We are on Country Time!!

We arrived in the country Saturday afternoon stopping only once on our way down!

I brought lots of groceries from home so no need to shop. 

We cut away from the Interstate at West and I was so surprised to see fields of bluebonnets!

I thought they would all be gone by now!

Mr. Jackson's donkey has a baby!

This is just across the road from the ranch gate.

I love all  these country scenes!

Sherry had a bouquet of fresh wildflowers on the table to greet us and she was down here waiting on us after turning on the AC. It hasn't been really HOT yet but the humidity is so heavy that it's wonderful to have a cool camper to relax in when it gets too uncomfortable.

There's been a LOT of rain lately and it's muddier than usual as Sherry has been doing some serious tractor work preparing the road for a load or two of gravel to come soon.

She and Dean brought down some pinto beans and cornbread for Saturday night supper - delicious! - and we went to bed early - so glad to BEE here!!

We watched church services online Sunday morning.

I love the daily calendar a dear blog friend gave me and I have loved this verse from when I was a little girl. I identified with this scripture when I was a child and now I identify with it as a mother.

This is what my kids put on Facebook for Mother's Day!!

I love being their mother!!

Jesse is a great cook and he made this one morning.

Doesn't that look good??

He cooked it in his air fryer!

We put the small ectric fireplace up and brought out a fan for the front room.

I was slowly pulling the red curtain off the baker's rack when I noticed Samantha under there!

You never know when or where you're going to spy a cat!

She's such a pretty girl!

Sunday was son Dean's 62nd birthday!

This is Dean and his mother Ellen at a Karate ceremony.

Ellen was so beautiful and Dean was - and still IS - so handsome!!

Monday morning Louis Dean was already out in the yard between rains trying to get some of what he calls 'jungle' cut down and cleaned up. I call it my wildflower garden!

He was chomping at the bit to MOW and he didn't really care WHAT as long as he could cut stuff down. We agreed on the area behind the pond where there is next to no flowers!!!

Alas, he said he needed oil in his machine so we would need to go into Mart.

Nope. Sherry had some oil and brought it up to us. 

Next thing I know the lawnmower was blowing out smoke like a steam engine.

LD pronounced a 'cracked head' whatever that means.

I got out of going to Mart but now we just HAD to go to Waco to buy a bigger better lawn mower!

And so that's what we did.

Did I mention it has been raining off and on ever since we got here??

In spite of that - Louis Dean got the mower put together quick as lightning and was out mowing in the rain! That didn't work out too well and he finally came in and said he was simply going to have to wait until things dried out.

As soon as Sherry got off work, we headed into Waco once more on this Monday - this time to celebrate Dean's birthday! His preferred restaurant was closed so our second choice was George's in Hewitt.

They are such a cute couple!!

The Dallas Stars game was on!

We were cheering them on not knowing that Amber and Mike were in attendance!!

Hockey fans!!!

Dallas STARS fans!!

One more game put us in second place in the Central Division.

Tuesday was our Bee Meeting in Hillsboro and Sherry, Louis Dean and I went.

It's a Fellowship of the Sting and we have a light meal before a speaker presents.

Last night Randy Oakley gave the presentation on The Vertical Split.

We always learn a good bit at the meetings and Sherry and I will be doing hive inspections in our apiary this weekend. Right now we have three hives.

Splitting is the only viable and sustainable way to 'grow' our bees as buying new hives each year is so expensive. $375-$425 a hive!

That makes for very expensive honey!

Sherry stopped at Harbor Freight on our way to the meeting so Louis Dean could get some hardware.

Now that he can't mow or till.....he's bound and determined to fix that chest of drawers we found on the curb a few months ago. It has traveled down here and then back to the city and then back down here again. He found the nuts, bolts, washers and screws and more so he was a happy camper!

We came in from the bee meeting and I pretty much went straight to bed - it was only 9:30 and I didn't get up until 10:00 this morning! It was wonderful!

Louis Dean had stayed up late and got up early so he had show and tell!

He finished the repairs on the chest of drawers!

Since he had no pulls or knobs - he improvised with wire and PVC pipe!

He does think outside the box!!

I admired his work and then addressed the awful gross SMELL that hit me when I opened the camper door to go out in the front room!

What a STENCH! 

It smelled like a dead animal!

He said, "No, that's just some shrimp I took out of the freezer to use for fish bait."

"Where did you put it?" I asked.

"Back in the freezer!"

NO!!!!!

He did that once years and years ago with some frozen scallops and I still shudder at how long our freezer smelled!

He went back to take the stuff out - but it wasn't there. 

So I assumed it really was a dead critter that had crawled under the deck and died.

I lit candles, put fresh plugins in and kept the camper door closed and AC on so I could have a place to escape the odor!

I just so happened to need a basket that was on top of the fridge and got it down and poured all the pinecones into a different basket and asked Louis Dean to put it back up on the fridge.

That's when he spotted it!!!

The bag of rotten shrimp he had taken out of the freezer and forgot where he had put it!

It had been out all night so it was really bad!

He took it down and I told him to take it far away!

I watched him go out the front screen door and stop at the freezer and open the lid.

That's when I screamed, "NO!!!!NOOOOOO!!!!!NO!!!"

This afternoon he went up to fish for awhile....using that awful shrimp.

He was there in a nice shady spot for 3+ hours but caught no fish.

Could it have been the bait??

Still he had a good time and so did I!

I have my art table out and have been working on some projects.

I've also been reading in my old diaries from the 1990's in preparation of finishing up a complicated chapter. I'm so thankful I have these handwritten pages to help write my Memoir.

It's beautiful in the country and the sun has come out and dried up a lot of the rain!

The mops stay up here and watch out for us!

Yesterday we went to Read's grocery in Mart to get things to take for the bee meeting supper and Sherry said Rugar was lying in the yard in front of their house and he jumped up like he had been shot when he heard our truck leaving! She said he just stood in in shocked disbelief  that we had left!!

Ah, I am loving the country life and savoring the joys of each and every day!