Another glorious day!

Today's project, or rather, the main one, was to go get our bees but it didn't happen, as we didn't know we had to order them ahead of time. No worries, 17th May we will become bee daddy and mama. Meanwhile, their home is all ready and waiting for them. A VERY nice home!

On our way out to Traveler's Rest to the Carolina Bee Company we stopped by Greenville County Animal Care on Furman Hall Rd, to drop off 2bags of dog food and 1 of cat food. They desperately need donations, and - over the years - we've adopted a few furbabies from them. They do so many free services to try to support the community so it's our way of trying to help just a bit. Our 4 leggeds don't realise how lucky they are (or how pampered!).

Our second project, which became the only completed one, was potting some Walmart rescues (miniature roses) in window boxes. They were only $5 each on clearance, so we snagged 4 pink and 2 red, and got them all cozy together. Don't they look pretty?

I'm now thinking of trying to take honeysuckle cuttings in the next couple of days to get some started for down the field. I love the scent, and I know between those, the gardenias and the roses, our bees will be very happy.

 

Another Beautiful And Productive Day

Today's been absolutely gorgeous, overcast at first so that it didn't get over hot, and then the sunshine came out later this afternoon but with a gentle breeze to still keep us comfortable.

Hubby took 2 of our 4 leggeds to do a trash/recycle run this morning. Rover, the great-grand-dog, stayed with me and spooned with me for a while to get some special time snuggles with nanny. He doesn't travel well, he gets so excited and screams all the while (apparently a lot of pitties do this) so he gets nanny-time while Brunel and Lightning go with daddy in the truck.

Then, all 3 found a snake down the field.

It was a good snake, just curled up and looked at them like "go away, leave me alone". They were barking and hubby had to bring them back up to the house. When he went back down, the snake had slithered away. Mark said it was probably 6-7 feet long, and looked well-fed. This time of year the mice are in abundance so he's probably been enjoying them.

My author copies of my books came in, so I took 5 each of "Daisy May Explores The Heavens"

and "Rose's Rhymes For Children" to The Outlet & Boutique of Fountain Inn. I have a display there with copies of some of my other titles, including "In The Forest", In The Ocean", and a poetry/colouring book.

We also picked up a neat little miniature rose bush, and some planters, to continue our gardening ventures. Yesterday, it was a lemon tree and a kumquat tree, both "patio" versions that we got some nice big square pots for, so that they can be outside for the nicer months, and brought indoors once the weather turns cold.

Hubby has been busy planting grapevines, raspberries, blackberries, gardenias and roses, ready for our bees to enjoy ... and we set the hive up the other day and go to get them tomorrow!

Earlier he was under the house working on the plumbing for the hallway bathroom and the new shower going in there. Hopefully, we shall be able to use it next week.

So, that's life here in our little bit of heaven.

Beautiful Day

 It's absolutely gorgeous outside, and we took a trip to Taylors earlier and bought a lot of fruit bushes and vines from a family that had advertised on Facebook locally. I am now the proud owner of 4 blueberry bushes (to go with our other 2), 4 grapevines, 4 blackberry, and 4 raspberry.  The blueberries are up in the front yard near the fence, the rest will be going down in the field around the fence, in different places. Mark is going to string some wire between posts for the grapevines to twine around.

It's nice to get a nice start off to Spring.

My peas are already coming up,and I have peppers, melon, tomatoes and wildflowers planted.

And - surprise, surprise - down the field is abloom with tiny blue wildflowers. I saw them when we took the new plants down there.

Frazzled

There's just so much going on, and my brain is frazzled trying to keep up. Hubby's appointments, my appointments, and just so much paperwork - this lot needs this, that one needs that, we've been dropping forms off at the cancer center like nobody's business. It's emotionally tiring just trying to remember everything we need to do. Then there are the callbacks ... a message that they need some other paper or record, or whatever. UGH!

In himself, hubby is maybe 50% ok. His body aches, his heads aches, the meds make him dizzy and nauseated, it affects his responses and his attitude is shot, especially when dealing with people on the phone. I just wish I could wave a magic wand and make it all go away.

We both had medical appointments today. Hubby's white count is up again but not by as much as we might have expected, which means his treatment is working. His oncologisthas changed the dosage to try to help lessen the side effects.He'll see her again in amonth, to see how the next few weeks go.

I, having admitted to emotionally overeating since his treatment started, stood on the scale (expecting maybe a 5lbs gain) to be pleasantly surprised. I was 220lbs and had lost .8lb since my last visit. I said "thank you Lord" and stepped off much happier than I'd stepped on.

I'm just thankful that we both had fairly decent visits!

Spring starts tomorrow!

 I am soooo ready! This Winter has been colder than usual, more days than usual. Today, thankfully, the sun is out and we're in the 70s.

Yesterday, hubby set my planters up against trellis by the car port, so I planted peas and kiwi grapes in them. We already have some tomatoes planted down in the field, and I've got canteloupes and peppers starting in biodegradeable pots, so my "planting season" is underway.

Hubby picked up a plum tree at Tractor Supply, so that's now also down in the field, near the vitex cannibifolia (the butterfly/bee attracting tree). We have more potted gardenias to plant out , and hubby has sprinkled wildflower seeds down there as well. We hope to get our bees soon. For his birthday, I got him an assortment of beekeeping equipment, so we are almost ready. Meantime, we're trying to create a bee haven around the stream/pond area that he's been working on for awhile now.

We spent much of Summer gleaning rocks and stones from local building sites, as land was being cleared. They were only too happy to let us help ourselves, as they have to pay when they take them to landfills.

I'm hoping Spring will bring us more chances to get on and do everything. My great-grands love to mow, so that's a help. Now that they are older, they get into other things as well, so I can commandeer them sometimes.

I'm thankful for the warmer weather, most definitely!

So many appointments

 It seems that life has turned into a mad rush all of a sudden. Mark's had endless forms to fill out and phone calls to make, and then numerous appointments. His leukaemia getting worse has changed things and made this a whole new ball game. Frustrations too, as the medicine he has to take for a few days before starting the cancer one STILL hasn't arrived, and is coming locally, where the cancer one arrived last week and came from farther away. Pretty incompetent from my viewpoint, but who am I, anyway? I just worry about my hubby. He needs to get started on this so that when he goes back to his haemologist at the end of the month, she can see how he is doing with it, and she said the first few weeks may be quite rough ... so we really need him to get into it as soon as possible so that she has enough to evaluate him on. 

Yesterday we went out for lunch, and tried a newly opened restaurant over on Haywood Road, Wok & Spice. We loved it. Wonderful staff (I'm so picky, and they accommodated all my wishes with a smile and not even a raised eyebrow). The food? Excellent! We both had the Mongolian Combination lunch special ... and brought some home!

Definitely another new "favourite place". Apparently, at the end of the month they have another restaurant opening on Woodruff Road, Hocco, which will be Indian cuisine. We've already decided we'll be giving it a try.

This morning, I received the first illustration sketch for my book, "Mister McAfferty's Cat", and I'm so excited to be finally moving forward with it. I suggested a couple of very minor revisions. I wanted the cat to be fluffier as theirs was smooth-coated, and I wanted Mister McAfferty to look less stern.

Today looks like being a nice day so we may go out somewhere to enjoy the sunshine while we can. We haven't been to Paris Mountain in a while so that's something we're considering. We shall see.

Busy, Busy, Busy

 It has been a whirlwind since last Friday, that's for sure. So many things happening and just been one thing after another.

Saturday, my granddaughter helped hubby move the RV so that it's now alongside the carport. Makes the yard look less cluttered.Def seems like we have more room for vehicles to turn around on the drive and gravel.

Hubby has been using his tractor to clean up fallen tree limbs, old fencing from down the field, dead grapevines (horrible grapes, yukky ones, and the vines are very invasive, almost like a weed) and taking down old guttering. The truck is loaded up and tomorrow he and the boy (the four-legged #1 son Brunel) will be taking it all to the dump.

We've another load of things to take to Miracle Hill, and that will be the second trip tomorrow, along with returning library books.

Sadly, my illustrating "Mister McAfferty's Cat" has come to another halt. The lass who was going to be doing the illustrating has health issues, and fears the job is too big and that she won't be able to fulfil it. I've told her that's ok, and we've discussed her woking on a simpler project for me, illustrating a poem that's kind of cutesy and has less detailed illustrations.

Today we tried a new eatery - Cava - on Woodruff Rd, it's a Mediterranean and we had pitas ... oh wow, def a place we will return to BUT next time, I'll have to bring it home, cut it in half, and refrigerate half for the following day. The calorie and sodium content were way over my daily limit.

We also stopped by a car dealer to check out whether I could get in and out of a Kia Soul since I cannot get into my Ford Explorer very easily any more. I've down-sized over the recent decade as my height has shrunk. I had my Land Rover until I started having issues getting up and into him. The Explorer was lowe, so I've had a few years with that but now I'm having problems with that so need something lower and easy to sit in without needing to climb up to get into. So, we are going to start looking seriously for one in a month or two.

Tonight, Jel came over and she and Mark basically cleared a lot of what used to be the old AVON room, so's we can pop a mattress in there for when she and the kids want to spend the night. 2 bags of trash, one load for Miracle Hill and some more AVON supplies for one of my old AVON team-mates.I must admit, I honestly haven't missed selling since I gave up at the end of last year. It's been one less thing for me to stress over.

But that's how it's been. We've marched into March!