Author Archives: Eva

About Eva

Hi, I'm Eva. Thank you for stopping by. I live in Mendota, Virginia. If you like rural life in a country village, sharing decorating and DIY ideas, gardening, local and seasonal eating, food preservation, thrifting, and anything to do with honey, we have something in common.

Mendota Daily September 17

Happy Monday evening!   I started back on my weight loss which basically I’ve learned means walking every day. If I walk every day, I lose weight. It’s been less about what I’m eating — although I have been watchful — and more about these feet hitting the road every morning.

Anyway, this morning  I walked two miles, came home and showered and headed out. When you live 17 miles from a retail store, trips count! I had the following “mental list” as I headed out….Hancock Fabrics (40% coupon in hand); TJ Maxx (cute black jeans in mind); Hobby Lobby (40% coupon in hand); Whitney’s Closet (15 consignment items to drop off); Salvation Army (stuff to donate); Target (exchanged a shower curtain); nail salon for manicure; dry cleaners; and finally, My Pal Walmart! I started in Kingsport…looped around to Bristol and then home. Whew! It was 3:00 pm when I pulled into the garage.

I bought a few items to work on fall decor projects. Other than the gazillion gourds that are everywhere, I haven’t done as much as I thought I’d have done by now.   While I’ve already shown you the foddershocks I cut from the corn patch,  I didn’t show you what they look like with a few mums tucked in here and there. I just can’t keep from glancing over at it. So simple and so pretty.

I also made a wreath.

 I started not to show it to you because I’m not 100% happy with it. It’s in puberty. It has two little orange boobies that keep staring at me everytime I look at the door. 

I  tried to make a wreath that was more organic than what I’ve been seeing.   I used ribbon, burlap, Spanish moss and Indian corn.  However, I needed the little pumpkins (which are absolutely nonorganic).   I really needed three, but I only had two so that’s what I used. 

Should I add another pumpkin or just put a bra on the door?

Here’s another thing that reminds me of fall.  Soup.   I made soup last week to take to a family member who has been ill and is now recovering.  Bread, soup and a bit of our honey.    I think that bringing food to someone who is ill, lonely or sad is one of the best ways to say you care.  

I’m having a perfect evening watching “My Big Fat Greek Wedding” with my  Gracie Dog beside me.   My sister lost her beloved Bailey Dog and it’s reminded me that my time with this dear girl is short.    She is on the couch and I can reach out and touch her every few minutes. 

Mike is in the kitchen messing around. 

I love the sweetness of normal.

 

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CITR and Back In Mendota

Hi everyone!

I’ve been gone for a few days. My friend Helene and I went to the Chickens In The Road Retreat (CITR)  in West Virginia! We’re back! We’re glad to be back! We had a nice time and met wonderful people who share some common interests. However, we also realized that we didn’t have to go to West Virginia to learn home canning, make soap, quilting,  apron making, pie making, yogurt making and so forth.     If you live in rural Southwest Virginia, do any of these activities sound familiar to you? Me too! I What were we thinking? 

Once we got there, we realized that we could have stayed home and done these things and slept in our own beds instead of sleeping on a very small, very tiny, very stained mattress!!

Plus, because I wasn’t watching my dates, we missed the Saturday performances at Rhythm and Roots.

Before I left, Mike hung the new kitchen light. My old light is pictured below…it was a light that traveled with us from Massachusetts for sentimental reasons. I do not want to get rid of it…I think we’ll find a new home for it in the guest house…but it just looked a little brassy. That light is a tart!

Sorry about this giant picture…it was from my media library on Word Press and I was using a different photo editor when this photo was taken.

And here comes the new light…which I got at a great price and yakked about that in a previous post (here if you wish to read).

Mike, not an electrician (at all), hung the light. I stood about patiently while he grimaced, glared and made faces and said unmentionable words.   However, eventually, he got the light hung! Doesn’t it look great? Sorry about the darkness of the picture…there are just so few times my table is clean and I can take a picture.

And then..within 48 hours, it started.   If the phone rang and the dishwasher was on, the lamp, phone and dishwasher went off.   We tried to figure out what it was and somehow ended up without the well pump working. Next the refrigerator was not working…we had to get an extension cord and plug it into a different outlet.

Chrissy the Cat laid low during the whole ruckus.  She stayed under the table.

Me:  Hey Chrissy…can I get under there with you?

Chrissy:  No Silly Human…you may not!   Now get me some food before I pee on this chair leg. 

 

So all that happened on Thursday morning, and I left for CITR.  I was happy to be pulling out. Things were a bit tense around here.   A few hours after I left,  an electrician arrived and I think the problem is resolved. No more DIY light installations.

I’m back home (we left early).  West Virginia is beautiful, but Clinch Mountain is my mountain.

I am so happy to be home.

 

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My Laundry Room Is Happy!

As I’ve mentioned before, I have a close friend who describes my decorating style as cheerful. She’s right. I like color and a certain brightness to the rooms I live in. They make me happy. Did I show you my very unhappy laundry room? It’s very, very sad.

I’ve finished updating the laundry room today.  Here’s one of my “after” pictures and then details of what I did during this process of changing the look and feel of this little room that I enter daily.

I knew that red and black would change the way the celery colored paint would look, and I went looking for an inexpensive piece of fabric for a window treatment. I found a black, white and red fabric at Hobby Lobby for $9 per yard. I had a 40% off coupon so that brought it down to $5.60 per yard. I bought 1 and 1/2 yards.

Here’s the fabric..

We had created a  storage problem because we stored tons of lightbulbs in the cabinets above the washer and dryer. It was Little Debbie to the rescue again as Mike picked up empty Little Debbie boxes at Sam’s Club and I painted them, hot glued ribbon on them and used wide-mouth canning lids and scrapbook paper for labels. With the ribbon, I have about $2 in each box.  What a deal! I have attractive storage for the bulbs and easy-to-access storage for laundry and cleaning supplies.  I couldn’t be happier.

I used four boxes.

I decided to keep trash bags out in the open where they are easy to find. When we have company, which is fairly often, sometimes they’ll ask “where do you keep the trash bags?” Now, I can just point them to the laundry room!

Living 17 miles from a grocery store,  I’ve learned that white vinegar can handle just about any cleaning job and it’s a good thing to have for laundry, too.   I’m keeping it on hand in one of my canning jars.  Same with the clothespins.

My husband made this small distressed red shelf.  Love it.  I also keep clothespins in it. I like a plant in every room–that inclues the laundry room.

I had these red plates which I’d bought many years ago.  I’ve never used them.   When I was thinking about the laundry room and the need to have some brightness in there, they came to mind.

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I had to wait for several days to put the plates up. I use an adhesive backed plate hanger for hanging plates, and I haven’t found any place in Bristol that carries them. I ordered these from Amazon on Thursday and they arrived today (Wednesday). I was so excited when the mail arrived with them…you’d think someone mailed me gold!

The ribbon, fabric, spray paint and spraypaint were all that I purchased. I like using what I have on hand, as it inspires me to think “outside the box” (or in this case…in the box). My sweet mother, Vivan Barker, always said that “necessity is the mother of invention.” Mother was right!

Thank you for reading RiverCliff Cottage. If you care to comment, I’d love to read your thoughts!

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The Baptism and the Bees

I have two things to write about, and they are both different. I’ll do them in the order they appeared today.

Mike and I arrived home from church this morning and saw a car parked near our entry gate. It was my cousin,Terri, and she told me her brother-in-law, Pastor Sammy, was going to baptize someone in the river in front of the house and asked if I wanted to come. I did. I always do. It is very common to baptize in the slow moving North Fork here in Mendota.

My sister Pat and I used to play in the very spot where this morning’s baptism took place. We took turns playing John the Baptist and baptizing each other. No sprinkling for Pat and me–we believed in full, repeated immersion!

In case you’ve never attended a  river baptism, here’s how it works…

There is a sense of waiting. It’s a reverent occasion. We stand there listening to the sound of the leaves. The river is flowing quietly. This is followed by singing. Sammy leads the small group in singing Amazing Grace. The voices are naked and beautiful.  I love it.

There is a prayer. Since I attend church elsewhere, I do not know the young man being baptized, but I learn that his name is Caleb  and he made his commitment to Christ during Vacation Bible School.

They are in the water now, and I can tell it’s cold. Someone whispers…”I hope Gordon and Sammy remembered to remove their wallets.” This is followed by a nervous giggle and then quiet.


And…

And…

It was over soon. It was time to get this young man home into dry clothes.

I walked up the hill following the baptism.  I’m glad I live where we still baptize in a river.   I started thinking about my week ahead.

One of the things I started thinking about was our honeybees as today is the day I will start feeding two of the beehives.

Beekeepers have so many different instructions. One beekeeper says do it this way, and another says do it a different way. Some feed the bees and some do not. We have two hives that appear to be weak and to help ensure that they have an adequate supply of honey for the winter, I’ll be feeding them for the next 45 days.

Here I am…getting suited up to go put the feeding apparatus on the hives and to start them on their beloved sugar water.  They love this stuff. I have to take my shoes off to get them through the bee suit.   Check out those nasty shoes.

When the hive is new, we add a vitamin supplement called “Honey Bee Healthy,” but today I’m giving them only sugar water. Five pounds of sugar will make up four quarts of sugar water. It’s not cheap.

Each day I’ll zip up to the apiary on the golf cart and feed these little guys and girls. I don’t mind this feeding system because the swap of the empty jar of sugar water for the full jar is easy and I don’t kill any bees.

They will get used to me after about a week and won’t take much notice when I’m around.   Our previous system held more sugar water but was very harsh on the bees. I dreaded feeding them, and they chased me out.  I had to be fully suited up to feed them.   I’m glad we’re returning to the old feeding system.

Once I’m comfortable, I will not wear the entire bee suit.  I might wear the veil and gloves, but unless they appear aggressive, I won’t feel the need to suit up.

Last year, I think I got overly comfortable because I was feeding them in my shorty pajamas…not veil, no gloves, no covering on my arms and legs.  I think that might have been a little risky.  I won’t do it again.

It comforts me to know that the bees have plenty to eat…they forage in a two-mile radius. This yellow flower is everywhere in Mendota right now. It’s around the apiary, and I could hear it buzzing as I walked by. The bees were foraging. Is this goldenrod? I don’t know!

I imagine them flying up Clinch Mountain, over the North Fork for a sip of water and into my neighbors flowers, trees and vegetable gardens. There is a cultural move to stay away from pesticides here in the valley. I’m glad.

This past winter we had a bit of a crisis. It was a mild winter, there was too much room in the hives, and they did not cluster properly, and we lost a lot of bees. I was in Georgia and I got an email from Mike saying that Gerald had looked in the hives and while there was honey, many of the bees had died. I was sick. Gerald was sick. We were all depressed.

Learning from this, we removed the top supers last week. This leaves the hive more crowded..they must keep the queen at about 85 degrees year round, and the closeness will facilitate proper clustering.

I’m glad we have the bees.

 

 

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Little Debbie Boxes Laundry Room Organization

It’s Saturday evening and I am parked on the couch…too exhausted to go to bed.

Today was the Mendota Heritage Festival, and while I planned to make a Barbie doll cake, I did not get it done. While I planned to be present at 10 am to help with the Health Fair, I did not get there until 11 am. While I planned to help with hotdogs from noon until 2 pm, I was told I wasn’t needed and I gratefully went home.

I worked very hard yesterday on multiple things. I cleaned house,spent time  reorganizing and refreshing my laundry room, doing laundry and worked on organizing our master bath. I also sat down and glanced at an article on the internet  entitled “Ten Tips for an ADD/ADHD Person To Keep A Clean House.” How did they know?

I do get the house clean, but I admit to doing it differently. I drag everything out and then I put everything away. I move along 3 or 4 things…and once in a while, they all get done!!

I took a good look at my laundry room this week. It’s very dull and boring. I haven’t paid any attention to this room. Ever.

After a good hard look, I made a list in my head of what would help this room. Here’s the result: (1) The paint is called “Celery”. With the white window treatment, white cabinets, and white washer and dryer, it looks institutional, yet I do not want to repaint the room. (2) I think red and black accents might help the room. (3) I have not been using the cabinet space well. The cabinet was full of lightbulbs instead of laundry supplies which were sitting on the dryer, etc.  I know..it’s crazy but it just happened…we did not intend to buy a gazillion different bulbs.  But we did. 

The first thing I went to is my Little Debbie Box inspiration.   While we do need to keep lightbulbs within easy reach, we don’t have to keep them all within easy reach. All but the minimum amount of lightbulbs will go in boxes above the cabinets.   By painting and embellishing the boxes, it will also  introduce black and red into the room.

Here’s the Little Debbie box in the before picture…

As I mentioned in prior posts, Mike picked up the Little Debbie boxes at Sam’s Club. I send him in to buy one thing but also to get a box or two to accompany the purchase! Feelin’ sooo smart!  The boxes are the perfect size….here they are..

The black and white polka dot ribbon on the boxes is an interesting story. I purchased my first ribbon in a three-yard spool at Hobby Lobby for $3.99. I didn’t have a set plan so I only bought one spool. I love ribbon and keep it on hand. Never know when a ribbon emergency might come up. Once I got moving on this idea, I needed more ribbon, and I found a comparable ribbon at Walmart for $2.99–same size and quality. The difference was price and, more importantly–the ribbon from Walmart was made in Pennsylvania while the ribbon from Hobby Lobby was made in China. Gasp! Walmart became my New Best Friend. It took two spools to do all four boxes. Because I don’t have a lot of money right now, I returned to what I had on hand to label the boxes which was wide-mouth canning jar lids and scrapbook paper.

Here’s another photo…there are actually four boxes but to capture all four in a photograph, I would have to climb out the window!

 

I got totally inspired while doing this project…so much so that I willingly washed the windows yesterday while doing everything else!! Mike did the outside but I did the inside at the same time. Normally, I would have found an excuse NOT to wash windows but my laundry room redo was making me so happy that I didn’t mind doing the windows. Color in a room is so important to the way you feel when you’re in the room. At least for me.  

I’ve made a curtain for the window and added a few other touches.

Another picture…

Finally, we had the Mendota Heritage Festival today. If cakewalks, quilts, baskets, original artwork, hotdogs, soup beans, baked bread and learning about the Mendota hawk count is more important than Fashion Week, the price of gasoline, or who had the best political speech, then this might be the place for you. It sure is the place for me.

 

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Guest House & Honey Bees

I talk about the “guest house” from time to time on this blog. When we did not live in Mendota year round, someone else lived here and took care of  RiverCliff Cottage.  They did a very good job, and I miss them. They lived in an apartment over the garage. When they left, we put our extra things in, I made window treatments, etc. It became…and still is… a sort of “doll house” for me.   Following that, my girlfriend came for a few weeks and stayed several years.  I miss her, too.   Most recently, I’ve “stuck my foot in the water” in  renting it in a modified bed/breakfast fashion.   I’ve had a measure of success but I’ll have to figure out if I want to do this as a “real” business.   There’s lots to consider–the downside is I get to be the maid as well as the owner.   

We’re currently working on the guesthouse, so I took several pictures before we got started.   Here’s the kitchen…

Mike made the kitchen table. It’s wormy chestnut with an “apron” from a tobacco barn that had fallen on hard times. It has a second chance as my table.  My neighbor gave me the chairs which we spray painted black.     I made the window treatments…I even lined them!

Another view…

Here’s the cooking area of the kitchen, and I think you’ll agree that this will look much better with hardwood. We are currently removing the vinyl which is a tough job. 

The living room is open to the ktichen…here it is…

I’m leaving the carpet in the living room. It’s good carpet and I think the hardwood that will replace the vinyl will tone it down a little bit. I may replace the carpet in a few years, but I like having carpet in this area because the sofa bed could scratch hardwood when we move it about.  Mike made the little coffee table.

On the bannister as you come up the steps, I leave my sister’s quilt to enjoy or snuggle in..I won it during a Mendota Cemetery raffle.  I bought a gazillion  tickets… 

I’ve shown you the bedroom before. I love having the new hardwood in this room because I can  swap around quilts and bedding with little thought to what colors they are. I love linens!

The bathroom is really cute…lots of angles…this chair was a trash to treasure find. It was destined for the landfill but visited Mike’s shop and he put it back together, ran over it, and put it back together again. We recovered it in  cheap inexpensive fabric from Walmart.

 

Thank you for visiting the guest house apartment and for reading RiverCliff Cottage.   But there’s more…

It’s been a busy day.   We are in the process of getting the last of the 2012 honey flow from our bees.  I want to share a few bee pictures…this is my brother in law, Gerald Booher, armed with a smoker…he’s serious in his defense.   When you “smoke” the bees, they all dive deep into the hive to start eating their honey thinking it might burn.  Anyway, I assume that is what they think.   Gerald has  had quite a few stings in 2012. 

Here’s me…I’m sweating like a PIG in this picture.  I am armed with sugar water which calms the bees.  They are like crack addicts for sugar water.    My bee suit it too big so the helmet falls around all the time.  I wear leggings, shorts and long sleeves under the suit because the suit does not stop an ambitious bee from stinging.   It’s a bit warm. 

 And here is why we suit up so carefully.   

 Good night. 

 

 

 

 

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Mendota Daily September 5

Yesterday I gathered up corn stalks and made fodder shocks for the front walkway and the back patio. I added an orange harvest bow tonight. Here’s a photo that I took at sunset.

Did I make this bow? Are you kidding? Ms. Betty, Floral Manager for Food City in Weber City, Virginia, made it for me for $6.99. I cannot buy the six feet of ribbon this bow requires for that price, and I sure cannot make a bow as fine as Ms. Betty!

Also, I fixed my framed “B” in the front entry.   I usually have a framed white “B” on black chalk in the foyer , but I changed it to a fall-themed “B”.   In a post last week, I detailed how I totally screwed up transferring the “B”.  However, that is all in the past.   I read the directions this time!

 And here’s how it looks as part of the entry vignette…

I’ve been working on things around the house all day. I’m reorganizing our laundry room, made a valance for that room and made a valance for the guest house. Can’t wait to share these with you.

 

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Mendota Daily September 4

Do you recall that I said I was planning on doing a lot of fall decorating this week? Well, I still am. Everything is always slower than I think it will be. It’s like I run like water and everything around me runs like molasses.

One thing I really like about fall is fodder shocks. Many years I’ve been the first hanging out at a garden center asking when the fodder shocks are set to arrive. Even last year I bought a bunch of fodder shocks, loaded them in the truck, and then became mortified when they all fell out before I got to the first red light. I wasn’t so mortified that they fell out…things like that happen. I was mortified that I didn’t  notice they were falling out and I was leaving a trail behind me. Yikes!  Cars were blowing at me and flashing their lights.  Finally when I stopped at the light, some very nice person knocked on the window and told me I’d lost my fodder shocks.  Every where.  All over the road.

This year there will be no trip to town. I grew my own corn! It was good to eat right out of the garden, good to eat now out of the freezer, and now I’ve got my own corn stalks. Sigh. Life is good.

So here they are. I decided I’d surprise Mike and cut them down myself. (This is truly a surprise…I usually outlast him on things like this and he’ll eventually take care of them for me.)

Truthfully, I wasn’t even sure how to cut them down. I went and got a little pruning saw. Here it is. It’s lying on our picnic table. Our oldest grandson painted his name on the picnic table two years ago. I always enjoy looking at it and thought I’d share it with you.

So I just went out and started sawing the old corn stalks.   It was easy.   However, I was glad I didn’t get a manicure today.

Just a few dozen whacks and a few trips from the garden to the front of the house, and I had one nice fodder shock set up.  This is in the front of our house.  I used a walkway light to anchor my fodder shock and lots of florist wire to keep it in place.

I wonder how many calories I burned trotting back and forth with my fodder shocks plus the sawing?   Here’s the fodder shock in the rear of the house. There was a vine growing up the corn and I just left it in there.  It’ll turn brown and not be noticeable, but right now, I think it looks pretty.   See those little black eyed susie flowers?   They volunteered and I love them.

I’ll be adding pumpkins and mums and bows.  I didn’t grow pumpkins this year, and I’m so mad at myself!

Prior to my channeling Paul Bunyan and sawing corn stalks. I had been to Kingsport for a few things.  I can’t believe I had to go to Kingsport…I’ve never liked that drive, but drive it I did!    I had to return a fake pumpkin at Hobby Lobby and visit the consignment store to drop off some things.  By the way, do you think that Bristol could manage to shelve either Cabela’s or Bass Pro and give us a Joanne’s, Hobby Lobby or Michael’s?        I hate driving to Kingsport to get my crafty stuff and it’s especially difficult when you have to have two of everything since you mess the first try up.

Moving along after I cut down half of the corn stalks…I came back in the house.

I went back to my organization projects.   When I organized the closet in the guest bedroom, I encountered the king size down comforter lying on the bed in the same room.  I recently removed this from one of the beds, washed it, hung it out to dry and then realized I had no place to put the monster.  It’s been lying in the front bedroom in a big blob on the bed for three or four days.  In this picture, it’s on the floor, and you can see what I”m faced with.   Try folding it and it comes to life!

However, when I was in Kingsport today, I swung by Target and bought a box of  space saver vacumn things.  Two jumbos bags in a box for $12.  I wondered if they really worked that well.   They do!

Here’s what the comforter looked like after I wrestled it into the bag and then vacummed the air out.   It’s sort of strange looking.  I wonder about all of the down feathers…will they ever fluff up again?

I’ll worry about refluffing later.  Look how well it went into the bonnetiere..it’s at the very top.    I do not know why this thing is called a bonnetiere, but we bought it at Ethan Allen about 15 years ago and that’s what they called it.  I use it for quilts and stuff.  Apparently, Mike uses it for a hotwheels set…that is what is in the little gold box on the right on the first shelf.   What was he thinking?  Isn’t he a little old for that?

Back on it tomorrow!

 

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