Bits and Pieces of My Week

Beautiful Sunset



Perfectly sized portions



Co-Worker's New Shoes!



A Snack



Jacob's Ladder

Farmhouse Memories

Early one Sunday morning recently, we had a strange car drive up into the yard of the farmhouse. Out stepped a lovely retired couple. He had retired from the Secret Service after serving from Nixon to Clinton. She had raised their children.

A quest for memories of his childhood had brought them to our door. He grew up in our farmhouse!



We invited them in and the man looked around with wonder as he stated with tears in his eyes, "I wish Mama could see this!".

His mother's name was Lillian. Ms. Lillian was the person who planted the Crepe Myrtles, Quince bushes, Crinim Lillies, and other long lasting old fashioned plants in the yard.



He explained to us how the rooms were used when he and his two brothers were growing up and how things had been changed around.

Just imagine little boys playing in the farmhouse back in the 1940s!



I remembered this marble that appeared in the shade garden after a rain and thought about the little boys collecting marbles!



The small storage building behind our house was their smokehouse. There was no indoor bathroom, but I'm not sure where the outhouse was!

It turns out that the room we use as our tv/family/living room was a formal living room and our bedroom was the family room for him when growing up. I was happy to find out that Ms. Lillian had a quilting frame set up in what was their formal living room most of the time. When the boys came home from school and saw the ladies quilting they got excited because they knew there would be teacakes!



I love to learn about the people who have loved this home in the past. It's so nice to know I am following in the foot steps of ladies who loved the same things I do.... quilting, gardening, cooking.

Thank you Ms. Lillian and Ms. Albertha for paving the way...

A Southern February

An old fashioned Nandina bush, showing its winter colors.



I think one reason I like Winter so much is that it usually isn't all that severe in my neck of the woods. Every now and then we do have some snow and/or ice. Not this year! I know it's not over yet, but its not looking like any severely cold weather will hit.

If our winter has been this warm, I can only imagine how warm the summer will be....

So in an effort to enjoy the season, you know, "carpe diem", the hunt for color in the yard continues:

A Quince bush with the bare naked Crepe Myrtles in the background.



Up close...



Some purple...



In the summer a weed, in the winter, a flower!

This picture was taken on the spur of the moment as I was stepping over a brick wall at a church cemetery. I love the detail of the leaves. There is no telling how far these leaves traveled on the wind to land here because there is no oak tree nearby that I can remember.



One more close up of the Quince blooms!



Isn't it amazing that some kind of color can be found in the outdoors year round, if you take the time to look closely?

Summer's Bounty in February

Do you remember these?



and these?



In the winter they become this:



I took a piping hot bowl of this homemade vegetable soup and some saltine crackers to my mother in the nursing home. She ate the whole bowl with saltines broken up in it! Her appetite had been nonexistent the day before. Several days a week she is very nauseated due to her kidney disease and being on dialysis. So I was thrilled when she scrarfed down the soup.

It was a great weekend for making and eating soup. Dreary, rainy, cool...

My recipe for the soup:

1 large bag of frozen homegrown tomatoes

2 bags of Food Lion brand frozen vegetables for soup (contains everything, including okra, carrots, potatoes, green beans, peas, celery, etc.) Only $1.07 a bag AND SO EASY!

1 lb of lean hamburger, browned and drained

Chopped onion and green pepper cooked with the hamburger

A few shakes of garlic powder, onion powder and black pepper

Salt to taste. I didn't add much salt because my hubby, my mother and I don't need the sodium. My theory is that a little salt can always be added to your bowl, but it can't be taken out once its in the main dish.

I threw it all together in the crockpot, and let it cook for several hours.

Its so easy to make a big pot of soup and so much more healthy than the canned varieties. My hubby and I can take a bowl for lunch and avoid the sodium and other unwanted ingredients.

I hope you had a great February weekend, filled with coziness!