Merry Christmas - This n That

Yuck - look at our weather today. And tomorrow will be 80% rain but the weatherman is calling for a slight chance of rain for our Christmas day (that is so far - subject to change). It is rather warm for this time of year but the cold front is coming down to cool us down over the next day or so.

I hope you all are having a nice day even if the weather is nasty where ever you are. Are you ready for the holiday? This is a busy time of year and with it often comes stress due to just trying to so much. I used to worry about making sure my kids had enough presents of the things they asked for and things I thought they needed. Always thinking are they equal. Wouldn't want to do more for one than the other. My stress consisted of getting dinner on the table. Trying to see everyone I needed to. Since the children are grown I don't worry so much. It is what it is and that is all I can do. And that is how I see it now.

I was thinking of doing something different than the traditional Christmas dinner we ALWAYS have. Was thinking of grilling steaks and all the fixins. Maybe.

I stopped in the local Goodwill and I was happy to find these plates. They will be perfect in my red kitchen when I get it done. I am going to hang them on the wall.

I ended up with lots of pecans this year. Roasted these and they are very good. Melted 1/2 stick of butter, mixed in 1 tea of sugar and poured over the nuts. Sprinkle with salt and bake at 225 for about 30 minutes stirring every 15 minutes. Increase the heat to 250 and bake for 40 more minutes stirring every 10 - 15 minutes. Let cool and enjoy.

I have done lots of baking and candy making this year. Loving the memories that is coming with the baking this year. Haven't done this much since my kids were home and my kids would get in the kitchen and help me out. My butter cookies with the icing on it - well let me say they taste way better than they look. Butter cookies, shortbread and PNB cookies. Butter cookies here http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/patrick-and-gina-neely/the-neelys-butter-cookies-recipe/index.html  - Gina and Pat Neely's recipe. Of course Gina has these cute little piggy cut-outs. I sliced mine. Gina loves her little piggys I tell ya. The icing on the cookies is a first for me. The cookies turned out ugly with absolutely not color so I decided to add some. Needless to say it didn't turn out the way I wanted but they taste super good. I flavored each of the three icings with lemon and butternut and third with caramel flavoring. The shortbread cookies here http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/ina-garten/shortbread-cookies-recipe/index.html and Ina makes some good cookies. I added butter flavorings to all my cookies in addition to the vanilla.

 Fudge, Martha Washington Balls, PNB fudge, Snowballs.

 Took this sky pic last week and just wanted to share a prettier sky pic than the one at the beginning of this post.

I just had to share my house babies. Sorry about the poor pic quality. These two don't sit nicely for photos. In fact Buddy will hang his head when he sees the camera. go figure.

 This one still doesn't have a name but I think Kitty will do. She answers to Kitty and nothing else - well she does answer when I shake the cat food bag. She is running toward me.

Wishing each and eveyone of you a very Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays. Hope you have the best family time this year. Be safe out there. I will be traveling on Friday and Saturday and I'll be watching my speed. (got pulled over for speeding yesterday and talked my way out of a ticket and got a warning. I was doing some smooth talking too and pleading for him not to spoil my perfect record).

By Ivan - Welcome Kitty

Good FRIDAY morning everybody. Not much going on here thus the lack of posts. We are having some gorgeous fall weather. We had some cooler weather move in last week and we are in the seasonable range of the low 80's and low 60's at night. It just makes me feel good when the seasons change.

I know that I introduced ya'll to Ivan the dog two weeks ago. Well Ivan didn't make it in my home. He was a very good dog but I was too worried about him visiting the neighbors too much. Plus he wouldn't stay out of my gardens. I work too hard on the gardens to let a dog tramp through it all the time.

The Kitty may or may not work out. I'll have to see with the neighbor. But still she'll be confused too... I just don't know. But she sure is cute and cute with Buddy.

Well I'm trying this sweet little one out here. She is about 3 months old. The kitten belongs to my neighbor but she has taken a liking to Buddy. She got to the point that she would come up to him, even though Buddy is barking and just want to love on him. Well I took a liking to Kitty. If she likes Buddy then I like her too.

The kittens were so bony and underfed. I hate this about my neighbor and I am gonna have to say something soon. Neighbor has 4 cats and 3 dogs and none are fed well and I know none have ever had shots.

I'm trying her out in the house and have already checked with the vet if I decide to keep her and get her shots. After feeding her for a week while she went back and forth next door she is fattening up nicely. A plump little thing now. Buddy and Kitty are here nose to nose. I love it. I let her stay indoors last night. By the way the neighbor doesn't miss her so I knew it would be OK.

She is beautiful and has some nice markings on her. She answers to Kitty so I will call her Kitty.

Found a few blooms this morning.

I told ya'll I don't do pansy's well. There is only one live plant out of 6 here.

 

Wish all the pansy's would have lived - oh well.

Help me out here. This thing is big and it is heavy. It is made of clay and came from Mexico 30 or so years ago. I have no place for it inside and it doesn't go with anything I have. I had an idea of placing it in a garden but I'm afraid that the clay would disintegrate. Any ideas? Maybe I should just take it to Goodwill. What do you think? What would you do with it?

I thought I'd taken a more recent photo of the dead Rose of Sharon I transplanted 3 weeks ago. It didn't make it. Sad face.

Hope you all have a fantastic weekend. I bet there are lots of fall festivals or sorts going on this time of year.



A New Member Of The Family

Uh oh - I lost my header photo when I went to upload another. Now it says I have exceeded my limit of photos. OK blogger so I have to go figure out what to do next. I don't have time today darnit.

We have a new family member. I'm excited to introduce you to Ivan. He is a six year old springer spaniel. He is so laid back just like Buddy. Buddy was frisky at first wanting to play but Ivan was having no fun at all trying to play. Since Ivan is a bigger dog Buddy still has his place in my chair. Ivan is at my feet - all the time - wherever I am - he is. He is a sweetheart.

But he has got to learn - you don't get off of the porch over the gardens. Not allowed. Jumped right off into my new bed. I've got to put something on the porch to prevent this - it will really piss me off when I have it full of beautiful blooms. Loads of grass dug up here. The big cart which you can barely see is full of grass. Wish I knew someone near by who wanted some since I dig it in clumps easy for laying.

Ivan was pretty ragged out when I brought him home with hair matted bad and long enough to drag the floor. I immediately got the scissors out. I cut hair for almost 3 hours. This is just some of it. Too bad you can't make a wig with dog hair.

I think he is a pretty baby.

And Buddy is still number 1. He is sharing just fine.

I got the pruners out and the rake and the cart and shovel and of course 2 pair of gloves. One pair is heavy duty for the digging and raking. The other purple pair is for gardening and weeding. No weeding this weekend. Finished it up last week. Yea! Here at the back door I cut these bushes down to size. I want to have them removed and put a patio/deck area here but that is for another day/year etc. So I just cut them down. I don't like shrubs around my doors and edges of the house. Makes it too easy for people to hide.

This is the shade garden that I tore up last week. I've raked it out and watered it. Couldn't work in it with such dry dirt.

So this one is finished. It is bigger than it was before and more squared off in front rather than curved. When someone cuts my grass they were always knocking the stones over so maybe with it being squared off that won't happen so easy.

I ran out of deco stones so I resorted to the plates. It's different that's for sure. Can you see Ivan on the porch? I ran him off the other way.

My seed order has been placed with Park and with Thompson-Morgan. I'm so excited. I've never ordered seeds before and can't wait to see what I have blooming next year. The seeds I ordered are all new to me so this will be fun. Zinnia's, columbine, echinacea, delphinium just to name a few.

Well I gotta run - well uh get back to work.

Hope you all have a good day and week. I'll be around to see you soon.

Almost TGIF

Not too much going on in my gardens this time of year. Actually all of the gardens are looking puny and straggly since I haven't had any rain to speak of lately. Haven't been able this week to get the garden hose out since I'm having some plumbing done this week. Anyway just thought I'd share a couple blooms today.

Canna

Red vervena

Geranium

My Little Buddy

I love stormy clouds. Well I just love clouds but especially stormy ones. Wish I could say I got some rain out of this. It went all around me. Made for a nice photo anyway.



Hope you all have a great weekend.

Bloomin Tuesday

I'm linking up today to Jean at Ms Green Thumb Jean or Bloomin Tuesday. Ya'll go check out who has a bloom to share today. http://msgreenthumbjean.blogspot.com/2011/04/its-bloomin-tuesday_18.html 

I have to admit I don't have much to share. I didn't take many photos this weekend and I was just too lazy when I got off work yesterday. So this is what I have today.

I couldn't resist taking this when I was working on the new shade garden. If you enlarge it the photo picks a more blue flower. That is what it is suppose to be. I have two opened here at the same time. They are a memory and a photo now. They sure don't last long.

Buddy loves to be outside when I am working and I love to have him near me too. He has found a stick to play with and chew on.

I have a very busy day ahead so I need to get a move on. I'll be by to visit as I can today. I hope you all have a great day. Enough snow already for you guys up north.

Hope you all have a great day.

This-N-That

I am linking up to the following parties -Cottage Flora Thursday's at  http://fishtailcottage.blogspot.com/ and Fertilizer Friday http://www.tootsietime.com/ .

The first blue bloom on the new Blue Hyancinth. I will be adding these to my gardens every year. I love that they keep their blooms for a long time too. Have to get that camera down on the ground to get a photo too. The scent is heavenly.

Take a walk with me and Buddy.

We set out here from home down our short street. 

Buddy has to go down into the ditch to check the scent of the neighbors cats. Back up the hill he scurry's because he wants to be in front of me and get there first. He loves this time of day after being shut up all day while I am away at work. It makes me feel good to see him so happy about his daily walks.

Here we have to stop to check for cars. Buddy wants to just run across but I am teaching him to stop here and it works sometime. 

I am so lucky to have this place right at my front door. I have shared this walk before but indulge me a bit here. This used to be the old train track when Citronelle had passenger and cargo trains roll through. There is a road to the right and left of the track and each side is independent and runs both ways.

I was so disappointed that my batteries were dead. I had to keep letting it charge for a few seconds and snap another photo. Oh well I took care of that this morning.

The beautiful trees go for about a half mile and are so pretty lining the streets. I intend to get some better photos of the rest of the walk.

So we turned around here to head back.

And this is the old train depot. It is now a museum. 

 

We usually encounter more people than this but this is our first walkers to see. I had to let them pass me since I walk with Buddy. I have to really keep him away from children riding their bikes. Don't want any kids falling off their bikes getting scared of a little dog.

Here we are. Making a turn here going home.

I couldn't believe my eyes when I saw this yesterday. Guess he didn't want to wait in the line to order and jumped up in front or whatever. Crazy people.

Beautiful skies yesterday.

Rain is in the forecast for tonight and tomorrow thru Saturday. Temps are seasonable around 70 and lows around 50. I am so hoping for some warmer weather for all of you up north. I know you have had a horrible winter and need to come out from all that snow.

The drawing will be tomorrow morning for anyone who still wants to enter.

Hope you all have a great day.

Today I'm thankful my swollen knees don't hinder me from walking Buddy.