Sprinkler Silliness

Because it's been so dang hot and we haven't had much rain, we've been having to run the sprinkler in the yard every other night when we get home. Our water bill doubled last month but that's a small price to pay considering how much we spent on flowers this year! We have to do what we can to keep them alive and beautiful. It's amazing how a little water perks them up and makes the grass so green.

We have one of those old fashioned sprinklers that has several different settings and the water fans out back and forth across the lawn. Ours seems like it's on its last leg because I set it a certain way and it has a mind of its own and does something totally opposite. It takes forever for me to get it just right and even then, sometimes I look out the window and see that it's changed on its own again.

Last night as I was setting it, it sprung a leak on one end and squirted me right in the face. I tried to tighten the nozzle to stop the leak, but that just made it worse and it squirted me in the face and head again. I gave up on that, then set it on a half-way setting and laid it on the grass, then made the mistake of turning my back on it to pull a few weeds in the opposite flowerbeds. Sure enough, that pesky sprinkler changed its setting to side-to-side and got my whole backside wet with ice cold water! I sucked in air and jumped up and turned around just when it was making another swipe and perfectly timed for it to get my whole front wet as well.

By this time, I was dripping wet with mascara blackening both eyes and my hair hanging in streaming cords down my face, so I figured what the heck! This cold water actually feels pretty good on this stifling hot day! So, I kicked off my sandals and reverted back to my childhood days and jumped over the sprinkler with a high-pitched squeal! I'd forgotten how much fun this could be! It made me think of days gone by when my Sister and I donned our bathing suits and ran back and forth through the sprinkler for hours on end. Our suit bottoms were droopy wet and our feet looked like grass-covered prunes, but our smiles were wide and our giggles and laughter filled the air!

Happy Birthday Baby Chloe'

I can't believe it was a year ago yesterday that I got the surprise of my life when I walked out the back door and found a newborn donkey in our pasture! We didn't even know our sweet Clementine was pregnant! It was such a miraculous morning!

I'll never forget the absolute shock I experienced when I first saw her standing there on the hill next to her Mama! I was going out to feed that weekend morning and I only saw old Cooter (the Daddy) standing at the fence waiting for his breakfast. Usually, Clemmie would be standing right alongside him, but this time she was nowhere to be seen.

I banged the bucket on the fence and called out to her, but I couldn't see or hear her anywhere. I walked around to the other side of the barn and looked up the hill and there she stood under a tree and at first glance, I thought I saw our dog Jake standing right next to her. I knew instantly that didn't make sense because for one, Clemmie would NEVER let Jake get that close to her, and two, Jake was sitting right next to me in the grass! I looked again and when I saw Clemmie bend her head down to lick the tiny creature, I finally realized it was a baby donkey!

I instantly started squealing and ran excitedly into the house screaming for Sid. I could barely talk and I had already started hyperventilating! I'm sure I was jumping up and down, and I just kept yelling over and over "Clemmie had a baby! Clemmie had a baby!" I was just so shocked beyond belief!

I grabbed the phone and ran back outside and started calling everyone I could think of to tell them I was a Grandma! I called our closest neighbors, my Mom, my sister, my bosses. We even called the family that we got Cooter from when he was a baby and told them they were grandparents too! Everyone came to see our new addition on the Hollow!

Baby Chloe' was an instant celebrity! My husband was the first one to pet her and hold her in his arms. She was the tiniest thing and so precious. It was amazing that something so tiny and newly born was able to stand up and walk around on those wobbly little legs. I was so enamored with her and I never wanted to leave her side! I hugged her and squeezed her and pet her all over. She was so adorable and sweet.

A year later and she's still cute as a button. She's bigger now, and fuzzier and has all her teeth, and she hee haws louder than her Daddy does, but she'll always be our sweet baby girl!

Fun at The Farmer's Market

On Saturdays in Franklin, we have the best ever farmer's market. It's held from 8 to 1 every Saturday, year 'round and it's so popular you can hardly find a parking spot. People come with huge baskets or large tote bags on their arms to walk from booth to booth filling them up with every goodie imaginable. All the products are grown or made locally and people bring their pets along and everyone is so friendly and full of information.

We took Tubby with us once and barely got a chance to look around with all the attention he was getting. Everyone wanted to stop and take his picture and pet him. Today, my favorite friend and neighbor went with me and when we're together, we talk a mile a minute nonstop, so Tubby stayed home so I could devote all my attention to my visiting and giggling.

This mornings' market was a good one! From the minute you enter the grounds, you're bombarded with scrumptious scents, colorful sights, smiling faces and toe-tapping music. They have a bluegrass band that plays in one corner and you can sit and have your coffee and a fresh-baked scone or muffin and listen to the fiddle and banjo players pick out their tunes.

We saw fresh-baked breads, cakes, cookies, pies and muffins, buckets of fresh-picked flowers sold by the bunch, goat cheese, homemade soaps and honey. There were baskets full of plump, juicy blueberries and blackberries, tomatoes, squash, onions, cucumbers, lettuces, herbs, cabbage, greens, juicy peaches, apples and plums. There was handmade jewelry and artwork by local artists, handcrafted furniture and home decor, bird houses and yard ornaments. So much to see and be inspired by!

I bought some homemade whole wheat pasta from a little Amish family that travels to the market from nearby Summertown, and then some arugula and goat cheese from someone else. I bought a loaf of fresh-baked foccasia bread infused with fresh tomato and basil and had the beginning of the yummy dinner I had planned for tonight.

After the market, my friend invited me up to her garden to complete my list of dinner ingredients. She gathered tomatoes and basil and peppers from her bountiful garden. She even picked me a bunch of brightly colored zinnias to put in a vase. I thought WE had a lot of butterflies in OUR yard! You should have seen how many millions of them that graced her garden! She had butterfly bushes planted along a fence that were as tall as a house and were just covered with the hugest yellow, blue, gold and brown butterflies. I never saw so many in one place! It was magical.

Dinner turned out wonderful, if I do say so myself. When I got home, I chopped up some fresh garlic and chicken breast and sauteed it in olive oil. Then I chopped up some tomatoes and peppers and walnuts and added that to the mix. I boiled the whole wheat pasta and when it was tender, drained it and buttered it and added it to the chicken and veggies. I added Parmesan cheese and chopped up the arugula and put it in last, with a little salt and pepper. I sliced up some of the yummy foccasia bread and warmed it in the oven, then chopped up some basil and crumbled the feta cheese to put on top. It was scrumptious!

Saturday mornings like today are so special and fun! Good food, endless conversation and laughter and the best of friends to share it all with! I can't wait until our next trip to town!

Fabulous Flutterby's

We have been absolutely inundated with the most beautiful butterflies this year in our yard! It must be God's way of thanking us for all the hard work on our yard, to bless us with these gorgeous bright colored creatures that float through the air from flower to flower. Every morning when I walk out the front door, I'm amazed at how many of them there are! Little ones, big ones, orange, brown, and bright blue. The bright blue ones seem to be the most plentiful so I had to look them up online to see what they were called. They're called Pipevine Swallowtails and from the numbers of them fluttering around our yard, there must have been an awful big nest of them in one of our nearby trees. They seem to love all the flowers we've got for them to feast on, and they make such a pretty picture as they light from one to the next. Red geraniums, blue salvia, orange marigolds, pink verbena, yellow daisies, purple petunias and rust colored lantana. Between the flowers and the beautiful butterflies, our yard is a rainbow of beauty!

Haunted House For Rent

Last night I drove past our old house where we lived when we first moved here to Tennessee and I noticed a sign on the fence saying the place was for rent. I couldn't help but wonder why the tenants had moved out as they were the longest lasting tenants since we moved out so many years ago.

After we moved out on Halloween night of 1996, it seems like that "for rent" sign was hanging on the fence every few months. I'm sure the poor landlord wondered why he never could seem to keep a tenant for more than six months at a time. When we lived there, we lasted all of four months, and I can tell you we were lucky to have survived that long! Why, you ask? Because the place was HAUNTED, that's why!

Yes, I said haunted! A real honest-to-goodness ghost or spirit or lost soul, whatever you care to call it, lived there in that house with us for four long months, and if that constant "for rent" sign is any indication, it still lives there today.

When we moved to Tennessee, we didn't bring much with us because we really weren't 100% sure we planned to stay. It was the first time either of us had ever lived anywhere other than our home state of Oregon, 2200+ miles away, and moving to Tennessee was one of the biggest steps either of us had ever taken in our lives. We left all our furniture and belongings in storage, just in case we didn't like it here and wanted to move back home. So, when we moved into the house near the corner of Parker Branch Road, we didn't have much to bring with us besides some clothes, a daybed, a few dishes we'd bought at a yard sale and a cooler.

We eventually bought a few more items at weekend yard sales, like an ironing board and iron, a pair of rocking chairs for the front porch, and an old antenna tv that only got two clear channels. We put the daybed in the living room, in front of the fireplace, and used it as a couch during the day and a bed at night. We set the tv on top of the cooler and set up the ironing board in one of the back bedrooms. Sounds luxurious, doesn't it?

The first few weeks living in our new little home were pretty uneventful as we settled into our new life. We both had new jobs that kept us out of the house during the days, and at night we didn't have much to occupy ourselves, with only two tv channels to choose from and no new friends made as of yet. My husband's hours fluctuated so I was home alone more often than not.

The first sign that we weren't living in that house alone came one late afternoon while we sat in the living room watching the news. One of the rockers on the front porch started rocking wildly back and forth, so that you could hear the deck floorboards creaking. I could see the rocker through the front window. My first thought was that a dog must have made its way up onto the porch and he was the one making it move. I walked to the front door, opened it and looked out the storm door and the rocker stopped. I glanced around and didn't see anyone, or anything. I looked out toward the nearest tree and no branches were blowing in the wind. Puzzled, I shut the door and went back to sit on the daybed. A few minutes later, the rocker started back up again. I opened the front door, and the rocker stopped. (insert Twilight Zone theme song here)

The next wierd thing that happened occurred in the middle of the night. We were sleeping in the living room. Because the daybed was only big enough for one person to sleep comfortably, we took turns. One of us would sleep on the daybed and the other would sleep in a sleeping bag on the floor. It was my night to be sleeping on the floor and I remember being sound asleep and waking to the sound of water being turned on in the kitchen. I could hear it tinkling in the sink basin, and then I heard the refrigerator door open and close. Then I sensed someone standing over me in the dark, so assuming it was my husband who I thought had gotten up for a drink of water, I rolled over onto my stomach and propped myself up onto my elbows and looked up to what I figured would be my husband standing over me to hand me a glass so I could have a drink too. There was no one there, only empty darkness. I looked to my left and there on the daybed lay my husband fast asleep.

Eventually, we scored an antique iron bed at an estate sale and were able to sleep on a real bed in one of the back bedrooms. One night my husband went to bed early because he had to get up earlier than usual for work the next day. I stayed up watching tv in the living room. After a bit, I could hear my husband in the other room, yelling out in his sleep. He was saying, "Knock it off! Quit it!" I figured he was having a nightmare, so I went in the room to shake him awake, but when I got in there, he was already awake and looking at me with a grumpy look on his face. I asked him what all the yelling was about and he said, "You need to stop pulling on my toe! I'm trying to sleep!" I told him I wasn't pulling on his stupid toe, I was watching tv in the other room! Sheesh! Needless to say, he didn't believe me. He had distinctly been awakened by someone (or something) repeatedly tugging on his big toe!

Another night, we were both sound asleep in the back bedroom and about 3:00 in the morning we were awakened by pounding on the wall behind our bed. It sounded just like someone was hanging pictures on the wall with a hammer and nail. Bang! Bang! Bang! on and on and on. Every so often the pounding would stop and then you'd hear what sounded like a parrot squawking and then the pounding would start up again. My husband had to be at work at 5:00 a.m. and we were both not only bewildered but angry and exhausted! He pounded on the wall with his fist and the hammering stopped.

The absolute scariest occurrence happened one dark night, again in the back bedroom where we were sleeping. I can't say what it was exactly that first woke me up. A sound maybe. All I know is I was wide awake and laying there in the pitch dark petrified with that awful tingly feeling all over my body and I knew without a shadow of a doubt there was someone in that room with us. I was so scared stiff that I couldn't move an inch. My husband was laying there asleep, right next to me, but I was so frozen with fear that I couldn't even turn my head to whisper him awake. I was straining my eyes and ears in the dark, trying to see or hear wherever he/she/it was, and my heart was pounding wildly out of my chest. All of a sudden I felt the intruder sit down next to me on my side of the bed. I actually felt the mattress sink down with his/her/its weight and felt it lean in toward me, heavy against my hip. I felt it moving closer and closer until I could feel it positioned right over me, his face over my face, as if it was almost nose to nose. I can't explain the terror I felt and I could feel the thickness in the air between us. I held my breath and squeezed my eyes shut tight and just kept praying over and over again, "Please make it go away! Please make it go away!" After what seemed like forever, I felt it lean back and ease itself off the bed and then it got real cold in the room and I didn't feel it in the room anymore and knew it was gone. As soon as I felt I could finally move, I rolled over and shook my husband awake and hysterically told him everything I'd experienced. After that night, I never wanted to be alone in that house and I avoided it at all cost. It never felt like a real home and it never would!

Thankfully, we moved out soon after. I came across a book about the history of the area at work one day and as I flipped through, I found a chapter on what once was considered the community of Bingham, situated right there near the corner of Parker Branch and Old Hillsboro Roads. The author described the area as far back as the late 1800's and told about a pair of brothers who were charged as horse thieves and one of them was beheaded and his head was impaled on a fence post as a warning to other potential horse thieves. There was also a crudely drawn map on one page that showed a cemetery once sat strangely close to the very spot our old house now sits. Could our ghost have been that headless horse thief, or someone from the long forgotten cemetery, angry because a house was built on top of the graves?

Whoever or whatever it was, it put us through enough to convince us it was real and to scare the living daylights out of me, that's for sure! Do I believe in ghosts? You bet I do!

Thunder & Lightning, Very Very Frightning!

We had the most awesome storm last night! It was one of those exciting storms like you usually only see in the movies with lots of lightning and booming thunder and tons of rain and high winds. It started early in the evening and rocked us to sleep well into the night and I loved it!

Earlier in the evening, I went out on the porch and watched it roll in. You could see the lightning streak across the sky over the hills in the distance and the leaves on the trees were rustling in the wind. Big, black, ominous clouds darkened the sky and you could hear the rain coming from far off, before it ever arrived. When the rain finally did reach us, it poured so hard and the wind blew it in huge sheets across the yard.

As it got darker, the lightning display was even more intense and at times there were so many strikes at one time that it lit up the whole area as if it was daylight again. The thunder just rumbled and rolled down the hills on and on and shook the ground and rattled the window panes. It made me think of how much I always enjoyed the storms in the Pacific Northwest, although we never seemed to have lightning and thunder as intense as this.

I remember we used to race to the beach after a good storm (sometimes right before, or even during!) so we could see the waves crashing in and then walk the shoreline when it was over, looking for treasures the storm had washed in. I always think of my Daddy when it storms like this, as he shares my love for a good hair-raising storm. I often sit out here on this porch swing and think how much he'd enjoy watching these storms and wishing he was here to experience it with me.

Yardwork Blues

This year our yard has just about done us in. Next time we buy a house, it's going to have a teeny, tiny postage-stamp size yard that won't require so much maintenance! It didn't help that our Spring was so unusually wet this year. It rained and poured like a monsoon practically every weekend and we barely had a chance to plant a few flats of flowers before BOOM! June arrived and it was so stifling hot and miserable that we couldn't seem to get motivated to venture out to do the rest.

By the end of June we couldn't put it off any longer. The weeds and shaggy flowerbeds just couldn't be ignored. So despite the 95 degree temperatures and unrelenting humidity, for two days we worked diligently clearing out the old mulch, weeding and edging the beds and walkway and emptying all the pots to make room for more flowers.

It took three trips into town to buy 55 bags of pine nugget bark, 30 bags of lava rock for the walkway, 15 bags of river rock and several flats of flowers. We huffed and puffed and heaved and ho'd until our muscles couldn't possibly take any more punishment and we were on the verge of heat stroke. I had a run-in with a mama lizard who had laid seven eggs in one of my pots. I stuck my hands down into the dirt and her head popped up and she scrambled up my arm and scared the peewiddly waddles out of me! I screamed and flung her across the lawn. Who knew I could run so fast at the end of a hard day!

Now the yard looks beautiful and our water bill is going to spike again trying to keep it that way. Oh the joys of curb appeal!

Too Much Boob Tube

After last night's wacky dream, I think it's quite obvious I watch entirely too much tv! I dreamed I was a contestant on Dancing With the Stars and my dance partner was FBI Profiler Hodge, from Criminal Minds. You know, the guy that played Dharma's husband on Dharma and Greg? Well, as I was gliding along the dance floor, low and behold, here comes that mean-spirited vixen Danielle Staub from Real Housewives of New Jersey! Apparently she was a contestant too, and she was trying to edge me out of the competition! I can't remember if I won or not, but the next part of my dream, I was being whisked off in a limo to a hotel at the beach and the clerk at the front desk of the hotel was none other than Alan from Two and a Half Men! He checked me in, gave me my key and then the Bellhop, who happened to be Russell from Rules of Engagement, played by David Spade, showed me to the most beautiful room with an ocean view. I remember being out on the balcony watching the surf roll in when I glanced to the adjoining balcony and saw that slimy sleezeball Scott Disick, Kourtney Kardashian's baby-Daddy from Keeping up with the Kardashians. Only Scotty-boy wasn't with Kourtney, but with some bleach-blonde, anorexic bimbo I'd never seen before, and they were in a hot and heavy liplock, oblivious to anyone else around them. Oh boy, Kourtney is going to kill him when she finds this out!