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!

I said I was not going to post again until Monday…I lied.   I fixed such a great meal for lunch that I just had to share it with you.

We had this…

And we also had this….a buffet of sorts!

This week is going to be busy but fun.  Vacation Bible School will be in the evenings and I’m going back to work on my house during the day.  I’m working in the living room and the kitchen foyer, and I hope to have them both done by Friday.   I will show you pictures…this keeps me accountable!    I’m also going to pick out fabric for a chair slipcover (which I am NOT doing myself) and for a new bathroom window treatment (may do myself).    Thank you to the nice folks staying in the guest house as they have given me the extra money to do both!  And yikes…I go to Weight Watchers tomorrow.  If I didn’t gain any weight this week, a miracle has occurred.   I have been sloppy. 

I’ll be ending this blissful summer and going back to work soon so I want to accomplish quite a bit.     Mike and I have had a great summer, but I’m sure he is excited about the rest he’ll get — although I am going to load him down with projects for the next three weeks!!!    

It’s a sleepy Sunday.   My husband and my dogs are napping.  My laundry is hanging on the line as if it’s asleep too.  Might as well be ’cause I’m leaving it there until tomorrow!. 

Living rurally, I am inspired by this color….tomato red…on a rustic podium with an audience of green…   or is that a tomato on the fencepost in my backyard?

I look to the left at my unkept garden and find more color inspiration…my favorite flower.   It works so hard…feeds the bees and butterflies in the summer…the hungry birds in the winter.   It’s the color of the sunshine.     It is perfect.

My kitchen is 12 years old and the only recent update is the window treatments.    Tomato and yellow in my kitchen… enough to make me happy when it cold and dark outside…I do not get tired of it.

My style is cheerful… (excuse that light…it is on my list…please join me in imagining  the black wrought iron one that I am so wanting.)

Thank you for allowing me to share…I am working on my photography skills…particularly indoor shots…please be patient.    This is my first step out into the world of linking to other bloggers.    I am a little skeered.     Your comments are appreciated adored.

PS…my counter tops are really never this neat! 

Living in a rural area is great.  I would not want to live anywhere else.  However, if you have visitors–even close family–it’s always a little dicey about where to eat if everyone wants a meal out.   For instance, if I’m honest, at least 50 percent of the meals that we “eat out” are at the Rally Mart which is a Shell gas station in Hiltons, Virginia!   The Shell Station has the best BLT I’ve ever eaten, but it’s hard to say to guests…”let’s go eat at the local gas station.” 

When Mike’s son Marc brings his family into town, we always meet them for lunch in Bristol at the Burger Bar.   Have you eaten there?  Believe it or not, I had not until about three years ago.

 The Burger Bar has lots of tales surrounding Hank Williams, but it’s the burgers that we go for!  They are so good.  The chef, Armond, let me take his picture.  I think he looks like Lionel Richie.  He always remember us…or pretends to anyway!

Marc loves a burger called the “Fire God” or something like that.  It’s really hot.   Check out the picture below…this is the way he and Mary eat all the time.  Really.

While Marc is eating a really hot burger, the rest of the family..Mary, Jack, Connor, Mike and I eat normal food at the Burger Bar.  Hamburgers, parmesean fries, onion rings, and sometimes….A MILKSHAKE!!!  Connor (our grandson) was allowed to order a milkshake.  I don’t believe anyone else got one.  It looked so good.  I believe it was an Oreo shake but it was moving so fast between Connor and Mary that I could barely see it.  

His mom, Mary, wanted a little taste, and he was a good sport about it.

A sweet picture…here they are “cheek to cheek”….

Connor steps outside…guess who follows?

Connor is still being nice, but he’s less enthusiastic.  “Will she ever go away?”

In this next picture, Mom/Mary goes back inside, and Connor turns away trying to use the time to drink his milkshake…alone…without Mom.   However, look in the window…can you see the pink shirt?  She’s watching him…thinking about that milkshake.  

In the next picture, we’ve paid up and everyone is outside.   She’s still wanting that milkshake.  There’s no use pretending to look pleased.

 I think he’s given up. 

Now back to the country.  Here’s a picture of Jack (other grandson) swimming in the North Fork.   

Refreshing!

Jack is not swimming alone…he has a pal with him…

It’s Luci the Labradoodle.  What is going on with her tail?

Do you like my new blog look?   It’s taking me a bit of time to get used to looking so fancy.   I hope you like it.

I’ve not written about honey on this blog, but I have a picture of one of the hives on my header.  I like bees.  When I was a child, I caught them in jars and I’d relocate them to a flower (as if they needed to move to a better flower!)  Since honeybees are under stress and dying, a term called colony collapse disorder, it’s gratifying to be a beekeeper working to keep them healthy and productive.   Our food supply must have honeybees, and no one is more capable of returning the bees to a healthy population than small beekeepers–especially in rural areas.

Here’s a picture of my sunflowers which are very close to the hives.  This was taken yesterday, and they are late in blooming but currently are over 7 ft. tall…the bees will love them and what a nice view of Clinch Mountain they’ll have while they are working.   Mendota is perfect for bees…plenty of water, quiet place to live, lots of diversity in their diet, and very few pesticides…these are happy bees!

 My brother-in-law robbed the bees yesterday, and we extracted honey this evening.   In this picture, I’m getting ready to return to a couple of the hives and replace the supers.

If you look closely, you’ll see the supers on the back of the golfcart.  I had planned on returning to the hives and putting the now-empty supers back where the bees could begin the process of cleaning them and making more honey.    I did get one installed.   The second one did not go so well, as space was tight and I had to work in front of the bees which they do not like.  They began “boiling” out of the hives (yikes) and they chased me and managed one little sting even through the protective clothing.   Ouch.  I got the message and decided not to tackle them alone.  It takes two to work fast and efficiently while in an apiary…even a small one.    It also helps to be armed with sugar water and a smoker.

Back in the garage where we’re doing the extraction…

Here’s a few photos of the extraction process which is typical for small honey producers.   This picture is what is call a “super” fresh from the hive.

This super is full of honey and there’s bits of beeswax everywhere…it weighs  well over 60 pounds.  The bees have built honey around each frame and it’s hard to dislodge the frames.   Once a frame is dislodged, we then “uncap” the honeycomb so that the honey can flow more freely when inside the extractor.   We use a heated knife for this process.

Our honey is  fairly dark, but that is good — the darker the honey, the more antioxidants.    Very refined honey…what is sometimes sold in big box stores…is usually not local and it is very light.  It’s been heated several times.  Bad!

Look at this one…those girls have been in the blackberries for sure…

While that frame is very dark, most will be lighter.  The honey will blend together and form a nice amber color.  Since we don’t heat the honey–it can look a bit cloudy at times.   That’s good…as heating removes some of the healthy properties honey  provides.  (I keep droning on about that…but it’s important…I cringe when I see honey in Walmart and other places from whoknowswhere and it’s all light and clear…it’s essentially sugar syrup.)     Raw honey is very healthy.

Once we have uncapped nine frames, it’s time to put them in the extractor which I think looks like part of a steel.   I promise we are not making white lightening here!   We then manually turn the extractor and it will spin out the honey.

Oh who is that lovely person that still needs to lose 20 pounds?   (Used to be 30 pounds…I’m on it!!)

Look inside the extractor at the nine frames full of honey.

We crank the wheel which spins the extractor and slings the honey out of the frames and then down into the belly of the unit.   There is a spigot at the bottom which allows the honey to flow into a double screened sieve into a sanitized five-gallon bucket.   It’s a manual process, and this morning I have a big blister from turning the hand crank.    We may buy a motorized extractor if we stay in beekeeping.

That bucket weighs a lot!  Honey is heavy…a 16 oz. jar holds about 20 oz. of honey if you place it on the scale.

We fence our hives since there are so many predators such as skunks, raccoons and even bears.  Lately a couple of fawns have been playing in front of the hive, but we don’t mind them.

Today the honey we extracted is sitting in a cool spot and the air bubbles are settling.  We’ll be putting it in individual jars later in the week.  I’ll take you along.

Plans for today are being created by nature.  I went out to the corn this morning and I’m sure I heard Mr. & Mrs. Corn whisper they were about ready to leave if I do not pay them some attention.

Hi everyone!

No posts for a day or two as this blog gets a “new do”  with the help of Creative Kristi’s blog design services!