Update Before A Break

Hey, everyone!!

 Isn't this cool weather and bright sunshine wonderful!

 It was on just this kind of day, thirty-four years ago, that James and I were married. Today is our anniversary!  We have a fun date night planned tonight and then he is taking off the week of Thanksgiving.  Cleaning the attic is on the docket as well as a visit from Katherine and Collin!

Then will come the crazy, wonderful race to Christmas!

 I have several baby projects in the works for Olive.  Christmas Eve will be here before we know it, so I am going to take a break from blogging until the New Year.

But before the lull, I thought I'd bring you up to date on a few things.

Happy anniversary, Fred and Ethel!!!

 It was the day after our anniversary last year that James came home and told me that our neighbors had rescued a mama dog and her ten puppies.  We picked out Fred and Ethel within the hour.

They have dug nine million holes in the yard, eaten a dozen door mats, demolished our sprinkler system, and destroyed countless pairs of shoes, but every time they put their heads in my lap my heart melts.

The hens are doing well, in fact, when I went out to open up the coop the other morning, I panicked because there wasn't a chicken in sight!!!!  I threw open the door to find them all nestled snugly inside the laying boxes!!!!!  Eggs can't be far behind!

We moved the girls' coop just a few weeks ago to get them out of the shady corner of the garden that served them so well during the hot summer, and into a sunnier part of the garden for the coming colder weather.

The gray rectangle at the bottom of the photo marks where the coop was before we moved it out from under the trees.  It is so awesome to be able to roll the whole thing, coop and run, to new locations.

I shoveled the chicken droppings from the old location and used them to plant my pansies in front of the house.  

The fall pallet-garden is growing beautifully and James and I enjoy salad out of it several nights each week. We also had a delicious collard green soup.

And speaking of gardens, the LifeHouse Ministries Community Garden has had a great fall season.

From this ......

.....to this!
All the produce is donated to needy families in the community.

Our daughter, Katherine, has started a new yoga venture! 

Learn more about it at http://www.practiquenola.com/

And last, but not least, we cracked open a bottle of our inaugural batch of Turkey Creek Garden Muscadine wine, and it is delicious!!!! (Unlike our persimmon beer.)

Happy holiday season to you and your families!!!!

See you in the new year!

Love ya'll, 

Shelli

Rejoice with your family in the beautiful land of life!

 ~Albert Einstein

The antidote for fifty enemies is one friend. 

~Aristotle

The Pilgrims made seven times more graves than huts. No Americans have been more impoverished than these who, nevertheless, set aside a day of thanksgiving.

 ~H.U. Westermayer

The best of all gifts around any Christmas tree: the presence of a happy family all wrapped up in each other. 

~Burton Hillis

"It came without ribbons! It came without tags! It came without packages, boxes or bags!... Then the Grinch thought of something he hadn't before! "Maybe Christmas," he thought, "doesn't come from a store. Maybe Christmas... perhaps... means a little bit more!" ~Dr. Seuss, How the Grinch Stole Christmas!

Great little One! whose all-embracing birth
Lifts Earth to Heaven, stoops Heaven to Earth.
~Richard Crashaw