Author Archives: ~~Rhonda

Living in a small town, I share my life with my husband Russell (married in 1977), five children (one still at home), and six cats (one indoors, the others outside).

I teach an online class called “The Christmas Notebook” which is about all things holiday prep. The many facets of celebrating Christmas comprises one of my favorite hobbies. Other favorite things include gardening, reading, cooking, and scrapbooking.

menu plan monday ~ may 11, 2009

We had a great weekend, with company that came Friday evening and stayed until Sunday afternoon. DH’s sister, her DH, their son and his wife and two children were here. Sunday we added DH’s mother, our son and his wife, and a niece. It was fun to have company and we were thankful the weather […]

Mother’s Day bouquet

The bouquet for church this week was full of ‘Miss Kim’ lilac and several kinds of peonies. It smelled SO good! I also tucked in a few sprigs of honesty. The green seedpods looked nice with the pinks and lilacs of the bouquet. ‘Miss Kim’ is a late blooming lilac (our latest) and it has […]

rain!

Yesterday morning, the impending weather looked so bad that I gathered DD from school at 10 AM. We spent about forty minutes in the basement, just before noon, waiting out a tornado warning. We did get some high winds and there was some major damage south of us, but the only ill effect for us […]

baby pics

The mother raccoon took two of the babies and left two. We are feeding them until we can get them to a rehab facility. The larger one weighs almost 15 ounces and the smaller one is about 11 ounces. We’re feeding them kitten formula. Julie, as long as they stay healthy, we’ll keep them till […]

look what we found in our basement

Yup. Four baby raccoons. Had to have the furnace man come and extract them from the furnace duct! Now to catch the mama. Yes, they’re cute. No, we’re not going to keep them. ~~Rhonda

menu plan monday ~ may 4, 2009

I hope we can fit in more of this during the week: Monday hamburgers / homemade buns celery and carrot sticks / dip grapes Tuesday tortilla pizzas Wednesday tortellini with asparagus homemade rolls sugar snap peas Thursday Baked Spaghetti rosemary focaccia peas corn green salad Friday spicy shredded pork (I make it in the crock […]

sunday bouquet

Today’s bouquet was made from irises, snowball bush blossoms and pink columbine. It didn’t turn out quite the way I wanted it to, but how can you go wrong with such beautiful irises? 🙂 ~~Rhonda

i wish spring lasted longer

If you’ve read previous posts, you know spring is my favorite time of year in the garden. It’s lush and colorful and full of “new” everywhere you look. Here are some pictures from our spring garden. The fenced garden sits just north of the mulch pile. In the second picture, you can see our mountain […]

iris season is off and running

These first few irises opened their first blossoms of the season today. Siberian Iris ‘Illini Charm’ This is an old fashioned iris that we do not know the name of. We brought this iris from our previous home. Bought it in a collection of six, years ago. Probably the first irises I ever bought. But […]

spring rain

The weather has been rainy today, but it’s a slow, off and on, gentle, spring rain. Looking out the kitchen door into the back yard, things look wet, but fresh and new. Every time I walk into the kitchen, I am amazed by all the green visible through the windows. There are four windows over […]