Took a Walk

It's been raining again this week. So you're thinking, what else is new? Right?

Well, we've had new carpet put in our bedroom, so we've been moving big, heavy furniture and painting for the last three days.

So, I thought I'd take a walk in the yard to see what's been growing besides the grass while I've been inside working.

Here are these pretty yellow flowers, whose name escapes me at the moment, that grow in front of my front porch. They have just started to bloom.

And, our apple trees have little apples. . .

On the way to the garden are the grapes and blackberries. Here I have berries that have grown beside of the grape vines.



Here is the path between the blackberry plants. I was down there this morning on my hands and knees pulling weeds. You can see them piled up in the middle of the row. I hate pulling weeds!


A few weeks ago I put grass clippings around one row of the berries, hoping it would slow weed growth. It did help some, but as you can see, poison ivy is very hardy and grew back.




The bees were enjoying the flowers on the blackberry plants. If I had a dime for every bee down there I could take you all out to lunch!


I caught a butterfly enjoying herself, also.


My spirea are beautiful right now,




. . . and so are my daisies. Did you ever do He loves me, He loves me not with daisy petals when you were a child?


There is a mommy bird that chirps, chirps, chirps at me when I'm down there. She has a nest full of babies and she's telling me I'd better not dare get near them. Here she is up my old pine tree. Do you know what kind of bird this is? You might have to click on her to get a better look. She's little and has a black head. Maybe a chickadee?


When I reached the garden I found that since our second try at potatoes weren't up yet, the potato bugs decided to lay their eggs on our tomato plants. This is what they looked like before I smashed them. I hate potato bugs!


Last, but not least, I continue to look for arrowheads each time I visit the garden. I didn't find any, but I did find some pieces of flint. No doubt scraps from making arrowheads around the campfire at night.


Hope you enjoyed our little stroll through my yard.

Decoration Day Visits

My husband is working this weekend and next, so two of my sons and I visited a couple of cemeteries today.

Our first visit was to our old family cemetery up Tupper's Creek. My son, Andrew, constructed this sign a few years ago. Gr Grandma Emily (Edens) McMillion and Gr Grandpa Elijah McMillion are buried here.



My grandparents, some of my aunts and uncles and a few cousins are also resting here. I visited this cemetery every year with Mom, Grandma and my aunts to decorate the graves when I was a kid. This is the place where every year I would get my first outbreak of poison ivy. The poison ivy is still there and so are many, many unmarked graves. I walked on the hillside to the right to see if I could find any more unmarked graves that I had not found before.

Here is a rock which looks to be a headstone surrounded with this ground cover which covers every inch of the un-mowed area. I heard that in the old days they would plant ground cover at cemeteries so weed control would be easier. Have any of you heard of this? Do you know what this ground cover is called?


Here is a close up picture. . .


Many graves are down this row, marked only by stones and sunken areas in the ground. Off to the right - - in the weeds, poison ivy, trees and ground cover, I believe there to be more graves.


This plant is growing to the right, they look like some sort of daffodils gone wild that was planted years ago. I need to go up there in early spring, so I can see what they look like then.



There used to be a dirt path going straight through the upper section of the cemetery where four wheelers drove. I'm thinking these rocks were removed from graves and piled at the base of this poison ivy covered tree. It's a shame that some people don't have more respect for cemeteries.




Here is a stone wedged between the limbs of this tree.


Here is a picture taken from the lower end of the grave sites. This is where we entered the cemetery when I was a child. There was no road and we climbed straight up the hill from below.



Before leaving, I had David take a picture of me, my cousin Vera of Intouchwith, and my sister Shirley of Mama's Place standing in front of our grandmother's grave.



Here is the view driving back down the old winding road leaving the cemetery.



We followed my cousin, Vera, up Buzzard Rock to her family cemetery. Here is a picture I snapped out the back of our truck of the rock for which the road was named after. It is much smaller now, it used to jut out over the road much more and was cave like underneath.


We passed by this wonderful old log cabin. There used to be an old country store beside of it. I mention this store in my historical fiction book Lucy of Tupper's Hollow. You all need to ask my cousin Vera to post about the old log house. I would just love to have this on my land. I would fill it up with all my old vintage thingies and sit and reminisce about the old days of my ancestors.




And here we are following my cousin, Vera, on the road leading to the other cemetery.



My son and another man spent a long time with pencil and paper rubbing an old headstone. It was of an infant girl named Henrietta who died Dec 3, 1878 aged 11 mo 21 days. It said at the bottom. . .

budded on earth to
bloom in heaven

I had never heard of that saying before, I thought it was so sweet and sad.

We still have other cemeteries to visit. But today we had an enjoyable time visiting two of them and remembering gone, but not forgotten, family members.

Americana Crafts from Scraps

I cleaned up outside the other day and took apart an old lattice that was already falling apart.




It was tedious work, but with a hammer, screw driver and pliers I took out the staples and small nails.




I ended up with a lot of pieces. . . .



and I made this star to hang on the outside wall of our storage building. I nailed the pieces together with small nails with our staple gun. I'm thinking this would be pretty at Christmas time, also. I could string lights around it.



I still had left over boards, so I made a very crude flag. I think I will also hang this on the outside wall of our building. It will be up high so people won't notice the imperfections. I cut the boards to the length I wanted, spray painted them and then nailed the boards together with the staple gun. The small nails were a little too long, tho, and some of them came through the other side.



Here is how I attached the boards on the back of the flag.


I've seen these stars and flags on the outside of buildings a lot and always wanted one like them. I'm glad I came up with the idea before throwing away the tore up lattice in the burn pile.

Frosty, Foggy Morning

Fog

The fog comes
on little cat feet.
It sits looking over harbor and city
on silent haunches
and then moves on.

Carl Sandburg

Fog rising from the pond and creek this morning.

We woke up this morning to fog,
and unfortunately,
frost on roof tops
and ice on windshields.

I just walked around and checked everything out and we were lucky, nothing got bit by the cold.
We have little clusters of grapes, small blueberries and blooms, the blackberries are just starting to bloom and we have tiny apples.
It is supposed to be cold again tonight, so I'm crossing my fingers that everything can withstand another cold night.

Here is my latest iris to bloom. . .

This is the only iris I bought at the store. The package said it was yellow, which is my favorite color, but this is not what I consider yellow. It took a while for this color to grow on me, so to speak. But I now like this brownish yellow iris.

Do any of you know what color iris this is supposed to be?

Pictures of the Day!

It's a very nice day today. It's breezy, but it feels great.

Look what I saw when I opened my front door a little bit ago.
Baby birds aren't afraid of anything, I was able to take quite a few pictures of her.
I don't know who's more regal, the baby robin or our statue of Nippy.

Here's another one. Isn't she cute?

I promise, this is the last picture of dachshunds and baby robins.

My white irises bloomed today for the first time. I love these,
I got the start from my mother in law years ago.
I wish I had more of them.

And my peonies are droopy, but they smell so good.

And last, but not least, my snowball bush. I love snowball bushes, I just wish they stayed pretty longer. The flowers disappear too fast. My grandmother had snowball bushes in her yard and every year on her birthday her children and grandchildren came down to her house and had a picnic in her yard. We'd take group pictures in front of her snowball bushes.

Hope you enjoyed seeing a little of my world today.
Now I'm gonna go back outside and see what that baby robin is up to.

Recycling Tree Limbs Craft

Remember last fall when I showed you a fall craft made from a tree limb!
If you don't, here is a link to it.
Well, I didn't show you a picture of it, but I also decorated it for winter.

I have stripped it down again. . .

. . . and now I am going to decorate it for Summer.

Gather up whatever you can find. I chose flowers, moss, tiny clay pots and birds. I already had these supplies in my very messy and can't walk through craft/laundry room.

Here it is partially decorated.

I used a glue gun to attach the items with. I even decided to place the bird house that I got at a yard sale last week at the base of it.

Here is a picture of it finished.
You can click on it to see a closer view of it.

I love the little yellow hummingbird I suspended in mid air.
It looks like it is about to suck nectar from the purple flower.

And here is a picture of the base of the limb where I have the bird house and the tiny clay pots with a small flower placed in their opening.

Now that I've given you the idea again, go find and old dead tree out in the woods and cut you off a length of it and make you something pretty out of it.

How's that for recycling?

Hope you enjoyed my little project.

Housing Market Up in Area . . .

Bird Houses, that is!

I went to a few yard sales over the weekend and gathered up a few birdhouses for our little acre of ground. They were only 50 cents and $1 each, so I think I got them at a good price.

Aren't they pretty?
I guess you could say one of them is a bird church!

I've decided I'll use the one on the left for a real, lived in birdhouse. I think I'll plug up the openings in the other two and use for decorations around our yard.

While in the garage Saturday, I found another birdhouse. I'm not sure where it came from, whether I picked it up last fall at a yard sale or my son made it. I nagged (talked) my husband into putting it up for me down in my flower garden. There must be a bird house shortage in the neighborhood, because the birds have already set up housekeeping in it!


As you can see there is an old one on the back side of the pole. It's top is missing, tho, and is no longer used by the birds. I liked the rustic look of it and left it on the pole.

I counted while out walking in the sprinkles this morning, and we now have six birdhouses in our yard and all are occupied!

We also have numerous bird nests in our yard. Here is the latest one I just spotted on Sunday.
It is a robin's nest, of course.

They build them so quickly. Overnight, it seems like!

How many bird nests and bird houses do you have in your yard?

Happy Mother's Day

Whether you call her mum, mom, mama or ma. . . I wish a Happy Mother's Day to all of my friends and family in blog land.

Down through the years
she has wiped away many a tears.
She's cooked, cleaned and shoo-ed away our fears.

My grandma holding my mom.

She provides hugs and kisses
and outstretched arms to cuddle in.
She provides wisdom. . .
and she has eyes in the back of her head!

Mom and her three little girls!

(I'm the baby)

There's no love like a mother's love with
a heart filled with patience and forgiving.

December 1988, holding David, my newest addition, surrounded
by Andrew and Charley.

Alabama football coach Bear Bryant used to remind his players. "Be sure to call your mom." Then he added wistfully, "I wish I could call mine."

HAPPY MOTHER'S DAY