The river is up. It happens every winter when there are big rains north and east of us. You can't tell where the trees end and water begins in this picture. I like that.
A mossy moon.
The clover is already threatening its takeover of our yard. We are expecting freezing temperatures a few nights this week so there is a slight chance that we will spray some RoundUp on the yard within the week. A very small, slight chance.
We always threaten. We rarely spray.
Daryl and my nephew, Mitch, are working today to restock the woodpile. I do love a fire in the fireplace and I'm grateful that he will spend his day off from his regular job to work so hard. A man who worked with Daryl used to say that firewood warms you twice. Once when you cut and split it, the second time when you burn it.
I'm regularly amazed at how much work it takes to keep our little 10 acres going and I sometimes think about how different our lives would be if we owned a loft apartment in the city. Since we live here, though, and since I love it so much, I do take satisfaction in the reward of hard work. I also have learned to let go of any idea I ever had of perfection or of turning our land into some sort of beautiful garden. My goal is to keep the space directly connected to the house looking somewhat manicured. For the rest, I will do what I want to do, and what I can do. After all, there are no landscape or yard care police roaming out here :)
We are in the middle of grandchild birthday season around here.
It began on November 27th with this little guy turning 2.
I didn't know him that day, but I can't remember a day that I haven't loved him. He is energetic, coordinated, cute, and all-boy. He likes his hands to be clean and his cars to be in a straight line. He likes his "guys" (his Star Wars characters), his dog, and he loves his family.
The next birthday was Jonathan's in December. Because of all of the hulabaloo around the holidays, he hasn't had a party, yet. He will soon, though, and I'll write about him then.
Lily's 5th birthday was yesterday. She wasn't posing when I took this picture -- I was just lucky enough to capture her being her sweet self. Lily is loving, confident, talkative, and friendly. She doesn't like bugs. At all. She has a tender heart, she hurts when someone else hurts, and she is always ready with a warm, genuine hug.
Daniel and Bella finish up our short birthday season early next month.
Last year I started asking the children 20 questions that I found on the internet and decided to ask them these questions each year around their birthday. Bennett is still too young to play this game, but on Sunday, I had my interview with Lily. Here is an excerpt:
1. What is your favorite color?
Pink and purple......Red and dark blue.
2. What is your favorite song?
Jesus Loves Me. At least that's the only song I know.
(And then she breaks out singing this made-up song) "I'm not afraid of the animalssssss. I'm not afraid of the bears or the lions or the snakessssssss."
3. What is your favorite kind of cereal?
The round kind. The round kind called cereal.
4. What do you want to be when you grow up?
A police girl.
I had no idea this 20 question thing would be so entertaining! I will share any insights from the other 3 Greers when I get my time with them.....
I suppose that every day is a present that God gives us, but he gift-wrapped this one even more special than normal. If this mid-November Saturday had been gray and rainy no one would be surprised. After all, we are in the waning days of fall, winter is looming on the next calendar page.
But today is one I dream of all year. Perfectly sunny, warm, and all in tints of yellow.
I walked around the yard soaking up the sounds and views around me. The slope to the boat landing leads to the back waters of the Alabama River. Much of the year it is muddy, but today the water came up to the bottom of the landing. It is hard to tell, but the shiny place at the bottom of the picture is the river.
The birds and squirrels accepted today's gift with a playful attitude. They sang more, chattered to each other, played in the big oak.
I've always heard that robins signal the coming of spring, but that would be if you live in more northern climates. Our yard was full of robins today.
As I roamed around I found my way to the top of the hill in our yard. We share a driveway with Daryl's parents. This is where the drive splits, theirs to left, ours to the right.
At the back of our hill is a small burial plot. A few years ago when Jackie's cat, Scarlett, died I buried her at the base of a tree. It was just me and her on a rainy day I'll never forget. I placed a small piece of flagstone on top of her grave as a marker.
When Shiloh died we buried her next to Scarlett. They would never have been this close to each other in life :) Scarlett's stone stayed flat for years, but Daryl stood the stones up and I like it that way.
One day I'd like to put a place to sit and reflect and enjoy the beauty on top of our hill. And when I am gone and cremated I want my ashes scattered or buried there. Not because I want to be buried next to my dog, but because I can't think of a better resting place for the earthly me.
The eternal me will already have gone on to endless days just like this one.
This week I was using our lawn mower to clean up the yard. Kind of a once a month weed cutting and leaf mulching chore. For the first time in the ten years we have lived in this house I was struck by how many nuts we grow around here.
I have mentioned the black walnuts several times. They are green when they fall from the tree and the ones in the picture are just a little smaller than a baseball. After they lay on the ground for a few days, they begin to turn black and you can see that on the one on the right. The black part eventually falls off and leaves a hard shell with a walnut inside.
We also have several hickory trees. The outer shell of the hickory nut is very hard, thick, and just like a round wooden box. It is in segments and falls off leaving the softer shell with the nut inside. This is a favorite of the squirrels and we can hear the hard shells falling from the trees all day long.
The pecan crop in our yard is pretty good this year. In most years the worms get to the pecans before we can pick them up. This year, we seem to be ahead of them.
My favorite nut in the yard is the acorn. Most of the oak trees around here are in the woods, but we have a couple of them at the edge of where I mow. In my very limited experience, the larger the tree, the smaller the acorn.
Here is why I like the acorns best: they are just so cute!
I can either look at it like a beautiful, intricate creation of God,
or I can think of it as a little VeggieTales-type character wearing a funny hat knitted by his grandmother:)
About 30 thirty years ago Daryl and I were part of the Farm Bureau Young Farmers, which at the time was an accurate description of us: Young Farmers. I don't remember the entire purpose of the organization, but I do know that it was an attempt to promote farming in our area.
One year we organized a beauty pageant. I have no idea what that might have had to do with farming, unless we were attempting to recruit beautiful young women to drive tractors and ride horses. And, while I don't remember very much about that event I do remember the name of the winner: Twinkle Andress.
Daryl fell in love with the name Twinkle and decided that day that if he ever had a daughter her name would be Twinkle Greer. I, on the other hand, was not so sold on that name for our daughter. I have forgotten the story that the original Twinkle told us about her name, but we had no such story and the name didn't fit in with our other children's names.
How would it sound to say, "I'd like you to meet my children, Ben, David, and .....Twinkle."
Daryl was serious, though, and I tried to find names that would work with Twinkle.
Twinkle Ann. Twinkle Louise. Mary Twinkle. I was trying.
As it happened, though, when we had our little girl, level heads prevailed and we gave our daughter two family names: Jacqueline, after my dad, Jack, and Anne, after me.
Jackie grew up knowing that her "almost" name was Twinkle. In fact, Twinkle was one of her nicknames. Other people heard about that and started calling her "Twinks." Twinks was part of her email address for years and sometimes, even now, a friend at church will ask me how Twinks is doing.
It seemed a shame to have a name be such a part of our lives and never have a family member wear it. So, when we named our cat, Twinkle was an easy choice for us all.
The original Twinkle grew up from her beauty pageant days and became a wife, mother, business owner, and....a politician.
When I saw her name on the ballot today I did the natural thing:
As a side benefit, it is fun to have them around. They are interesting to watch, they eat my scraps, and it makes our little space feel like an old fashioned farmstead. But, they aren't smart, they aren't pets, and they are a lot of work and expense.
So, without the eggs we just wouldn't keep them around. Over the past couple of months their egg production has gone from a dozen a day, down to five a day, and now only two chickens are laying occasionally. And we are feeding 25 of the little girls!
It isn't their fault, though. They are just too old to lay eggs. Over the years we have found that chickens are good layers for about a year and a half. For six months after that, they do okay. By the time they are around 3 years old, their working life is over.
If I had been paying attention, I would have added some young hens to the brood about a year ago. I wasn't though, so here we are -- store-bought eggs in the refrigerator. Yes, it's true. I had to buy eggs. In the past 15 years that has happened to me only one other time!
About three weeks ago I placed an order for 25 baby chicks. I chose three different breeds: two of them are good layers and don't mind the cold weather and the other breed lays the green and blue eggs.
One morning last week at about 7:00am, we got a call from the post office asking us to please come pick up our baby chicks. When I walked inside, I could hear the little peepers. All 25 of them came in a box that is about 12x10x5 inches.
When I first set them up in their box in the basement, they were so noisy that I could easily hear them all over the house.
As it turned out, they just weren't warm enough. I turned on their heat lamp and aimed it into the box. They grew calmer and quieter. Within a few minutes they were all just standing still soaking up the warmth. As they got warm, they got sleepy. One by one they began to close their eyes -- and lose their balance! One would fall over and knock down the few standing next to it. Then they would stand and start the process again.
The poor little critters were just exhausted. Within a 48 hour period they had been hatched from an egg, put in a box with strangers, shipped from Texas to Alabama on a truck, spent the night in a post office, and then plopped down into a cardboard box. With full tummies and a heat lamp they settled in for a nap. When I went back down to check on them, they had all spread their little wings and laid down flat on their stomachs, heads stretched out in front.
I would find myself tiptoeing around the house, trying not to wake the sleeping babies. I was careful not to bang any pots while I was cooking. That lasted about a day and then I remembered --they are CHICKENS, for Pete's sake!
Do you know how long it takes a baby chick to get old enough to lay eggs? SIX MONTHS! Due to my mismanagement on the farm, I'll be buying my eggs for six more months! I don't plan to let this happen again, though. In fact, I am pretty upset with myself to be in this position!
I feel a little like Scarlett O'Hara in this clip:
"As God as my witness, they're not going to lick me. I'm going to live through this. And when it's all over, I'm never going to be hungry again, no nor any of my folk."
(hahahaha)
In some of Scarlett's other words, "Fiddle-dee-dee! I'll think about that tomorrow."
Every few days a herd of horses comes to visit. They live down the road from us and seem to just wander around. Last year there were seven, this year there are nine.
Some days they wander the country road and wind up here.
