Down the Dirt Road: June 2005

Strong Character...

A man I hardly knew passed away , today is his funeral , I never met him and I'm not sure what he looked like...I seen him from a distance almost every day, a young farmer with three children and I'm not sure but I don't think that I have ever witnessed stronger character. I seen him work his fields even during the most painful months of his illness, I know that the dose of medication that he had to be given would have been more then enough to put any other man flat on his back, but he just worked through the pain and kept doing what he had to do to take care of his family.Funny how a man you have never met can touch your heart so deeply without ever saying a word.
Sleep in peace Micheal.

200 miles away...

I miss my trees, my garden, my black-eyed-susans ,my Cedar Shake roofed outhouse(out of commission of course) my big white old house , the breeze blowing through the windows ruffling my white curtains, the sound of sandhill cranes echoing across the fields in the early morning, I miss my babies Maizy, Milo, Clover, Ivy, Barley, Houdini and Piper ...most of all I miss my guy Love you Kruze. See you soon.

Sorry TJ I really really "had" to do this...you can't expect me to see you lookin' like this and then not post it!! You know I luv ya!! (my 15 year old nephew) God I wish his friends at school could see him!!

Introducing Barley the newest member to our family...isn't she gorgeous!!

Barley 6/26/05

ooops

Imagine that ...I goofed up again...these pictures are all from Monday June 20 not July 20....

7/20/05

7/20/05 Absolutely can't get enough of these beautiful sunsets

Yummy Yummy recipe

~BANANA SUNRISE PANCAKES~
My children's favorite breakfast on Earth

1C Flour
2 Tbsp Sugar
1 tsp Baking Powder
1/2 tsp Baking Soda
1/2 tsp Salt
2 Eggs, slightly beaten
1/2 Cup Bananas
1/2 C Milk
2 tsp Vanilla
2 Tbsp Melted Butter

Combine all dry ingredients in large bowl, set aside. Combine eggs, bananas, and milk in separate bowl then whisk in melted butter combine liquid ingredients and dry ingredients stir until moistened. Cook pancakes on preheated griddle...enjoy.

Can substitute 1/2C Vanilla yogurt for Bananas if your not a big fan of fruity pancakes.

My Daughter Emily asked for a guitar for her birthday last year, so we got one for her with the intention of also signing her up for lessons....fast forward one year and still no lessons...she has been practicing herself and seems to be coming along pretty well on her own but still she could use a few sessions with someone that knows what they are doing....which brings me to a strange thing that happened this morning...And by stange I mean other worldly, I was sleeping kind of between waking and drifting and I could faintly hear Em's Guitar playing, it was really soft and slow and I thought wow she's really getting good...my eyes were still closed and the music almost lulled me back into a deep sleep but I just couldn't get over how great she sounded and I wanted to tell her so I sat up and stretched alittle and got out of bed and headed for the hall to find her...sound asleep in bed (I swear) .A creepy crawly freaky scary I'm leavin this house screaming kind of feeling spread over my body from head to toe...I walked back into my room in a fear induced trance and found Em's guitar leaning up against the wall by the window I just stood there and stared in disbelief, not possible, NO FREAKIN" WAY but DAMN that ghost can PLAY!!! Then a soft breeze blew through the window and the curtains fluttered across the strings and I shit you not the wind played a slow soft song on Em's blue guitar. Gods honest truth ya just can't make this shit up!!

Music Lessons

Last year we put up a fence and an Arbor with a gate and planted our first "real" garden, I planted carrots and radishes and onions and green peppers and jalopeno's and beans and tomatos, cucumbers, corn and squash and I even planted sunflowers last but not least I planted PUMPKINS Lots and Lots of PUMPKINS....I didn't realize that this particular plant is HELL-BENT on" World Domination" so I planted them innocently in the garden the rest of my more "friendly and unobtrusive " garden variety plants....BIG FAT FIRST TIME GARDENER MISTAKE. First I had these lovely sweet little baby sprouts, then I had these precious little sturdy leafy greens and then within a matter of "seconds" I SWEAR TO GOD I had huge knee high green MONSTERS of DEATH wrapping their curly Qs around the necks of my more gentle docile plants and squeezing the very life from their pitiful little leaves...it was traumatizing and I vowed never to plant those beastly killers in my garden again!!! Well....apparently they have their own agenda because they went ahead and planted themselves "all" over the place and yesterday when I watered the garden they were these little tiny vines about 2 inches high and now today they LITERALLY knee-high and I can see the fangs beginning to bare and the wretched claws are already reaching....wheres my Weed Whacker!!!!

Pumpkins taking over the world...

Today I feel like death...

This morning I was supposed to drop my girls off at Vacation Bible School where one is in the 3 grade class and the other is a volunteer teacher, then I was going to meet my friend Connie for some breakfast and we were going to do things that mothers who have temporarily dumped their children off, do....like have a completely uninterupted conversation ...Oh how I was sooo looking forward to adult talk . Unfortuneatly I feel like death and although I would still loooovve the conversation...I don't think in this condition that my body could hold the breakfast...which could pose a small problem for anyone sitting within heaving and retching distance of our booth so I had to cancel. And it worked out fine anyway because Connie is a beautician and it turns out that there were a few ladies with their panties in a bunch because they couldn't make an appointment for this morning...all's well that ends well, I guess due to my extreme nausea, sore throat , snifflingsneezingnunny nose, and other various symptoms too delicate (gross) to mention here, there will be a few woman feeling FOXY this weekend....glad to be of service!!

ceiling installed and ready to be painted...

Finished abd freshly painted...with new ceiling fan installed.

Annngry Beagle

Last night I got home from work around 11:30...I was really tired so I skipped the whole nightly thing...wash the face(bad bad clogged pores raccoon eyed girl!!) brush the teeth(my dentist would be mortified,but...how will he ever know?) I even skipped the moisturizer (OH THE HORROR!! I can feel the wrinkles etching deeper and deeper into my skin!!). Anyway this little story isn't really about my nightly ritual. Oh NO we have a much more interesting story about to unfold...As I was saying ...very tired...walked up the stairs (after kissing my man goodnight ,he was playing xbox) put my pjs on, weaved and jumped over three piles of freshly washed and folded laundry and dived into bed...there was no beagle to be seen...this seemed a little odd to me considering she sleeps ON me and by ON me I mean DIRECTLY ON me!Any part of my body is her own personal puppy pillow, in the beginning I fought this ..anyone that owns a beagle knows that this is pointless. I have yelled ,I have nicely "scooted" her off the bed,I have "not so" nicely scooted her off the bed, we have wrestled, we have argued (her barking in my face until I relent) I have even taken her out of the room and shut the door (she tried to dig through solid WOOD) there for ON me she sleeps. She wasn't there to squash the breath from my lungs so I fell into a deep uninterrupted sleep...at some point my man came to bed and apparently thought that the breath from the lungs squashing dog was already in her favorite oxygen blocking position because he shut the hall door behind him ....OH the Mistakes of meer mortals!!! "11 th commandment" Thou shall NEVER lock beagle from the body from which she gets her beauty rest the end" ...Lets just say when I came down stairs she was sleeping fitfully on the red couch under two quilts...what beagle could be expected to sleep in those conditions!!? So far this morning I have suffered the cold blank beagle stare...the lay down on the floor directly in front of my feet and turn the back beagle cold shoulder, the look right through you as though your not even there beagle brush off and my personal favorite the beagle big bark backtalk (self explanatory).... I guess its back to barely breathing tonight....

Starting to install the wainscotting...

A "before" of our kitchen ceiling....later I will post pictures of the kitchen before we put the cabinets in....but for now I'll focus on the ceiling since my man did so awesome on it .

This is our sky today...rainy and cold, we've been stuck in the house all morning...me, my two daughters and my two nephews...so its leggos for them and laundry (yuck) for me....but on the up side we are going to the movies later "Madagascar" I hope its good. Hopefully tomorrow the sun will show its big golden face.

Evening on Ridge rd

Drum roll please......I actually did it I figured it out ALL BY MYSELF.....The dirt road....

"Fire in the sky" ...see I told you the sunsets are beautiful

Computer skills? ...NONE

Ok ok....so I posted the same picture twice....I have absolutely NO computer motor functions anyone that knows me well knows this...and now all of you strangers that accidently ended up on my website know it too....there are worse things I guess....anyway there was suppose to be a picture of our insanely long driveway to show you why I chose that for our webtitle and as soon as I figure out how I managed to screw it up I will post the right pic....so off I am to guzzle another pot of coffee while screaming horrendously at this piece of nightmarish technology until I come up with some sort of a clue...

and of course there has to be a picture of that looong dirt road....

Our barn in serious need of repair....or a match...

Our farm house