The Red Hat Society

                                                               The Red Hat Society

A Group of women of a certain age who get dressed in red hats and get together to go places and see things.

This group was founded in 2013 and this was the first outing to 'Girls Gone Wine' a local brewery with wine tasting and gift shopping.

Restoring the Javelin

Starting the restoration. June 2012

Allen working on getting it running.

Mike handing the keys to Caden August 2012

Caden and the Javelin 

Our oldest grandson is about to turn 16! He is wanting the car his mom drove when she was a teenager. 1971 Javelin made by American Motors Co. It has been parked in the barn for about 15 years. It is still running but needs new brakes, hoses, tires ect.

I Enter the Fair

I've been saying for years that when I retire I am going to enter something in the fair. 
I have an online friend who wins blue ribbons with her paintings and her husband with his jelly. It just seemed like a fun thing to do. 


I decided on photography. It was so hard to pick one of the many favorites. I have taken thousands of pictures over the past three years. I love my new camera and I take pictures at every opportunity. 

I quickly found out that it's not cheap to have something in the county free fair. There are rules and regulations. Frames matting and trips over there at certain times made it a bit of a drag for me. I was amazed at the selection of photo's  there.I think the last time I went there was about ten total for the flower category. This year there were over twenty.  I was happy with the 'judges honorable mention' but still complaining that a mushroom won the flower category. Here is my picture and a shot of it in the fair with the blue ribbon winner.

Pesto

The finished product. ready for the freezer.

The garden 2011..planted with seeds. 

The basil I pulled to thin the patch.

I sowed the seeds I gathered from the basil last year. They all came up. I pulled a bucket full of basil, just enough to thin them out, and thought how nice it would be to make Pesto.

I picked the leaves, washed them, used the blender and added garlic, walnuts, salt, pepper and olive oil. I will add the parmesan cheese when I use the cubes I froze as cheese does not freeze well.

An hour and a half later I wound up with six cubes to freeze. I think that is about half of the jar  in the photo. I don't have the mess cleaned up yet!

It better be extra good!  or I just have too much time on my hands!

Classic, simple basil pesto recipe with fresh basil leaves (2 cups packed), pine nuts (1/3 cup) or walnuts, garlic (2 cloves), Romano or Parmesan cheese (1/3 cup), extra virgin olive oil (1/3-1/2 cup), and salt and pepper.

The Wait for Dianthus

And a bug too!

So many colors so much beauty

Last year I planted seeds from a bag that I gathered the fall before. I had orange mini zinnias and yellow marigolds and basil.

Where did the coral come from?

making a cone of color

making a cone of green

when the plants started coming up I didn't recognize the leaf but moved the seedling around in the garden anyway. All summer I watched them grow into a clump of green spiky leaves. As winter came and things began to freeze back I was still uncertain as to what or where I got those seeds.

As the ground began to warm the green popped back out. Clumps of something I don't know what it. I decided to not till the garden. I would instead work around the returning plants and bulb planted last year and fill in with annual seeds gathered from last year.

The First bloom

.

This is what starting appearing after the last frost. I thought maybe a cone of some kind. I already knew it was a hardy plant because the frost that bit back everything else didn't seem to bother this plant at all.

Finally a bloom appears!! I've seen this before. Dianthus. how did I get those seeds? Little did I know I was about to see an explosion of beauty and color.

TIME TO MAKE CHRISTMAS COOKIES

Christmas 2010....I find myself surrounded with Grandchildren each with an electronic toy in hand. It is time to move back to the old way of having a fun time getting ready for Christmas.

It would have been cheaper to just buy the cookies already made. I couldn't believe the cost of supplies for a couple of dozen cookies.

I do believe we have created a memory that will last a lot longer than the pastry. They are pretty and tasty and we had so much fun making them.Memories....Priceless!

PICKIN' UP STICKS

this is what it looked like after they pulled the limbs around the tree. Twig boarder is completely gone.

This is the last picture I took of this flower be. as you can see I went around the edge with recycled rubber edging. I have planted moss in with the daisies and bulbs.  this picture is in Sept 2012. 

In early spring  2008 I began picking up sticks from the back yard. I would have a hand full pretty quick and I was always looking for ways to improve on the looks around the trees in the back yard so I came up with an idea to use the sticks. I started tying the sticks together with twine. Then I began laying them around two trees on the low side of the terrain. A flower bed came into vision fairly quick.

Even tho the picture don't look like it, the stick wall is about 8 inches tall on the low side. I added soil knowing that the sticks would deteriorate and someday the soil would be held by whatever was planted on it. I choose monkey grass and what I call Mother's Moss....I all so have heard it called Hocatown Moss.....which is the name of the settlement she grew up in.
There were already bulbs around those trees, jonquils and Shasta daises. The white color gives light to the different shades of green.

I had a tree cut that was too close to the house. When the men were removing the limbs they drug one close enough to remove the stick wall from around the back of the flower bed. As I stood in the kitchen and watched out the window my heart sank a bit. In the blink of a eye it was gone. The plants are all still there. the terrain is smooth. Changes every year in this yard. I'll just have to wait till next spring to see how pretty I can make it next year..