoundation.org/capandtrade.....

About those candles~~

2009-06-13T09:31:00.003-04:00

Last year, I ventured into the world of candle making. I had some fun. It was a lot of work. Hot work. I thought I was set for the loss of power that we frequently experience out here in the boonies.....not so much.

We burned through those candles in record time ~ or lost wicks in record time. And it wasn't long before I found myself running around with flashlights trying to find enough candles to light our way through an evening of no power......again.

It was time to re-think it. It was time for another back up plan....and time to hit the Flea Market.....We picked up this beauty for $8.00 and a big jug of Lamplight Oil for about $3.00~~

And then we found this one for H's room ($2.00)~~

And this one for the upstairs landing ($8.00) ~~

And picked up this one at Wally World for about $7.00 ~~

They're all wide wicks and burn cleanly and slowly and provide us enough light to see what we are doing.....lantern oil is a whole lot less expensive than candles....and lot less work intensive then candle making..... my plan is to eventually have a lantern in every room of the house and a box of matches stored conveniently close by.

I've got my eye on a couple of antique lanterns at that Flea Market but the budget just doesn't cover them at the moment.....I've started my Christmas list though....

Adventures in free ranging~~

2009-06-10T22:11:00.003-04:00

Tomorrow, our chicks hit the 3 month mark ~ every adventure outside of their play pen shows them to be just a just a bit more daring...at first, they continued to move about the yard in a huddle....

Their togetherness lending each one a bit of bravado until.....something heard or seen sent them scurrying back to the safety of their coop....

Everyday though, we see them becoming more independant of each other.....

And bigger and bigger....

Easter now roams the yard with them....

And Callie's still never far away from them....

I'm getting just a bit better at photographing them....I just sit down and keep on shooting....eventually I'll find one that with a little editing looks pretty good...

I only had to view and edit 133 photographs this morning to get this one~~

A little bit rare......

2009-06-10T21:22:00.003-04:00

to see this site lately~~~~

those 7 days of rain that I find myself referring to again and again contributed to this rarity....normally this time of year, we'd see four of these tractors in a row down our road....now, they go past one at a time.

The rains started during the early hours of Monday......the farmers knew it was coming so they were rushing to get the taters harvested...

Twenty inches of rain thwarted the efforts of too many of them though......these next photos are the field above after two days on non stop rain (Wednesday morning about 7 a.m.)....

By Wednesday afternoon, no green showed in that field at all...it was completely underwater....not even Hurricane Francis in 2004 or Fay's stalling over us this past fall caused so much standing water....the field on the other side of our property began to fill by Tuesday evening....

And the ditches were filled for miles.....

This ditch is about 3.5 feet deep.....and the water rose a few more inches by Thursday morning....causing us to fear that the footbridge would float away....

it didn't.

Besides the potato casualties, there were livestock issues as well.....

This little chick, about 7 days old when the storm began, had 11 siblings......7 of them died in the storm.

On Wednesday afternoon, we brought that chick and her four remaining siblings, along with Mama, home to live with us.....more photos to come~~

Towards self-sustainability

2009-06-09T15:06:00.004-04:00

David has been working on a project for me; he's been working on it a little bit at a time. Hidden between the shed we brought in and the barn that's stood for 100 years were two very old, metal clothesline poles. One came out rather easily because David had put it there 5 years ago after salvaging it from the mule stall; the other had stood in its place, helped by concrete for who knows how many years and, well, that one took a great deal of labor to get out of its hole. The two poles have been the support for the canoe for most of our life here, but this week, they're going to be moved and used for their original intent.....laundry.

I do a lot of laundry; four of us live here year 'round and one comes home every now and then with what seems like a college semester's worth of dirty clothes - some of which I swear are folded exactly like they were the last time I did his laundry ~~.....

I could write about how I'm going to hang out my laundry because I love the smell of air and sun dried clothes and how I'm going green and so forth and so on ~ and that would be true ~ but it would only be a part of the truth. The truth is our energy bill...yesterday, today and in the future.

When we moved here in 2004, our monthly bill was around $160 a month....and we never thought much about conservation - by 2005, the hurricanes of 2004 had increased the bill a great deal.....i.e. in July of 2005, we used about 100kw less then the July of 2004 - yet we paid $80.00 more for that bill......today, our average monthly bill is about $225 and that is with a constant eye on our usage. This past winter, with the record cold temps we had - one month went as high as $425 and was followed by three $300.00 monthly bills....again, with our being conservative - turning off computers and monitors and using those new fangled energy saving light bulbs and programable thermostats and wearing sweats in the evenings instead of using the heaters.

I've been watching the raging debate about Cap and Trade Energy Plans....and I'm more than a little bit stressed out by it all.....if I'm having trouble keeping our bill affordable now, what about after that tax hits American households in the back pocket? And how much will it really be?

The Environmental Protection Agency and Sen. Waxman state that the tax will cost us about the price of a postage stamp a day or about $8 - $24.00 per month ($98 - $140 annually) - okay, I can live with that.....but wait a minute....the Mass. Institute of Technology says in their study that it will cost each household about $66.00 a month ($800.00 per year - there goes the tax cut for 95% of Americans eh?)

The Heritage Foundation says "no, its more like $125.00 per month" ($1500 per year) and the Congressional Budget Office says its going to be even higher than that - about $133.00 a month or $1600.00 a year per household. And then today, I read where its actually going to be closer to $258.00 per month ($3100 per year) per household.

So which is it? As I fret about it, I wonder how in the world we can afford to pay an additional $100 or $200 per month for our energy bills when I can't seem to get it under control as it is. And then, I take a look at our gas bills creeping back up.....a few months ago, gas was about $1.60 a gallon and now, it goes up every day, sometimes more than once......and Obama's Administration has made it clear that they will eventually begin to increase the gas tax to make it more inviting to purchase the newer Government Motors energy efficient cars (which will cost an estimated $2100.00 more).......and heath insurance benefits taxed as income.....

Everyone I talk to has either lost their job, or is looking at a possible layoff, or has lost overtime and/or bonuses, or had the work week cut back to save their job and everyone I speak seems to to be already having trouble meeting their monthly bills - a friend of mine has lost her job and her home, others are behind on their mortgages and perhaps about to face foreclosure. We wait and wait to hear how David's employer is going to handle the future; a second round of layoffs are rumored, complete shutdowns are rumored. A job we thought would see him through to retirement now looks a whole lot less secure than it did even a year ago.

And here we sit, watching as amendment after amendment put forth by the Republicans to try to limit the burden this cap and trade will place on the middle class are rejected by the one party government that we exist under today. Amendments to protect jobs by keeping the unemployment rate under 15% if it turns out that cap and trade is losing jobs before it creates them; amendments to control the costs to American households if they turn out to be too high - all of these are voted down by the party that said it cared about the working class Americans who make up the majority of the middle class. They offer subsidies to help offset the increased tax burden but only to households where $20.00 per hour is the total individual or combined income - the rest of us are on our own whatever the actual cost of this tax actually turns out to be......

The promise that no household making under $250,000 per year would feel the effects of any Obama Administration tax increase is obviously forgotten - any household making more than $42,000 will get no help in paying these taxes and $42,001 is a great deal less than $250,000 isn't it? That's the majority of the middle class left to absorb this tax hike....but you gotta give Mr. Obama some credit - he promised his changes would be painful and require sacrifice - he just fooled a whole lot of folks with that $250,000 cut off point.

I'm all for this country moving toward being green; we've been doing it ourselves as we can....but this cap and trade is a very scary thing......in an already scary time of job insecurity, rising costs of food and gas.....

So, I make decisions to control what I can control....I can air dry my laundry and hand wash my dishes and set my thermostats to 81 degrees when I absolutely have to run the A/C......I can bake our own bread and grow our own veggies and have lovely chickens and lovely eggs......and pray that something happens to turn all of this around before its too late......

What's that I see?

2009-06-09T12:44:00.004-04:00

Could it be yellow....and a trace of red? On my tomatoes no less? It is! I had decided that it was Fried Green Tomatoes and Green Tomato Chutney all they way and was about to pick them all on Monday....but our Farmer Across The Street came over just in time to stop it all. His experienced eyes saw what mine could not....traces of yellow on the fruit - signaling that they were actually going to ripen after all....two or three weeks late but they would ripen. He even saw new little buds of promise that my frustrated mind had blinded me to.....and he told David I could still pick those green ones and tear out those bushes if I wanted to...but to be certain to throw them into his yard....

Filled with hope, I looked at the pepper plants and the squash plants that I had almost given up for dead and saw that they too had new buds on them...they've survived the floods and the creepy crawlies after all. A layer of sand under the squash, more coffee grinds around the base of the peppers and a quick hand picking of the few remaining slugs and bugs I could see and I'm feeling optimistic again.

Underneath the tomato plants, the lettuce is peeking through; over near the herbs I can see chives beginning to reach for the sun as are the onions; I planted some more sugar snaps as I picked the tiny yield I got from the initial plantings (which have lost every single leaf).....

The chicks have learned to follow me to the gardening section of the yard now....they know that its almost certain to yield them a treat or two....a tomato worm on the end of a stick, or a slug presented on a leaf.....its always nice to have companions while one works....

Its a good day.

How does your garden grow?

2009-06-06T14:00:00.003-04:00

We've tried to grow organically this year; no pesticides, natural fertilizers, all that jazz. But Florida's weather isn't cooperating with us. Seven days of non stop rain (which caused the potato fields that surround us to make us think we had ocean front property) have done a number on the garden.

The tomato plants that were going gangbusters and bursting with little green promises suddenly are the feasting ground for all manner of creepy crawlies. Coffee grinds and egg shells didn't slow them down. Hand picking and treating the chickens didn't seem to make a dent. The fruit that was supposed to be ripe and ready for eating on the 27th of May now hangs perpetually green.....not enough Florida sun to finish the ripening process and too much outside interference with the creepy crawlies have ended the process. I guess there'll be lots of Green Tomato Chutney to give away and lots of Fried Green Tomatoes for dinner. Friends report the same trouble with their gardens, so we're not alone in this. One faces the same dilemma we do and another says her green ones all dropped to the ground a week ago.

I've got slugs and snails in the squash and sugar snaps - again the coffee grinds and egg shells and sweet water aren't able to keep up with the infestation that has resulted from too much rain. I finally broke down and bought some organic pesticide to help save what I can of my garden...and I'm giving it all one more week before it all comes out and I start over.

I've container gardened every year for the last 20 years - I've never dealt with the creepy crawlies that have invaded us this year....and I've only occasionally had to use pesticides before with my tomato plants - so this first attempt to go completely organic has been a bit frustrating....

As I type this, the second storm of the day has come through - and I think about the potato farmers that lost millions already this season in rotted fields - and I am thankful that I'm just dealing with a back yard garden. And I dream of a green house.......where I can control the water if not the humidity......

Benefits and Blubbers.....

2009-06-03T14:17:00.004-04:00

I remember a friend from my reading board blogging about how she was going to support Obama because John McCain said he'd be open to taxing health care benefits (which she mistook for health care services~) back during the campaign....I hope she's paying attention right now, because another promise from her guy is about to be broken......because taxing those of us who sacrifice to pay for our health care insurance has been put on the table by our Mr. President and his Democrat filled Congress. Why? To pay for his nationalized health care plan.....of course.

Oh how we have changed the English language to allow our politicians to betray us over and over again....benefits mistaken for service - insurance replaced by the word benefit .... as if we don't pay for those health care plans that our employers help us get for our families out of the money we work for. As in, those who pay for their insurance have a benefit over those who do not sacrifice to pay for their insurance ....so let's tax those who DO pay so that those who DON'T pay get services for basically free....or at least think they will..........(Did you read about our Mr. D, you know the tax evading nominee for HS? - saying the our seniors will "just have to live with" some of the effects of getting older and not get treated for every little ailment?)

We've so interchanged the words (like Charge Cards now being known as CREDIT cards) that we have to really think before we can understand exactly what it is our politicians and the media spinners are saying about what they are going to do to OUR life and our parents life and the lives of the generations behind us.

I know that the "benefits" the pres. and his cronies are speaking of is the portion of our health care plan that is paid for by our employer - who gets a tax break as an incentive to offer health care insurance to their employees, so don't start sending me messages about how I don't understand it all.....

See it will go like this.....say our employer pays half of the cost of our annual insurance plan - the government is first going to take away the tax incentive they initially gave our employer to pay for that half in the first place and second, they're going to tax the employee on the half the employer pays for us......as income - taxed on money we never see for a "benefit" we pay for. Could it be a two part plan? Maybe to make it less attractive for our employers to offer us health care plans in the first place AND then make it cost the employee so much in taxes to get that health care insurance from our employer that we decide to buy into the NEW Nationalized Health Care Plan our savior is going to put into place? And here's a little food for thought....if our employers lose the tax benefit and so don't offer health care plans or we stop paying for our own insurance because of the taxes, where's the money going to come from to pay for our nationalized health care plan? Maybe taxes on foods that aren't good for us (like the cigarette tax?)? Or maybe taxes on foods and things they think are luxuries (like the rich pay for their yachts)? Or maybe they'll just ration out our health care services for those they think are less deserving or have less chance of a long term survival....like Britain just did for women with breast cancer or as our Mr. T (for Tom or Tax Evader which ever you prefer)suggested just to anyone over, let's say, the age of 50 (timed with our eligibility for AARP maybe?).

So much for Liberty eh? Freedom of choice restricted by the cost of the choice determined (of course) by our all knowing elite politicians (who've never run a business and have their own Insurance Plans paid for by WE the taxpayers for the rest of their lives!) who fly to NYC for a date night (paid for by WE the taxpayers) while millions of folks wait for that first unemployment check and wonder if they'll ever be able to afford a "date night" again.

You know, our president seems to enjoy going around the world apologizing for America...for the so called arrogance of Americans.....but I just want to say this....the height of arrogance is a government based upon democracy and capitalism and liberty slowly taking over our industries, our health care, and our liberties and thinking that THEY can do it better than all the other countries that have failed to succeed at socialism in the past.....oh wait a minute....nobody is supposed to call this governmental takeover of every facet of our lives socialism are they?

I hope my friend is happy with her choice...a choice she made based upon her fear of something she thought would be exactly what is happening right now......under her guy.

Oh...and for those of you thinking I promised not to post any more political musings on this blog? Well, if my president can go back on his word, then why can't I?

One more thing before I go away and tend my garden..... did you hear that our young, hip, government just published a list of the locations of every single one of our nuke power facilities on the internet ....with maps no less....by mistake? I'm feeling real secure at the moment......

A Charging Life.....

2009-05-28T19:28:00.004-04:00

No, I'm not talking about charge cards - you know those things we now call credit cards instead? Gee, I wonder why the name change...could it be that charges bring to mind something negative while credit does the opposite? Never mind. That's not what this post is about....I'm actually talking about those re-chargable batteries we've switched to over the past year or so....

Have you ever thought about just how many batteries we need in the modern life? A gazillion it sometimes seems...and when you are living a charging life.....you spend a whole lot of time first telling your family "hey....noooooo...those are rechargables" as they head to the bins.....and then a whole lot of time rotating those little energy providers through that charger that looks oh so good as part of your kitchen decor.....until.....that little charger decides it's done.....it gives up the ghost.

So you go to the store and you think that all chargers are the same as your recently departed one - only to find that some of those things take 12-15 hours to charge 4 tiny batteries. And, your kid then takes your batteries out of your camera so that he can play his Xbox 360.......

And then you say to your readers ...."well, this post was going to be about our chicks and their adventures in the big open world outside their penned in coop.....or maybe about the floods that came from 7 straight days of rain and ruined several million dollars worth of potato crops"..... and then proceed to gripe about a charging life....sometimes, every now and then, I just want to go buy some of those little energizer bunny ones....sometimes it seems life was a bit simpler when we were less green.....

Gripe Over.....you may now return to your regularly scheduled....whatever........ : )