DOLLY'S BETTER !!

This morning I debated for a while whether to send daughter on to the market and take Dolly back to the vet. When we got up she was staggering and looked totally out of it. I finally got her to drink a little water and gave her the antibiotics and she seemed to perk up a little so I decided she wasn't any worse. The vet said if she's the same just wait and let the medicine work.
I went to market with daughter and we had a very good day again today. The weather started out beautiful but we had to load the van in a rain shower. But as soon as I left town the sun was shining everywhere else. I made my supply stops and rushed home to check on Dolly.
Hubbie had been mowing grass all afternoon and said she was sleeping when he went out.
While we were unloading my van in she came, she had made it downstairs looked painfree for the first time since Wednesday. Thank you Jesus!!! It's good to see her feeling better.
When I got things put away she followed me into the kitchen and I gave her some of the special food from the vet's and she was hungry,yea!!! I can only give her a tablespoon every 3 hours but I cheated a little,shhh don't tell!! It is so good to see her eating and drinking on her own. Guess I won't be needing this..........Or this medicine dropper....And I'm not complaining about these useless purchases at all, I am just so thankful that I'll not be needing them.
She is still visibly sick and her bowel movement this evening was pure coagulated blood,but no sign of red in it is a good sign.
She has eaten a little more food tonight and is slowly getting strength back.
Hubbie and I went to finish work at church while the sun was shining this evening and when we got back I sat outside with all the 4-legged kids and relaxed.The other day I thought I saw a flash of something fly out of this house that I just recently hung above the feeders. It was a cheap purchase the last time I went to the Flea Market. I thought it was cute ,but didn't expect any takers,especially this year.This evening I happened to have my camera when that flash turned into a little Carolina Wren. She barely squeezes into the small hole.I wish there was a way I could see inside but it is to high and I wouldn't take a chance on disturbing her and her family.
What's Blooming now...This is one tough rose. This red climbing rose was originally planted in about 1975 at my first home when I moved out on my own. When hubbie and I got married and built our now home we moved this rose because it was so pretty and always had so many blooms.
It grew under some of the siding on our house and was severly cut back,I assumed it was a goner but it kept coming back and although still planted in the same place has never tried to grow on the side of the house again. Not as big as it was it still blooms and smells so sweet.
I am extra tired tonight I think the worry about Dolly must have been effecting me more than I realized. I'm looking forward to that nice soft bed tonight.
So thankful to God today for answering prayers and pouring out blessings even though I don't deserve any.
Good Night and God bless.

A SICK MISS DOLLY

I have a sick baby today,Miss Dolly as her hairdresser calls her has a really bad stomach ache. She was sick yesterday afternoon,eating grass and vomiting and I didn't think to much about it as she has done this numerous times before. But at bedtime last night I noticed her shivering with pain, but it seemed to subside after she went to sleep.
However this morning she is still very sick,she drank some water and almost immediately threw it back up so we have a vet appointment at 3:30 to have her checked out.
I baked cakes all morning and took several cake orders,when business picks up it always catches me by surprise.
Another change of plans for this afternoon as I was planning to switch cell phone companies today but Dolly is more important. My cousin was going to bring some more old family photos over here for me to scan in on my computer but she called this morning and her plans changed also with a death in her husbands family.
So I'm killing time until vet time right now. It has been a rainy,cool day so far not fit for any outside work for sure. It almost feels like jacket weather.
Well vet visit went better than it could have,at least Dolly got to come home with me. Dolly was quite out of it by the time we got there. But the vet said she wasn't dehydrated yet, no fever, but she sure had an upset stomach. I told her what hubbie had told me he did Wednesday night,he was feeding the bigger dogs some cube steak we had for supper and didn't eat because it was tough and he thought Dolly might have gotten a large piece of the meat. The vet said we were going to hope that was it and treat her as such. She got a bloody stool sample and said we have to be very careful with a tiny dog like Dolly,she only weighs 6 lbs ,because things can go south fast. They gave her 2 shots, 1 antibiotic, 1 for nausea and gave her some sub-Q fluids. If she is worse in the morning she will have to go to the hospital and have more test done. I'm praying that won't be necessary.
Daughter fixed supper for hubbie,#2 son and me tonight. She makes us eat healthy but it's always good. She introduced us to turkey sausage tonight and it was delicious.
Hubbie and I went to church and worked where we had lights as they still don't have the lights fixed from the lightening strike last weekend.
Daughter baked while we were gone and I iced when we got back ,hoping for another good market day tomorrow.
Praying for Dolly tonight, it breaks my heart to see an animal in pain with that "help me" look in their eyes. Asking God to take her out of her suffering and I'll deal with His decision for her.
Good Night and God Bless.

EVER FEEL LIKE YOU JUST SHOULD HAVE STAYED IN BED!

Really interesting day!!
(1) Stopped by my friends to pick up my Avon order , her husband and brother were there and informed me she was in Mission Hospital fighting for her life. She is a diabetic and has had several surgeries recently removing first toes then half of her foot. She took a bad fall and was sent to the hospital were she suddenly took a really bad downturn and now is in really bad shape,please pray. Her husband has been in a wheelchair since he was about 19,he was paralyzed waist down in an automobile accident.
(2) Arrived at market to find it under scrutiny from the NC dept of Agriculture inspectors. Now I've figured this was coming for years but not with the intensity they brought today. I had my kitchen inspected back in 2001 soon after I started my baking business. I wanted to do business with restaurants and they required me to be inspected. It wasn't a big thing as long as your kitchen can be shut off from the rest of your house. Today they were there to check on a vendor who sells goat cheese products, because they had an anonymous complaint about him.
Now it has come to their attention that not many vendors have inspections so all vendors will be forced to meet this criteria of shut down.I even overheard them say maybe they ought to demand that all the uninspected canned goods be removed from tables immediately. I know a lot of the older folks will be forced to shut down and in some cases it will be a good thing.
My thinking is this ... why are the powers that be so concerned with these inspections of food we produce in our homes and in such small quantities when the food you buy in the grocery stores is imported from countries that have no cleanliness inspection at all?????
This is me sitting behind my market table.

(3) After running errands even stopping by the county courthouse to research old marriage certificates, which there was only one of my dad to my mother, his first marriage must have been in Buncombe county. Anyway I found myself way ahead of schedule on my way home so I decided to stop in Staples and buy that laptop I had been looking at. I walked up to the cashier, she was on the phone, when she looked my way I said "I would like to buy a laptop", another worker walked by and she asked her to help me. This young lady said I will get someone to help you and headed across the store where she met the manager. After speaking to him she came back and told me the 2 men they had that worked with computers were both busy,would I wait? Okay, I'm looking around and I realize, hey! I'm the only customer in this store right now,how can they both be busy!! I waited for a few minutes ,until only the cashier (still on the phone!) and I were the only people in sight. I looked at her and just shook my head as I walked out the door.
I will take my money elsewhere where maybe someone actually cares if I buy something or not!
(4) After getting home,unloading the van and having a nice supper of fresh vegetables I bought today (all grown in the USA by the way). Hubbie and I hurried through chores to get to work at church early tonight.
Surprise , surprise still no lights in the sanctuary, it is hard to see anything in the dark. Preacher Mike was there and said hopefully they are going to work on the lights tomorrow. So no use in doing any cleaning anyway if workers are going to be in and out tomorrow in the rain. So we came home to work out a new schedule.
Daughter came in from work to late to do any of her baking tonight. Soooo, we were planning on going to the Flat Rock Playhouse tomorrow night to see Steel Magnolias but that plan went by the wayside now with all the schedule changes we had tonight.
This is exactly why I don't make a lot of plans ,with our busy lives something always comes up and changes schedules!
Anyway I'm going to bed before I have to add a "number 5" to this day.
Mama said there'd be days like this!!!!!
God is always there to lean on when the going gets a bit tough.
Good Night and God bless.

PRICELESS EXPRESSION SPANS THE GENERATIONS

Early start this morning,I have a lot to do today. After lifting weights and breakfast I packed up a caramel cake to ship to Florida. I told the lady it would probably be in crumbs by the time it got there,but she said she didn't care,she just had to have one of my cakes!
I charged her $12 for shipping and it wound up being $13.50 so I'll know next time to charge more! I called and asked her to let me know what condition it is in when it gets to her.
After a stop at the P.O. I headed down the mountain to the doc's office again for some more lab work.
I had to go to Ingles to get some supplies to make more cakes today,I picked up a salad from there for a quick lunch.
I baked an oven full of cakes while I iced 6 caramel cakes.
My rock patio has a bunch of weeds coming up in it and I spent some time pulling them before going up to my cousin's house. We looked at each other's old pictures and talked and laughed all afternoon. It was a very nice visit , but she didn't know much more than I did about my dad's life. I did get a look at a picture of my grandfather that I had never seen and she is looking up a picture of both my grandfather and grandmother for me to make a copy of. It was after 6 when I got home and hubbie had supper ready,that was nice.
After we ate we planted the remainder of our plants and he tilled the garden.All this rain is sure making the weeds grow!!
Like grandmother (nena) Like grandson.
I have no idea what I'm so excited about but g-son loves the beach!
I will be so excited to get all my pictures organized so I can find pictures of things easily.
When I first saw this picture of g-son that d-in-love took it reminded me of this picture of me but I've just now been able to locate it.

I payed bills and did paperwork tonight while daughter baked and then she and I both did all our icings,wrapped and labeled things.
I had to change the band-aid on a place the dermatologist cut out of her arm this morning. It has a stitch in it and she passed out in his office while he was sewing it up so she didn't want to take a chance on it making her sick again tonight.
I am very tired tonight and my back is hurting. I didn't think I had that busy of a day to make me as tired as I feel,bet I'll sleep well tonight.
Thanking God for all his blessings today, and praying that it will be His will for this lab work to be normal as the other was.
Good Night and God Bless.

CHIVE FLOWER VINEGAR

Today is a sunny warm day already and it's just after 9 am. I finally opened the gate and turned the cattle back down in the bottom pastures,as we are finally out of the flash flood warning.
House work Tuesday began with laundry. I called a realtor friend of mine to get her to look over the old in-laws house to give me a estimate of it's value. We are meeting there at 3.
I didn't take much of a lunch break as I wanted to finish my cleaning before 3.
Our meeting went well and she even has someone that might be interested in buying the house.
Then hubbie ,bro-in-law, and I met with another prospective buyer. We got home around 5 and I finished the laundry and gathered towels from the line.
Hubbie had a meeting at church tonight at 7 so after he left I walked and then helped daughter plant her herb and vegetable bed.
Hubbie got home around 9 and he finished helping her while I started baking.
As I walked this evening I noticed some new blooms. In the edge of the trees in front of the house there is a large clump of these Wild Yellow Flag Iris. A bit out of their habitat I would say since we live on a hill and these are usually a swamp flower. I'm glad their not in the swamp because they sure are bright and pretty.
These are some of daughter's Stella Dora day lilies that are starting to bloom and poke their heads through the fence. These are my favorite day lily because they keep blooming throughout the summer.
My Kousa Dogwood tree is blooming vibrantly this year. I planted this tree several years ago in the back yard where I feed the birds because it produces a sweet fruit that the birds love. The fruit of this tree is edible to humans also. This is a japanese dogwood that always blooms about a month after wild dogwoods bloom.
This pot of chives is in bloom early this year probably because it has been so warm. Chive flowers are edible,there are many recipes to use them in various dishes. Chive flower vinegar has a mild chive/onion flavor and a pretty pink color. Wonderful on fresh salads. I just rinse the flowers ,shake all the water from them,put them in a jar and pour white vinegar over them. When you are ready to use it you can strain the vinegar or leave the the flowers in but be warned they have a very strong flavor!
This is not blooming yet but each time I see this weed which grows all around our place I have a new respect for this plant because of the research I did last fall. This is called Ladysthumb or Virginsthumb because of the heart shaped print on every leaf. It is said to have been left there when the Virgin Mary pinch the leaves. All I know is it definitely is a mystery plant with this same mark on every leaf,another of God's wondrous mysteries!!
I have finished my baking it is midnight and I'm off to bed to rest and begin again tomorrow!!
Thankfully God will be walking beside me in all that tomorrow holds.
Good Night and God Bless.

BOBWHITE PROMISCUITY ?????

Well after all the flood warnings we have almost an inch of rain in the gauge this morning.Don't get me wrong I'm not complaining!
Hubbie took g-son to pre-school this morning while I worked on my Avon order and got it sent in.
Hubbie didn't sleep well last night so he came back and slept most of the morning. It still looks like rain any minute.
We have a visitor all the time now around hubbie's lone lady quail. Her mate died last year and she is a very old bird. She has been enjoying "bob whiting" back and forth this spring with the pair of quail that appeared at the feeders last winter.
But now the male is a constant suitor at her cage. I must admit he is a handsome fellow! He spends a lot of time on top of her cage constantly peering over the side to get her attention from below.We are trying to figure out what happened to the female quail that has always been with him. Hubbie thinks she has been eaten by something. I am holding out hope that she is setting on a nest of eggs and this little fellow is promiscuously courting another female!! I guess only time will tell. He is not afraid of us at all which leads us to believe that he has been hand raised. It is fun to listen to them talk to each other.

After picking up g-son we went to the bank, P.O. and Walmart. We also stopped at a local strawberry farm for some fresh berries on the way home.
These are the biggest berries he has ever had ,but they don't taste that good. He said he planted a northern variety so hopefully they'd be later and he wouldn't have to worry about them getting frozen. He must not have many because he said he would be out of berries after 1 more week and he just opened Saturday. I guess I'll go back to SC strawberries.
My oldest brother brought us some tomato plants this evening and checked out my new sunroom.
#1 son came after g-son and visited with his uncle a while.
We got a hard rain this evening finally, there is almost 2" in the rain gauge tonight and it is still showery at 11:30.
I spent this dreary day sorting through old papers and pictures while hubbie and g-son napped and played.
I finally hit paydirt tonight when I found this birth certificate wrapped up in a letter from the clerk of court of Buncombe county. The paper said they were able to handle this without going through the entire adoption proceedings.
So my dad did adopt his wife's daughter,who judging by her birthdate was born when she was about 16 years old.
Margaret would have been about 15 at the time and was living in New York,because the letter referred to sending a copy of this to New York to see if it would satisfy the need, for what I don't know.
Now I have a birthdate for my adopted half sister anyway and know that she just turned 82 last Friday if she is still alive.
Daughter is interested now because I think she smells a trip to New York maybe! She searched for a long time tonight on the internet while I did some more organizing but came up empty just like I did when I searched.
The way I look at it is- if the Lord wants me to find her I will and if he doesn't I won't.
But I still can't shake that feeling that came over me kneeling at my grandfather's grave in the cemetery that day.
Being 51 years old when he married my mom there sure is a lot of my father's life that I would like to know about.
God will lead me in the direction I need to go and I will be happy to put my trust in Him.
Good Night and God Bless.

MIDNIGHT LIGHTENING SHOW

There's something just plain scary about a really bad thunder and lightening storm in the dark of night. About midnight last night we got one of these scary storms. There is no sleeping during one of these! The lightening was so bright at one point I covered my head just so I wouldn't know when the next loud clap of thunder would be. The electricity went off for a few minutes but came back on thankfully. No power just adds to the anxiety of the situation!
D-in-love called,she was awake also,both my 4-legged kids were buried under the covers. Finally the storm passed without any lightening strikes around close to us thanks to the Lord.
However when we got to church this morning it was a different story there, lightening hit our church for the second time. We had no lights and no sound system,but we had a good worship time anyway. I think something in our electrical system is not grounded properly or something.
There wasn't a lot of rain with the storm,we only had about 1/2 inch in our rain gauge. But we are under flash flood warnings tonight.
Daughter was up in the wee hours before dawn today to run a race on the Biltmore Estate.She and 999 other runners had to be on the estate at 6:15 this morning.She said it was really foggy at the start of the run but the estate was so beautiful it was really worth running there just for the scenery. I love this photo with the outline of the Biltmore House in the fog as these runners go by.
She was very tired and slept until lunch was ready.
We had a fresh feast for lunch today corn on the cob, green beans, fried squash, fresh red potatoes,cube steak and a spring time favorite,our first of the year wilted lettuce,yum,
yum. Everyone was here but #1 son who was sleeping ,this is his night shift weekend. We sent a plate home for his supper.
The weather was threatening all afternoon but never really got bad thankfully. At one point the wind was blowing s0 hard it was scary but it passed without anything but a shower.
Today was the first good news from that huge oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. They think they have a plug in the leak and are pumping the oil to a ship on the surface. To late for many birds ,dolphins,sea turtles and other sealife like these two.
But maybe they can save some including this large oil soaked Pelican. My heart goes out to these creatures, first they get covered with an unknown substance and breath it in to make their lungs hurt badly,then they are captured by humans who they normally fear and forced to take medicine and given a bath!! And these are the lucky ones!!!!
This is a map for Monday and Tuesday's forecast of the oil movement. I pray that what they are saying about stopping this oil flow is true and that it is stopped so no more damage can be caused.

After a lazy afternoon watching the weather we watched the last Survivor show on TV tonight. I'm glad it's over for a while.
G-son is making an early appearance in the morning.D-in-love has to be at work at 7 and #1 son doesn't get home until 7:15.
I feel like I should have done something this afternoon but have really enjoyed a day of doing nothing.
Thankful tonight for a strong faithful church family and thankful that the damage did not dampen the spirit of worshiping our dear Lord and Savior.
Good Night and God Bless.