Our "instant" green lawn

For a long time we have struggled with weeds and big puddles or small lakes when it rains in our back yard. The soil is so poor in our back yard that even the weeds don't flourish. And of course the bermuda grass doesn't want to grow either.

Here in these photos you can see how the water stands and makes small lakes when it rains. We decided this spring to do something about this problem.

We ordered a dump truck load of top soil and hired someone to

spread the dirt in the low places in the back yard. The man came

to spread the dirt last Monday when Jim came to Montgomery to meet me at the airport after my week-end in NC. Fortunately he

spread it in places where Jim had placed some stakes.

Then we decided to buy centipede sod from a local sod farm instead of sowing seed. We didn't want to have to wait all summer for a new lawn.

Today a big truck came to bring us 2 and 1/2 pallets of sod for our

yard. When I came home from a Mental Health Foundation meeting at 4 pm, Jim greeted me at the door with the message that our sod was delivered around noon today. I hurried and changed clothes and the fun began.

We started placing the big rolls of sod on top of the prepared topsoil in the back yard. Our first thoughts were that it would take days to get all the grass planted and where would we get help to do this. Well, one hour into the job we saw a lot of progress and  2 hours later, we had emptied one of the pallets and covered a lot of the yard. We should be able to complete the rest of the yard by noon tomorrow, just before the rains move in.

Our yard is going to be so pretty and green this summer and we will enjoy looking at it when we sit on our back porch. Our flower bed in the middle of the back yard has been enlarged and we are going to use half of it for a vegetable garden. This is the next big project as well as planting more flowers in some of the existing flower beds.

I love working outdoors and planting things and watching them grow. Maybe this is because I grew up on a working farm and watched my daddy plant gardens and crops of peanuts, corn and cotton. We always had fresh garden vegetables in the summer. Maybe we can grow some this summer. We're going to try.

Our Easter trip to Charleston and Florence, SC

On March 31, we traveled to Charleston, SC which is on the bay/ocean. This is a view of the Charleston harbor and the old historic district. On the extreme left you see "The Battery", which is a beautiful park and beautiful old homes.

I took this picture when we were on a boat ride to visit Ft. Sumter, where the Civil War began in 1861, on a small island in the Charleston harbor. 

Here you see a  photo of 350 passengers loading on the boat to go

to Ft. Sumter. It was a beautiful, sunny and clear day. Lots of

school kids were on field trips that day.

In the background of this photo you can see the new Cooper Bridge which connects Charleston to Mt. Pleasant. You can also

cross the Cooper River via water taxi and ferry boats. On our return trip from Ft Sumter, we saw the WWII carrier, "Yorktown" located at Patriot's Point across the river.

We also witnessed a Chinese freighter "Yang Ming" coming in to

unload big cargo containers of goods being shipped to the US.


At the end of our Ft Sumter tour, we went to the SC Aquarium

which was next door to the Ft Sumter docking pier.


A huge tank of fish filled the center of the building, three stories tall. We saw a diver in the tank, feeding the fish. He would look

out the window and talk to us. Very interesting how he feeds

so many varieties and sizes of fish, including a shark.

We took our granddaughter Katie out to eat twice while we were

visiting in Charleston. She is a freshman at College of Charleston.

On Thursday night, we took Katie and 3 friends to dinner at a restaurant they selected on King Street in historic district near the college. We had so much fun getting to know her friends. They all seem like sisters.


Easter weekend we traveled to Florence, SC and took Katie home

for Easter. On the way home Friday afternoon, we stopped in

Santee at the big Santee Cooper Lakes for a cookout and boat ride at Bill's friend Kerry's place on the lake. Afterwards we headed to Florence, about an hour north.


Jim and I are pictured here with our youngest son, Bill. He has been a widower for 13 years and has been both Mom and Dad to his 3 beautiful daughters who were all home for Easter; Nerissa, a Jr at Clemson; Katie, freshman at College of Charleston, and the youngest, Caroline, an 8th grader at St Anthony school.



We had fun shopping on Saturday before Easter. I can't buy them clothes unless they are with me to pick them out and try them on.

Katie bought a new dress and sweater, Nerissa only wanted some new earrings, and Caroline wanted a new dress to wear to her school masquerade ball the end of April. Can you believe it took most of the day Sat. to buy these few items? Maybe you haven't shopped with young girls in awhile! It was so much fun being with them.

We loaded into 2 cars and headed for church at St Anthony's at 10:30 a.m. on Sunday. Had to get there early to get a seat for the 11 am mass. Came home afterwards and the girls helped me prepare the Sunday Easter meal and put it on the table.


Then Katie and Nerissa had to leave to go back to college after lunch. We hated to see them leave. They're all grown up now!


The rest of us gathered in the den and watched an old movie that made us laugh. When it was over, we all went to bed early. It had been a busy day - but fun to have everybody together for awhile. We headed back home on Monday, leaving Caroline asleep as she had the day off. Bill had to go back to work.

Uneventful trip back home (almost 9 hrs) except for the yellow fog, which was actually lots of pollen floating about in the air. I started reading a book when we left Florence and almost finished reading it before we reached home.

We had a great road trip to SC. Wish our other son Ronnie and his family in Austin, TX could have been with us. We will get to visit with them in May when we gather in Black Mountain, NC for my niece Beth's wedding on May 29th. Granddaughter Allison will be missing since she will be on a college trip to Italy.

Taking in the County Fair

Saturday we took Maddy, Anna, and Lindsay to the Sarasota County Fair. The fairgrounds are a permanent fixture just east of the city. Many years ago the area around the fairgrounds was all country - filled with orange and other citrus groves, and truck farming. Now the city has sprawled all the way from downtown to Interstate 75. The dairy farm adjoing my sisters home has been converted to subdivisions and  lately,  big box stores. A huge shopping center is within walking distance.

Judy's daughter Jennifer and her little girls arrived from Orlando on Friday afternoon and we took them on their first trip to "the fair". It was so much fun watching them as they enjoyed the many shows taking place. The first one was a pig race. I must admit that I have never seen pigs racing. I guess it was patterned after the Florida dog races. You should have seen those pigs run around the track!

Nobody wanted to ride the big elephant. But it was fun watching people climb up on top of the elephant and be led around a ring inside a big fenced area. I rode an elephant once and was afraid he might take off running.... but he just walked along the path at the Cincinnati zoo. We saw a tiger show and felt sorry for the tigers who stayed in a big covered truck between shows. I know it must have been hot inside that truck. They looked so sleepy when they came out.

Their favorite thing for the little nieces was riding all the wild rides. Even 5 year old Lindsay loved riding the ferris wheel, the swings that flew out into space, vertical drops, etc. I just stood back and watched!

We stopped to listen to the music shows: oldtime music, bluegrass, etc. We wanted to see the sea lion performance but the crowd was always too big and we couldn't get close.

The whole afternoon was so much fun since we had the little girls along and watched them with all their excitement. I can't believe they actually ate that big bag of cotton candy and the giant (very sweet) elephant ear.

We were there all afternoon and started to get a little sunburned, altho the temperature as in the low 70s and a slight breeze. A perfect day to go to the fair...........

Too bad Jim and Guy got "put in jail".

Soaking up the Sun in Sunny Sarasota, FL

    

We arrived in Sarasota this afternoon around 4 p.m. after an 8-hour trip from home. Traffic was not too bad on I-75. I guess we were a few hours ahead of the spring break kids headed to FL this weekend. What we did see were a lot of expensive motor homes, most with FL license plates. I can only imagine how much money it takes to fill their gas tanks. Jim said that if they could afford to buy those big homes on wheels, then they surely must have money to buy gas 

for them.


                                                           We are visiting my sister Judy and her husband Guy. Today their daughter Jennifer and her three little girls arrived from Orlando for the weekend with us.

We celebrated Maddy's 11th birthday which was March 12. They brought their new (6 weeks old) puppy, a Morky,  with them. 

The girls and their new pillows I made for them.  Maddy is holding up one of her two floor pillows.  This is the back side with the appliqued flip flops.

Spring has sprung - finally!

Today the sun was shining and the temperature got up to the low
70s and all of a sudden, flowers were blooming everywhere.


Our King Alfred daffodils are so pretty this year. I have them scattered all around the yard.


Because of the spring drought last year, we only had about a dozen blooms and they were small. This year they are so pretty.

Our tea olive tree is full of fragrant blooms, just outside the back

porch door leading to the kitchen. It blooms several times a year.

The purple Japanese magnolia is showy - but doesn't last long. The first cold night it will get killed back, and turn brown.

The green plant growing under the bell by the back porch is Rosemary. I love to touch the leaves and smell them. It's an evergreen.

Who do you think you are?

Friday night we watched a TV program on NBC "Who Do You Think You Are?" and found it most interesting. Both Jim and I like geneaology and have done a lot of research, especially Jim.

We had fun watching as Sarah Jessica Parker located her ancestors and learned that one was part of the Salem Witch trials. Someone had reported that she was involved with two others in practicing witchcraft in Salem, Mass. Her great grandfather left his family in Ohio and went west in 1848 as part of the gold rush crowd. They never saw him again as he died young, working as a miner searching for gold. They had a lot of photos and you could see certain family traits passed from generation to generation.

This is also true in our families. My Smith ancestors from NC and PA were Quakers. My Papa Smith was a very devout Methodist and shunned material things. I don't remember that he ever owned a car; travelling by horse and wagon when I was young. His daily family devotions were long and I would usually fall asleep while he was reading the Bible. Looking back I can see how his Quaker ancestory was reflected in his daily living. I've heard reference to the large Smith nose all my life. In fact, I inherited this trait.


Our oldest son looks so much like Papa Smith and Papa's father, William Cole Smith. He gets his height from them also. The older photo is my great grandfather William Cole Smith, and his son is O.C. Smith, my grandfather.

March came in like a lion!

When will spring ever get here, I wondered, as I put more firewood on the fire tonight. Today was a dark, windy, very cold day and misting rain all morning. I struggled to get things done that I had been putting off for awhile. Not every exciting, huh?

I went to the gym this morning and worked out on the weight machines for 30 minutes (trying to make my stomach smaller) and then walked on the treadmill for 30 min. without holding onto the rail. Nobody was there and I turned the TV on to keep me company.

I am learning to use Skype on my computer to talk to family members. It's so much fun to see who you are talking to. Our son called around 7 pm from SC. It's a different experience - to be looking at the person you are talking to. There's so much about high technology that I can't understand. For instance I've had my current cell phone for about 4 years and just yesterday discovered you can use it to take pictures!! And I still haven't learned to go back and get voice mail. My brain short circuits when I start trying to learn new technology.

For instance I am still trying to learn how to turn on (the sequence of pushing buttons) our new HD TV. To add to the complications, you also have a sound bar to operate. But during the olympics I think I learned how to turn the tv on and off. Oh, you don't just push one button to turn it off! I really enjoyed watching the olympics in HD and surround sound. It was like being right there. You could almost feel the bumps as the skiis were gliding over the hard snow and ice.

Today, to make the dull day a little brighter and cheerful, I made strawberry shortcake for lunch. Found good ripe strawberries at the market yesterday and sliced them and piled them over angel food cake covered with whipped cream (for me it was free Kool Whip). Made me think of summertime!

For breakfast today, I sliced an apple and cooked it while I made some toast and spread it with part skim ricotta cheese. I placed the apples on top and sprinkled some cinnamon and Splenda on them and sat down to have a delicious low calorie Apple Danish for breakfast. It's nice to eat something other than oatmeal or cheerios for breakfast.