Henny Penny here...
reporting that everything is up and running again at Henny Penny Lane. We have running water, inside and outside. That's right. It is raining cats and dogs outside, or as mama used to say, "it is simply pouring"! By the way, have I mentioned that we have leaves that need to be raked? :)
Back to the water situation...it was close to noon before the well digging, pump repair service people got here on Monday. Of course, it was no small problem. The pump in the well had to be replaced and also the pressure switch on the tank under the house. The old well cover fell apart when it was lifted off the well and I couldn't be happier about that...
I hate those old miniature wishing wells that don't look real. Poppy says he is having someone build us another. I spoke up right quick and said well tell him to build it square and use wide boards and build a top with an overhang and a tin roof and a roller for hanging the old well bucket. If it doesn't look authentic, I don't want it! I can't wait to light a fire under this pile of stuff.
Remember way back before everybody had inside plumbing how folks kept a bucket of freshly drawn well water with a dipper nearby? I borrowed this picture from the neatest blog that I happened upon, babs-upstairsdownstairs.blogspot.com. I plan to visit her again and read more...
I especially remember drinking water from a well bucket and dipper when we would visit my Aunt Macy and Uncle Vester. They kept a bucket of fresh well water on a shelf on their front porch and the dipper hung from a nail nearby. There was also a pan...one kinda like this...
for washing up and there was also a towel hung from another nail. Those truly were the good times. Oh well, moving on to more modern times.
A moth flew in when the door was opened this morning. Bickett and Dumper Roo went crazy...
The moth lit on the sofa. See the black spot down near the floor. Bickett doesn't see it...
Oh this rain! The pond is running over again and the pier is completely under water. Guess it's just as well that we have no family coming for Thanksgiving dinner tomorrow. Yep, just Poppy and me. Still, I plan to bake a turkey, have dressing, broccoli casserole, sweet potato casserole, cranberry sauce, collards, and rolls. Poppy said since it is just the two of us, let's have only our favorite dishes. No need making mashed potatoes and gravy, or green beans and corn. We have those things enough anyway. So, I will wish all of you a happy Thanksgiving! Thank you for stopping by.
Love,
Henny
Every summer about this time...bean picking time...I think about mama. I don't think anybody in this world loved green beans any more than my Mother.
I just came in from picking the beans in the teeny tiny garden. Sure hope there is enough for a canner full. We have finished every jar of canned beans in the pantry...
It was hot in the garden but mama was totally on my mind. Could not help but smile, thinking of her and the things she used to say. You have surely heard this from me before, but always when picking beans with mama, she would say, "watch out for old snakes. You know Shirley was picking beans one time and reached under a bean vine and there lay an old Copperhead". Another of mama's little bean quotes was, "try not to tear the bean vines all to pieces. I'd like to be able to pick another mess". Now there is another word I have heard all my life, especially from mama's side of the family. Picking a mess of something. Seems like the women were always fixing to pick a mess of butter beans, or a mess of okra, or a mess of creasy greens. Wonder what was considered a mess. I suppose it would depend on how many would be eating.
Sorry to keep posting the same picture but it is the only one I have to show you mama's sisters when I talk about them. Aunt Bass is seated in front on the far right. My dear sweet Aunt Berlie is standing, third from the left in the back. And again, my sweet Mother is seated second from the left in front...
It took a big mess of butter beans and vegetables back when Aunt Bass put dinner on the table. I was there at the table a few times when the men folks would come in from the field in the middle of the day to eat dinner. I will never forget the size of the dinner table or the big bowls of vegetables. The homemade biscuits and freshly churned butter. The men folks coming in the door after washing up, and sitting down at the table. And I will never forget Aunt Bass with a gallon jar of fresh cold milk, filling each tall glass on the dinner table. Oh, and the thick layer of sweet cream that rose to the top of each jar of milk.
Aunt Bass milked the cows that gave this delicious milk and she churned the butter. I remember seeing her walking to the house from the barn carrying a pail of fresh milk in each hand. I remember the churn sitting in the kitchen with a cloth covering the top. She gathered the vegetables that were cooked for dinner every day. These folks ate like this every day and you know what, there was not one fat person in the family. By the way, Aunt Bass had a beautiful name..."Ella Vastie".
What wonderful memories. I could go on and on but it is time for the painters to arrive. By this time tomorrow, the log cabin should be red! Yikes! Have we gone crazy?! Yesterday they pressure washed the house.
Hope to be back soon!
Love,
Henny
"A man may work from sun to sun, but a woman's work is never done".
We could sure use a day of sunshine along about now! This will be the eighth day of thick clouds and rain. Not even a peep of sun. I need the sunshine!! With every cloudy, rainy, misty day, I feel gloomier and gloomier.
There are lots of Camellia blooms. The bushes look healthier now that there are less trees and more sun in the back yard...sun when it's not raining!
Speaking of rain, that rope is still hanging in that tree waiting for me to finish building the swing. Just this morning the weatherman said it will be Wednesday before we see the sun...so that means Wednesday before I can work on the swing again!
Shelby and I... you remember Shelby, my sister, the farmer. We were talking yesterday about the swing. Shelby said there were two things she really wanted when she and her husband moved to the farm...a tree house and a rope swing on a tree limb. She still has neither, like me! But listen, Shelby has a loft in their big tall barn...a loft!!! If only I had a loft full of sweet smelling hay!!! That's where I would spend most of my days! This is not Shelby's loft, but a neat one I found on line...
Oh, the memories Shelby and I have of playing and laughing, and jumping from the hay loft at our Aunt Macy's. Aunt Macy and Uncle Vester had lots of children to play with and the hay loft was our favorite place.
Imagine spending the night in this barn full of hay...
I found this on line and it is a place where you can actually stay...in France!! www.burgundystay.com
Back in the 50's...and living in Robbins, Shelby built each of us a simple tree house. We called them tree "houses" but it was more like a flat wooden floor nailed onto a forked limb. You need a large tree with several forked limbs, and there was just such a tree in our back yard. Shelby built three flat tree houses in that one tree. My house was on the bottom, Jackie's was second, and Shelby's was highest. She built it by starting at the narrow end nailing boards to the limbs and working her way out . Just a flat simple tree house. We spent many a day playing in that tree...especially Shelby! Shelby loved to read and what better place to read than up in a tree, on one of mama's good quilts. Many times we forgot and left a quilt up in the tree house and it would get rained on.
Here it is, bedtime Monday night..so I will stop here. Hope to be back soon!
Love,
Henny Penny
I post a lot about keeping busy and Poppy never catching me sitting down...well it runs in the family. Mama's oldest sister, Ella Vastie, worked hard her whole life. She was 98 when she died, but all those years working on their farm, well nobody could outdo her or keep up with her. Aunt Bass, as we all called her, loved to fish, and she let others fish in her pond. However, if she had her arms full and was headed to the barn as fast as she could walk, don't stop her and ask if you can go fishing!! One man did and Aunt Bass slowed down, glared at him and said, "NO, YOU'RE NOT A GONNA FISH!! I DON'T HAVE TIME TO FISH, AND YOU'RE NOT GONNA FISH EITHER!! The man thanked her and left. That's Aunt Bass on the front row, far right...
My sister, Shelby, and I don't see each other as often as we should, or want to. Shelby is about three years older than me (let me mention that right up front)!! :) I post about being busy and crossing things off my list of "things to do"...well Shelby is busier!!! She doesn't have time to make a list in the first place!!! While I play here on our hobby farm, Shelby and her husband Jimmy have a "real" farm!!! I took this picture from their back deck.
The funny thing is...Shelby and Jimmy, both had careers and worked until retirement age, then became farmers!!!. They both retired at the same time. They did quite a bit of traveling before their farming venture. While a lot people their ages are relaxing in their recliners, Shelby and Jimmy are busy feeding cows, hogs, and chickens. They sell fresh eggs, and their home grown produce at the farmer's market, and they have recently gotten in to bee keeping. Shelby sells jams, jellies, relishes, and baked goods at the market. She always has a pot or two with some kind of fruit and sugar bubbling on the stove. If you want to talk with her, you get put on speaker phone!!!
Their high tunnel is new, completed just this past spring.
Shelby insisted I take home a bag of mixed greens that she said were about to get too big. You never leave Shelby's empty handed. While I'm saying to her, "I can't take all this", she is loading stuff in the back seat of the car...half a crusty cream cheese pound cake, a new jar of jalapeno peach preserves, and bags of whatever they happen to be getting out of the garden at the time!! Shelby will probably fuss at me, (as we say around here), for posting this picture of her in these big boots. It was muddy that day and we both traded our shoes for a pair of boots that were parked on the deck. I kept my big feet out of the picture!! :)
Shelby and I share funny stories. Especially stories about the crazy things we do. Things that are fairly common when you get our age!!! She was telling me just the other day about being home alone, which is rare. She was going out to the chicken house to gather eggs, and thought she might ought to carry the pistol. Shelby asked me, "do you know how to open a pistol and look in the chamber to see if it's loaded?" I said, "no"!! Well, she said she had always looked at the barrel end of the gun and into the chamber to see if it was loaded, but her son Greg, insisted she NEVER do that again!!! Not knowing what to do, she walked into the bathroom, pointed the gun at the mirror, and looked into the chamber!!! Yep, it was loaded alright!!! I think that was pretty smart, don't you?
It was hot and sticky working outside yesterday but I did get a lot of limbs cut off and hauled away. I was sounding pretty smug in my post about using my chain saw!!! Well, truth is, I lost my nerve. It didn't even get turned on!!! The little hand saw worked just fine!!! When Poppy got home he showed me again the right way to hold the chain saw. :)
All the bull frogs were croaking yesterday!!! Actually, the males croak to attract females and warn away other males. I love listening to them. Mama used to say, "do you know what that old bull frog is saying?" It's saying, "under the root, under the root, under the root"! Then another bull frog will say, "wha daya chew, wha daya chew, tobacco, tobacco, tobacco" ! If you really listen, you can hear those old frogs saying that.
A plastic owl keeps watch in the front yard. This plastic frog keeps watch over the pond... :)
Need to get busy. Thank you for looking at my blog. Hope to be back soon!!!
Love,
Henny Penny
