Ruby Tuesday!

It's Ruby Tuesday again and I have taken several pictures this past few days sporting the beautiful color red. I hope you enjoy them.

This is one of my beautiful red Hibiscus blossoms, which I have spotlighted, and like the effect. Isn't it pretty?

There is a nice, home style restaurant in town that we frequent once a week. Outside the restaurant are six huge containers of impatiens. This one had the most red impatiens, so I took a picture of it. Impatiens are always lovely, and they bloom from spring until late fall, and they can't be beat in a shady spot in the garden, or in containers.

After I snapped the picture of the impatiens, Eileen and I went into the restaurant and were seated at our favorite table by a window. And lo and behold, what did I see right at the next table? Something bright red, just waiting for me to take a picture of! How lucky can one get?

See the two old geezers seated at this table? They are frequent visitors to the same restaurant as well. And they usually get their jollies by teasing and flirting with us. Of course, Eileen and I oblige them by flirting back. We get our amusements where we can! Tee Hee!

So the other day, when one of them was wearing a bright red T-shirt, I
grabbed my camera and hopped on over there, much to Eileen's dismay.

I told the geezers that if they let me take their picture, I would make them famous on the Internet. Ha ha ha. They agreed, although they are not into computers and have no idea what the Internet is. But that red shirt looks perfect for a Ruby Tuesday shot, don't you think? Ha! And my geezer friends were extremely nice to cooperate. Thanks, guys. :-)

If you would like to participate in Ruby Tuesday, just visit the teach to find out more.

Happy Ruby Tuesday!

PS. Just so no one thinks I am being disrespectful by calling our friends "geezers," it's all done in fun, and the "geezers" sometimes refer to us gals as "old biddies." So all is fair in friendly name calling. :-)

Awards, Woo Hoo's, Happy Weekend!

I am late acknowledging a couple of nice awards I received recently, so I am doing that now.

The Awesome Site Award was given to me by my young, lovely, sweet friend, Pia .
Isn't it cool? Thank you, Pia, I really appreciate you thinking of me.

And lovely Dawn passed this beauty along to me. Thank you, Dawn for thinking of me.

I would love to pass both of these beautiful awards on to all my friends on my Blog Roll. You are all awesome blogger's and wonderful bloggie friends!

My Woo Hoo is that I received my contributing writer copy of, Christmas Through A Child's Eyes, published by Adams Media, September 2008. Isn't it beautiful? I am thrilled to be included in this book. And the great news is that Paul Harvey has endorsed the book! Everyone is excited about that. (I am in another Christmas book as well, but that one hasn't arrived yet.)

This week has been pleasant and summery around here, which has encouraged the green tomatoes still on my vines, to ripen. The woods have become very dry though, as we haven't had rain since Ike blew through here, and there are "forest fire danger" bulletins out, which is always scary! (As if all the news about the economy isn't scary enough!) Have to get out there and do a rain dance again, and ask the Good Lord to send some rain our way soon!

Have a Happy Weekend, everyone.

Blessings from the woods!

Ruby Tuesday

I enjoy visiting my blogging friend Linda's Ruby Tuesday posts, and decided to join in this week. On Ruby Tuesday, participants post a picture/s that has/have something red in it. It can be just a bit of red, or a lot of red.

Visit the teach to find out more, if you would like to participate in Ruby Tuesday.

I took this shot of sunrise in my woods, early Sunday morning. The forecast said mostly cloudy, with some sunshine in the afternoon. You can see the dark clouds trying to cover the rising sun. The sun won! The clouds disappeared as it got light, and it was a perfect sunny, Autumn day, and I enjoyed it immensely.

Happy Ruby Tuesday!

Blessings from the woods!

Something New Around Here!

Hi Friends,

There is something new around here. See it? Just look to the top of my sidebar, on the right. See my new widget? It says "Follow this Blog." Won't you please click on it, and sign on to Follow thisBlog? Pretty please? I will be tickled pink if you do. :-)

Thank you dear friends and visitors.

Blessings from the woods!

Ike Roars Through the Woods, and More.

This past week has been labor intensive, (Yeah, I'm pooped!) because the remnants of Hurricane Ike roared through here Sunday morning with sheets of rain, followed by a wind that I thought would deposit me in Oz, if I dared to go out into it. (Official word is the wind was 70 miles per hour!)

So, I didn't go to church Sunday morning, listening to the wind sounding like a freight train, instead, and watching the trees dropping their limbs all over the yard, while in the house the lights flickered on and off a dozen times.

I never did lose power though, thank goodness, but many folks around here did, including Eileen, who lives 14 miles east of me. When her power came back on five hours later, she discovered that her Cable TV did not, which made her a bit cranky!

Anyway, later in the day I went out and surveyed things, and began cleaning up the debris left by Ike. My neighbor Connie's husband, Roger came by to check on me, and he went up and down our narrow gravel road with a chainsaw, clearing debris and tree limbs off, so people could drive on it. And I have been cleaning debris here every day, since Sunday, and have finally made a dent in it, thank goodness. I left a couple of big limbs for Greg to clean up and cut up with his chainsaw. Since this house sits in the middle of the woods surrounded by trees on all sides, I was thankful that none of them hit the house! And as you can see in the picture of my front, most of it looks fairly cleaned up now, but I cropped the picture to leave out the scraggly stuff still laying around. :-)

On Monday I took a break and went to town, and heard other people's account of Ike. Many still did not have the power back, some homes and cars had been damaged by trees, but overall it wasn't real bad. Eileen's Cable TV was finally working again, she told me happily, while we lunched at the Chinese Restaurant. Then it was back to cleaning up more of the debris. The scraggly stuff left will be mulched with the lawnmower.

The weather has been heavenly since, and this Sunday promises to be sunny and pleasant, and I look forward to going to church and lunching with church friends again.

Of course, the problems caused by Ike around here were minor compared to so many people who were devastated by it in Texas. My thoughts and prayers are with all of them. I can't even imagine how they're coping with all the devastation.


I also want to thank all my friends who have signed on as my followers! That is so very sweet of you, but how did you do that? As soon as I figure out how to become your follower, "I will follow you," just like song says.

:-) Any hints on how I can do that, would be appreciated, as well as hints on how to show my followers on my sidebar. I am so blogger challenged!

And I want to thank Patti and Grams for the beautiful awards they gave me. I posted them on my sidebar. Thank you again, friends.

And thank you for visiting. Have a wonderful weekend, and a great week ahead, everyone.

Blessings from the woods!

Pictures That Cheered This Nana Up!

I've been in a bit of a funk the last couple of days-sad and even depressed. So when my daughter sent me some pictures this morning, they cheered me up considerably. As it happens, my 11 year old granddaughter Hannah, who is in these pictures, was in a bit of a funk as well. Her big sister Nichole had left for college last week. This is the first time Nichole is no longer living at home, and Hannah misses her. So her Mom took her to the Farm Park, Wednesday, to help cheer her up.

It was a beautiful day with big, fluffy clouds, and cheerful looking sunflowers welcoming them to the Farm Park.

There are beautiful flower gardens at this Farm Park, and here is Hannah

wearing her Jonas Brothers (hope I spelled that right!) T-shirt, that she got at the live, Jonas Brothers concert she attended a couple of weeks ago. She is mighty proud of that T-shirt!

The beautiful flower gardens have paths through them, so one can get up close and personal with the beautiful flowers.

They also have a vegetable garden there, and it was potato digging time. Here is Hannah helping the farm ladies to gather the freshly dug potatoes. What a fun job that was!

Of course, there were lots of animals at the Farm Park, such as Llama's.

And calves. Here she is petting a little bull calf that is chowing down. Of course, many other animals reside at the Farm Park as well.



And here is Hannah with the draft horses that pulled the wagon she rode in. Nana is saving some of the other pictures for another time. But as you can see, Hannah enjoyed the Farm Park. It cheered her up considerably, as it did this Nana, who enjoyed the pictures.

All Nana's, also known as Grandma's, enjoy pictures of their grandchildren! :-)

Have a wonderful weekend, and a great week ahead, everyone.

Blessings from the woods!


I do have a couple of awards to acknowledge, and I will do that sometime next week.

In Memory- A Silent Tribute.

Paying a silent, prayerful tribute today in memory of those who lost their lives on September 11, 2001.

We will never forget!

TA-DA!! The Winner Is...

I finally got all the names into a box, yesterday, and had Eileen reach in, stir the contents and pull out a slip of paper with the name of the winner of the Chicken Soup for the Soul, book.

As she pulled out the slip of paper she looked at me and said, "This doesn't have a name on it."

"Of course, it does. I wrote names on all the slips," said I, reaching for the slip of paper.

"No, this just says Ancient One, but it doesn't have a name."

"Well, Ancient One is a name. It's the name Ann uses on her blog. Some people use different handles, instead of their real names," I explained.

Eileen is not into computers.

"How come you don't use a handle?" she asked.

"I don't know. I just never thought of using one. I wouldn't know what to use. Let's just forget about it."

"Well, you could call yourself, Hungarian Paprikash," Eileen continued.

"I could, but I won't," I said, grabbing the slip of paper from her hand, and ending the discussion. She may be my best bud, but she can be annoying at times. :-)

So, this was a long way of getting to the point: Congratulations Ancient One , you are the winner of the Chicken Soup book. I hope you enjoy it. Please email me your postal address, and it will be on the way to you.

I do wish I had more copies of this book, so everyone could receive one. You are all such wonderful blogging friends. Thank you for that.

Have a wonderful week!

Twenty Five Years in the Woods!

August 16th was my 25th year in these woods. I can't believe it has been 25 years, but it has. Now that I am getting on in years, the thought that one day I may have to leave here, saddens me. But I try not to let it get me down. They have been good years for someone who loves nature; loves the serenity of these woods, loves her disposition to solitude. But I also have a strong social side, and love the times spent with family and friends. I'm out there often, having lunch with friends, yakking with many that I run into, when I'm in town. For I am a champion yakker, according to Eileen! :-)

But after three or four hours of lunching, shopping and yakking, I look forward to coming home again, where the serenity of the trees, field and pond fill me with peace, and where the wild things, who consider me as one of them, wait for me. (As do the not so wild things, like my dogs and cats.) And one of them I am; as much a part of nature as they are.

So, I thought I'd post a few of my recent pictures. Images that are always a part of my life; always loved and enjoyed.

When I sit on my deck, this is my view to the East- my small field, where the deer like to congregate. There are some in this picture, though way up in the field. Can you see them?

I love this picture of a grazing doe, while the setting sun casts a small, magical glow on part of the woods, behind her.

This is Bucky, my favorite young buck. He comes close, hoping I'll give him a little treat. I have known him since he was a tiny fawn.

The wild turkeys, way on top of the field, are heading to the woods, to spend the night roosting in the sheltering branches of a huge oak tree.

This is my small, wildlife pond, in the north corner of the field, close to the house. When I sit at my lap top in the little sun room, this is my view. I love the little pond. It is used by birds and beasts, and insects, of course. Dragonflies cruise back and forth, and lay their eggs in the water, and the fish do a splash dance for me, when I feed them.

Sometimes, a Great Blue Heron comes to try his luck at a frog dinner as well. I have even seen a thirsty coyote on the far side, taking a drink. And at night in the warm months, frogs serenade me to sleep.

So, if and when the time comes for me to leave these woods, I may leave them physically, but they will always remain in my memory and heart. And I'm thankful to God for the happy years I got to spend here, because He blessed me with a wonderful daughter and two great sons, who not only understood (!), they helped to make it possible!

I hope you enjoyed the pictures and my little lament. Thank you for reading. Blessings from the woods!