Enjoying the View

Winter has been fairly mild here so far, but that being said for some reason I am looking forward to Spring more so than I have in previous years.   I need to be patient because our true winter weather usually comes just before spring.

We have been having gorgeous sunsets lately and I would love to capture them all.  They are such a vibrant display of color.  On these drab winter days, I never tire of the beautiful colors of the sunrise and sunset.   They only last a short while but are a spectacular show of God's handiwork! They are a special treat for a few moments each day.

Another sight I never tire of seeing, is our little flock of Chickens!  This is part of our flock.  These girls and our Rooster always  bring a smile to my face.  I love watching them out the window and their silliness during the day.  They free range around our house, and when we go out to feed they race us to their coop.  They all stick together for the most part and every so often they all make a mad dash together across the yard to the safety of their little fenced in area if they hear something they don't like.  One by one they come back out when the coast is clear.  Our Mallard has no idea that he is a duck and when I count our chickens each day, he is just one of the flock.

This past weekend we were blessed with amazing warm weather.  Though I have plenty here to do, I chose to go exploring with my daughter and it was time well spent.  The chores will be here at home for the rest of my life, but our children will not.  We enjoyed a beautiful afternoon together soaking up the warmth of the sun, laughing, talking, exploring, and making  memories.  I couldn't ask for a better day!

Moments in Time

I always seem to find joy in how I spend time during my day.  However there are a few moments of time that are especially enjoyable. Nothing is so important that I can't take a moment and enjoying a beautiful sunrise.  It only takes a brief moment, however it is nothing short of spectacular.  I am not a morning person by any means, but it is hard not to appreciate being awake when I get to enjoy a sight like this. 

As I stand outside I  hear the rooster crowing and the chickens clucking, slowly making their way out of their coop.  The dog is sleepily stretching.  The kittens are playing while the older cats lay lazily watching them frolic about the yard.  I can hear my children quietly getting ready for school inside.  Everyone is awake around me and calmly starting their day.  I savor the gentle start to the day.  It seems once the sun peeks above the horizon, the sounds of the day intensify with the light of the sun.  The once gentle morning breaks way to the busy pace of a day in full motion.

Then evening arrives, quicker now during winter.  I walk around our property doing chores, talking to the animals, watching and listening.  The chickens are quietly roosting in their coop, the pony is contentedly eating, the cats are finding a soft cozy spot to sleep, and the dog is following me around investigating every snap of a twig.  The Cardinals have stopped their chirping and as I stand in the wooded area, I can hear the sound of their wings as they fly from the brush up into their nests in the trees.  They softly chirp one last time while settling in as the sun slips down below the horizon in a beautiful display of color.  Once again everything is quiet, still, gentle, and calm.

Unlimited Possibilities

Today as I was returning to the home we are living in right now, I decided to check on the new house.  The snow outside is starting to melt and before long unless we get another snow, we will loose the clean tranquil look of a fresh snow and go back to the drab and dreary look of winter...without the snow which in my opinion just looks cold!

It was starting to drizzle by the time we arrived and I stopped to snap a quick photo.  Who knows if we will have a "real" snow again until next winter and I wanted a picture of it.  It had already significantly melted.  Just one road over I had gotten stuck in my truck in a three foot drift and the driveway was about six inches lower than the drift, so as you can see, it has melted quite a bit today.  Tomorrow I bet it will be mostly gone.

As I took a moment to look, I realized how many ideas, hopes, and dreams are at the end of that lane.  The possibilities are endless and just waiting, and I realized though I'm trying to fight it because we are in the very beginning stages of remodeling, that I am growing impatient to get the inside finished...because I am finally getting excited about being here.  I felt the return of a familiar feeling looking down that lane.

You see, today I have been struggling with missing my dad more than I have for a while.  I am making remodeling plans and this is something we did together, when I sat at the end of the lane, I discovered that the familiar feeling I was feeling was the return of happiness! I thought I would never again experience true happiness.  Not laughter necessarily, but the feeling that stays with you, that quiet feeling in your heart, the lightness of your chest.  That kind of happiness.  Only later tonight when my sister called did she ask me if I realized today was six months since dad had passed.  I had no idea.  All day today I have written the wrong date!  I don't dwell on it or count down the days, but the date had I been correct would have registered with me.   How fitting on the anniversary of a wonderful man who taught me all he knew about life, encouraged me to "live, go out there and live" I again discover the feeling of happiness.  If you were blessed to know my dad, you knew how happy and joyful he was, always a contagious smile.  He was deeply sentimental, loving, and passionate about life and his family.  I have seen him cry tears of sorrow, and tears of joy right along with me.  I feel his presence with me as I slowly learn to live life without him here, and remember what he thought about life and instilled in me.  He thought life was too short to be down and depressed that we should live, sing, be joyful, enjoy life, go outside, get some fresh air, enjoy nature, he couldn't stand to be "cooped up in the house" as he would say.  He would also say  "live for today", "all you can do is your best", "the Bible never says we are promised tomorrow."  As I slowly heal and allow myself to experience life and live for today, I know he would be happy too.  I know as well how important it is to experience life as fully as possible.

As you go about your day, I wish you all the happiness in life, and unlimited possibilities.

At Long Last

This weekend we received the keys to our new home.  We agreed to purchase the home this fall, made the purchase before Christmas, and finally received the keys this weekend.  It was a long process, but we have been waiting even longer to find a home that was right for us, so it was worth the wait.

Like the home we live in now was when we first received the keys, the new house is a fixer upper and we started the evening we received the keys.  We would prefer to do the work ourselves though time consuming, expensive, and exhausting than to pay for someone else to fix up a home and not enjoy the quality of work or the finish choices but the cost of these would be passed to the buyer.  Instead we would prefer to do the work ourselves and know that the work is good quality and live with choices we like for finishing details.   Like this house at first, there were many things we didn't like once we started removing the layers of wall coverings that we will have to deal with.  More brainstorming needs to be done and adjustments to our original plans but our journey has began.  Like all journeys the path you take has twists and turns but you just keep walking forward and try to enjoy the view as you go, you will only pass over where you are once so you might as make the most of where you are, you will never again return to this point in your journey so enjoy the view.

Yesterday, our path led us to the "new" house and instead of working we spent a short while exploring in the bitter freezing cold along a small pond and our own tiny piece of woods at the end of our property.  We had fun following the trail of the neighbors dog for a while, the tracks of a rabbit, and the faint tracks of the birds in the cold winter snow.  We walked through the trees from one side of the property to the other and had a blast.  When we finished we walked to the house and made dinner in our make shift kitchen listening to music and enjoying the warmth of the house.  We didn't get any work done but we made memories and enjoyed time together which is more important than any work on the ever growing "to do" list.

Below are some winter berries that we discovered while on our walk.  They looked beautiful against the fresh white of the snow.

Happy New Year 2014

Happy New Year 2014!  

Wishing you the very best in the coming year.  Unexpected surprises when you least expect it. Like opening the door and seeing this silent snow in the middle of the night, and awakening to a magical new world in the morning!

Life up Close, Moonflower Delight

When you are walking around, you really  never know what you will find.  As I prepared to leave a weekend retreat a few weeks ago, I was surprised by these first two and quickly snapped a shot of them both separately.  They happened to be on the same large rock, I'm still not sure if the first was lunch for the second!   With critters, I am not as close because I do not want to impose on their space but I was still fairly close enough.

 Praying Mantis, blending in nicely with the rock he was on.

A nice sized lizard on the other side of the rock from the Praying Mantis.  To me, he looks like he might be eyeballing lunch???

The last in the Life up Close mini series are these beautiful flowers.  They are called Moon Flowers

Moon flowers only open at night.  This bloom previously opened the night before so it is not as tightly closed, it is getting ready to open again as you will see below.

This is the side profile of the opened moon flower.  Though a bit out of focus, I left this shot so you could see the yet unopened buds on the right side of this photo.  For some reason my path has crossed with several Praying Mantis this year as you can see one was crawling on the moon flower in this shot.

This is the Moon Flower fully opened in all it's glory.  They are absolutely beautiful and I was so happy to see them on this evening.  My mom planted them and while visiting her she took me outside to see them.  What a treat :)  Wishing everyone a wonderful weekend!

Life up Close, A Garden Walk

Today we have the pleasure of a stroll through the garden enjoying patterns and textures that we might not  have seen before.  These are a collection of plants taken in various locations, some are common weeds that I found beautiful, and some are planted flowers.  I love finding beauty in the ordinary.  Common weeds are natures gift of beauty to us, don't forget to take a moment to enjoy them too.

Enjoy your day :)

Life Up Close, A Walk to the Mailbox

As I went outside to collect the mail from the post box, I found more nature than mail when I arrived at the box.  As usual I couldn't resist capturing them.  I love nature!

 While I'm not going to get into the habit of identifying the species of insects pictured, this species of spider is particularly interesting...this spider is "Argiope aurantia" commonly called "Golden Orb Weaver" most recognized for it's zig zag patterned web.  The zig zag of it's web wasn't captured in my photo but you can go here for more pictures of these spiders and their webs.  They are really neat, I had never seen one before this photo.

I was able to get close enough to this grasshopper to capture the texture on the wings and the fine hairs on it's legs.  The main reason I get so excited about being this close up is that my pictures are all taken with the camera on my phone!   I wanted to combine the two since I always have my phone so I would always have the ability to capture nature in a split second.

And last but not least... lovely wasps building a nest under the box in the newspaper holder.  Thankfully we do not take the paper so they were not disturbed and did not sting anyone.  They have since been removed.

It's amazing what you see, if you slow down enough just walking a few feet from your own front door.  Enjoy your day :)

I'm still here :)

I am still here.  I have been taking things slowly and healing, and still decluttering.  The decluttering challenge was such a success that it was extended for Sept. as well.  I have a couple pieces of furniture that was at my Dad's that I am deciding what I would like to do with.  They used to be in our home once upon a time and I have been deciding if I want to keep them or let them go.  Not exactly a decluttering mentality but when you are dealing with grief, it's better to go slow.  I can always find a home for these items later, but can't get them back.

The weather here is changing and I experimented with some paint color on our porch ceiling.  It was white and bugs were drawn to it like a magnet.  I have read that bugs would not be drawn to a blue color because it reminded them of the sky.  It didn't work for me, but I am really enjoying the nice blue ceiling color.  I used some paint that we already had from another project that I really liked.

This is obviously before,  you can see where I have the biggest amount of cobwebs and bugs above the porch light.

This is after, the bugs are slowly coming back.  For security reasons the light stays on all night and it attracts the bugs so for me the blue didn't work, but it sure looks pretty!

 While out taking the photo of the porch ceiling, I was delighted to see this beautiful Praying Mantis on our door.  It took a while but I finally got a couple of pictures to my liking.  Yes, they are very big here, but how many times do you get to see one super close up?  I think he looks like he is smiling!  I am guessing "if" this is a female it is close to laying a pod to hatch next spring.  Eight years ago, when we first moved to this house my mom bought a pod for my garden and they have continued to hatch and re-appear each year much to my delight.  Like anything tiny, they are absolutely adorable when they are new little hatch-lings.  Ok are bugs adorable???  Well I guess not in a furry kitten sort of way but if you know how big they get, they are :)

Happy 4th of July!!!

Here in America, we spend our fourth of July holiday celebrating with fireworks, picnic's, and some of us love to decorate and show our spirit by decorating our homes with patriotic colors and flags.  These photo's are courtesy of my daughter, she took these just to share with you :)  I am very proud of her photography skills! 

At our home we have our patriotic colors on proud display, tucked around our gardens in full celebration.

We have been enjoying fireworks every evening in our neighborhood and town.  They can be heard and seen through out  our little town each night.  To add to the enjoyment the weather has been absolutely beautiful and sitting out each evening has been so enjoyable.

This little Radio Flyer is the wagon  my sister and I spent hours playing with as little girls, I plant red and white flowers in these beautiful blue pots each spring in hopes of a beautiful display of patriotic colors for the fourth.  It is one of my favorites around the  yard and garden.

This what our home looks like from the road.  I love driving down the road and coming to our house.  It is so cheerful and festive.  Tonight we will join with friends and family at a picnic and later fireworks in celebration.  I am very much looking forward to this.  Have a safe and fun Independence Day!!!

Too view or join a 4th of July open house party, visit No Minimalist Here :)

Busy like a Bee

While things here on my blog have been a little quiet lately, I have been quite busy here at home.  Spring is in full force and simply stunning.

These are Phlox.  They are in our front flower bed and so pretty.  They won't bloom like this all summer so I enjoy them as much as possible while they are in bloom.  I love how they cascade over the garden wall.
Along with the beautiful flowers of spring, the grass also starts growing in leaps and bounds, not just the grass mind you, the weeds as well.  In fact I think an honest ratio of what is growing in our
"yard" is about 90% weeds and 10% grass.  However it covers the soil and makes a place to play so it works.  It's rapid growth called for a replacement of our lawn tractor.  We make things last as long as we can at our house and this tractor was worked on and gimped along for the past six summers.  We purchased it used to start with and it finally died.  The replacement is wonderful and I thoroughly enjoyed mowing this past week and welcomed a nice trimmed up lawn.  I love things to be neat and tidy and the yard is no exception.

This is another view of the front flower beds with the Phlox.  I do not know what the other plant is at the bottom of this shot.  A friend gave them to me and I planted them along the wall and they have responded really well.  It is such a joy for me to be outside and working in the yard.  Our garden is almost ready to plant.  My DH tilled it up again and we spread fertilizer and were blessed with rain this week.  When it dries out we will till once more time and begin planting the starts and seeds we have.

One of my favorite places in our yard is the front flower bed and the small water fountain.  I love to watch the transformation of a bare winter garden and the bright green lush vegetation of perennials waking up and spreading out over the garden.  Slowly the bare garden is transformed and before you know it there are blooms and beauty all around to enjoy as we come and go past this garden.  What a joy :)

The Essence of Spring

I know I should get over the spring flowers and post something else.... but I just love the freshness and beauty of it all!  I love capturing what makes spring so beautiful to me.  In a world that can give us so many reasons to feel down, it's uplifting to look around and find joy in so many things.  It just makes my heart so happy!!!

This is a close up of what I call Crocus.  I might have the wrong name for this but, it is what I know it as.  My sweet DD brought this to me while I was outside.  I never get over the feeling of awwww when my girls bring me flowers.  So sweet and kind.

Our sweet little chicks playing hide and seek in the ivy.  They spent quite a bit of time hiding and taking a dust bath in the small bit of dirt there.  They started in the yard and found the ivy later on.  This was their first visit outside.  They really enjoyed it.  I enjoyed watching them.  I will be sad to see them go to the farm, but no matter how much I look, sadly I don't think country life is in our future.

This beautiful daffodil chose to grow between the patio and the patio pavers.  It bloomed where it was planted!  A lesson I try and follow.

I could have first cleaned this stone, but then I realized this is so realistic of real life.  Despite our blemishes and spots we love each other unconditionally and that is so beautiful.  The most important thing in my life, what I live for is my family and I am so blessed.

Enjoy your day and the beauty around you whatever season you are in :)

Frolicking Fun

As I drove the country roads home this evening, I stopped to enjoy several frolicking new calves running around playing a game of chase. 

When I snapped a picture of this one, another that had been previously chasing came trotting up and posed as well.

I love stopping and enjoying life around me as often as I can.  Even more so when my DD's are with me to take a moment to enjoy things as well.  My youngest DD and her friend eeewed and aawed at the calves, then the mommy, can we get one? started lol.  It is so refreshing and makes me feel relaxed watching these little guys.  It always puts a smile on my face :)

Stroll Around the Lake

On Easter we made our way to our little local lake and took a stroll.  We had so much fun exploring as a family.  We ended last year in a drought and have not yet  completely caught up on our low water levels.  The lake is down by several feet and we had the chance to explore territory  we had never seen.  Huge beds of empty clam shells were exposed.  Thousands and thousands in some areas.

The weather was absolutely beautiful and the sun was warm.  We had the lake to ourselves and thoroughly enjoyed it.  My DH taught the girls how to skip rocks on the smooth surface of the water.  In many places along the shore there are many layers of broken up Sandstone.  The pieces make perfect stones for skipping rocks.

 I even discovered my first Dandelion of the season! It was happy and sunny and beautiful.  I had to capture it.  I am always elated to discover the first one of the season.  Sometimes they are blooming before the Daffodils are!  Daffodils are my favorite spring flower because they are so cheerful and to me it is a sure bet that though sometimes cold outside, there is hope for spring once again!

 As I strolled around snapping photo's of my family and the beautiful world around me I of course had to capture my favorite, a beautiful water stained tree.  As you can see by the white section on the tree, this is the normal range of the water level in the lake.  The water is well below this level. 

Before leaving, I was able to capture the abundant blooming of the small fairy flowers.  They are a light purple color and so dainty, I can just imagine a parade of fairy's waiting for them to come into bloom so they can decorate with them for a party :)

I am so thankful that we were able to go to the lake and enjoy the afternoon.  Time spent together is a treasure!

It Happens in Three's

Today in the kitchen my oldest dd and I were going to prepare a veg burger.  We had the toaster plugged in for toasting the bun, and when she plugged in the indoor grill the outlet sparked a small spark.  When she told me I made a mental note to tell my DH.  When we opened the package for the veg burgers they were very cold but not frozen!!!  She had just retrieved them from the deep freeze where we have a new order of beef frozen, or was frozen?!?!  Upon investigation the steaks are thawed but the rest is still thankfully frozen but a large portion will need to be eaten asap.  A frozen prepared pizza that was given to us was in the top of the freezer that was thawed so I popped it in the oven for my youngest dd and her friend.  About half way through my oldest dd and I heard a loud "pop" sound... my favorite baking stone had cracked!

Seriously?????  Around here we always say that bad things happen in three's.  So I guess we got them all out of the way but goodness!  Thankfully, I have a second baking stone so no worry there and no need to buy a replacement.  We discovered that while we were working on some electrical work a breaker accidentally got left off that was turned off for safety. DH will investigate to make sure the outlet doesn't need replaced.  At least all issues were easily remedied.  The meat is a different story......

It Arrived.... the Beautiful Snow

I really had my doubts, we had been predicted to get snow early in the morning for two days.  Admittedly after the second morning of idle predictions I decided if it came, it came.  Yesterday's weather of rainy sleet-ish mix in the evening gave me a suspicion that the storm was really on it's way this time... and it was.  Ohhh it was beautiful.  I wish I had captured the first glimpse.  My daughter a late night owl like myself couldn't sleep and peeked out the window in the wee hours of the morning.  She came to ask if I had looked outside, for the next several hours we camped in front of the windows watching the gorgeous snow fall in the quiet stillness of the night.  We debated on the cancellation of school, laughed together, chatted about this and that, and she even indulged in a walk to the mailbox under my protective eye as an excuse to enjoy the magic of the falling snow with no one about.  It was quiet, and beautiful and much brighter than she expected it to be outside. As the snow piled up my least concern was school in the early hours of morning.  There were no road graders out to clear the snow yet, and there was a fair amount.  School was going to be out I was most certain.  We went to bed and the call for cancellation came a few hrs. later.  We all slept in.

When my youngest dd woke me,  the fun began.  Both girls dashed outside to enjoy the first "real" snow of the year.  The kind of snow I was used to getting as a girl, the kind perfect for making forts and snow balls, structures of whatever the mind could imagine to build and fantastic snowmen! Here we get one good wet snow if we are lucky, typically we see a bit more ice than snow.  This was the perfect snow for all of it!!!

First they requested Snow Ice Cream.... This sneaky Mama asked Dad to bring the cream and eggs home when he returned from work early this morning so the ingredients would be ready :)  They had made mention of making their favorite snow treat "if" it really snowed.  They brought me a large bowl of good clean snow...

I gathered the ingredients and began mixing...2 eggs beaten, 2 c. cream, 1 c. sugar all mixed together.  I set the mixture aside until they returned from playing outside in the snow when we would add the freshly gathered snow now in a bowl on the porch waiting.

 

I love the snow accumulated on the branches of the trees.

My favorite view in the winter.  Looking out over the field from the window at the beautiful pristine freshly fallen snow!

The girls had a blast making a snow lady with red hair like Mama they said :)

When they returned inside we added the clean snow to the cream mixture and they enjoyed delicious Snow Cream.  They mentioned making large amounts while we have snow to last a few months lol

Many trips in and out were made to play in the snow.  While there was a new snow lady being created in the back yard I made Vegan "meatloaf", mashed potatoes, and green beans for dinner.  It was delicious!

Now we have an assortment of gloves, hats, and scarves drying on the clothes wrack.  Puddles of water gathered by the doors and wet boots lined up.  Frozen Snow Cream in the freezer and many fun memories and pictures, all evidence of a fun filled snow day.  What a treasured day :)