A Touch of Fall In the Air on the Farm

When we moved to Tennesse 10 years ago, our Jack Russell Annie was just barely one year old.  Now at 10 going 11 she finds snuggly spots to nap inbetween her hunting jaunts on the farm.  She still goes, just not quite so fast.  Her once all-brown face is now mostly white.  My, how time flies!  She will soon snuggle with the other dogs in their heated dog house.  As I walked around the farm, with fall in the air, our dogs, horses, plants and landscape has changed so much from the past 10. Walk with me for a moment and I will show you.

 Anna, my old show mare, was my favorite mare.  She gave great rides for both me and my oldest grandson, until we retired her to broodmare where she has given us some great foals.

 Blue came with us from Kentucky.  Now at 14, he is still one of my BF horses.  He and Anna are sharing a field since Anna's last foal was weaned a few weeks ago.   Now their pastures are eaten down and dry, needing a rest over the winter to be lush and green next spring.

 This is Depo, a JackRat, from Annie's first and only litter when she was just a year.  Depo used to have a brown face too.  He has found himself a good place to nest for his afternoon nap as well.

Some of you have met Toby, now 7, and adopted dog at 4 years, who won all our hearts with his not so smart dog routines.  Tobes makes some of the antique shows with us, travels well, visits well, and loves to ride in the car.  All the grandkids love him; he is very kid friendly.  Toby stands on a stone retaining wall that surrounds the far side of the pool.  We added the pool and the patio 6 years ago.  My husband and I hand-laid 15 pallets of patio stone to create the wall and stone patio.

 
This is Rascal, my grandson's Jack Russell, who came to live with us 3 years ago, after my grandson and his mother moved back to Kentucky.  Rascal had spent so much time with us on the farm, that he was not ready to make the move when they were!  He still goes bananas when they come for visits, and sometimes he makes the trip with me to see them.  He is always ready to go, but always ready to come back.  Here he is accompanying me by the pool to photograph the dried grasses.  We added all of the landscape by the pool as well as many around the yard.

 With all the drought, we still managed to have one last bloom on the Hydrangeas by the corner of the house.

We built the horse shelter in the field, as well as adding many sections of white fencing over the farm.  All of the fencing was run-down and delapidated when we bought  the place, not to mention overgrown, and overrun with weeds and junk.  We replaced all the fencing with white and began some weed-control(bushhogging), and now the place looks liveable.

This past week I scraped and painted all the rails, posts, and trim on our front porch.  Now a refresh of the mulch and it will be good to go till spring.  Earlier this spring, I tore out all the old bushes and junk by the front to replace it with some shade-loving plants and bushes.  I have lost almost half of what I planted due to drought and heat.  Guess I will bite the bullit and replant again.  Still glad I did it.  It will look better eventually.  Can't believe my maple tree in the front yard is still green and some have already lost all their leaves. 

The last of the few tomatoes still hanging on.  Time for fried green tomatoes!

Oop!  This one snuck in sideways.  This is the last of the color.  Sounds like our first freeze could be happening this weekend.  Love lavender.  Started this from seed 2 years ago.  This was a weedbed over my headed when we bought this place.

My plants are in the greenhouse for the winter.  My husband gave me the greenhouse for Christmas a few years ago, and I  have loved it.

The last little bit of color left in a patio pot.  The geraniums and petunias are long gone.  This is a portion of the patio we added.

We are still picking pecans.  Our huge old trees are still producing bumper crops year to year.  We just picked up another 5 gallon bucket today, with probably 10 more gallons on the ground.  We just get tired of bending over.

I managed to put a little fall vignette on the sunporch table.  Love the hedgeapples for fall, even though I hate the Bodock trees they come from.   If you have ever been stabbed by the thorns from these trees, or tried to mow around one, you would understand.

And finally, a bouquet for my table with zinneas, lavender, basil, and Echinacea seed pods.  It was a good day on the farm.  Thanks for letting me share it with you.

Master bedroom Before

It is time for a bedroom redo.  I have the same cranston plaid curtains from when we moved in over 10 years ago, same white walls, same federal blue woodwork, same furniture arrangement.  There have been so many things that needed updates or complete reconstruction on our farm, that redecorating has taken a backburner for the master bedroom.  You know, "if it ain't broke, don't fix it".   Well, it's finally broke, and I can't take it any more!  I have some ideas, but if you have any suggestions, I am open to new input.

I want to paint all my woodwork and fireplace white.  I hesitate to paint the closet doors because they are grainpainted.

The corner cupboard is going and so is the rug.

Back from Springfield

The Springfield, OH Extravaganza was bigger and better than ever.  The extrordinary show began on Thursday with a line up of trucks and trailers, cars, vans and vehicles of all sorts.  The wind was gusting up to 50 mph, and the threatening sky lead to a tornado warning!  While we were in line, my husband came up with the idea that I should ride the bike up to our spot and figure how we should park our 30' trailer.  So off I  went, only to get there just in time for a cloud burst, with the wind whipping the torrencial rain.  I ran to the nearest tree (there was no other place to run to), and backed up to it on the downside of the rain. I managed to only get wet, not soaked.  My husband later told me it never rained at the truck, but he could see a wall of water over the show grounds.  That is when we learned of the tornado warning!  We heard an announcement that the warning was lifted while we were working on our setup!  Thankfully, the rain ended, the wind died  by Friday morning allowing us to set up our tents, and by the end of the day, we were in business. 

Cute little cottage home in Syracuse, IN near Lake Wawasee.

View of Lake Webster from our dinner table on our anniversary outing.

Backing up a little though, we began our week with a visit with our son and daughter-in-law (who has the new antique shop in Indy), where we enjoyed a couple of days with our grandsons before heading north toward Shipshewana, IN.  We spent 3 days at our son's and daughter-in-law's cabin on Lake Wawasee, each day roaming for more antiques, evenings sitting on the shore, visits to our favorite shoreside dining, and finishing our final day at the Shipshewanna auction.  What fun that is; 6 to 8 auctioneers all going at the same time, moving booth to booth.  We had some great finds there, then loaded our truck Beverly Hillbilly style, and headed for our annual lunch of homestyle cusine at the Dutchman's restaurant.  We always crack up at ourselves when we pull into the parking lot with antiques piled high and tied on from every angle.  We later transfered our load to our trailer parked back at the cabin.  Oh the fun of being a junker!

The following are a few pictures of the journey from Indianapolis to northern Indiana before heading to Springfield, Ohio where the antique show was held.

Roung barn on the way to Lake Wawasee.

Round barn in Nappanee, IN.

Amish farm in Shipshewana, IN.

Charming little primitives shop in Pierceton, IN

Founder, owner and shopkeeper Sara was so very creative, not only with her wonderful displays, but also with the decor of the shop.  She had handpainted large murals on her painted floors. The entire shop was a study of her artistic skills.  We were so glad we stopped.  I wished I had brought my camera in because my Blackberry camera is not taking good pictures.

Lunch at Pie Eyed Peteys on Lake Tippecanoe.  I loved this shell topped table on the patio.

Then on to the auction house at Napanee which is a smaller auction than the Shipshewana auction, but often has a good find or two.

After all the travel, we finally made it to Springfield, Ohio, where we set up our wears.  Next to us was this lovely young couple and their daughter.  They raised home-grown pumpkins of every shape and color as well as flowers and herbs which they brought to sell.

I didn't get to do much walking around because we were  busy at our own booth, but I did manage to take a few cell phone pix of other booths.

My blue swirl graniteware looked great in this old white cabinet.  Most of the graniteware came home with us but the cabinet did not.  Although not a good picture, the pale blue "post" leaning against the cabinet is actually an 1800's water pump with old blue milk paint and pinstrip Pennsylvania Dutch style red and yellow detailing on the sides.  It is a find from a TN auction, not far from our home.  The pump even has additional sections of octaginal wood pipe that fit into the well.

We bought this antique jelly cupboard in Indiana.  I loved the style with the cut bottom.  It sold and I almost didn't want to see it go!

Most of these items sold by the end of the show.

A few of my quilts I had on display. 

By the final day our tent was appearing almost empty.  Good problem!

 

A few of my graniteware coffee pots in our booth.



It was a wonderful week with my hubby, doing what we love the most, traveling, antique hunting, and just having time together.