Front Porch Stories

The last time we went to the back doctor he told Pop that the left side of his back is not fusing properly.  Pop said, "exactly what does that mean"?  The doctor told him that the graft is what holds the screws in place.  When they do a T-lift they do a bone graft over the top of the screws, that is what holds them in place so it is a must for the graft to fuse.  If it does not fuse they will have to go back in a redo the graft.  Pop is in a lot of pain, but he still gets out and does things.  Today it was a beautiful day and we worked outside most of the day.  He can ride the mower for short periods of time so he mulched some of the leaves and I took the blower and cleaned up the driveway.  Then I decided to give our truck a bath!!  I get so tickled at Pop.  Every time I start to wash the truck he'll say that he will have Jose do it.  (Jose is our handyman)  I've been waiting two years for him to get Jose to was the truck!!  I just went ahead and washed it this eveni

My daughter-in-law and I were talking about her blogs and she said mom you really should try it, I think you would be really good at it.  I thought about it for quite some time, then decided that I would give it a try.  I really do enjoy writing and sharing my thoughts, memories and family recipes.  The recipe blog was started so that I could share those family recipes with that very daughter-in-law.  She is really more than just my daughter-in-law she is more like a daughter.  She is so good to my son, his daughter and my grandson which they have custody of.  She earns extra money doing word ads with links on her blog.  I am trying to learn how to do that as well.  It can be quite discouraging at times, but I will just keep working away at learning how to be a blogger and trying to earn money at home.  Thank goodness I don't have to depend on it for paying the rent or eating! Thank You all for stopping by and have a blessed day.

How many of us as children or adults have broken bones.  We can remember the pain, being scared if you were young.  Yesterday my oldest son called, he was on his way to the emergency room, his daughter had fallen on the playground and broken her arm in two places!!  I live five hours away, do you know how hard it was for me to sit here and wait for the phone call that told me she was okay.  I know that there are a lot of grandparents like me who live far away from their children and grandchildren, sometimes it makes me cry when I can't be with them.  Both breaks were below the elbow and they set it without doing surgery.  I hope that it mends without them having to do surgery later on.  She has some good doctors, their group set my wrist a number of years ago, but it was not complicated.  I told my son this morning if they were not satisfied with these doctors to take her to Birmingham.  I am going to get them the phone number for the surgeon who fixed my shoulder. Her Okasan and I

Last night I decided that I wanted to look through my  old pictures.  I have pictures going back to before I was born.  As I looked through them, some made me laugh and some made me cry. There were pictures of my mom's parents who died shortly after I was born and a couple of my mom's grandmother.  You can see the Cherokee in her!! I was told she had a heck of a temper, guess that's where I got it from. I love to look at the pictures of my dad when he was a young man, my youngest son looks a lot like him.  There is this one where my mom was clowning being silly, that's a side of her we didn't see often enough.  There were some of my grandson skating before he even learned to walk!  Then there was this hilarious photo of my two boys when the oldest first got into weight lifting, they are standing outside striking body building poses and the youngest thinks he's as built as his brother(at the time the youngest was just a little heavy).  I even have a picture of me

About 30 years ago I started a red, white, and blue lone star quilt.  I had forgotten all about it until I was writing a post about quilting.  I went out to the barn yesterday and went through some boxes and found that unfinished quilt top. I took it up to the loft in the house which serves as a guest room, office and sewing room.  I spread it out on the bed and took out the unfinished pieces.  Boy my sewing was not that great!!  My seams are way to big! I may even have rip those seams out and start over on some pieces.  I counted pieces and realized that I am two pieces short.  I hope that after all these years I can find some material to match.  I got to thinking, why did I not finish this quilt?  After giving it some thought I remembered that I had spilled some coke on those two missing pieces and had just never taken the time to get the cloth to fix it.  So that is my first winter sewing project.  Finish that top and get it quilted.  I'll have to make  a set of quilt frames bec

another boy, but he got stuck with me instead.  He was one hell of a man!  I really didn't know just how special my dad was until he was gone.  I was my daddy's baby girl and to a great degree I was spoiled.  By the time I got old enough to really be of any help to the family we had moved to the city.  My dad had hurt his back farming and my brother got him a job as a janitor at the plant where he worked.  I was your typical teenager.  I didn't cause too much trouble but when I did my dad would sometimes not talk to me for weeks.  Although he didn't tell me he loved me or that he was proud of me very often I knew that he loved me.  Even after I got married I would go back and help my parents as much as I could.  Please take the time to tell your parents that you love them.  Take time from your busy lives, to help them with their day to day life.  Fix the pipes, get the groceries, take them out for coffee.  Talk over old times and give them all the love you can, because

Don't you dare put that thing on me!!   We were out in  the field picking up potato's.  You see back when I was growing up they didn't have fancy machines to do the work, people did it.  The man that we share cropped with would bring in  a crew of Mexicans to pick up the first round and then we would go back over the field and pick up the left overs.  I was really to little to do to much, so  I would pick up a few and put them in Mama's sack.  Then I noticed a mouse running around over the field.  I got this great idea to catch that mouse and put it on my sister!! Yeah that's what little sisters do!!  I spent the better part of the day chasing that mouse.  My mom said, "you catch him and he is going to bite you".  Well that didn't deter me as I could imagine my sister running and screaming.  He would hide and I would pick up potato's for a while. Close to the end of the day I had all but given up on catching him, he was really fast.  I got lucky!!!

Ouch!!! Mama laughed and said, "bet you were thinking a mean thought". You see with every stitch of a hand made quilt there is a thought, be it loving or not.  She was right the thought in my mind when I stuck myself was not on the nice side.  We both laughed and kept on sewing. She would tell me about how when she and daddy first got married they didn't have any quilts. She saved every little scrap, some so small she had to sew them onto newspaper just to make a square.  Most of the time we line quilted. Sometimes if we were using an older quilt for batting we would do what mama call tack it.  We would use larger needles and yarn and tack the corners of the squares.  She also made some beautiful appliqued quilts.  One of my favorite was Lady in a Bonnet.  She gave each one of her grandchildren a quilt when they graduated from high school.  She would let the grandkids help her to quilt.  I still have one my oldest son made stitches in when he was about three years old.  I

this morning!  Tomorrow is the last day of hunting season, and I think I have almost lived in our deer stands the last few days.  I enjoy shooting a good buck with a nice rack, but we also love to eat venison.  We try to manage our deer herd so that they don't get over crowded. Our whole family lives off venison!  Sitting in the stand this morning as the sun was coming up and warming things up the woods started to come to life.  The squirrels and birds came out to play in the sunshine.  I couldn't count all the cardinals that were scattered over our food plot.  You see we plant food plots so that all our animals can have food. We also plant bedding plots with tall grasses for the does to fawn in next spring.  Quail and turkey also find refuge in the tall grass.  We make brush piles for the turkey to nest in.  We try to be good stewards of the land and take care of the animals who live here.  I believe that there will come a time where we will have to go back to living off the l

I was talking to my son today and he was telling me about the snow and about the kids having a blast! I ask him if they had a sled and he said no not a regular sled.  He said he had to improvise! He said they took the deck lid off of a car his brother had left there, and hooked it to the back of his daughters four wheeler and had a ball! Judging from the pictures that they posted on face book the whole family including the dog, got in on the action!  They took some great shots of the family fun.  My son said since they couldn't get out to go to work, they decided to make lifetime memories with the kids.  Trust me those two kids, as well as the parents will never forget today!  When we had finished talking I remembered years ago when it would snow our neighbor would pull his girls up the long hill in front of our house and they would slide down.  The laughter and love that would come from the road would make your heart smile, just as mine did as I looked at the pictures on face book

Today is my oldest grandson's birthday!  He's 15!! I can't believe he's that old.  How time flies! I can remember the night he was born.  My daughter was still living at home and I worked at home seaming socks. My daughter spent the day cleaning their room and putting up a baby bed.  I was out in my sewing room working when she came out and said I think my water just broke.  There was snow on the ground and the roads were a mess but off to the hospital we went.  The doctor came in and said they were going to have to do a c-section because the baby was breach not to mention a few weeks early.  So I paced the floor until they brought out my tiny little grandson and told me his mom was doing fine.  I cried when I saw him in the incubator his little legs were spread wide from the way he had been facing for some time. They wrapped him tight in a blanket to pull his legs back the way they should be.  I prayed that he would be alright and would not need special braces. I would

Deborah Ann, you need to pick us up some toilet paper, milk and a loaf of bread on your way home.  They are calling for up to 8 inches of snow.  I've got us on a pot of pintos, and I already got corn bread and biscuits made.  Oh, I almost forgot, get us a dozen eggs and we'll make a cake and some tea cakes just in case the power goes out.  Even though she is no longer here physically, everyday I am in some way reminded of my mom.  Any time they were calling for bad weather in the winter she would get us ready for the power to be out.  We always kept kerosene for the lamps, candles and we had a wood heater and a wood cook stove.  We always bought a load of firewood after Thanksgiving.  Since we lived here in the south, the world stops with a snowflake.  One the road where we lived when it started snowing you were just home.  We had a walnut tree out close to the road and more than one car was wrenched  out of the ditch using that tree.  We sat at the kitchen table and watched th

Have you ever seen a flying squirrel?  They are about half the size of a regular gray squirrel, and they have a flap of skin that extends from their front legs along their side to their back legs.  They don't really fly, when they jump from one tree to the next they spread their legs and the flap of skin allows them to glide.  I'm sure  you've seen freestyle extreme fliers. Their jump suits are designed on that same principle. Now that you have an idea what they are let me tell you a short story.  We had a tree in our front yard that we wanted to cut down.  We had a birdhouse on it and pop said I need to take that birdhouse down, so he got a hammer and took it down.  He said, "I think something is in it".  So he took the hammer and tapped on the latch to open it, and a little flying squirrel jumped out of the box and ran up his arm, then down his back! As I stepped behind pop to see where it went, it darted back up his leg and over his head and leaped across the t

coming to a close next week.  I have truly enjoyed the season, not just because we have put some meat in the freezer but the joy of sitting in my tree house and watching the animals.  I get teased a lot over my "deer stands".  We have several that are more of a shooting house than a deer stand.  They all have carpet on the floor to help with the noise, shooting windows all the way around with netting to conceal movement.  They all have a shingle roof and three of them have little buddy heaters.  The one I sit in the most also has a tote in it with an extra blanket, gloves, snacks and a thermal cell for early season bugs.  My husband says all I'm missing is a stove.  Top of a little buddy works well for that.  Oh I forgot to mention a pair of foot blankets to keep my toes warm.  Yes, I am truly spoiled.  When it's drizzling rain and freezing cold I thank God for a husband who loves me and wants me to be comfortable when I hunt, and I say a prayer for those of you sitti

It had been a long day at work, so I wasn't paying as much attention as I walked to the back door.  Suddenly arms wrapped around me and a voice said I got you! I said are you sure you got me?  The teenage voice said, "yeah mama, I got you"!  I laughed and tossed him over my shoulder!!  During my oldest son's teenage years we were knee deep in the martial arts.  Trying to get me in a hold I couldn't get out of became a serious past time for him and one of his best friends.  As they grew up it got harder and harder for me to escape!  Now that they are grown I would have to really hurt them to get away.  They have grown into two really fine men.  I got to thinking about this today as my son and I were talking about my grandson that lives with him and his wife.  His wife is a tiny little thing but she loves to wrestle with my grandson and they started the New Year with her making this 14 year old tap out.  I told my son to warn her that as he gets older he will get st

Deborah Ann, you tell that man if he kills another one of these don't bring it here.  That goes for that boy and his buddies too. They can take it to one of their mama's to fix.  This is the most aggravating thing I've ever messed with!!!  I bet I have to stew it for a week before we can even eat the thing.  I sure do wish Mama had lived long enough for us to find out how to fix a "wild turkey".  She had plucked and scalded feathers til she couldn't stand it and  I don't care how long you cook it you can't make their legs tender.  I have since learned that you skin out his breast an dispose of the rest.  They have huge breast! If you cut them into strips you can feed a family of four with just one. My now husband had brought us that turkey thinking he was doing a great thing.  He loves to turkey hunt almost as much as I like to deer hunt.  I am going to post the recipe for turkey fingers on debs farm house recipes for those of you who like to eat wild

My oldest grandson went to his first all night skate for his New Years Eve party.  He said he had a blast! He was so sweet he text me and his uncle that he lives with off and on all night.  He and his friend managed to stay until 1 am.  He said the reason he had to give it up was because he had blisters!!  Gosh, at the blistered feet my kids have had!! You see his Uncle used to have a skating rink and all my kids love to skate. His mom was a dance skater on her good days she was beautiful to watch.  She worked hard and could do almost anything an ice skater could do and even some they can't.  One time she wanted a better pair of skates and this girl had a nice pair she wanted to sell so I told my daughter to be sure that they fit and I bought them.  Come to find out in a few days that they were way to small and her feet looked dreadful!!  We bought another pair at a yard sale box and all for two dollars, she skated on those skates for years. Blisters are something you learn to deal

was not just my Mama, she was my best friend. I could tell my mom anything and she wouldn't tell anyone. She was never judgmental, she always tried to advise in a subtle kind of way.  She lived with me for over eighteen years after my dad past away and I got a divorce.  She took over being the mama and I worked and tried to earn us a living.  So of my happiest times and best memories were shared with my mom. One of her favorite things was to sit in our kitchen and watch the birds at the feeder.  She kept her book of birds there on the table so she could identify the ones she didn't already know.  We talked about everything and anything.  I loved the stories that she told of her childhood and those of raising us kids.  On my recipe blog I share with you some of her favorite recipes.  Two of her signature recipes were chocolate gravy and tea cakes.  She would tell stories about when my oldest sister and brother were growing up.  Kids just always seem to wind up at my mama's h