Free hoops anyone?

Then hop on over to Stacie Vaughan's blog to read a little interview about me and enter the give away! Good luck! And happy Monday! =)

Random Shrapnel

Living on a piece of property that was once a cow pasture and the home to an old farm shed I find some pretty interesting things just walking around our yard where the chickens have been scratching.
Like this warped, beat up old spoon - random.
And this very dangerous rusty old saw blade that I found (by almost stepping on it) nearly completely buried except for the still very sharp edges just poking up out of the soil! Thank goodness for Tetanus shots ;)

Last week I found quite the collection of broken bottles and ceramic pieces. Who knows what will turn up this week.

And speaking of random this guy has taken to flying over our house quite low in his little powered parachute thingy about once a month and scaring the bejeezus out of my critters.

I heard this really loud buzzing airplane/go kart noise and looked out to see my horses and goats running for their lives so I threw on my boots ran out the door and caught him buzzing over the pasture next door. I walked around the yard picking up the random shrapnel as I waited to see if he would come back. He didn't return. I'd like to ask him to please not buzz so close over my barn - my horses are old and they don't need that kind of stress ;).

Until next time... =)

Umm... OUCH!

So apparently I broke my finger last night playing volleyball...ouch! And I'm wearing this nifty little robotic looking splint that Shirley is totally intrigued by so I can keep my poor little aching finger out of more trouble. This is definitely putting a damper on my productivity and my typing abilities =P. We're heading on a little camping trip to Tallulah Gorge in the morning too and I'm almost afraid to leave the house - I seem to be accident prone here lately. Hope your Thursday finds you accident free and healthy! =)

Happy St. Patty's Day Sale!

Hop on over to my Loft shop tomorrow to receive 15% off your entire order if it contains any green stones! Sale starts at midnight tonight and runs through midnight tomorrow night (March 17).
Happy St. Patrick's Day everyone! =)

A week later....

It's spring! It's hard to believe just a week ago we had nearly 7 inches of snow on the ground and this weekend it was 79 degrees! We spent the entire weekend working out in our yard clearing away all the branches that had fallen, raking all the little prickly balls from our Sweetgum trees and getting the spot for our little vegetable garden ready and I have the calluses to prove it - ouch!
Preparing our garden site was a family event and here some of the ladies are helping us spread our "organic" matter around and adding a bit more of their own ;). They had a regular little chicken buffet going on here with all the worms and larvae they were finding.
Thelma and Louise were supervising the activities and making sure no one went out the gate that wasn't suppose to while we made trips back and forth to the compost pile.

Mandy had to come poke her nose in to see what was going on =).

And this is Golly's big mouth. You can't carry on a conversation anywhere near him otherwise he thinks you're talking to him and he likes to talk back. ALOT. And very loudly too. ;)

And I just had to add this picture of Thelma and Louise because they're so darn cute and they look like little abominable snow chickens.

Hope you had a wonderful weekend!

Still coming in like lion!

Welcome to March in Georgia! Saturday it was 64 degrees and the weather stations kept hinting at snow coming in on Sunday but they couldn't quite predict where or how much just that we could see a dusting up to 2 inches. I didn't quite believe them. Boy was I proven wrong! It started here about 11:00 as a very cold rain which turned to very large sleet pellets by 12pm and then the snow started and it didn't stop until a little after 11pm last night! We ended up with close to 7 inches of snow here which is really unheard of in one day (or really several for that matter!). And it was around 34 degrees most of the day so if it had been below freezing we probably would have ended up with around 2 feet of snow!

This is my barn at about 3pm yesterday.. it just kept snowing and snowing and snowing!
And here's the poor little blooms on my confused peach tree!

Golly and Madison seemed to have a blast in the snow.. of course they are wearing goose down ;)

And my Crepe Myrtle tree was getting weighed down by the weight of the heavy, wet snow. Luckily no tree casualities here!

And I couldn't resist building a snow chicken! Now tell me that isn't a piece of art?! ;)

Hope you're staying warm and dry! We're forecast to be back up in the 70's by week's end so looks like I'll be going from snow boots to flip flops in a matter of days!

Coming in like a lion..

And it's not even March yet! These photos are from the tornado that touched down last Wednesday about 9 miles from my house. There were 10 reported tornadoes that touched down in Georgia and one person died. So I don't mess around when they say "Tornado Warning for Oglethorpe County" - this also has to do with the fact that I lived through a tornado in 1994 in Floyd County (where I grew up). Debbie (my pupper) and I were in the hall closet with our bike helmets on and yes we did look ridiculous ;). Dan was at a convention in Columbus, GA which is about 3 hours away so we were on our own.

I remember growing up and my mom pulling us out of bed and making us get in the hall with a mattress over our heads and sitting in the hallway at school with our heads tucked between our legs. Tornado warnings were a regular occurrence every spring and they always terrified me. It's one of the reasons I am now obsessed with the weather.

It really just broke my heart to see these huge, old trees lying on the ground. The house above had a backyard full of downed, large pecan and oak trees. They also had a glass sun porch that was shattered to bits and were missing quite a few shingles from their roof. I'm certain they feel lucky that their house is still standing. There was also some sort of shed in their backyard that didn't fair nearly as well.

This poor tree was HUGE. If I had to guess I would have said it was well over 200 years old and sadly it didn't make it through a direct hit from an F1 twister. There was also an F5 (the strongest recording on the fujita scale with winds up to 318 mph) tornado that briefly touched down in the next county over and completely demolished a home. Luckily they had a storm shelter under ground so the entire family survived. Scary stuff!

Get your bike helmets on folks and hang on - spring is on the way!