Happenings on the Homestead in the Appalachian Mountains

Weekend Coffee Share

 Hello there Adventurous Friends & Family, greetings from Georgia. How you doing this 17th week of 2024? It's 55 degrees here this Friday morning. The iris have been blooming this week. Grand's wedding ceremony & celebration was a success & perfectly beautiful. The wedding was in an old train depot that is now a rental space for such special occasions. I had such a good time visiting with everyone & of course we got tons of pictures of everything, the cookie table was a big hit. I'm heading out this weekend to Aunt's 90th birthday celebration. I'm planning to take mashed tators & make them like Daughter does. She uses red potatoes & leaves the skin on. The Grand's tell me that's how the mashed tators get their flavor, so that will be a flavorful added bonus. Me & Sister are pulling a birthday surprise out of our sleeves for the event, stay tuned next week for what it is, so for now, grab a coffee or your favorite beverage & I'll tell you some about the wedding & show a few pictures of the highlights, come walk with me...

I shouldn't have, but I did indulge. There
was leftover chocolate cookie topping &
 I remembered we still had some of those
"sweet as candy" grapes.

 

* I couldn't decide which of the 4 varieties of cookies to make for the cookie table, so I made all 4 of the ones I had made samples of - chocolate thin mint cookie bar, butterscotch haystacks, pecan cups & sweet & salty turtles. I had to make a do over batch of the haystacks. I didn't have enough karo syrup, so I used some honey. Those cookies were too sticky & didn't set up good enough. 

Guests were asked to bring a couple dozen
or so of cookies to make up the cookie table. 
Look at all that yummy cookie goodness.
There were boxes for everyone to take
cookies home as a party favor.

There was a festive balloon garland
in the reception area. The food tables
 made an L. The cookie tables were at
the bottom of the L. There wasn't a
rehearsal dinner, instead, a meal
 was served for all to enjoy
 immediately after the
wedding nuptials.

  

Gnomes of different sizes were hidden 
all around. See one? The bride & groom
have a collection of gnomes, so it was
a fun surprise for guests when they
discovered one of the hidden gems
to add to the collection.

The wedding cake was so delicious &
perfectly moist. I chose this strawberry
 piece. The layers were strawberry &
vanilla. The bottom was vanilla, the
 middle strawberry & the top will be a 
surprise when they have it on their
1st anniversary.

  

The wedding cake was made by Cousin
Sally. She makes the most beautiful & fun
cakes for any & all occasions. 

The groom's cake was triple melt
 in your mouth chocolate.

  

Do you see the flowers in the
veggie trays?

The arch turned out perfect for a quaint
 intimate wedding ceremony. Me & Kevin
were on the arch committee. Moma put the
flower arrangements together for the arch.
The bride & groom wrote their own vows.
 I may have shed a joyful heartfelt tear or
 2. Kevin had the wood on hand & plans
to reuse it to make some sawhorses. 

  

They did it, congrats to the newlyweds!

There was a guest book for signing,
giving well wishes, advise &
decorating the book up with
self-portraits. It was fun, I helped
 take several pictures. The camera
 was a Christmas gift to one of the 
Grandgirls. It worked perfect for
this wedding activity. The camera
works like the old Polaroids, if you
ever remember those back in
the day. 

 

The background for taking
pictures for the quest book.
Happy April Birthdays
to my Adventurous Guy &
Daughter.

* Last but not least was the excitement of sneaking out to decorate the get-away car. The married sign had to be taken down because they couldn't see out the back window for driving. I always say "have fun but be safe" & "watch out for deer" (that means I love you).

Honk! Honk!

These are some of the things that's been going on in my neck of the woods, how has your week been?

Happenings on the Homestead in the Appalachian Mountains

 

Weekend Coffee Share

Hello there Adventurous Friends & Family, greetings from Georgia. How you doing this 16th week of 2024? It's 59 degrees here this early Friday spring morning. Sunny sweaty temperatures heated up into the 80s this week. The azaleas are blooming. I saw a hummingbird out the bedroom window the other day, so I put out the feeder. I thought the mix was 3 parts water to 1 part sugar, Kevin thought it was half & half. I looked it up & the directions I read was 4 to 1, so that's how I made my food for the hummingbirds. The hummers started feasting, at least that one. We've tired the new Bojangles in town a couple of times now. One for supper & one for breakfast. I've decided their biscuits are my favorite over anywhere. My tender tastebuds didn't care for their slightly spicy chicken, but I ate it anyway. This weekend is Grand's wedding. I've got our wedding clothes pressed & the loose threads snipped. I had to go out & buy a tabletop ironing board. Mine got left behind or sold in the yard sale in South Dakota. I've got my cookies made for the cookie table. We've got the arch built & it's already set up in its place. Everything is going to be so pretty. Did I mention that the wedding colors are lavender & light blue with a touch of burgundy? I'm ready to go do all the wedding things, but 1st, grab a coffee or your favorite beverage & tell you about going plant shopping & I'll show you the remodeled flower bed we did in front of the house, it's finally completely finished & planted, walk with me...

Kevin was shopping for marigolds for the remodled flower bed. All the flowers
looked so good. These marigolds at the grocery store garden center were one in
a pot, so we just looked.

I was shopping for a fern to go
with the arch decorations. These
Bostons at the produce stand
were all so beautiful & vibrant.
 It was hard to choose.

 

I chose this lively character. It might
 have been a bit bigger than I was
expecting. I've babied it all week to
keep it looking it's beautiful
vibrant self. 

The produce stand just got in a
shipment. Kevin went with these
marigolds, 6 plants to a container.
He also got another rhubarb &
planted it beside our other one.

Looking around, there was a different kind
 of fern mingled with these beautiful
geranium baskets. Oh my gosh,
everything was so nice looking.

*  Here are pictures of before, during & the finished remodel of the flower bed in front of the house that I've been talking about for weeks. Kevin wanted to redo the bed to make it easier to mow around. The flowers overgrew the edges last year & grew out into the grass. Even trying to weed eat risked chopping the flowers down. 

Before...

During...

Finished...

Have you tried these grapes? They are
"sweet as candy", as Kevin would say.
I was just talking about my tender tastebuds
 then I accidently got this hot stuff at the
grocery store. This was actually a good 
combination, chips & salsa chased
with the coolness sweet
tasting grapes.

These are some of the things that's been going on in my neck of the woods, how has your week been?

Happenings on the Homestead in the Appalachian Mountains

Weekend Coffee Share

Hello there Adventurous Friends & Family, greetings from Georgia. How you doing this 15th week of 2024? The dogwood trees have come alive. It's 47 degrees here this early Saturday morning. I had planned to sleep in, but I was bright eyed & bushy tailed at 4 am. I don't know why, maybe excited to go to the produce stand & get flowers to plant in the newly remodeled flower bed out in front of the house. Soon my everydays will be a Saturday as I get closer to my retirement date. Then I'll have plenty of opportunities to sleep in & take 2 to 3 hours to have my morning coffee. We got all that rain along with some wind that was forecasted last week. I have more sticks to pick up around in the yard. I didn't walk outside during work time to look up at the solar eclipse, but I did look at some interesting pictures of it online later that evening. I had a good time with the Grandgirls last weekend. The girls did end up convincing me that it was not too cold for them to get in the creek. Good thing I had plenty of hot chocolate on hand. It was too cold for me & Kevin to get in the water to move around the rocks that had washed out of their place. Kevin got a load of mulch instead. We all worked on putting it out around in the flower beds, Kevin cleaned out the chicken house. Grab a coffee or your favorite beverage & I'll tell you about a couple of whoopsies we had this week & a few of the fun things the Grandgirls did while visiting, walk with me...

"This is so much fun" for about 3 buckets, then
they got hot & went to the creek.

The mud bath loving girl.

 

The mud pie loving girl.

The stick fetching loving girl.

  

"Do you like butter?"

The new pulley verses the old
one that fell apart & caused
the belt to break.

*  Whoops... The belt broke on the jeep as we were taking the Grandgirls home. The belt flew off about a mile from our destination. Kevin kept driving on to their house without any power steering but before things started to heat up. Luckly, there are a couple of parts places open around here on Sunday. We were able to get the 2 needed parts to fix the jeep, though Kevin had to get 2 different size pulleys because he wasn't sure which size he would need. Son-in-Law helped Kevin put in the new pulley & belt to get the jeep back on the road. The unneeded pully was returned a few days later for a full refund. I was the flashlight holder & the tool hander in case anyone wonders what I did to help in the situation. 

*  Whoops... We woke up to the power being off one morning this week. Neighbor told Kevin it had went off about 11 the night before. That meant our electricity had been off for at least 8 hours. We went to work & don't know when the power came back on. Kevin has an incubator full of chicken eggs that are supposed to hatch the same time the baby chicks are expected to arrive here in a couple weeks. We're hoping the eggs are ok & maybe the only side effect will be a day or 2 later for hatching.

The hatching eggs look all snug
as a bug under a rug, or maybe not.
 The temperature stays at 99.5 F.
A good range of warmth is 
99 to102, plus a little water
in there for humidity.

A sneak peek of the arch for
Grand's wedding.
 

These are some of the things that's been going on in my neck of the woods, how has your week been?

The strawberries are blooming,
the rhubarb has 4 beautiful leaves,
azalea blooms are about to pop
open, an asparagus the size of a 
toothpick has showed itself.

Happenings on the Homestead in the Appalachian Mountains

Weekend Coffee Share

Hello there Adventurous Friends & Family, greetings from Georgia. How you doing this 14th week of 2024? It was a chilly 38 degrees here this early Friday morning. Looks like there is rain moving in next week, so that might be a good time for Kevin to work at home in his shop building the arch for Grand's wedding. We had our Easter gathering at our place this year. It was a gorgeous sunny day for egg hunting but a tad bit windy for our picnic tablecloths & paper plates. Kevin mowed the grass this week for the 1st time this season, after the egg hunt, of course, so there were lots of high grassy spots for egg hiding. He was pleased with the outcome of the Seed Swap he participated in last weekend. He sold everything he took except the tiller & mower. I picked up an arm load or 2 of sticks around in the mowing areas about every day this week. I think I'm caught up on that task for now. It's one of those never-ending jobs when living amongst the trees. I'm heading out to a baseball game this weekend along with spending extra time with the Grandgirls. We'll probably work in the creek moving some rocks that were washed out of their place, if it warms up enough. The girls will want to help because it's an any reason to get in the creek kind of thing. We'll play a card game or 2 & have some popcorn, I'll bring out my candy stash that I keep hidden for such occasions & we'll have to fit in making cookies some time or another, but 1st, grab a coffee or your favorite beverage & I'll tell you a little about our Easter gathering & a different technique I saw going around facebook that I tried for dying eggs for the egg hunt, come walk with me...

The weeping cheery tree was the boundary line for egg hunting between the littlest
Grands & the Middles. The tree was so beautiful in bloom & the bees buzzing
as they worked paying no attention whatsoever to us Easter egg hiders & hunters.

There were a couple of egg relay
games. Have you ever tried walking
with an egg between your knees?  It's 
not as easy as I thought it sounded.
Some resorted to jumping, that did
not work for me. We laughed so much,
I laughed the hardest I've laughed in a
long time.

There were bubbles, so many
bubbles, I love bubbles.

*  I dyed 2 dozen eggs for the Easter egg hunt. Most of the eggs used were plastic but I still like to mix in some real eggs for old time traditions. At the end of the hunt, all the eggs were given back. We'll use the plastic ones again next year. I made egg salad with the real eggs that didn't have any cracks. Kevin & I ate egg salad sandwiches the rest of the week. Anyways, I tried something new using paper towels for dying a couple of the eggs. Some folks probably already know about it, but I had never seen it, that I recall. Daughter has used silk ties, but I had not seen the paper towel thing. It worked so good, I think I'll dye most my eggs that way next year, if I can remember about it. Paas has been my tried & true egg dying kit forever, though this year, the instructions were on a sperate piece of paper instead of on the back of the box. The reading on the paper was so tiny, I thought I was going to have to get the magnifying glass. Here's how I done the paper towel method...

1st - I marked on paper towel sheets with a marker.

Next - I wrapped one of the paper towels around each of the eggs & tied the paper towel at the top using the Grandgirls hair bands that I had on hand. 

Then - I rolled the eggs in a bowl of vinegar till the paper towel was wet & stuck to the egg all over.

To finish - I let the egg set in a dry bowl for a bit then slowly took off the paper towels. It was a WOW moment seeing the marbled look on the eggs.

Sister got the bunny at the bin store
for $2. It was a cute & fun addition to
our Easter gathering. It needed more 
strings attached to keep it upright due
to the blustery day.

These are some of the things that's been going on in my neck of the woods, how has your week been?

The finder of the most eggs
found 42 & 1/2 eggs. He had his
pockets full too. He didn't know
where the other 1/2 of the
egg went.