R & R and SNAKE!

Not really R & R, I have been nonstop for a few days.  So much so that I have avoided the garden on purpose.  One more green been, cucumber or pulling weeds possibly would have put me over the edge.  As usual when I feel enough is enough I take a step back and evaluate what I need to do to keep in the safe zone.  99.9% of the time  it works, the other 1% look out!  Even Mr. B can see it brewing and side steps me at all costs.  Well I'm back in step and all is right in Cheryl's world for a while.....maybe.

For the last few days I have been painting the front porch floor and back deck rails and spindles.  I just love spindles (joke), we only have a few thousand (exaggeration)  but if you count each spindle that has 4 sides it sure feels like a thousand.  Normally the painting would have been done in June but with the frequent rain and my ankle it had to wait.  Back on task to get my outside chores done before cold weather sets in.  If you think Dick should be doing the painting it is one of those things I can do while he does more important ones.  Like building our outdoor oven.  He worked today setting the firebrick for the oven bottom and 2 rows up the sides.  Next he will be starting the round shape of the dome.

Setting the fire bricks.

Today was a finish the 6th of 9 quilts.  Face Book can be pretty terrific at times.  I mentioned this morning how much I hate binding a quilt and my friend from Austin posted a woman's name that made it easy for her.  I googled that name and there she was on YouTube.  Ha! How great she was and how great Jeannie was to "pass it on".   Thanks Jeannie.   Step by step I would stop the video and work along.  I no longer will dread binding!  The next 3 quilts will be a pleasure.

The first corner of the improved binding technique!
Much better way.

When I was on the back deck working with the quilt a car pulled in the driveway.  Yes, exciting when we get company.  Best of all today it was my niece Jeri, her husband Tim and my SIL, Natalie.  Jeri and Tim moved from Shinglehouse a long time ago.  We only see each other a couple times a year.  We are very much alike, we should be my brother is her father.  All three of us are quick to tell ya "where the bear $$$$ in the buckwheat.  One other thing we have in common..........scared to death of...........SNAKES!  When Jeri came towards me on the deck she was holding a zip lock bag towards me.  At first I thought she was learning to crochet, one more step and all I could say was.....Oh My God!  It was a SNAKE shed.  I figured out after Jeri left, she is one step up the ladder from me because I would never have touched the thing!   If that wasn't enough she had a story that is more like my worst nightmare or scary snake movie.  I truly can not believe she is a alive to tell.  At her home in NC she was mowing their lawn, it's a big lawn and the have a big JD lawn tractor. She was near a ditch and felt something rub across her foot!.. Yes, when she looked down it was the front part of a Big Black Snake!!  She picked her feet up, so much so the tractor shut off, if you don't keep your butt square on the seat it shuts off for safety reasons.  By this time she is all teary eyed and goose bumps telling the story.  I'm beyond words, just staring.  Kinda like when Dick would tell our kids and grands  about  Hide-Behinds, Hillside Moonies and Swamp Angels.  They would just set and stare, for years they feared them.   Right, the snake story.  Some how she managed to keep her head (can't believe it) and get the lawn mower started, the thing flopped to the ground and she ran over it chopping it up!  She was a mess but heart still beating (much faster I'm sure).  I can not imagine going through something so awful.  Pretty sure there will be flashbacks and dreams for her and maybe me.  I have been thinking of it all afternoon.  Tim went around their shed near where the snake was killed and found the fresh skin it had recently shed.  Ewwwww!  That is what she had in the zip lock bag....blahhhh!  Everyone that lives south of us say, don't kill Black Snakes, they kill rodents and dangerous snakes and are harmless.  Black Snakes grow to a huge size,  I'm saying 6,7 or more feet!  Thank the Lord we do not have them, size alone I would never live through seeing one much less crawling over my foot on a lawn mower.  We really didn't talk about anything but that snake...Poor kid!  She will always be a kid me ♡  

I think Jeri is close to 5'10'' (height we do not have in common)
This snake shed is 6' if not more, yuck!