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Cabin among the Cedar trees

Category: Life happenings | Posted: Sat Jul 04, 2009 10:59 pm

You have already seen pictures of the Norwegian Capital of Texas that we visited last Tues on our vacation and seen the garden junque we found on our trip, now this is where we stayed for Tuesday evening thru Thurs morning.
It is a Bed and Breakfast but they have 5 cabins, four of which are off in the 'woods'. Two of those are on secluded roads and very private, we had one of those.


The road to the B-n-B ( photo / image / picture from toni's Garden )


Secluded road to our cabin ( photo / image / picture from toni's Garden )


View from part of the road ( photo / image / picture from toni's Garden )[/


Front of cabin ( photo / image / picture from toni's Garden )


View from front porch ( photo / image / picture from toni's Garden )


View from the back door, across the hot tub ( photo / image / picture from toni's Garden )


More of the back yard ( photo / image / picture from toni's Garden )


View from the bathroom window ( photo / image / picture from toni's Garden )


Young Jackrabbit came to have tea with me Wed morning ( photo / image / picture from toni's Garden )


A small 'possum came to visit me while I was having my morning tea too but he ran away as soon as I raised the camera. The jackrabbit came back Wed afternoon and let us watch her eat a small tree.
Wednesday night we saw a Doe and her Fawn walking thru the woods to their den for the night. There is supposed to be a Fox out there but we never saw him.

We are hoping to go back during the late Autumn or early Winter to enjoy the hot tub in the cold and then sit by a roaring fire in the living room to warm up and wonder what ever possessed us to get into the hot tub on such a cold day.




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Guess I am officially old now

Category: Life happenings | Posted: Wed Jun 25, 2008 7:01 pm

My Grandmother had blue hair, from my earliest years of childhood I can only remember her having blue hair. In a perverse way I thought it was pretty cool to be the only kid in my grade whose Grandmother had blue hair....and who had been divorced. Considering the times (I started school in 1952) being divorced was not something talked about in polite company but being not quite the 'polite' child my mother would have preferred I did talk about it.

Back to the blue hair.....my grandmother started going gray at the age of 18 and by the time I was born when she was 36, she was totally gray. The popular way to treat gray hair in those days was to brighten it with laundry bluing.....why not, it was used to brighten white clothes. I am not sure that there were any official instructions for that use, my grandmother must have figured that if a little was good then a lot was better.....it turned her gray hair a pale blue.

When I was a young woman I vowed that I would never dye my hair when it started going gray. I certainly didn't plan on bluing my hair, that was cool on my grandmother but not gonna happen on me.

As I got older the gray coming in was a mousy color and with my dark hair it looked terrible so I gave in and started dyeing it. To make a long story short, over time I developed an alergy to the coloring used in the hair dye. I stopped using it and let my hair grow so I could get all the colored part cut off. I got my hair cut really short last week and realized that the gray is looking pretty good so I think I will keep it. Besides now I don't have to prove I am eligible for the senior citizen discount when I buy something or we go out to eat....like the cashier couldn't see the wrinkles before? sheesh.

But even with the gray hair, wrinkles, a 42 year old daughter, senior discounts, senior sized portions at restaurants and aches and pains that were not there a few years ago being old hadn't really sunk in.

Then today reality hit.....I received my first Social Security Benefit payment.

But what the heck, I've got extra money and am going plant shopping.




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The Seige of the Alamo - a little Texas history

Category: Life happenings | Posted: Mon Mar 03, 2008 6:08 pm

Day 1 - Tuesday, February 23, 1836, General Santa Anna's army of over 4000 men arrive in San Antonio to quell another uprising of settlers who want freedom from the oppression of the Mexican government. By the time they arrived, many families had left the town, Colonel William B Travis and his garrison of men had moved into the Alamo.
Santa Anna's moved into the plaza of San Antonio and hoisted a blood-red flag of no-quarter from the church tower.

Day 2 - Co-commander James Bowie, who had been ill for weeks with pneumonia and TB, turned over his responsibilities to Colonel Travis. The bombardment of the Alamo begins.

Day 3 - Two more batteries of General Santa Anna's army are in place and join the bombardment of the fortress. Colonel Travis sends out another plea to Sam Houston for help. A cold norther moves thru that night.

Day 4 - Mexican gunners are firing steadily. To conserve ammunition the defenders have not begun firing back altho Davey Crockett and some men are busy with their rifles and they rarely miss what they aim at.

Day 5 - Mexican troops attempt to cut off the water supply to the Alamo. Travis sends Lt James Bonham to Colonel Fannin in Gonzales with another plea for help.

Day 6 - The cold norther has abated but replaced by cold drizzle. Cannonading continues and the constant harassment tactics are having their intended affect on the Texans. Another attempt to cut off the water supply to the Alamo is made. Davy Crockett with his fiddle and Scotsman John McGregor with his bagpipes stage musical duels to cheer up the men.

Day 7 - The mexican troops are digging trenches and throwing up earthworks closer to the Alamo.

Day 8 - 32 volunteers arrive at the Alamo from Gonzales. There are rumors among the men that Fannin is on his way with hundreds of men but those are just rumors.

Day 9 - Wednesday, March 2, the weary men in the Alamo are unaware that Texas Independence has been declared at the temporary capital of Washington-on-the-Brazos.

Day 10 - Mexican battalions arrive to reinforce the army. Bonham returns with news that Fannin is not coming. Travis sends a rider to Washington-on-the-Brazos with another plea for help and also several personal messages from the men to their families.

Day 11 - Enemy entrenchments now completely circle the Alamo and the Mexican battery begins firing shots into the walls. Plans for storming the Alamo are being made.

Day 12 - Mexican battery to north moves closer, defenders are dodging cannon balls that come crashing thru the wall. Travis assembles the men, tells them there is no hope of help and their choices are surrender, try to escape or stay and fight.
Only one man chooses to escape and no one considers surrender. Santa Anna makes plans to attack the next morning.

Day 13 - Sunday, March 6, 1836.
Between 1 and 4 a.m. the Mexican troops move into position, surrounding the Alamo.
At 5 a.m. Santa Anna gives the signal to attack.
Four columns advance on the Alamo, twice repulsed by the Texans.
The north wall is breeched and the Mexicans pour into the plaza of the Alamo - desperate, intense fighting with heavy Mexican casualties.
At 6:30 a.m. the fighting is over......The Alamo has fallen.

All 189 defenders were killed but they took out an estimated 600 Mexican soldiers before they died.

The defenders came from all over the world. Some had come to settle this wilderness from other states or foreign countries, some had heard of the uprising and left their families back home, just to get in on the fighting.

Randy's 4th-great Uncle, Eliel Melton, had come to settle in Texas from Georgia, when the uprising began he signed over all his properties to his brother, Ethan, went to the Alamo and died there.


Texas trivia

Beginning in 1519 Texas has been under the flag of 6 nations.
Spain 1519-1685 and again 1690-1821
France 1685 - 1690
Mexico 1821-1836
The Republic of Texas 1836-1845
The Confederacy 1861-1865
The USA 1845-1861 and again 1865 to Present

Texas is the only state that was an independent nation before joining the U.S.
Our state flag is the only state flag that can fly at the same height as the US flag when they are flown on serarate poles.



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Cinnamon-- A Christmas story of two loaves

Category: Life happenings | Posted: Wed Dec 26, 2007 4:48 pm

Many years ago I became an avid homemade bread maker and took over the cinnamon bread for Christmas morning breakfast tradition that my Mom had started when I was a child....slaving over the dozen or so loaves from proofing the yeast to baking. And a new generation of family members began to expect this tradition every year. Two and a half years ago my oven died and as of yet I have found no really compelling reason to replace it, besides it makes great storage space in my small kitchen.

This year I finally remembered that when Mom had found frozen loaves of unbaked bread in the grocery store freezer section, she had started using those instead of making the dough from scratch....if it was good enough for Mom it was good enough for me.

I put the loaves in the fridge to thaw....didn't take as long as I expected. When we returned home from the movie on Monday the rising dough had filled the bag and had to be cut out. Got two loaves all done and on to rise. They were small loaves so I thought I would try baking them in my toaster oven instead of taking them to Lisa's unbaked the next morning.
Did you know that bread dough will burst into flames when it touches the heating element in an oven??? Well, I didn't.

After they cooled, I cut off the burned sections and covered them with aluminum foil ....then forgot to refrigerate them to prevent further rising.
Christmas morning I found......do you remember the episode of the I Love Lucy show where she takes this 6 foot long, 2 foot high loaf of bread out of the oven?.... that is what I thought of when I turned on the kitchen light yesterday morning.
They were huge and flopping over the sides of the small loaf pans....a picture of Jabba the Hut flashed before my minds eye, not a pretty sight.
I pulled the loaves from the small pans, but them in larger ones....we baked them when we got to Lisa's.
They had collapsed into the pans and looked terrible and I explained why that was.

But they were both gushing over how good it tasted and how nice it was to have my homemade cinnamon bread again, I just didn't have the heart to tell them the rest of the story.

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Anniversary weekend away

Category: Life happenings | Posted: Tue May 22, 2007 1:28 am

After giving Amanda last minute instructions that were actually repeats of the instructions we had given her a couple of times already Friday morning, we left home a few minutes after 1 on Friday, got back home about 5 minutes later because Randy forgot his pocket stuff.
Realized later that we had forgotten the camera but by that time we were too far away to turn around. Oh well.

The BnB was really pretty, the two acres it is in the middle of has lots of trees but very few flowers since neither of the owners have time for that much gardening. They use the grounds for weddings so the plainer the landscaping the better.

Saturday we wandered thru several antique/junque shops in downtown Denison and then went to Sherman to do the same. I lived in Sherman from the age of 9 thru 18. We found the houses I had lived in easy enough but the downtown area is so different, it seemed strange to wander around there remembering what it looked like 43 years ago.

Saturday night there was a wedding at the BnB, we sat on the patio at the back of the house and watched. The couple couldn't have been older than 20-21 yrs old. They stayed at the BnB Saturday night and we got to meet them at breakfast the next morning. They looked even younger up close, but they were a very nice couple and we sure hope they have a fun and long life together.

We left Sunday about noon, stopped in another town on the way home and wandered thru more shops.

I didn't ask to stop at any garden centers even tho we did pass a few really nice looking ones.
But I did get some cool garden stuff.

The ladder is about 18 inches tall, don't know where it will go yet. The white buffalo isn't going out back, Bears and Buffalos are my favorite animals.
The gnome has a spooky looking face but I liked him anyway.




These two I found at 50% off, couldn't resist them either. The birdcage is going to hold a wave petunia, probably in red. The copper tea kettle was just too cool to pass up.



At a shop on Saturday we had seen a kerosene can that had Bluebonnets painted around the middle, then Sunday we found this can that I can paint myself.


One of the last shops we went thru had these three wood spools of thread, the thread is not that old so I think it will be perfect to use as the warp on my small loom.


And the window is something I have been hoping to find for several years...at a decent price at least and found this one for only $10. I plan on painting some of the glass panes and I will probably knock out a couple of them to hang a couple of things in
then of course it will go into the garden.




Last edited: Sat Jul 07, 2007 3:41 am

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