Great Find!?

Found at the Goodwill for $5.  It had an antique shop tag on it for $65, said it was a yarn/wool winder.  I looked on Ebay, didn't find one similar to this.  Anyone know anything about these? Maybe Chris could use one if she is still hooking rugs?

It has nice paint, hand-painted flower design on each side.  Not as primitive as others on Ebay, but maybe Victorian?

Would also like to know how it works, never have seen someone use one.  Sure won't be me!  I'm a mover and sitting and knitting would drive me crazy!

Jethro From Alabama

Jethro is a lucky boy.  Met two ladies from Pell City, Alabama, Shelter at the Georgia line and transported him back to Atlanta to be taken in by Mike.

After a good grooming by Amy, he will be beautiful (and smell a lot better,too!)

He had no problem saying good by to the shelter van and walking right up the ramp to my car wagging his tail the whole way!

This is the beginning of his new life.  He may be headed to New York where the weather is cooler, and with all that fur, I'm sure that will make him a happy boy!

My First Morning Home



This morning on my morning walk with the pack, a young deer came dashing out of the woods.  By the way she was acting, I knew a baby had to be somewhere close, so after putting the dogs in the house, I started my search.

I stood back and watched the mother come back to an area where the baby must be.  It was the complete opposite side of the woods where I thought, she must have been trying to throw the dogs off when she ran out earlier.  Took me about an hour, then finally I saw her curled up and asleep on the side of the stream.  She never moved, just looked at me while I snapped photo after photo.  I believe she's a newborn, and hopefully tonight will start to walk and go somewhere safer with her mother.  I spent two hours fencing the area off so that my dogs would not be able to get to her.

Later in the afternoon I saw the mother come and feed her.  I didn't want to get too close, so you can only see her eyes and the white on her chest.

Here is her white tail as she was leaving.

An added bonus to all that work, I noticed the blackberries were starting to ripen in the six days that I've been gone.  Yogurt and berries for lunch and checking on the fawn every hour!

Busy, Busy, Busy

A few weeks back an email came across my computer from Martha's Mutt Movers.  She was trying to coordinate getting Harvey from Florida to Illinois and they had some legs that were not covered from Atlanta to Knoxville going through Chattanooga.  Bob had been wanting to go to both cities to some enormous book stores, so I signed him up for the job!  Here is Bob with Harvey at his drop-off for the next driver.  I had fun watching the chatter on the computer all day as to where Harvey was and what he was doing.  We can hopefully help Martha out again and save another dog's life.

The next weekend, Mother's Day weekend, was the annual Botanical Garden Tour, which we haven't missed in 20 years.  The weather was the best it's ever been, very cool, and the gardens were fantastic.  The gardens this year were more textural in nature with less flowers, but very beautiful. We took 500 photos, so here is a sampling of the tour for those who couldn't go.  Lots of beautiful sculptures adorned these gardens, my favorite being the Indian girl at the top of my blog.

Then an email came from Julie asking me to foster Wolf, now called Woofie, who had been in the shelter for two months and they were no longer going to hold him.  I had him for five days and fell in love with this sweet, beautiful chow chow.  He looks like he could be Geisha's long lost brother.  Terri, Julie's friend who had adopted Mimi from her was coming through on a camping trip with the "sisters on the fly", a group of girls that get together with their vintage trailers.  Sounds like fun.  We met on Sunday and Mimi and Woofie hit it off!  I hated to see him drive off, but knew Panda would not accept a young male, but he is in good hands with Julie. 

This is Mimi and Terri, ready for their ride back to TN with Woofie.

Woofie, I miss you, and I will be keeping tabs on you!

              Off to Philadelphia next week for my mother's birthday, dinner with Sue and my brother, going to Bartram's Garden and Chanticleer with my mom, then will be home the following week.

Love Brewing Company

Going on right now, at www.lovebrewingcompany.com (streams) live chat with my nephew and his buds all about LOVE, Saturday 4:30 p.m. 

Too Many Plants

Never thought I'd say that!  So many seedlings since we had a warm winter, I will only have to plant sunflowers and vegetables.  I started making paper pots to sell seedlings in and give away to friends, but there were so many, it was just too daunting.

This is as far as I got.

Everything seems to be blooming at once.  There is so much honeysuckle the air even inside the house is strong with perfume.

The Eden rose put on a good show this year . . .

as did the Sweet Williams . . .

the lettuce . . .

and this wildflower whose name I don't know and will have to look up.

Potting up plants to go has been another daunting task.  They had to be potted before it got too hot, then will be planted in NC in the fall.

Same goes for the boxwoods, six of which are huge and in the pasture in burlap.

Could not leave my beautiful and rare Chinese Butterfly Roses, either.

It is good to have all that done, but I'm sure I will be digging up more as I walk the dogs and spy another plant I just won't leave behind.  At least I have found a use for my walking stick that Cotton made for me a few years back.  With Helga new to the pack, it's good to have something along for the walk, just in case!

She's actually been a very good dog (except still working on liking the cat), but she is best friends with the other three, so I don't use my stick often, just when Panda is in a "mood". For anyone who would like trays of plants, I have cleome, cosmos, porcelain berry vine, trumpet vine, nandina, persicaria (painter's palette) and lots of morning glory.  I also just found a spot with a whole bunch of baby foxglove for next year, so there you go, I will be potting more seedlings!  Planning for a trip to Philadelphia for my mom's birthday and going to Landsford Canal State Park in SC to kayak and see the largest colony of Rocky Shoals Spider Lilies in the world.  Have been wanting to do that for some time, so it will be a while before I write again!

Jury Duty

To answer the hundreds of emails from the past two weeks to explain why I was MIA, I had back-to-back doctor's depositions and had to get them into my office before April 9, the dreaded day of Jury Duty. I believed I would go in on Monday and be excused for the rest of the week because I had sat in a courtroom for 20 years as a court stenographer and was married to a defense lawyer . . . but noooooo, I was picked for the first jury which was a personal injury case.  That case only lasted two days, so when I went in to be voir dired for the next jury, a criminal DUI case, it was a given that I would not be chosen.  Wrong again!  The solicitor kept giving me the eye and smiling at me, so I knew I was doomed to be a juror yet again.  Of course, I wanted to prove I was not State oriented and went into the jury room believing the "good looking" defendant was innocent.  The jury was divided equally, three men, three women.  The men walked into the jury room saying guilty, guilty, guilty.  No way we were not going to discuss all the facts.  Five hours later, we watched the police officer's video again.  I was starting to lean.  As time went on I started to convince myself and the two other women he was guilty, and we finally delivered that verdict.  It was actually a good experience, and a nice feeling to voice opinions the are being listened to and considered and to be able to actually convince another that your opinion is the right one.  Maybe if I didn't have an anesthesiologist and infectious disease doctor's depos on my mind, I might have enjoyed the experience more.  So today I have one day off before a job tomorrow and yet another doctor's depo on Friday to catch up on laundry and housework that has not been done for weeks!