Flowers for Leontien

Today's post is special.

A young, fellow blogger is currently battling her second round of cancer with all her might.

Today, myself and lots of other bloggers are sending flowers
her way to let her know that she is in our thoughts, prayers, hearts and mind.

Leontien, these flowers are for you!

I hope these put a smile on your face and let you know
that your fellow bloggers care about you and
want to see you kick this cancer in the seat of its pants!

Hang in there.  Keep fighting.

If you have a blog and would like to participate the link is on Nancy's blog, A Rural Journal.
If you don't have a blog but would like to send Leontien some words of encouragement,
pop on over to Four Leaf Clover Tales.  I know she'd love to hear from you!

Thanks to Nancy, TexWisGirl and Buttons for thinking of and coordinating this wonderful event.
I am honored to be a part of it.



Till next time,

Rural Bits of This & That

Some days I have no problem starting a post. I know exactly what I'd like to say and what photos I'd like to show you.  And then other days... not so much.

Well, today is one of those other days.  I feel like I'm back in Junior High/Middle School in my Creative Writing class and I have no idea what to write about or how to even begin.

So, I'll start with some photos...

Country Boy and I picked up this antique wheel while visiting his home state of Arkansas.

Antiques such as this cost a fortune here in Florida; not so in Arkansas.  Maybe because antiques are more plentiful there, perhaps?

Country Boy acquired this cast iron horse before we were married.  I'm not sure what it was used for but I like it and have always used it as a plant hanger in my gardens.  Do you think it was an old hitching post at one time?

Today, my Dad and I are going to be working on the duck pond.  We'll be doing some more digging and hopefully getting some plumbing installed.

The ground naturally slopes towards the woods so we're going to install a drain and a valve outside the chicken/duck run where it can easily be drained into the woods or into buckets to water plants.  This will make the pond easier to empty and clean.

The overall size of the pond will be 10x10.

Once the pond is finished, we'll begin to enclose it.  While I would love for the chickens and ducks to have access to the property we just have far too many hawks and predators around here making it too difficult for my Roostie boy to keep an eye on his girls!

With that, it's time to get to work my friends!

I hope you have a lovely day!

    

Till next time,

Hyperactivity at the Homestead

OK, maybe not hyper, but there was definitely a lot of activity around the ol' homestead yesterday.

What started out to be a rainy day in the early morning hours...

turned into a lovely afternoon.

I filled both hummingbird feeders with fresh sugar water that morning after the rain had stopped.  Which, by the way, we had four lovely days in a row of rain.  My flower and veggie gardens are so happy!

This particular feeder is the one I can see out my office window.  I also have a couple of chairs maybe about four feet from this feeder.  I can sit in the chair and it doesn't bother the hummers one bit that I'm so close.

These were all taken while I was sitting in the chair by the feeder.

 

I also gave the squirrels some food in their feeder.

Only one squirrel is allowed on the feeder at one time.  I don't know who came up with that rule but they all stick by it.  That is, until somebody decides that the one on the feeder has been there long enough!  As they're chasing each other, another squirrel jumps onto the feeder and takes over.  It's quite entertaining to watch.

You lookin' at me?

I also added bird seed to the bird feeders.

I sat in the chair on the patio for maybe thirty minutes and was able to capture all this activity.  It was wonderful!

There's still a lot of activity today but it is extremely windy and cool outside.  I'm opting to stay on the front porch!

Till next time,

A Beauty of the South

Here in the South we have beautiful Southern Magnolia trees.

The blooms are huge and smell wonderful.

This tree is in our church's cemetery.

While I was waiting for my cohort in the youth room renovation project to show up

I walked around the cemetery trying to find the oldest head stone.

I actually smelled the tree before I saw it.

(Yes, I KNOW they're big trees but my head was down

looking at head stones not up in the air looking around!)

By the way, I did find some very old head stones from the 1800's.

One even had a photo embedded in it of the deceased gentlemen

in his younger years standing in his military uniform.

I really liked that one.  Maybe because I've never seen anything like it before.

My cohort finally arrived so play time was over and it was time to get to work.

I recently downloaded a bunch of free textures from various artistic people

so I decided to see what I could with the following shot of the Magnolia bloom.

This is the latest texture, Victoria, from NClayes Textures

and our Your Sunday Best blog hop hostess, Nancy, at A Rural Journal.

I can't remember the exact formula but I tweaked the colors and sharpened the background layer.

Then, I duplicated the background layer and Multiplied it

decreasing the opacity to somewhere between 40-50%.

I added the Victoria texture and Lightened it leaving it at 100%.

I, then, erased the texture from the flower.

Next time, I'll have to pay more attention to what I do to the image!

Linking with

Till next time,

Ominous Clouds

Have you ever looked up that word, ominous?

I've used it before and always had a general idea of the definition

but I didn't know the true meaning of it until I looked it up this morning.

Here's Merriam-Webster's definition:  ominous:  adj: being or exhibiting an omen :  portentous; especially: foreboding or foreshadowing evil:  inauspicious. Synonyms: baleful, dire, direful, doomy, foreboding, ill, ill-boding, inauspicious, menacing, minatory, portentous, sinister, threatening.

I've been fascinated with clouds lately.

So many different types, shapes, colors, etc.  They can really be beautiful.

Last night as I was loading the car to leave the church

(after a long day of working in the youth room) the clouds

were looking ominous and threatening of some potentially bad weather.

The skies were beautiful (of course, I like anything that's pink!) in a scary sort-of way.

With all the crazy weather that's been happening across the globe lately,

one never knows, anymore, what these types of clouds may turn in to.

Fortunately, all we received was some more much-needed rain.

And, it waited to start until I was home and finished with all the farm chores, yay!

I hope you have a wonderful weekend!

I'm off to make some deviled-eggs for our Spring Picnic at church today, woot!

Till next time,

Ah, Spring

Spring is a busy time of year for most people.

Spring cleaning.

Spring planting.

Reclaiming what 'ol Man Winter destroyed.

We begin to feel alive again and can't wait to get outdoors and enjoy the beautiful weather.

Even these guys are active and busy enjoying the fruits of Spring...

Can you see all the pollen on his legs?

Amazing!

The bees were swarming these flowers yesterday afternoon

and were covered in pollen but I didn't have my camera (no comment!).

I was too busy thinking about wanting to find their hive and see if there's any honey.

I LOVE honey and would, one day, like a beehive but that's another story.

I don't know what these are but we thought it was a weed so

Country Boy cut it down but it only grew back larger so we've left it be.

Once a year it puts out these purple and yellow flowers.

And, along with feeding my hummingbirds (and thank you for all the kind comments on yesterday's hummingbird shots!) look what else I'm feeding...

Yellowjackets, sigh.

Even though the hummingbird is larger, these yellowjackets will chase the hummers away.

That does not make me happy.

Fortunately, since this photo was taken, the yellowjackets have

slacked off the sugar water and now my hummers can freely eat when they want.

We had an awesome, very much-needed rain

yesterday afternoon and we may get some more today.

Yay!

There is nothing better for flowers and veggies than rain water.

Happy Friday and I wish y'all a wonderful weekend!

Till next time,

This or That Rural Thursday

I can't believe it's Thursday already and time for some of my favorite blog hops!  I'm beginning to believe that time really does go by faster the older you get, ha!

Of course, maybe it's going by faster because I've been busy this week...

I've been busy simplifying our financial life by paying off and closing credit cards, combining savings accounts at the bank, etc.  For example, I originally thought that having separate savings accounts for insurance, vacations, emergencies, etc. would make it easier to put designated monies away.  Nope.  Didn't work for me.  What it did mean, for me, was MORE paperwork to file and accounts to balance and I felt like I was in a circus performing a juggling act.  I know many people utilize this sort of set up and it works for them so I thought I would try it.  After almost a year of trying this method I decided this was not simplifying my life so it had to go.

I finished up a cross stitch piece and took it to our nearest Michael's (about 45 minutes away) to be framed.  No photos in case the recipients happen to read this post!  But, while I was in the next county, I also stopped at one of my favorite stores, Lowes, and did some price comparisons.  My Dad, Country Boy and I have decided that the chicken and duck run needs to be enlarged and we're going to add a small pond for the ducks.

female Khaki Campbell

So, I've begun to price the few things we'll need and hopefully we'll get this project done fairly reasonably.  My Dad will be helping me on this project since Country Boy is busy working (to pay off those bills!).  Work has already begun on it.  The area we want to enclose has a gradual slope to it which would be fine if we weren't digging a pond but, since we are, then the ground needs to be somewhat level.  A neighbor graciously came over with his toy, er, tractor and did some grading for me.

These boys love their toys tractors and love any excuse to play, er, use them!  He also started a hole for me and saved me a coupla' weeks worth of work!

I've already enlarged the hole quite a bit more but still have more to go.  As you can see, there are lots of trees around which means lots of tree roots and grapevine roots to cut and dig through so the tractor work was a huge blessing!

The wildlife activity around here has been, well, active!  Lots of squirrels, birds, butterflies, opossums, owls, etc.  I think they're enjoying the early Spring as much as I am!  We've also had more hummingbirds than before.  I have a wonderful view out my office window.  Take a look and see if you don't agree...

I love the metallic green when the sun hits them just right!

They're both male Ruby-Throated hummingbirds.  They love to sit on the tree right outside my window either before or after getting a drink from the feeder right below the tree.  There is action at the feeders all day long.

I've also been helping renovate the church youth room.  More on that later but one afternoon I walked around and took some photos.  I love how our church is surrounded by pastures!

There are still some items on my To Do list that haven't been crossed off but I still have a few days left in the week.  (They're not fun items though, like sorting through receipts, paperwork, filing, etc., so I'll have to make myself do them so I can cross them of the list, woot!)

The family's coming over today to see the front yard transformation.  Unfortunately, the flowers have fallen off and the new buds haven't opened up yet (that's why I haven't posted photos of the transformation yet!).  Oh well, they'll get the general idea!

Meanwhile, I've got a store-bought chicken and some veggies roasting in the oven with a salad, some sweet tea, dinner rolls, Lemon Creme Cake for dessert and voila... lunch is served!

Have a great Thursday!

    

Till next time,