Aunts, aunts and more aunts

I guess I was very lucky growing up as I had great-aunts still living.  Now it's nothing but back in the 60-70's there werent too many out there.  I didnt have any great-uncles still living though so missed out on knowing them.

Great-aunt Jess:  She was Grandma's sister on my mom's side.  She was a bigger lady with long white hair that she would wear up around her head like a crown.  She loved the Pirates and if you were in the neighborhood you knew they were playing cause you could here the game blaring from her TV or radio.  She was kind of hard of hearing.  She always had pink mints for me and my mom and little black licorice babies for my little brother when we came to visit.  My brother being my brother (a little weird ;)) would play with the flab on her arms.  She had lost a lot of weight.  She called them wings lol.  She was the only woman I ever met who had a cane, not your usual cane either.  It had belonged to her husband.  It was black and had a big silver eagle head on it. 

I do have a family story about Aunt Jess that was told to me by my grandma.  Here goes, hope it doesnt lose much in the translation...

Aunt Jess lived down the road from my grandparents in a little house by herself.  She had lost her husband before this story takes place.  Grandma invited Aunt Jess up to the house for dinner one evening.  They had a good meal and for desert Grandma made apple pie.  This was one of Aunt Jess's favorites but she was too full from dinner and asked if she could take a slice home with her.  Grandma put a slice on a plate but Aunt Jess said not to bother putting anything over it cause she just had a little ways to walk and then she would be home. 

A few minutes after she left Grandpa was looking out the window and pretty soon he saw this flashlight weaving back and forth on the road and all around Aunt Jess's house.  He told Grandma and she called down to see what was going on.  Aunt Jess was laughing so long and hard that in between gasps she told Grandma that when she got home the pie was not on the plate so she went out to see if she could find it with the flashlight.  She was laughing so hard because she couldnt find it so went back to the house and discovered it was stuck to the bottom of her shoe! 

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Great-Aunt Mary:  She was another one of Grandma's sisters (she had four sisters and a brother).  She was a character.  It took until the late 70's to get my grandma to wear slacks but Great-aunt Mary wore them back in the 20's.  She always took great pride in wearing red nail polish and red lipstick.  She also loved anything loud and gaudy.  She had those brass peacocks that you used to be able to buy on her living room walls and she also had one of those lights with the roman statue.  She had beads on her bedroom door.  She loved to make us angelfood cake.  We liked the cake all right but then she would put this awful green icing on it that was soooo hard that you could even chip it with your fork.  She liked to play this game with us where she would have a little piece of black construction paper on her fingernail and it would magically disappear and reappear on another finger.  We thought it was pretty fun.  We were young - what can I say.  She always got us gifts for Christmas.  Little necklaces and small things that didnt cost a lot cause she didnt get much from social security.

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Then there was Great-Aunt Grace:  I didnt like her.  Sorry but there it is.  We went to visit her once.  She glared at us kids like we were going to steal her blind or break everything in her house which we wouldnt do cause we would have gotten whooped when we got home if we did.  Anyway her house smelled and she had all the blinds closed and it was depressing in there.  Not long after that she died.  Maybe if we would have been able to get to know her I would have liked her I dont know.

Funny story my father tells of my Great-Aunts:  One year Grandma had Aunt Mary, Aunt Jess and the rest of the family over for like a family reunion sort of thing (this was when my parents were first married).  My dad likes to talk so the "girls" cornered him and started talking to him about anything and everything.  The only trouble was none of them could hear the other so he was trying to carry on a conversation with all of them about different things.  When he was listening to one the one on the other side would think he was ignoring her so she would tap him on the arm to get his attention.  Needless to say, he was glad when he had an excuse to get some more coffee! 

I hope you have enjoyed what I have typed so far on the female members of my family and arent too bored yet.  I still have my aunts, another grandma and mom to go.

Talk to ya later!

Denise

My Grandma

My grandma Lettie was a character.  She was a wonderful woman.  She was strong and didnt take any nonsense from anyone but had a wacky sense of humor.  During the war (WWII) she and my grandfather worked in a steel mill.  Grandma drove a forklift which is strange because she never did drive a car.  She used to say she was little but she was mighty.  At only 4' 10" or so she was little but she would tell everyone she was 4' 12".  She would say it fast to see how long it took people to actually understand what she had said. 

She showed me how to crochet yarn with my fingers when I was five or so and she sewed clothes for my dolls that she gave me that were my mom's.  She played the piano by ear. 

One day my mom called my grandma because there was a snake in our garage.  Mom is terrified of snakes but not Grandma.  She came over with a shovel and divided that snake from its head just like that....  She killed a lot of snakes.  She also was a strict grandma.  When we misbehaved when we were at her house while she was watching us she would have us go out and pick a switch off of the lilac bush.  One time my brother being a little you-know-what decided that he would pick the littlest switch he could find.  Needless to say, the smaller they are the more they hurt which he found out the hard way! 

We would help her pick acorns which she would turn into little ski-men.  She always had canaries in the old house.  It used to amaze me that they would go to sleep if you covered their cage up.  Grandma was a good cook too...pies, noodles, cakes, canning, bread, you name it she made it.  She had to sell the old farmhouse when I was in grade school. My grandfather had died a few years before and she just could not keep up with the furnace in the wintertime (coal) and the upkeep so she sold it and moved into an apartment and eventually bought a brand new trailer.  I still remember the summers you would go into her trailer and there she would be with a big dishpan kneading bread her face all red and sweaty.  Grandma what are you doing I'd say and she would say I'm baking bread.  My mom used to have a cow.  But that was grandma and you couldnt argue with her. 

As she got older her eyesight and memory started to go.  She made some chocolate bar cookies with the candy bars on the bottom and told us to have some while she got us something to drink one day.  When my mom took off the cover the cookies were covered in ants!  Grandma came back in and said "you dont like my cookies?"  Mom said "well they are covered in ants".  Well Grandma got to laughing and said you don't like chocolate covered ants?  The memory thing started later when she kept forgetting to turn off the water in her bathroom.  Pretty soon she would haul out the bathroom carpeting (not rug the carpeting) and throw it over the clothesline.  She would hide money in her bible too, forget what she did with it and then accuse my uncle of stealing it.  She also didnt like the fact that my aunt was living in sin with him.  Which he wasnt.  They had been married a long time and Grandma had attended the wedding. 

If you hadnt noticed I really miss Grandma.  She was my best friend when I was growing up.  She taught me a lot like how to chop off a snake's head lol. 

Talk to ya later!

Denise

Black walnuts...

I was just remembering today about a black walnut tree my parents had in the side yard when I was younger.  Huge tree, lots of nuts and of course we happened to park the car underneath this said tree.  Dont know why the nuts never dented the top of the car.  Mom got the great idea to harvest the nuts one year, you know because they were free and walnuts cost so much at the store so harvested they were.  Now if you dont know black walnuts are covered by this lovely green to brown thick skin and if you remove the skin there's the nutshell and to get to the nut you have to crack the nutshell.  Well she had oh about two bushel fulls of these nuts and had to remove the skin.  Now sometimes the skins will crack after they are older but you have to hurry to harvest them because the squirrels love them.  So basically I think maybe oh say maybe 10 nuts in the whole batch did not have the skins on and maybe 20 were cracked.  It might be an exaggeration but I dont think I am far off.  Anyway we went to school and when we came home she had started on the first bushel and was half way through.  To get to this point she had worked ALL DAY.  Her fingers and hands were sore from getting the skin off using a knife and they were a beautiful dark brown.  She ended up giving the other bushel away.  Her hands stayed that lovely shade for at least two weeks.  It had to wear off - nothing took it off which really looked funny on my mom cause she is so light skinned.  She was embarrassed to go to church.  Dad thought it was really funny though but didnt say too much just smirked.  But she got enough nuts to last for a long time.

The tree is now gone.  It eventually rotted through the core of it and came down in a storm.  Mom ended up hating that tree.  Sap on the cars, big nuts everywhere and she couldnt get anything to grow where it was for years after it was gone. 

Since Mother's Day is just around the corner, I think I will be sharing other stories of my mom and other female members of my family just so you can get the full effect of how actually strange my family is....lol.  Gotta love them!

Talk to ya later!

Denise

Quilting - My material

This is the fabric I chose.  What do you think?  Very retro.  The brown with pink polka dots reminds me of a dress I had when I was little only the polka dots were the size of a silver dollar.  One of my favorite dresses.  Next to sew them together in nine patches blocks.

These are some Tawashis that I knitted up. I plan on making some more.  Havent tried to use one yet but I will..oh yes I will...

Just wanted to let you see what I have to put up with every day.  This is Penny.  See Penny get comfortable between me and the keyboard...Sleep Penny, sleep.  She got disgusted after I took her picture and left.  LOL.  :)  She'll be back.

Talk to ya later!

Denise

Megan's poncho

This is Megan in the poncho I made her back in December.  Aint she cute!  Course the poncho could be turned with the points in the front and back instead of from side to side too.  I used cotton yarn since she lives in the south and she actually got to wear it cause it got cold enough.

Garden planting time!

Thursday we planted some things in the garden after DH had rototilled.  We planted beans, peas, cabbage, cucumbers, pumpkins, potatoes.  But before that we went to Huntsville Botanical Gardens plant sale and bought some tomatoes (DH is afraid that the ones he started from seed arent going to make it though they look fine to me) and I picked up some herbs and flowers.  Then we went out to eat at Sitar Indian Restaurant and had the buffet.  They raised the price on the buffet but we better get used to having to pay more to go out to eat I guess with fuel prices going up and the crazy weather affecting the planting seasons.  We have more potatoes to plant yet and I ordered some Jerusalem artichokes and they should be here next week.  Dont really care if we eat them or not.  They look like sunflowers and are really pretty. 

The girls are driving me crazy.  They come out of the coop first thing in the morning and then after 15 minutes out go back in and sit in there panting...crazy.  Then I go out to give them fresh water and check their food situation at noon and they go out under the tarp we have set up but 15 minutes after I go back in they go back into the coop...although they do come back out about 3-4 pm. and play and graze.  They love clover but not the flowers lol.  We are thinking of getting an exhaust fan and putting it in the side of the coop.  Has anyone ever tried this?  That coop was really hot this past week when the temp was close to 85 and this summer it will be even hotter.  I put a solar spot light in the ground facing the window so they have some light going in the coop just in case some other critter happens to get in there then they can see it.  We were turning on the outside porch light but I didnt think it gave off enough light out to the coop and besides it was drawing all the bugs to the screen on the door.  We havent had the heat or air conditioning on just been relying on good old fresh air.  Some of the neighbors had theirs turned on, I'm thinking heat at night and air conditioning during the day.  Cant see the sense in paying out all that money for something I can do for free.  Ya know what I mean?

Any suggestions about cooling the coop would be appreciated.

Talk to ya later!

Denise

And more pics!

I'm not going to get off you get off....

And of course we need a pic of Penny.  She's my helper cant you tell ;)

This is a sweater I just completed sorry for the blurry pic

Better pic but not so good with the color it is more of a stormy sea (blue, green, gray) color and even though I made a size smaller than I usually wear it is too big but comfortable.  This is a wool/angora mix hand dyed I got off of Ebay.  Gorgeous yarn. 

Talk to ya later!

Denise

Updated new chickie pics

These pics were all from 3/26

This is Matilda.  She discovered that she could fly to the top of the box and be above everyone.

Close up of Matilda

Yikes run for the corner!

Yep I'm the queen and I get to poop outside the box...

These pics are from 4/8 below

Chickens outside!

They were scared to go in the chicken coop and then were scared to come out...silly girls

View from inside the coop.  Since we have them outside eating all the grass and clover they want we havent been going through much feed.

Their door to outside...see Lettie doesnt want to go out...

Matilda and Lucy...Matilda is hanging around for a hug which she got after this pic.

Running in the shade

Quilting

For those of you who want to learn how to quilt check out obsessivelystitching.blogspot.com.  Care is going to learn us how...  so grab your supplies and mosey over to the crafting table for some instruction...;)

I have started a quilt but not finished one yet so am hoping to pick up some pointers on finishing one. 

Talk to ya later!

Denise