Wednesday, April 28, 2010

My Heart Is Here

Bean and Bugg were visiting and Bean decided he wanted to make a book.

Ahhh, sweet music to this Gramerly's teaching heart.

As I've mentioned before, he is very young for kindergarten, left-handed and a boy, so I was worried about the whole writing thing.
He wanted to do the cover and then he wanted me to do the title page.
So here it is in all its glory- How Do Minnows Live


He sounded all the words out himself on the pages he wrote.


The "help with Gramerly" is about the sweetest thing I have ever seen. You have to be a grandma to get that I guess. Do you see my curly hair?








Now my turn and he illustrated.






This was his page. Our gigantic pooch, Arwen, was spayed and has to wear one of those horrible collars that she hates. Do you see her there beside him in the creek with her collar-crack-up!





Proud co-author of a non-fiction book on minnows.


Look for its release on Amazon.com-tee hee


Well, I took Bean's picture, so I had to take Bugg's as well. She's doing stickers with her Pappy in her beautiful Mommy crocheted dress. She made a glitter book, and Bean wrote the title. Trust me, we are all a-glitter at the Gramerly's house.

Oooo-An Alien Species



What is it?
Too bad you can't touch it. Whoa, it's so weird. It's like a sea anemone growing on the end of my cedar branch.
I know what it is- do you?
Well, I didn't when Handy Man brought it to me, but I told him I'd look it up. He said, "How will you look it up if you don't know what it is?" I replied, "I'll just type in "orange thing on cedar tree," and I did and there it was.

Monday, April 26, 2010

Happy 90th Birthday Aunt Lois

Yesterday I went to Florence for a Happy 90th Birthday Aunt Lois party.We missed Aunt Bett, her sister, but she was stylin' in the outfit Bett sent her.
SZQ baked her favorite cake.
We none were sure Kaye would be able to make the trip, but she did and Aunt Lois was so glad to see her.


It was a good day.
In other news, this is my first garden produce of the year. It was yummy.



Saturday, April 24, 2010

Twenty Six Long Miles

1st Lt. completed his very first marathon today. Way to go son!
This my first also, as a spectator, of course!
I've been trying to walk a couple of miles a day in preparation for our vacation. We're going to DC and I want to be able to walk as far as I need to walk.
I haven't been walking on weekends though, because I'm too busy hauling chickie poo, planting, hoeing, weeding, digging etc. I ended up about 15 blocks from the finish line today, so it turns out I had a nice little stroll after all. It was breezy and overcast, so good weather for walking.
Hmm, is that my boy in the long sleeved blue/gray shirt right in the middle, behind that first row coming in?
It is him! Woo hoo, look at you Mr. Marathon Man.

You did it! Across the finish line you go!


Do you remember when you could go to meet loved ones at the airport and walk right up to where they walk off the plane? It was quite an emotional place to be. Marathons are kind of like that. People yelling, screaming, crying, waving. Wives joining husbands, husbands joining wives, kids joining parents to run with them the last block. Teams and couples hauling it in, hand in hand. I think I would have been glad to be there even if one of them wasn't mine. But one of them was, so I was yelling too!
Looks like the marathoners just missed some mighty nasty weather moving our way.
Now, I'm off to see the third graders from my school make their First Communion, and my Michelle pose for prom pictures.

Thursday, April 22, 2010

Spring Bathing






I picked up Bean and Bugg yesterday, and after a trip back to my classroom to see my just hatched chickies, we headed home to play. Pap got a new cart that attaches to lawn mower and took the kiddos for a ride. I was watering the garden, where I'd recently transplanted cabbage, spinach and brussel sprouts, etc. When Bean returned he could not resist the pull of all that wonderfully tilled dirt. Missy Bugg soon joined him.













I told the kiddos about how people used to go all winter without bathing. Bean wanted to know what they bathed in. I told him a tub just like this one. He responded, "And if they didn't have one they just went to the creek?"
Yep, probably so.
1st Lt came to get them with a container of Wild Turkey from his first shoot earlier in the day. I've been trying to figure out the best way to cook it. I believe we've settled on smokin' it. I'll let you know how it turns out.

Sunday, April 18, 2010

Monday Morning

If you can and will , please join me in prayer for a friend who begins chemotherapy.
I'll call him Big D.
I'll be praying that all those potent chemicals go straight to that tumor and away from the biggest part of him, his heart.

Saturday, April 17, 2010

Joy in a Bottle

Remember Jim Croce and Time in a Bottle? I was thinking of that song today when I was swinging Buttercup. I wish I could bottle her joy. It is so full and so all-encompassing over something as simple as a long ride in the "Weeeeeee!"

She starts asking as soon as comes through the door. Her next request is for "Bap," but her Bap was at work, so I had to do.
Then, Bap came home. The whole time he ran in to change his shoes she'd point to the house and say, "Bap, shoes." I would say again, "Yes, Pappy had to change his shoes, but he'll be right out- (dang-it Pap, c'mon).
Finally the beloved swinger of the "Weeeeeee" arrived and the look on that little face says it all.

Here he comes!He's gonna do it.


"I'm so excited," tiny hands clasped
together in anticipation annnnddddddd................................. we're off!
"Yes!"
"Isn't my pap just the greatest!"

Wednesday, April 14, 2010

Peas Porridge Hot, Peas Porridge Cold



Peas porridge in the pea patch


Look what popped up in the pea patch!

Some pea planters.

Miss Bugg called them her beads.She was very careful with her planting.


Bean planted his as well.


This week they were rewarded with pea sprouts- hooray!


Handy Man Pap had to pick them up today as I had yet another meeting. When I got home, after running and screaming, "Gramerly, Gramerly," all the across the yard, to throw herself in my arms, she looked around dismayed and declared, " All the wishies (dandelion puffs) are gone." Pap reminded her that she saved one for me on the porch. It unfortunately was missing all of if it's fluff. Bugg sighed, "It wishied itself."
There were tons of butterflies at the creek, lots of minnows, some quite large and a dragonfly.

Sunday, April 11, 2010

Sprouting Here and Yon


For years I've tried off and on to grow my plants from seeds. If I can direct sow in the garden, I've managed fine, but the "start four to six weeks before last frost" has always been plagued by leggy plants and dampening off, in spite of my best efforts.

I knew we hoped to have a bigger garden this year, so I decided to try again. This time I used the Jiffy Pellets in black trays with a clear lid and my plant stand at school, and prayer.
Well, let's just say I should've waited until "two to three weeks before last frost" cuz as you can see, they are ready.
There are eleven different type of tomatoes in this rather large bucket. Most of them are heirloom and none of them I've ever grown before. I am hoping for lots of tomatoes this year.

When I look out over the chicken yard, it's difficult to believe that less than a year ago we considered this area part of the woods. It was quite overgrown with all types of woodsy weeds and vines. Trees were lost during the hurricane winds and ice storm that followed, but the biggest change has been the chickie girls appetite for things green.
It wouldn't help if you could look closer, there's is nothing there-zip, nada, nudie.

If you recall, this is the chickie girl tractor Handy Man made me so I could take the girls out safely when they were just wee pullets.
I hated for it to just around feeling useless until we have more babies, so I drug it back in the chicken yard, scratched up some soil, and planted some wheat grass inside of it. A good rain and a dose of sunshine yielded a dense patch of green wheat grassy goodness in just a couple of weeks. This morning, I scratched up another patch, moved the tractor to where you see it above, replanted, then let the girls out.
Here is the dense patch of green wheat grassy goodness after a couple of hours.
Well, actually you would need your really strong glasses to look close enough to tell there are about two and a half sprouts left. That would be all- gone- hopefully turning into delicious eggs.
I turned over all the rocks that border my flower bed outside the kitchen window, just to see them scurry like crazy, inhaling everything tiny and wriggling. It is quite comical to see one come right up under another girl and snatch her catch right out of her beak. Protein-yummee!!
Ahh, such a glorious weekend-thank you Lord!
What's growing in your garden?

Saturday, April 10, 2010

Breathe a Little Easier

Kaye is home with a new port, same place.

I suppose no matter how good she looks, or how things appear to be going, I'm always on edge where Kaye is concerned, because plainly speaking, she's just medically fragile.

When I get a phone call like yesterday's about a failed port, and no dialysis until something was done, I despair, going places in my imagination that I don't want to go.

Lots of tears and feelings of, "Please Lord, don't let this be the start of another long hard road."

When she was in Jewish last year, and they were concerned that the port had a bad bacteria, they did tests to determine the best place for another one, and found no other good spots. So then I have visions of surgeries and respirators, then I can't get my breath.

This problem was with the actual port itself, not the site, so they just took the old one out and put a new one in. Wheww, thank you Jesus!

She is on track for getting the permanent fistula in her arm.


I enjoyed seeing my daugter-in-law's new office and studio-so exciting, before running back home last evening to put the finishing touches on Bunco.

While gathering some bouquets, I did not realize I had so many different kinds of daffodils.

And a sweet surprise. We lost a big old lilac several years back, but a few shoots started growing a few feet from where the old had been, and I just let it.

I turned the corner in my daffodil hunt yesterday and there the tiny bush was, in full bloom.

Ahhh. I love me some lilacs!

Wednesday, April 7, 2010

More Easter Parade

Buttercup couldn't decide if she should hunt or eat, so just do both.

Kaye seemed to have a good time.


Handy Man and family
Jackie joins the parade and smiles throughout.


The James Gang




I still remember the first time Jordan could hunt eggs on his own. He was just two and would shake them first. If there was no shake, meaning no candy inside, he dropped them like a hot potato.


Jakee graduates this year. How can that be. He's been at my house for every Easter since he was born. Now he's old enough to chauffeur his Granny around.






Monday, April 5, 2010

The Easter Parade

Yesterday was extraordinarly beautiful. The hunters and gatherers are ready
Pretty babies all in a row.
And another row.


This is the sweetest child.



Chivalry is not dead. Bean sharing some eggs with Baby Boy cause he noticed he didn't get many.



My grown up babies all in a row.

Good family, friends, food and fun. Practically perfect in every way.BAA,BAAA- oh yeah, some adorable sheep made by Aunties Kaye and SuZQ