Tag Archives: rivermyst

My Vote is in Mendota, Virginia

Happy Election Day!  The providing of flu vaccine at no cost to residents on Election Day is a Mendota tradition.   I met my girlfriend Helene (aka Dr. Helene Holbrook) down at the Community Center at 7 am this morning. She had managed to locate a small amount of flu vaccine and although she could not vaccinate everyone, she could get to a few as they came in to vote. We are so grateful to Helene, Patti Vanhook and our friends at ETSU for taking such good care of us. There are folks here who would not otherwise get the vaccine if this effort was not made.  Hopefully if more becomes available, more folks can be vaccinated.

Election Day is also  a fun day to catch up. I got to give everyone’s friend Bubby a hug as he soon will be joining me in a special club. He’ll be a “senior citizen” in a few weeks. We’ll be AARP buddies! Notice Bubby is wearing cammo…did he really think he could hide from Helene and that needle?   He’s thinking about the needle in this picture…he’s sort of tense!   However…she got him! He’s all vaccinated.  He was so brave…said he barely felt it.

Bubby and Me

Another tradition that I love in Mendota is the food that is brought by the ladies working the voting table. I had quiche and nibbled on a biscuit.

Food At Mendota Voting

Here’s another friend, Curtis, who stopped stuffing his face for a minute so I could take his picture. Curtis lived in Texas and had friends living in Mendota. Over a few visits, he got infected with that Poor Valley mud on his feet and had to move here. There’s no known cure…you  just cave to the desire to live in Poor Valley. He’s a talented woodworker.

Curtis B.

I was home by 10 am and felt like I’d been gone all day. There was still much to do! If you read this blog regularly, you know we’ve got a Farm to Table dinner on Saturday at the Kiser’s RiverMyst Farm.  (See more about that here. )

RiverMyst Sign

Last night Molly Kiser called needing local apples for Saturday’s dinner so I delivered 1/2 bushel of our Red Delicious apples. They have been refrigerated since we picked them. They’re starting to shrivel just a tiny bit. Here’s a couple of the apples…all fancy and excited about being part of the salad that will be served Saturday.

Apples

So I got back from RiverMyst and decided to work on a chalkboard project. You can see where this project was going…it was going to be so awesome. The wreath that you see is not the one I’ll use at Christmas. I’m making a wreath out of boxwood that I’ve stolen from every neighbor with boxwoods in Mendota, but my boxwood stolen booty is “being preserved” in a magic potion in the garage. I’ll be blogging about preserving boxwood if it works. With my luck..it’ll be a dismal failure.

Project Failure

So I had this on its way and was feeling pretty smug when I realized the chalkboard hanger was on the bottom. If I leave it as it is, it would be upside down.

Peace on Earth Upside Down

Drat!

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Curtains, Traffic Jam & Oh What Nice Neighbors

Hope your week is starting off good.  Mine is!   Three more work days and I’m off for a bit until I start my next job.

If you wish to leave a comment and tell me about your week…or anything… there is a section at the end of the post. It would be GREAT to hear from you. Someone told me that they wanted to leave a comment but they were unsure what to say. Just say hi!!  I so appreciate it.  You may also have RiverCliff Cottage delivered to your email address by subscribing.

Back to the post….this was the post that I meant to include on Sunday, but I was totally taken with the Mendota Cemetery Quilt giveaway.  See here if you haven’t read.

I have a thing for linens…and it’s most intense for quilts. I haven’t even made a full-size quilt. I’m too impatient. I buy them from people who have more patience than me. I have helped make some, but I’ve never done one by myself. Maybe some day…

So here’s the weekend recap…

It all started with a traffic jam on the North Fork which runs in front of my house. Can you believe this? Six of ’em!

They are off and paddling in the photo above.

However, this took a few minutes.   Had to get the feel of it while sitting in the grass.

Just a beautiful Saturday morning…

After putting in at our house, they paddled underneath two swinging bridges, a tressel, floated past Abrams Creek and looped off the road quite a ways before they pulled out at the Mendota Bridge.

They passed by Hosses’ Farm, Big Loop Farm and Rohoboth Farm.   Don’t you love farms with names?

So..then…guess what? I started making my curtain. I mean…it’s just a valance, right? Anyone can do it, rght?  I didn’t want to line it and I wasn’t planning to line it, but my sister’s voice nagged me telling me I should line it and that I was being tacky for shortcutting. Tacky? I was totally irked at her. In the end, it didn’t matter, as I made the rod pocket too small. It doesn’t fit. She annoyed and distracted me so much that I didn’t measure properly. I hope she’s reading this so that she knows how upset I am. Sister…STAY OUT OF MY HEAD!!!I also think because I knew I had to go to work on Monday, I hurried.

But there is an alternative theory…I am such a sewing loser.

Check this out…when I went to match up my fabric…I didn’t make a big enough seam.   Oh well.

Defeated, I’ve decided that I hate the whole process, and I called the amazing, wonderful, talented–and appreciated–lady who has made window treatments for me many times and asked her if she’d make me a stationary roman shade for my back door. Yes, I’m sure I could do it, but I’m not going to. For $20, I can have it done, and I’ll be there promptly a week from Friday.

Besides… I want to clean up the house and decorate for fall. Those bloggy linky parties are calling me.

So you might ask? Did she put her sewing machine away and clean up her mess?

Chrissy:  “Are you kidding?  “

 Hmmm..nah…I didn’t get things put away.   No, instead, I had cross words with my husband who inquired if I was ever going to clean up the mess, and I stalked off with my ipad to look up other projects that are more attuned with my talents. Like spray paint and picking out fabric for my stash.

Another fun thing…our neighbor, Molly Kiser at Rivermyst Farm, called about the peppers they had to share and did we know someone who wanted some? “Yes,” I answered, and then she offered me some, too! Some red ones. I don’t grow get red ones because I eat them before they turn red.

Look at her sweet note on the box…I love my neighbors!

Little insert here…I had to take those peppers…Molly had that certain pitch in her voice…a bit of desperation that made me think what she REALLY WAS SAYING was something like…”if you don’t take these peppers, I don’t know what I’m going to do with them…I’m really tired of seeing them.”

I understand this! People who grow food don’t want to waste a thing…but we get really, really tired of the garden producing so much in such a short period of time. Do you recall my summer squash? I didn’t think they’d every stop multiplying. It makes one…well, generous.

We delivered most of the peppers to the folks who needed them and then I got up early on Sunday and while doing a few other things, I chopped mine up and placed them in freezer.

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Here they are.  I had already chopped and froze quite a few green peppers, and Molly’s generosity enabled me to add about 12 more packs of chopped red peppers.  They look funny.  Ha!  I’ll be laughing all the way to my plate when I’m eating fahitas with these yummy peppers in them this winter.   Thanks to the sweetness of my neighbors.

How are your neighbors treating you?  When I lived in a subdivision of 1,000 homes,  I knew about two families well enough to call them friends and about ten well enough to know their last names.    We are blessed to live in southwest Virginia.

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