What’s been going on in my world…

Where have I been, you ask?  Life is out of control.  But you don’t want all of the gory details, now, do you?  I didn’t think so.  Instead I’ll just leave you with a glimpse of my world this past week.
This guy showed up to spend a few days with us. Since many neighbors have horses, it took quite a few calls before we figured out where the prison break took place.  She belongs to the one neighbor we didn’t call, because she is known to not take very good care of her animals and this ol’ gal looked very well groomed.  I guess we should have known, though, because our neighbor’s fences are atrocious.  It turns out she had two rescue horses.  Had is the key word.  This one ended up in our field.  The other one she found dead.  I’m thinking she doesn’t need to be rescuing any more horses.

This guy showed up too, but unlike the horse, he was invited.  It is amazing how helpful a 15 year old can be.  Thank you for all of your help, Travis.  Hopefully all the running we did with you (and driving practice!) made up for it.

I do believe the mums are done for this year. 
 

We are getting a metal roof put on the house, thanks to hail damage this last spring and summer.  You would not have caught me on that roof with the wind whipping around like that.  Shoot, who am I kidding?  You would never get me on the roof!  Period.

Bailey never changes.  She just stays lazy, with an attitude.

My roses are going for the last hurrah of summer.  Isn’t this one beautiful?  The scent is oh so sweet.

And Whiskey keeps us entertained every night as he plays catch with his many toys.  He is so spoiled!

I haven’t been around the blogs much lately, but that will change soon I’m sure.  It is too hard to stay away!  Have a great weekend all.

Triplets

I have a problem.

I can no longer get my my t-shirts, or in the case of these cool Missouri mornings, my much needed sweatshirts, over my swelled head.  So I grabbed my warmest blouse as a substitue, and darned if the buttons didn't all pop off the minute I slipped them in the button hole. Not a pretty sight at all. 

You see, I recently received an award.  Not once.  Not twice.  But three times!  If that doesn't make a person feel special, I don't know what will.

Deanna picking wild flowers and weeds

Originally, Just Stuff From A Boomer, gave me the Liebster Award.  Like her, I had no idea what it meant.  She was kind enough to do the research for me.  Here is what she said:  "Because I had never heard of this award, I did a little detective work and discovered that liebster in German, means "beloved". 

The Liebster Blog Award is designed to bring additional recognition to those bloggers with less than 200 followers.  If you receive the award, you should link back to the blogger that nominated you and nominate 5 more blogs.  And, also, don't forget to let them know you nominated them.

Boomer is one of my newest friends, and I have to say I enjoy her blog immensely.  As a fellow baby-boomer, I find myself walking down memory lane with you more often than not.  You're the best!  I've linked back to you and sure do hope every single one of my 61 (actually 12 if you go by comments left ;) followers head over to your blog right this minute... I mean after they finish reading this post.

My dear friend of many years, Iggy, surprised me with an honorary mention when he himself received the same award from Betty.  Iggy's blog is the first one I ever followed.  His is the most educational, heartfelt, sincere, kind... great blog around.  Although we have never met, I consider Iggy one of my best friends ever.  Do me a favor and check him out.  I guarantee you will be glad you did.  You might want to bring an umbrella, though.  Because he recently sprung a leak in his bathroom!  Thank you Iggy.

And then it happened.  My friend from Wales, Tori,  also nominated me.  When I think of Tori, there is no way to come up with one word to describe her.  Inspiration comes to mind.  Then brave.  Then amazing.  Tori has taken her followers through the agony of losing her eyesight and the fears and tribulations that accompanies her journey.  She wows us with photos of her sweet dog Kero and posts projects of her knitting and other projects.  I am humbled by Tori.  And I thank her for the award. 

Now I have a difficult job ahead of me.  I need to nominate 5 for this award.  Drum roll please....

Steve of Third Half of Life

Betty of A Corgi in Southern California

Patti at Osage Bluff Quilter

Travis at One Word, One Rung, One Day

 (Travis has a little over 200 followers, but I'm nominating him anyway since I never was very good at following rules.)

Cheryl at The Farmer's Daughter

I hope you will check them out.  Trust me... you will be glad you did!

Believe and it will happen

Remember this dismal picture from earlier this spring?

Bare ground rose garden

Here is my rose garden today with beautiful, sweet smelling, roses blooming.

Rose Garden



Even the insects appreciate their beauty. 

I just hope they are nice and don't decide they are sitting on an afternoon snack.



Pink rose with insects on it



A few days in my world

On this once again rainy morning, I thought I'd share some images from the past week.

Clematis blooming.  A present from  my mom and dad many years ago.

Awesomely tart pie cherries.  Only enough for two pies - but  I'll take what I can get!  Strawberries are coming on strong.  Yum.

Rubberbands hooked to plastic whirly-wheels is a lot of fun to shoot into the air and then catch.  Unless the rubberband snaps your fingers (see Anna on the left)

It is easy to get away from the troubles of life when fishing in the cold waters at Stieferman's Bluff

A little front porch sitting would be so nice.  (Notice the layering of cusions on the rockers?  The first set belongs to Bailey.  She kindly allows us to remove them when we sit down.  That cat does know how to shed!)

The loves of his life...

I'm going to admit it to the world.  Jim is having a love affair.

If you ask him, he will say I am the love of his life.  And there is no doubt in my mind that is true.  But... he is having a love affair - and his secret is out

Her name is Iris and the love affair has been going on since before I met him.  I should have known he couldn't give her up for me.  She tried sneakinig up the sidewalk when she thought I wasn't looking. 

When I caught the brazen hussy dripping wet from a shower, she just shook the water droplets at me and went on




He knows I am on to him and doesn't care *wipes a tear*.  He's even threatened to relocate her from her current home where she is not doiing well!  How dare he!






I tried to talk to Bailey about it, but she didn't even pretend to care.  I think she is in on it.

  


If only I could have gotten a picture of him sniffing these pretty little girls.  The evidence would be overwhelming.  The  thing is, they even have beards.  What oh what does he see in them?  I just don't get it *sniff, sniff*





My only consolation is that I know her beauty only lasts a short time and then she will shrivel up, and his fascination will be over - at least for a while



The sad thing is that as soon as FloozieFlag fades, her cousin Chio from Japan will take her place.  I've seen it happen year after year.





And after Chio's glory fades, their distant cousin, Lily, from Asia will take their place.  I guess I'm just going to have to live with it and learn to do a little sniffing around of my own.







Whiskey pretended to care but then went back to his reading without a care in the world.  I should have known the guys would stick together.





 









Roses and more

We decided to turn one of our flower gardens into a rose garden this year.  So we found the sunniest spot in these woods of ours – quite a challenge, I’ll tell you – and planned a rose garden.

We laid things out and figured on the number of bushes needed. 
I went to work and Jim headed to pick up the plants. 
The plan was for one knockout type bush in each corner and the rest tea roses. 
When I got home after dark last night, I couldn’t resist looking at the rose garden. 



Rose bushes

   
Can you see all of the rose bushes?  Obviously it is not done, but Jim wanted to get the plants in before last night’s rain.  I’m wondering if it is not a bit of overkill.  But I do love roses!  He went to Aldi’s after receiving a tip form Osage Bluff Quilter that they had knockouts and tea roses fairly inexpensive.  Bloom roses bloom!

Bluebells

We had a wonderful visit with Patti and The Blacksmith.   The Blacksmith dug Bluebells for us to add to our collection of flowers.  I believe they are going to be a great addition to our Hosta garden where Jim planted them.  My only hope is that they turn out as pretty as the ones pictured in Patti's post. 

Angel Hair or Maiden Hair - not sure which it is called

         They also gave us some grass that grows tall and beautiful.  I thought Patti called it Angel Hair, but Jim is sure The Blacksmith called it Maiden Hair.  So we call it Maingel Hair.  Not really.  I’m sure Patti will clear it up in her comments… please….

Beautiful white Dogwood Tree blooms

Our woods are alive with the beauty of Dogwood blooms. 




More Dogwood trees!


It doesn’t get any prettier than this – even if the skies are threatening rain as I scoot back into the house.

Happy Birthday Allen

The weather has been downright beautiful here in my little spot of the world. 

Saturday was Grandson Allen's birthday.  HAPPY BIRTHDAY ALLEN!  I posted about our birthday shopping trip here.

Greg and Alicia had everyone out to celebrate Sunday.  It was a nice, easy day.  Unhurried and laid back.  Now that is the way to have a party.  Good burgers and brats, potatoe casserole, baked beans, lots of snacks, and of course cake and icecream. 




All eyes are on Allen

 We took time to stroll around and enjoy the pretty weather.  The kids were off playing, or fishing, or doing whatever it is that kids do.  Here is a bit of what we saw:

Chickens

Crazy kids (James & Austin) on a playhouse roof

Peach tree blossoms

It was definitely a good day.

There is so much going on in our day to day life right now that I find myself gettig blogged down.  I wrote and wrote this morning and discovered I had about 10 topics going.  For goodness sakes, I need to get my thoughts organized better.  I'm hoping to become more consistent in my blogging and then all of my thoughts won't come pouring out into one post!

Later all.  I hope you have a wonderful day and week!

A this and that weekend

The temperatures climbed to the 90’s yesterday and then plummeted to the 40’s overnight, and finally settling into the 50’s today.  It is definitely Spring in Missouri.
This lonely bloom was way ahead of the many other blooms maturing on our Magnolia Bush.

I greatly appreciate her effort at brightening the landscape.

Anna and James spent the weekend with us and since James turns 6 next week, we did a bit of early birthday shopping and ended up with a Lego castle set.  We seem to have a bit of Legomania going on around here.  Anna was a trooper helping him figure out how to put them together.

Now I’m not going to say I’m into child labor, but the fact is that when you work hard, good things come your way.

We raked leaves (yes, we rake leaves both Fall and Spring in these woods).  And then we they took the leap
  
 
and jumped into them.  We did eventually rake them up and haul them away.

The winds and rain, and ice and snow of winter left the ground littered with tree limbs.  The kids picked up sticks and hauled them to the fire pit.  

   
There was a little bit of incentive added for their hard work.

A wiener roast!  We have a few lessons learned from this wiener roast.  1.  We need stronger poles for roasting BallPark type hotdogs than wire coat hangers; 2. Normal marshmallows work better for S’mores than those humongous ones available in the stores today.  Those great big ones don’t squish down right; and 3. along with the food and paper towels, a wet rag is a must after eating S’mores.

Our weekend with the kids ended a bit sooner than we expected.  Their dad was waiting to take them home when we got home from Church Sunday morning.  Now what?  We had a whole day ahead of us with no plans!  So we hopped into the car and took the winding, ridge running, roads to Osage County and Frankenstein, where we checked out the hard to find Dudenhoeffer’s Nursery.  It is a bit early to put out new plants, but we bought a few plants anyway and have them sitting safely in our garage. 


Now, if the temperatures would just settle into moderate Spring like temperatures.  No more of these crazy highs and lows.  It isn’t healthy!