Wild Country Randoms

 Queen Anne's Lace growing alongside a country road.

 Orange Milkweed and a thirsty country bee.

 Wild country flowers playing peek-a-boo.

      Country roadside beauties.

Blackberries in the wild. Cliff, Lidia and Sawyer picked enough this weekend for a blackberry cobbler. 

Country spigot to water all these country flowers.

My country garden Sunflower

Not so wild trailing Petunias

 Country Yard Daylily

Leaves of three, let it be.

Country Purples

 I looked and looked for the name of this flower. It grows wild along the banks of the Waccamaw River. Cliff took these pictures and calls them Gator Lilies. Ha!

jfowlerphotography? Maybe you can tell me.

Last but not least, one of my all time favorite country scenes...Hay in a country field.

Laurie

Feeling Crafty

I'm so excited! My children are coming in this week to spend the fourth with us at the lake. Whitney and Jason from Colorado and Emily, Matt, Lidia and Sawyer from just a hop, skip and jump away. 

To get a jump start on the groceries, Cliff and I went to the farmer's market yesterday and bought all kinds of fruits and vegetables.  These blackberries had to come home with us. They are so good! Cliff has already requested that I go back to the farmer's market on Wednesday for more.

To get ready for the fourth, I have been adding a little red, white and blue here and there. And I have a few projects I'm working on. Normally, I don't post about crafts, but since I have been feeling very crafty for the past few days, I thought I would share one of them.

I have been wanting to make a couple of pillows for the chaise lounge chairs on the lower patio...down by the water's edge. I had a couple of ugly pillows that we inherited when we bought the lake house and decided they would be perfect, covered. So, I purchased a painter's drop cloth and a stencil and went about making pillow covers.

First, I measured the pillow and cut the drop cloth to fit those measurements. The pillow is 18", so I cut the fabric 20" to allow for seam allowances. For this particular cover, I made the envelope style. It will be easy to remove and wash, when needed.

After pinning, I took the cover to the sewing machine.

Do you remember when a little over a year ago I had to say goodbye to an old friend? That old friend was my beloved sewing machine. You can read about her here.

Well, here is my new machine and I have yet to give her a name. Maybe you can help me with that. I am open to suggestions.

Anyway, she is a dream to sew on. I still don't know all that she can do, but I am enjoying getting to know her. She was a big help in making the pillow covers, this afternoon. 

Again, I made these in an envelope style and here is the first finished one.

I inserted the pillow here, to make sure it fit. It's a little roomy, but I don't mind.

Now for a little decoration.......

I chose the Fleur-de-lis.

In this step, I marked the center of the pillow cover with a disappearing ink pen. Next, I placed a piece of cardboard between the layers.

And then, centered the stencil over the mark and secured it in place with tape.

Next, I loaded up a sponge brush with some navy blue paint and pounced it over the stencil.

 

Here is the finished cover with the pillow inserted.

And here......their final home.
The lower patio.

The chaise lounges are a favorite spot........

...........for a Sunday afternoon nap. No doubt, these pillows will make the spot even more comfortable.

Zzzzzzzz!

Laurie


P.S. I'm dying to show you some new blooms. Stay tuned.

A So-called Fishing Trip

Load up, y'all. We're going to the river. I'm about to take you on a little trip. A so-called fishing trip.

But first, no fishing trip is complete without food. Oh yeah, we'll have a picnic...right there in the boat. And since it was still early morning, I whipped up a couple of our favorite fried egg sandwiches, packed a couple apples and some granola bars and then we were ready to go.

Cliff hooked up the boat and we headed down to the Garden City Bait and Tackle shop. The no frills kind...the mom and pop kind....the kind that has ice, a few drinks and crickets.

Kind of nostalgic, don't you think? We like to shop at the mom and pop stores.

 

Anyway, with crickets and drinks and a cooler full of ice, next stop was the Waccamaw river.   

 

 

Cliff's been exploring a few creeks shooting off from the main river and thinks he's found a nice one to fish.  So he pulls out his cane, baits it up........

 

 

........and starts the slow paddle along the creek's edge. I, on the other hand, had brought my neighbor's camera. She's brave. She probably didn't remember that I dropped my iPhone in the creek last year. I didn't say anything. I learned a lesson and I was sure I could take good care of her camera. We have been comparing our cameras. Joyce's has more mega pixels than mine and I just wanted to see the difference...up close and personal.

 

And then, there was the hope that we didn't have a repeat of the incident that happened a few weeks ago in Black River.  Cliff had pulled the boat up to the bank under a tree branch hanging out over the water. And of all the trees on Black River, OMG!!!! With a capital OMG!!! There was a big ole fat snake stretched out on it... hovering just above my head. I nearly walked on water. I didn't want to scream, fearing I would spook the snake and he, she or the devil incarnate would fall on me. So, I high tailed it to the back of the boat whispering very loudly for Cliff to "BACK UP! BACK UP! BACK UP!"

 

Lord, my heart hurt for 15 minutes after that incident. I mean, seriously, I've been scarred. I can't even go to the river anymore with coming home with a neck ache.

  

OK, back to the present and after a little while, with no luck yet on catching any fish, we decided to have our sandwiches. I pulled a nice cold bottle of water out of the cooler for me and for Cliff, a canned Pepsi. He has this excessive concern about his drinks. They have to be cold...ice cold. So, he asked me to put some ice in his Pepsi can. What? How the heck am I gonna put ice through that little bitty hole? "There's the ice pick", he says. It was a ding dang knife that could have taken off any one of my ten fingers. But to be the nice, accommodating wife that I am....I commence to stab the one inch cylindrical shaped cubes of ice with the knife - just so he could have an ice cold Pepsi. It took me ten minutes. I think he may have just been messing with me. He can do that with a straight face. But none-the-less, I completed the task at hand and iced his Pepsi. 

 

On with the fishing....and nothing happening. Cliff's fishing patience was wearing thin. He decided to call it quits. But for me, the picture taking was good. So, what started out as a nice little fishing trip turned into a........

 

"Waccamaw River Photo Shoot"

 

Warning: Picture Heavy

Disclaimer: I used my neighbor, Joyce's camera. Thanks, Joyce! Girl, you and your camera rock! I love the close-ups. The distant ones........well let's just say that I needed to read the manual and practice a little more. But hey, have you ever noticed how much flora and fauna is right in your own back yard?  

 

Well come on...let's just see what lovelies showed up through the lens of Joyce's camera.

(Remember that you can click on the photo to see the actual size.)

 

 

Oooh look, a purple flower. I just love, love purple flowers of all kinds...

 

Nice close-up of oak leaves...

 

Sun filtering through the canopy of trees...

 

The grasses along the edge makes a great home and hiding place for the alligators...

 

Interesting tree branch..... 

 

Yellow flowers dotted the banks here and there... 

 

Watch out! Wasps...

 

What do you know...blackberries growing wild along the river bank.

I can just imagine the native Waccamaw Indians snacking on these, back in the day...

 

Cliff's hand after placing the blackberries in mine...

Sweet!

 

Foraged blackberries with a couple of unripe red ones thrown in for color.

Quite tasty...

 

Osprey with a fish dinner in his talons...

 

The Osprey's nest. Can you see the baby Osprey heads sticking up?

 

The stately Cypress tree...

 

And, another leaning towards the river...

I love trees...can't you tell?

 

Not sure what this is called, but do you see the purple flowers among the leaves?

 

Not so much in the main river, but a common site in the creeks is the alligator...

And as luck would have it, we saw one taking a leisurely swim. It's in the middle of the photo just under the hanging limb. If you look closely, the gator appears white...just on the surface of the water.

 

Lastly, one of our usual stops for lunch or dinner when out on the river....Bucksport Marina.

 

 

Hope you enjoyed the Waccamaw River Photo Shoot! This just makes me want to go home to our stomping grounds - Black River - for a photo shoot there.

 

Oh, by the way, keep checking back...there may be a kayaking trip coming soon.

 

And just for good measure......

 

 

I want to wish my baby sister a Happy Birthday!

 

 

Laurie