Almost Wordless Wednesday.....

Looks like the last day of August...

will be a blue bead day...!!

Final bead count coming soon....

Life is Good

Newest Member.....

This is...

"Sparky"

He's (we assume it's a he) is a feral cat that's been hanging around for several months.....

The parental units have semi-adopted him....
they watch out for him and leave him food on their front porch everyday....

Now i have no issues with Sparky....
But
...the dogs and Misskitty...

OMGoodness...!!

Such barking.....growling......hissing.....
They can't stand it ....when Sparky walks up the drive to the parental Lodge....

And Sparky...!!

He takes great pleasure in stopping to groom himself ......right outside our cabin.....
in full sight of the fur babies....!!

After about 10 minutes of frantic noise.......Sparky calmly walks on up the hill....

And now i hear......the male parental unit is searching the Internet for a......
"winterized cat house...."

Life is Good

Front Porch Sitting.....

I'll never..

get tired..

of this view...!!

Life is Good

Used Car Lot....

CityBoy observed this strange event yesterday on the knoll..... across the road and up the hill from the Twelve Acre Wood....

About 8AM the trucks and cars began to appear from every direction and collect at the summit...
They stayed most of the day and then began to disappear as quietly as they came....

I think it was the annual meeting of the..

"Dog Guy Society"

the men of all ages that run their beagles over the river ....thru the trees.....up the hills..
filling the air with yeps....growls....barks and squeals.....

You've got to have a meeting to planning these things ...you know...

Wonder what they had for refreshments....?

Life is Good

TGIF.....

Yes....TGIF..!!

Could this week have been any stranger...??

From earthquakes to hurricanes...

Irene will be way east of us...soo...we'll only get some winds and maybe a little rain...
After 56 years in Florida my advice to my fellow bloggers in the cone of probability is..

Prepare for the worst and pray for the best...

and double the amount of water you think you will need...
not just drinking water...but...water for bathing and flushing toilets....

Yep....we ust'a fill those bathtubs !!

Praying for the east coast...
and i'm putting another bead in the jar.....can't see the roads this AM...

Life is Good

Thankful Thursday....

Misskitty here.....

Today i'm thankful for the bargain boxes that CityBoy brings home...

Hummmmmm..

This looks like a good one....

It's snug and warm....
Wonder if Boomer will let me keep it....??

Life is Good

ps....she did......she did!!!....she even put an old blankey in it......ahhhhhhhhh....perfect....

One More Off the List.....

One of the things on my "Bucket List" was to see and feel the earth move...

You know......that gentle rotation.....that movement that we know is happening and never think about......that movement that brings morning and night....that slow, steady, turning.....

OK

Very funny......Mother Nature....!!
I would have settled for a 1.2..... not a 5.9......!!
(Of course i wouldn't
have felt a 1.2 this far south...)

All is well here in the northwest corner of North Carolina....
Hope all of my blogger friends that felt the "Earth Move" yesterday are the same....

Well......anyway.....

Check movement of Earth off my list..........

Life is Good

Earthquake....??

Yep!

We felt it...was sitting here watching the metal support beams and the windows in the Visitor Center shake....

And i was worried about Irene.....


How are all my friends in Virginia....??

OK...i hope..

All is well here in Ashe County...

Life is Good

Sunset....

This was the scene to the south from the front porch Sunday evening.....

It lasted for over an hour as the sun slowly sank into the west ....

The Twelve Acre Wood had a front row seat...

You just can't beat Mother Nature in the entertainment department....

Life is Good

Deer Spaghetti...?

Noooooo....
I know what you were thinking when you read the title.....!!

What do you do with a box full of apple cores and peels.....?

You throw it out in a heap and the deer look like they are eating spaghetti.....
They love apple peel spaghetti.....

But they want Parmesan cheese......
i don't think they really understand the concept of "apple" spaghetti..
maybe a little cinnamon sugar girls.....
maybe that would do the trick....!

Yummmm-O...!!


Life is Good

Bead Count...!!

Hummmmmm....not too bad!!

Four blue and five green..
Four heavy snows and five light snows..

So far winters looking pretty good

Hey....Mother Nature...!!

Let's keep it that way...
... just asking...ahhhh...requesting....ahhhh....telling....

Hey....MN are you listening...??


Life is Good

Awwwwwww.....more of the babies....

I've written about it before....
The MaleChild seems to have a gift for photos...

There seems to be a camera close by or attached to his hand...
whenever a "Kodak" moment arises...

Such was the case on Tuesday evening when the Deer family arrived for dinner.

These were taken with my Nikon P100..
from the front porch.......which is about 15 ft high and 50 ft away....
We've done no photo shopping or any of that fancy stuff with a computer program...
(mainly cause i don't know how....)

I love the way i can see the hair growth pattern in the second pix on the babies legs...


Life is Good

Almost Wordless Wednesday.....

Ya'll Come..!

It's dinner time in the Twelve Acre Woods..

Life is Good

Along the Way.....

Some people talk on their cell phones.......some people tex.......
some people are oblivious to what's around them while they drive....

Me..!!

I take pictures....!!

There's about a mile and a half of these sunflowers growing wild along the road side of the
"main drag" thru town......
Down past Lowes hardware and Wal Mart....
Just after the entrance to the High School..

You'll find these little beauty's.....

Not a bad picture for 40 mph....

Life is Good

No...it's not apple season.......

..but...
over the last week.....several "bargain boxes".....appeared at our house..
And in these boxes were apples....
fairly good apples....some were bruised.....some had spots on'um......some had little dents....

What do you do with "bargain box" apples....?
1. you can feed them to the deer....
2. you can make applesauce...

So out came the apple peeler.....the canning stuff was out...
(left over from the 'maters)

Voila!!

Six quarts of applesauce....

Sorry..Jack and TallGuy it's got chunks and cinnamon.... ;(

Life is Good

'Maters everywhere....

Yesterday CityBoy and i stopped by the produce stand on our way home from hitting every grocery store in this little town....
And what do we find....
Boxes of canning tomatoes.....!!!

What can you get from one box of 'maters.....

7 pints of Salsa
7 pints of 'maters
5 quarts of 'maters....

not bad for a days work...!

Today it's the apples i had planned to do yesterday...
It's an "applesauce" kind'a day....!!

Life is Good

Looks Like....

..another blue bead day..!

Can you see the outline of the mountains in this pix....?
It's there somewhere..

Life is Good

There's a'change a'coming......

Yep...!!

There's a "nip" in the air again today....

and it's been along time since i beat the sun out'a bed.....

Life is Good

Almost Wordless Wednesday.....

Just a few little.....

friends

joining us at the Visitor Center.....

There's "nip" in the air this AM....
I can feel it....!!

Life is Good

It Wasn't the Real Me......

.....yesterdays blog....was an impostor....
it wasn't the real me...

I'm the happy one..
the one that finds the silver lining in every cloud...
the one that greets each day with a smile...
the one that could not figure out why i was dealing with a bad case of fatigue and a bad attitude at the same time....
And lets not talk about the body aches....!!

It was the UTI talking and blogging...
Yep....stopped by the Doctor's office and found that my annual UTI was rearing it ugly head...

Joy of joys...!!!
Last years antibiotics that cost me $87.00..
can now be bought in generic form.......
Hello.....$8.59 little pills of relief.....

Things are almost back to normal and

Life is Good

Another Week Begins....

Are we in the "Lazy Days" of summer...?

There doesn't seem to be much going on anywhere....
except this crazy heat...!
And i'm tired of blogging about how hot it is....blah!

I'm tired of blogging about the political situation.......blah!
Washington seems to be in a race to make us a third world country.....blah!

I seem to have the "Blahs" on my favorite day of the week....

Blah!.....Blah!.....Blah!

Let's go out and make something happen this week....

Life is Good

Busy weekend....

Yesterday was another blue bead day....

After i could find the roads....the female parental unit and i took off for the local Wally-World....

Mistake..!!

Not only was it tax free weekend....but....the cooling units in the meat, dairy and produce sections were on the frtiz ......Walmart blue shirted people were pulling stock out of the cases as quickly as possible.....
Don't know how long the coolers had been down......i think for awhile.....cause the smell was starting to make it's way thru the store.....

ouuuuuuuuu...!!

Quickly left and went to CityBoy's store.....nothing there on sale that i wanted, but Mom got a few bargains......

then.....!!

The produce stand......now we're talking......i love the produce stand.....
The best tomatoes....
...yummmy...!!

All this to cook my male parental unit a birthday dinner today....
birthday is Tuesday.....

And

Another bargain box appeared...sooooo..... we now have 7 qts of dill and 6 qts of bread&butter pickles....

Life is Good

Ohhhhhh Mannn!!

It's only August 5th and there are three....
count'um!!
Three beads in the jar....!!

2 green.....light snows
1 blue.....heavy snow

Things aren't look good for this winter...

Now if i see a black squirrel on the way to work....
we're snowed in.....

Life is Good

the sky......

...this is what it looked like yesterday afternoon...

Rain...!...Rain...!!

The furry babies and i were doing a happy little rain dance...
'cause things are pretty hot and dry up here...and the river depth is under 2 feet....
not good for canoeing or kayaking......you'll bounce your butt along the bottom in a tube..!

ugh!!

What did we get.....how much did we get..?!

Nada...!!

Not a drop.....not a sprinkle.....not a breeze or cooler temp...

Is Mother Nature playing with me again..??

Life is Good

Almost Wordless Wednesday.....

Hummmmmmm.....

Would you call this a ..... bead in the jar day......or not..??

Hummmmmm.....

Life is Good

Missed it......

Yes......i missed it....!

Yesterday was August 1st....

OMG

It's time to start putting the beads in the jar again.....!!
I can't believe its time ..... so soon....!!

For you new reads.....there is an ole folk tale ..... up here in the high country....
"That for every heavy fog in August....there will be a snow in the winter months"
and to keep tract of your fogs/snows you put in or take out a bead in the jar....

Got that...??

Well......yesterday was August 1st and the fog was soooooo thick i couldn't see the road...

What did i miss..??

The date...!!

Wasn't until i was at work and running reports that i realized "the Date..!"

The first thing i did when i got home was drop a bead in the jar....

Today is bright and sunny..

Whewwww...

Life is Good


ps.........last years fog/snow bead count was only off by one.....not bad.....wonder if i could get the big bucks like the weather gurus....

Monday.....

ughhhhh...!!

Look at the view from the front porch this AM...
Can you tell it may not be a good day....??

My day has begun with a delete.......after downloading my picture.....i hit "back space"....(by mistake) and deleted my post pictures.....

Sooooo.....start over...!!

Do you think i could go back to bed and......start over.....when i can see the road..??!!

Life is Good