One year and counting

It was one year ago today that we physically moved from Peakland Place to Hanshill. Hard to believe! The last two weeks I've been trying to keep up with the produce that is maturing in the garden. Then, in the last couple of days, all of a sudden some of the plants seem to be totally spent --- specifically the squash and the roma beans. I think the snap beans are about to breathe their last also --- I might get one more picking.  However the okra, butterbeans, black-eyed peas, kale and cherry tomatoes are still producing. Also we planted beets this year, as an experiment, and we are soon going to dig them up and see if they are any good.

Butterbeans drive me crazy! They are delicious but they sure are a lot of work!  The worst part is the picking ---- it really is a strain on the back and hips.

This weekend I picked enough to freeze 8 meals, plus we ate them last night super-fresh.  Brad helped me shell them. But let me tell you, Brad does so many other things. Yesterday, he mowed the entire property, a 3-hour job. These photos show just less than half of what we picked this weekend.

The photo below shows the "harvest" from my picking on Saturday (Sept. 8). Two hours of picking yield tons of butterbeans, some okra, some squash, kale, cherry tomatoes, and a few roma beans. With a few flowers mixed in, picked in the front yard, it all looks very pretty.

On another front, a couple of years ago, Brad dug up many, many spider lilies from the woods. We knew they were originally planted by Murnie. Because they now existed in a shady place, I was thinking they prefer shade. But I was probably wrong (it pains me to say it, but the older I get, the more often I find that I am wrong!!).  Anyway we divided and re-planted many of these bulbs, in shady wooded areas. And none of them came up and bloomed!!!  Well, the most recent issue of Southern Living has an article about spider lilies. It says that they like sun, and also that you should plant them very shallow in the soil. Well, we planted ours in the shade, and probably too deep!  So now we realize the problem. Of the many we re-planted, ONE has come up this year!  It's pretty, but I wish more of its siblings would appear!

On Friday night this week, Brad invited me to have supper at the pond. It was a cheap date night, but very enjoyable. We didn't pull out a pretty tablecloth like the times when we have Mama to supper, but neverthless we had a good meal. Faith and Freckles seemed to relax!

It's been a wonderful year. Age has a way of creeping up on each one of us. I sincerely hope and pray that Brad and I will live in this home longer than we did in any other place in our marriage. We love Hanshill, and we love being the current temporary stewards of this special place. We particularly love it when family is here to continue the legacy ------ to share our inherited appreciation for the blessings of this place. Over Labor Day weekend, there was a wonderful family gathering here ---- 31 people!  I've not seen any photos of those of my generation from that evening, except of Brad. On Facebook there were pictures of Anne and David's 9 grandchildren, and Nannie (Mama) also was captured. I realized that I was the second oldest person in attendance. I will include a couple of photos from that evening that I pulled from Facebook.  This post sends love to ALL of our family, to ALL of those who love Hanshill. Please visit ANY TIME!!!!
Here's a somewhat classic shot, with the man of the house feeding the cows. Love my Brad!!

Joseph found a snake!! Good times for adventuresome boys!

 Eddie and Nannie are talking politics!! So funny.

Here's one of Nannie with the absolutely newest member of the family, Eleanor Claire Smith (Ella). So precious! Ella was 30 days old!

All of the Simms little people were here with us for supper. Anne and David have 9 beautiful grandchildren!!

When I talk about Hanshill, and stewardship, and tradition, this final picture helps to convey some of what I am saying. Timeless!

Calf presented for viewing

A calf was born last Monday, the 20th. For the next few days, Brad would see it when he takes the dogs for a walk in the evenings. The mama would have the baby in tall grass under some trees near the dam, sometimes sleeping. Well, yesterday for the first time since the birth all 7 adult cows were in the pasture out front during the day and also when Brad delivered the sweet feed. Guess the mother left the baby in its little protected area. But tonight the mama came AND the baby came too. It is smaller than some calves and really cute. Here are a few photos.

Brad took some close-up shots down by the fence. I tried to take some from the porch but that didn't work very well. However, I was standing near a hummingbird feeder and the birds ignored me. Look to the right of the feeder in both of these photos.

A pair of them was buzzing me constantly while I stood there. Wish I could have captured a shot with both of them!

Railing

I normally pick vegetables from the garden in the morning when it is cool. But this morning, being a Sunday, we went to church, and also it rained almost all night last night so I figured it would be pretty wet and muddy. Instead I went this afternoon and spent nearly an hour picking 3 rows of romas.

When I returned a surprise awaited me ---- see the photos!

Now we are trying to decide whether to paint the log, or to leave it in its natural state. It is covered by the overhang so it won't get rained on. What do you think??
We hope this will be useful to older folks, and especially to Mama.

Supper at the Pond

One night this past week we invited Mama (also known as Nannie) to supper at the pond. We went down a day early to spray for bugs, and to scrub the dock to get rid of bird poop from the phoebe nests. (The babies have all departed.)  I had a good time getting ready, digging out the pretty tablecloth that is just the right size for a card table --- it used to reside in the bottom of the ceramic water crock on the fish-cleaning/drink-fixing porch. I was able to pick a few flowers from the sun garden that Brad planted in the front yard earlier this year. And we had things from the garden: okra as an appetizer, snap salad with garden snaps and cucs, and a squash casserole. The meat was lamb cooked on the grill. Dessert was sliced peaches and strawberries. It was such a nice evening! The pictures are in reverse order --- it was later when Brad was in the photo, so we are nearly through the main course, and the sun has gone down.

August is 2/3 gone

I'm appalled that it has basically been a month since I last published. The reason is that my camera is broken and I am not able to include clear, crisp photos. I enjoy documenting happenings with pictures. Now I am thinking of buying a fancy smartphone that will take great pictures, to replace my camera.

Last night Brad was in the yard calling the cows to come for some sweet feed. He noticed one of the cows on the edge of the woods halfway between the house and the old pool. She was ingesting the afterbirth and had just delivered a calf, which was standing nearby. So this is our first baby of the season. Today the mom and baby have been resting in the pasture down near the creek. We hope she'll bring the baby up this way soon.

Here is a picture I took of bounty from the garden a couple of weeks ago.  Nice colors! Funny but the crops that have done well this year are kale, squash, zucchini, and okra, not all of which are pictured here. I've given away lots of these items. I have hoarded the small amounts of butterbeans, romas, and snaps that we have picked. The drought had a big effect on the garden.

Renovation list item

One thing that was not included in the renovation last year was a screen door for the kitchen entrance. We really wanted to have a screen door so we can get good air flow through the house with various doors open. A couple of weeks ago we bought a nice door at Taylor Bros. and Brad trimmed it to size and painted it. We chose the same style as is used in the rest of the house ---- no use changing a good thing! We can all remember as children being coached repeatedly not to slam the screen doors ---- or in more recent years doing that coaching ourselves! The "new" door seems quite familiar, and it seems very inviting if you are coming from the honeymoon cabin to have the storm door open and just come through the screen door. Check another item off the list ---- very few left in terms of the original scope of our changes.

Harvest has begun

Brad planted the garden late this year, due to issues with getting the garden plowed/tilled. So our crops have just recently begun to ripen, roughly 3 weeks later than normal. Today I got my first big haul, and it was of black-eyed peas. I spent two hours (early morning) picking these, and weeding ------ weeding beets & tomatoes as well as the peas.

I've picked smaller amounts of several items: okra came in first. In fact, the okra got ahead of me so that the first ones I picked were huge, too big to eat (in my opinion) so I just made them into a flower arrangement. We've had a few yellow squash and zucchini, 2 cucumbers, a scant picking of roma beans, and lots of kale. Tomatoes are coming along very slowly --- they seem to be most affected by the drought. We have three lush rows of butterbeans; they sould be ready in a few more days. Sadly, the crows got all the corn seeds so none of it even sprouted --- even with two plantings! and running string about 4-6 inches above ground over top of where the corn was planted. It did no good!
Later today I will process and freeze some of today's bounty. This will be the first day of freezing this year.

Derecho

We learned a new word after the tremendous wind storm experienced in our area last Friday night, June 29. That word is derecho. The devastation to trees in Lynchburg, and to power lines and poles which carry the lines, is just amazing. Not to mention the fact that so many people lost power. About half the homes in Lynchburg are still without power. We got ours back here at Hanshill on Monday around lunchtime. The period of three days doesn't seem so bad in retrospect. Our yard was littered with limbs, branches and sticks. But fortunately, we didn't lose any trees in the yard, and there was no damage to the house, or the cars! We did lose one large red oak tree in the woods not too far from the house. It did not fall all the way to the ground because it got hung up as it fell on a nearby tree. Brad managed to get it safely to the ground using his chain saw. Now, he has a huge project that will provide a winter's supply of firewood, for the 2013-2014 winter --- it will need a year to season. The wood smells so good! It would make beautiful oak flooring, I am sure. My pictures are blurry so I only included a couple. We badly need rain --- the storm was all wind and no rain. It's been over two weeks since our last rain.

Sun Garden

The property around the house could be improved with some landscaping. There are not many flowers or colorful plantings. Peonies, roses and cone flowers grow in the vegetable garden, and daffodils grow in the woods along the driveway, but there are not many ornamental plantings that you can see from inside the house.

Also, the yard is mostly shaded, so any plants in the yard need to be shade-loving and not sun-loving. I mentioned to Brad that it would be nice to have a small garden that could be viewed from the house but is situated in full sun, so we could have some plants that like full sun. I have to be careful when I mention things that "might be nice" to have or to do, because Brad is always on the lookout for things to do that he thinks will make me happy. So within just a few days of my mentioning a "sun garden" Brad tilled out a small corner of the front yard to become a sun garden. We put in several varieties of flowers, including marigold and pentas. It's been very hot and dry so we've watered the plants several times.

Still, the garden is far from the house, so next year we will look for plants that either have larger flowers, or are taller plants, so they make more of a statement.

Brad has been training this year's little herd to come get some sweet feed in the evenings.

Job finished

Brad and the drain guy finished the repairs about 2:00 --- took them nearly five hours today. The clump of impacted roots was about two feet long. The photos are blurry so it's hard to see. They installed a clean-out piece just outside the house in the yard which will make any future investigating a bit easier. Hope it never has to be used! The black furry looking thing is part of the clump of tree roots.

 

Unbelievable how dense the roots were.

 Broken pipe in background.

 Pipe cut at both ends, ready for the new piece. Camera battery died so I don't have photos of the rest of the process. It's all put back together now.

Easy Come, Easy Go............... Happy Father's Day, Brad

Some of you have heard me speak about how God seems to provide for us financially, especially when a crunch-time hits --- and most often it's a fairly small crunch-time thing, but nonetheless worrisome. A couple of weeks ago I had some discussion with the company holding our mortgage. Without going into lots of details, I'll just say that it turns out they had withheld excess dollars in escrow for the Amherst County taxes. They said it would take a couple of months to be sorted out, so I just put the entire thing out of my mind.

Today we got a nice check in the mail for the escrow overage that had been withheld. However, also today we found that water was not draining out of the kitchen sink, or for that matter any place in the house. The problem seemed to be that the sewer drain pipe going from the house to the septic tank was blocked. This had happened once before some years ago and it was determined that tree roots had breached the pipe.

So Brad called someone with experience in this area. Sure enough, they found a huge blockage in the drain pipe. But in the process of finding the problem they also discovered that the pipe was cracked and broken, and a section of it will need to be replaced. I won't go into all the smelly details of today's episode. To finish the job, some parts had to be obtained, plus a couple of different tools.

So guess what is happening here on Father's Day? Brad will be assisting in this repair work. Some old terra cotta piping will be removed and new PVC piping put into place. Oh boy!!

And the nice check we received in the mail is another example of "just-in-time" economics. Thank you, God, for giving us a way to pay for this unforeseen expense!

Spring sprucing

My book club met here this week. I wanted things to look good so we added some color through plants. Hope we have more company soon!

"Drinking porch."

Tried to snap with hummingbird on the feeder but was not quick enough.

 By the driveway entrance door.

 New vase on mantelpiece. Sunflowers, day lilies and red hot pokers.

Additions to the wild azalea garden.

And this morning the cows arrived!  Yay, it finally feels like summer is here. The grass is so tall it's hard to see the cows!

Walking to Hanshill

Brad loves to joke around with his students. This year on Earth Day he and one of his students got into a discussion about environmental consciousness and doing things to save energy. Brad teased the student about riding to school every day in a car driven by a parent so the parent makes two round-trip drives each day. He suggested the student might consider riding her bike to school instead --- you know, put your money where your mouth is. Even riding a school bus might be more environmentally sound.

So he and this student went round and round back and forth. Finally they came up with a challenge/agreement. If the student would ride her bike to school, then Brad would walk home from school.  The challenge was accepted, on both sides.

So yesterday, Monday June 4, was the day. Sure enough the student rode her bike. She left home at 5:45 a.m. and arrived at E. C. Glass at 6:52. I don't know the exact number of miles she rode but it was at least ten miles. The bike then sat in Brad's classroom for the day.

Here she's at Boonsboro Road and 501.

In the parking lot at E. C. Glass --- she made it!

   Ta da!  This exceptional young woman's name is Hope Wright!

At 11:47 a.m. Brad struck out on his hike to get home, heading down Memorial Avenue and Fifth Street. In the first hour he made it downtown, across the bridge, and about a half mile up River Road. When he got to Red and Dot's, he stopped and had two Gatorades. He sat on the porch and chatted with the proprietors.  Here he is walking along River Road maybe a half mile before Red  Dot's.

In this next shot he had made it up the long, arduous hill on King's Road and he is on a flat spot just before the house that has the cows.

He said the worst part of the walk, going up King's Road, was made immeasurably easier by a phone call he got as he was starting up the hill. The coach of the Glass lacrosse team, Coach Ranuska, called Brad to give him advance notice of something very exciting. He had just learned that two of our seniors had been chosen as All American lacrosse players from the state of Virginia. The players are Jimbo Moore and Joe Vincent. In addition Joe was chosen as the Regional player of the year. Brad said talking to Coach Ranuska and hearing this fabulous news made the walk a breeze -- he scarcely knew he was walking up that steep hill.

In this next shot he's on Elon Road with the railroad bridge off in the distance ahead.

Now I'm waiting at the Leftwich Road intersection --- he has just crossed the railroad bridge.

 FINALLY, he had made the turn onto Leftwich Road -- I'm sitting next to the mailboxes. Thank heavens nobody ran him over out there on the highway.

 Coming through our gate and onto our driveway.

Faith was barking about the person walking down our road toward the house. Finally she figured out that the person was a friendly face.  HOME AT LAST. The 7.4 mile trip was completed in two hours and 50 minutes. Good for you, Mr. Barth!!

This effort was not environmentally friendly, since the student's mom drove more miles than on a normal school day, and ditto for the Barths. I drove Brad to school in the morning, then went out three different times to check his progress on his walk. However, we hope that this was a memorable day for the student. At least it says something about Mr. Barth's word.  Go, old man!!