While I was gone...

While I was gone to Texas to celebrate my big blue-eyed grandson's fourth birthday Don stayed home and tried to burn down the house! Actually, he had a minor grass fire on Sunday and I just happened to call him in the middle of it.

He was mowing in the side yard when the lawnmower caught fire. It was very windy and the grass fire quickly spread toward the house, but Don managed to put it out before any damage was done. My two huge lavender bushes went up in flames, as did my Sweet Shrub. The broccoli, raspberry canes and blueberry bushes were spared, thank goodness!

It was extremely windy in Texas too, more so than usual, which made having a birthday party at the park quite an experience. We had to forego most of the decorations, but I don't think the kids minded. They had the park to play in, a bounce house to bounce in (personally, I think we should have had the party in the bounce house) and plenty of birthday cake and ice cream to eat.

The party was on Saturday. When I arrived at Jude's house he asked me if it was his real birthday and I explained to him that his real birthday was on Monday and we were having his party early. He's a smart little guy...when someone at the party asked him how old he was, Jude replied, "Still three".

I'm happy to report that Jude is now officially four-years-old, Don has "officially" retired from burning things up and he is now back at work. That means I get the computer back...finally!

Go West...

I'm very busy today, but had to grab and minute and blog. Tomorrow I'll be heading west to attend my precious grandson's fourth birthday. Every year my mom, sister and I go to Texas for the weekend to help Jude celebrate his birthday. It's so good to see my daughter, grandson and son-in-law even for a short time. I just don't get to see them enough!

So today I am bustling about trying to pack, find birthday gifts that I'd bought earlier in the year and tucked away, not to mention trying to get the house situated so Don can find clean socks and something to eat!

I won't be blogging until I get back...possibly Sunday evening, but most likely Monday.

See ya later...I'm going to head into the sunset now!

Soup of the evening, beautiful soup!

Last night I made soup, vegetable soup to be exact. Made some cornbread to go with it and Don declared it a delicious supper.

My main reason for making soup was some leftover green beans in the fridge and a bottle of V8 Juice I'd bought at the grocery store on Saturday. When my kids were small I always made veggie soup with V8 Juice. I haven't bought any in years, but there was a sale on it and I had a great coupon, so how could I resist?

Unfortunately, my plans to use up leftovers always backfires when I make soup. For some reason I simply can not make a small pot of soup. It just grows and grows until I have a huge pot full, which is exactly what happened last night. That small portion of green beans turned into several quarts of soup!

Fortunately soup freezes well so I'll put this up in two person portions so we can enjoy it later. Either that or we'll be eating soup every night for a week!

P.S. Thank you Mr. Lewis Carroll for the poem "Beautiful Soup" and for all of Alice's adventures.

Spray painting...

The other day I bought some barn red spray paint and today I started using it. I'm in the middle of repainting my laundry room a creamy butter yellow and decided the red would be a nice punch of color.

This afternoon I took my two shelves (two long pieces of wood that I lay on top of metal brackets over the washer/dryer) out to spray paint. I didn't see the sawhorses around so I decided there would be no harm in using the box blade on the tractor as a substitute. After all, the box blade and tractor are red, plus the box blade is rusty so a little paint would spruce it up too.

Fergus was quite intrigued with the goings on and stayed on top of a fence post keeping a close eye on me. The dogs couldn't have cared less (which is good as I didn't want any dogs with red noses, paws or tails).

As I was spraying the shelves I started thinking about spray paint. How many of us learned how to spray paint at Vacation Bible School? Remember those cigar boxes we decorated with uncooked pasta and then spray painted gold?

Spray paint has come a long way since Vacation Bible School and my childhood. For one, it costs a lot more! It also is a better quality and you can find lots more colors and different paints for spraying different materials such as plastic and metals. You can even get it textured these days!

Anyway, I'll be putting the final coat on my shelves tomorrow and then I'm going to spray paint the little green cupboard I found at Goodwill. I also have a couple of decorative shelves to spray paint. After that, I just have to put up my "cats in the laundry basket" border and the room will be finished. I'll post a photo in the near future of my decorating efforts.

Oh, did I mention I also managed to spray paint my index finger today? Yeah...also learned that spray paint doesn't wash off!

Long night ahead...

Saturday nights are always long around here. Don doesn't get home from work until 1 a.m. and it's usually 4 a.m. by the time we get all the dogs fed and bedded down for the night. We also have to round up cats. The coyotes sound like they're getting a little closer to the house every night, so the cats are sleeping inside (except for big burly Harley who hates to be in the house).

Tonight, however, is going to be an hour longer that normal and I am looking forward to it! An extra hour of sleep will be much appreciated since I had to get up early this morning to do the grocery shopping...a chore I normally do on Wednesday. I am most definitely not a morning person so any excuse for an extra hour of sleep is a good one!

Of course, I despise Daylight Savings Time in the Spring when I lose an hour of sleep. Just doesn't seem like there's any point in doing that these days...especially to a night owl like myself!

Smarty Pants...

This is Teagan. Teagan is a pest. Teagan is also to smart for her own good. Teagan's name is Irish and means "beautiful". We made a mistake. We should have named her Miss Smarty Pants.

Before we took Teagan into our home she was hanging out on the rural road where we live with a black dog. I guess they were pals because you always saw them together. One day, coming home from the grocery store, I found them in our driveway. I stopped and put out some dog food for them. Teagan was thrilled to make friends with me and I had no trouble putting her in the truck (where she promptly hopped onto the dashboard to ride up to the house).

Unfortunately, Teagan's friend was not so sure I was a nice person and wouldn't let me get her. A week later she was hit and killed. That made Don and I very sad, but there was little we could have done since there was no way to catch her.

Teagan, being the smart little dog she is, quickly settled in with the other dogs. We feed her, pet her, play with her just like any of the other dogs, but Teagan continues to be extremely needy. It's like she just can't get enough, which makes her a huge pest, especially since she is very persistent and will climb all over you to be petted. Oh, did I mention Teagan is extremely strong for her size?

At night Teagan sleeps in the fenced in front yard with Angus and Caoilainn. She likes being outside at night and does much better there than in the house. If she spends the night in the house Teagan will walk all over us while we try to sleep. Like I said, she's a pest!

Now to the truly smarty-pants aspect of Teagan. She recently learned how to open the front door! We have a door knob that has a push down latch and Teagan has figured out how to push it down with her paw and waltz right in...and she NEVER shuts the door behind her!

After a few mornings of finding outside dogs jumping on the bed (and the front door wide open) we've decided that the only way to fix the problem is to lock our door at night. Living out where we do with all the dogs, locking up has never been an issue. Now we're having to lock the dogs out!

To top it off, Teagan is teaching my little Beagle, Tadhg, how to open the door. He's done it twice. The door is now locked during the day as well!

If you're wondering what breed of dog Teagan is, the vet declared her to be a "genuine Mississippi Mutt" which is just a fancy way of saying she's a little bit of this and a little bit of that.

Blustery November has arrived!

November arrived on a blast of cold air for us here in north Mississippi! Yesterday it was a balmy and pleasant 72 degrees, but last night brought rain and today we've seen fierce cold winds and a temperature that struggled to stay above 50, but lost.

When I was out hurriedly feeding the chickens, ducks and Elvis I noticed that the magnificent Hickory tree in the back had lost most of its beautiful gold leaves. Rats...I've been meaning to take a photo of the Hickory while it was ablaze with Fall color. I was a day late, but maybe I'll get one next year.

Now I've got the house all nice and snug with a fire roaring in the fireplace and a pot of homemade venison/veggie soup bubbling on the stove. Just before Don gets home from work I'll make a pone of cornbread to eat with the soup.

Afterwards we'll fall asleep on the clean flannel sheets I put on the bed today. Mmmmm...just thinking about it makes me all warm and sleepy!