Several Saturdays This Summer (Summer 2012, that is)

I was uploading pictures tonight while your dad was working on his sermon, and I realized I had some great photos from several Saturdays this summer. I love Saturdays!

On this first Saturday, the Saturday after we returned from vacation in D.C., I took pictures of what everyone on Mammaw Lopp's  original 28 acres was doing.

First, we have Grandma hoeing. She said she hates that job, but she was out there being a great little hoer! What a good Grandma!

Next we have Chris Jr. out trying to subdue the earth. Check out how high the weeds were!

It was fun to watch Sebbie make more and more swipes of the field and see the instant progress.

 It was so much territory to cover that he had to work on it the next day as well.



When I went into the house, I found industrious people, lazy people, and whiney people.

 Your dad was industrious, no surprise!, hard at work painting the bathroom.

And Valerie was industrious cutting Will's hair.

Will, on the other hand, was whining about the presence of a camera at this manscape session.

Last but not least, Mozey and Boo-Boo were just plain lazy!
Later that same Saturday, we had a feast!

Chris Jr. cooked a Boston-butt in his smoker for the family. I have to say, Chris,  It--Was--Awesome!!

The next Saturday, we loaded down Val's car...

and our car...

and took Vally off to her first year at Anderson. Check out that messy room! I am glad things looked much better by the time we said our goodbyes.

Then, several Saturdays later, folks came from all over to watch,

to supervise,

and to help...

rob bees,

cut wax out of combs,

and sling honey! I am so glad we had so much help, because that sure turned into a long day of work. Thanks to you all!

After all the honey work was done, there was playtime!

There was so much playing with fire,

and smoking and burning and bending of things, that I think all of the guys involved were destined to wet the bed that night! Nobody furnished me with any reports of bed-wetting, so I can only draw my own conclusions from their silence!

When the work, and the play, and the supper, and the dishes were all done, I was glad to walk up to our old house, and know that all was well because everyone was at home. ~*happy sigh*~

Als at the Liberry

 

Ok, this will be short and I don't have any pictures that I have taken, but this story is worth blogging. Last week I went for a job interview at a tiny branch of the county library that is located in Tyro. Because a main component of the job description involved reading to Kindergartners in the public school, I decided that I should use my best military, aka nondescript, accent during the interview. I even practiced reading several children's books aloud thinking I could demonstrate that I don't butcher the queen's English.

Well, I needn't have prepared so much. I guess I just forgot I was interviewing in Tyro!

During the hour long interview with the two main librarians, both of them repeatedly pronounced library as liberry, and the one lady kept telling my about a unit on als that they were planning for the fall.

Do you know what als are? In any other county they are owls!

I love Davidson County!

Meet Jesus

Meet Jesus. Yes, the handsome doggie you see before you is not Moses, but Jesus! Yesterday, Pappaw announced that he loves his dogs. Dog-s! Plural. He loves Daisy and...um....[think, think, think]...[it's a Bible name]...Jesus! That's it--Daisy and Jesus! He loves Daisy and Jesus! Ole' Mozey has been elevated! Pretty impressive for a dog of humble beginnings!

Well, besides Pappaw acting as the Pope, he had other good news yesterday. He had an MRI and the doctor said he has not had a stroke! Of course what Pappaw "heard" the doctor say is that he is 100% ok, and he has no mental deficiencies at all! Pappaw was very cheery and on cloud 9. He told me that he had a new lease on life now. I am glad he is encouraged. I just hope his encouragement doesn't translate into figuring out how to drive the truck or taking the tractor up the road.

When I asked him how he did in the MRI, he said, "If my brain wasn't scrambled going into that thing, it sure was when I came out! Sounded like they was beatin' on a oil drum that I was in." Pretty funny description!

Piles and piles of clouds

Yesterday (Sunday, May 27), your dad and I walked down behind Grandma and Pappaw's house, a little below the barn to pick raspberries. I have been keeping an eye on them since they were babies, and last Sunday when we walked past them I thought they looked like they would be ripe within a week. We had already planned to churn some homemade ice cream, so I got the bright idea to pick some wild raspberries and make a raspberry syrup for the ice cream.

Well, the raspberries were sparse as you can see. We started picking anyway, and got a grand total of...

 Not very impressive! There are still  some left that will ripen up in a week or so, but I doubt we will get 2 cups off the whole thing!

The nice thing about the raspberry foray was watching the sky. It was so, so pretty. The clouds were just huge and piled up against a Carolina blue sky.

From the little bit of traveling I have done, it is true that there is no blue sky quite like the blue sky of North and South Carolina.

 The sky over the pasture was so pretty I kept trying to take better and better pictures of it, because I felt the camera just couldn't reflect how pretty it really was.

It was truly a byootiful day!

 And the ice cream at the end of the day only made it better!

Some Very Pretty Things

When I finally loaded all my recent pictures on the computer I realized I have been the happy recipient of some very pretty things recently. Y'all showered me with such byootiful things on Mother's day that I wanted to share them on here, with a few other things! Thanks HEAPS to all of you!

I absolutely love all my porch flowers!! The ones that did not have pots are now happily potted and gracing the back porch. It really makes me happy to see them when I look out the window. I also enjoy pottering around, dead-heading them and watering them. It reminds me of all of y'all, so of course that makes me happy.

Mother's day was also full of amazing food! Check out this breakfast:

It was sooooo good, and I ate soooooo much that I had the meat-sweats in church! [Yeah, I know, TMI!] Thanks to you, Chris, Chris Jr, and Val. It was a delicious breakfast!

Then lunch! Val made a recipe that she found that was out of this world!

It was a salad with cucumbers, tomatoes, olives stuffed with feta, chicken strips, thyme, and a homemade dressing. It is making me hungry thinking about it! You did good, Vally!

Later in the day on Mother's day, we went to Michael and Lynette's. As always we had a blast, and more byootiful things awaited me.

We had incredible coffee and snacks, and then we went to supper at Carraba's .

And Nettsie and Michael also gave me more byootiful things. A byootiful porch plant (that greets me on the pantry porch) and a byootiful antique tea cup!

I love having it on the breakfast table in the mornings. It  really is a happy little cup!

Something else that has been byootiful this spring are the hydrangeas. I don't know when our hydrangea bushes have ever been so full and amazing.

 We have bouquets all over the house. Just like rich folks in the movies!

And then there were the strawberries. I bought strawberries from Thomas Penninger this year and they are the best I have had in years and years.

I think it is so fun just bringing them home from the nursery. They smelled so good in the car. It made me think of all the strawberry picking forays when y'all were little. I have fond memories of that, but I know the reality was it was hot and y'all didn't like to pick longer than 6.2 minutes. But 6.2 minutes of sweet memories obviously trump an hour and a half of whiny memories!

And just to make you hungry, check out the pictures of the annual strawberry pies. 

One for Mother's day....

 ...and two for Vally's birthday! Are you drooling yet?

Last of all, this byootiful creation was the groom's cake at Luke and Sarah Dellinger's wedding.

Yessiree, folks, that is a cake! It was about 18 x 26 and the part at the bottom was real, cooked bacon! All the kids who got a piece of cake fought for a piece of bacon! Isn't that great! And they couldn't have picked a better brand, eh Chris Jr.?

Thanks for enjoying all these byootiful things with me!

A 20 Year Dream Come True!

You know how your daddy has wanted to build a better road to the camp for a long, long time? Well, just this weekend, rather out of the blue, it happened! The road from the bottom of the sledding hill to the french drain is probably 80% complete, and the section from the french drain to the camp and the  path under the zip-line are completely finished, leveled, and smooth! Woo-hoo!

A guy from church, Tim, has felt that he wanted to repay your dad for all your dad's help to him, so he asked what he could do to help on some project at our house. We knew Tim was a sub-contractor with bobcat experience, so your dad asked Tim if he would give him a day of bobcat work. Tim was very happy to come over and help, and he showed up a bit unexpectedly on Friday! Here are some views of the project.

Tim barely got started on Friday and had a flat tire. He ran and got it fixed and then really started into the job.

While Tim did the bobcat work, your dad did the grunt work at the stream. He had to make the bottom of the stream bed level so be could put the concrete tile/culvert things in to make a bridge.

To make the stream bed level, he stretched a string that would represent where the top of the tiles would be.  

Then he cut a piece of plywood exactly the diameter of the tile and used that as a guide for how deep to dig.

Your poor dad--this process took all afternoon! The crazy thing is, he LOVED the work! 

While he was working, Mozey went down to encourage him.

And Uncle Joel came down to supervise from his truck!

Actually, Joel really was a help. He make several trips to the house just to surprise your dad and Tim with drinks and nabs one time, and work gloves another. Really thoughtful!

This is the final look of the stream before the tiles were put in.

I couldn't get a pic of the tiles because I had to occupy  Pappaw so he wouldn't miss the tractor! Pappaw and I chatted and walked over the North 40 for several hours so that he wouldn't be upset that the tractor was in use. 

OK--here are the finished views. The first is from the top of the hill at the barn as you head down toward the sledding hill and the stream.

This is the actual stream crossing.

This is the road from the french drain down to the camp.

This is the road from the camp up to the zip-line platform.

That's about all I have. I know these pics don't really show it well, but I wanted y'all to see the progress. I can't wait for all of you to see it in person!