Patriotic Decorating

I've always enjoyed celebrating and decorating for Independence Day. Not only is it a good reminder to me about how fortunate I am (at least for the time being) to be able to live in the country with the most freedom in the world. 

Years ago, one of our granddaughters was spending some time with us and we worked together to craft decorations that I look forward to displaying each and every year in my Patriotic Decorating.

When I hung his little banner of flags so carefully stitched, I was smiling the entire time. Once again I was remembering the sewist.

When she was working so diligently at stitching the flags to the ribbon, she was concentrating and quiet and working hard at stitching.  Then, her stitching got looped around the ribbon and had a bit of a tangle. All of a sudden, she exclaimed, "Grand B, we have a situation here." 

We worked together to get it all straightened out with no "situations" in our finished products. She learned how to stitch and how to take the stitching out and stitch again.

I couldn't help but smile at her little snaggle-toothed exclamation then and I think of it every single time I get that banner out to hang it up for celebrating.

My, how time does fly! When I finished hanging the banner this week, I sent the photo that starts off this post via text to that little sewist, who now looks like this...

What a situation!

Happy Independence Day!

 

From our house to yours.

Wildlife Friends (Part 2)

 Last week I wrote about seeing observing some of our wildlife friends and enjoying their beauty. 

On Tuesday, I was watering my flowers and admiring their prosperous growth. My flowers really have provided me with joy this spring/summer. They have bloomed prolifically and all the rain we have had made it easier for me to take care of them as well.

This long, shallow concrete planter is one that Mike had here when we joined forces. I have never had much that would prosper in it except Moss Roses or Portulaca, a blooming succulent plant. The picture above shows what they looked like when I first planted the four little plants out of a blister pack from the local greenhouse nursery.

Those things had really grown and were heaped up and full of blooms - about twice the size of what is shown above. I was so pleased with them and smiled over how well they were doing for a few days. I thought about taking a photo but decided I would wait till I finished my watering. Then, I was so hot that I forgot all about photo taking. 

The next day, I went out to water and noticed that the flag holder was rocking back and forth. I noticed it because there was quite a breeze but didn't think it was such that it would blow the little metal garden flag holder that doesn't even have a flag in it. But, I quickly set to filling my watering jug. My watering routine is to water the pots that are the furthest distance from the spigot first. So, I went to the pots at the ends of the retaining wall first.

Then, I went to the long, low, concrete planter. Boy was I shocked! Our wildlife friends must really like the taste of Moss Roses! Plus, she must have been munching right before I opened the door and bumped into the garden flag holder. 

I knew that deer don't like Lantana and all of the other pots down at the basement entrance have a little Lantana in them. So, I guess that is why they are still growing and looking pretty and not nibbled gobbled up. Every single pot that has Lantana in it is still completely untouched.

While I enjoy seeing these beautiful creatures munching in our hay field and yard, I don't really want them wiping out my flowers. So, next year, all the planters will have deer resistant flowers in them for sure!

Today I noticed...I REALLY like digital accessibility!

I have become a person who really appreciates and looks for ways to make almost anything digitally accessible. 

Since my retirement, I have volunteered a bit in our local community. One focus of my efforts has been with the Nolensville Historic Cemetery. I am in the process of digitizing all of the records associated with lots at the cemetery. Each lot is assigned a certificate of ownership. Since the 1930s, the deeds and certificates of ownership have been on paper and need to be digitized. Each of the sales receipts, each burial documentation, each transfer of ownership upon resale from one owner to the next has been documented with paper. There are more than a dozen four-inch notebooks full of documents. So, I am in the process of scanning page after page of documents and saving them to cloud storage. Plus, I am linking each document into a couple or three spreadsheets to make searching for information more streamlined and easier. Already, we have found this to be helpful and efficient. 

Win! Win!

The other day, when our daughter-in-law sent me a photo and explained that she is organizing her classroom library, my immediate thought was that we need to enter that information into a spreadsheet so that she has a digital listing and can easily search her inventory.

We can use her color-coding strategies that she is applying, include the author's name, title, and reading level information, (and more) as ways to label columns. This will make it easy and efficient for her to search and sort book information.

Of course, I volunteered to help out with creating the spreadsheets. This sort off nudged me to notice that organizing and making lists and files and documents digitally accessible is something that makes me happy - and does the same for others!

Hay Week!

It has been hay week here on the farm! 

Mike has been moaning and groaning about all the rain without a stretch of sunny weather because he had hay that needed harvesting. We are grateful for the rain and cooler temperatures that May gave us but he also wanted to get the hay out of the field. 

Well, on Saturday, the rainy weather gave way to hot, hot, hot temperatures. 

As I pulled out of the driveway to go to our eldest grandson's baseball tournament, Mike was beginning to cut the hay.

When I returned on Sunday morning, the field with the cut hay is what greeted me.

Mike had already fluffed the hay with the tedder. That process just sort of picks up the hay and allows air to help to dry it out. He was beginning to rake the hay into windrows to prepare it for baling.

Then, for the past couple of days he has been baling the hay. It yielded fifty-plus bales and one hot, sweaty, dirty guy.

Next, Mike and Stephen will haul the rolls to the barn and get it all stored away. It will make good winter feed for the livestock - ours and son, Stephen's. There will be a day or two of rest and hay will will come again later in the summer when the second cutting is ready for harvest.

Wildlife Friends

 Since we live on a farm, we have several animals. Oh, we aren't over run with farm animals. We do have a couple of goats and a miniature donkey. However, most of the animals we see around here are wildlife. 

Last year, we had a whole herd of deer who lived here and grazed our front yard and front field. Some of them have moved on. However, we still have a resident deer or two. Mike said that he saw a couple of babies when he was cutting the hay in the front field. So, we knew there was a mother deer somewhere nearby as well. 

One afternoon last week I made a delivery next door and visited some of the grands as they were playing and eating outside. When I came back down the hill and circled the buggy round to park it next to the back porch, I saw the mama deer!

She and I just paused and stared at one another for a few minutes. She was sizing me up and I was trying not to scare her. After a moment or two, she turned and ran across the front yard and around the side of the house to get away from me. Then, she slowed and headed up the hill toward the hay barn.

Today I noticed...Families are the same - only different.

I had lunch with a friend who I had not visited with in quite some time. We sat and talked about our children and grandchildren. So many of the tales she shared were almost mirror images of our family experiences. There was a bit of difference but so much was the same. 

She has a grandchild who just graduated college and is working as an intern this summer before starting grad school and we have one who just graduated high school and will be going to school this fall. She has one in high school who is being home schooled and we have three in high school and a couple of them are home schooled. They each have their own interests and personalities but they all have commonalities.

I truly left the restaurant thinking of how I had enjoyed the visit with my friend and that I am really blessed to have the family that I do. While her family is the same as mine in lots and lots of ways, they are also very, very different. We both are blessed and love each and every member of our family and are grateful to have them as a part of our lives.

It's the same - only different.