Good Eats...

Shepherd's Pie with Creamy Potato Topping

Here is a good way to stretch your budget. Presenting: 

Shepherd's pie with puffy potato topping!

It is filled with carrots, corn, peas, baby Lima beans, and 

pepper-jack cheese cubes in a white rue.  

Of course, to suit our complex family needs...

one is vegetarian and one has roasted chicken added.

Hummmm hummmmm good.
Enjoy these photos~wish I could offer you
a slice through the screen y'all!!
:-)       

Flaming Peach Bud...

O.K., so God is in all things, even the littlest of things.

(I need) to remember that.

:-)

lg

Flower Fun

Caught this beautiful specimen in the rain today! 

And we have had a lot of it! What is it about raindrops pooled 

on a flower that are so intricate and amazing?

Anyway, I love them!

Come on Along!

On our drives into hollows here we encounter 

the most peaceful resting places and 

homesteads that (at one time) were bustling along a 

single lane gravel road. Here is (just) one of them.

There is something about a barn-red house that compels 

a photograph (or two!) Also, the rustic gray small old home 

flanked by trees that were about 4 times its size spoke well to the 

era in which people lived in this place. Come on along! Enjoy. 

Do you feel the peace and quiet of this place?

Unexpected...

 beauty.

Salmon!

 'Salmon' Beauty

We 'caught' this huge salmon azalea bush in the country 

(at a yard sale) with a trickling mountain stream 

and yellow buntings nearby. 

What breathtaking color!

lg

Foggy Morn

It's a beautiful foggy morning here in the High Country. 

The fog is thick and unexpected. 

These are two shots of the fog lolly gagging about.  

Top Shot: A real beauty of a fat and a wide all white 

azalea bush (rare) we spied at an 'out

in the country' yard sale. There were loads of huge black
bumble bees floating in and out of the blossoms,
but do you know that they don't like being photographed?

What a great way to start off this week!

Enjoy!

Come and walk these ol' hills (with me!)

lg

A Few More Photos...

of a beautifully painted morning
in the High Country!

lg

Dreamy

O.K., so I am an incurable romantic, I suppose...

This morning the skies were awash in watercolor!

(What a glorious glimpse of a gentle spring 

(wet, with low lighting) morning!)

(I apologize for the sparse blogging this week! 
I am currently having problems with 
my uploading of photos (so slow-slow-slow)
and hope to have this worked out! )

I know, I know...

 Tender Pink (Paper Thin)Azaleas Out Front 

(before the 'so far 2 day storm...')

...I 'should have' gotten you a photo of the snow falling yesterday, 

and how it stuck on the top of the picnic table (where Ginger stands) 

and in the troughs of the garden, BUT I just plain wimped out! 

The winds were blowing up to 45 miles per hour! So, instead I mainly 

stayed inside (aside from 3 car trips and a down filled jacket out.) 

O.K., I just couldn't force myself to go out in that wind!

What is it about a month of weather in the 60's that turns one into 

a wimp? I hated that blowing wind yesterday.

It is morning and it is supposed to WARM UP today.

Hallelujah!

I have been thinking about photographing, for you, how we 

wrapped up all of our plants in blankets with clothespins, and cut up 

sheets and put them down in strips, with rocks to hold them...and how 

my husband tore apart a bale of golden hay and sprinkled it (wet) all over 

our tiny, budding plants. It remains to be seen, as the wind is still howling, 

just how our young plantings fared in a freeze....

(Never plant until mid May; is that our lesson, 

here, I am left to wonder at this point??!)

Of course, dear reader, you will be the first to know

...just how our garden survives. I think the tops of 

my rose bushes were crispy, however. :-(  

Today's Pics:

Indoor shot: My Husband's Secret Recipe (fresh out of the oven):  
Jalapeno Cheddar Cornbread; very g-o-o-d! Sink your teeth in! :-)

Rainy Day Fun...

The Girls (Top: Vintage!)

Come on! 

Let's have a doll party!! O.K., O.K. So~I was born in 1958, 

therefore Barbie was a BIG influence in my era (you know~ there weren't 

a whole lot of other choices for us at the time, you see!)

I played with her endlessly (even in snow-lake-puddle diving as the 

Wisconsin winter was melting away, as a girl :-) ) 

She was a lot of FUN. 

Recently, I asked my 16 year old daughter if she wanted me to 

sell my vintage and antique dolls, or restore them (for her.) 

Of course, she answered "I want (you) to keep them (for me) Mom..."

So, I began, on a very rainy day, this week, to restore them. 

Here are the results on a small baby (antique) sleepy-eyed 

doll that was my Mom's/Aunt's or Grandmother's doll. She had no hair 

(just strands of carrot red but mostly bald) and dirty clothes. 

I am planning to still repair her slightly cracked eyelid and further 

clean her up; also gluing on the sweet wig you see that I ordered 

(I had never ordered a doll wig or any wig before, so this was fraught 

with difficulty for me.) 

Doesn't she look cute, though?

She is still in good shape. I imagine that she is from the 1930's.

Then~~~ there is my early 1960's vintage pony tail-swirl 

Barbie (next in the long polka-dot gown.) She had no clothes and was 

crunched up in a case that was ruining her hair. 

Doesn't she look grand??? 

Yes, I did have many a good day, as a girl, holding her red painted fingernail hand...

Finally ( I couldn't help myself once I did get started...) 

Things are like that, don't you think?

I got a steal of a deal (at Big Lot's) on a reproduction  

(Barbie) doll of her. Apparently, the vintage Barbie pony-tail swirl doll is worth 

quite a lot of money today (as much as $150.00 or so.) 

Who would have 'thunk' it, seriously?!

I hand sewed these gowns (and the stole) for them (O.K., come on!!)

 I have always, always 'wanted' to design clothing. 

And here is (was) my chance! It was great fun and certainly a challenge for me. 

It had been a LONG time since I had even looked at a pattern.... 

I still have work to do on 2 other dolls. 

I hope you like this trio.

Yours, 

Louvregirl,  the 'designer.'

Sweet.

Crescent Moon Beauty

 

Crescent

I hopped out of my bed today to capture this, 

a crescent moon beauty amid pine needles;

waving, on a light purple and gray sky.

:-)

Just for Fun...

Morning

  

Sunlight streaming in 

on wet, moist garden

mounds that offer birds sweet

delicacies.

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Hair’s (Definitely) the Thing

Teenage daughter wants blue hair.

I don’t like my white hair.

Son appears with brown mop, thick-growing facial hair.

Dad strokes long beard, gray-lamenting “No hair.”

Collie dog hair-everywhere.

--------------------------------------------------------------

Possibility

Possibility

When left to my own devices, what would I do?

Roam the hills, weave up wild flowers, and bring them to you?

If given time, to find my thoughts, what would I say?

Love is like a blossom, tender in May.

If I could sit some place peaceful, in a chair, where would it be?

At the bedside, of my son (although he is 23.)

If I could perform a menial task, what would I choose?

I’d weave the tail of a horse, or flip a pancake, or two.

Charlotte Skyline...

 

Charlotte Skyline (Posterized)  

Top: Night Time City-scape

A drive to nearby Charlotte this week revealed blue 

skies and these well designed sky scrapers. And they were 

even well dressed up at night! It was a balmy 78 

degrees out of the mountains...just heavenly!