these days of mine

Friday’s Fences: Fun Day With A Friend

Posted on May 17, 2013 | 25 Comments

You may recall a post I shared a few months ago about a wedding keepsake shadow box I made for my former classmate, Donna. If you missed it, you can read about it here.

Last Saturday, Donna and I met in the little town of Surry for a farmers’ market/yard sale. This just happened to be directly across the street from the floppy-eared horse that I wrote about a few weeks ago.

So, our first order of business was visiting “Ears”, as we’ve dubbed him, and giving him a few treats.

Then we went over to the park, where we both bought homemade pound cake loaves. And had a mutual friend take our picture.

I have to tell you: when I saw her hair in pigtails, I immediately felt like a little girl again.

When we left there, we went to an antique/junk shop, where I bought this “ice cream parlor” chair (for $10). Later, Motor Man helped me make it into a planter.

Donna also bought a couple of vintage chairs. Since I was driving Motor Man’s truck and we weren’t that far from her house, we headed down some back roads to deliver her treasures.

On the way, we passed this scene, which of course, required a u-turn for a Friday’s Fences photo.

Treasures safely delivered to her house, we returned to Surry where we had lunch at an Italian Restaurant and bought plants at Farmer Joe’s Nursery and Greenhouse.

It really was a fun day with a friend; we’re already planning our next adventure.

Linking up to Friday’s Fences.

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Posted in Traveling Days

Tagged antiquing, fridays fences, friend, greenhouse, horse, lunch, yard sale

Thoughts On This Thursday

Posted on May 16, 2013 | 18 Comments

Things have been fairly quiet ’round these parts recently. Translated: I have no specific blog material for today.

So, I’ll share some random thoughts, as well as a few recent sunrise/sunset shots.

This was very early (as in 5:17 a.m.) on the morning of May 9. We were up before the sun that day for the road trip we took to see the Gypsy horses.

I’ve been busy planting ….geraniums, verbena, purslane, petunias, fairy gardens… I just can’t seem to stop. If we suffer from a lack of rain this summer, I’ll have my work cut out for me to keep everything watered. I’ll share photos soon.

This picture was taken last Saturday, May 11. Obviously, the sun had been up for awhile when I took this, but I thought the reflection on the water was nice. I met a friend that day for antiquing, lunch and (more) flower shopping. I’ll share details of our trip tomorrow.

You may recall that I mentioned one of the horses we saw last week was expecting a foal any day? She gave birth to a filly Tuesday night. If I’m able to get a picture from Tabatha, I’ll share.

The sunrise on Monday, May 13.

A dear, dear friend of ours lost her fight against cancer last week. I’m working on a post in her memory, and will share that next week. But, in the meantime, here’s the sunset from Tuesday night.

What are your thoughts this Thursday?

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Posted in Days at Home, Sunrises/Sunsets, Traveling Days

Tagged gypsy horse, spring planting, sunrise, sunset

Mothers And Sons

Posted on May 15, 2013 | 21 Comments

This began as a Wordless Wednesday post, before I realized I had so much to say about the photos.

These first two are of Motor Man and his mother. She was 18 when he was born. I’m not sure of the date of the first photo, but it was taken during the time that Motor Man’s dad was overseas during World War II. We celebrated Mother’s Day Sunday by having dinner with her and Motor Man’s dad.

The next pictures are, of course, of Marshall and me. The one on the left was taken on my first Mother’s Day; Marshall was not quite a year old. And the photo on the right was taken Sunday.

Just in case anyone needed a reminder of how quickly time passes.

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Posted in Days at Home, Family

Tagged mother's day, mothers and sons

Barn Charm: Old And New

Posted on May 14, 2013 | 16 Comments

As promised, today I’m sharing photos of our new friends’, Travis and Tabatha’s barn.

The folk art square is a work in progress. It’s made from the original barn door, and Tabatha is deciding what image to paint in the center.

They believe the original side of the barn, which is used for hay storage, is over two hundred years old.

There are four horse stalls in the newer section.

Did you happen to notice in the first picture that the barn is built on a hill? This is the “upper side”, where you can actually drive into the barn.

Charlie showed us the way.

Linking up to Barn Charm.

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Posted in Traveling Days

Tagged barn charm

Meeting Gypsies

Posted on May 13, 2013 | 23 Comments

Some time back, Motor Man had mentioned my love of Friesian horses to Wayne, a friend of ours. As it turns out, Wayne has a colleague who owns several Gypsy horses and a Friesian.

The colleague, Travis, lives just a few hours away, so last week, Motor Man and I, along with Wayne and his wife, Jimmie, went to visit Travis and his family.

Could we have had a more gorgeous day for a road trip? I don’t think so.

I tried to make notes on the names of all the horses; I really did. But when I uploaded my photos, I discovered that I didn’t do too well. Here’s Travis, showing us one of their beautiful Gypsy horses.

Our friends, Wayne and Jimmie, in the background. Travis, his wife, Tabatha and their younger daughter, Charlie.

This is Telia, another Gypsy. Telia was overdue to have her foal; evidently she didn’t get the memo that she was supposed to have it in time for us to see it during our visit.

Telia: “Believe me, I would have loved to have obliged you.”

And this is their Friesian. I think his name is Honda.

Older daughter, Laken, with her blue-eyed Gypsy named Daisy.

Charlie also has a horse of her own, but it was out in the pasture. Meanwhile, she was having fun with the barn cat, Mater. Mater was just “hangin’ around”.

We had a great time meeting Travis and his family; they were so kind to show us around their farm and introduce us to their horses. We definitely feel as though we made new friends, both human and equine.

And, tomorrow, for Barn Charm, I’ll share photos of their barn.

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Posted in Traveling Days

Tagged farm, friesians, gypsy horses

The Two Sides Of Sundae: Pinked And Punked

Posted on May 10, 2013 | 17 Comments

Sundae kitty has quite an exciting day today.

First, she’s helping her boycatfriend, Sammy, celebrate his two year blogging anniversary by attending his pajama pawty. Here she is in her sweet little pink jammies:

(Yes, I realize it’s actually a poodle costume, but please don’t let on to her. She was so excited about wearing this to the party, I didn’t want to break it to her that these weren’t really pajamas….)

By the way, please go over to Sammy’s blog today to vote for Sundae in the pajama contest.

Also, Sundae and Sammy have been steam-punked today by Nellie (The Cat From Hell’s) mommy. This is what she has to say on her blog today: here is “Dr. Sammy Lazulibunting Hogarty Kimmel – Steam Punked! Sammy is so cool, he went and gots some SteamPunk roses for his bestest girl cat Sundae from These Days of Mine!” (Look closely and you can see Sundae amongst her roses.)