Eye Candy.......

for the water lovers eyes!

Yesterday we attended the SW Va Boat Show in Roanoke.

This is our 3rd year attending this same show.

This year, however, wasn't near as much fun to me

as the previous two were.

The past two years I was in hot pursuit of a new boat!

We purchased an incredibly nice used boat in Feb 2009

so this trip was just for us to look without that

wonderful anticipation of hoping to own one of these babies!

Here is our boat. It is wonderful! We all love it.

The best part is it's paid for!! woowooo
It's not shiny and doesn't have that new boat smell anymore like all these new babies!


But just take a gander at that price tag! That was kinda a mid line pricing too!
So see we were just dreaming yesterday.


They sure are fun to look at too.

There was a Cutco knife booth there with a very pushy salesman.

Not the gentleman shown in the picture, he was just an innocent onlooker too.

Cuuuuuuttttteeeeeee!! With a capital "C"
These things scare the you know what out of me on the water.

It seems you have to have a Crazy degree to be able to own one of these around our parts.

It's a miracle there are no more deaths than it really is on these things each summer.

I have seen them flipped and flopped and people thrown from them but they seem to just bounce around drink a few more beers and forget about it!!

Gorgeous boat here. I bet this is just what my boat looked like in the showroom.

Here is my captain trying one on for size.....it fits!

He really liked this part of this boat but he didn't really like this picture.

I'll teach him to be goofy when I ask him to smile!!

hahahahaha.....there is a story here...

We go to the boat show each year with some of our boating friends, Jim and Lori.

Lori is a teeny teeny tiny thing but she is a bulldog when it comes to saving money and searching for bargains and freebies. She has guts and she will negotiate a deal with anyone.

They didn't need to negotiate a deal on a new boat because they have a ship bigger than anything that was at this show. When we are at the lake we look like we are riding in a dingy along side the cruise ship!!

anyway...

Lori was trying to negotiate a deal with this rep for a free beach ball for her puppy to play with at home. No no no without children with us the answer was no.

We ended up getting free tshirts if we would put them on and wear them around for the rest of the show and if we would both blow up a beach ball for her display she would give us both a beach ball to take home!! She took our picture and said it just may end up in the local newspaper! Of course I needed a picture of us in our Bigbird shirts too. The best part was when Danny and Jim were on down the aisle looking back and wondering what sorta contest we had gotten ourselves into!! The looks on their faces were priceless.

We had to make a pit stop by Super Shoes on the way down because Lori had to make a return. While we were there the boys decided that they needed some new Carhartt (BOGO free sale) and then they wanted a picture of them sporting there new Carhartt at the boat show.

..................kids!!

These guys are so much fun to be around.

We had Thanksgiving dinner at their home last year.

and here is that home......it is a mansion......my whole house wouldn't fill up their great room.

She has an Amish handmade table that seats 22 in her diningroom.

I felt like I was dining at the White House!!
[This picture does not show the views from their house but it is perched high up on a mountaintop. She feeds the deer passionately and has many that are in her yard almost all day long. Lucky deer is all I can say. With all the snow on the ground and the cold they are starving out this year. We have a coon and a possum that are in our catfood bowl each day now.

Remember I am married to the great white coonhunter too!!]

These are some of the hardest working people I have ever met.

They work hard so they can have nice toys like their big boat and his Corvette!!

It was a well needed get a way for all four of us.

Reminded us that boating season is only a few months away.

I sure hope the snow melts off the boat ramp first.

Our day ended with a great Mexican dinner last night.

What fun!!

In A Perfect World......

in a perfect world ....

huh?

I am not the only one sick and tired of this horrible winter weather

but I still feel the need to gripe about it!

This comic was in our Sunday paper.

(click on all to enlarge)

I think they about sum it up here.....

I just need to think more positively and be thankful

for the things that are so good in my life.

I need to give up complaining about the things I can not change

and take care of the things I can change.

I need to not fret any longer over the bitter cold winds that freeze my face when I am out feeding my animals.

I just need to be thankful that I have those animals

to bring me such joy the rest of the year!

Like itty bitty baby goats!

Farm fresh eggs!

Goat cheese!

Goats milk ice cream!!

etc etc

I need to not fret anymore when it is about 10 degrees

outside and 50 mph winds

and three of those precious little baby goats from

last years crop decide to just open the gate and go free wandering to and fro.

I need to bite my tongue when those said goats

try to maul me with the feed bucket....this

they would do if it was sunny and warm and the roses were blooming.

I need to wire my mouth shut so I do not call them names like

"you.... you.... you..... yidiot head" (inside joke)

and threaten their very life cause they were so stupid when I tried to get them back thru their gate.

They didn't want to do the "single file follow the leader" method.

They chose to do the "let's test her patience and go in only one at a time method".

One would run in the pen and the other 2 would poke their head thru the woven wire fence on the outside of the pen. Then they would all switch places.

This little game of cat and mouse went on for a good 15 minutes.

Goats are as bad as horses when they get out.....they go CRAZY!!!

Did I mention it was 10 degrees outside and a wind chill of a gazillion below?

Did I mention that the snow is still up to my knees in places, frozen, knobby and almost immposible to walk on in others?

I need to be thankful that I had a nice warm bed with a nice comfy pillow to lay my head on

last night......even though I laid in fear that my house would just blow off it's foundation and roll down the hill into the fishpond.

Even though my dearest husband was lying beside me oblivious to the whole

winter blizzard outside the window and was snoring at the best of his ability.

Even though that said warm bed is in a really nice new master bedroom that is only a couple years old, but the winds were so fierce that the cold air was circulating around my head.

Yes Lord I am Thankful for my many many many blessings!!

Please just help me to remember this in the trying times.

Amen!

So now I will test my patience as I head out to brave the elements this morning

to run some errands and go to Michaels and get some painting tools. I have a couple coupons burning a hole in my pocket!

Then I have to hurry home and make Homemade Noodles for the freezer like my friend over at Hickery Holler!! She makes this look so easy!

I know it's just a farce!!!

Maybe not. She can do anything!!

After that a good old nap is on my agenda!

What's good for the goose......

is not always good for the gander.

Or what's good for the banty

is not always good for the guinea.

I am sorry but these little boogers are too cute to run off of my front porch!

I think they look like country decor!!
and they don't poop as much as the guineas do on my porch.
All seven guineas get on my covered porch, beside the sliding door
that is next to the kitchen table, every morning.
They yell and chatter and peck on the door for me to come out and play. They continue until I finally run them off with a dish detergent bottle of water.
Of course they poop way to much on that porch.
They will then go around to the front porch but they only stay there for a couple minutes.

I can't find it in my heart to run the banty's off though.
They are way too cute!!
I could just watch them all day long.
Remember I like fowl?

When we were getting our guineas incubated, we did a lot of research (well maybe not enough)
and it was funny to read that they were a bird of such a strict routine. Meaning you could set your watch by where they are at on your place at what time of day cause it would be at the same time each day.
Sure enough. They are on my side porch at 8:30 EVERY morning and then again at 6:30 in the evening. You know what? Come to think of it, I am at that dining room table at those times myself. Do you think they know that? LOL!!!

For my closest friends only.............

and you know who you are.

The friends who do not judge me.

Who although they know I am crazy and scatter brained and

suffer from a non professional diagnoses of ADD, wouldn't

ever criticize me to my face or on my blog.

wink wink wink

Those who will understand that I am in no ways

a professional painter.....hahaha....that's funny to even say!! Ha professional!!

They know that I am self taught....if you can even call it that!

So they will see the beauty in my efforts to put this on canvas!

The snapshot taken Dec 19th in our first snow thru the truck window.
This morning......


a little later....
(how do you like my easel? My other one broke and I had to get creative. This works beautifully)


the latest installment............

I just had to share it with you guys!
I am doing this in oils....and it's a good thing because of the extra long drying time.
I have suffered a mind boggling, body numbing, organ shutting down migraine today. It hit me like a meteor out of the sky and put me in the bed midstream around noon today.
I just knew that my life was to end right there in that bed with my oils dried to my hands and my hands were a beautiful smurf blue.
What do you think the autopsy would show??
Hypoxia just went to a new level!!!
I would have died happy anyway......I think painting is truly one of my very favorite things to do. It is above sewing and quilting....believe it or not?

Now that I lived thru that headache I just may be able to finish this up soon.
I know it's rough but it is a work in progress!!

Wish me luck!
Wish my husband luck on getting supper tonight!!!

Love to all,
Picasa Smurf

Bubba's Blue Baby Blanket, Brown Barn Boots and Blue Booties

Now say that three times really fast!!

" Bubba" is my grandson that is due in June!!

Bubba's real name is to be E. Fonville II

so we decided that instead of Little E

that he needed a southern boy's name!

He lives in Atlanta.

You can't get much more southern than Bubba, right?

I am not exactly sure how his parents will like his nickname, but we all love it up here in the sticks!!

I saw this pattern in a crochet book Friday and just knew that I could do it myself without a pattern.

A Log Cabin baby blanket!

Who thunk that one up?

I bet that lady has a son or grandson named Bubba too!!!

You know this is my favorite quilt pattern and

of course it is fitting as a pattern for

a little country bumpkins baby blanket too!!

I think the colors look good together.

This is very easy to make.

The one in the book was just a big round of strips that looked like one block.

I decided to make mine in smaller blocks.

I have almost finished the fifth block and I need 9.

I will strip the blocks with white.

I hope he likes it!!!

I am sure he will like these!

His first "Coonhuntin" boots!!

I can see him with these on the wrong feet!

That runs in the family.

His big sister, Morgan the coonhunter, had to buy these for him!

They are the cutest boots ever!

Well Morgan had a pair of itty bitty bitty black lace up ropers that were so precious too!
Morgan also had a pair of purple Barney rainboots

that she wore every minute of every day on the wrong foot

and when she did take them off.........

...whew rubber boots can make for stinky feet.

It was a battle for a long long time between her and her parents over those boots!!

hehehehe...... memories!!

They even have a tractor on the side of them.......aawwhhhh too cute!!

Now he just needs some Carhartt Bibs in a teeny weeny size!

I think if we dress him like this he will be able to pull off the name Bubba! LOL!!!

and about the blue booties......Robin (his mommy) made him the cutest pair of

blue baby booties

this weekend !

All by herself.

She didn't even have to have me decipher the pattern for her.

Now she will have to post pictures of those over at her blog.

FYI: Blogger's spellcheck doesn't recognize the name Bubba, Carhartt or coonhuntin!

Get with the times Blogger!!

Wash Day!

Monday is Wash Day? Huh? Really?

Well why is it raining out there? Huh?

Cause you all know that I like to hang my laundry out on the clothesline.

Emma likes me to hang clothes out on the line too.

See her running thru my laundry?

I can not and I mean I CAN NOT get to my clothesline without Patches

(the barn cat) helping me.

She will be gone for days and suddenly return when

she smells Downy!

She is all over wet laundry.

That's part of the beauty of my laundry hamper thingy

that I got at the yardsale last year and made over in toile.

She can't reach my wet laundry!! haha

Guineas like laundry on the line too.

Do you see how I use my vintage enamelware?

As a laundry basket and a laundry soak!

How about that Wringer Washer?

It was my dads aunts and it still runs beautifully.

I just need hot water outside somewhere so I can use it without having to carry enamelware buckets full of hot water ;-)

The enamelware buckets could make that task a little bit easier!

The laundry sinks I bought from a neighbor lady.

They were her mothers and I stayed with her mother when I worked for home health.

I had to give $10 for them!

Best $10 I ever spent!

I have had them for about 12 years now.

They have had many jobs around this farm.

They must be Timex...they have taken a lickin and they keep on tickin!!

The vintage aprons on the line are from ebay!

The clothes pegs are from ebay also.

The clothespin apron I made last year!

It sure does come in handy!

The crocheted pillowcases, basking in the sun drenched back porch, were my Grandma Goldie's that she made!

I also have an umbrella clothesline on my back deck in the summer and in an outbuilding during the winter. I have a folding plastic dryer that I use in my bedroom, or somewhere in my house year round.

Can you see that I love my clothesline?

I love laundry!

I love to iron laundry!

I just don't like rainy Mondays....or snowy Mondays!

I was inspired to do this after reading a post from The Canned Quilter

at Hickery Holler Farm today.

Go on over and read her post from today

if you have a clothesline,

if you have a daughter,

granddaughter,

or if you are a woman!

She had me in stitches!!!

Happy rainy wash day everyone!

Barn Stars

Sunny Morning Farm is just full of barn stars!

I just love stars!

I just love the fact that I have figured out this Picasa 3.6 too!!

sunny morning farm garden 2009

just so you don't forget that there was one......

and to show you that I can also make a collage of pictures using Picasa 3.6!!

I just haven't figured out how to save my text that I wrote on the picture yet.

ETA June 2021

That's how long it will take to finish this sampler!
Look how big it is!
Look how little I have already finished on it!
Look how long I have already had it......maybe 6 years!

I purchased this kit at a neat little needlework shoppe in pigeon Forge, TN when Robin, Morgan and I went there on a girls only weekend. The little shoppe was so dagum cute that I couldn't
resist buying this even though I knew how slow I was at cross stitching...........

ahhaaahhhhhaahhaaaahahhaa and I think it will be finished in 2021?

But look how pretty it is!
Did I tell you how much I paid for this?
I won't tell you either. Let's just say it should have it's own insurance policy, finished or not.
I dug this up this morning. I knew where it was, it was being protected.
This is the nicest needlework fabric and thread that I have ever worked with.
I am going to finish it, I am!

I mean even with ADD...it's a sampler so I shouldn't get bored with it, right?
I will have it finished by the time we crown a new American Idol winner this season.




and if you believe that one.................I will have this beautiful pattern finished and framed by Christmas this year.
There is nothing that I don't like about this pattern..
I like blueberries, farm houses, the Amish,
quilts........oh yeah that's right I am a quilter. So scratch all this hogwash that I just fed you cause I have quilting to do.
I can't be wasting time cross stitching and watching American Idol.....forget that I even mentioned it.............

Putting up with Becky

Gotcha!!

You thought I was going to talk about someone having to

"PUT UP WITH ME"!

haaaahhhaaahahahahaah that's funny!!

I mean putting up food to feed my family

all 2 of us!

I spent almost the whole day today in the kitchen.

I made French Bread

and

Italian Bread.

Do you know the difference? I do!

I started a bowl of sourdough starter.

Yes it's in a bowl this time.

A huge 4 quart mixing bowl, with a towel under the bowl just in case it does like all my other starters have done in the past.........heat up and boil over the sides like a science project gone mad!! I am armed and ready this time around!!

I do not want to be cleaning that wood stove tomorrow morning!

Smooth as a babies butt when I first covered it.

In a couple hours she was a cooking!!




Remember my Valentines Day present from my sweetie?
Well I asked for them anyway.....a bushel of sweet potatoes!






I decided to go ahead and precook about 1/2 of the bushel.
I baked them slowly in the oven and then peeled them and put them in the freezer.
They are ready for me at anytime to thaw and make a quick sweet potato dish.






Yummy!!

I also was in the canning mood!

This old yellow pressure canner has been with me since my first Christmas as a married woman.

34 years and she is in better shape than I am.

She has been thru the wringer and back again.

She has been run over by a tractor trailer.....oh yes this is true....Danny used her to wash his big rig one time and forgot about her sitting there behind when he moved and ran right over her!!

She must be a Timex!

Oh yeah, I got ran over by a tractor trailer one time too.

I have a few blemishes from that one tho!!!

I am married to the great beans and potato eater.

He has never met a bean he didn't like.

I am one step ahead of him now......with all this beautiful spring weather that is right in front of me.....and a garden in dire need of repair...that means a lot of long hours outside and no time to cook a pot of beans......wallah...canned pintos ready to pop open right before he gets home and he'll think I slaved in the kitchen all day!!

October beans for the same reason.....a quickie in the kitchen!

7 quarts of Pintos

7 quarts of Octobers

Then I made homemade tortillas and beef and bean burritos for dinner.

Topped the evening off with a funny crazy movie and 2 hours of American Idol.

I am now officially pooped.

My dearest bed buddy seems to never sleep well anymore and when

he doesn't sleep neither do I.

For some reason he slept good last night.

I had to touch him this morning to make sure he was still with me cause he was so quiet.

It sure made me feel good today and I feel even better knowing how much I accomplished today.

Amazing what a good nights sleep will do for you!!

It makes you not be able to decide whether you should cook French, Italian, Mexican or American cuisine ........or just make them all in the same day!!!

Her Mother's Garden!

Where do I begin?

Her Mother's Garden is actually my garden.

My beautiful daughter Robin posted the most beautiful post

over on her blog about my garden

today.

(What a nice Valentines Day present that was to me!!)

(Danny bought me a bushel of sweet potatoes LOLOLOL!!! and a camera)

We moved in our house soon to be 9 years ago on May 1. Robin and her husband had just separated and she moved back home with us for a couple years while she went to nursing school.

While she was with her husband she had started a really nice perennial garden and had put a lot of money into a lot of plants that her husband did not care at all about so as she was moving in with us we bought our new house. She dug up all her plants and brought them to my house!!

Danny and I had been renting a home from her father-in-law and we were looking for a home to buy. I had told my landlord the year before that I wanted to put in some plants but when we left I would take them all with me too.

So here we move into a new house May 1 and it was a perfect time of the year to dig up all these plants and move them too.

Robin and I worked our poor fingers to the bones digging up plants and carrying them across the county in the back seats or floor boards of our cars.....her Mustang GT convertible made a good plant hauler!! As did Danny's trucks and trailers......at least a tractor trailer load of plants were moved in here.

We planted and planted with out a game plan (or garden design in mind) other than to get those plants in the ground and watered. We were not going to loose a plant. There were thousands of dollars tied up in these plants.
The new neighbors would ride by and slow down

lurking at us out there planting more and more plants each day.

We weren't sure if they didn't think we were 2 lesbians that had moved in together

who loved to garden....rich lesbians at that. I mean there were a lot of plants and a lot of $$$!!!!

Our house had been occupied for many years by some very very earthy 60's leftover hippies.

They grew marijuana and had evidence left of that all over the place!!

They did some really good amending of the soil in some places which I was really happy to find.

I hauled in I think 7 pick-up loads of mulch that first year........oh yeah I forgot to say that on moving day I made Danny unload his bulldozer and completely clear our yard of way overgrown Forsythia bushes and many other disgustingly overgrown trees and shrubs that were beyond repair, pruning, cutting back or what have you. This made my entire front yard from the door to the road a perennial garden!!!

I always wanted that!!

My parents came up and helped us move and I was telling my dad how big my flower garden was to be and he pondered on that idea a little while and then he said to me..."Well that will be nice if you will keep it maintained."

That remark has haunted me for years and years!!!

The hard work paid off though.

The pictures that Robin has posted is July 4th 2003....we moved May 1, 2001

My garden never looked better!!!!

I had another cookout the previous year and it looked really good but in 2003 the plants had really came into their own and was in full swing!!!

The next year we started full force on the remodel and I would loose a plant here and a plant there until I had lost almost half of my bed......

This post of hers has me really inspired to get my garden back to the way it looked that year. I still have the good bones in place and lot of other bigger and better bones now than what I did then. I just need to get the elbow grease in force again this spring and summer.

I don't want my daddy to be talking about how non-maintained my garden is any more!!!!!

Here is the post from Mother's Day 2009.

Now go on over and compare to my garden from 2003.

Do you think I will ever get it back to looking that good?

Here is a post that shows a little of the remodel.

Thanks Robin for reminding me that this horrible winter weather may come to an end!

I will be happy to just see a dandelion peeping thru the snow!!!

I will be much happier to see my garden look like it did then.....well there are always pictures!!!

ps. I forgot to mention that the pictures on Robin's blog are of a cookout in my garden where there was the water gun fight of the century held that day. There were some big weapons pulled out that day. I think Travis won!! (Leslie's husband in the grey Tshirt that you see everywhere with all those very innocent little children and he is soaking them!!!) (That was payback from the previous year when they all got him and he had no weapon!!) What fun!!!

I get "Wife Of The Year Award"!!!!

Now I know that you ladies thought you were getting that award but

I am here to tell you that it will be mine as soon

as my husband wakes up and looks at his Valentines present!!!

He is a man of few wishes. He never wants anything.

He is always content with whatever he has.

Always has been like that.

If he has 2 pair of blue jeans and 2 flannel shirts

he has a full wardrobe.

He will occasionally talk of needing new work boots

but he will always wear the soles off the ones he

has before even thinking about actually going to the boot store and trying on a new pair!

Try buying him something for Christmas!!

Now that's a treat ;-)

What do you buy the man who wants nothing?????

Well one year my sister-in-law drew his name for Christmas.

She called and asked me to help her think of a gift for him.

Gee Thanks, I said.

I finally decided that he would love the movie

"Soggy Bottom USA"
We had been to the old movie theatre in Rocky Mt

when it was first out (in about 1980 ish) and he

absolutely fell in love with the movie.

It was about what else but a "coon hunt".

She found it online I think in Canada and

bless his little heart he was as happy as if he got a new BB gun as a child!!!!

I may have just thought of a gift for him for VD that comes a little bit close to that movie.....

A photo album for his coon dogs pictures and pics of his coon hides and fishing pictures and the likes.......one that he can carry around with him and brag on his pups and his catch for the season etc etc etc.....

When I told Leslie what I was getting him she said I would make him the happiest man alive!!!

I'll let you know shortly if it was a hit and if I did get

"Wife Of The Year Award"

I should because I have a picture of

"Tiger" on the front

and she was his favorite coon dog ever!!

We had to have her put to sleep almost 2 years ago and that was a sad time around this house.

Happy Valentines day to all!!

Update ~ I want to Thank my Husband, My Family, My agent, My Wild Imagination,

God, and any one else who had any part in me winning this award!

I Thank You from the bottom of my heart!!

So as not to bore you to pieces......

I started another blog

devoted to my new hobby of backyard birdwatching!!

You can find it here

Becky's Birding Blog

So when you are bored to death with what is going on here on the farm

you can go over there and see

what is really going on down on the farm!!

I told you I have OCD (No the Dr didn't tell me that, I just know)

I got it from my father.

When he gets his mind on something new

that is all he eats sleeps and breathes

until he grows tired of it.

The problem here is

I have Danny hooked too!!!!!

and Robin

and I am sure that Leslie will be hooked too,

she just doesn't know it yet!

I mean it usually doesn't take much to make us old people happy....that's what our kids say about our fishpond!!

Hey I think I'll put a couple bird feeders down by the pond.......hum......

good idea......

I Heart This......

....picture of my John Deere with the same red shovel in front....looks like someone would go move it!! Cool picture, huh??

I thought it was pretty cool too!!

and it came from this camera!!!!

My brand new Nikon D3000!!

Yep that does a heart good!!

I know you are thinking.....but Becky you just got a new camera for Christmas........well I know it but as it turns out that one was a lemon!!

So I boxed it right back up and took it right back to Target and upgraded to this peach!!

This is my first DSLR and I am very overwhelmed so far but I know that I have yet to read the manual......to me manuals are the type of things you read when you are trying to fall asleep.

I could also get this book to help me learn it, maybe!!

When I get really good at attracting birds to my backyard I will have to identify them so I picked up this book today to help me out. Then I have the new camera to take some good pictures of those special birds!!

I wish I would have looked for that book for the camera but I didn't know it was one out there until I was back home and researching the camera......yet again.....I dreamed about cameras last night because I had been studying so much about them.

Hahaha and you guys just thought I was working on taxes all day......

Nope!!

Not all day ;-)