It's a LONG Story!

Whooomp! There Goes Another Tree!

Just when I thought I was all set to post some craft photos - a swap here, a swap there, gifts sent, gifts received ..... all that fun stuff .... I  once again woke up to the dreaded "tree falling" sound in the middle of the night! 

This is always pretty scary since it's a very distinctive sound and, of course, it's pitch black outside - 20 or so wooded acres with no street lights or close neighbors. The first thought is always, "Am I sleeping in the safest room? Is it going to land on the house - and on me?!"  

Our telephone pole is under there somewhere! No telephone - no dsl - no email - no Internet - no Facebook - no Pinterest - no Words With  Friends! Just a plain little cell phone for my lifeline - not even an iPhone! 

This isn't even an entire tree, just one "branch" or section! That's the remains of our old tool shed in the foreground and my parents' house (unoccupied) in the background.The house was not damaged. 

It extended quite a ways and actually knocked down two smaller trees as well as the telephone pole.

The smaller branches of the large "branch" seemed to just keep on going! 

Lopping off the remaining branches of the tree 

Here you can see where the piece broke off the tree. That was the second piece of that tree to fall, so we decided to have the rest cut off since it extended so far towards our house. Very expensive week!  

The Bobcat pulled the smaller logs to the truck but they used a crane for some of the larger pieces.  

There's another tree directly behind. See how tiny the men look!

It's so sad to see these huge old oaks go! They've been here so long - at least 60 or 70 years.

This all started way back (!) when Tropical Storm/Hurricane Isaac was heading up the other coast of Florida and on towards New Orleans. We had no wind but quite a lot of rain over here on the Atlantic side.  

A few days after the pole was knocked down, a telephone man came and temporarily hooked us up, but the tree people came the next day and unhooked the temporary line. Then they came back a couple of days later to finish the rest of the tree so we didn't call AT&T until they were all through. Now today AT&T put in another temporary line and said another crew will come by the end of this week to bury it. Yay! Love those buried cables!

Enough tree talk! I usually post things like this on my Aralia Lane blog (which I've also used for the 52 Books in 52 Weeks challenge this year), but this has consumed my time for the past two  weeks or so. Have posted so little this summer that I wanted to show something!

Time to get back to my crafts and swaps! 

What Happened to July?!

We celebrated the 4th, and now July's over! 

What happened?!!!

If I spoke German, I'd say: "Kinder, Kuche, Kirche "-- along with a few other odds and ends!

Grandsons - lots of quality time during the summer - birthday parties, church camp delivery & pickup, day camp pickup and then afternoons here, sick days, even a Graduation! 

I didn't purposely make this out of focus but decided to use it for that reason.

Our youngest grandson graduated from Pre-School! Kindergarten, here we come!!!  No more little babies - sigh.

Our church camp - about 1-1/2 hours away - the lake in the distance had almost dried up during the past few years of drought, so everyone's very happy about the rain from the two Tropical Storms earlier this summer. I think the nearer water is part of a lagoon they were using to bring water in from a nearby river. So happy to see water there again!

Yummy Oreo Cake! Wish I could bake one like that!

Too hot for much cooking here, but have done a bit from time to time, of course. We do like to eat!  Also working on clearing out things we no longer need. Gave away pressure canner and then decided I don't need my pressure cooker any more either. Who knows what will go next?

Better Than Anything Cake! 

Not quite finished! Looked better with the toppings!

Yes, it did have another name - I checked the recipes - same thing! 

We help some friends who prepare the Wednesday night dinner at church about once a month by helping set up, serve, and clean up. Another friend and I usually make the desserts, a good way to try out recipes.  Made this cake a few weeks ago, and then made 3 pies today for tomorrow night.  Didn't want to bake so they're all in the refrigerator: Key Lime, Grasshopper Mint, and Peanut Butter. After  mixing them all up, licking the beaters and cleaning out the bowls I'm not sure I'll actually want to eat any of them tomorrow night! I wonder what my friend's making?

Molasses Crinkles Cookies for a special gift

I covered the box with some of my newest Graphics 45 paper  -  "ABC Primer" - since this was for a school principal who's moving to a different school I thought she might like the box. We know she loves these cookies! The paper is obviously very "old-fashioned" looking and certainly doesn't reflect the diversity in our schools today, but I think anyone looking at it would realize that it's supposed to be from a long time ago.

Lots more activities during July, of course! My shredder has been one of my best friends as I go through paper, paper, paper. Oh, my!

Hard to believer the summer's almost over! But more fun to come!

"Springing" in the Rain!

More Rainy Days

And a Spring Tag Swap

Another Tropical Storm came for a visit! This was TS Debby -  took days to make up her mind which way she wanted to go! At one point they feared a direct hit on New Orleans, but then Debby switched and moved over to Florida instead.

Lots of flooding and lots of rain across the state until Debby suddenly picked up and swiftly moved on across and out into the Atlantic Ocean. Just a couple of days ago, the forecast was for us to be continuously inundated until "2 a.m. Friday", but then she started moving and bid us  farewell. 

Photo "borrowed" from a friend - flooding in her neighborhood

Today we woke up to sunshine once again, but there was lots of flooding and many roads were closed for a day or two. No flooding at our house, but plenty of rain.  Someone said we had 24 inches of rain, but I'm not sure what part of town. Jacksonville encompasses over 600 square miles, so some areas probably received more rain than others.

I read that, in spite of all the rain from two tropical storms, we're still in drought!  Hope we've had our share of storms now for this year, at least.  It seems strange that TS Beryl came directly here from the Atlantic, and then TS Debby came straight here from the Gulf - hit from both directions in less than a month!

Just wish we could've sent some of this rain out West to help put out the fires!

Found these lovely tags while sorting out some boxes during all the rain!

April Showers Bring May Flowers Tag Swap

2010

Connie - Marian - Jeanne

Tammy - Natalea - Vivian

Grace - Wendy - Kimberly

Linda - Geralyn

Kathy

Jane - Wanda

Sunshine and Blue Skies again!

Ferns and Flowers and More

Rain At Last!

Darkening sky - early afternoon

Recently had a week of rainy days, or afternoons, after many months of drought - oh, so welcome! 

Raindrops on thirsty leaves and ferns

Another attempt to capture the welcome wetness

The ferns on this little overhang were totally dried-out and looked dead before the rains.  Now  a week or so later without any rain, they're totally dried-out again.

The rain and cooler weather that came with it inspired me to buy some flowering plants.

I bought the coleus because it reminds me of my mother. I purposely bought one with that big side piece hanging over so I could cut it off to root.  She always had coleus "rooting" in the house - just a piece of the plant stuck in a jar of water on the kitchen windowsill.

And I bought the red geranium because it reminds me of my Virginia grandmother who always had them on the doorstep or back porch. Every time I smell a geranium I think of her - and also of a friend who had left instructions to use geraniums at her funeral service.  She had loved the book, Stick a Geranium in Your Hat and Be Happy, by Barbara Johnson. They had hundreds of little geraniums all over and encouraged everyone present to take one home to remind them of her lovely spirit during her courageous battle against cancer.

My flower pot doesn't look quite so pretty today because some wormy creatures have snapped off the zinnias! But it still adds a bit of color to all the green around here.

One of our cute but pesky raccoons came out looking for something to eat. Don't be misled by that cute face - they are wild animals and can be quite fierce! I was almost afraid to get so close to snap the photo! They shouldn't even be out in the daytime.

Hoping for some more rain soon, but not too much, of course!