TGIF

       So it's Friday again.  Already.  I have a few chores to do, some errands to run in town; then, it will be about time to set up the Shabbat table for lighting the candles, taking communion, preparing for a day's rest.

     Moshe fell on the back steps this morning when he went out to feed the chickens.  We are praying that he hasn't broken a rib.  I put ice on it immediately, had him take some aspirin, and he is trying to relax in his chair at his desk.  I might convince him later to let me tape it up - treat it as if it is a rib fracture.  That's about all they would do at the E.R.  

     I finished feeding the chickens;  will do that again this afternoon.  Gathering wood I'm not so great at, but, I'll do my best.  We'll be alright.  There must be a reason for this - just like there is a reason for every single thing that happens to us.  All of life is a learning process.  There are no coincidences. And, God is in control.

     The sun is just now beginning to come out, and the temperature is "all the way up to 33 degrees".  We could use a couple days of drying out after this past week!  

  

 TGIF :     Thank

                God

                 I'm

                 Forgiven

Sunny days will return...

SHALOM Y'ALL -

     TWYLA

Another Redo



One of my barn paintings, framed in old barn wood...

     Okay.  I like change.  (NOT the Obama kind!!!)  I have always, as long as I can remember, changed the decor in my house.  When I had my big old historic home, I changed the displays in the butler's pantry, all the curio cabinets, and china cabinets - every MONTH!   I was physically stronger then, and saw nothing wrong with moving the furniture almost as often.  My daughter could wake up at noon on a Saturday  and find the entire house redone.  Sometimes I switched entire rooms with each other.  It is always stimulating for me to get my artistic juices flowing and to see what odd items can go together in an eye-pleasing way.  I might take a very valuable antique item and put it in a basket with a dimestore item, then add a scrap of fabric or paper... who knows?
     So, after redoing my blog yesterday, I decided it was high time to redo the living room for winter.  Now that I've lost alot of physical strength,  I mostly change the art and other decorative items.  It doesn't hurt that I do watercolors, and have almost limitless paintings to choose from... I feel energized when it's new and different.

part of the curio cabinet

      The poor living room had recently been neglected.  It still had Autumn colors, paintings of  colorful trees and shadowy scenes,  coiled clay pots filled with wheat and other grains, and my collection of turkey figurines!  It was time for snowflakes, deer, silvery branches, and snow scenes.  Moshe helped me by bringing  in some actual pine branches which I attached to the walls with picture hangers.  The curio cabinet is filled with my Grama's old celluloid reindeer, various snowflakes, crystal bowls, touches of blue glass.
     Moshe is such a dear;  he always appreciates the "new look".
Even when he is outside cutting wood for the fire, if he runs across an interesting branch or stump, he sets it aside, knowing that I might like to create something out of it.  Just yesterday, he saved me a couple of very unique branches... who knows what they will become?  Or, where they will be incorporated into our decor?  He also scavenged a couple of the all-time most-wonderful items recently, and gave them to me for Hanukkah... They both were pieces from a small old barn; one a wonderful door with its hinges still intact; the other the gable end of the barn.  These pieces are solid red oak, and so heavy that they will have to be remade into something for the yard... WAY too heavy to hang on a wall. (Sigh.)
         

my joke deer, sitting on the sled

      The living room has a little alcove where the piano sits. I hung one painting there and a pine bough over it.  On the wall jutting out from the alcove, I propped my old sled, with a stuffed animal deer that I made about twenty-five years ago.  That deer is one of my little jokes with myself... He's a deer, wearing  camouflage and a hunting jacket.  (SICK!  Yes, I am sick!!!)    Wow... Does that bring back memories... Twenty-five years ago, I was a single Mom, raising a young daughter.  I worked more than fulltime, but it was still hard to make ends meet.  I started making floppy-eared bunnies, which was all the rage at the time.  I never made any two exactly alike.  They had precious little embroidered expressions on their faces, frilly dresses, fancy hats, you-name-it.  I got so many orders for them that I paid my little daughter to cut out the pattern pieces for me.  I got special orders for bride bunnies, Atlanta Braves bunnies, nurse, doctor, lawyer, biker, even a nudist bunny!!! One well-loved local dentist was buried holding his dentist bunny that I had made for him - toothbrush and all...  But, I digress. After the bunnies came deer, pigs, cows, dolls.  That little cottage industry helped us make the mortgage payment and knit together our tiny family unit.  One time we received an order from a business - I can't remember exactly, but it was for twenty-some rabbits, maybe even thirty... it was a lot.  After the person left from bringing us the list of orders,  my daughter, Melody,  and I literally jumped up and down for joy.
     And, so... decorating, for me, is more than just putting away some stuff and getting out some other stuff.  It's always a trip down memory lane.  Hope you've enjoyed the stroll with me this morning.

...two of my Winter watercolors, above the sofa...

Shalom Y'all - Twyla

Adding Art to my Blog

Some of my art - in the dining room - preparing for Hanukkah

     Yep.  I got in the mood to redecorate.  This time, it's not the house, but my blog.  I changed the background, the color of the print, the banner.  And, I added "Twyla's Watercolor Gallery".  Please click on it and see what I have posted so far.  I know it's only a few things, but I hope to add to it at least once a day.  You see, I've been doing watercolors for about ten years now, and I have a BIG stash of paintings that I'd like to share.  Some are serious, some silly.  Some realistic, some very imaginative.  But, they all came from my hand and my trust that "the paints will do the painting".  I  LOVE  watercolors!  Hope ya'll will like them, too.

"Hibiscus"

Shalom Y'all - Twyla

Random Thoughts from Green Acres

Moxie, smiling

         Just fixed breakfast burritos for hubby and me; not as spicy as sometimes, but good nevertheless.  Moxie got the last bite of mine, as usual.  She doesn't beg; she's SUCH a good dog!  But she manages to situate herself within my vision field and look at me, silent, but speaking with her eyes. And smiling.  (Smart dog, too.)
     I've noticed that I write a lot about food.  As chief cook and bottle-washer, I suppose that makes sense.  I really like to cook. ( In fact, I really like keeping house.  Does anybody else LIKE keeping house these days?)  I make just about everything "from scratch".  I suppose we must seem odd to the cashiers at the grocery store;  we only buy real food, nothing that is prepackaged, no mixes, no frozen dinners, nothing with preservatives, certainly nothing with MSG!   We buy all the stuff you find on the outer edges of the store... produce, meat, dairy.And a few canned items.  What an interesting concept, huh?  I really enjoy preparing healthy food for our healthy appetites.  Moxie's food is custom-gourmet dogfood... and, even the chickens eat minced fruit and vegetable peels!   Poor ol' CassPurr still prefers dry kibble. He occasionally condescends to eating a chunk of roast beef or turkey... what a funny boy.  Anyhow, I put in a lot of time in the kitchen,  preparing food for people and animals, then cleaning up the aftermath. (There's a lot of aftermath at our house!)  It is very ironic that just when you wish you were heating up the kitchen canning stuff, there's nothing to can.

      It's cold in these here hills.  The high temp was supposed to be 25, but it got up to 32.  Not nearly as much wind today as yesterday.  Some of the roads out here in the country are still pretty icy, but most of the snow has disappeared.  There's some talk of an ice storm heading our way in the next day or so... We'll see.
     No sense in worrying about it.  Moshe cracked me up yesterday; CassPurr kept peeking out the back door as if he wanted to go out in the snow; he never went out, but seemed intrigued by it.  Finally, Moshe said, "Cassie,  I don't want you going out there... In all that snow, the only thing we'd see would be your eyes if you're facing us or your butt hole if you're walking away."  Cassie seemed insulted and stayed on the living room sofa until supper time.
     I started my second blog today - My 316 Notes - it's my findings and observations about certain scriptures.  I hope y'all will check it out.  Much like me, it will be a work in progress...
     Shalom Y'all - Twyla
    

    
 

Snow Days Just Aren't the Same Anymore

       Looking at Facebook early this morning, I noticed various friends writing about their children's hopes that today would be a snow day.  I  remember back when I was a youngster living in Pennsylvania where it really snowed a lot.  Hoping we would be snowed in.  A snow day was a fun day.  No school.. ergo... no homework.   Ice skating.  Playing in the snow.  Hot cocoa and cookies as we thawed out by the fireplace.
     Fast forward to today.  We are snowed in.  It is bitter cold and the projected weather is for even colder temperatures, with a low of  eight degrees tonight.  That's cold!  Town probably isn't snowed in; they spread salt and gravel "downtown" and on the main highways as soon as a few flakes start to fall.  But out here in the country the snow has accumulated and the rain under it is frozen.  I'm really not complaining,  The snow is beautiful and , despite my former post about Oscar and Felix,  Moshe and I work well as a team. We had our work cut out for us today...

  First we had to feed and water the chickens.  All the waterers were frozen solid.  I filled one of the kitchen sinks with hot water to start the unfreezing process.  Then, one at a time, I took the tops off, soaked the steel tubes until they unfroze, and kept filling the water bottles with hot water.  Fill with hot; empty when cold.  Repeat until each bottle was thawed.  Then, I filled them with warm water for the chickens.  Moshe mixed warm mash for all the chikcens - not just the peeps.  We repeated all of these procedures in the afternoon, trading jobs - Moshe did the waters and I gave them the warm mash.  We also put special heat-reflective pet blankets in the pet carrier for the peeps and in Pretty Face's little coop.  The upstairs of the bigger coops are fairly well protected.  All the coops were then covered with plastic sheeting, weighted down with stones and boards.  Whew.
       Meanwhile, the other major project for the day was the gathering, chopping, carrying, and stacking of wood for the wood stove.  Today it was cold enough that we had to keep adding wood to the fire all day long.  Usually we have a break for at least an hour or two.  Of course, Moshe did most of the wood "duty", but I tried to help my carrying in some of the cut pieces and stacking them.  Finally, at around 3:30 this afternoon, the wood was stocked  and I tackled sweeping and mopping the kitchen and vacuuming the rest of the house.  Wearing my pajamas, plus a big grey hoodie sweatshirt, hair pinned up with a clip,  and  holding the mop,  I told Moshe he should take a picture of me and call it, "The romance never stops."

Skillet corn bread on the wood stove

       We had a delicious lunch today. I warmed up the chicken corn soup  from yesterday.  And, I baked cornbread - in an iron skillet on top of the woodstove.  We both agreed it was some of the best cornbread we'd ever eaten.  Something about  the process of baking it in the skillet... I don't know... but, it was light and fluffy like good cake, but crispy on the bottom.  Wonderful.  I didn't even need butter on mine.  It was just plain good!!!
     I have a pot roast in the oven for supper. We got a Netflix movie in the mail this afternoon (the poor mailman's Jeep was the ONLY vehicle we saw go up our road today.)  So, we are going to have an early supper and snuggle in bed to watch the movie.  Life is good.

             Shalom Y'all - Twyla

Yummy.

More of The White Stuff...

     Looks just like CassPurr about halfway through this video.   Enjoy!    Twyla

The White Stuff

"... You have GOT to be kidding me..."

    This morning I woke up early - around 1:15 - to find that the fire in the wood stove needed to be rebuilt and restarted.   Again, the same thing at 4:30!  Hmmm..  D'ya' think it must be cold outside or something?
Glancing out the window,  I saw that our little corner of the world was white.  We knew that there were predictions of snow or sleet or some sort of wintry mix, but, I was surprised anyhow.  It seems to me that most of the time when "they" predict snow, it doesn't happen.
     So, as the morning dawned everything had a dusting of white.  Not much to brag about.  We could see that it had rained first, then snowed into the rain puddles, creating a giant slush field in the back yard.  When we went out to feed the chickens, it rained again.  Then sleeted.  Then threw tiny pebbles like mini-hailstones which looked exactly like vermiculite.  Now, at 11 AM it's snowing.  Regular snowflakes.  I'm hoping it will accumulate just enough to get some pretty photos, but not counting it.  We'll see.


Bath time for CassPurr ...



      Speaking of white stuff, last Saturday Mr. CassPurr got a bath.  He had gotten a little bit funky, so Moshe decided he needed a bath.
Cassie actually tolerates it real well. He just stands there and gets scrubbed.  He looks fairly disgusted, but doesn't mew or howl.  What a funny boy!  Notice Moxie peeking in at him.  I think she was looking in, saying, "Nanny-Nanny-Boo-Boo." Little did she know that she was gonna' be next!
     A week later CassPurr is still clean and very soft.  Touching his fur is like touching cotton candy - without the stickiness !

Shalom Y'all
                                                          Twyla