Front Porch Stories

I love this time of year!  I'm not a traditional hunter, I do more sitting and watching than I do shooting.  This morning was wonderful.  It was cool and just after daylight the deer started to move.  I watched as they fed in the food plot in front of my stand and I had some activity off and on all morning.  We usually don't shoot does until the end of the season and then we decide how many we need for meat or to help contain the size of the herd.  We will shoot a good looking buck if he happens to stroll through!!!  We also let children come here to get their first deer.  I love to just watch them interact with each other.  Have a great day and take your kids or grandkids to the woods so they can appreciate nature. 

doing laundry!!!!!  I would rather work outside any day.  I do house work and laundry only because it's a necessary evil.  One of my friends and I were talking about doing laundry today and it made me think about my Mama.  I remember helping her draw water out of the well and filling up a wringer washing machine and there was two rinse tubs.  If she wanted to wash in hot water she would build a fire under an old black wash pot then put it in the washer.  It was an all day job!!  Then everything had to be hung out on clothes lines to dry.  I can remember her telling stories about taking clothes to the creek and washing them on a washboard or beating them with a rock.  Then hanging them on a fence or scattering them on bushes.  I am so glad that we have the modern day washers and dryers!!  I do sometimes like to hang out the sheets so that they have that sunshine smell.

Hey Chris, you want to spend the night at the house?  Sounds good to me, you think we can get Granny to make chocolate gravy?  Yeah, if she's got all the stuff.  That was the conversation with most kids that came to spend the night at our house as the kids were growing up.  They all loved the sweet chocolate gravy poured over a hot butter biscuit.  It didn't change much as they got older. My youngest son and some of his friends traveled and cleaned up after storms.  When they would start home they would call Granny when they were about fifty miles from home to see if she felt like making gravy and it didn't matter how she felt she always said yes. She would check to see if she needed anything and if she did they would bring it with them.  It also used to work as a bargaining tool to get work done.  I was a restaurant manager and some of those kids that hung out at my house worked for me. I would tell them if they would get this and that done I would get Mama to make us some

Thank you for your patience while I've been gone.  We were very busy with the wedding preparations and getting in some mawmaw time with the grandchildren.  The wedding was beautiful!!! My son has a lot of friends who pitched in  and helped with all stages of the wedding.  He was also told by more than one person not to let this one ever get away.  I see no danger in that, they love each other and work so hard together.  She knows all his faults and loves him anyway and he knows she has a hot little temper and loves her all the more.  She has a heart as big as the world and loves my grandchildren as though they were her own. I am so very proud of the two of them and I pray that God will bless them in ways that not even they can dream of.  

I want to apologize to those of you who visit my blog regular.  This past week and this week will be and has been very hectic for me.  This has put me behind in my writing.  Last week I had to prepare for deer season to open up and I also had a fall festival on Saturday.  Deer stands are clean, food plots are growing and guns are sighted in.  Now comes the fun part!  I love to sit in my stand early in the mornings and watch things come to life.  Plus when we get lucky we love venison. Now the most exciting thing this week is my son is going to remarry my wonderful daughter-in-law.  I can't wait to get there! They live five hours from here and I haven't seen them or the grandchildren since July.  I miss them a lot and can not wait to squeeze everyone of them.  I am not sure if I will have time to write while I am gone, but you can bet I will have a lot to write about when I get back!!! I took my husband for his six week appoint from back surgery today.  His doctor say he is

I love my children and grandchildren with all my heart. Although my children are grown with families of their own I still worry about them just as much as if they were still at home. My oldest son has had his act together for years and he finally found a woman who loves him and his daughter as if they had been married forever. The youngest son is starting to pull his life together.  He has two boys and his wife is deployed to Afghanistan. They miss her badly and I hope that you will pray for him and his family.  My daughter, who is the middle child has broken my heart and made some choices that my grandchildren are paying dearly for.  She doesn't have a drug or drinking problem, her problem is her choice of men and choosing those men over her children.  She has four children a son 14, a daughter 12, and twin girls who are 10.  The oldest girl is now living with her biological father and I have not seen or heard from her in over a year.  My oldest son did see them at a restaurant a

I have done more freezing vegetables and making jams and jellies this year than I have in a long time.  My mom was the one who always did the canning around our place.  We would help gather it up and prepare it but mama did most of the work then she shared it with all of us.  As I was picking up pears, I started trying to remember if mama ever put up pears.  Even though I couldn't remember the pears, I could almost smell the apples baking.  I remember how the house would smell of apples and cinnamon.  We had wood heat most of my life and mama would core the apples and put real cow butter in them, with some sugar and cinnamon then put them under the stove or heater they would slow cook all night and they tasted so good.  I don't know that I could ever reproduce the taste of those apples.  She dried a lot of apples too.  We didn't have food dehydrators back then, we had a couple of sheets of tin and an old sheet.  Mama would peel and slice apples and lay them on that old shee

This afternoon is what friends and family and a big ole porch is all about.  We had friends over this afternoon and we sat on the porch and talked and laughed.  Shared memories of when we were kids and made new memories to share years from now.  I can remember when I was growing up that's what Sunday afternoons were for.  Sometimes folks would bring their guitars, fiddles and mandolins and they would pick and sing until dark.  Coffee and pear bread was enjoyed by all!  Slow down and take the time to share an afternoon with friends and family.  I don't mean in front of a television watching a ball game or playing video games, I mean talking and remembering things from the past otherwise all those great stories we were told as children will disappear.

As I was cutting the grass today my mind swept back in time to when I was growing up.  We didn't have a mulching lawn mower or a leaf blower, we had a brush broom.  For those of you to young to know what that is, you cut branches off a tree or you cut small under growth and tie it together until you have the size you need to sweep the yard.  Folks back then made use of the things they had available to them.  It was a multi purpose tool, it also served as a correctional incentive for children. Mama would let us sweep up the leaves then we would jump in them and play for hours.  When the kids were growing up we had this big tree in the back yard with a rope swing in it.  We would rake up all the leaves and they would swing high and drop down in the leaves they had a blast.  When my oldest grandson was little, his first encounter with a pile of leaves brought tears until he got to bury mawmaw in them.  He wasn't sure what to think when I dropped him in a big pile, then it became a

Cool nights, warm days I love this kind of weather!!  I have become an avid deer hunter and I look forward to this time of year.  I love to sit in my stand and enjoy nature.  I like to get in there before daylight and wait for the sun to come up and all the woods to come to life.  Have you ever seen a deer with frost still on it's back?  Have you ever watched as two bucks fight for dominance?  Have you watched a bob cat our for his morning stroll?  Have you ever heard the sound of a hawk in the air and then watch him swoop down and grab a squirrel off the ground?  Have you ever watched as wild turkeys scratch for food, then after they have gone, watch as a coyote comes through looking for them?  I hope you enjoy the outdoors and the nature around you!  Thanks for stopping by my blog.

competitive martial artist!  What started out as something to do with my son, became a compulsion.  I slept, ate and breathed karate.  If the kids didn't want to do karate they sat and watched us compete or they stayed home with my mom. It was something I was very good at. I became an instructor and got even deeper involved.  Then came problems with my shoulder.  I had injured it several years earlier in a motorcycle wreck.  It started dislocating at the drop of a hat, so I decided to have surgery.  My arm has not been the same since. It was after that surgery that I met my oldest son my another mother.lol..... I had retired from teaching when I got this call from a young man who said their instructor had walked out and would I be interested in taking the class.  I said I would think about it and decided that I would do it.  This young man turned out to be a weight lifter and somewhat apprehensive about being taught this sport by a woman.  Turns out I'm a good teacher and he an

Have you ever painted with an air brush? It can be quite hard until you learn.  When the kids were growing up I was married to this man who always tried to come up with those get rich quick schemes.  This one time he decided to buy a bunch of plaster molds.  We turned our chicken house into a work shop and started making things.  We also painted them.  To speed the process along he bought me an air brush and I went through several pieces before I got it right.  I had gotten pretty good at it and we were trying to get a load finished to take to an auction.  The kids kept pestering me, and I told one of them it he kept on I was going to paint his belly button green.(name of oldest son withheld because he said I couldn't tell this)  Needless to say he came back again and did not realize how long my hose was and yes he sported a green belly button that would not wash off for days!!  We did not make a lot of money in the plaster business but it sure left my yard a mess.