Pillow Talk!

Today has been great. This morning I pulled out my sewing machine and set it up on top of the kitchen island. Then I gathered the fabric for my pillows.

Then I spent a few hours sewing covers for the five throw pillows. Then I stopped sewing, because I was out of fabric, pillow forms and I was tired.

Late this afternoon, Tony hauled the bed bumpers and I carried the five pillows, out to the Airstream. And before Tone screwed the newly covered bumpers, to the bare walls, in the bedroom, I took this picture.

Then T. helped me make up the twin beds again, and this time we tucked-in the Mexican blankets, so the bed skirt could be seen. And while we were doing that—Carol called and left me a message on Carlton. "Hey Nancy, I just got back home. I read your blog last night and I love the fabrics for the pillows. I cannot wait for the big reveal. Call me."

Having just finished making up the beds, we came back to The Cabin, so I called Carol back. "....Okay! I am leaving right now," Carol said.

Two minutes later, I was sitting, in the Airstream, with the air conditioner on, admiring the bedroom and hoping that Carol would like it too. Then the doorbell chimed. And yes, our super-cool, 1977 vintage Airstream Excella, has a doorbell and it still works.

"Hi Nancy!" Carol said. "You've got company..." Then she and Tony came inside the Airstream. "Can I see it?" I nodded yes, she turned around and this is what Carol saw. Please note that the other side looks exactly like this side.

"Nancy, I love it! It looks fantastic. And I love the pleated bed skirt with the other salmon-colored fabric and the..."

After the pillow talk, I said, "Thanks Carol," I'm worn out from doing all of that sewing. I still need to make a few more throw pillows, new curtains and reupholster the two chairs, in the dining room, but I think I am going to take a few days off, before I tackle that..."

Twenty minutes later, after visiting with Carol, we started talking about the curtains. "The curtains are in these small tracks and they are going to be a lot of work, because Tony will have to remove the curtain tracks and slide the old curtains out of the tracks for me." 

"I am not looking forward to sewing the curtains and then having to sew them, about every two inches to these little, tiny, slide-in clips. I really do want to replace these old curtains, but doing so is going to be so much work. And I know that it will drive me crazy...."

Five minutes later, Carol and I were, over at her ranch, getting out of our trucks, because Carol had suggested I do the curtains like she had done, in her ranch house, because it would be so much easier for me to make and they would look great. 

Two minutes later, after Carol showed me her curtain hangers—I was completely sold on her idea. Her curtains were so beautiful and doing the Airstream curtains like she had done would save me so many hours of work. Talk about relieved.

Before I adios-ed Carol, we went to look at her keyhole garden area and I was blown away when I saw her three, newly added, mini-keyhole gardens filled with vegetables.

Carol now has four keyhole gardens and Tony only has two. "Carol, this is brilliant what you've done and your vegetables are already thriving. Tony has got to see this....But beware. I know Tony will copy your mini-garden idea and take credit for it—just like I steal your delicious recipes and call them mine...." 

So once again, Life is Good, at Big Foot Ranch. And that's about it for tonight.

Y'all have a great evening and keep on laughing! 

A Green Thumb!

Yesterday and today have been great, but they've also been kind of weird, because of M.I.R. For example, yesterday afternoon when Tony and I came back inside, The Cabin, to take a break from working on our keyhole Fall garden I looked at the digital outdoor thermometer, above the kitchen sink and it showed that it was 44 degrees outside? And I knew for a fact that it wasn't 44 degrees, because it was more than hot outside.

So I asked Tony to please come look at the thermometer and it was still indicating that is was 44 degrees outside. And the next time I checked it, which was a few hours later, it was working correctly.

This morning, at 8:59, the electricity went down for about a minute. Then it came back on and ten minutes later, we had no running tap water, inside The Cabin. So, two minutes later, when Tony returned from Medina, after drinking coffee with his friends, at the Old Timer he went outside to find and fix the problem.

When he came back to The Cabin, I told him, "You're not going to believe this. While you were outside the water came back on and now we have no water again..." Bottom line: a pipe had burst, inside Hazel's pen and Tony quickly repaired it. Thank goodness.

Tony and I love our new Fall Keyhole Garden, that is primarily filled with cardboard and so do the vegetables that we're growing. When we started our keyhole garden project I took a few before and after pictures of how we did it. And just so you'll know Tony did most of the heavy-lifting labor.


We decided to put our keyhole garden near Outer Space, so we could easily go outside to add compost and water it.

Tony and I took turns cutting the old boards that we found, near the barn and it made us feel good that we were recycling them.

This is just a small portion of the cardboard that we used to fill up the box. We had to soak it in the wading pool before covering the walls and ground.

I had just watered the garden before I took this picture.

Soon we will remove the cardboard folder over the walls and then we plan to build another Keyhole garden. In this one we planted plenty of Cabbage, Kale, Brussels Sprouts and Peppers.

And I am thrilled about my organic oyster mushroom farm kit that my good friend Cindy, in New Mexico, recently told me about. She's been buying these kits for quite a while and she told me that the mushrooms are totally delicious. This afternoon, I took a couple of pictures of its progress.

And every two or three hours when I go outside to check on it, more mushrooms keep popping up! When I showed them the tiny mushrooms sprouting Chet and Tony thought it was amazing that I am actually growing them, because they know that I do not have a green thumb.

Y'all have a great evening!

The Bell!

Today has been great and I hope that last night y'all were able to watch Chet O'Keefe's awesome video on Facebook, because I did not know how to paste it or share it on my blog, because I am old.

This morning Chet packed up his van and then came inside The Cabin to drink a cup of coffee with us, before heading back to Terlingua with his compadres Willie and Whiskey, the sweet dog that he is temporarily fostering for us.

This afternoon after lunch, Tony and I took off for Kerrville, because we had three specific errands to run. Our first stop was at the Wild Birds Unlimited store, owned by our friends Kevin and Linda Pillow.

When we walked inside the store Marguerite and Linda immediately greeted us and then the fun party began. Marguerite told us some hilarious stories about Enzo, Odie and Mini, the three super dogs that she has adopted from us over the past few years.

Her stories were mainly about the antics of Mini, the darling Chihuahua that she adopted from us last year and Scout, the pup that we had thought was a German Shepherd mix. And it appears now that Mini is running the household and is in charge of all of the dogs and that the sweet shy, puppy, Scout, is not a German Shepherd at all. "She's a Border Collie mix!" Marguerite said.

Marguerite had us laughing so hard I would have been rolling on the floor if I had not been in a public place. After the first part of our fun visit we bought a beautiful bell and a large sack of super birdseed. "Nancy," Tony joked. "She always gets to spend more on her stuff than I do. Life is not fair."

"Tony, the bell is just one of your upcoming birthday presents to me," I teased. "Linda and Marguerite have y'all heard of Keyhole Gardens?" I asked. "Yes," they both replied. Then we got to talking about how great keyhole gardening is for arid climates, because last Sunday morning, we had all watched the interesting segment about it, on the Texas Country Reporter television show.

We talked about keyhole gardening for about five minutes. And after I had told them that we were going to make a keyhole garden and that our next stop was at, the Plant Haus, to buy vegetable plants to grow in it, Marguerite asked, "Do y'all need cardboard for it, because we can give you plenty..."

While Marguerite helped Tony fill up Trigger's backseat with a ton of folded up boxes of cardboard I was feeling guilty about getting the beautiful bell and all Tony got was another sack of birdseed.  So, I asked Linda about this certain wildflower seed display. "Nancy, these seeds come from Junction and they are the very best for growing wildflowers..."

So when Tony and Marguerite walked back inside the store, with the greatest good vibes, I asked Tony to please come check out these super seeds. And he did. And I bought them for him. I'm glad that I did it, because it made Tony happy and Marguerite gave us a hefty discount on them. "Thank you, Marguerite. Now Tony and I are even Steven."

After we adios-ed our good friends, we went directly to The Plant Haus, our favorite nursery that also has great vibes and Tony helped me pick out our vegetable plants.

Our last stop was at the big H-E-B store. While Tony filled up Trigger and bought bags of dog food for our rescued dogs, I raced around the store filling up my cart with groceries. Then Trigger brought us back to the ranch.

When we got home Tony hung up my handmade bell, on the front porch.

I love my new birthday bell! The information about this special bell says, "These completely handmade bells are very distinctive from other bells due to the family secret formula of melting various metals and adding the hand hewed wood clapper to make a melodic and echoing tone. For generations the formula has been passed on from one family member to another. The individual tuning of each bell creates the unusual resonate sound. Ring them and you will hear the melodious echo to soothe and calm you." 

And the Wild Bird Unlimited has plenty of them, in all kinds of different sizes.

This evening I plan to get started on our Fall garden, because today is the first day of Fall and we need to plant those vegetable plants that we have just purchased. So that is about it for tonight.

Y'all have a great evening!