I sure love blackberries and blackberry pie!
I remember when I was a little girl the road I live now was dirt and lined with blackberry briars. Cars would park all up and down the road picking blackberries.
Now I’m not a rolling pin kinda pie crust girl. I’m a half of cup of sugar, half cup milk and half cup of yummy butter pie crust girl. Easy as pie.
It’s a hard decision cleaning off the fence line to keep or get rid of those blackberry briars.
We spent the weekend making hay for my black babies and boy was it hot!
My four day weekend allowed me to get caught up on some over due chores this past week.
Our trailer we haul hay and equipment on got some new shoes (tires)
The cattle got a good spraying for flies. That’s interesting how flies just cover cows. When your spraying the flies just relocate to a different area of the body of the cow. I spray the head and they land on its back. Spray the back and they move to the belly. After I spray the belly they just swarm around not sure where to go next. So I spray the hiney for good measure!
I went to the feed mill to see my buddy Dale for some minerals. Dale is interesting too. He’s a good hearted soul that loves his community. He has a new Hoverboard and was a pro at riding it. He offered me a chance to try it out but I kindly declined. I had to much work to do to chance broken bones.
Fathers Day was Sunday. We didn’t get a chance to celebrate but I’m proud of the dads in my life.
Seth recently had an opportunity for a better job but declined because he would miss his afternoons playing with Leah. How can you argue with a decision like that. In this world of more more more I’m proud that he chose less to have more quality time with his daughter.
Nathan is a great dad too. He loves Grayson and Eli and always has their best intent at heart. Eli can’t get out of his sight without wanting to know “where’s my daddy?”
Like Seth, playing cars or in the ceek is how he spends his evenings.
Terry plays the role of my daddy 🤣
He takes pretty good care of me. He keeps me in line, we always have the best of what is within our means. He works hard to provide for his family. We have accomplished a lot together and came a long way. We started our farm with seven head of cattle and a borrowed bull. Life has been good to us even though our times of trouble. Not ever day is grand but it’s always an adventure.
And then there is My Hero. One of the hardest working men I know. His fingers are crooked and his overalls worn. He still works on the farm everyday and he is a man of his word.
When we (my sister, cousin Karen and I) played together and actually were more like 3 sisters than cousins. One game was, Is raining its pouring. The old man is a snoring. He bumped his head over the bed and couldn’t get up in the morning. Those were great times and were usually at my Granny Amys boarding house on 10th street in North Wilkesboro.
We played everywhere on that block! From the grand pillars of the First Methodist Church to the night lit skies at Optimist Ball Park. The neighbors were just as entertaining it was not uncommon to get ran out of apples trees or hired for ball park drink money as private eyes. True Story! Even the side walks were huge when we were small.
The games we played was so much more fun than kids today. We used the step spindles as our mailboxes for a friendly game of mail. Upstairs my Uncle Teds room had all kind of toiletries we could get into, there was a lady named Martha that scared us so we avoided her room at all cost. Mr Caudill worked for the State, he would come in and no one really knew he was there. BUT in the corner of his room was a little closet that kept the cash register that was in my Granny’s Cafe….gosh would I love to have that! We made plenty of mud pies on the front porch and we loved baseball games in the summer because after all that was our first paying job. The preacher had a airplane in his garage next door so we had to go peep at that. The creek was full of crawdads, the bank behind Dr Olivers was our slide, the “ladies” across the road and behind her would fight. One was a tad bit crazy she lived 2 houses across and back then there was a little road that came off of the church parking lot and ran along D Street to the entrance of the ball park parking lot. Don’t forget I know that because we went EVERYWHERE! We snuck off and went downtown to Roses (blocks away, probably should have gotten beat for that) There was also the day that I drove my mothers car, yep that day Charles and I were playing cars. Mrs Tedder called Charles to come in, but I kept “driving”
Somehow I knocked the car out of gear and it rolled backwards off the hill to the Optimist Park. That is still a big hill to go off of backwards in a car! I probably should have gotten beat that day too! Reggie Colvard saved the day and pulled out the car.
My granny was the best cook, her black-eyed peas being my favorite. She would have coconut cakes in the dining room that we would eat all the coconut off of. In the summer we sat on the carport and strung beans or shucked corn. My papa had a huge garden.
There were always visitors~cousins, cousins, cousins
Pat and Dan would come up all the way from Florida! She was so smart and so pretty and Dan seemed 10 feet tall. Their dog Ace, we were sure he wanted to eat us. He was black as the Ace of Spades and barked like crazy when we went by him. He probably just wanted to get into trouble too. I always love it when Pat and Dan came, they were both teachers and I got help with my homework. My sister was always the smarter one…book wise.
Funny how just saying”Its raining it’s pouring“brings back a lifetime of memories.
It was getting very dry in the South. We had the promise of rain all week so we decided to hold off on cutting any hay.
Most farmers would tell you that with the weather it’s be thankful for what you get and never complain about the rain.
The dry weather had also put a halt on Eli’s worm finding. He is so cute with his little blonde hair and shovel out looking for worms turning over rocks. His dad has promised to make him a worm garden and I think his pawpaw needs to also.
Thankfully on this 75th Anniversary Of D Day it has rained most all afternoon which was just great with me. Even though we needed to be working a break was delightful.
Thank God for the rain and thank God for those who fight and continue to fight for our freedom.
I live in a beautiful state from the mountains to the sea. You don’t have to travel very far at all to find beauty around every nook.
This weekend we didn’t farm, much !!!! However our destination took us to a beautiful stop with a pasture of cattle.
We entered the parkway at Laurel Springs and ended our journey in Low Gap. Along the way there was some beautiful overlooks which we had been by many times but never stopped. Absolutely missing out on life in my back yard.
I wanted to share some pictures from this weekends adventures and also of my son Nathans birthday celebration
Today is Elle Maes birthday and needless to say she has been into something ever since I got home from work. As a matter of fact, minus a few weeks, she has been into anything possible for one whole year. Her favorite thing to plunder in (yes we say plunder here in the South when someone is into something they shouldn’t be) is a collection of old hanging basket pots. The day she found this glorious stash of no good she had an extraordinary time. She had 12 flower pots scattered and tattered about the back yard. She was one happy girl in her mess of plastics. Haha!!! Girls love plastic come to think of it!!
Today being no different just because it was her day of birth she followed me to the garage. I try to keep the garage off limits for Elle Mae. This is Terry’s slice of man pie that I’m forbidden to move things or organize in what I feel like would be a nice fashion. So one can imagine the things Elle could get into.
Izzy was known to go guard things. If we ever ride the four wheeler to get on a tractor Miss Izzy will sit right there and guard that four wheeler until we return. So~ today Elle went with me. She laid down next to the four wheeler and I thought humm , maybe she is gonna stay right here just like Izzy would. WRONG! I get back to the garage a bucket,lid and rubber mat latter. The bucket is chewed up, the lid is chewed up and the mat was well on its way. So much for leaving Elle at the garage.
I want to leave you today with a picture of my birthday terror and also with a picture of my only grand daughter Leah Paige. I don’t see her as often as I do the others but I love her as much just the same. She is a little farming beauty and I just love showing off her love for farming.
Three days in the hayfield and 350 miles on the back of a Harley, this girl needs a day off!! Hay, hay, and more hay we have been busy, busy, busy. Things had been going pretty well and knock on wood we haven’t torn “much” up. Here in the South we knock on wood a lot when we are really just wanting to keep bad luck away. My goal during hay season is to keep all my teeth! Yes, that is a true goal. The tedder and rake are my jobs, both which have teeth. Keeping all my teeth are hard after all I live in the foothills. Our tractors are all four wheel drive so hanging on the side of a hill is not so bad. Loosing teeth~that is the easy part.
Saturday we worked all day until a thunder storm blew up. It was a down pour for several minutes that put a end to my work day. Some of the hay we had bailed got a little wet and what we had cut that day got wet as well.
Sunday we set out on our 105 Anniversary Ultra Classic Harley Davidson and really didn’t have a plan on where we were gonna go. We rode to Laurel Springs hit the parkway and headed to cooler places than the hay field. There is a world of difference in the temperature once you hit the Alleghany County line. One of my favorite parkway stops is the Northwest Trading Post at milepost 259. It is a delightful little shop with the neatest gifts that I just love to gift to myself <3. I could look around in there for days. They always play folk music obviously it puts me in the shopping mode. I don’t think either of us intended to ride as far as we did, but we ended up at Mount Mitchell. Mt Mitchell is the highest point this side of the Mississippi elevation 6,684. Thats a nice ride and nice hike. Interesting enough we traveled all that distance and never got out of North Carolina. Im so blessed to live in such a beautiful part of the world. We ate a packed lunch at Linville Falls and on our way back went to Blowing Rock for a trip downtown and to Outback steakhouse. Beef its what’s for dinner!
Today it was back to work on our hay crop, we got to feed them babies you know.
Whoo hoo! We’re in full hay making mode!
This past winter our hay crop wasn’t as good as normal due to the hurricanes. But this season we are off to a great start.
I hope all my baby moo moos appreciates the hard work we put in to keep them fed all winter.
Today the thought came across my mind that maybe I should be a prissy girl instead of all this manly work 🤣. That lasted until I got home from town getting fuel to run the tractors. Then it was right back to being farm girl.
I would just like to say this Memorial Day Weekend that I am thankful I am able to work. I’m thankful for the freedom to work. I’m grateful for the ones before me that fought for our freedom. I’m grateful for the flag and what it stands for.
Watching Izzy our blue heeler makes me so sad. I took Izzy for a four wheeler ride today. She loves to ride on the four wheeler her little face just smiles when she is riding. This evening I took her from the carport over to the garage which is a little ways from the house. She fell getting off the four wheeler and then when she got off she was truly confused. She wondered around walking into things. The cow trailer is parked there beside of Blues Clues (Terry’s mom little blue Toyota Tercel) when Izzy got to cow trailer she seemed to pick up on where she was at. After that she was fine.
I sure would hate to lose my vision. That would be such a hard adjustment to make.
Other than occasionally walking into things she is ok. Night time seems worse though. I guess she can see a little in the daylight.
One funny for the night. Eli who is working on using the potty had a accident this evening. Every once in a while I would catch a stinky whiff. I ask him if he pooped his pants? “Nope!” Well it was apparent he did. So we went in to clean him up and it was BAD. I ask him “Eli what did you eat today?” He said “cookies 😀” I said Eli “that don’t smell like cookies “
He looked at me very seriously and said ” Nana it smells like cookies to me”
A word of advice. Don’t eat the cookies Eli eats!! He was rotten!
Today is Terry’s Birthday and I think we are to pooped to party!
We have had a pretty productive start to hay season. We have gotten a lot accomplished and have about worked our foolish selves to death.
We are still spending a little extra time with Izzy. We have been putting her up at night on the front porch (which we have previously blocked off to keep Elle Mae off of because she would chew it all away!). The front porch was one of Izzy favorite spots before we blocked it off. It sits up 12 feet off the ground so before Izzy lost her vision and got locked out she could look off and see what was going on.
Izzy seems to know where she is when she is in the yard or on the carport. But she walks into things. She is still making her rounds Around the house. But has a little trouble.
This evening I had been doing some things outside and it was about dark so I went in and remembered I had not put Izzy up. I had a time finding her, getting her to the front porch and getting her situated.
Tonight I’m thankful for my blessings, thankful for my gift of sight and thankful for my birthday boy ❤️
Banks of Fishing Creek 