I woke up yesterday morning to a weird chewing sound. Anyone who has ever lived in an old farmhouse knows there are any number of critters that could be making this noise, but let me tell you…I knew beyond a shadow of a doubt…this wasn’t your everyday little ol’ field mouse. This sucker sounded like maybe a beaver commenced to making the house his new home.

I was awakened yesterday by the sounds of heavy equipment and the incessant beep-beep-beeping of a back up alarm out front. I dressed quickly, grabbed my phone, and headed out the door to see what was going on. The highway dudes were clearing up the rockslide that occurred a couple of weeks ago. Cool!

I came back in and fixed my coffee. The morning was fairly warm and breezy with intermittent clouds and showers. I took my knitting out on the front porch and worked while I listened to the birds. I don’t have feeders out here anymore. But I had plenty of company out there amongst my furry and feathered friends. The cardinals, blue jays, robins, wrens, sparrows, woodpeckers, towhees and a gorgeous red-tailed hawk were joined by chipmunks and grey squirrels. It was quite the show!

I’ll never forget the day my son-in-law and I built my website. It was during a Christmas trip to Colorado…2016, to be precise. At the end of the day, I was gathering up my things to go back over to his mom’s house when I told him I still needed to write my post for the day. Somehow, my method of typing and entering my post came up and he could not believe I wrote every post on my phone.

I’ve been a farm girl for as long as I can remember…whether I lived in the country or not. The love of the land bit me when I was very young and the dream was never far away, even when I lived and worked in a city. This picture was taken at the log house Hubby #2 and I bought after he finished his residency and joined a practice in a tourist town on the Western Slope of the Rockies. 

Jada Pinkett Smith rolls her eyes in response to Chris Rock’s joke about her alopecia. Initially, her husband laughs with the crowd. Then….not so much. Photo Credit: ABC

I have to tell you…I never watch the Academy Awards. I went eight years without a television. Then, after Mr. Virgo died, there was very little that could hold my attention for more than an hour so movies fell off the list, too. Mr. FixIt and I have been together for five years now and I believe we have gone to the theater maybe twice in that time. It’s just not something I do, so the Oscars are a bit of a moot exercise. I don’t know many of the actors and don’t follow their careers.

I don’t remember pepperoni rolls when I was growing up. I think the first time I had them may have been when I came home from living in England in 1975. I’ve tried my best baking them over the years without much success. Which isn’t a real problem because you can find a decent pepperoni roll at just about any gas station or mom and pop convenience store. Around here, bakeries make them alongside fritters and cream horns and you can buy them by the bagful.

My recipe for soup beans is very simple. Soak 1 small bag of navy beans overnight. In the morning, wash and sort through for any errant stones, then place in slow cooker. Add a good sized smoked ham hock and a medium yellow onion cut into chunks. Add enough water to cover the beans by an inch and add fresh cracked black pepper. Cook on high for 4-6 hours till tender then drop to warm till meal time. Serve with hot cornbread fresh from the oven.

Little TOW-Wanda…my very first camper. I wish I’d never traded her in!

I keep my photos stored in a couple of clouds. I use iCloud from Apple because it comes with my iPhone/iPad. I do pay a nominal fee to store extra data over the amount that is free. And somewhere along the line, I signed up for OneDrive which is part of the Microsoft 365 Suite of programs. I really love it because I get an email with my “memories of the day.” Similar to FB Memories, OneDrive saves every photo I’ve ever uploaded. And, occasionally I am surprised by something I haven’t seen in years.

Two years ago, the noise on my Facebook page was horrifying. So much anger and hatred. Politics, Faith, Health, and Interpersonal Relationships were crashing into each other with great waves of sound and emotion. It made my head hurt. It made my heart hurt. I tried listening. I tried reasoning. I tried educating..sharing fact based resources. But it seemed, everyone on the planet believed THEY knew what was right, what was truth, what was fact.

We had some pretty fierce spring thunder boomers come through here yesterday. I was out in the Big Birdhouse chatting with my dear friend Gail when a notification came across my phone. We were under a tornado watch from 1:30-10:00 last night. Severe thunderstorm warnings with possible quarter sized hail and winds up to 75mph. Wowza! I quickly gathered up my stuff, dropped the top on the camper, and hightailed it inside.