GOOD BYE 2017 YOU WERE A GOOD ONE

Up to a cold 23 degree Sunday morning. Got chores done and then put the spaghetti sauce in the crock pot to cook while we were in church.
Church was interesting this morning and I thought I would have to leave when the calender announcer and associate pastor put on brightly blinking lighted glasses. Any kind of bright blinking lights trigger my migraine headaches so I told hubbie if the senior pastor was going to preach wearing those I would have to leave.
Thankfully he only put his on right at the end of the service and walked out with them on.
I also felt sorry for a lady in front of us that I know has seizures and I saw her cover her eyes and put her head down as I'm sure she was thinking the same thing as I was.
We came home to a spaghetti lunch with #1 son's family and Aa.
After we ate Hubbie and #1 son went over to look over the property that #2 son is thinking about buying to make sure he would have room for his house and tell him about how much grading cost he was looking at.
It is a very cold day not getting out of the middle 20's for high temps so I went out mid afternoon and carried water to all the animals so they could get another drink of unfrozen water.
The air felt like and the clouds sure looked like snow all day today and this evening the ice pellets started falling.

Rocky didn't mind a little falling ice as he was happily running around and checking out the farm.

We got the chores done and then came inside glad that we have a warm, dry house to spend the last day of 2017 relaxing in.
Before long #1 son's family pulled up in the yard with food for our supper. They had tried to get to one of their friends houses for a New Year's Eve celebration but the roads were too slick and son almost got hit before he could get back down the road to home.
We had a nice supper of her foods and then had a nice visit before they went home to get the kids to bed.
We had a nice New Year's Eve tea party served by g-daughter RL !!!!

The surprise ice storm caught everyone by surprise tonight and roads came to a complete standstill with accident after accident all around the area. All the red means traffic is at a standstill.

As this icy last evening of 2017 comes to a close I thought back over this year and I am humbly thankful for the blessings of this year. 2017 will be  hard to beat in the blessing department but I can't wait to see what God has in store for my family in 2018.
I am very very thankful that all the family made it back home safely as both son's were out on the icy roads tonight.
A look back starting with a January filled with all kinds of weather from a fun 8.5 inch snowfall to floods and summer like temps we had it all. Our country's 45th president, Donald Trump was inaugurated and our church pastor search committee presented out associate pastor, Craig Stepp  as their choice for our next senior pastor.

February was a very warm month bringing some spring flowers into early bloom. I worked on all our taxes this month.

March has 2 birthdays as #2 son and daughter get a year older. We had snow at the beginning of the month and ended the month with a flooding rain. Gardening began as cool season crops were planted and chicks began hatching. Hubbie and I made an early trip to the Pickens flea market but were disappointed with the amount of vendors there to sell.

April contained a wonderfully grateful Easter and a fun egg hunt for the kids. I got a new oven and dish washer and we made another Pickens flea market trip during spring break. This month contains d-in-love's birthday and is a month of continued gardening and chick hatching here on the farm. This year it was also filled with a couple baby showers for daughter and son-in-love.

May was a rainy month which contained a wonderful Mother's day and son-in-love's birthday plus a grateful Memorial day. Daughter and I attended the Garden Jubilee downtown and my ordered Cuckoo moran chicks arrived to the delight of g-daughter RL. The biggest news of this month was the court decision that Aa and Re get custody of Re's sisters 2 little girls bring their family to 6 members.

June was an eventful month for the family this year as we added another member with the birth of g-daughter IR on the 20th. We also celebrated 2 more birthdays as hubbie and Tif got a year older and a great Father's day along with the end of the school year. Trips to Carl Sandburgs farm, Strawberry Hill and the spring Heritage day celebration at the Curb Market were some fun events we attended. Garden harvest began and our church hired an associate pastor named William Harden. #2 son and Tif bought a new ski boat this month also.

July continued a wonderfully busy summer starting with a July 4th celebration and fireworks at Aa and Re's house. Daughter and son-in-love celebrated their first anniversary and hubbie and I got to help #2 son and Tif enjoy their new boat with lake trips. Canning season started for me with lots of green beans to can. #2 son put his house on the market for sale this month and the kids enjoyed a week of Vacation Bible school . We ended the month with the beginning of our annual vacation on Oak Island and my birthday on the 31st closed out a good month.

August ranked right up there with June as the best of this year with the Baptism re-birth of g-son.  We started the month out still at the beach enjoying the wonderful weather we were blessed with on our trip. I came home to a garden brimming with ripe tomatoes and my canning season kicked into high gear. Before school started we got one more Pickens flea market trip in and another lake trip. Along with the special Baptism this month also contain a historic total eclipse that came through our area.

School began and g-son started his 5th grade year. Hurricane Harvey wreaked havoc on Texas and brought flooding rain to our area.  Daughter put her house on the market for sale.

September began with Apple Festival fun and a fun hike to Dupont Forest to a couple of the popular waterfalls. We celebrated g-daughter RL's 2nd birthday and g-daughter IR and I attended all the home volleyball games while daughter kept score for the JV games. My faithful companion Annie the red merle Aussie died from infection in a hip . We made our last trip to the lake with   #2 son as we went to lake Hartwell on a very nice hot Fall day. Hurricane Irma brought wind and flooding rain to the area but thankfully we didn't have a lot of damage . G-daughter RL started pre-school at Mud Creek Baptist church everyday of the week from 8:45-12:00 and she loved it. We ended the month with our Fall Heritage day at the Curb Market.

October is always an exciting month around here with #1 son and g-son's birthdays falling on the same day. The first of the month we had Hurricane Nate's winds and later in the month a cold front brought a major flood for us. We also had a few days of record breaking heat mixed in this month. I made apple jelly and apple sauce to finish up my canning season. We ended the month with several Halloween fun days with a trip to the neighbor's hay bale maze mixed in that g-daughter RL really loved.

We attended the high school's carnival, our church carnival and daughter's church's carnival to give the kids a lot of Halloween fun.

November was a blur with me having a really bad case of bronchitis almost the entire month and on high powered antibiotics. We did manage a fun outing on Veterans day with a hike up to Max Patch in Madison county to take in one of the most beautiful views I have ever seen.
We finished off the summer garden with digging the potatoes which had a good year and made a trip on the Wednesday before Thanksgiving to the Pickens flea market with all three grands and their moms. Thanksgiving was a wonderful time of family and food. On the last Sunday of the month believe it or not both #2 son's and daughter's houses went under contract on the same day !!!

December seemed to slip by with amazing speed as the year came to an end. We started the month with an extended family gathering at the GE gym to combine Thanksgiving and Christmas parties.

Of course I spent the first week and a half getting all my Christmas decorations up but this year I left a lot of them out just not feeling the spirit. We got a surprise 12 inches of snow to play in the second week of them month. Curb Market was busy all month for me with orders everyday. #2 son had to be out of his house by the 18th so hubbie helped him move into an apartment complex just out the road from us until he can either build or find a house. We attended g-daughter RL's first Christmas program at her pre-school. Christmas Eve was our family gathering and this year's Christmas was really special and so sweet with 7 kiddos in attendance. After the festivities were over it was time to start moving daughter who has to be out of her house on the 19th of January. On a sad note I lost my other companion Aussie this month as Sadie my tri-colored Aussie succumbed to old age problems and died. 

And then on this last day of the month we get a cold blast that dropped another unpredicted weather surprise as ice pellets began to fall late in the afternoon covering all roads and everything with a layer of very slick ice.

All three grandkids were awake when the new year came in tonight and g-son and g-daughter RL face timed us while watching the ball drop to be the first to wish us a Happy New Year.

And the littlest of the three was looking like she was in a late night trance by the dropping ball  !!!

Saying good bye to 2017 is sort of sad for me as it has been such a wonderfully blessed year . With 2 out of 3 of the kids looking to begin the next chapter in their lives with different houses to call home 2018 is already filled with promises and adventures that prayerfully will be blessed with God's love for us all.

My prayer for next year is that everything I do be bathed in prayer and blessed by my Savior Jesus Christ. I don't make resolutions but I did see an idea that I liked about picking a word for the new year and using it as a guide for the months to come. As I go to sleep tonight I will think about what word I could choose that would help me make 2018 a good year.

God Bless , Happy New Year and Good Night.

LAST MARKET DAY OF THIS YEAR

Our temperatures weirdly warmed a little overnight but was still mid 20's this morning as I headed out to get the chores done and get to market . These clouds I'm sure helped keep the temperature up a little overnight and created a beautiful sunrise.

I feel bad about complaining about our weather here as I look around the country at snow fall being measured in feet in the northwest as well as in places fairly close to us as Pennsylvania where they have received over 6 feet of snow since Christmas eve and are in line to get more in the coming days.

And a look at the entire countries deep freeze temps in the coming days shows many places much much colder than our single digits and negative windchill temps in the coming days.

We made it to market a few minutes late again but again there was no customers there to notice. Daughter came in at the same time we did with g-daughter IR.
She helped get set up while hubbie entertained IR. She has started pulling his cap off and trying to put it on her head.

They all left just before noon after all the orders got picked up and the customer flow really slowed down .

I had a bowl of the homemade soup one of the vendors has started bringing in on Saturdays and it was very good. This last market day of 2017 was a pretty good day thanks to all the orders I had.

I packed up and left market at regular time and made one stop at Ingles to pick up some ground chuck and Texas toast for lunch tomorrow.

When I got home hubbie was over at daughter's still working so I unloaded and got things put away by myself.

Hubbie came in shortly and then we had a nice visit with d-in-love and g-daughter RL. RL had to open this Christmas present and try out her new drum set while her uncle D who gave them to her was here.

Uncle D or #2 son came by to drop off a package for g-son that came to the PO and pick up a package for Tif that came here by UPS.
He and Tif have a meeting tomorrow with a home building place in Asheville to hopefully pick out their new house. They are buying land from a friend of mine and will live just out the road from us.
Daughter and son-in-love had some bad luck with the little house they were going to rent when the heater stopped working and the owner who is out of town isn't going to fix it until they get back later this month so they are going to rent an apartment in the same complex with #2 son and Tif.
Sometimes my head spins with all the changes in the family !!!
We did chores and when we turned Rocky, Tif's Australian shepherd who is staying with us until they get a house met Pumpkin face to face for the first time today and they sized each other up for a few minutes then went their separate ways thankfully.

Rocky obeys commands very well and is such a sweet dog.

Hubbie and I both relaxed for the evening as we are both pretty exhausted from this busy week.

Thankful for the blessings of today and praying for God's will for son and daughter as they prepare for the next big step in their housing adventures.

God Bless, Happy New Year and Good Night 

GOODBYE TOO SADIE

Another cold 18 degree morning. After chores and breakfast hubbie and I made a trip to Ace hardware to see if they might have some elements for our Eden Pure heater that stopped working last night .
They didn't but they had a nice different brand heater that was on sale for the same price we can buy the elements for so we bought it and hubbie got an empty propane tank filled while we were there. He had to stand in a long line with lots of other men filling their tanks for the coming cold weather.
We came home and he went over to daughter's with my older brother who is a contractor to fix the things that the buyers want fixed.
I baked cakes, 12 caramel, 3 chocolate, 1 coconut, 2 blackberry wine and a pan of brownies for tomorrow's market day. I kept thinking while I was baking that this would be the biggest baking day for several months now.
Hubbie came home and we were standing in the kitchen talking when all of a sudden my new ovens both shut off and showed a code I have never seen on the display. This brought back really bad memories of dealing with this in my old oven but this one is not even a year old yet !!!!
Hubbie looked the code up online and it said to turn the breaker to the oven off for a few minutes and let it reset. So that's what we did and thankfully they started working again and I finished my baking.
I had about 15 minutes to get a short rest off my feet before chore time. Thankfully the temperature got into the low 40's today and thawed all the iced waterers for the animals.
Sadly Sadie the tri-colored Australian Shepherd died this afternoon after struggling through deafness , seizures and multiple other health issues over the last year. I am thankful that she isn't suffering anymore with anything.
Hubbie buried her in the same grave with Annie her lifelong running partner who died this past summer.
Sadie had a very good and happy long almost 18 year lifetime here on our farm and now her and Annie are together once again in doggie Heaven.

Sadie loved to ride on or in any moving vehicle.

She loved sitting in this particular rocking chair on the front porch.

Best friends !!!

I'll never forget how excited Sadie would get each evening when it was time for our walk around the lower pastures !!!

I finished this day in the kitchen icing the cakes and getting things ready for market. I have 11 cakes on order for tomorrow so I should have a good sales day for the last market day of this year.
Thankful for the blessings of this day and humbled by the love of our gracious Savior Jesus Christ.
God Bless, Happy New Year and Good Night