Everybody Loves Gifts!

People stop by and leave me gifts all the time! Often it's empty egg cartons, black plant pots, or green plastic strawberry crates.  And, sometimes it's large baskets that I can use for my gift baskets.
Hardly a week goes by that someone doesn't drop off something for me.....pots, manure, fencing, jars, plants....to name a few more. Here's a notebook that my friend, Paula made for me....

And here is a great book that my friend, Karen gave me for my 50th birthday....

I read it throughout the Summer.

It had great illustrations in it...

One day I came in from working out in the garden to find THIS on my kitchen island...

A little glass ball to say "Thankyou" for some flowers that I contributed to a wedding. That was a fun surprise!

One day in June when I was working up a sweat in the garden, my good friend Pam brought me this green smoothie and this beautiful card.....just because!



And just this past month a couple stopped by to ask if I wanted 4 chickens. I said I wasn't really set up for chickens, but if they didn't mind if I ate them I'd gladly take them off their hands. They didn't mind, and now there are 4 stewing hens in the freezer!  "Winner, winner, chicken dinner!"

But probably my favorite gift of the year came from Amy Danielson. She was recently shopping at the Junk Trunk, digging through boxes, looking for hats for a play, when she ran across these....

THAT'S RIGHT!!!!!!  My long, lost mittens!!!!!

Can you believe it!?!?!  Someone must have found them and then didn't want them...or "found" them and realized that they couldn't wear them now that everyone was looking for them....And the Junk Trunk only charged $2.00 for them!! I'm SO happy to have them back, I don't care how they got there, and they are in perfect condition - if you don't count that they smell funny.

What a great gift!

Putting The Garden To Bed

I've been busy, busy, busy since getting back from Florida. It feels like Winter is coming on fast. The ducks know it's coming on too...they have been laying a few eggs every day, but today it finally happened......

No eggs.

The weather has been sunny this week.....but it's getting pretty cold outside, so I've been trying to put the garden to bed for the Winter. And if that isn't keeping me busy enough.... it seems that we are having a water drainage problem. For a while there was so much standing water that it looked like a water pipe had broken, but when the sun finally came out the standing water started to slowly disappear. I think the ground was just so saturated from the relentless downpours we've had this year that it simply had nowhere to go. I wonder if anyone else in town has been having problems like that?

Anyways, today I pulled up the last of the Beets and Turnips,

And most of the Carrots....

The rest of the Carrots I mulched with straw to keep them protected during the Winter.

Unfortunately, the Celery got frozen....I was just a couple of days too slow getting it harvested. It's sad to see it all end...the garden was very good to us this year.

Now it's time to start planning for next year!

We Interrupt This Regular Programming To Bring You This......

We just got home from our latest adventure.....in sunny Florida!

Where we met up with these people....

 (Lyn and Evonne Beiler, and my folks, Larry and Myrna Roth)

And this crazy kid....

 ( The one and only Levi Adams)

.....to celebrate Levi's high school graduation......(which happened a year and half ago!).

To celebrate this great event, we took Levi on a Alligator and Wild Boar hunt at the Okeechobee Outfitters lodge in Lorida, Florida. 

Danny and Carla SantAngelo run a great, family-oriented guide business there, and they took really good care of us.

AND I DIDN'T EVEN HAVE TO COOK OR DO DISHES!!!!

 The success rate at the lodge is very high and sure enough, Levi bagged a nice, 7 foot Alligator.....

They hunt for the Alligators at night out of an airboat using a crossbow...it's quite exciting!

 The next day they went Boar hunting, and he bagged this ugly, (but delicious) 200 lb. Boar !

 I think Levi really enjoyed this interesting adventure!

And then, since the opportunity presented itself, my Dad shot a Boar.....

.....and Evonne shot an Alligator.

After the hunt we enjoyed about a week of warm sunshine and took in a few sights......

(orange blossoms)

(watching a rocket taking off at Cape Canaveral) 

(driving to the end of the Keys)

(feeding the Tarpon)

(watching the horse races)

(miniature golf)

I think that it's safe to say - "That fun was had by all!"