Staying Busy and Loving Spring

Hello from the hills!
Masses of violets are all around the house this year.

The azaleas are budding and ready to burst open.

My white peony is budding, too, so it won't be long until it blooms.

This volunteer mullein is looking great.  The leaves will be picked in a month or so and kept for respiratory teas when needed.

Be sure and check your gardens for cleavers, aka the velcro weed, for yourself and especially if you have pets.  Young dogs love them and they're very beneficial to their health as they cleanse the blood of toxins.

Read about cleavers here.

Here's our Rat Terrier, Tillie having her tonic (fresh cleavers) for the day. (Yes, Rat Terriers catch mice and rats.)

So, I was grilling burgers with a little friend.  We think it's a tree frog.  Linking with Eileen at Saturday's Critters.

I've been working on a 6 pound batch of soap this week.  I make a basic batch then hand-mill the soap and add oils for fragrance and beneficial properties.  This lavender soap is great for it's antiseptic qualities and it smells heavenly.

Have a great weekend y'all!

Dear America, This Too Shall Pass

Hello from the soggy wet foothills!  We're still getting a lot of rain, but it sure beats none.

Hyacinth

So, we heard there were major protests in China with all kinds of people on the streets protesting.  Remember that?  The next thing we heard a lot of the protesters are unaccounted for then we heard a novel virus killed most of them.  Hmmm, that sounds a bit suspect to me.  Then our own "trusty" media started blaming the president for the virus, lol, while simultaneously blasting fear into every household that doesn't yet realize their "news" may not be exactly trustworthy.  (This might be a good time to turn off the TV. )  Tell me, does anyone know anyone who truly has the virus?  I don't.  In fact I don't know anyone who knows anyone who knows anyone that has it. And I refuse to buy more of anything than I normally would at the grocery store.  Besides that we have a promise as such that should give us peace. Psalm 136, the whole chapter is amazing, but verse 25 in particular should be a comfort to us just now.  It is to me, anyways.

So, you finally decided to bloom. lol

We have to remember that thousands die of the flu every year in nearly every state in the country.  And while we don't like that, yet it is a part of life.  So, I hope we'll just calm down out there and think about something besides clearing out our grocery stores.  Planning our gardens or reading a good book might be the best way to get through all the craziness going on right now.

This bird bottle has been hanging on the eastward side of our back deck for many years but has yet to be home to a single bird.

You can imagine my surprise when I noticed it has a nest in it.  I'm not sure which bird made the nest, but I'm looking forward to finding out.   There are no eggs yet, but I'll keep watching.

Have a GREAT week y'all!

Spring Cleaning the "Important" Things

We had another snow day since we talked last, but I'll spare you most of the glorious details.  All I can say is I love  "global warming" if it means more snow for us here in the foothills.

Meanwhile the daffodils kept blooming.

It's a gray, wet day here, but you can see this puffed up Mourning Dove lording it over the food supply.  There's one in every crowd, methinks.

A Titmouse and Cardinal finally get a chance to dine.

And since we last visited I dabbled here and there cleaning some things that had not been cleaned in a coon's age.  My new, already-went-through-the-wash dishcloth from Dollar General released enough dye that I could have tie-dyed a t-shirt.  Had I just known beforehand...lol.  I'm trying to embrace the viral love of dollar store merchandise, but so far it's a 50/50 toss-up for me.

I've been purging and down-sizing my earthly possessions (Goodman won't let me touch his, but I really WANT to help him go smaller, read that THROW STUFF OUT/sell off.) and was horrified when I opened a box of silver pins/brooches that were nearly black from oxidation.  I recently got a new denim jacket on sale for a meager sum and decided I'd use some of those pins to dress it up a bit.  Apparently, boho/boohoo(?) has taken over every fashion genre so I flung caution to the wind and adorned it heavily.  LOL
Anyways, look how tarnished some of those pins were.

I do most things old school, but I didn't have time to sit and polish those pins with MAAS so I used this quick method and lo, they fairly sparkle.  And no, I'm not likely to wear all those pins together on my jacket, fashion be gone.

Stay pretty, y'all.  

Linking with Eileen at Saturday's Critters

Winter in Tennessee

This is winter in Tennessee y'all.  All last week our daffodils were blooming their little hearts out then...

On Saturday under a forecast of rain all day we began to see white puffs falling from the sky and landing on everything.

Sometimes the weather service just needs to look out the window.  LOL

It was glorious.  We love our snow, and the birds love their black oil sunflower seeds so we kept them supplied with their favorite food all afternoon. 

This is what a little over 2 inches of "rain" looks like on our deck rail.  Hope your winter is full of all kinds of white "rain".   To be fair we do live in an area where snow is not easy to predict.  

I got the skirt sewn to match the top I showed you in the last post.

I wanted to let those of you who may have joint, rheumatoid and some other types of pain know about an herb that is kicking pain to the curb for a lot of folks, Goodman and myself included.  Goodman used to have a lot of knee pain.  I used to have pain from arthritis in a couple of joints on my fingers.  We are now pain free thanks to Moringa.  Click here to see it on Amazon

source

I'm not a doctor, but I know this works for us.  I'm not going to wear you out with the facts, either., astounding ones though they are.  Of course you need to do your research, but to make it easy just start here if you're interested.  (I'm not an affiliate to any entity shared in this post.)
 Here is a link from the Big Family Homestead Youtube channel where I heard of it's amazing properties. 

Have a great week y'all!
Linking with Saturday's Critters

Sewing in the Foothills...among other things

Hello from the foothills where we had very mild weather around the new year so that the daffodils  tried to bloom this month, but our recent cold wave only allowed one to bloom.  It froze in place for a few days then wilted.   Ah well.

On the other hand my new Christmas Cactus made a fair show for us.

I've been experiencing a bit of crafty deja vu.  Back in the 80s I made some macrame handbags and a few other things that were in vogue at the time, but I'd never made a plant hanger so I gave that a whirl since we last visited.  In the 80s macrame was just macrame - now it's Boho style.  

I'm now thinking about making a hanging chair, lol.  I'll let you know if that works out.

I've since been sewing with the fabric beneath my mug of Chai tea, but first the tea.  Did you know that adding a couple of star anise pods to your tea gives you a small,.natural dose of shikimic acid which is the precursor to the pharmeceutical anti-flu drug contained in Tamiflu?  Cheers!

I made a Toaster Sweater by Sew House Seven.  It's a comfy little top that is fairly easy to sew.  Mine is the dropped shoulder version on the right.  The pattern is super easy to make with only three pieces to sew.

Here it is all finished.  I'm still debating if I want a matching skirt.

I've sewn for years, but only last year did I buy a serger.   I got the Brother 1034D, and my only regret is that I didn't get it sooner.   Over-locked seams are a real time saver.

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Don't Ever Have A Heart Attack on Medicare....
That's a little something to remember in case you may start to have a coronary episode when you're older and on Medicare.  I hear that if you have other insurance not connected to Medicare you'll be okay to proceed with the attack and be treated well at a hospital, otherwise you may regret the whole business. Here's why I've drawn this conclusion:

True $tory
A former elementary school teacher had a heart attack just two years ago and found herself in the hospital.  She'd had trouble breathing and was experiencing chest pain so her sons took her to the ER.  She was examined and sure enough had had a heart attack.  She was admitted and taken to a room where the air-conditioning wasn't working.  This was in the South in the middle of the summer.  It gets really hot here y'all.  The sons demanded a fan and one was brought to her room.  The next day someone came to get the fan to take it to another room, but the sons told them the fan was staying where it was.  The former school teacher is diabetic, but the food that was brought to her room were things she couldn't eat, very high in carbohydrates.  When she told the nurse she couldn't eat the food she was told to go ahead and they'd give her a round of fast-acting insulin.  I won't go into all the sordid details of the actual medical care, but that part is not a happy story, either.  The former teacher had dotted all the I's and crossed all the T's when she signed up for Medicare Part A and makes monthly payments for Part B to cover everything Part A doesn't cover.  I'm as baffled as everyone else, but it seems to me that times have changed drastically in the past 15 years.  Where the elderly were once cared for in the hospital, they don't seem to be important patients unless they have additional insurance that charges can be submitted to.
Eat healthy y'all.

Gluten free Mediterranean omlette

It's a high-dollar world out there that you may not want to have to deal with.