cat pics

Here are some pics of the cats.  I haven't posted pics of them for a while...

this is Sam.  He's the newest member of the family.this pic is the first picture I took of Sam.  He was so little.

  This of course is Tikki.  Mr. Grumpy LOL.

New life, new friends and good times

Well just to keep you updated if anyone is actually reading this, I sold my house in Alabama and then bought a 3 bedroom house in TN.  My mom is coming to live with me.  She's alone, I'm alone so we'll be alone together, LOL.  It's taking me a while to move as I have to do it when I have time.  Work has been slamming me which is good in one way but bad in another, if you know what I mean.  Getting furniture again is something.  So expensive and I really have to rely on my friends to get it here when I don't buy in a store.  I still need a couch but things are looking better even though I don't have all the boxes and bags unpacked.

I had two dogs for a while but after I got them fixed (one was a female and the other was a male) the female went missing.  Another female showed up a few months later, a black lab mix, and I was going to keep her but she turned out to be more of an attack dog, she attacked the neighbors goats and I couldn't deal with that.  She also was snapping at me so I called the local dog catcher and they came and got her.  I still have the male dog, Buddy and he is a sweety.  I only had the one cat, Tikki, but when I was looking at houses there was one that had some kittens and one of them was black so of course I had to have him.  He is such a lovebug :)  He makes me laugh and I really needed to do that since I was under pressure with buying the house.  Now that I am in the new house, Buddy is outside and the cats are inside.  I tried to have Buddy in here but he decided that the carpet was yard and did his business several times even after being corrected about it and he chased the cats all over.  Like have wild kingdom in the house... so he is outside and he likes it out there.  Although he has to stop barking at the deer.  The guy that hooked up my internet was surprised at how happy Buddy was to see him.  Well he called him Buddy when he saw him so of course he's his friend now :)  Maybe I should have picked another name?

Getting everything out of the storage shed is a bummer.  There were mice in there.  They didn't get into my yarn thanks to having storage bins made out of cedar chips but they got into the cardboard boxes and pooped everywhere.  Such a mess.  Of course having everything in the shed for two years didn't help either but I am slowly cleaning things up and putting them away which is why it's taking me so long to get things put away here.

Well will close for now,
Hope you all have a good one!

Denise

I haven't updated here since August so here goes...

a stray dog showed up, I fed her and she stayed. I named her Duchess.

my oldest cat Roxy went outside into the woods and never came back. I figured the weasel got him.

another stray dog showed up, I fed him and he stayed. His name is Buddy.

my female cat, Penny, went outside into the woods and never came back. I think the weasel also got her.

my uncle Gene was diagnosed with cancer before my husband lost his battle and died in September.

I got my well dug but am saving for a pump.

my aunt Jean died. She was 92 and not the wife of the uncle who died.

I got a propane gas tank and heater installed. Just waiting for my cook stove from Sears.

And that's about all that's happened since August. I think I need a nap LOL.

I'm hanging in there. Each day is a little brighter. It will be hard during the holidays.

Old family pics

I made up my yearly family calendars for Christmas and since I had the pics saved to my computer thought you might like seeing them.

This is my Aunt Dee

My Uncle Gene, Uncle Bob and my dad

My DH when he was little at Christmas.  Don't you just love that smile

This is my favorite pic of my brother and my cousin Jen.

This is my Grandma and Grandpa Snyder and some friends.  It was probably taken in the early 20's before they were married.

This is my other grandma, Grandma Wyse.

These are a litter of kittens our cat, Kiwi had.  She is pictured below.

This is my parent's dog, Lady.  They now have two Jack Russells.  Why yes they are sooooo much calmer than Lady was, why do you ask?  (little sarcasm there).

This is my Aunt Teena and one of her daughters, Jeanette.  Her other daughter is Jen (see photo above).  

This is me and my hubby at his brother's wedding.  Wow it's been close to 23 years ago now...Unfortunately the marriage didn't last for him and his first wife but me and hubby are still going strong!

Here I am at Christmas one year.  

The same Christmas. I got a phone!  and a Jack in the box.

This is our beloved cat, Molly who died this year. Really miss him.

There is Roxy when we first moved to our house. He had never seen a fireplace and it just amazed him.

l-r in back:  My mom, Aunt Jean, Uncle Bob and my dad.  Uncle Bob died this year.  He had Alzheimer's and was down to less than 100 lbs.  So sad.  He was a sweetie.  

The Wyse sisters:  Dee, Sylvia (Teena), Jean and my mom.  

This is my Uncle Gene.  He's my creative uncle.  Loves to make things and he loves owls too.

Hope you enjoyed seeing some of my family!

Wow...

It's been a while huh?  Well here are some pics for your viewing pleasure and some updates as well.

I had planted walking onions this year and these are the top set onions I had left over after replanting them again this fall.  I thought I would use them in soups.   They kind of look like pearl onions don't they?  I just froze them.  Took me a while to peel these because they are so small.

Here are the sloppy joes that I canned.  Boy are they yummy.  I also canned some regular meat sauce too.

When you have a cat and a box...well you know what happens LOL.  Here is the pic without flash, can you see Tikki?

and here he is with the flash.  

Oooh isn't he spooky LOL.  By the time I took this pic he was ready to get out of the box realizing that he isn't invisible after all ;)

Assorted pics from June and July

Here are some of the girls, furred and feathered.  Yes Penny thinks she's a chicken now.  She cries to go out with the girls.  Maybe they have meetings? LOL.  That bush on the right is a cherry.  Had lots of blossoms and even had some cherries but they all fell off. :(  The building in the back is the chicken feeding center.  The girls use it in the winter to get out of the cold too but just the feathered girls, Penny stays inside if it's too cold ;)

Here is Roxy and Penny looking to get in.  

Here are some of the blueberries and potatoes fresh from the garden.  You know how I was complaining of too many blueberries, well I should have kept my mouth shut because then we went into a severe drought and all the unripe blueberries wilted and died on the bushes.  

I canned some pickled beets.

This was the sky one afternoon.  So pretty I had to take a picture of it.

We had lots of grapes.  These are concords.  Hubby had fresh grapes for a couple of days.  What he didn't eat we gave to the chickens.  No I'm not too crazy about grapes.  I did make three quarts of grape juice though and it turned out pretty good.

Little update

GARDEN/HOUSE:
We finally got rain.  I could hear the plants and trees sighing, no actually I could, really.  The seeds we planted while waiting for rain all came up so looks like we might be having some cukes and beans after all.  DH has off this week and we are going to do some work around the house.  We want to finish the floors in the living room and two small bedrooms.  And we are going to tear out the carpeting in our bedroom and put down laminate in that room as well.  We also have to do all the closet floors.  Then DH is going to till the garden again and we are going to plant some more seeds for our fall garden.  We have never planted a fall garden so this is all new to us.  With the drought, there was one nice thing.  Not very many bugs.  But then there weren't very many plants either LOL.

I have been getting a lot of little peppers and tomatoes off the garden.  I have been freezing them until I have enough to can up some sketti sauce.  I found a recipe for hot sauce I want to try since the peppers that survived are all hot ones.

KITCHEN:
I actually canned some plum preserves the other day.  DH saw them and decided to buy them.  We brought them home, he tasted one and said they are sour and hard as a rock.  Yep he was right they are sour and hard as rocks.  After spending a couple of hours pitting and chopping them up, I told him do not EVER get these again.  My fingers were sore until the next day.  But and here's the thing, they made wonderful preserves.  I had to taste test them before they were canned LOL.  I put them in the slow cooker and let them go on high for about four hours.  That softened them up.  I still didn't use all of them either so I was thinking maybe I could put them with another fruit (blueberries or boysenberries since I have lots in the freezer) and make some jam.  Has anyone done this before?  I think they are Damson plums but I'm not sure.

I got some green peppers from the Amish last week and cut those up and put them in the freezer so I can make my grandma's pepper relish since we are on the last jar of that.  When I make up a batch it usually lasts a couple of years.  At this rate I won't have to make up any relish or jellies/jams/preserves for at least 2-3 years.

I also have all those potatoes I got from the garden.  I'm thinking of canning most of those up.  I had canned some store bought potatoes in the fall and those were real handy to make some hashbrowns for breakfast.  I also have a bunch of hamburger I want to can up too.  I don't want to wait until we loose electricity and then say I should have canned it up.

CHICKENS:
The girls are doing fine.  We had been giving them watermelon and had a fan on them during the heatwave.  Maybe we were giving them a little too much watermelon cause they kind of got the squirts, poor things.  We have two that we are going to have to clean their butts up.  This is something that we always look forward to...next flock we get will be handled more cause chasing chickens is not a lot of fun.

CATS:
The cats are doing great except Roxy who seems to be feeling his age lately.  Penny is loving the outdoors and in all that heat she wanted to go out but she wouldn't come in when you called.  Crazy girl!  And she crawls under the door to the chickens fenced in area and stays with them.  I don't know maybe they have a girl get together :)  Tikki has been his lazy self but has been jumping up on the bed after DH leaves in the morning so I can make a fuss over him.

QUILTING:
I worked on a small quilt and got most of the quilting done on it.  I just have to bind it and it will be done.  I also started quilting on another one and almost have that done except the binding.  I knitted up a little pair of footies for me.  I only had one little ball of yarn in this particular colorway and thought I would try to make a pair.  I even had a little bit left over.  The ball only had about 200 yards in it which isn't quite enough to make a decent pair of socks.  I have a couple of more 200 yard balls in my stash so I think I will be making some more.

READING:
Right now I'm reading Uncle Tom's Cabin.  It's not bad and really interesting that it was written before the Civil War.  If you haven't read it, it's about slavery.  Some parts kind of slow down the narrative but when you think that the author actually lived during this time and saw these things going on it really makes you think.  I have a lot more to read after I get done with this one.  I checked my Kindle and I have 7 pages of books on there.  Each page is 10 books so that's 70 I have to read.  Like I don't have other things that have to get done...

NEW PLACE:
We called around to see how much it would be to put in a water well.  The two places we called it was going to be over $6000.  Crazy.  Of course, it was just a guesstimate because they really don't know how far down they have to drill but that price was the minimum.  We have a couple more places to call.  Hopefully we can find someone more reasonable.  We have decided to get a little cabin.  We looked at a few and really liked them.  DH is saying now maybe we should have bought a piece of land with a house and well already on it.  I could say I told him so but I won't ;)  He thought it would be cheaper to get a piece of property and put a cabin on it...ummm NO.  We went to Marvin's (a building supply store) today to look around.  And we kept saying we need one of those and a few of those and....you get the picture.  This cabin is just the shell.  If we have extra windows we want to be put in they will put them in for $50 extra but we have to buy the windows.  Marvin's has excellent prices but I told DH that we should check at Home Depot and Lowe's because they have returns and scratched and dented things that they put on sale.  Now of course I know that windows and doors can't be too dented.  You have to be able to open and close them but a few cosmetic scratches doesn't hurt the operation of them and I have seen some pretty good deals before in those stores.  Oh and the well situation, we asked about whether they douse (you know when someone goes around with a stick or two metal rods and locates water) and the one driller just laughed.  Hey if someone can find water and there is less ground to drill through I think we might try it.  Jeez Louise we all aren't made of money.  Anyway I remembered that one of my books in the Foxfire set had something about wells in it so I looked and yes in volume #4 there is all about dowsing and well digging.  So DH and I decided that we will try to douse.  We're not going to dig however.  That can be dangerous.  Wish us luck!  I'll let you know what we find if  anything.

Well I think I caught you up on everything for now.  I hope to get some pics up soon.

Talk to ya later!

Denise

Pics

Just thought you might like some random photos since I haven't posted any lately:

DH with Lucy.  I think they have something going on out there in the chicken coop she gets so much attention ;)

Penny wanting back in

One of these things is not like the others.  It was the size of a quarter.

My early lavender.  Don't know what kind it is but I brought it with me from PA and it's doing really well down here in AL.  It gets really big heads on it, it blooms in April and the bees love it. (yes most of these pics are from Feb-March)  So sad I'm so slow on posting pics really it is.

You were a very good cat...

RIP Molly
1990-2012

Been away from the blog for a while...

To update everyone on how much I've been doing...and how exciting my life is...

The chickens are laying again...a lot.  I have several dozen eggs in the fridge.  We eat eggs almost every day for breakfast and I even made some egg salad the other day for lunch.  I really don't want to eat them for supper too, really I don't.

We planted cabbages, peas, lettuce, basil, potatoes in the garden.  I guess too early cause guess what, we're getting a freeze tonight and tomorrow night...hmmm hope we don't lose the blueberries and grapes.  I wanted to cover them tonight but hubby said they should be OK since it's a light freeze so he can't blame me if they freeze and all the berries drop off.

Dad and mom called yesterday to let me know that they had to rush to the hospital cause mom was having chest pains at 1 a.m.  Turns out she has a hiatal hernia and not having a heart attack.

We close on some new property we are buying tomorrow.  5 acres of land in Tennessee!  No house on it but we are planning on building one or getting a trailer (I don't like trailers, been there, done that and don't want to do it again :)  Hubby was thinking we might just build a pole building and then do the inside like we want but he wants to have a garage door...what?  Anyway he says then it will be easier to move in the furniture and appliances.  Guess  you can't argue with that logic huh?

My brother is moving to New York.  Dad and mom finally got him on the phone, hadn't heard from him for over two weeks.  I had left a message a couple of days after he had called me drunk.  He's an alcoholic and fell off the wagon again.  Glad he's OK.  Wish he would get his act together.

Our geriatric cat is on his last legs I'm afraid.  He's dragging his back leg and peed on our bed the other day.      I couldn't yell at him or anything, he's so old.  If he gets any worse, we'll probably have to take him to be put to sleep.  As long as he's eating and drinking, we'll keep him and love on him as long as possible.  Had to give him a bath tonight though he stunk so bad (all the peeing I think).  He's good about going to the litter box usually though.  I have shut him out of the bedroom.  I had the devil of a time getting the top pillow top clean (we have an air bed) and the top zips off.  It is so bulky and barely fits in the washer.  I put it outside to dry.

Hubby has been sick  but won't go to the doctor until after we sign the papers for the land.  I'm calling the doc to make an appointment when he's outside tomorrow...sneaky huh?

I got one cross stitched picture done.  I need to take some pics of it.  It's a fruit label and I'm making quite a few others to go with it.  I think I will make a quilted hanging out of them.  I'm still working on several sweaters and a pair of socks as well.  I get bored with one project and go to another one.

Well that's all I can think of for now.  Hope you had a very nice Easter!

Denise

A little wind with your walk...

Hubby and I got a really big laugh the other day when it was so windy.  I went to leave the cats outside and the only one that really wanted to go out was Penny.  I opened the door (keeping a firm grip on it) and she started out.  The wind hit her and she crouched down belly walking with her ears laid back like that was going to help LOL.  Doesnt take much to amuse us ;)

If it's really windy and our old cat goes out not only does he lay his ears back but the wind almost knocks him down, poor old thing.  Not much to him but skin and bones.  He still eats and drinks but he's not gaining any weight.  And he cant hear as well so no matter how much you tell him something he just doesnt pay attention (I think all the parents with kids could relate to this LOL). 

It's really windy again today so I'll have to watch when I take the chickens their treat.  Dont want all of it to blow away.  Chickens dont seem to be bothered by the wind.  It just ruffles their feathers.  I cant believe it is up to 75 today.   Strange, strange weather.  Yesterday we had storm warnings out and there was a storm with some slight rotation with 70 mph winds.  Hope that didnt do anyone any damage. 

I'll try to take some pics here so you can see how our little plantlets are doing and I have gotten some projects done as well and want to show those to you too.

I think she loves me

I really do!

and I wonder why I have so much trouble getting my work done during the day...

It happened...

We got a freeze last night down to 28.  I havent checked the blueberries but they might be OK.  DH said that they only had little buds on them. 

Big commotion out in the coop this morning and we're up to three eggs today!  Yay!  We have golden comet chickens and they are pretty noisy (proud) when they lay an egg.  We have three laying boxes out in the coop and of course they all want to lay in the same one at the same time it seems LOL.  I take them a treat every day in the afternoon.  Today they got some spinach and grapes.  They go bananas for grapes although there are a couple that just love the spinach.  There isnt much green out there so not much to nibble upon.  I went out with DH in the early evening.  He likes to see them before they go to bed and it relaxes him after putting in a long day at work.  Lucy wouldnt go up on his shoulder while I was out there.  I think she has a thing for DH ;) 

The cats are out except for Tikki who has decided that the only time to go out is in the early morning and after dark.  He has such delicate skin and is so worried about getting sunburned LOL. 

Hope your day is going great!

Talk to ya later!

Denise

Too Funny!

This is Penny.  Penny isnt supposed to be in with the chickens.  I went to let the cats in and she didnt come in so I called to her and I hear this little mournful meow coming from the chicken area...I dont know how she did it but she was inside the fence.  I think maybe she was chasing a sparrow and jumped over.  I made her wait until I got the camera LOL.  Of course the chicks thought I was bringing them something to eat.  Poor little Penny.  Those birds are bigger than she is ;)  Still makes me laugh looking at it.

No cats or chickens were harmed in the making of this pic.  My cats actually get along with the chickens.

Nice pic of the fence huh?

Tikki caught rolling in the freshly seeded plot...

Lucy looking for trouble

and she might have found it.  Tikki getting close (sorry couldnt flip the pic).

And closer...

Martha looking lovely as usual.

I see you!

Lettie RIP died today 11/16/11.

Lucy...

And another of Lettie

 Lookin' good...

Lettie died today and we buried her in the backyard before the rains came.  She had been sick for some time but had been feeling better the last couple of days but this morning we found her outside the coop.  She is the first chicken we have lost.  We will miss her.  She was a good layer.