Garden update!

Summer is winding down and I am ready to see it go.  While I hate cold weather (winter's snow and ice are not my thing!), I lovelovelove fall!!  I love everything about fall.  The cooler air after a long hot summer, the lower humidity (yes, thank you, Jesus!!!), pumpkins, the fair, seeing the leaves change colors, putting on a warm pair of yoga pants and a long-sleeved tee shirt, turning back the clocks and getting a little more sleep, yep, pretty much everything.  It's my favorite season.  I do love a lot about summer, too.  The beach is obviously number one in my heart and I've enjoyed my little garden, too, going out every day to see if there was a tomato or a cucumber ready and picking pepper after pepper after pepper but to me, fall just feels like the prize at the finish line.  I'll continue to use my clothesline as long as I can (I remember my mama telling me she used to hang our diapers out in the winter and they'd freeze stiff with ice as they dried.  I ain't going that far with it.  Ha!) and I'll continue to do some kind of gardening as long as I can. 

Here's where we are with our wild onions, spinach and lettuce on the porch.  I love that Tabbie Hoffman was right there.  :)

 

 Our Spanish yellow onions are just so cute to me!

The pumpkin patch is coming along nicely, too!  They got sprinkled with a little diatomaceous earth early, you know, just in case some pumpkin bug wanna start something.

  

The mammoth sunflowers are coming up, too!  I can't wait to see how big and tall they get!!  (We had a bad thunderstorm with heavy, heavy rain yesterday.  That's why they're kinda just laying there.  They are just beat down.  Ha!)

The flowers and herbs are just thriving on the front porch!  There's sweet mint, parsley and chives, a climbing jenny, a foxtail fern, a dwarf morning glory, a heather and my Christmas cactus that I'm going to bring in next month and stick in a closet to hang out during the fall months to encourage it to bloom.  Cross your fingers!!  It's nevah bloomed at Christmas.  Valentine's Day is when it usually gets around to it. 

But summer's not going away completely, at least not here at the Schneider Homestead.  I hung a few more things on the fence yesterday while Larry worked on his patches wall.  We picked all of these up at the beach.  I just love how they look together.

Quiet thang!

Y'all may remember our baseball card display at the condo.  Today, Larry made another wall, in his den/office, from all of his military patches, the colorful ones anyway.  I think it looks great!

The flag in the middle that says "Quyet Thang 1971" is a Viet Cong battle flag and "quyet thang" means "resolve to win".  We're not sure how to pronounce it so we just say "quiet thang!" :)

I see a couple of familiar ones up there!

Garden update!

Larry got this little garden sign for me yesterday for ten cents at a church thrift store that's fast becoming one of our favorite places to hang out.  It's run by an Anglican church in Fort Valley and I just love its name, Christ The Redeemer. 

Monty is still hard at work guarding the tomatoes and we have not seen hide nor hair of that possum since I put him out there.  Good job, Monty!!

These slow-pokin', gonna-show-up-when-all-the-work-is-done-like-a-dang-blister things are marigolds that I planted to keep the squash bugs away. They just started blooming a couple of weeks ago.  Yeah, good job, marigolds. 

I planted pumpkins and mammoth sunflowers yesterday along the fence.  I'm so excited to see how the pumpkins do!!  I still have scallions, spinach and lettuce to plant for fall and I'll be DONE with planting this year!!

Nothing better than a cute little orange car hanging overhead to encourage good pumpkin growth!  That's my story anyway.

My sunflowers make me happy.

The front porch

I worked some more on our front porch this weekend, too.  This summer has just been too hot to enjoy the porch but fall is coming!!  I ordered our tickets to see Alabama at the fair in October yesterday and I really cannot wait.  I haven't seen them since 2006, I think, when they had their Farewell Tour and it was there in Perry that I saw them and I cried thinking I'd never see them again and would never see them with Larry.  After all I had experienced in my crazy running-after-Alabama days, it broke my heart to think I would never get to share any of that with Larry.  Well, they're coming back and we're going to meet 'em there.  Sans Mark, of course, and to me, Alabama without Mark just ain't Alabama.  But like Patty Loveless taught us, life's about changin', nothing ever stays the same.  I'll go see Randy, Teddy and Jeff and I'll scream my fool head off and I'll show my husband a side of me he ain't never seen.  :)

So, back to the porch.  I went to an estate sale with a coworker Friday and I picked up two little metal tables for five bucks a piece that I thought would look cute on our porch.  Here's a pic of them before, in the picture from the sale.  I circled 'em in pink!

 

Here they are now, after I painted them and put some flowers on 'em!

 Here's some more flower pots I've collected and the man I collected, too.  :)

We got this rug this summer for $10.  I just love it.  

At the estate sale of artist Audrey Hunnicutt in Fort Valley a few weeks ago, I got a bunch of baskets and I don't know what that jug thing is but I liked it and it was $2.  It's really heavy and really cool.  

I went to the grand opening of our new HomeGoods store today and got this boho wooden bead birds and bells garland.

 

It was made in India and is really, really pretty.

Another estate sale find that found its way to our house.  I think I paid a quarter for it.  Its message is priceless, though.

Weekend projects!

We had lots of stuff to do around the house this weekend.  Larry built me an outside shower that I am soooooo excited about!  I spend a lot of time outside, in the garden, at the clothesline, battling squash bugs and it gets hot out there.  He wanted me to have a place to cool off (until we put that pool in!) and he even enjoyed it himself today after cutting the grass.  I'm surprised y'all didn't hear his Jerry Clower-like holler when that cold water hit his hot head this afternoon.  :)
  
Here he is testing the water pressure and how cool is that rainbow??  God's promise!
 

And here I am testing the water.  It was fabulous!!!

Last weekend when we went to the beach, we picked up this solid wood table for A DOLLAR at an estate sale.  Larry found it stuck out in a barn, covered in spider webs and dirt.  I didn't know exactly what I wanted to do with it, I just knew I loved it and I wanted it so we got it!

 

Today I painted it!  I wanted turquoise so we got a quart of paint yesterday.  I picked Valspar's Seafarer and I absolutely LOVE it!  

I put it out by the shower to hold our towels and wash cloths and soap.  I think it looks great there!  And has a new life and a new purpose.  :)
 

Beachy weekend!

Larry and I took off to Tybee Island last weekend for a much-needed break.  Life has been super crazy for us this summer!  We could easily go to Florida but we just love Tybee.  It was the first beach we went to as a real-life couple so it's kinda a special place for us, not to mention a much shorter drive.  Plus it's close to my Aunt Linda and this time, we got to stop by her house and visit for a bit!  When we got close to her house, we called and Uncle Don came and met us.  We had stopped at a peach stand so we picked up a jar of preserves and a loaf of peach bread while we waited for him to get there.  Then we followed him way out in the country (I loved that!) to their house.  Aunt Linda had cooked a spread for us for lunch!!  Baked chicken, corn, macaroni salad, veggies and not knowing what we wanted or felt like eating, she also fixed hot dogs and had chips and homemade pimento cheese for sandwiches.  Pimento cheese like Maw always made, made with sharp cheddar cheese.  It was all so delicious and hit our hungry spot!  We visited for a little while, us girls in the house and Larry and Uncle Don outside talking man stuff.  Jennifer was there, too, with her two stepdaughters and it was so good to see everybody.  And I got to see a side of Savannah I had never seen before!  Every other time I've been, I've just taken I-16 and took it to the end, got off in Savannah and ended up at River Street.  Then took Victory Drive all the way out to the beach.  This time, though, since the road Aunt Linda and Uncle Don live on goes into Savannah, we went that way.  It was so nice to just be out in the country again!  We took that highway right onto Abercorn, stopping at a multi-family yard sale where I got a little white folding garden fence for four dollars and then we hit a few military surplus stores so Larry could get some patches and we went to a thrift store called Blessingdales that I really, really liked because it's owned and operated by Christians, The Living Vine, who help and shelter pregnant women in crisis, whether it be protection from abuse, addiction or just pure need.  It's pretty awesome.  Not one piece of Pyrex was to be found in there but I got the cutest Mud Pie jute tote bag that will be perfect for carrying around my treasures at estate sales. 

We got out to the beach and it was sooooo crowded!!  It was like that all weekend.  We checked in, threw our stuff down and took off.  We wanted to eat at Sundae Cafe, since it recently made a list of the best restaurants in Georgia (I wanted to try that Lobster Mac and Cheese!) but we'll know next time to make a reservation.  Seems everybody saw that list.  We ended up eating at Fannie's and it was awesome.  It was right on the beach, had great seafood and then we walked on the beach with the ice cream cones we got for dessert.

 Only about a bazillion footprints in the sand.  :)

I really, really wanted a mermaid for our master bathroom and a glass float.  That's all I wanted out of this trip!  We went to Seaside Sisters and quickly realized we were waaaaay out of our element.  They may get their stuff from estate sales but they sho' don't resell it like estate sales!  I posted on Facebook that estate sales have ruined me.  I'm used to paying $10 tops for something.  I found a mermaid there, a beautiful metal folk-artsy mermaid that I loved but for $75, I couldn't do it.  We also found the extremely rare Pyrex hot air balloon 4-quart bowl from the chip-and-dip set for $75 at Two Women and a Warehouse and I had to just physically stop Larry from getting it.  We are not paying $75 for a BOWL.  I'd be too scared to use it!!

I got my mermaid (and my beach sign with the hook) at T. S. Chu's.  I absolutely love Chu's.  If you have a minute, read this article about it.  It's been there since the 1930's and has pretty much anything you need for a stay at the beach.  If it's something you use, you'll find it at Chu's!  :)

I ended up with two glass floats.  A big blue one that we're going to hang outside from Fish Art and this smaller green one from Christy's on the corner.

We ate breakfast Sunday morning at The Breakfast Club.  I had a ham and cheese omelet, Larry had the veggie omelet and we both had grits, toast, juice and coffee.  The best breakfast in town, that's for sure!

We enjoyed the most beautiful (albeit a tad cloudy!) sunrise and later Sunday morning, some really cool storm clouds and when the storm passed and the sun came back out, we played and jumped around in some really huge waves!

We stood out on the pier and watch the fishermen cast their lines, in search of that elusive Spanish mackerel.  We never saw 'em catch a mackerel but we did see a trout get pulled in and that was pretty exciting.  :)

I saw this little flower pot stand on a porch near the beach and I just fell head over heels in love with it.  The plants, the pots, the heart-shaped plant stand, the simple way it just all comes together.  I thought it was beautiful.

Your heart always knows the way.  

 
It truly does.  Whether you're discovering a new way to get to your favorite beach or if you're holding on to a dream for dear life when everybody, everything, is telling you it'll never happen.

It will happen.  

You follow that heart, trust its path, and never, ever give up.  

Garden update!

 

I'm seeing signs that our little summer garden is winding down.  And that is FINE. WITH. ME.  This veggie-growing thing has worn me out this summer!  I think I just planted too much stuff.  I think it's been too hot.  And I think the whole squash soap opera was a bit much.  I'm still picking five or six banana peppers and a couple bell peppers every day and the cherry tomatoes are starting to turn red.

My sunflowers are absolutely beeeee-u-ti-ful and I am so proud of them.  


  

The cucumbers are still doing good and Larry and I enjoyed a cool cucumber salad last night (cucumbers sliced thin, sour cream, white wine vinegar, salt, pepper, fresh dill and chives).  I had a little issue with something eating my big tomatoes just as soon as they turned red and we thought it was a mouse until the other day when Larry spotted possum tracks on the hot tub cover.  I put out this inflatable snake scarecrow and so far, no more snacking out there.  This little freak was taking a bite out of every one!  Like my tomato plants were a box of chocolate.  No, you idiot, they ALL are the SAME.  Here's Monty (the python, stahhhp it) guarding our tomatoes.

 He's such a snake in the grass.

I move him around every day and blow him back up because he's pretty much flat late in the evenings.  The heat's bad on us all.