Sore muscles as predicted...

Whew, what a lot of work we got done this weekend! The spare room is ready for visitors, the weeds were pulled from around the plants out front and out back, the yard was mowed up close to the cabin as the horses pretty much take care of the rest. It's nice to have them there when it comes to mowing :)  We didn't get to plant the veggies because we had more work than we expected getting the outhouse ready. In fact, the guys are working on it again today. However, my garden area was enlarged due to Wally clearing out some old boards while looking for the cedar with which to line my closet.

He found enough wood and by chance found a couple of black snakes as well. One was about 3 1/2 feet long. The other one was in the process of shedding so I couldn't tell how long it was. Black snakes kill rodents so we left them alone to do their job. It is a farm after all and rodents live out there too. The black snakes are beneficial just as the horses are - albeit, horses are much more fun!!

I must have made 12-15 trips up and down the stairs (hence the sore muscles...) Saturday just helping Wally with the closet. It had a bunch of junk on the floor that needed sorted and put away elsewhere and there was a bunch of dust which we eliminated with the shop-vac. We hung the plastic over the insulation so it can't get on my clothes and Wally hung the cedar on the ceiling. We can't do the walls until the U-Verse guys come out just in case they need to get to the wiring for the televisions. I can live with that - just having all my clothes upstairs will be nice.

The spare room looks nice. I have had a set of sconces that were an anniversary gift from AT&T and I've never had a place to display them. Once I got everything out of the room, I was able to put my sconces on the windowsill and my antique telephone table in the corner with, none other than, a candle holder! It looks very cozy and quaint in that room. Anyone who stays in there should sleep very soundly. Just walking by makes me want to climb into the bed. But that was sooooo not going to happen this weekend - too much work to be done.

After breakfast, I donned my gloves, sunscreen, bug spray and hat and off I went to the yard (clothes too ha ha!). The day lilies have a ring of rocks surrounding them which help to keep the weeds at bay but some still sneak in and have to be eliminated. I'm pretty sure no weeds had been pulled in a good couple of years or more! The rocks sometimes get displaced by the horses so they have to be set back in place. I picked up sticks and branches that had fallen, I pulled weeds and set rocks and mowed and I sweated from the minute I stepped out the door. Surely I must have sweated off about 5 pounds... the clothes don't show it but any exercise is good. The smell of freshly cut grass completely covered the scent I had been working on ha ha ha - thank goodness.

It was warm enough to use the shower in the hot tub room so after I brought the clothes in off the line, I got into that shower and scrubbed the day's work off. It was so refreshing it reminded me of that first "real" shower you get after you've been camping for a few days. A bird bath is okay when it's necessary but the real thing just can't be beat, especially on a hot, humid, Saturday in May. I even left the back door open so the breeze could come through if one happened to kick up :)  Brazen, huh?  lol

I took pictures of the day lilies as they are now as tall as I am and there are two flowers open. However, my work computer won't allow me to send pictures to it from my new phone. I have no idea what changed because I was able to send a couple of them before it shut me down. I'll figure out some way to get the pictures on here but it may take a while. Just because I created the blog, doesn't make me computer savvy...LOL  trust me.

The mystery plants have still not bloomed but one of the buds fell off so I stuck it in some water and it opened up to about golf ball size, maybe a little bigger and it has a whole bunch of little pods that are beginning to stick up - pretty cool looking even if it is a mystery :)

We headed over to give the horses some sweet feed and these days we don't even have to call them. If they even think we're headed that way, they come along. Of course Rebel was more than happy to let us rub his nose, ears and neck. Smokey was a whole different story. He wouldn't come to us for nothing. There are two entrances they can use to get back to the feeding area and he kept going from one to the other. I was even holding out the bucket of feed for him and he wouldn't come to it. At one point he got so close he could probably see in the bucket but instead of sticking his head in it and eating, he turned and ran the other way. He even tried to run Rebel off which he succeeded in doing but only temporarily.

After they ran around in the woods for a couple of turns Rebel came back to his trough. Not Smokey - he snorted and stomped the ground and even tried stomping the dog and still he wouldn't come to us. I thought he had hurt the dog and he was beginning to lose my favor when I realized that if had really wanted to hurt the dog, he totally could have. He was just showing off. We weren't about to give in so we just kept petting Rebel and standing with our backs to Smokey. Well he must have thought we couldn't see him (like a 2 year old with his head in a closet and the rest hanging out...) because as long as we had our backs to him, he would slowly creep up to us. It's amazing how quiet they can be when they want to. So it took him about 20-30 minutes to get close and then we set his bucket down and he was finally rewarded with his feed.

Wally petted him but I was still a little put off by his antics and his acting like he was going to hurt the dog. I told Wally I would pet him another day, when he deserved it and after I get over it. Wally just laughed at me. I'm not changing his personality by doing this and I know Smokey could care less but that didn't matter. In fact, he was probably happier without me petting him at all... lol.

I did get to see my turkey hen as she wandered across the front yard in search of sweet feed droppings. She didn't have any babies with her but I know they'll be coming by soon. She has to show them the way and the horses will undoubtedly keep dropping the feed as they munch.

The steaks I mentioned last week were tender, juicy and cooked just the way I like them. Since the weather was holding up, we got our cooler and a couple chairs and headed out to the grill. Wally had already put some roasting ears on and the steaks were added after those were almost done. You know the smell of the grill when your neighbors are cooking out? Yeah, it was that good. The steaks were cooked to perfection for me - not so much for Wally. He likes his more medium but he ate them anyway. The corn was crunchy, salty and dripping with melted butter and I had bought some canned butter beans seasoned with Vidalia onions so I heated them up to go along. I think they were Glory brand - they were delicious. I've never seen them in FL so you may have to come here to get them...But Oh Man was this ever a Good Dinner!

I cleaned up the kitchen and we fed the corn cobs to the horses. They really love them and we also found that they like cantaloupe skins, strawberries and cucumber peels. They make the funniest faces when they eat the cantaloupe.

I made some chicken broth on Sunday which I'll bag up and freeze tonight for later uses. I couldn't use my regular recipe because I couldn't find it. I'm hoping Ernie or Kathy will forward it back to me so I can go back to my old way using the slow cooker. In any event, the dogs were happy because I made this broth with a chicken carcass left from Saturday night's dinner and I threw in some celery tops and bottoms, some carrot peels, some onion end pieces, some asparagus ends and some frozen green beans. It may sound like soup but you wouldn't want to eat the veggies as they were mostly scraps that I had frozen in bags for just this purpose. Frozen green beans are horrible in my estimation so they went in the pot just for added flavor and to get rid of them. I've cooked with them before and they come out with a rubbery texture that just doesn't work for me. Canned or fresh but no frozen green beans. Once I strained the veggies off, they went into the dog bowl and were devoured in less than a couple of minutes. Who knew dogs would eat all those vegetables - even the onion ends were gone! LOL 

The house smelled wonderful with that broth cooking all day so of course, we were getting hungry. We had tacos for dinner using corn tortillas. I think I'll go back to Aunt Karen's recipe for Taco Surprise next time. The corn tortillas just didn't hold up well once they were filled. Aunt Karen's recipe has Fritos on the bottom and everything else you would put on a taco, on the top. Hers were certainly more yummy than mine were last night. I remember well that it used to be everything she cooked was teasingly called "Prison Food" or the "Same Old Sh_t." It was easy to figure out what we were having that way. Those days are gone and my Aunt Karen has become an amazingly wonderful cook. Her beef and pork roasts are second to none and I always enjoy hanging out with her and cooking up something good for all of us to eat.

As my weekend came to a close, my laundry was done with no rain to interfere, my house was more organized than ever, my yard looked beautifully cared for and everyone had full and satisfied bellies. It just doesn't get much better than that. 

I hope you enjoyed your weekend as thoroughly as I enjoyed mine...

"I base most of my fashion sense on what doesn't itch." ~Gilda Radner