Happenings on the Homestead in the Appalachian Mountains

 

Weekend Coffee Share

Hello there Adventurous Friends & Family, greetings from Georgia. How you doing? We had all 4 seasons of weather here this week: warm, spring blooms & a thunderstorm; beaming hot sun having to put on sunblock; wind with twigs & sticks in the yard & it snowed. Grab a coffee or your favorite beverage & we'll talk a little about the Bradford pear trees that are in bloom then were going to baseball games & heading out on a trial ride somewhere another this weekend.

Best day ever moments with
 baseball, kettle corn & the
smell of fresh cut grass. I
could eat this whole bag myself
in a sitting though I did share
most of it.

Kevin cooked us some fish bites
for supper one night. The fish
were caught fresh then put up
in the freezer.

I've got a rocking camp chair picked out for when the enclosed trailer camper transformation is complete. Kevin said he can just use a fold up metal chair. I will probably get 2 of the rockers when the time comes just in case Kevin decides he does want to sit beside me by the campfire & rock too. Kevin got a utility trailer for the side-by-side so we can go on day rides without having to use the larger enclosed trailer. This week we worked on getting the side-by-side ready to ride, needing insurance & a tag. A deputy had to come out to look at the vin number & do a little inspection. The vin number tells the life story of a vehicle such as if it's been wrecked, stolen or whatnot. GA is not a ride anywhere you want to ride state, with only being able to ride on county roads. There are many private places for riding for a fee. We'll be checking out some or all of those places eventually. Some are in neighboring states.

I discovered a different flavor of pork skins
at the grocery store this week. They are
 pretty good to tame a sweet craving.

A row of Bradford pears beautiful
in bloom at the cemetery.

I had a good little chat with a lady that was walking her dog along the river walking trail at the ballfields while waiting till game time. She mentioned that the Bradford pear trees were now considered invasive, she thought they were banned & people could get fined for having them these days. We have one on our property, so I did some reading & sure enough. Some states have banned the trees & other states have it up for consideration. The trees started being planted in the early 1900s to 1960s. They were considered one of the best landscaping trees due to their ability to grow just about anywhere, their beautiful early spring bright white blooms & their pretty fall leaf colors. They became one of the most popular ornamental trees in the United States. Problems started showing up 20 to 30 years later. It was first believed that the trees wouldn't spread seeds & would stay where they were planted. Early 2000s the trees were declared invasive because overtime, the trees did cross-pollinate with other pears & spread aggressively to places they were not wanted to be. Since around 2010 the trees have been considered one of the worst invasive trees in the Southeast. My area does not currently have bans or fines. There are local programs such as the Bradford Pear Bounty Program that encourages the trees to be cut down & they give free native trees to plant back. Well, I be.

Robins on the ballfield. I know
I've mentioned it before, I go
to the games to smell the
fresh cut grass.

  

My early morning shadow &
spring blooms along the trail.

It snowed! 

We had an overnight thunderstorm that rocked & lite up the house. The grass turned a vibrant green as daylight approached. Later in the evening it snowed then the weather turned miserably cold compared to the sunburn heat that we had just had.

The Lenton rose thrives in our late-winter
early-spring cold snaps.

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 this Friday the 13th. How you doing? The forsythia bushes & some of the fruit trees are blooming. I spent the week with Grands while their parents went on a spring break getaway. Grab a coffee or your favorite beverage & we'll talk about our themed days & how the camper transformation is going. I've got unpacking & laundry to do then I'm going to the opening baseball ceremonies this weekend. 

Moma, Me, Sister - Read Across America 
with Dr. Suess. We take our homeschool
day themes maybe a bit too serious.

The youngest Grands explore
in the garden.

Messy Monday - Hotdog roast & catching tadpoles. Our pond has failed to hold water. It's still on our to-do list to line it with some Georgia red clay. For now, it's the perfect place where tadpoles can thrive. 

Sometimes at Nana & Pa's
house you have to cook your
own food.

About a trillion tadpoles
 were caught.

Topsy Turvy Tuesday - Grand's birthday, desserts for every meal, meet the parents for lunch & an adventure outing. Desserts included birthday cake for breakfast, cinnamon roll for lunch, ice cream for snack & peach parfaits for supper. 

Elk crossing in the national park. The Grands
had never seen elk. It was a learning
opportunity of all sorts - How do you spell
elk, why is that one wearing a collar...

  

One cinnamon roll was enough to feed
the whole table. 

  

Snow tubing inside
where the temperature
is 65 to 70 degrees
year round.

Animals to pet, feed & hold at the zoo. 

   

Ice cream before I head back
home with Grands.

Happy 8th Birthday to Grand Jemma.

Wacky Wednesday - Hat Day. Trail walk, playground, picnic, space presentation & local history tour.

We got our hats on heading
to the picnic area.

 

Stars & planets for lunch.

We found lots of sweet gum balls
along the trail & saw some squirrels.
Dandelions were popped up everywhere. 

  

We walked to the river, skipped 
rocks then Sister took the oldest
ones to a couple of local historical
sites pertaining to the first settlers
of the area.

Thankful Thursday - Cooked a turkey, cleaned bedrooms & studied for Bible drills.

Grands prepped the turkey.

  

The turkey cooked up beautifully, though it 
wasn't done in time for lunch as planned.
Starving Grands got chicken bites
quickly cooked in the air fryer instead.

The parents brought home donuts in loving
memory of Baby Grand's birthday & the
cat's birthdays.

  

Daughter always has the most beautiful
centerpieces on the dining table.

Happy 2nd Birthday to Grand Aisley,
forever a part of our family
story.

It's a pretty blue color. It has rock lights 
underneath & speakers of some kind.
It even has a ceiling fan. Yay!

Kevin cleaned out the enclosed trailer, bought a side-by-side & already hauled it home while I was away. He wanted to get a side-by-side 1st, so he can build the camper around where the side-by-side will travel in the trailer.

Pear tree blooms. We've had a nice
warm spell. A cold front is moving in
 Monday with temperatures dropping
below freezing that will probably
kill the fruit buds.

These are some of the things that's has 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 this Friday morning. Time is passing so quickly it seems. I can't believe it's already March, can you? Baseball season has started & we have 2 birthdays this month. How you doing? I know it's been a while since I've shared. I've been assisting Daughter with Daycare & Homeschool a couple days a week. Kevin has been hunting, building bird houses & getting the boat & poles ready to go fishing. We put up deer, wild hog & squirrels in the freezer. He didn't get a bear this past hunting season. He saw several just like last year, but they were Moma's with cubs & you can't take those. Grab a coffee or your favorite beverage & we'll talk about spring & some projects we've started, then I'm heading out to Grands birthday party this weekend. Rain is forecasted for every day next week & warm temperatures up to 70s. That will surely get the grass to growing. We've seen several already out mowing. 

Signs of spring are starting to show up in our parts & we're hankering to go camping. We've been talking for a while now & looking to upgrade our little teardrop camper to something bigger so Grands can come along camping with us 1 or 2 at a time. We finally came to an agreement on a camper that we're going with. It's going to be a project. We're going to transform our enclosed trailer into a camper. Kevin has been talking about wanting to do it ever since he got the trailer. We have ideas of what we want to go where. Kevin is currently storing his farm market sale stuff in the trailer. Looks like a clean out & finding another place to store these items is going to be the 1st step of the process, so we can start with an empty trailer.

The dining table & bed
will go in the middle & back.

The kitchen will go in the front.

  

A window over here & a
window over there.

Kevin saw a blue bird on the feeder, so he built a few more houses to put up. Daughter gave us an amazing birdfeeder for Christmas. It takes pictures of the birds & sends to my phone. The feeder can also take videos or be watched live. 

Making windsocks out of jugs
was a homeschool project.

The Carolina Wren is a frequent
visitor to the bird feeder.

These 2 rockers for the porch
are ready to be painted green
to match the other 2 rockers
already on the porch. 

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