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.

Good Spring for Flowers

 I have always been a flower lover. I think I inherited it from my ancestors. Both of my grandmothers were flower lovers. My mother is also a flower lover. So, I guess I just inherited their green thumb.

I can remember visiting my Granny and she would take us on a walk around her yard and point out different flowers and plants and tell us little stories about them. "This one is called Artemisia and that was my (some relative)'s name...This one is a shade lover...This one is a ground cover and the color and texture really makes the flowers around it look prettier...Geraniums do well in this pot because it drains well and they don't like wet feet..."

So, I sort of think of my ancestors when I am selecting, planting, and tending to my flowers. This year I stumbled across some beautiful geraniums with a deep crimson bloom. So, I decided that they would be the base for my back porch plantings. 

I selected some that had only a bloom or two but lots of buds. They have been beautiful!

I added a deep blue/purple petunia and a white trailing plant that I think is called Bacopa. I also have some sort of plant that grows tall and has blooms along the stalk of it that is just now coming along and getting ready to bloom.

The rainy conditions we have experienced has made flower growing simple. I've only had to hand-water them a few times because we have gotten downpours almost daily. 

In the smaller pots, I added purple petunias and a variegated Lantana. It has yellow, orange, hot pink, and red in the bloom. 

I spend a while each morning wandering round sipping tea, plucking off spent blooms, and just enjoying the beauty of these flowers! 

A Quick and Easy Project

 One of the things I've noticed in my retirement is that I tend to procrastinate. So, with that being noticed, I also have noticed that I am not getting things done as quickly as I thought I might. I guess I thought that by now all of the closets, cabinets, and enclosures in our house would be cleared out and tidy. I guess I thought that by now our acreage would look like a well-tended garden. I don't really know what I thought would change about me to get those things into such a shape, but it hasn't and it doesn't all look and feel like that. 

Oh, I have done some clearing and straightening and cleaning out and tidying. However, we are still far, far from having a place for every little thing and everything in it's place!

One project that I did tackle is one of our mailboxes. Yes, I said one of them because we have three. One is on a post at the back porch and holds gardening tools.

One is at the end of the driveway and the postman leaves our mail there.

The one I took on as a project is on the end of the house near the basement entrance. We added it years ago when my mother-in-law first moved in with us. I thought it would be a great place for us to leave her mail after gathering it from the one at the end of the driveway and we would not have to disturb her. I did that for years when I brought the mail to the house. 

Then, it became Mike's 'job' to get the mail and he used that as an excuse to go inside and check on his mother each day. So, it became just a decorative element beside the door. Since Mrs. O has passed, it became an easy spot to leave something small for others to pick up or a place to stash the cash bag for a Facebook Marketplace sale. 

Over time, it had gotten sad, rusted, and unsightly. It is still functional and handy for leaving something to be picked up when we are not going to be handy. So, I didn't want to just remove it. I decided a paint job would do the trick.

There was also a stinging set of residents who were keeping house inside there. So, I took some soapy water and a brush and cleaned it up a bit. Then, the next day, I wedged large pieces of cardboard around it. I dug out a can of anti-rust spray paint that was left over from another project and gave it a coat of paint.

You can see that it has an insignia on it to indicate royalty. I think the advertisement for it said that it was modeled to be like Queen Elizabeth's way back when I bought it. So, I thought it was a tongue in cheek way of honoring my mother-in-law. I think I am the only one who ever even know that, though.

The new coat of paint gave it new life and I am quite pleased with it. It is a nice decorative piece and even if we never use it as it was intended, it sort of brings a little smile to my face. 

Plus, one project has been checked of my list!

Today I noticed...Deep Reading Is Rare

Today I noticed that some people are skimmers, some are scanners, and some really read. All of them are informed. However, the best informed and those who understand the most are the ones who really read.
 

Family Portrait Gallery

 I have done a little work with the photos that I shared in this post.  I'm satisfied with what I have - for now. There is a small landing as one descends into our basement. Where the stairs pause at the landing there is a large cabinet where I have added some books. As one turns, to continue down the stairs, I've added a gallery wall with some of the family photos. 

To the left of the gallery photos is a series of three stairs which stops on the basement floor. There is a wall on either side, forming a sort of hallway. So, I am probably going to add some more photos there. I think it would be a good place to add a collection of photos such as family members who were posing for team pictures or those who are posing with an animal from a livestock show. I'm going to continue to think about this because I'm not absolutely certain of how I want to decorate this little space. 

For this gallery collection, I have Started at the top, left with Mike's paternal great-grandfather. Next to him is Mike's grandfather, and then, his father rounds out the last oval frame. Below those oval-framed photos are pictures of Mike's parents. I think the two small ones are school pictures. They look like they might be about third grade level photos. The larger photo between those two shows his parents at their eighth grade dance.

The gold scalloped frame holds a collage of Mike in his first year. There is a portrait of him at three-months, six-months, nine-months, and one year. 

Then, there is the large antique portrait of Mike's great, great grandmother. Below that is a photo of his father on the left. Then, his great-grandmother is pictured in the middle and the photo on the right is a photo of the great-grandmother at an older age.

I love the variety of vintage frames and feel quite fortunate to have inherited the photos as well as the beautiful frames. 

Happy Birthday, Lydia!

 

I've been a nosey neighbor

Our neighbors have Longhorn cattle. They have been a novelty since they first entered the pasture next door. 

Being farm folks, Mike and I thought it was odd that the neighbors would buy such a creature. They were not really farm people and simply bought them for the novelty of how the cattle looked, I think. The first two who came to be our neighbors were Wanda and Willy. Wanda was a hefty, older looking cow who looked like she had not had a calf in years. Willy was a young yearling bull.  

Then, the neighbors added another and another Longhorn cow until they had an entire herd. Some of the new cows gave birth shortly after arriving next door and the herd continued to grow.

The neighbors wound up selling and moving away to another state but the herd stayed next door for the new homeowners. These new homeowners really seemed to have less knowledge about cattle than the original ones. For example, they didn't realize that they probably needed to get some hay to feed the cows when it snows and there is no grass readily available. So, they asked Mike for suggestions and he shared a little information.

After lunch one day this week, Mike mentioned that there was a truck and trailer backed up to the catch pen next door and some guys were loading up some of the Longhorns. Out of curiosity, I gravitated to the window to watch. I was curious about how many they would be able to load onto a trailer with those long horns. There were already a couple of the cattle loaded onto the trailer and the guys were working to get more on. One of them came dashing around the side of the trailer and had a rope dangling from his neck. The guys came dashing after him and the chase ensued.

The young bull went loping off down the pasture away from the barn. At one point one of the guys grabbed hold of the dangling rope and he began to dangle along as well. After a while, the guy turned loose and stood in a state of ponder for a bit. Then, he eased down the pasture and circled around the young bull and drove him back up toward the barn. This time, the young bull made short work of running around and getting by the men. Finally, both guys snagged hold of the end of the rope and held on, stopping the young bull.

It became a war of wills. Which would have the most determination? Would it be the guys or the bull? The guys were patient for a while. The other cattle came over to their friend and checked him out and then they wandered off munching on grass. After the young bull tired a bit, one of the guys ran back up the hill to the truck and pulled it down toward where the young bull was scotched and holding his ground.

I was amazed by the strength of this guy! Evidently, they didn't make much progress at coaxing the young bull onto the trailer. So, while the one guy held on, the other guy circled the trailer back around closer to the young bull, who was laying on the ground at that point. 

Being the nosey neighbor through all of this, I just took a seat near the window looking out onto the neighbor's pasture and watched all the action as I was making up an online grocery order. I was certainly amazed by the strength of the one guy! They were pretty tenacious about getting their job done and I found it interesting to see how they went about getting that bull loaded. I was also thankful that I didn't have any part of the work of it!

The two guys tugged and coaxed and finally got the bull loaded and went on their way with the load of Longhorn bulls. Obviously, this was not the guys' first rodeo! 

Today I Noticed...The Glow of the Rising Sun

I have developed a bad habit. 

I wake up each morning sometime between four and five-thirty. Why? Why couldn't my body wait for just another hour or so? Why does it decide I need to get up that early?

I've been getting up and moving to the chair in the bedroom so that I will be quiet and not disturb Mike. I can hear his gentle snoring in the den. So, I shift to the chair and do a little reading and napping.

Today, I noticed that as the sun is coming up, there is a nice glow from the rising sun peeking into the window. Even my unmade bed seems to have a nice glow as the sun is coming up.

Maybe I am getting a gentle nudge so that I don't miss the glow...

Family Portraits to Make a Gallery Wall

As we have been reclaiming the basement, I have been going through lots of things that were Mrs. Ozburn's. She lived with us and had her own space here from 2017 through 2023 when she passed. She had promised different things to family members and we certainly passed those things along as she had requested. Sorting through things has been a slow task for me because I don't want to overlook something that might be treasured by her grandchildren. There were lots of trinkets and decorative objects - far more than even I like to have atop tables and on bookshelves and keep dust-free. I took photos with my phone and sent out a group of ten or so photos at a time asking Mike's children if they wanted to claim them for their homes. Most were spoken for right away and only a few are still waiting for them to pick up and haul away.

Before Mrs. O moved in with us, she cleared out lots and gave furniture and decor to us, my brother and sister-in-law, and her grandchildren. We have a beautiful dining table, a cane rocker, a beautiful oil painting, and a few other pieces. One of the interesting things that we inherited are family portraits and loads of photographs. So, I'm sorting through the ones Mike's mother gave us as well as the ones she had on the walls and in boxes and books. We've asked Mike's aunt to identify some folks pictured that Mike was unsure about and I've left many hanging in the kitchen which show his relatives as well as what life was like here in days gone by with old trucks and horses and wagons and such. I want to create a gallery wall of some of the portraits and photos. I made a few snapshots with my phone to send to Mike's aunt for clarification on identity and am including those here but as I get these grouped and hung, I will try to update and make better photographs as the gallery shapes up.

One of the portraits we were given is of Mrs. O's great-grandmother, Helton Claiborne. We were told by Mike's mother that she was never married but she had three children with an American Indian fellow in the 'wilds of Tennessee.' She is certainly a stern looking young woman and it is an old-time portrait that has steely eyes. I proudly brought it home right after Mrs. O gave it to us and planned to hang it in the den. However... I was informed quite swiftly that Mike did not want her hanging in a room where he would be! He says she is scary and mean looking.

He tells a funny story about a lady, Martha, who helped his mother. It seems that she didn't like the portrait any better than Mike does. He said she would drape a towel over the frame as soon as she came into the house and then go on about her business as if that was a normal mode of display.

A photograph that we were given turns out to be another image of Helton Claiborne. While the portrait above is of her as a young woman, this photo shows her at a more advanced age.

She doesn't seem to have grown more cheerful over the years but it is interesting to see how she aged. Plus, look at the beautiful lace work on her blouse.

Another interesting portrait is of  Mrs. O's grandmother, Cynthia Elizabeth Claiborne Stephenson who was known as Betty. 

It is a beautiful portrait with a Gibson Girl look. How about that hat? She is the daughter of Helton Claiborne and mother of Mrs. O's father, Jack. Strong family resemblance, huh?

One of the sweetest photos is of Mike's mother as a toddler being held by her mother. The bonnet alone is photo-worthy. Obviously it is a photo made in the 1930s and the fashion of the time shines.

There are portraits from Mike's paternal side as well. The first one is of his great grandfather. He looks very studious and reflective posed with his eyeglasses doesn't he?

The next one is of his son, Mike's grandfather. Again, he looks very distinguished posed outside in a fancy bentwood chair.

I'm gathering them all together and leaning them against the wall and on a cabinet of books in the basement staircase landing. 

There is such a range of sizes - 8x10, 5x7, and some 4x6 photos of Mike as well. I love that collage which has a portrait of him at three months, six months, nine months, and one year old. There is also a sweet one of his parents at their eighth grade dance. What treasures!

There's also a sweet set of little school photos of Mike's parents that I want to include. I'm not sure what age they are but I'm thinking third grade or later elementary school years. Don't they look innocent and precious?

I have a good 5x7 school photo of Mike that looks like he was in about eighth or ninth grade. Plus, I'm hoping to fill in the pieces with a photo of Mike's maternal grandmother or grandparents, too.

I think it will be an interesting gallery wall and am so thankful that many of these are already framed in beautiful heirloom frames. I'll update when I figure out how I'm going to configure and hang all of these treasures. I think it will be a really interesting gallery wall and I hope I can gather the same sort of collection to represent my ancestors on the opposite wall.

Today I Noticed...Cleaning

I noticed something as I was going about my business today and I thought my grandmothers are probably just shaking their heads. I cannot even imagine what my great-grandmothers might be thinking of the life I lead.

I was doing some cleaning today. I had a load of laundry drying in our automatic clothes dryer. There was another load of laundry sloshing around in our automatic washer getting clean without my attendance. I just tossed the clothes into the machines and pressed the buttons and the work of cleaning began.

The robotic vacuum cleaner was rolling across the den floor sweeping up the bits from the trees that we had tracked in and strewn across the floor. I had cleaned out the dust bin of Rosey Jetson and attached a new filter. Then, as I sat sipping a cup of tea, I opened the app on my phone and instructed Rosey Jetson, the robotic vacuum cleaner to sweep the den floor. 

adapted from this source

I had just finished cleaning out the fridge and disposing of outdated salad dressing and ketchup. I also tossed out the unrecognizable food that had been tucked away in there a week or so ago but let go to waste because we never got a yen to clean out that leftover bit and eat it. There were a few little sealed containers with mushy something and something suspicious growing like a science experiment on the corner of another. I can just hear Muffa, my paternal grandmother, exclaim with disdain about how wasteful we are as I was scraping those bits into the trash.  

I was unloading the dishwasher so that I could reload it with containers where I had cleaned out the spoiled and wasted food and paused to pour myself another cup of tea before I sat down to rest my back. I felt pretty productive, though, as I opened the app on my phone and instructed the oven to begin a clean cycle to get that black crunchiness off the oven floor where the strawberry bread I'd baked had bubbled over yesterday afternoon. You see, I had forgotten about the dribbled over mess in there and when Mike had baked biscuits to go with the ham we had for breakfast, smoke had curled out into the kitchen and smelled it up until he had turned on the exhaust fan above the cooktop to clear that away and in just a little while, the inside of the oven will be sparkling clean again and I will get a notification on my phone that the cleaning is done.

I realized that the laundry will be ready to swap out again - I will fold the dry load and transfer the wet load to the dryer and start the next load to wash. So, I am sitting here sipping my cup of tea and browsing through an online post that has a how-to instructing me how to transform something to give it a new look or purpose while there is a soft tune playing in the background from Alexa, my virtual assistant. 

I know that Granny, my maternal grandmother, is probably smiling and shaking her head in comparing how my cleaning is so different from hers back in the day. She would have embraced the robotic vacuum and all the gadgets just as I do but she would also sit us down and tell us tales about how things were when she was a young woman and those chores would have a whole different look. She would tell us about drawing water from the well and heating it and scrubbing and the back-breaking labor it took to get things cleaned.

Earlier in the week the house-wash-guy came and used a power washer with a generator and blasted all sorts of suds and rinses to get the mold and mildew off the siding and make it new and shiny, just like a fresh paint job that my ancestors would have swiped across their siding as a way to freshen it up, taking hours or days to cover it all out in the hot sun. 

As I sit here capturing these thoughts and memories, I think of how different it must have been for my great-grandmothers and grandmothers and remember my own mother scrubbing, sweeping, and painting to give things a nice fresh spring cleaning and I am so thankful for the luxurious life I am fortunate to lead. I also wonder what is in store for my grandchildren in years to come. Will they have something even more advanced than the Robots from the Jetson's cartoon that I enjoyed?

Projects - Kitchen Window Treatment

I did a little refresh on the kitchen recently. After seeing lots of block print fabrics featured in home decor, I decided to update the kitchen window treatment with a block print fabric. I shopped online and found a print I liked that I thought would cheer up the windows in the kitchen. Then, I ordered just enough to create a faux Roman shade for the two windows. I also ordered a nice print to use for trimming out the edges.

My fabric came from Spoonflower and I paid full price. I was not compensated by the company in any way. The fabric I chose is called Handblock Medallion 6 Blue on Whitney White Fabric. The contrast that I used for trim is called Indigo Blue Painted Chevron Herringbone. I ordered a length of both fabrics that was two yards in length. The fabric was 58 inches wide. I neglected to make photos along the way. So, I've created some diagrams to illustrate as best I can.

To begin, I measured the width of the window and added an inch. Then, I trimmed the selvage edge off of one side and cut the medallion fabric that width, plus one inch to allow for seam allowances. Next, I cut the fabric in half so that I had the same length for both windows. Then, I gave both pieces a quick pressing to get the wrinkles out. 

I trimmed the selvage edge off one side of the herringbone fabric, measured and cut 2 pieces that were a seven inch width and the full length of the fabric. These two pieces would form the trim for the sides of the shades.

Then, I measured up seven inches and cut a strip of fabric that was the full width of the fabric. And repeated that process so that I had two seven-inch strips that were a wee bit wider than the width of the medallion pieces. These two width pieces would form the trim for the bottoms of the shades.

I folded the two lengths that would form the side trim in half with wrong sides together and pressed. This resulted in two strips that had a folded edge on one long side and two raw edges around the other three sides. Then, I folded the two widths in half with wrong sides together and pressed. This resulted in two widths hat had a folded edge along one side and two raw edges around the other three sides.

Now it was time to assemble the shades. I placed one of the folded strips on the left back side of the medallion piece and the other folded strip on the right with the folds toward the center of the medallion piece. The cut edges of the medallion piece and the folded pieces were flush with one another.

Then, I stitched down both sides using a half-inch seam. Next, I pressed the seam allowance toward the front of the medallion fabric. Then, pressed the herringbone fabric over to the front of the medallion fabric.

Then, I stitched along the fold of the herringbone fabric. The stitching is 1/8th of an inch from the folded edge. That encased the raw edge of the seam inside the trim.

The next step was to trim out the bottom of the shades. So, I lined up the raw edges of the widths of the herringbone fabric to the raw edge of the bottom of the in-progress shade, leaving about an inch overhang on each side. The herringbone strip is on the back side of the shade-in-progress.

I stitched the bottom trim to the back of the shade-in-progress using a half-inch seam. Then, folded and pressed the seam allowance toward the medallion fabric and folded and pressed the trim piece toward the center of the shade.

Next, I stitched along the folded edge of the bottom trim 1/8" from the fold. Then, I folded the raw side edges under twice to encase the raw edges inside and stitched those edges down as well.

At the top, I created a rod pocket by cutting a four inch strip of the herringbone fabric. I laid this strip atop the shade with right sides together and I stitched a half inch seam, making sure to have at least a one-inch overhang on each side.

Then, I folded the side edges over a half-inch and then a half-inch again and stitched that edge down to enclose the raw edges.

Next, I folded the raw edge of the rod pocket under a half-inch and pressed it. Then, I folded the rod pocket strip over to the back and pressed the seem connecting the rod pocket and the shade down to have a crisp edge with none of the herringbone fabric showing on the front. 

I stitched the folded raw edge down to create the tube on the back to hold the curtain rod, stitching 1/8" from the folded edge. Then, I stitched a line across the shade from side to side one inch above that. This gave me a nice little header above the space where the curtain rod would slide through.

This method left me with no raw edges and a smooth completed finish. After that, I determined how deep I wanted the folds of the shade to be. I sewed a small plastic ring at the fold near the edge of the shade for each 'pleat' that I wanted folded up. Then, I sewed another plastic ring on the opposite side near that edge and another ring in the center. Finally, I cut a short piece of cording and tied the rings together to form the folds. I ran the curtain rod through the rod pocket and hung the shades.

I decided I liked the look so much that I also wanted a faux shade above my sink. However, I didn't have a wide enough piece of the medallion print to fit the window. So, I took the piece that I had and matched the pattern to form a strip wide enough to go across the window. I finished the sides and the bottom the same way I had for the large window shades and hung it on a tension rod pushed between the cabinets.

The window treatments seemed to finish off and add a cheerful note to our updated kitchen. Even the mister commented that he really liked the new look!