We have heard from everyone that this was a bad winter for bees, but thankfully, it appears my three hives survived. See for yourself. I started feeding them today. Their enclosure is a mess…I’m going to clean it up and plant flowering seeds out there.
Here’s what I plan to plant…”Black Eyed Susie Vines”. They are also called Thumbergia. Now can you see why I call them Black Eyed Susie Vines? Seriously, who thinks up these names?
The reason I’m feeding the bees is that it’s warm and they are wanting to forage…but there’s not much to eat. Dandelions are one food supply that there are a few of. Do you put weed killer on your dandelions? No…I don’t even want to know the answer.
Leave those dandelions alone. We need them for a few more weeks.
Other news…I’m only working about four more days! I’ll be working full-time at Adventure Mendota this summer! However, that doesn’t start until May so I have almost six weeks off to get stuff done. I’m thrilled.
In Mendota, we didn’t think winter would ever arrive when we were lounging around in 70 degree temperatures in December. Whoops! Were we wrong! It’s here!
We had a weird little snow last night that left things very slick so I took a serendipitous holiday/vacation day from work. I was about to change my mind and go in around 9 am when WCYB TV came on with a report about all of the wrecks–one near where I work which, apparently, downed two power poles. My driver said he wasn’t taking me and I wasn’t going to drive my Prius, so it was a day at home!!
So…it was a good day for chili and I’d been looking at a Wendy’s chili recipe that I found on a website called www.topsecretrecipes.com. I followed the recipe closely with the exception of medium tomatoes, chopped. Instead, I used the southern woman’s secret weapon for any recipe — our home canned tomatoes and then I reduced the amount of water that the recipe called for. There are few things as good.
I can open the jar and just eat the tomatoes. I only used the quart jar of tomatoes.
At any rate, I used a quart jar of tomatoes and just reduced the water in the recipe to 1 and 1/2 cups vs. 2 cups.
Here’s the recipe:
2 pounds of ground beef
one 29 oz. can tomato sauce
one 29 oz. can kidney beans (including liquid)
one 29 oz. can pinto beans (including liquid)
1 cup diced onion (1 medium onion)
1/2 cup sliced green chilies (2 chilies)
1/4 cup diced celery (1 stalk)
3 medium tomatoes, chopped (I used 1 quart of home canned tomatoes)
2 teaspoons cumin powder
3 tablespoons chili powder
1 1/2 teaspoons black pepper
2 teaspoons sale
2 cups water (I used 1 and 1/2 because of the water in the home canned tomatoes)
Brown the beef in a skillet over medium heat and drain the fat. Using a fork, crumble the cooked beef into pea-size pieces. (I mashed the heck out of the beef with a potato masher). In a large pot, combine everything and cook about 2 to 3 hours, stirring every 15 minutes.
Here’s what it looked like. I didn’t have any cheddar cheese to put in it so I used what I had…mozzarella cheese. Yeah…I eat all my chili out on the porch in the snow. It’s just our way around here.
This made a ton of chili, and it does taste like Wendy’s chili. However, I miss those yellow cardboard bowls.
Have any of you heard about a large snow headed for southwest Virginia on February 16? If you want that snow, you know what you need to do:
Wear your pajamas wrong side out
Sleep with a spoon under your pillow
Flush six ice cubes down the commode
Brush your teeth with the wrong hand
It works. This is science. You can make it happen.
It’s January. Winter of 2016 is here. Looking to the left from my front porch…
Looking to the right from the same spot..
Definitely is God’s country. However, there is almost a foot of the “devil’s dandruff” covering everything, and we’re stuck. River, my beloved Little Man, has not ridden in his truck for days. Can you imagine? He’s going crazy.
We, and I do mean we as in “my people,” are wired to get prepared for snow including, strangely enough, cleaning house. I understand the gathering of food, but cleaning house? We’re the Stepford wives before a snowstorm; everything becomes spotless. Thursday night, in preparation for the storm, I even cleaned out my refrigerator freezer. People! This is sick!!
When I got up at 5:30 am Friday and there was three inches of snow and more coming down, I emailed my boss and said I would not be in. How could I? I had to continue cleaning! By 5:35 am, I had a casserole in the oven. Shortly thereafter, I mopped the floor. I completed the laundry I’d started the night before and began changing the sheets. I was ironing at 7:00 am. Ironed pillowcases–before daylight! I thought about the beautifully written article by Anna Wess about the Kings and Queens of Central Appalachia. Here it is. It’s true. Read it if you have a minute; you may relate if you’re from my neck of the woods. At any rate, as I completed my tasks, I knew I was one of the Queens of Appalachia. I could hunker down and withstand this storm for weeks, because I was a survivor–prepared, organized and efficient and my pillowcases were ironed.
Less than 48 hours later, today…Saturday at 10:30 am–my royalty is no longer a certainty. Perhaps I am not a Queen, but actually one of the People of Walmart.
As I look at all the piled up snow, I miss my people…the People of Walmart. I want to see the brightly lit store…shelves full of food. I also want a Pal’s tea. My prince, River, wants to pee at his favorite spot. We are not just sad. We are bereft.
Here’s a recipe for some soup that tastes good on this cold, wintry day. It’s Bear Creek’s Navy Bean Soup. It is not from an Appalachian Queen who went out, slayed the bear by the creek and then came back inside to make soup with the beans she grew and dried this past summer. It’s from me…a proud member of the People of Walmart. Bring 8 cups of water to a boil and dump the mix in. Let it simmer for about 10 minutes. Boom! Perfect navy bean soup!
Not so fast. Oh, crap…it actually didn’t thicken right, so I added another Walmart find. I’m now wondering why I didn’t just open this can and add water and not even use the mix?
It was not something a true queen would have served, but it worked. Mike really liked it.
I love snow. It’s magic. We had a little magic this morning! Al Archer, the weather guy for WXBQ, said we’d have about one inch of snow. We had anywhere from about two to five inches throughout the Tri-Cities. I went into work and decided to leave at 10:00 am, because I was concerned about the slippery roads. When I got home, I felt guilty because it stopped snowing!! Later, however, I was really happy with my decision.
Here’s a picture that I took on the way home…Caney Valley.
If you look closer in the picture above, you’ll see the big icicles…here they are up close…
When I got home from work, I asked Mike to drive me down the road in the truck with four wheel drive. We had a bit of a traffic jam…
We got through all this goat business and saw the river. It looks cold!! It reminds me of the funny weather forecast that Rita Quillen posted on Facebook. Rita is a teacher, a poet, a musician and the writer of one of my favorite books “Finding Ezra.” She’s an Appalachian Queen. Here’s Rita’s weather update for Scott Count and surrounding areas..”Slicker-n axle grease on a pump handle. Partly crashy with widely scattered KA-BLAMS this afternoon. Caution is advised.”
This is the North Fork of the Holston. This is the river that runs through my world…Mendota and then Hiltons. We love this river. I double dog dare you to say she’s not beautiful!!
We are supposed to get a bunch of snow on Friday. We’re all getting ready. People of Mendota…Start Your Generators!!
Did you play the Powerball Lottery? Did you win anything? I did. One of my numbers was 10, and I won $8. Here’s what I bought with my winnings. I’m good with this prize.
I’m watching a tribute to Willy Nelson as I type this and wondering if he’s sick or something. He’s getting such a tribute and, unfortunately, we usually reserve this for when you’re dead or dying. Ouch.
For five years, from 8th grade through 12th grade, I rode bus 72 up Lee Highway on my way to John Battle High School. During that time, I noticed the landscape daily. I still do. For the past couple of years, I’ve noticed this building but I didn’t know what it was…it is supposed to house tenants that are involved in the research, manufacture and/or development of “Clean Fuel Energy” products and systems.
Mike and I rose early and were at Sam’s Club at 7 am to get new tires for my Prius. He followed me in the truck with River riding along, naturally, and after dropping my Prius off, we had some time to kill . I mentioned this building, so we drove up on the hill to take a closer look. The property has a gate on it which was wide open, and we drove right in. It was very interesting.
No one was there. This is the backside (above). They are using cisterns to capture water and probably using it for toilets in the building. What was once an old method of gathering water is suddenly new again. I’ll bet in 20 years, cisterns will be cropping up in many places as we learn to care for one of our most prized natural resource.
The landscaping is all drought resistant, and I really liked it. Conservation is cool!
Here’s the back field…more drought resistant plantings.
Look at this huge generator. It’s a whale. The solar array is behind it.
Uh oh. No matter how energy efficient a building may be, the occupants have to be thoughtful, too. Someone left this window open, and it’s 40 degrees. Whoops! I like the fact that these windows will allow fresh air. I could not tell if there was a screen, but if there’s not, someone may come to work and meet up with a bat or a bird.
I want one of these. A wind mill. If I’d just won that pesky lottery.
I took several pictures with my phone, and we turned to leave and, I said the “Oh Crap” phrase because the gate that was open when we drove in had CLOSED. I looked for an opening in the fenced in area, and there was none! I was getting ready to call 911 but Mike thought it might open as we approached it, and thankfully, it did. However, what if it had not, and what if I had not had a cell phone with me? Many people carry their phones with them all the time, but I do not. We’d have been stuck! I took this picture after we slipped through the gate and it was locked behind us. Apparently, it should not have been open earlier.
And that was our adventure before 8 am this morning! I’m going to try and learn more about this building. I have heard there might be a rooftop garden of some sort on top of this building, and I want to see it. I wonder if Virginia Master Gardeners have been involved with this project. I was a Virginia Master Gardener but that was a long time ago.
On another front, I finally got my ears pierced, and tonight, they are HOT! I hope I have not got infected ears. I’ll be so mad at myself.
I gathered all my courage and went into Epic Ink Tattoo today. I asked for Scottie as I was told he was the best piercer around, and my 59 year old ears deserved the best. These ears had seen a little action when I was 12 or 13 when Lisa Benfield Edwards and I iced them up, stuck a needle in them and then stuck broom sticks through our newly pierced ears. The ensuing infection closed any thought of a pierced ear.
But today that all changed…and let me tell you…I felt like Talbots going into Epic Ink…but someone way cooler walking out.
Boom! A New Year’s goal completed. It’s going to be a year of DOING…not TALKING!
Do you remember this past summer when a cat that I named Lilly showed up and had five kittens? I posted about those kittens off and on for eight weeks and then I stopped. Something rather tragic happened to this mother cat that captured my heart…
Three days after the last kitten was adopted, Lilly became very, very ill. I’d had her at the vet just 14 days prior, and she had a slight rash. Other than that, she was fine. She was tested for feline leukemia (negative) and given all of her vaccines. She seemed healthy in the coming days, however, the night before the last kitten was leaving, I knew something was amiss, and it only got worse. Without going into all of the unsettling details, I made the painful decision to let her go peacefully. I had her cremated and her remains are in the house in a small, wooden urn. I’d promised this little cat she would move inside with me after the kittens were gone, and I wanted to honor that promise. This mother cat spoke to my heart. She was fierce in the way she protected her kittens, yet she trusted me completely.
When she had those five kittens, I wondered how I’d ever find them homes…I decided that if I could not find them good homes, I’d just keep them. Weren’t they cute? Two gray kittens and three “Oreo” kittens that were almost identical.
But…I did find them all homes!! All of them found very good homes, and thanks to Facebook, I’ve kept up with most of them.
The kitten that I see the most went to my niece and her husband. He was the wiry little gray kitten. He was moving when the others were sleeping! He was the second smallest kitten in the litter.
Today is name is Pip. Sometimes he is Mr. Pip, Prince Pip,or Pippy; sometimes he is Little S*@t!!! He is one of three cats, and he also rules a dog named Daisy. Pip lives inside but since he lives on a farm, he gets to go outside when he wishes, and he has proven himself to be a hunter. I don’t think he eats anything he kills. He’s a sportsman type of hunter. He terrorizes Daisy.
Our neighbor’s son and his very special girlfriend….Jason and Christine….took two of the kittens. They were the first two adopted. I keep in touch with Christine and she shares pictures. Here’s the little gray one that they adopted. I called him Huckleberry. He was the largest kitten in the litter and he was an aggressive eater. He had no issues knocking another kitten out of place so that he could nurse. He seemed to be the “alpha” kitten!
Here he is today (below). He is such a pretty boy. He and his sister just got “fixed” a few weeks ago.
Here’s a recent photo (below) of the black and white Oreo that Christine and Jason adopted…her name is Kinky Boots!
The other black and white Oreo kitten is now called Sophia, and she’s pictured below. She belongs to a young woman named Ann Eline. She is in a lot of Ann Eline’s Facebook pictures and is her mama’s baby.
The last kitten…one of the three Oreo kittens…was adopted by a friend of mine, and I do not have a recent picture. However, they are animal people so I sleep well knowing this kitten found a good home as well.
I’ve been wanting to get my ears pierced for years! My best lifelong friend, Lisa Benfield Edwards, and I had some piercing activity when we were 12 or 13. We stuck needles in our ears and put broom sticks in the holes to hold the holes open while they healed. Mine got infected. I don’t know how Lisa fared…I can’t remember, but I do know she now has pierced ears.
Forward to now….DECADES later. I still have virgin ears. I have wanted to get them pierced. I’m a little fearful, but I’ve really tried. Three times I’ve gathered my courage and went to get my ears pierced. The first time was about five years ago. I went to Claires at the Bristol Mall, and they were too busy to do it. I then went to Walmart and learned that they’d quit piercing ears two months before.
Today, I went to the Bristol Mall–again to Claires–and guess what! Today, as in January 5, 2016, Claires at the Bristol Mall stopped piercing ears. They referred me to their Kingsport store. The alternative is a good tattoo parlor that does a lot of piercing might be the best bet. I want to do it during lunch so I won’t be thinking about it too much. You can overly think these important things like whether to get your ears pierced in our 50’s.
I’m now wondering….maybe I’m not meant to have pierced ears? Maybe this is God’s way of telling me not to get my ears pierced, but why would He care? Even Mary McCroskey’s cows have pierced ears…why not me?
I’m going to try one more time. Hopefully by this time next week, I’ll have pierced ears. Here’s Lisa and me at our Class Reunion. I can’t believe she is covering her ears up. When I get mine done, you can rest assured I’ll be showing off some earrings, and all my clip-ons will go away. Far far away.
Mike and I got up early and went to Brstol this morning. We haven’t been going to church for about the last six months. I think we’ll start again in the coming weeks, but, for me–and I realize there are many who might debate this–a bit of time away from church is necessary on occasion. At any rate, we were out and about on a Sunday morning. We went to downtown Bristol seeking breakfast.
We landed at Bristol’s Manna Bagel. This bagel company is owned by a rabbi, and it’s open Sunday thru Friday. Mike has eaten lots of bagels in lots of different places, and he said these were very good. I have only eaten bagels from the grocery store or Brueggers’s in Raleigh, so I don’t know the difference. I can tell you these were yummy. I had a plain bagel with veggie cream cheese which is my favorite. It was very pleasant. We read the paper and ate our bagels in companionable silence.
This guy went with us. For you dog lovers, isn’t it fun to see their faces and ears “blowing in the wind” when they are riding in the car? It’s pure joy for them!
On the way to Lowe’s, we drove by one of two of Bristol’s new breweries. Not all breweries have food but I believe this one does. My friend, Danea, made the statement last year that “Bristol has gotten cool!” I agree!
Another thing I like about downtown Bristol is how old buildings are finding new lives. We need to do more of this everywhere. What was once Central Warehouse Corporation…is now Bristol Virginia Public Schools!
We went the “back way” to Lowe’s from downtown Bristol. We drove by VI College. I remember when being a VI girl meant you were really “up there.” I was more of a UCLA girl–Upper Corner of Lower Abingdon–which translates to Virginia Highlands Community College (for which I am forever grateful). If you believe in prayer (and I do), pray that something good will come of the VI campus.
Here’s the president’s house. It’s up for sale, too. All the buildings are up for sale.
One of the problems facing VI is that it is in a “shaky” part of Bristol. There are beautiful, old houses in disrepair. If I were a rich developer, instead of finding farmland to put my subdivision on, I’d buy a block of Bristol and redo each house. People who bought could walk downtown. Wouldn’t that be fun?
And this trip was not without a prize…from a pile that looked like this on the side of the road near VI College…
Came a treasure. Mike and I were in the truck (so handy), and I screamed STOP!! Because I saw this…
This chair, like those old buildings being re-purposed in downtown Bristol, is going to find new life. It will look something like this in the spring…only better. I’ll trick it out with fancy duct tape if Mike can’t fix the back slat.
Won’t that be grand? I hope you have a great week. This week I’m going to try and achieve one of my 2016 Goals. I’m going to get my ears pierced! Do you think I’m old enough?
Have you made your New Year’s Resolutions? One of mine is to be more organized and in the process of being more organized, I lost the very cool picture I took of my closet getting organized. Maybe I ought to rethink if I can really do that.
Here’s my first resolution for the New Year. I only have only two I’m settled on today, but I have more motivation to keep the first one than in year’s past.
I am going to have a more healthy weight and focus a little more on my health in not just one area, but all areas–mentally, physically and spiritually.
For weight loss, here’s my bench mark picture, and I’ve already lost two pounds since that was taken in November. I quit eating Pal’s hotdogs in October, and that one act has been helpful. Small changes. Also, I’ve got the tools. I’ve got the staff at About Face, my Fitbit (which I’ve already lost but I have another one), and Aaron (my stepson) got me an Apple watch. Last, I’ve got a dog that likes to walk. I can do it.
Another resolution is for my Little Man (River) in the picture with me. River and Mike and I will be going to obedience training in the coming months. We’ll be taking him to Paula Shupe in Chilhowie for help with this. River has a very gentle disposition and except for a few habits such as kissing, he could be a good therapy dog. Since I love to read and I understand there is a need for reading therapy dogs in the Tri-Cities, I’d like for River to have this job. He has to prove his good citizenship, however, and I’m hoping that Paula and I can help him reach this goal.
I have many other goals. What are yours? Writing them down and blogging about them will help me meet my goals. One of the goals is to give my blog a new look. So many things!
Happy New Year. It’s hard to believe it is 2016. A young friend I follow on Facebook, Heather Harless, said it well — “I just mastered writing 2015, and now it’s 2016!” That’s me, too, Heather!
