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.

Organizing and Believe It Or Not…With More Chalk Paint!!

Hi…did you have a good weekend? Mine went by way too fast. I was at work Monday thru Thursday and I remembered how much I like everyone I work with and how much I dislike driving to Kingsport and how much I love being home a bit more during the week. Just a few more days and I’m officially through with this part of my work life.

Soon I may start another part-time work adventure which, if it all works out, I’m very excited about. I can’t wait to share it with you. However, I’m no longer on my leave of absence and am currently working at my old job for a few more days. Now..about this weekend.

Do you remember this? It was at the end of one of my posts and was on my “to do” list?

The pantry is in the den. The room is cool and a great place for canned goods…and cleaning supplies…and just junk. Do you see any place for 72 pints of my prized pasta sauce and about 8 quarts of tomatoes? Right. I don’t either.

I’d thought I’d wait for Mike to do a few things toward completing this project, but he has been mowing like crazy because of all of the rain in southwest Virginia. It’s mow and then mow and then weed eat.

Here’s my reveal…I haven’t got it finished 100% but it’s close. Mike has to put the light changing thingies and the Shark floor cleaning thingy, etc. in place and I’ve got additional labeling to do top the plastic bins, but in the interim…here’s what I’ve done…

This was so simple. I took box tops from Sam’s Club and sprayed chalk paint on the boxes. I then used chalk markers to label the boxes of canned goods. ~~Easy~~ Brilliant and ~~cheap~~ inexpensive. And sooo….effective.

If you home can, you know there is a problem with finding green beans in your basement, closet, pantry etc. that date way back to the Mayflower and wondering what on earth you should do with them. Our nature in southwest Virginia is to NOT TO LET ANYTHING GO TO WASTE!!! I wrote the names of what was in the box tops and then noted in small letters the year they were preserved. While working on the pantry, contrary to the philosophy of not wasting anything, I discarded some peach preserves that I made five or six years ago, some pickled beets no one was eating, and some green beans and tomatoes that had a lot of rust on their lids. Seriously, I needed the space, and canning jars are too expensive to let set on the shelves and not be eaten.

Also, take a look at that glass cleaner box on the first shelf. Perhaps if I’d done this sooner, I would have realized that I did not need 12 containers of products for cleaning glass.

Meanwhile, I received compensation for this. I FOUND two jars of our PRIZED wild raspberry jam from 2011. They are the two little jars in between the BBQ sauce (it’s from Trader Joe’s and Mike loves it so I buy it whenever I’m near a Trader Joe’s store) and the green bean box (which I didn’t change the writing because it was almost sort of appropriate). I didn’t make any raspberry jam this year as it was 100 degrees when they were ripe and the turkeys were aggressively planning on what they were going to do with the raspberries…and they didn’t care to walk on the hill behind the house in 100 degree temperatures. The turkeys won.

I feel a sense of security in looking at this pantry. Home canning is part of our rural life. It’s not a dying art but a growing art in southwest Virginia. I hope you find this idea on how to organize home canned goods helpful.

I Cleaned My Living Room!

I cleaned the living room Saturday. I actually did it late Friday night because I’ve read from other bloggers that morning light is the best for taking pictures. So much learning!! So…I got up Saturday morning and took pictures.

Come in!! You’ll never visit where my living room will be this clean again. I’m not a dirty person but I’m happiest in a small mess.

But to refresh you..it’s been evolving…in this picture, which was taken with my old photo editing software before I changed to the very cool one I’m using now…I knew I wanted a “B” on the wall and I’d asked Mike to help me move the old entertainment center back in from hiding. I knew I had to make this work, at least for a while, else there would be a minor revolt on my getting any more furniture moving help. And there’s my trusted friend, the vacuum hose.

Now, here we are today. Furniture is in place. Not everything is perfect, but at least the cleaning supplies are put away and I didn’t get them in the picture.

Living Room

There has been almost no new purchases for this room in 12 years. Primarily, I moved the furniture around. I don’t have a before picture but the couch was in the center of the room. Ho hum. I was tired of it.

Here’s a picture of the current resting place for my “B”. That gourd doesn’t really go there, but I haven’t figured out what to do with her. She’s a pal of mine. I grew her a long time ago and when I shake her, she rattes. She’s like me…when I get shaken up, I get all rattled!

Here’s another angle…

The curio in the corner was a present from my husband about a gazillion years ago. We were pretty lean at that time, so he bought it unfinished.

And here’s the mantle which I’m looking forward to decorating for fall….

I always keep a pair of wire-rimmed glasses on the mantle. They remind me of my father, W. T. Barker. The P. Buckley Moss print is part one of the Rhythm & Roots series she’s doing. I haven’t bought the second one which depicts the Burger Bar in Bristol, Virginia.

The bowl with the gourds in it was a gift from a local Mendota woodturner/craftsman, Curtis. I can’t remember his last name!! If someone local is reading this, please leave a comment with Curtis’ name and I’ll correct!! The book is an old Bible that has my Uncle Johnny’s handwriting and notes in. He was actually John Pershing Parker. He’s long gone, and the Bible is almost falling apart. The cover is like soft denim. The Bible was found in an old garage Uncle Charlie (Charlie Litton) built that was being torn down by a contractor for VDOT during a road improvement project. It was worthless to him but means everything to me.

I’m feeling a bit smug about this photography software. I used a “vignette” feature on that picture which blurs the background so that the subject matter will capture the viewer’s full attention.

Here’s the coffee table with a bowl of gourds and some zinnias I picked. Like my vase?

Here’s a view so you can see why the foyer and the living room paint colors have to “talk”. It’s a little bit elongated. Sorry.

And my last picture..

Thank you for visiting me in my living room. I like this room. It’s best feature is the paint which makes a nice backdrop for everything else. It is especially pretty when it’s snowing outside and the fireplace is burning. I am looking forward to one of those days this winter.

Daily Mendota August 17

Yikes…today is almost over and I have not been very productive.

I went to get my hair cut and highlighted this morning. I was so happy when Louetta called and asked me to come in at 8:45 am instead of 11:00 am which was my original schedule. I thought…”wow…I’ll come home and get a lot done.” There are so many things that can go wrong with that kind of statement!

So…. I didn’t do any of the things I intended, and here is is 9:40 pm and I just put the jars of spaghetti sauce into the pressure canner. No worries..it’s only one batch of nine pints. It will put my spaghetti sauce stash right at 71 if they all seal.

I’m waiting for the comforting sound of the pressure canner jiggling. I’ll listen to that for 40 minutes, turn the stove off and go to bed. Tomorrow, I’ll get the jars out and they will still be quite warm. Sigh.

Back to my hair appointment…Louetta has been doing my hair since 1998 when we bought the land that this house sets on. She had her shop on the corner of Benhams and Reedy Creek Road in the Benhams community. This was the closest hair salon to my house. Later, she moved the shop into a house she owned on Reedy Creek Road. Shortly thereafter, she moved the shop into the basement of the house that she lived in on Reedy Creek Road. (These were two different houses.) The interesting fact about this is that she sold that house while having a garage sale. I am not kidding. Following that, she moved back to to the corner of Benhams and Reedy Creek Road and changed her salon’s name to Louetta’s Carribean Splash. Following that, she moved her shop to Lee Highway beside Domino’s Pizza and called her salon “Louetta’s Hair Pottery and Color Works.” Now, she is near Exit 10 on Lee Highway, and I think she kept the same name.

Louetta is not afraid of change.

She is Louetta Canter but she was a Millard before she got married. This is important because my parents always said “the Millard girls are very handy and creative.” It’s true. For all of Lou’s customers to follow her around (and these are just a few of the moves…there were others before I ever showed up), she has to be pretty good. .

While I was there, I pulled out my camera. I wanted to show you Louetta’s Great Grandmother Jackson’s quilt.

It’s a beautiful quilt that has been used and loved. It’s hanging on a walking stick…there’s a story about that, too, but I’ll have to get Louetta to tell us about that.

Here’s Louetta. She has so much more nerve and God-given talent than most…especially me…I love her moxy.

Walking Around On Swinging Bridge Road

Hello everyone! “Mavis” found my blog and commented on it. Hi Mavis! It’s fun when someone I don’t know finds me and LIKES me! Just so you’ll know, I can’t see who is following the blog unless a comment is left. I can see the number of views, and I can actually block IP addresses for spammers or trolls, but I don’t really know who reads until a comment is left. I know I like Mavis because she is a canner. Yeah Mavis!

So…I worked today. I’m working until the end of August! Anyway, I got home from work and as my diet has blown up this past two weeks, I decided to go for a walk. Mike was going to take the “dear girls” (our dogs Gracie and Luckie) for a “loop” on the “outer belt” of Mendota (large Swinging Bridge Road loop) so he dropped me off. I decided to take you along on my walk.

This is the first little face I saw on Swinging Bridge. Let me introduce you to Patty.

Patty is a rescue dog. She has quite a big of Great Pyranese in her, but today that is not what she is talking about. She is talking about the very bad haircut her Mommy gave her.

Patty: “Look…she cut my fur!!

Punkin: “You don’t expect me to look at you, do you?”

Patty: “I don’t care how I look..I love my Mommy.”

And just like that, it was time to visit the chickens. As we enter the wire enclosure, we’re greeting by a Welcome Feather. These are no ordinary chickens.

These chickens live at the Dean’s Hen Hilton. How many hens do you know that live like this?

The sunflower shelter is made completely out of recycled materials. I had to insert a large picture. (I’m using a new photo editing software…free of course…hope it’s not all elongated!) Very cool.

Speaking of needing a haircut…see the feet on this chick…

I think Margie said that the chicken pictured above is a Brahma. We weren’t quite sure if this is a rooster or a hen. No one is crowing but no one is laying yet! It will happen soon!

Here’s another sweet girl…actually two sweet girls. Margie and one of her Aracaunas. This chicken is special as her eggs will be a blue green color. Very pretty. It’s a color Benjamin Moore would like to copy I’m sure! Once she is a bit older, she’ll start laying and I’ll show you a picture of one of her eggs.

Check this out…what do you think this shelter for three of the girls is made out of?

Did you say it used to be a table?

It’s time to leave. In just a short while, I’ll be visiting Margie and the girls weekly as they begin laying eggs. I have committed to one dozen beautiful, healthy free-range eggs each week. If we don’t eat the eggs, I’ll whip some scrambled eggs up for the dear girls.

I head out Swinging Bridge. Not much going on this evening. Here’s a truck. We have way more trucks than cars in Mendota, and if someone doesn’t have a truck, they probably wish they did! I feel like I’m walking through a salad bowl at I approach this shady area. Have I said that before?

Almost home. I walk by the unfinished barn which is being built of recycled materials. The work is going slowly but at least there is shelter for some hay. The goats will need that this winter. You’ll never hear me complain about someone who works a little slower. My projects take three times as long as everyone else!

I’m home from my walk. I have a large project ahead of me this weekend. I’m going to reorganize my pantry closet where I store cleaning supplies, filters, vet supplies and quite a bit of my canned goods. I wanted to share the BEFORE picture to keep me motiviated to tackle this project this weekend.

Two window treatments and the pantry. I will be a happy camper if I get this done by Sunday.

Thanks for reading my blog. It means a lot to me. Talk later!

Mendota Daily August 14

I get Pottery Barn’s catalog. I order one thing per year so I’ll stay on the mailing list. Confession…I order more than one thing but not too much more. So many good ideas!!

I’m trying not to be such a CONSUMER… shopping just for the hunt. However, I do like swapping stuff around and interchanging things, and sometimes I end up buying something. But I’ve been really careful spending money. Since I haven’t been working, I haven’t been getting paid. You get the picture! Recently I moved things around in my living room, and I realized I needed something in a blank spot on the wall. The CONSUMER started coming out, and oh well.

I tried to do an arrangement with this giant B pictured below that is actually cardboard. I’d hauled it from Georgia several months ago and hid it. Mike doesn’t care when I buy things but it was a cardboard B. I had a vision for it (Anthropologie) and I didn’t want to try to communicate what I saw in my head into what I wanted him to see in his head. It doesn’t work. We are wired differently.

I spray painted the B a metallic color thinking that you might not realize I got it for $9 at Joanne’s Fabrics. Did I fool you?

Looked pretty bad. The B went into the closet for a few days. I then came up with a brillient idea to put it on top of the entertainment center with a plant. This left a big blank wall spot, and while I wanted the entertainment center in the room, (Just a little over a week ago, I had made a big deal of it and made Mike help me carry the thing from the garage to the house) it looked like a big tall chimney. It’s really a dilemna in this room. It’s a cathedral ceiling so anything short looks squatty but the entertainment center is tall and skinny by itself. Like a lonely soldier.

I could not figure out what to do, and that’s where the Pottery Barn catalog arrived and gave me the idea to use a floating wall shelf. I could place pictures on the shelf and use it to “step down” to the couch so the entertainment center doesn’t stand out like an ugly tree. I didn’t want to pay Pottery Barn prices compounded by the fact that we have no Pottery Barn around here, so I went to Hobby Lobby and found one for $44. Of course, I had the 40% coupon, so it wasn’t too bad..less than $30.

Here’s what it looks like…I just ran and put these pictures on it. Not sure if they are staying.

I like it!

Here’s what it looks like from a few steps back…the couch looks awkward in this picture…I’ll clean the room and get better pictures this weekend. And draft…another tall skinny picture.

Don’t look at the coffee table which is stacked full of magazines and stuff. It’s just in your head. It doesn’t really look that way…I have a vision…

Common Things in Mendota

When I lived elsewhere, I bought flowers each week at the grocery store. It wasn’t terribly expensive…maybe $8-$10, but it did add up.

I seldom buy flowers since returning to Mendota. Each year I put out several rows of zinnias. They are at our entry gate, the garden and in the meadow.

I have pretty, fresh flowers all summer long. Free. I don’t even buy the seeds since I save them each year. At the end of the season, the flowers dry up and look like this…

The one pictured is not quite ready to be picked. However, in a few weeks, I’ll go out with a bag and pull these dead flower heads off and drop them in a brown paper bag. I’ll store the bag throughout the winter and then in the spring, I sprinkle them wherever I want to see zinnias. They never fail me.

I have some very nice vases, and I use them, but my favorite vase is the canning jar. The one in this picture is a two-quart jar which I purchased new in a pack of six at Food Country in Abingdon. The zinnias and the canning jar are useful, good looking, and they are common to my house. Works for me!

That’s my thrifty tip. Move to the country and plant zinnias and save $8-$10 per week. Are you sold?

I went back to work today. Fun seeing everyone but even though it’s just for three weeks, I missed having the time to be creative and work on my projects at home. So…I came home…and…I got out the CHALKPAINT!! Because I canned so much yesterday, I made a little picture to put above my cooktop.

I’m feeling better already!

Now if I could find one pair of my many pairs of scissors, I’d work on my wreath or curtain project.

Mendota Daily August 12

I wasn’t in love with home canning at first. It was the winter following the summer I learned to can that I fell in love with canning. This hasn’t been all that long ago–less than ten years. It was snowing and we didn’t go to the grocery store as we’d planned. I made spaghetti and instead of a salad to accompany the spaghetti, we had green beans. The spaghetti was topped with my sauce and the green beans were from the jars on top of the cabinets — all from the summer before.

Those green beans not only looked good on top of my cabinets — they were good. I thought…I did this!

I then read a great book by Barbara Kingsolver called Animal, Vegetable, Miracle and I realized how beneficial it is to eat local food. I love that book…if you haven’t read it, you should! The library has the book and the CD.

On Saturday, I started this post describing my excitment over canning tomatoes. I realize it appears I have a small life to be excited about canning tomatoes, but if you haven’t tried canning, it’s difficult to understand the satisfaction achieved from preserving your own food. I think that many of us are still “wired” to want to gather and prepare for winter — even though Food City and Kroger are doing a pretty good job of taking over this responsibility!

Anyway, I canned 65 pints of homemade spaghetti sauce and 12 quarts of tomatoes — right at 100 pounds of tomatoes. The spaghetti sauce grew challenging as I grew more tired. I started yesterday and did not finish completely until 5 pm today. I had to scald the tomatoes to get the skins off. Then I had to skin and core them and put them in my handy KitchenAid food processor which I’d researched last winter in preparation for its use in dicing tomatoes Great job! Once I got about 20 cups of the diced tomatoes, I added seasonings and placed the mixture on the stove to simmer for 25 minutes. AFTER that, it was into the jars and then into the pressure canner for 40 minutes. The worst part about this whole process besides a sea of red sticky mess was waiting for the pressure canner to cool off enough to open and remove the jars.

I’m not complaining. I have a pantry full of wonderful, yummy stuff that I’ll be quite smug about this winter. I’m droning. Here’s a few pictures.

Aren’t these girls pretty? They are in the “hot tub” getting scalded. Ouch.

Sue Cressel a nurse practitioner and friend taught me to can. She went strictly by the Ball Canning Book. This was 8 or 9 summers ago, and she and I canned 168 quarts of green beans along with many pints of tomatoes, pasta sauce and salsa. My right elbow hurt from breaking beans. I am not sure why I did not learn from my mother…I think she saw me more as a bean breaker than a bean canner.

So…much of the weekend, I was looking down into a simmering pot of this…

Even though I was busy in the kitchen, I tried to do other things during the “down” time when things were on the stove. In the country, there is always something to do. If we’re bored, we can go out and mow grass.

However, I did laundry as we’d had company all week. I hang my sheets out to dry. I have two washing machines, so I can zip through the laundry by using both machines and the clothesline and the dryer. The sheets smell really good, but this has its hazards. From above, the birds can poop on them, and if I hang them too low, the cat runs up and pees on them. That red sheet is definitely in the danger zone.

It’s always something. And how has your weekend been?

Before and After!!

Here’s the before….

And here’s the after…

Our granddaughters are quite a decorating team!!

Getting Ready for Company!!

There is always something to do when you live in the country. In the city there are green projects to ensure that vegetation is present. In Mendota, we have to beat vegetation back with a stick just about every day to keep it from getting into the house. What type of weed eater one owns is a constant source of conversation. It used to be who had the fastest car…now it’s who has the best weed eater.

I just finished mowing my small part of the yard. I like to do the push mowing for the exercise, but I’m so over it now. I am ready for fall.

I go to a small country church, and as I’ve mentioned before, the weather is included in the prayers each Sunday. Last week, Joey said…”Father we appreciate the rain and pray for those who need it so badly to get some of it…we could probably use a little less.” Always grateful.

I have been very busy today. Our son, possibly daughter in law, and granddaughters are coming for a visit, and this requires that we clean everything possible. Anyone else have this fixation? We have no food in the house for them, but the house must be clean. I’m not sure why we have this mindset but I knew that the windows must be cleaned for their visit. And then…I started rearranging furniture. Now the living room looks like this…

I decided to move the old, ancient entertainment center out of storage. It’s an Ethan Allen piece that we bought when Fred and Wilma Flintstone were popular. I wonder when it will become an antique? It’s over 30 years old. I am actually not minding it. Imperfect but fine with me. Notice that I decorate with a vacuum cleaner hose…it’s in almost every picture on this blog.

Also check out the giant B. That might be part of collage of pictures. Or it might go under the bed.

Here’s another shot….

See the Post It notes on the wall? That is where I’m reminding myself or Mike that a paint touch up is needed. There are quite a few Post Its!!Also, the couch used to be floating in the center of the room…now I’ve got it in the corner and we may leave it there.

Mantle…I like propping up pictures so I can change them easily. That picture in the black frame is the first in the Bristol Rhythm & Roots series by P. Buckley Moss. I may buy the second one…need to think on that.

Hey…look at that fireplace! Doesn’t the way the gas logs are stacked up make it look like some sort of little monster? I have a fire monster in my living room! Grrr….

Back to the mantle atop Little Fire Monster…those dried hydranges do NOT go there. They are just resting for a bit..something else goes there. I want some long twiggy branches, but I keep trying to find a good tree and cut them myself. Fake ones at Hobby Lobby are $11.99 each. I am not going to pay that for a fake stick. I put some great tree limbs with leaves up there last week, but even with water in the vase, they wilted terribly. The look was IT throughout the afternoon and evening but gone in the morning. Maybe the fake ones are the answer…if I can locate a 40% coupon.

When I get this room put together a bit, probably about 8 minutes before our company arrives tomorrow, I’ll take pictures. See Luckie’s butt in the picture? What a sweet butt!

I mentioned earlier in the week that I was buying slipcover material for a chair and ottoman, and I meant to show it to you. Like everything else this week, I have a delay. I have not finalized the fabric. I’ve shopped the local stores, and I’ve ordered a bunch of samples online. When my swatch arrives, provided it is the right color, I’ll wash it and see how it holds up. I’m keeping my fingers crossed I get the right fabric. I want to get this project started.

I have a lot of unfinished projects going on right now. I am also starting to pull some fabric together for the master bedroom. I don’t have any before pictures, because…well…I’m ashamed.

The walls in the bedroom are brown but they do not have the intensity of color that I like. They are like diluted coffee brown. I want to add more coffee! I’m not changing them, however, for a while. I’ve bought a Pottery Barn pillow tic (is that tic or tick?) duvet cover and a few pillow shams while in Georiga in May. I’m hunting for a floral print that will have blue, berry/pink and some brown in it. The only one I’ve found it this…

Is it too 80’s?

Have a great weekend. Our granddaughters may do a guesthost thing on the blog next week, so please come back and check out their creative work!

A Tobacco Farmer’s Daughter

My father was a tobacco farmer…not a large scale farmer…a very small farmer. We just got by. I left southwest Virginia in my 20’s and when I returned around the year 2000, I wondered…”where’s Mr. Burley?” Tobacco had been on every patch of land in Poor Valley, and it was gone! He had his faults but Mr. Burley kept us warm in the winter and we got new shoes for school in the fall.

Companies work so hard to develop teamwork today. and I think know the real secret…necessity builds teamwork. Small farmers helped one another in every aspect of the tobacco crop’s life…they worked as a team because they needed one another to succeed.

I was too little to do the hard work of tobacco. I remember only having fun riding the tobacco sitter and singing songs…keeping Pepsi Cola cold in the creek. If a mule team was involved, I rode the mules.

In my home, there are bits of my tobacco heritage throughout the house…

The dining room table my husband built me..it’s a beautiful table, but it’s the barn siding from a local Mendota tobacco barn that was being torn down that makes it unique.

In the den where I cleaned yesterday (finally), there’s wormy chestnut from old Burley tobacco barns everywhere…the table, the mantle, and the picture frame are all wormy chestnut. Soon an entertainment center will join them.

And is there any home in Southwest Virginia that doesn’t have one of these hanging somewhere?

I love home decor and like changing things out. However, I’ve found when I stay true to things I love or are a part of my history, I am the happiest with the results.

I like this red room. Do you have a tobacco basket? Do you have it hanging somewhere?