MONDAY MAGAZINE

Hello, friends.  If I don't get this post written soon it will be Happy Tuesday!  It has been a busy day and this is the first chance I have had to sit down and give you a post.

This morning I cut the grass and got the basil I bought yesterday in my earth box.  I pulled out everything that was growing in there, fixed my fairy garden which was overrun with ants (oh my!) and planted my basil which was not looking too good, but I'm sure will recover now that it's in its permanent home.  Here are a few pictures for you.

I saw something move in the earthbox and it was this huge spider!

The fairy garden needs a good rain shower to wash them off.

At least the grass is cut.  It was looking pretty bad.

The poor basil.

There is still a lot of work to do but hopefully each day it will look better.

I was sitting on the back steps when I saw something move.  It was this big cricket.  As it hopped out of sight I could hear it singing.  

For the first time in many years I have been hearing the cicadas singing.  I have seen lots of fireflies each night.  And I have seen butterflies.  It has been a long time since I have experienced any of these.  It makes me so happy to see them making a comeback.

Elaine sent me a picture of a butterfly on her Rose of Sharon bush.  She got the picture I couldn't.

She also sent me pictures of the deer in her yard this morning.  I guess I got up too late to see them while I was there.

And now for the magazine.  Hooray, I got another one read.  This was a Country Home from April 2000.

I thought this was an interesting article.  It was all about the author finding a box of letters written to her dad from the years 1925-1937.  It was right before her parents met.  The letters were from her father's parents and siblings and told him everyday things about their life, their farm, and their family.  Her father had bundled them together, numbered them, and even had started writing a book about life in that time.  But he had never finished.  The author Debra Landwehr Felton thought about writing a book also, but decided against it.  How sad because I would have loved to have read it.

Do you remember these kinds of tablecloths?  I do.  It was an everyday thing with me as a child and now they are collectors items and worth a lot of money.  I wish I still had the ones my grandmother used.

There was an article on pansies, one of my favorite flowers.  I will get some for my yard when the weather gets cooler.

And, of course, there's the last page.  Always a good photo.  This one is titled "Chicken Charmer" and was photographed by Helen Norman.  The caption reads:  Living on a farm, 10-year-old Andrew Norman of White Hall, Maryland, has learned how to collect eggs, clean the coop, and run away from the rooster.  He also can put chickens in a trance.  "You just turn 'em upside down and rub their stomachs."  Why does this Rhode Island Red like Andrew so much?  It's simple, he says.  "I feed her."

Hope you have a good night and a wonderful day tomorrow.

Kathy