I was going to do dinner on the grill tonight.

And you know what that means...

Yup.

We're having a thunderstorm.

Hopefully it will stop before too long. I know rain is good and I'm happy to have it. But maybe it can stop for a few hours so I can get dinner done without getting too wet. ;)

It's almost the weekend. :-)

Sometimes you find the strangest things.

We have lived in this house since December of 1994. 15 and a half years. It's the longest I have ever lived in any house and almost as long as I lived in Muskegon, where I grew up.
Yesterday, hubby pulled some weeds by the front of the house. It was a small area that I had dug up, gosh, five or so years ago when we got rid of the flower bed in front of the house that had been here when we moved in. The landscape timbers were rotting, etcetera. And we had an invasive humming bird vine to get rid of. Don't get me wrong. I love them, but hubby did NOT want them attaching themselves to the house. So, the easiest way to get rid of them and the rotting timbers was to remove the whole thing. Bushes, flowers, vines and all.
A couple of the azaleas we kept. One has never flowered in all the time we have lived here (of course I managed to pick that one to keep out of all the others, haha). The other blooms like crazy.

But to get back to the hubby pulling weeds. He brought one of them in and showed it to me. This is what it had on it.

One lonely peanut. I wanted to keep the plant, but he threw it away. I have no idea where this peanut came from. We don't eat raw peanuts and none of the neighbors have ever had a garden to my knowledge. The peanut was green when he brought it in, and has been drying on the counter since about 5 PM yesterday.
I think I'd like to try growing peanuts in Louisiana. Should be somewhat easy. Never tried roasting or drying raw nuts though. I love pecans out of the shell, but I've never eaten raw peanuts. Only roasted and salted or roasted and sweetened. i.e., store bought.

Happy Wednesday! :)

Weeds

are the bane of most people, unless you are lucky enough to have cows, chickens and such to eat them for you. ;)
Why is it, that when I weed and mulch, they just grow back as if to say 'oh, thanks, we needed that'?
Ugh!

I use either cypress mulch or rocks. I put the black weed stop stuff down before I planted. Well, except in the flower bed directly. I need to do that this fall, I guess, if I want to dig it all up - which I don't, haha.
Oh well. As I say. Ugh.

Another thing? I know one of the blogs I read, he grows something called 'wild strawberries'. They don't look like our wild strawberries. I despise ours, by-the-way. And I would like to be able to eradicate them. They are worse than weeds because weeds you can pull. These, I often don't even know are there until I have a handful of thorns!
I didn't even KNOW strawberries had thorns until we moved into this house here.

I need a good recommendation for gloves that are semi-thorn proof. I know they make some for people who care for roses, but does anyone know any good ones? They need to come in different sizes though, because I have small hands to go with my short legs. ;)

Home again!

That's always nice. We had a nice room. The fridge didn't have a freezer though, so the popsicles he was allowed for his liquid diet, well you know what happened to those.
They had GAC there. That's Great American Country. It's like CMT or Country Music Television. He likes GAC better, but we don't have it here unless we want to pay for premium cable, and we don't. haha.
We watched one of the Planet of the Apes movies. Well part of one. He mostly flips channels so I don't watch a lot of TV when he's home.

His procedure mostly went well today. A couple years ago he had a Sigmoidoscopy, or something like that, which is a short colonoscopy. They found a couple tiny polyps then, and said they were nothing to worry about. Today they said they found a couple polyps and removed them and would send us a letter with the results. We figure it's the same two so we're not too worried about it.

Yesterday we went to 2 different CompUSA stores. We got some blank CDs. Some blank DVDs. A floppy drive for the server station he's putting together, a couple computer fans and a mouse pad with a US flag on it. :)

Today I had to drive home. Ugh. I hate driving. Especially in some place like Raleigh! We stopped at Lonestar in Garner for lunch and fortunately he felt like driving after that. Good thing he was awake enough to give me directions from the hospital or we'd probably have been lost most of the day!


Ah well. As I said. Good to be home. You all have a good week!

What we talked about this Sunday

I think if people in charge (i.e. local/city/state/federal) want to help people out of work/on welfare, they should help these people start/maintain community gardens as part of their.. requirement to get or continue payments. And I think being able to keep and raise chickens should figure in to that, too. I think it would help them develop or keep a sense of worth and give them healthier food too. Just my thoughts.

So we're in our hotel room in Durham. Hubby is drinking the yucky stuff. About 14 hours till his appointment.

Hope you all have a blessed week! ♥

Saturday.

Hot and humid here, but not as hot as it had been. So humid you can't tell though. ;)
Tomorrow morning we leave early for Durham. He wants to stop at the flea market in Raleigh on our way to the hotel in Durham. We get a hotel for these things because he has to be up 4-4 and a half hours before he has to be at the VA Hospital for his colonoscopy.

Which they called and asked to move up to 8AM. So yay. ;)
I've got lots of jello, chicken broth and juice for tomorrow.

After his procedure, we'll go to the cafeteria and get some breakfast to let the anesthetic wear off and to get his metabolism back on track.
Might go shopping in Raleigh before we come home. Monday, we'll see.

You all have a blessed Sunday and hopefully I'll be able to catch up on your blogs after we get settled in our hotel room tomorrow.  :)

A bit of humor. :)

My 25 year old and I went and saw this movie last week. It was hokey, but funny. We both enjoyed it.
Eileen posted a link to the Despicable Me website where you can make your own minion! Haha, and of course I had to have one. :)

Two days until my husband starts his low fiber diet.
Take care!

Monday, Monday. ;)

Nice day today. Windy, hot, but not so much humidity. I'm enjoying it while I can. They say we can expect some of the triple digit heat the Western US is enjoying, by mid week. Ugh. ;)
We spent a lot of yesterday fishing. Caught lots of little fish. Caught turtles. Caught a... what did hubby call it? Oh, a bowfin. Lots of fun, but no good to eat. We got rained on several times, but it wasn't heavy rain, and it was warm, so we fished for a while anyway. Only caught two keepers. A green sunfish and a bluegill. Hubby filleted them and we froze them with the others until we get enough for a meal. :)

Today I shopped for some of the stuff we'll need this weekend. As I mentioned, he starts his low fiber diet on Friday so I needed to be sure to have the right stuff for his lunch for work.

Did some laundry and that's about all I have to say.
Hope you all have a good week!

Weekend almost over

No pictures, sorry. I should get a small pocket camera to take with me.
We caught one catfish yesterday, and let it go. Caught one today, and let it go. Between the two of them, we might have fed one person, haha. They were fun to catch, but they weren't very big.

Tuesday the middle son takes a placement test for college. He didn't go before he joined the Army, and he's been out of school for a while. Fingers crossed.

This coming Friday hubby starts his low fiber diet in preparation for his colonoscopy. We'll be out of town at least part of Sunday. We will spend the night in a hotel near the VA hospital because we have to be up at like 4 AM to finish his liquid prep for the colonoscopy and he obviously doesn't want to be on the road for the three and a half hour drive between home and the hospital. We'll get to the Hospital early to park and get all the admitting done, and then 9 AM for the proceedure. I hope they do everything right this time.

So, I'll be online sometime Monday, and probably Sunday night for a bit, but not long since 4 AM comes early, haha.

You all have a blessed week!

Take what you need and leave the rest...

I know God has a sense of humor, because 8 times out of 10 when I use the grill, it rains. ;) Today, it is pouring. And we have thunder (probably lightning, too, I guess).

And yeah, I need to replace the canopy, too. I've known that for a while now, but usually I'm almost finished before the rain starts. Hopefully the electricity stays on. It's getting nasty out.
If you need some rain, I'll do my best to send it your way! :)

Thanks for the award, CCC!

I'll put it here for now, as I am HTML challenged and clueless, haha. But thank you so much, CCC! :)

Sweet blog award. Thank you!
I'm supposed to pass this to 10 people, so here goes!

1. My brother. Should be a landscaper, but he runs his own salon and landscapes his own back yard. Does a fantastic job! Visit Wayne's World to visit my closest of 5 brothers. I wish I had just a little of his talent. ;) He shares photos of his trips, gardens and the hundreds of flowers and plants he has.

2. My oldest boy. He and his wife and daughter are living the great adventure in England! She is going to Royal Holloway University of London. It's been a big adjustment for them all, but I am so proud of him and what he has accomplished there. Visit Chris and check out his other blogs, too.

3. My sister-in-law, who I am getting to know through the internet. She's going through a rough time right now, but I want her to know I love her a lot!

All the rest of you, haha! I am getting to know a lot of you through your blogs.  Some of you I don't know personally by name, so forgive me for that please. :) But I found all of you through common interests or through blogs that I read and I am learning a lot from you as I get to know you. :)

4. Pam, who farms in Georgia, hence Life on a Southern Farm. She and Farm Man are an amazing couple. I am learning a lot about farming in the south from her blog. Her's was the first blog I found through the common interest of chickens. :) If you raise chickens, I think his chicken nesting boxes are the way to go. I am going to talk my hubby into buying some.

5. Randy actually lives just North of me. Found him through Pam's blog. Chicken Boys are kind of beginning farmers, too. Or homesteaders. Not sure I know the difference. But I enjoy reading his blog. :)

6. Callie of Chickens on the Porch. She free ranges her chickens and that's what we will be doing, too. We'll need all the help we can get keeping the bug population down and if we can do it without poison, so much the better!

7. Melodie over at Laughing Duck Farm. She lives in Texas, so another Southern perspective to help me learn. A city girl needs all the help she can get. ;) I love reading her blog, too.

8. Garden Gnome I'm learning a lot about cooking over at Mom's Cafe Home Cooking. I didn't learn how to cook until after I was married. Sad, I know; and then I learned to save myself because hubby put BBQ sauce on everything. Meat, potatoes, rice, vegetables. Don't get me wrong, BBQ sauce has it's uses, but ugh, haha. Now it has to be Mushroom Soup on everything. ;)

9. Matt over at Foothills Poultry. Chickens and cats. What more can I say? I just enjoy reading about his chickens. And he's got a couple good links there, too.

10. Thomas over at A Growing Tradition takes some of the best photos. He's got a great garden, too, and between him and my brother, I really want to try growing potatoes on my own. :)

There are a lot of other blogs I enjoy, so you're all welcome to this award too. I try to read all my blog-world friends every day. I'm learning a lot about different ways of life and a lot about things I want to know about.
Thank you all for sharing your lives with me. And thank you, CCC for sharing this award with me. :)

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It was 81 when I got up at 6:30 this morning. Now it's 76 with rain and thunder. I wish that those of you who need some rain are getting some! Have a happy Wednesday!

Sunday drawing to a close.

We had a really nice day today. It started out cooler. Mid 70s. We went fishing to our favorite spot (the one I showed you pictures of). Caught lots of little ones and two keepers.

Then we decided to go fishing out by Tarboro. That's one of our other fishing spots. No pictures because the camera was home. Caught lots of little ones, but no keepers. Then we went into Tarboro because that is where we get Popeye's Chicken. ;) It's like Kentucky Fried Chicken or Bojangles, but better. After that, we came home and went fishing to our favorite spot. Caught more little ones. So for a whole day fishing, we only caught the two we caught first thing this morning, haha.
But the day was breezy and partly cloudy, so that helped when the temp climbed to mid 90s. :)

Hope you all have a great week! I'm off to read your blogs now. :)

Semi-wet Saturday.

But we got up to Raleigh to see the brother-in-law.
Stopped by Agri Supply, but they didn't have anything he was looking for so we left and went to the Farmer's Market. We were almost there when hubby started feeling really bad. Normally his blood sugar is very well controlled, but today he had a low blood sugar incident. I gave him a couple of peppermints and got him a cinnamon roll from one of the bakery stalls.
I was kind of shook up after that, I always am when that happens - it's so rare now, so I didn't get to take any pictures of the market, and I didn't spend much time looking. Got some sweet corn and some blueberries and went back to the truck. He was feeling a lot better by then, thank goodness.
We bypassed the flea market and stopped by Harbor Freight to get a drill bit set they had on sale, and then went to his brother's place.

Then we came home. It rained on and off, and we just had a small thunderstorm, but it was mostly a good day. Tomorrow we're hoping to go fishing, but there might be more rain so we'll have to see how it looks to determine where we go and what we do. ;)
You all have a great, blessed Sunday!

Another Friday

Not much happening here. It's hot. Not many daylilies left. Just a couple of the yellow ones. Don't have the camera in the house so no pictures today. The crepe myrtle is still blooming well. The honey bees and bumble bees love it now.  I see lots of them around it all day long.

My experiment with growing some beans in 5 gallon buckets is probably not going to be a success. They're pretty pale. I added a little blood meal to them, but between the late start and the heat, I don't expect them to do too much. Oh well. I wasn't expecting anything to happen. I can't really count on the boys to care for a garden and right now, it's more important to travel to and from Louisiana when it's semi-cool out for the work we're doing. So we go in mid-May and we'll be going again the end of October, first of November. Maybe I can finally get the kitchen painted...

Saw the doctor today for my annual physical. My cholesterol is a bit high. The bad cholesterol, that is. The good cholesterol is actually very good, but since it's been yo-yoing for a few years now, they decided to try me on some medicine. Yay. ;)

TGIF! Going to Raleigh tomorrow. Probably go by the nice farmer's market they have there.

You all have a great, blessed weekend!

Fishing

not catching, haha.
But I thought I'd show you a few pictures of where we fish mostly. It's mostly fresh water, but a little brackish, too.
It's a pretty little place on the Marine base that is just a few miles from our house.

There were a lot of crows out today. We usually see herons, ospreys or cormorants.

I couldn't get a better picture of the white flowers. But they remind me of hibiscus or hollyhocks. I don't think they're morning glories because they bloom all day. Lots of trumpeter vines, and the little yellow flowers are scattered all over the hillside.

We don't fish out at the end of the pier, because it's really shallow out there. Sandbars and lots of weeds. The nice thing about it, though, is it keeps boats and Sea Doos and such out. We do have competition for the fish though.
Gar, which I didn't see any of today and turtles.

There is this one big Alligator turtle that we know is in the creek, but we didn't see that today, either. It's got moss growing on it's shell. When we first started fishing here about 12 years ago, I thought this was an alligator. It was just barely visible in the water at that time.

Ever since then, we've called it the alligator tree. We've lost a lot of bobbers and fish to that tree. ;)
Today, we had another little surprise though.

A real alligator. Young, but an alligator none-the-less.

Hubby figures he's probably about 4 feet long. We were surprised to see him there.
Even though all we had were small fish today. Bluegill, pumpkinseed and a little croaker, we're going out again after dinner, when it's cooled off a bit, to see if those catfish or some bigger pan fish might be biting. :)
Hope you're all having a good Monday!

TGIF!

Going to have some really nice weather here this weekend. Tomorrow we're going to Raleigh to do some shopping. May do some fishing.
Sunday we're going to take it easy (maybe) and celebrate our 36th. And Monday we're going fishing for sure!
And what else, I don't know yet. ;)

Hope you all have a great weekend, and for those of you who celebrate the 4th, have a safe Holiday Weekend!

:)

So what is the secret to peeling eggs?

Hard boiled eggs, I mean. If they are a pain in the behind does that mean I didn't boil them long enough? Did I let them cool too long? Should I have put vinegar in the water or something?

I swear, I am hopeless, haha.

Ugh. It's a good thing I was planning on trying my hand at making egg salad, because I certainly would have failed at anything else today.
And the egg salad is still in question, too. ;)