Saturday, May 31, 2008

~*~ A Great Summertime Take Along Dessert ~*~

I made this last weekend and everyone loved it. If you like grapes you will love this recipe. Yummy !
~*~ Grape Dessert ~*~

8 cups of mixed, seedless grapes
1- 8 ounce softened cream cheese
1-8 ounce sour cream
1/2 ts. vanilla
1/2 cup of granulated sugar
1 cup of brown sugar
1 cup of nuts-I've used both slivered almonds and chopped pecans in the past.
Both are fine.
Cream the cream cheese and sour cream and add granulated sugar and vanilla.
Fold in grapes.Make sure they are dry prior to this. Fold in nuts.Sprinkle 1/2 cup
of brown sugar in serving dish.Pour mixture into dish. Sprinkle 1/2 cup of brown sugar
over the mixture and top with a few extra nuts.Invite some of your favorite nuts over to enjoy this dish Don't plan on having leftovers! Ain't gonna happen.

Thursday, May 29, 2008

My Gal Miss Ally :)


Ok laugh all you want, but I have a pet Turtle :) Yep, even named her Ally. Now I have lived in the county all my life and never had a pet Turtle and don't believe in keeping them in boxes or aquariums but Miss Ally is hanging around my house. She has been here for around 3 weeks now.Everyday we can find her around the foundation of the house or under the shrubs.
I thought she was a he and took a water proof maker naming her Al so that we could make sure it was the same Turtle we were seeing everyday. Sure enough it is. I have been doing some reading about these shy creatures and found out that one way to tell the males from the females is eye color. Males have red eyes and females brown (most of the time). So now Al is Ally :)I ran across some more information I thought was kind of interesting and wanted to share.
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Leave Them Be! .....Why?

Box turtles can live for more than 120 years in the wild. They live the longest of all North American Wildlife. They will also live their entire lives in a relatively small patch of woods no larger than a football field. So the more roads that are built that run through these areas, the more box turtles get killed every day.

For a box turtle population to survive, there needs to be plenty of them in a small area so that they can encounter each other and mate on a regular basis. The removal of one turtle decreases those encounters dramatically. Unlike big sea turtles, box turtles only lay 3 or 4 eggs a year, sometimes more on rare occasions. The eggs are then subjected to all sorts of stuff to keep them from surviving. Even if an egg hatches the baby turtle has a very small chance of surviving. Then if a female is able to reach adulthood, she could be able to produce a few hundred eggs during her lifetime. From all those eggs, only 3 or 4 will survive to adulthood. The damage to the population from removing that single turtle will not be noticed during our lifetime.

The problem is that when we remove a box turtle from the wild, we can usually look and see that there are plenty more around in the woods, even 10 or 20 years later. What we don't realize is that we are seeing the same turtles, not newly hatched and grown to adulthood turtles, but older versions of the same ones. So eventually, after we are dead and gone, these turtles will die off because they are unable to produce enough young to replace themselves. Many states now have laws protecting them from the pet trade, but that doesn't stop everyone from taking one home as a pet, and it doesn't stop cars from running them over accidentally.

Many people find them while camping or on vacation. They take it home thinking they'll just let it go in the little patch of woods behind the house. This is another bad thing. Box turtles have a built-in homing device that will make them roam endlessly searching for their home turf. If you can't release it where you found it, don't release it. You now will either have to keep the turtle or see if you can find it a home with someone who can care for it properly. You can contact Turtle Homes They will help you find it a home.

The best thing we can do as individuals is to leave them be, and to try and educate others. If you are so lucky as to see one in the wild, stop, examin it, take a few pictures of it and then let it be on it's way. If you see one in the road, pick it up and put it on the side of the road to where it was heading

Saturday, May 24, 2008

My Brother & Nephew


While cleaning up some files on my PC I ran across this picture I took a few years ago of my brother Danny & his son Spencer. Like many members of my family my brother is passionate about Antiques and it looks as if my now 9 year old nephew has that same passion. He loves anything old. I get so tickled at him when he comes into my house he just walks around and stares and all my goodies. If he sees anything new he always asks all the details of it just as my brother & I have always done when we see a Antique we are fond of. Spencer already has a very nice collection of antiques. In this picture they are posed in front of a old Chevy my brother had bought for my nephew.

Saturday, May 10, 2008

Merry Christmas to me !

Before


Before



After




Well ole Santa finally found his way to my house. :) I just got my...well our Christmas present a few days ago. Back at Christmas last year my brother who is a part time Antique dealer purchased an old Hoosier.He was going to keep this one for himself as these are getting very hard to find.But little sister talked him into selling to her...he has so many and I so little(hehe);) Chuck and I decided this would be our gift to each other for Christmas. So come Christmas out in our shop sat our very dirty grungy old Hoosier. Its been such a long cold winter and with work Chuck has not had a lot of time to get it refinished. I was beginning to feel like it was never going to get done.But he finally got it done. YIPPIEEE & Merry Christmas to us !!!!! :) When we carried it in I was so excited my heart was beating like crazy...not sure if that was from excitement or from being out of shape ;). I spent a good 3 hours putting "my stuff" all in it and then taking it out then putting other stuff back in it. Just when I thought I was all done I would move the stuff all around and replace it with other stuff. I drive myself crazy moving "my stuff" around like I do. Here are before & after shots of our little old Hoosier.

Thursday, May 8, 2008

Pleasant Surprises



I got the most pleasant surprise from Starla AKA Briar Rabbit Prims. She is such a sweetheart to send me this wonderful "Thank You" gift. And her handsome Philly boy even thought of Goldie Loo & Biscuit ;) I so love my prim Rabbit. It's a Kentucky Primitives Pattern.Thanks So much Starla, your work is the bomb!
You can see more of Starla's work here. Or here on her blog.

Thursday, May 1, 2008

Look What We Found

~~UPDATE 5-8~~ ALL 3 puppies have new been adopted and gone to their new homes ! :)

I got a phone call earlier today that there where 3 puppies in a ditch on the side of the road. They had been there at least since Saturday. Just as soon as I told Chuck he got in his truck and went looking for them. It didn't take him long to find them. They were curled up in the ditch but when they heard him whistle they came a running for his truck and were happy to get in with him. Full of ticks and starving. All their little ribs bones and hip bones were showing. They will have to go to a shelter as soon as we can find one with room. But for now their bellies are full they have a warm bed, no ticks and love. They seem like such happy dogs to have been left like they were. I get so upset at people for doing such horrid things but then I think of all the people who drove by and never did anything to help them. I get sick thinking I'm surrounded by that many heartless people.