This was the way my morning started.

He finally decided to  " Play Possum" after the dogs had barked and screamed at him and even pulled his hair through the cage?? I was hoping they would terrorize him enough he would not want to come back but when I turned around and saw blood on his side where they had pulled his fur I locked them in the building and carried him up into the field. I Like to NEVER got him out of the cage. He had those little fists locked so tight around the bars it was like trying to remove a monkey with a death grip. I could not just leave the cage open because Daisy had broken the latch that held the door so I Had to get him out . Finally he thumped to the ground and continued to play dead. I told him I was sorry they had hurt him - I did not mean for that to happen and then I left him in peace.

When I went back Daisy tried to Track him down so I had to tie her up in the yard with me while I worked on putting up plastic to protect the chickens in the outdoor run from the winter winds.

I worked my way all around the enclosure and attached it at the bottom too, so we will see how it holds up once the cold starts?

Then I went down and dug up my sweet potato bed and only found TWO sweet potatoes after the deer had eaten my vines about 5 weeks ago. I just kept hoping , but ????????/

Then I moved in the house and worked on putting up a light in my sewing room. The florescence light had failed so I like to never found a stud in the ceiling that I could put up a hook into and hang up a "chicken lamp". I had tried to find a swag lamp but to no avail , so I settled for the lamp that you put over your baby chicks for right now. Have to make do right now.

  

This is that beast of a rooster that someone dropped on me. He was tearing my hens all to pieces so Crystal even got tired of it and caught him and stuck him in this wee cage that he can barely turn around in? I don't have any space any bigger though? He even bit me when I fed him this afternoon. I am hoping to rehome him somehow????

When I walked down to the sweet potato bed I discovered one of my potted plants laying out in the yard-minus its pot! I checked the camera and of Course -the deer had come all the way up to the front sidewalk and grabbed this flower and drug it way down the driveway??? It is a Mother-in-law's Tongue so I repotted it so I can bring it in the house soon. They are known to be very good at helping clean the air in your house during the Winter time and very hard to kill! I need that in my dark house. Of course the deer ate the vine beside it and worked on the two peach trees again! So, I hooked up the Scarecrow once again - which squirts water at them !  They just will not take NO for an answer.

Another Adventure

Joyce and I decided that we should take time with the beautiful weather to take another hike and explore a path about 30 miles from our home. A place called Mill Creek and it was advertised as a easy to moderate hike. We cleared our calendars and took off. It was a beautiful day and we found the location in Narrows , Va. I had tried to download a map of the trails but the colors on the monitor and the colors printed on the map did not match up. I tried to enlarge the printing but even that was challenging. So, up the path we ascended and this little stone structure was the first thing I saw up above me . I do not know what it was built to be but I love anything stone. Plus, the air was so clean and refreshing that you could tell such a difference from getting away from society.

As I turned to look up our path opened up in front of us. This was quiet a different world than I was accustomed to.

There was a little stream that ran constantly to our right as we headed up the mountain. The sound was very soothing and you could feel the difference in the atmosphere .

This was my friend Joyce stretching her back when we arrived at a handmade dam built in the 1800's. It is hard to see it because the leaves have started to fall and cover the top of it.

This is the front of the little dam showing the hand carved stones that were carried and put in place. It is totally amazing how the people pulled this off and how it has withstood the test of time -especially when you consider the force of the water once the mountain floods and water pours down?

I wished for a minute that I could be a mermaid and just jump in and take a look around under the water-boy would that be COLD. lol

The forest all around us was mind-blowingly beautiful. It is hard to take in all this beauty at one time.  I did secretly keep asking God to Please not let us bump into a BEAR. ~smile~

It never ceases to amaze me how God paints every leaf and designs every twist and turn in this world of beauty. Plus, the smell - if only you could have smelled it - it was totally different from anything in my everyday life.

I asked Joyce to let me have a picture of her going up this one trail as a measurement . She is sitting on a tree across our path and the path continues up and around the side of this mountain. 

Along the way someone had arranged rock piles into formations I found very interesting?

You could look up and all you saw was more rock boulders above you.

Beneath those boulders was another simple rock formation but it really intrigued me.

There was a turn off of the main path and I wondered "WHERE in the world is she taking me"????Straight down a slope and hanging onto trees to descend brought us to this lovely waterfall.  The sound was more than any orchestra could produce and my eyes were giving me problems so at first I thought we were walking on water????? LOL Turned out to be a monstrous big flat rock .

And to our right it dropped down into this beautiful pool -but those rocks were SLICK.

Across the water was what looked like monster steps going UP and then disappearing- I was HOPING we did not have to go UP THERE??

I turned to look to my left and Joyce was taking a picture of the waterfall. They talk about when you are around water that it releases negative ions that influence your health and I sure do believe it. My body seemed to be just soaking it in and loving it.
Here is a short article about them:

Experiencing headache, uneasiness or sudden nausea in an overcrowded room is a common problem. Sometimes even in an air-conditioned room you might experience these problems.  Reason? Lack of negative ions in the room.

Don’t go by the name, there is nothing negative or unhealthy about negative ions. Negative ions are beneficial for the human body while positive ions are harmful. In fact, you will find the highest concentrations of negative ions in natural, clean air. Ions are invisible charged particles in the air – either molecules or atoms, which bear an electric charge. Some particles are positively charged and some are negatively charged. To put it simply, positive ions are molecules that have lost one or more electrons whereas negative ions are actually oxygen atoms with extra-negatively-charged electrons. Negative ions are abundant in nature, especially around waterfalls, on the ocean surf, at the beach and after a storm. They are widespread in mountains and forests.

Negative ions are present in the air we breathe in and they are also present in our bodies. The degree to which negative ions contribute to overall well-being and health is scientifically proven:

* They neutralize free radicals.
* They revitalize cell metabolism.
* They enhance immune function.
* They purify the blood.
* They balance the autonomic nervous system, promoting deep sleep and healthy digestion.
(Source: kiflow.com)

On the other hand, in polluted cities, crowded areas and in confined spaces such as offices, industrial areas, schools and cars, you will find the highest concentration of unhealthy positive ions.

AirTamer’s design is ultra compact and incredibly versatile. You can wear it around your neck (strap included) since it is smaller than most MP3 players.

The most important benefit of negative ions is that they clear the air of airborne allergens such as pollen, mold spores, bacteria and viruses. Besides they also clear the air of dust, pet dander and cigarette smoke. Negative ions perform this function by attaching themselves to positively charged particles in large numbers and negatively charging those particles. As a result, these viruses, bacteria and pollen spores become too heavy to remain airborne and are thus prevented from entering your breathing passage where they can make you fall sick. In other words, negative ions form a protective circle around you

We clawed our way back up to the mail path and on up the mountain until we came to another waterfall. It was beautiful but the path was  treacherous so we turned back on that one , but mostly because the closer you got to the waterfall -the less you could see of it???

Joyce finally got cell phone service on her phone and took a moment to call her daughter who lives in California! I can hardly believe we are on a mountain in Virginia and she is talking to her daughter all the way across the United States???????????

Joyce was an avid photographer at one time and you can find her hot on the trail for a delectable shot.

This was what she was after. I had Never seen one and probably never will again. Turns out they are called an Indian Pipe and are considered rare. They say as they continue on they will start to droop down and look like a pipe. To me - they resembled lovely Roses.

This was the only view where we could peek out and see civilization beyond us. Yuck, I am not for sure I want to go back. lol Especially when we meet two really nice ladies coming UP the mountain that we are now Descending from. They warn us that footing is slippery as all the little rocks like to rumble around under your feet. My toes complained about being squished in the tips of my shoes. I was Good and Tired now and asked the kind lady if she could guesstimate how far we were to the parking lot -hoping she would say not far!!!!!!! She laughed and peeked at her fitbit and told me Just 2.7 miles?????????????????????????? BE STILL MY BEATING HEART!

Wonder what happened to that Little Hike we had planned to recoup from our last 2 mile hike???????  Joyce was kind and bought me our lunch of supper or dinner or what ever you would call it -I was too dumified to even know. I scarfed it down with great appreciation.

We made it home in time for me to do my evening chores and I hit the bed- ONLY to discover I was now TOO WIRED to sleep.  Every time I closed my eyes I would see visions of that mountain.

One funny scene was where we were scrambling down that mountain and all of a sudden we ran across an OLD swing set for kids and an OLD wire table . I kind of chuckled to myself , thinking??? and I am carrying in my fanny pack the ONE plastic wrapper that Joyce had found a little bag of nuts in????? in her fanny pack and shared with me.

Female ingenewity ? LOL

Crystal is working on her second hoophouse and this time she wanted to experiment with a heat source. We have a very old, damaged wood stove that was in Doug's shed.  She looked at me one day and asked, "ok, Mama -how are we going to move it"?  Two gals and a HEAVY cast iron stove with one leg missing????

I told her to let me think about it??? So we got two straps and her pickup and we lashed it to the back of her tailgate with two bags of potting soil between them and ever so gently she drove off with it. It did fine going up hill but at a certain angle it would dig into the ground .

Of course we had our constant supervisor , examining the job throughout. lol

We were able to get it within about 4 feet of the spot she wanted it to be at, so we just had to finagle it into place with female wit and and a lot of shove and push and GEE- HAW!

Then she worked around it to get it in place. Yea- two gals and no tractor, but we managed to pull it off and not break anything and still not get hurt. I call that success.

Then I went back to laundry, cornbread and beans for the meal, tearing down a shelf and putting it back up and moving my violets in the house from their outdoor vacation this summer as it was 38 degrees this morning- YUCK.

So, I am very tickled to have them in the house as I love my violets. I picked up some apples but have not got to work on them as my kitchen was piled high from the shelf in the other room. After I figure that out there is plenty more worrying me about how to pull off before the cold weather takes over. I do still have beans to pick and shell for the winter and I am putting walnuts for Crystal to run over -then I scuff them out of their outer hulls and place them on a metal roof on the rabbit cage to dry out . Today I carried a basket of them in the building -they will need to cure for 4 to 6 weeks so I better carry them to the house as they do not like to freeze before you crack them?..

I saw on the news that we had a terrible shooting over here in Las Vegas and 500 were injured and 49 were killed at this point and that Isis is claiming responsibility.  What a terrible tragedy.
I am having some computer troubles also but just do not have the time to put into trying to fix it so am hoping to just "Limp along" for as long as I can.  ~smile~

Being In Nature

I never dreamed hiking with a friend could be so eye-opening? Talk about a breath of fresh air.

When my friend, Joyce mentioned that she had needed to take a break from life one day and had gone to a place called Buffalo Mountain I was mesmerized????? What would that be like?

So, she offered to take me up into the clouds. We eventually got so high up that we were looking DOWN on the buzzards circling below us! It was quiet a new experience to see the TOP of the birds wings - instead of being on the ground BELOW them ??????? I will never forget that.

we climbed up and up and up

The air even smelled different- so clean and refreshing and the views took my breath.

The top of the mountain was covered in boulders instead of trees so that really opened up our view.

Some of the walking was across these rugged looking stone rivers?

But a little of it was these lovely little pathways.

 My  puny eyes could hardly take in all of God's creations.

Little sprinkles of color along the way.

It turned out to be just a tad over two miles up and back down? I did not think that was a bad accomplishment for a 66 year old grandmother. The weather was so beautiful. The next morning I was a little sore in my hips and knees and mentioned it to my daughter- wondering why???? She said that mountain hike you went on might have something to do with it???? NOOOOOO!  ~wink~

Into Exhaustion

I know it does not look like much but it is a Treasure to me. I wanted an outdoor area for some of my chickens and a friend donated all of his odds and ends boards and chain link fencing and this is what we came up with . It is not pretty but it is Stout  and Solid .  It took a good three weeks to pull together and I really got stumped along the way trying to figure out how to work things around the main frame that he and his grandson put up. It has all of these braces that make it so solid but also a real puzzle for me to figure out how to outsmart the raccoons finding cracks. By the time it was finished I hurt my shoulder and back and my doc said I would have to learn to pick my battles??? There is no choice -just things that need to be accomplished as I am not getting any younger or stronger and have to do it while I have the ability and the eyesight.

The pigeons enjoy their new digs as they now have room to spread their wings and to lay in the sun if they so choose.

They have plenty of perches to roost on now and are not crowded.

Then today I finished my second space for some of them. It has an enclose yard  that they love. I put PVC pipe overhead and stretched netting overtop of it so they could not fly out and HOPEFULLY the Hawks cannot fly in???? I had to rebuild the entire frame as it had all rotten away . Ssoooo OF COURSE my shoulder is screaming at me.

This is a few of the youngsters sight-seeing and they liked what they saw. They played and chased bugs all evening long and did not want to go in their house and go to bed. I had to wait till dark and chase each one down and place them in their house so I could Lock the door to make them safe.  Maybe after they find their food in there in the morning they will know where to go tomorrow night?

It might not look like much but I am very proud of have pulled it off. It looks kinda like a bench but it is a small nest box, made out of every thing I had scavenged from kindling Crystal brought in during last winter . Next I will fill it full of hay for the cold weather and add the little Old English chickens in this area. Before the cold winds blow I have some heavy duty plastic I will hang to help protect them. Now they will have lots of light . They will enjoy that .

I had ran in the house and did a load of laundry and fixed some cornbread so that will be my breakfast, lunch and supper and I am ready for it. Almost too tired to eat? My shoulder is complaining but I am doing the exercises that the therapist showed me and that really helps a lot. If I could just let it take a break it would heal for sure.

I did hurt it again last night yanking on my tiller. I had just got the spring back for it and tried to start it. I pulled furiously( or at least as furious as a 66 year old grandmother can yank???)  It would start and run a few licks and then die??? I begged and pleaded and then had to quit as my shoulder just quit responding at all - kinda like the motor did? I HATE to have quit in my vocabulary , but this time I was just whipped , so I have not got my winter kale planted at all and it is almost too late, and it just breaks my heart - as I need it for my eyes????

After being run out of bed before daylight this morning by something jumping on Callie right under my window, I am good and tired and aching all over. What a wonderful day and a lot of work accomplished. I am very grateful.

Inundated with life

I guess we all really are overwhelmed by life. In my last post I had shown the picture of my hillside garden that I was working so very hard to bring to life.  It was very hard . Standing on the hill was hard enough, much less digging, tilling , mowing, planting , installing the fence-outsmarting that deer because she actually got buzzed by it and stayed away while the beans grew-until they were just a couple of weeks away from having them to put in my winter storage????????????????? Then my  daughter came running to Share with me and this was what I saw??????????????? The entire garden was demolished .  What the tree did not get - that deer devoured that night. There was no way to save any of it. The tree is still attached at the base and we cannot cut it up because the leaves would wilt and they are poison to your livestock so I do not want the donkey to eat any of them.I did get up under the tree and lay down a lot of my fence - just trying to save the poles as that was the major expense for me this Summer? Guess it would have been cheaper to have just bought a bushel of beans somewhere???

Then exactly a month ago I lost my best friend of 41 years. She went in for a knee procedure-the doc gave her a steroid shot and it spiked her blood sugar to 1200. Then infection set in and consumed her body. She lapsed into a comma and I sat with her while they turned the machines off.  It is horrendous to lose such a friend. They live in a space in your heart forever, if you are lucky enough to have one.

Yesterday I had a wonderful friend stop to share some crackers and cheese with me as I had been sick. I was so very grateful and after she left I went down to the main garden and picked a small mess of Tenderette beans. This is the last mess of them so I pulled the vines as I worked so I could see them better with my puny eyes. A storm was brewing and the wind was up so I carried them up to the porch . I planned to work on them and watch it rain, but the rain only ended with just a few drops. I heard a car down at the road and shortly after I heard a familiar sound???? The sound of a chicken???  Now, my chickens are all enclosed due to predators ?? So, I got in the car and drove down and my eyes rested on the biggest rooster I had ever seen???? After my recent concussion from the rooster that I own (who is secluded in his own space) -well- roosters are not on my "most favorite species" list?????

I pondered what to do- just leave him on the highway and let a car seal his fate??? Let him wander into the bushes and let the nightly raccoon have chicken dinner??? Boy , that dinner would feed his entire raccoon family> lol . I stepped toward him and he moved away from me. I tried to grab him and we play ,"keep Away", until he flew to the highway????? So I herded him back to the creek side where he decided to sneak into the tall weeds, thinking I could not see him. But I saw his back leg and managed to get a hold on him and drag him out. He was so heavy I had trouble getting him into the car and to the house.

I checked my cages and none of them were big enough to contain this giant of a bird. That only left the dog kennel that housed two groups of my laying hens, so I plopped him in there. I stood back and watched as the "Red-Dina-soars"  (my nickname for them) ran over to jump on him as they have been known to kill other chickens but - no- he put them in their place and walked off. SO the newest group of the colored egg layers decided that he looked good to them and they flew down and invited him to take a dirt bath with them???? After that - that Crowing the good life was all I heard the rest of the evening??????

Now, I do not even know IF he will flog like the rooster I already have??? And I still Have to get in that kennel to get the eggs???? Plus, from the looks of him- he will eat as much as I will???? How am I going to feed this behemoth??????????? For now -his future is uncertain-hoping a new home will present itself in the near future??? ~smile~

Casper also got very sick at the start of the Summer. I thought he was a gonner, as he went into seizures . I decided that the house was just too dark and we needed the light so I fixed a cage on the front porch and have put him out there almost every day giving his fresh apples and veggies each day. He has had a lovely time making lots of messes and seems to be doing much better. All of his feathers look much more bright and his spirits are wonderful.

I was dealing with a tremendous amount of pain and the doc sent me for those xrays and mri . It turned out to be degenerative disc and tons of arthritis so she sent me for physical therapy, which I am pleased to say has actually helped ease the pain. They do not give us pain pills anymore here so you have to find something to help yourself or just live in AGONY! Mama never told me how very painful this aging process can become. It is an everyday battle to maintain your health when you have limited knowledge and resources. But, it is worth the battle to treasure each new day that God shares with you. 

I pray you guys have had a lovely past season what ever that has been in your neck of the woods and I have missed hearing about your life. Thank you so very much for the ones who have checked in with me- I love you guys dearly ......