Whew.... It has been a while!

We have had so much going on and so many changes in a month.

About 3 wks ago..... we put this man, the love of my life, my very best friend and the father of my babies ......

On this bus, to go to.....(actually to go to the airport but you get the picture)

Iraq.

Here he is in front of a palace.

To say it was one of the worst days of my life would be an understatement. I have cried and cried and just when I think it is getting better.... I cry some more.

On a more positive note, he made it there safely and praise God for technology. We are using Skype and a webcam to see and talk to him via computer everyday. So to say it could be much worse is so true. When we did this 4 years ago it was much worse. When he starts working 16 hour days we wont talk to him as much but right now, while they are transitioning troops over, we are getting very spoiled.

While he is gone, I plan to do a lot of my projects. Here was the first one....

This is my living room that we painted a nice dark Khaki a year ago, when we moved in.

Well, I was never really happy with it because it was so dark and this room does not have a lot of natural light. I need light and airy. So last week, I repainted it Benjamin Moore's Adobe beige. I love this color. Here it is now. I will be painting all of the trim a bright white tomorrow.

Now, this is our other huge project. The garden is coming in.

Today, I put up 3 gallon bags of corn. My corn is not ready yet but a neighbor gave us a good bit. We ate some for dinner tonight and it was so wonderful.

I also put up 7 qts. of pickles. We love homemade pickles.

Now, here is some of the rest of my bounty right now.

I hope to put up lots of canned tomatoes, ketchup and spaghetti sauce. That is if I win the battle on blossom end rot.LOL

It also looks like we will start picking peas tomorrow.

Here is a picture of one of our sunflowers. We always plant a row of sunflowers for our middle daughter. She loves them and they are beautiful in the garden.

It is a busy, busy, time but I love harvest time.

I have a really large project going on and I can't wait to share it but it will be a while before it is completed.

May Garden Party and a little update....

I can't believe May is here all ready. We have been busy, busy around here. My husband left on Friday. He is not out of the country yet but he mine as well be. He will possibly get to come home for 4 days in June, then he will be off to Iraq. It is a very sad time for us and I haven't felt much like blogging but I went to Rhoda's spot this morning and thought how fun a May Garden Party. I can do that. However, over here in Ms. we are experiencing quite the down pours. So in between pouring rain episodes, I went and took a few pictures. Now, keep in mind we moved to this place with little to no landscaping and along with all of our other projects I have been piddling with the yard here and there. So here are a few items we have planted.

Oh, and of course I forgot to upload my pics first so you can't click on them. Sorry.

These are the azaleas from the spring. They bloomed like crazy. They are finished now and I have already done all of the pruning of them.

These are some elephant ears that I have planted to kind of hide the air conditioner unit. Elephant ears do great down here in the South.
These are amaryllis. I have two kinds this beautiful pink and white and we have some red. I love these.
Here's my spider wort. I literally dug it off the side of the road to go in this flower bed. We have it growing all up and down the road and highway. It is beautiful.


Now, this is not such a beautiful spot, yet, but I wanted to show it to you for a reason. This bed is completely under the awning of my back porch. It gets very little afternoon sun. Well, when we moved here it had some hideous looking roses in it that were tall and leggy looking. Now we have planted dwarf gardenia in there and I need to add some colorful flowers.







I cut the roses back and moved them to this bed and they get more sun and are loving it.

If you look closely in the corner I have some purple jade coming up and taking off. I thought I had dug it all up and moved it but I guess not. It kind of looks good in with the roses.

I have three of these little planters with perennials and potato ivy around.



Here are the muscadine vines loaded with this years bounty.

Last but not least here are the blueberry bushes and fig tree we planted this spring. They are doing great and we should have about a handful of fruit this year.LOL However, in 3 years, Lord willing, we should have more than enough.

If you get a chance stop by Rhoda's at Southern Hospitality and take a look at her May Garden.

Outdoor Wednesday!!!

Good morning, friends.

Oh, my, 2 posts in the same week, I believe that is a record. I saw this little weekly meme at one of my other favorite daily stomping grounds and thought I would participate. Here are my blooming azaleas. They are really showing out. You can click on the pics. for a closer look.
We bought this house at the end of May last year and by the time we saw the house the azaleas had already bloomed, so we had no idea what color they would be. They are breathtaking to say the least and I want about 20 more of the same color all around my yard.LOL

A couple of weekends ago, we worked on some landscaping and mowing of the lawn. This is the Gerber daisy my daughter picked out for the front porch. It's blooming beautifully.

And here is a geranium I picked out for my front porch table. I just love geraniums. Red is my favorite color of geranium but my daughter's is pink. I guess you can tell who won.

Last but not least, this is what we have on the mini farm this week. The week before we left on our cruise, we noticed this chicken missing. She is a small chicken, a Wheaten Old English Game Hen to be exact. So we just thought something must have gotten her while out free ranging one day. We had looked everywhere and she was nowhere to be found. Well, she came out of hiding this week and look what she has with her.

She has 7 little chicks. This is the first time we have let one of our hens keep their chicks. We have always been afraid that predators would get them. However, she is doing a great job keeping her little brood safe and we are going to leave them alone and hope for the best. I can not tell you how much fun it is to watch a momma chick walk around the yard with her little babies in toe. It is pure joy.

I have to say letting the chickens raise babies the natural way sure beats this.

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We have 7 baby Americauna chicks in our laundry room. I bought them last week. They are the ones that lay the blue and green eggs. I will keep them in the laundry room for about another week and then they will go to the barn.LOL

Well, that is all for my Outdoor Wednesday. I hope you will all head over to A Southern Daydreamer and check out a few more.

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Have a great day!!!

Changes all around us....

Good morning friends. It has been a tough week and last few weeks to be honest. My husband has begun the journey of deploying. He is currently away from home doing training. Yesterday was my birthday so he did sneak back home for the night. I just love him for that. He literally drove 2+ hours home, got home at 8:00 and had to leave at 5:00 this morning. I was so sad for him to leave. I know you do what you have to do but I just want to go on record saying that I hate this and I just want to cry. The loss for me and my children for this next year is overwhelming me right now. I am trying ever so hard to be strong and to just cry out to Jesus for strength. He is the only one who can provide it right now.
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On to other topics. We had a great time on our cruise. It was just what we needed. I have so many pictures but I thought I would limit it to these. Here is the beautiful sunrise over the ocean one morning at sea.

We spent a good portion of our time out here on the balcony just watching the vastness of the ocean. God's handy work is amazing. I love this picture.

This is when we ported in Cozumel. We had a great time going through the streets and shopping. Then my honey and kids went off to zip line, rappel, and snorkel. They had a great time and I had a great time just relaxing. We also ported in Calica and went into Playa Del Carmen. It was fun.

Now for the not so great part, we had left our Shih Tzu, Beaux, with my mom. I will preface by saying that Beaux was extremely attached to our family and since we were going to be away for 6 days, we hated to leave him at the vet. We knew he would be depressed and didn't want it to go on for that long, bad decision. My mother said he did not eat or go to the bathroom for days. She said he crawled in a corner and snapped at her when she came close. On the fatal day she let him out in her fenced in back yard. He seemed to do better outside. Well, while she was at work he either dug out of the fence or climbed over. I am not sure which. He got in the road and was killed. I can not even begin to tell you how devastating this has been for our family. I think, as women, we have a natural need to baby something. I would love more real babies but do not have any so this was my families baby. He was my oldest daughter's 16th birthday present and we all loved him dearly. He slept with my daughter every night and went straight out to the barn with her every morning for chores. I made him an egg almost everyday of his life. He was rotten and I don't plan on doing that again, hence his separation anxiety. Anyway, this was Beaux and we love and miss him dearly.

The flip side to the horrifying accident is that my mother also cried for days. She knew how upset we would be and thought we would be mad at her. We were mad at ourselves for putting my mother in such a terrible predicament. I never thought that Beaux would act so terribly. I just wish in hindsight that we had taken him to the vet and boarded him. Although, I do think that God had a bigger lesson for us. I think we had put Beaux on such a pedestal that we also needed to learn a huge lesson.

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Anyway, my mother thought the best thing to do was to find my daughter another Shih Tzu. So she drove to Memphis and got this little guy. If you have been in this situation, you know this just made it worse. Mother was just trying to make things better but we needed time to grieve. Not to mention, I probably would not have gotten this same breed again. They just get so attached. However, we took him so that she would not feel like we didn't appreciate the gesture or that we were mad. Oh, it has been hard. On several occasions I have accidentally called him Beaux, bringing us all to tears. His name is Murphy and he is now an 8 week old chocolate and white Shih Tzu. He is a cutey.

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Before we left on vacation, we had decided to get this little guy. A friend of ours dog had puppies and my children had been around them since they were born. They had never really asked for one, as they knew I would say NO. However, my husband is leaving for a year and this is a good time to ask him for anything. So they did!! He explained to me that we need a good farm dog/watch dog. I have yet to see any real good farm dog qualities but I am on the look out for them.LOL However, on the watch dog front, I think he may be good for that, if not we have guns, and praise the Lord, he does not chase my chickens so far.

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His name is Diesel and he is 1/4 blue heeler, 1/4 rottweiler, and 1/2 German Sheppard. I do have to admit he is kind of cute.

And here are the two of them together. They are about the same age and about 30 lbs. different.

We have also added 7 new baby chicks to the farm life. I really didn't need any, as I have eggs running out of my ears. I dropped off 2 dozen to a friend yesterday. However, I had lost all of my Americana chickens and I wanted some more blue and green eggs. So right now I have 7 baby chicks under a light in my laundry room. In about a week I will move them to a brooder box in the barn. I like to keep my eye on them for about a week first.

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I guess that is about all that is going on around here. I have done some landscaping in the front and when I finish it I will post some pics. I have a long way to go to catch up to Mrs. Pickets beautiful yard. If you need inspiration go check out here beautiful pics.

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I hope you all have a great day!!!
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Busy days down on the farm.....

Good Morning Friends,

It has been a while since I have had a chance to sit down and really update. As usual, things have been busy, busy around here. I got back from my procedure and everything has gone smoothly. I hope to do a whole post on that soon. However, we got back on Monday and my oldest daughter came down with the Flu on Wednesday. Which meant by Friday we all had the Flu, except Hubby, who is required by the military to take a Flu shot. It was rough, as we have never had the flu. We are just now, 2 1/2 wks. later, really getting over it.

But on a more happy note, this is what we are up to..... We have disked up our garden plot. It measures 50 X 95, which will be about 4750 sq. ft. of beautiful garden. We plan on planting:

• LOTS of Peas (several different kinds)


• Tomatoes (several different kinds)


• Cucumbers (mainly for pickling)


• Squash


• Eggplant


• Zucchini


• Peppers


• Okra


• Corn


• Sunflowers


• Marigolds


• Watermelon


• Muskmelon

If you look closely you will see a little stray chicken running through.LOL
Now this is what hubby, middle DD, and Ds are doing bright and early this morning. They are taking these once little cuties to market. They looked like this back in July.

Now they look like this.

They are loaded on the trailer and are headed to the processor. It was sad to see them go but they were getting quite stinky. It has been a fun project and I think we will probably do it again if the meat is as good as we keep hearing.

And last but not least, I thought I would throw in a daily around here. Here are the horses waiting on their morning rations. As Hubby and the kids were leaving with the pigs, the horses were letting us know they are ready to eat.

Now for other news, the day for my honey to leave is getting closer and closer. He leaves our home in May for a month of training before going over to Iraq. However, he will be gone for 4 wks. sporadically between now and then. So we are leaving next week to go on a cruise. We are so excited. We will be gone from Monday to Saturday. We wanted to do something extravagant before he left and this is it!!! So today and tomorrow I will be getting things packed and then it's Bon Voyage Baby!!!

I hope you all have a beautiful weekend. It is a glorious 70+ degrees here in Mississippi, so I foresee some yard work going on here.

Good Morning, Friends....

I hope you are all doing well. We have been so extremely busy lately that I have not had time to do my usual rounds. It has felt like spring around here with temps. in the 60's -70's. So we have gotten a lot done. By the way, thank you all for your well wishes for my mother. She is doing great!!



I wanted to share a new little pretty that I got recently from the amazing Susie Harris. That girl is so good. I ordered it to go in the little blank spot outside my front door but it was so pretty that I can't put it outdoors. So here she is with an added ribbon hanging above my mantel on that wonderful old window. I wish I had some other great thing going on on the mantel but this is it. Nevertheless, it is a start.

We have also been planting fruit trees and getting our garden ready for planting.

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In other exciting news, my husband just got a job promotion. He is excited about it but it's an hour drive from our home so I am a little weepy. We love our new house and wont be moving right away. However, when Dh gets back from Iraq, if we just hate the situation we may look at moving again. UGHH!! Anyway, you have to do what you have to do.

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As for other news, I am having a little procedure done on Saturday, if you would all please pray for me. My oldest daughter will be going with me and we will be flying on Fri. and Mon. I hate to fly. So I should, Lord willing, be home on Monday and will check in with you all. Have a great weekend and God Bless.

A Little Prayer Request...

As of last Friday, my life has been turned upside down. My mom fell on a little patch of ice in her yard and tore her Supraspinatus Tendon and began to tear her infraspinatus tendon. Which, in lamens terms, is her rotary cuff in her shoulder. It is a tear that has to be surgically fixed. My sister and I have been taking turns staying with her in the hospital and then I brought her home with me for a couple of nights. She is at her home tonight but we are already feeling like that is not a great idea. Her pain is just so intense and gets worse during the night. However, she just wanted to go home for a night. My sister is going to go get her tomorrow. The surgery will be Tuesday and she will come home with me until the weekend and then go back to my sisters. If you could just say a prayer for us. We are all just worn out with this whole situation and are just ready to be on the road to recovery. I have driven the 100 mile one way trip every day this week and tonight I am dragging, oh and my house is a mess.LOL My mom is very strong and independent so you can imagine how tough this is on her and us all. So, I thank you in advance for lifting us up in prayer.