Optical Illusion

If you look out my kitchen window, or glance up while sitting on the back deck, you might think something is watching you!

Looks like a deer is peering around that tree!

If you go closer it does seem to have a long neck, maybe it’s a llama!

But if you walk all the way out to the fence you will see, it’s only a post that only looks like an animal from a distance and at the right angle!

Putting Away Christmas

 

Today we put away the Ponderosa Christmas tree, but there are still some gifts here that haven’t been opened.  Here’s why:

Twas the night before Christmas and we had just returned from a festive Christmas lunch with my family.  Our Christmas Eve night has always been spent with the Gibsons, so the potatoes were mashed, the cookies and sausage balls were covered on a plate and the presents were in the trunk of the car.  Everyone was ready to go and the King who had just awaked from a nap was having a little sip of Christmas Coco-cola, when he was struck with a virus—one that made him throw up all over his Nana’s kitchen and on his P-pa!

One of the Ponderosa princesses had been sick a couple of days before so we knew he was probably contagious.  We did the right thing and quarantined ourselves.

We made the best of the situation by opening our presents and Christmas boxes and even though he felt bad the King went right on opening his presents, stopping occasionally to be sick! 

He even managed to keep smiling through it all. 

So we have some more presents to deliver, we’ll  do it when we celebrate on New Year’s day!  And all of us will remember a Christmas Eve where one little boy was sick, but surrounded by six people who love him enough to have been sick in his place if we could! 

*No one else was sick and this virus only lasted a few hours.  Santa came and ate the cookies and left presents and all was well in the morning!

What to you find when you clean?

Today was a cleaning day at the Ponderosa. I was dusting in the living room. I had made it to the shelf above. I wasn't just dusting, I was moving everything and spraying Pledge and cleaning! When I had taken the frame and books out. . .

these jars of marbles were in the back. In case you are too young to recognize them, they are little milk jars. I can remember drinking from them at school everyday. It was what milk came in before the paper cartons of today. I can't remember where I got these two but I was using them to hold some marbles. When Parker began to crawl and move about I hid the jars behind the books so he would not get the marbles and put them in his mouth. This was my way of child proofing! This also tells you something about how often I dust!
Notice the hole for cords in the back of the shelf it will be important in a minute.
I put the jars in the floor with the books and pictures and thoroughly cleaned the shelf. As I began to put everything back in I noticed that something more than marbles was in one of the jars.
Now lately, I have had to make a choice--wear contacts that let me see close but blurred distance or clear distance and blurred close. Today I was wearing blurred close and had to get my glasses to clearly see what was in the jar.

Acorns.

About half the jar was filled with acorns. I had found an acorn in the back of one of the shelves I previously dusted but I just thought a little boy had carried it in and put it there. I should have been suspicious because it was way in the back and higher than he could reach. The acorns had been there for a while, one had sprouted, but the worst thing is knowing that some little furry critter made a lot of trips into my living room and deposited a food stash in the shelves! You would think we would hear it or see it. I know if I had seen it somebody would have heard me scream!
Oh well, living here in the woods means we have to fight for space with the critters but if you come to visit, watch where you step because there are glue traps all over!

Mini Cookies

Remember my problem with the oven. I found just what toaster oven users everywhere need. Look they are mini cookies, ready to pop on the pan and bake.

Already cut into little squares just break them apart and put them on the pan.

This pan was my Granny Ova's, it is just right for my little oven and five cookies. It's just that five mini cookies are not much and for some reason because they are little I think its okay to eat maybe ten at once!
So come on down and we'll have cookies but it will take a while because I can only bake five at a time!

What's ON your fridge Friday

The secret chicken sauce recipe! You can make it for eight halves or for one hundred!

Worn Out

This is my oven. It has to be over 30 years old. It's a Kenmore and it's huge and black and has a little warming oven on the bottom, which I have never used! Last week it just quite. Stopped working and will not come on. We went for days just passing by and turning it on--just in case. You know how when you've had something for a long time even if its not the best, it's yours and you want to keep it! We don't know anyone who works on gas appliances or we might have to have it fixed, but as much as we don't want to change we have to let go! So we made the trip to Lowes, after much research on the web and measuring the oven and the hole it sits in-- we have a new oven on the way.

Here it is. Yeah, I know, it doesn't have the character of my old oven, but it self cleans and look at those digital controls. I'm sure it will be nice, but I loved my old clunker of an oven. I will miss it.

For now this is my oven. It's small and cute and it sits right there on the counter top. I could cook just about anything in it, if I had a little pan!
I hope I'm not here when the nice man named Tim comes to install the new oven it will be hard to let go; and I hope it all works and fits and he doesn't have to cut holes in my cabinets, even though they are old and need re-doing they are mine!
In the meantime, do any of you kids have a pan with your easy bake oven I can borrow?

Checking out the Ponderosa

We took a little walk around the Ponderosa this afternoon just to see what was going on. You can always count on our faithful dogs, Shrek and Piper to help patrol the Ponderosa.
Everything was quiet, but a little soggy from the rain and there were three million sticks and limbs that had been blown out last Wednesday when there was a blustery day!


We did find a couple of interesting things. . . looky at this tree--it grew a beard!

And remember those evil squirrels that I feared were plotting against us. I found one of their hiding places. It looks like they ate and left a mess.

And these guys were watching our every move. Maybe they are Christmas cows checking to see if we are naughty or nice and reporting back to Santa! Or maybe they just thought we had some hay!

What's Blooming on the Ponderosa

The cold temperatures finally got everything that was blooming outside, but on my kitchen windowsill these African violets are showing their stuff!

Sunday's Blast from the Past Photo

"Christmas, What do you mean Christmas? Who are all these presents for? What's all the fuss about?"
I'm going to guess that this picture was taken about 28 Christmases ago! It was pre-ponderosa, but we still have that ornament on our Christmas tree!

Saturday Snow

Could have, would have, should have been a snow day, but it came on Friday night!

This is not the Dixie Stampede!

Remember the horses we herded a while back. Well, they must have enjoyed their visit to the Ponderosa because they came back on Saturday. There were only four this time. You just never know what you will look out the window and see. And people think it is a nice quiet place here!!

What's on your Thanksgiving plate?

Most people prefer a traditional Thanksgiving dinner with turkey

and dressing.

But others prefer pink milk

plenty of pink milk

and bacon and bread.

That is turkey bacon by the way!

Wordless Wednesday

The King of the Ponderosa is Three

It's hard to believe but the King of the Ponderosa is three years old today.
His P-pa and Nana say Happy Birthday to the world's most handsome and smartest boy!

Sunday's Blast from the Past Photo

These two both have a birthday this week. Here they are a couple of years ago when they were younger! The King of the Ponderosa celebrated with a party today, his momma will celebrate her birthday by staying out all night and shopping on Black Friday!

Making Brownies

When you are at your Nana's and you need some brownies all you have to do is ask. She will help. First, you stir up the mix really well. Use two spoons if necessary!

Then, you better taste to see if is just right.

Taste some more to be really sure.

And just to be certain--do more tasting.

Help Nana get the brownies into the pan and off your hands!

When they are baked take a whole bowl into the living room.

Watch some TV while you eat. . .

After you've had four or five or six you start to act silly!


And you may even bounce around on the furniture!

But then that sugar rush causes you to crash and you just have to rest, no matter where you happen to be!

Parker Goes to School

Parker and P-Pa visited Nana at school today and read to some boys and girls in second grade. Parker took over Nana's desk and watched Curious George! He also visited with the pre-k kids and tried to make P-Pa leave him there! He played with Miss Veda in the library and watched a movie with some first graders. He talked with the 7th graders in my last period class and made lots of new friends today!

What's Blooming on the Ponderosa

The Ponderosa still thinks it is summer! Even though we have experienced several frosty mornings this month, we still have flowers on the Ponderosa. There is just enough shade from the remaining leaves and shelter from the house and buildings that some of the flowers are still blooming away!
The last yellow flower is a frost hardy pansy and will last most of the winter, but the others should have been killed by the frost.