Halloween 1976

My sister as Cinderella.....

Me, I am the witch.......

Candy Corn....

This waxy golden yellow, tangerine orange, white tipped triangular treat.......well......
It is not my calorie of choice, but.......every once in a while, like this time a year I just need a nibble of two of this seasonal flavor. Then that craving is over until next year.....




Am I the only one who has to eat each kernel like this?



Then this?





For as long as I remember eating candy corn...That is how I have had each kernel.



In other news..........

I couldn't post about Candy Corn with out sharing the packaging label. Would it be so bad to pay $3.00 for this package of Candy corn instead of the $1.50 if all of the Brach's Candy Corn manufacturing jobs were still in this country? I usually choose not to buy when I see something like this.....but I did not see it until I got home and had the package open.

Sunday Walk: Town Cemetery

I know.......today is not Sunday.....

but let us pretend that I posted this on Sunday after I took this walk...to the town Cemetery.

There was once a band stand and a school on the same grounds as this cemetery. Bands played, speeches were made, stories were told, and memories were cherished.

The school was established in 1826 and the cemetery in 1830.

I have been here several times, reading the headstones.

Not until this visit, did I realize so many of the homes that surround ThirteenEleven's original builders are here. If I could ever figure out who build our house....I believe he would be here with his neighbors.

The monuments are quite breathtaking and heart warming. These women were well loved.

Dora

Nannie

and Elizabeth.




Elizabeth stands tall gleaming in white marble with classic Greek form.

One hand near here heart and the other hand holding an anchor.

"Beautiful pure and noble...."

"She fell asleep to awake in the land of cloudless days and endless joy."

Nannie.

Her long hair is swept to one side, and she wraps herself in a cape. While one hand holds up the cape and dress, the other hand reaches down to a wood cross.

"This Memorial is a husbands tribute to a beloved wife who was the desire of his eyes and filled every want of his nature. Her life was a poem of beauty, rich in every womanly grace and virtue was by death anointed with all it needed Immortality. She is gone to the mountain of myrrh and to the hills of frankensense until the day break and shadows flee away."

Dora.

Dora faces east. The other monuments face west. With baby in one hand and a pleading toddler clinging to her leg Dora is reaching to the sky.

"Erected in the grateful memory of the beautiful character, the peerless excellence of my beloved wife Dora Ferrell Cody who was the gift of God to me the embodiment of his smile, the angel ministrant to my home. In the morning of youth and beauty he gave her in the noontide. He called her home. The world is fairer that her unselfish life bloomed with in it; it is richer because of her imperishable loveliness."

From the dates and names on the surrounding graves. Dora gave birth to a son, Thorton on 3.13.1896, she died on 4.11.1896 and Thorton died on 7.28 of the same year. From the sculpture I would guess she had a toddler at the time.

Full Moons and Black Cats....

The full Harvest Moon from a couple of weeks ago lit up the Kudzu Jungle.

Which was about the same time our little house guest appeared for the first time on the front porch.

He/She now visits often.

Those amber eyes are about the same color as that Harvest Moon.......hummmmmm.....

SNAKES !!!!

YIKES !!!!

Scream.....run for your life.........




or for a camera and a shovel.......



Yes......this critter was found in the veggie garden.....when I was cleaning it out getting it ready to plant turnips and collards this weekend.....

Ok.........I know.......I know....... he was about the size of a big earthworm....but he still freaked me out....See that shell by his head....That is half a pecan shell.... Also see his head....in our neck of the woods...that shaped head with that coloring means he is not poisonous. He probably just wants to eat a lizard.



At least it was not the size of the snake gourds in the garden........They are Monsters........

"What do you do with snake guards?," you ask....

"I don't know" ....Chris dug up a seeding at a Victorian country house he was working on one summer and ever since we have grown snake gourds....

Thanks to the Internet........I found this...

But wait........our snake gourds develop a hard shell.

At one time... I thought they were luffas..... I was wrong.

Does anyone have a clue?


Oh and finally a short snake story.........my nephew killed a water moccasin (that would be a cotton mouth folks) with a kitchen knife..... I think he is grounded the rest of the year.

The Garden Lecture....

The Garden Lecture was at the big house's visitor's center. In the two years I have lived across the street, I have never been to the visitors center.






The big house has only been open to the public a few years. ( 4 I think)





Once, when I was working for a caterer I delivered there. The kitchen was sooo very early 1900's,

but HUGE! and COOL!







The lecture was based on the book Legends in the Garden, and was given by the author, Linda Copeland. Basically it is the stories about the people behind the names of plants and flowers,
such as the Nellie Stevens holly.

Several times during the presentation I was distracted because the drapes and valance in the meeting room did not match the carpet. I often wondered to my self.....WHAT IN THE HECK was the decorator thinking..... I sooooo wanted to get a picture of how bad the drapes did not go with the carpet. In scale of the very busy patterns or even color. The color was close, and maybe if there was a change in scale of the pattern it would have been ok.

My grandmother has a saying about being close if you are passing on a galloping horse is ok....Or something along this line. But I was not galloping on a horse, I was stuck in a 20x30 foot room with the drapes closed for an hour.

That being said....the display room and the rest of the visitors center was well done and quite nice. Wine, Fruit and cheese was served as a reception and everyone mingled a bit.

Since there was a no interior pics policy.... I did get a shot from the terrace of the visitors center looking onto the grounds of the big house's estate.

Sunday Walk: Graveyards....

After all ....it is October and the Spooky day will be here soon.



I decided to visit the local Confederate graveyard. I have lived in this town for years and years, yet never visited this place. Most of the young men who were buried here had never visited this place.



The golden moss or fungus on the Georgia Marble headstones was actually quite pretty.





Do you like to visit old graveyards? Do you find them interesting or just spooky?

Have a great Sunday.

Seed Pod

Since it is Flower Friday around here.





I thought I would post the seed pod from the Golden Rain Tree that grows in the alley.




The three sided seed Pod turns from a green to a wonderful coppery brown with a slight metallic sheen.



Each pod has three almost black English Pea size seeds.

I am not sure how difficult these trees are to grow from seed. There have not been any babies sprouting under this tree in the alley.

I would say, you should really love the tree if you decide to plant one. It is quite messy. The lovely bright sunshine yellow flowers that rain down in the spring turn brown and blow around in the breeze. The coppery seed pods drop in masses and crunch beneath your feet. The Golden Rain tree is definitely high maintenance.

Happy Friday.

I've been a bad blogger.

I know..... I know....I have been a bad blogger.

there just has not been anything eventful at the house this week to post about.

But tonight I am going to a gardening lecture at the big house across the street.

It was completed around the same time our little bungalow was completed.

Zinnia Seeds

To continue on with my seed collecting posts....

This week it is the Zinnia...




Each petal contains a seed... Meaning each flower has the almost $2 packet worth of seeds in it.



You gather the dead heads....



Pull out the seeds....

Plant in the ground, water, and watch for seedlings that look like this....



(ok......so that one is sideways.... oops)



Then they grow to this ....


Next year I will have tons of Zinnias for the butterflies and the bees.



Did you miss a seed post?

Moss Rose
Cleome
Marigold

Red Spider Lily

Lycoris radiata ( Red Spider Lily )



It is that time a year again, when I am surprised by these flowers that pop up over night.

Except where Chris cut the grass, and cut them down.



Look in the back......The kudzu is taking over.....again.