Little Red Shed...Patty and the kittens

Hey friends,

Are you as excited as we are about the cold front coming down from up north? Why, they say this weekend the temps will be in the 80s with low humidity. Do you reckon it's true?

Speaking of the 80s, well the 1980s, shortly after moving into the cabin, we ordered a little storage shed...from Sears. We sure did. Put it together and several years ago, painted it red. 

What a dandy little shed this has been, holding up through years of rain and wind and storms, even a hurricane or two. 

Over the years the doors and along the bottom of the building became ragged and worn, enough so that a little mouse could find it's way in. Last week new doors were built and hung...

Poppy sealed every crack and crevice...I thought we would never get the painting finished, but we did...

Gosh, to me, it looks too clean around the building. I guess Poppy would have a fit if I set out a row of hostas. :(

Might as well show you how the back looks...

Anyhow, moving on to something really sweet and cute...

Remember my cousin Pat? Sure you do...The old cupboard that sits on our little porch?? 

Pat and her husband Mike both love cats. They recently lost their beloved cat Joey to kidney failure. Knowing how lost they would be, they put in an order for two Ragdoll kittens and last week were able to bring them home...

Oh my gosh! What an exciting day that must have been.

These Ragdoll kitties are brothers, born May 6th... 

Meet Theodore (Teddy)...

and Beauregard (Beau)...

Oh, if only I could reach in and pick them up. Is there anything any more fun than playing with kittens...

So so adorable!  Pat and Mike might as well forget about getting anything done around the house...not with these two new babies to keep them busy.

Thank you Pat for sharing these pictures. 

Guess that's about it for tonight. Hopefully when I publish this post the pictures will load. Been having trouble. Thank you friends.

Love, Henny

Catching up, once again!

Poor little plum tree, all dressed up in blossoms thinking spring has arrived...

and who could blame her? Warm sunny days, temperatures reaching 80 degrees! Of course today is cloudy and cold...

with a hard freeze warning for Saturday and Sunday nights. North Carolina I love you but your weather can be so unpredictable!

Several years ago a friend gave me two plum tree sprouts and I planted them near the garden. First year ever the one has blooms. I promise you one thing, it will be covered before Saturday night gets here. :)

Hey friends, 

Back at the computer and feeling some better. The MRI showed arthritis in my neck, bulging disc, pinched nerve, and bone spur. The doctor said, in two weeks, after more physical therapy, if pain and numbness is still in my arm and hand, we will talk about an injection in my spine to reduce swelling...surgery as a last resort.

I've been working awfully hard at physical therapy and doing the exercises at home and honestly can finally feel  a difference. So thankful!

The wild blueberry. Are things budding out where you live? Oh gosh! I need a warm blanket that will cover five acres. Wonder if Amazon has one, they have everything else. :)

Have I shown you our sweetie pies lately? Well here's big Eli...

and a half way decent picture of our sweet Ellie...

Ellie is the hardest dog ever! to get a good picture of, unless of course...

it's early morning before I get the bed made. This girl is rarely still!

We have lots of moss growing in the yard, lots more moss than grass, I'm sorry to say. On my way to the little greenhouse this morning I noticed these patches of moss...

Not my favorite colors but certainly different. Gosh, I need sunshine and warm days, don't you?

Guess I've rambled on about nothing long enough so here's where I will say goodbye for now...if you're still here.  Oh, couple more things...

Cousin Patty gave me a chair. You know how she is always sending me something. Well, I like this little chair...

It sits nicely here by the bed in my teeny tiny sewing room. Thank you Pat.

and speaking of the teeny tiny sewing room...I've simply got to get back to sewing. Simply got to!!! I miss being in the sewing room at night. 

Oh, and I meant to show you these hen saddles, or aprons...

Trouble is, they didn't work. These protect the hen's back. Realized after getting  one on the hen's back, it's the little red hen's wings that need doctoring. Duh.  We bought some blue salve that prevents other hens from pecking her wounds. 

Okay, I'll hush now.

Love,

Henny

Patty and Holly, no, Holly and Patty

I've just got to say thank you for the nice comments on my last post, and Gale, who had never left a comment before...thank you so much! Your comment sure touched my heart.

The Holly trees are beautiful this year...

and were even prettier a few days ago. Poppy has reminded me every day..."you better get a picture of the holly berries before the birds eat them all".

First the Robins came...hundreds of them filling up on the red berries before moving on. Now the Cardinals fill the holly trees but that's okay.

Back when we cleared a spot in the woods to build the cabin, we intentionally left all the holly trees and all the cedar trees...

and in the dead of winter when other trees are bare, the hollies and cedars are dark green and beautiful. The green trees in the background are hollies and cedars too.

You probably remember my cousin Patty, don't you? Patty, who gave me the old cupboard, and the old pie safe, plus many many other things too numerous to mention...well, Patty called me last week...

by the way, this is cousin Pat and her husband Mike, (the nice looking couple on the left).  Anyhow, Patty said, "every morning I get up and get started on something. This morning I decided to sit here and read this old church cookbook."  

It's one of those cookbooks put together by members of the church. This church is located in a small community called Ether ...

near where my mother Jewel, and Pat's mother Agathel, were born and raised...along with their sisters, Aunt Bass, Aunt Berlie, Aunt Martha, Aunt Ruby, Aunt Macie, and Aunt Eva, oh and brothers, Uncle Henry and Uncle Charlie.  these folks...

Front row is Aunt Eva, Jewel (mama), Aunt Martha, Aunt Bass

Back row is Aunt Macie, Aunt Agathel (Pat's mom), Aunt Berlie, Aunt Ruby, Uncle Henry, Uncle Charlie

So the old cookbook contains recipes and tips from relatives and friends from all those folks. The main thing Pat called about were the hundreds of tips and ideas listed in the back of the old cookbook. "I've just got to share these with you", she said. Some are really good, some a bit strange, some funny...

Not sure how easy these will be to read...Oh, I would be overwhelmed if someone put all this in front of me to read so please...

Some of these are pretty amazing. It's easy to tell there were no microwave ovens around at the time. Patty thought this would make a good blog post...and I agree. 

Better get up from here...looks like some of the sweetie pies around here played too hard today...

Sorry about the raggedy old couch, it's just so darn comfortable. One of these days we may get a new living room suit. :)

Love,

Henny

PS.. Debby, just saw your comment for the first time too. Thank you so much!

Poppy and Patty

Dear friends,

I've been waiting for it to get cold enough to light a fire in the fireplace...

and Sunday was that day. The warmth from  the fire was just what we needed. Like my Daddy used to say, "just enough to knock the chill out of the air".

Not sure if it was the smoke coming from the chimney or the smell of a wood fire that brought Poppy down from his tree. It's deer season, again!

Because of my "deleted" post some of you didn't meet "Patty" the hen. You know, cousin Patty paid for two of our new hens. She is always doing kind things like that so I figured the special hen in the bunch should be named after her...

and here's the little flock of red hens who stay close by Patty. 

The new hens tell me they want to fit in and get along with the old hens, but the old hens are ill and hateful. They peck really hard too.

A peek into the dirty old hen house. Remember, this little house is 30 years old and chickens are really messy...

I fixed up this end of the house just for the new hens since the old hens gather and roost at the opposite end. Hopefully both groups will work things out among themselves, soon!

Caught Miss Ducky looking at me through the weeds at the edge of the pond...

She is a sweetie pie and alone now and has the whole pond to herself. I want more ducks but Poppy says no! No more muscovy! He says once the muscovy ducks are gone, maybe mallards or wood ducks will nest around the pond and we will see baby wild ducks. 

Speaking of Poppy!

Caught him coming down the tree. Must have been the fire in the fireplace. :) Last week it was black powder, this week started regular gun season. Now until January 1st. I dread it!

Kind of strange to see him sitting in a tree just outside the front door. From this tree he can look out over the cut-over. What a shame the entire hundred acres of woods where Poppy hunted is now gone. 

Poppy does have another spot to hunt, down in the woods near the creek on our neighbor's property. That's a good thing!! 

So glad you stopped by! Hope to see you again soon.

Love,

Henny

The crackling and popping of the fire made all of us sleepy...

Happy Valentine's Day

Good Grief! I've almost missed Valentine's Day! 

Here it is 9:05 and bed time.

Poppy brought me roses yesterday. It was a surprise...

 Dumper thought the roses were for him...

I didn't get Poppy anything. I feel terrible. 

So, mostly I wanted to say Happy Valentine's Day but also to tell you there were no storms yesterday...just rain...lots of rain. Thankful for that. Thankful for the sunshine today too!

Love, 
Henny

we got a cute card from Cousin Pat...It said "Hogs and Kisses" 

Thank you Patty

Old Timey

My sister Shelby and I met in Wake Forest on Friday...First, she had three heaping grocery bags of freshly cut okra to give me...three heaping grocery bags!! My friend Nellie was tickled to death to get two of the bags. 

Secondly, Cousin Patty had sent more boxes of stuff for Shelby to go through, keep what she wanted, then deliver the rest to lucky me. :)

Think I've mentioned before that Cousin Patty and her husband Mike sold their beautiful home on the lake and have down-sized since moving into a smaller place. That's why Patty gave me the beautiful old pie safe and the old cupboard.

This time items were smaller, but special...

This is not just an old worn out apron with a hole in the center; probably from drying her hands, this apron was worn by our Aunt Berlie. 

Some of my first blogging posts were written about Aunt Berlie. I adored her.  I looked forward to the weekends that mama could drive me to her house to spend a couple of nights. (This was in the early 1950's)

Aunt Berlie would say to me, "Melby, I bought us a new puzzle to put together". Oh, we would get to working on a puzzle and stay up way too late. Why, I remember it being 11:00 one Saturday night when Aunt Berlie looked up at the clock. We had to hurry and get to bed. We were going to Sunday School the next morning. 

Mama had packed my Sunday dress, my Gigi Perreau hat with the ribbon in the back, my black patent leather shoes, and little white gloves even. I can just see Aunt Berlie smiling as we walked in the the church door. She was glad to show me off, and I loved every minute of it. Of course, Aunt Berlie didn't drive, so she called on a neighbor to take us to the church.

Back to the apron. Patty had attached this note...

which I plan to keep on the apron. I want to make a pattern from this old apron and make some like it. The old aprons looked comfortable, didn't they?

This old oblong tablecloth didn't fit our new round table, so I cut it down and made a square cloth, with enough left over for a dish towel. And just look at this old tablecloth...

it doesn't fit our table either but I would never cut it.

and this picture is perfect for the small space over the ironing board in the teeny tiny sewing room...

this too from Patty......

There used to be kittens around the old barn and outhouses at Aunt Berlie's. She would say, "you can have them all if you can catch them, but be careful, they will scratch you".

Back when I was collecting old granite ware...never mind the dust on the pantry shelves...

I could not resist bringing home old 'slop jars' (top shelf far left), also a reminder of nights with Aunt Berlie. 

Aunt Berlie lived alone in a big house. There was an outside toilet, but we dared not go out after dark. A slop jar was kept just under the bed, in case we had to go during the night. 

Why, folks had been known to disappear going to the toilet late at night. There was an old tale back then in that part of the country of a woman who's husband went to the outhouse during the night and never returned. Scary stuff. 

No doubt, my love of old fashioned things came from Aunt Berlie. Things like a little fenced-in garden with a gate that hooked. Aunt Berlie had one. I remember going inside with her, to pick a few green beans, and closing the gate behind me. 

Aunt Berlie reminds me of the English Fairy Tale, "The Teeny Tiny Woman".

I've surely talked your ears off, but posting this has made me want to get back in the sewing room. It's been  months now since I finished the new sewing table skirt and chair seat cover...have I even shown you?

Green is not a favorite color of mine but there was enough pink in this that I kinda like it.

Thank you friends, well if you're still around. :) Hope I haven't frightened you away.

Love,
Henny