News from Casey County KY

I was standing in line at the pharmacy today, and my cell phone rang. But I was talking with the gentleman behind the counter about my prescription, so I didn't answer my phone.

So I looked at the number that had called, and it was from the Mennonite couple, Mr and Mrs W. They don't have a phone in their home, but near Mr W's shop is a public phone booth for the Mennonite folks to use to make phone calls.

There was a message on my voicemail from Mrs W saying that all of my references had checked out, and that I could rent their cabin from them. They are going to be cleaning inside and out of the cabin for the next couple of weeks to get it ready for me. No one has lived there for almost 3 years, and the grass/weeds have grown up quite a bit. And there are some things inside the cabin that need to be repaired.

So I hope by about the third week of September I will be making my move down to Casey County KY. I need to call Mr and Mrs W back to let them know I got their message - and find out how much rent is going to me - we didn't decide on an exact amount when I was down there a couple of weeks ago. But I know that it will be way less than what I am now paying in this 2 bedroom apartment in Lexington.

I'll keep ya'll posted. I am headed to Casey Co on Wednesday to help my friend, Bobbett, with some of her garden work. I need to get out of town for a day, and be somewhere where it is quiet. There is construction going on around the apartment complex with heavy machinery, etc, and it's making me a little edgy. Time to head to the country for a few hours.

Take care, Ya'll. And have a blessed Monday evening, from Fayette Co KY.

Giveaway at West Virginia Treasures

Angela over at West Virginia Treasures is having a giveaway. The winner will be drawn randomly on September 1st. The person who is chosen will win a $40 gift certificate to CSN Stores.

You just have to put a comment in the comments section of which dining room set is your favorite from the CSN website. And you can be entered again for becoming a follower of West Virginia Treasures and you can be entered a third time if you mention the giveaway on your blog and post a link to the giveaway post on Angela's blog.

Hope ya'll are having a good weekend, what is left of it, since here in central KY it's already after 6:30pm. So, head on over to West Virginia Treasures and enter the contest. There are many things on the CSN Stores website for your household.

Take care Ya'll, and have a blessed week, from Fayette Co in the Bluegrass region of central KY.

No News . . . And On The Hunt

No news is good news?

I haven't heard from Mr and Mrs W yet to see if I am going to be able to be their renter. I believe I will contact them next Saturday if I don't hear this week, since I need to let my apartment management know soon that I will not be renewing my lease at the end of Sept.

In the mean-time, I am trying to figure out how I will bathe, and how I will do laundry.

I will be on the hunt for one of these for the cabin:

or maybe one of these:

or maybe one of these:

Then I will need to find a gas-powered one of these:

or this one, without the electrical cord, but a gas motor:

Besides getting a good supply of wood, and even more wood, for cooking and heating, I will be on the lookout for these items to make my life a little more simple when/if I move to the Mennonite cabin.

I'll keep you posted on what transpires this week.

Ya'll have a great weekend, what is left of it. Take care, from Fayette Co, the Bluegrass Region of central KY.

This Moment - Miss Sarah

{this moment} - A Friday ritual. A single photo - no words - capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special, extraordinary moment. A moment I want to pause, savor and remember.

I'm linking to Andrea at Rural Revival for this Friday moment.

My oldest cat, Miss Sarah, a.k.a. Boo-boo. She is getting crotchety in her old age, but she still sticks pretty close to me, moreso than my other 4 cats. Not always lying in my lap, but close by, usually like here, on the arm of the couch beside me while I am on the laptop or crocheting. She'll turn 16 this year, and I've had her since she was about 8 weeks old, when I got her from the Humane Society the day after Thanksgiving 1994 when I first moved to Lexington.

What is your Friday moment?

Take care Ya'll, from KY.

A Trip to Casey County

Note: None of the photos were taken by me - they are from the Internet - I forgot to take my camera with me on my trip to Casey County - 8-(

On Saturday, I drove SW of Lexington to Casey County, where I will be moving at the end of September. I met a great Mennonite couple, Mr and Mrs W, who have a small home or cabin that they may rent to me - if my references check out! LOL

Some of these photos are ones of Amish and some are Mennonite, I know that there is a difference between the two, but I wanted to share some of what I found on the Internet.

The cabin is small, just 16 x 20 with a half loft for sleeping. There is a porch on the main level, and also one on the loft level, which has a porch swing. The area is hilly, and down from one of the hills comes the spring that furnishes the cabin with water. The cabin also has a dumbwaiter where I can put items that need to keep cool, and it is lowered to an area that is in the sub-basement, or below the basement, into a spot that has a spring running in it. The full basement is poured concrete for plenty of storage area, and a lot of shelves for keeping canned goods. The cabin is built on a hill, so the basement is a walk-in.

There is a kitchen area with a deep sink, counter space, and cupboards that run high up towards the ceiling for plenty of storage space. There is a small vanity next to the kitchen counter to wash hands and face. The source of heat and of cooking is like this Pioneer Maid wood cookstove.

Up the hill behind the cabin is an outhouse and a woodshed. There is a large boiler tub where a fire can be started under it to heat for a bath in the warmer weather. I haven't figured out how I am going to do laundry yet, but could conceivably get a gas powered wringer washer, and put that in the woodshed. There is one of those umbrella-type clothes lines so that soon the back of the cabin will take on this look.

For the time-being, when I first move in, I will be doing laundry at a friend's home and bringing it out to the cabin to hang and dry. There is a laundry line in the cabin on pullies that is located in the loft for drying clothes during cold weather. One thing that concerns me is that the lines from the spring to the cabin may freeze in the winter, at which time I'll need to haul water from my friend's home.

I was glad I just bought Ruby, my truck, last Monday because I couldn't have gotten to the cabin without her on the one lane gravel roads. On the way back from the cabin, we drove on a road that went thru a creek, and then up a steep hill. My Toyota Echo would've never made it.

It's going to be an adventure. And I'm not sure how much blogging I will be able to do except maybe once a week when I go to the public library in town to use my laptop. I'm not even sure I can get cell phone recpetion out at the cabin. My current carrier Sprint doesn't have any reception in that area, so I will have to find one that will. I was hoping to get a BlackBerry and keep up with email that way, but time will tell.

I'll keep you all posted on what transpires with this move. My first concern after moving will be to get a good supply of wood for cooking and heating before the weather turns too cold, and the prices go up. I imagine I'm gonna be eating a lot of store-bought canned food for a while until I get my feet under me and figure out how to cook from scratch on the Pioneer Maid. I really want to be able to do some boiling water bath canning and pressure canning to stock up for the winter, but I'll just have to see what time allows. I could easily see myself getting snowed in if we have a bad winter. Oh, and there is a large pond on the property, so like FarmerPam at Life on a Southern Farm, I may be taking my Ivory soap and take a dip in the pond to bathe while the weather is still nice.

Wish me luck, Ya'll. Take care, from soon to be Liberty KY in Casey County.

What's in a name . . .

Meet the new member of my family - The Toyota Pickup Truck

I have yet to name her - and need some assistance in that department

I posted my Toyota Echo on Craigslist very early last Friday

morning. And by 8 a.m. I'd received my first call from someone

wanting to buy her. Then, by 11 a.m. had recieved 4 or 5

more calls. By noon, the first caller took her for a drive

and to her mechanic, had come back and offered to buy her.

I then contacted the seller of this truck to see if they were still

interested in selling at the price we had talked about, and they were.

I went to Harrodsburg KY to pick her up on Monday, and though her

body is not in that great of shape, she runs like a top for a

gal that is 16 yrs old. Her former owner called her Red,

but I need something more substantial than that.

Any ideas? All submissions will be taken into consideration.

Now I feel like a farm-gal. More news to come on my

move to the country after this Saturday afternoon.

Take care Ya'll, and have a blessed Tuesday.

Romney Ridge Farm - "beautiful yarns from happy sheep"

The mailman delivered a package from Kelly at Romney Ridge Farm - she recently had a special of $5 off a few different colors of skeins of yarn. I bought 3 skeins of the "daylily" dye lot. Here is a photo of what I received today in the mail.

This will go nicely with the other yarns I bought from Kelly. And I think I will make an afghan for myself over the winter months. I hope to teach myself to knit during this winter. And just bought the most appropriate book for me - "Knitting for Dummies".

Just thought I'd share this yarn treasure with you today. Ya'll try and stay cool, now. And have a great weekend. Take care All, from KY.

Anticipation - is making me wait . . .

Hi, my name is Kathy, and I am a Dominosoholic.

 Living in town has some advantages, like pizza delivery.

 Last night I was getting my fix, when the pizza delivery gal came

and let something into the apartment. I forgot about it until this morning,

when I saw the cats doing this -

Annie and Pookie - looking at this -

A moth - let in from the hallway by the Dominos Pizza delivery gal

Annie, who has moved to the other side of the couch to get a better look

And Alpheus, taking in all of the action, and

at the same time reminding

me of my addiction

One thing I will love about moving to the country is not being

tempted to order any more pizza delivery - as the saying goes,

A Moment on the Lips, A Lifetime on the Hips

Have a wonderful and blessed Tuesday Ya'll,

from KY

BabyDoll-Bunny Yarn and a Doggy Afghan

I recently bought some yarn from Kelly at Romney Ridge Farm - it is a natural color yarn made of BabyDoll wool and Angora Bunny hair. Here is a photo of the yarn.

It is a kind of bulky weight, and extremely light and soft. I have to decide what I will make with it, but believe I will try and crochet at least one pair of socks for myself. Then decide what to do with the rest.

I've been working on a crocheted afghan throw for an online friend of mine who lives in Chicago. She has Chinese Crested dogs, and they have very little body hair, so chill easily in the Summer air conditioned home. I crocheted one afghan and sent it to her, and am now working on another. My friend, Ginger, picked out some great looking cotton yarn with colors known at Blueberry Fields. She found it at this website Knit One Crochet Too - it is the best cotton yarn I've ever crocheted with, and beautiful colors as well.

Here is a photo of what I have done so far on Payton's (Ginger's puppy) afghan - you can see the different colors of the yarn - what is known on the website as Ty Dy.

The afghan is going to end up being about 46 inches wide, and 27 inches long. It turned out wider than I had expected, but hopefully will work OK for Ginger, and especially for Payton!

Just something to share with ya'll that has been going on with me in Fayette Co KY lately.

Ya'll have a blessed Monday evening. Take care, from KY.

My First Sheep!

Thanks to Sandra over at Thistle Cove Farm

I am now a proud owner of my first sheep!

I won this sheep stamp on one of Sandra's giveaways recently.

Cute isn't it?

This is what the stamp will look like when I can get some ink.

There's a little of a reflection from the camera flash

but you get the jist, right?

So, thanks much, Miss Sandra for sending me the sheep stamp.

It came in today's mail. I'm so excited!

And think of all of the feed I'll save! LOL

Take care All, from KY.

Visiting with Suzanne this morning

I've been over visiting Suzanne McMinn at Chickens in the Road blog - I found a video over there that is on her YouTube account, and it is one of my favorites of hers, and I wanted to share it with ya'll.

A Sheep's Best Friend - is a video of Suzanne's sheep named Annabelle, who thinks she's a dog, playing chase with one of Suzanne's dogs - Boomerang - it's a hilarious video that gets me laughing everytime, especially seeing the way that Annabelle runs - or should I say, hops.

I hope you take the time to look at the video and get a little chuckle from it. And I hope you will visit Suzanne's blog - she is a blogger-extraordinaire, and is a true self-sufficient homesteader. She's an inspiration to me.

Take care All, and have a blessed Sunday - from KY.