Jet fireworks!

The sky was so blue today, that the jet contrails looked like fireworks coming across Catherine Knob! Despite the beautiful blue sky, it is still cold and windy....not a day for being outside. We just finished watching a terrible movie "2012" - don't bother....Lee and Danny will be coming up for dinner tonight, and Tom is going to grill some chicken - YUM!

Back again!

Well, I've been pretty lax and missed most of the posting for the winter. But I'm back....



We went up last weekend, and the snow from Thursday was still around....deep enough that I had trouble getting up the driveway, and Tom had to actually stay inside and "relax".






And check out these great new wineglasses that Lynne gave us for Christmas!

Hiking in the snow, dead bats...and other stuff!

Last weekend, we went hiking on Saturday up at Grayson Highlands State Park in Virginia. Imagine our surprise when we turned the corner and saw this! There was still quite a bit of snow hanging around up there, and it was windy and cold. But we found 4 geocaches!

As for the Roost, look what we found on the dog's porch.....a dead bat! We have no idea what happened to him. He'd been dead for awhile, and the dogs (fortunately!) didn't seem interested in him.
Tom is so brave.....

It was quite chilly on Saturday morning - this was the smoke from "Mommy's" chimney drifting down the valley.

I went for a long walk and found what I hope will be a woodpecker nest. He (or she) was busy inside pecking away. I waited for a pretty good while, but they never came out so I'm not sure what kind of woodpecker it is. But I'll be checking back each weekend to see if there's more activity.

Inside, we did a few more things....

First we hung our chicken clock in the den.

We hung our rooster trivet on the porch.

We hung our "weather stick" (Those of you who have been up, know what it's real name is!)

and I brought up some new pillows for the sofa

I found them at World Market - aren't they great?

Snow, snow and more snow!

We finally got back up to the Roost last weekend. There was still LOTS of snow in the pastures!Our wonderful neighbor, Donald, plowed our driveway so we could get up and check things athe house.

We still had some trouble - as you can see the snow was still pretty deep!

Icicles were growing from the roof...

But once inside, the views were breathtaking!

The snow on the deck was at least 2 feet deep!

We weren't brave enough to turn the water on and see if the pipes held up - maybe next time!

Lots of stuff!

Lots of miscellaneous stuff this week...First of all, the screened porch. You can see we still need to stain the door, but it looks great! And you can hardly tell from the inside that it's screened!

We also painted the bathrooms this weekend - here's the hall bath

And here's our bathroom - looks a lot less "cavernous" with some color on the wall!

And, if you've been up, you'll remember the "Pizza Hut House" up on the mountain across the pasture. We called it that because it had a bright red roof. But lo and behold, they have redone it, so we don't know what to call it anymore!

We had some visitors on Saturday morning...

Oh, no! She heard me

Happy Belated Fourth of July!

We had a LOVELY Fourth of July weekend - hope you did too!

My friend, Donna, made this patriotic (and delicious!) dessert for our dinner.

But before the Fourth, Rilla came up and we headed up on Thursday. On Friday, we took a drive down a new gravel road and saw some neat sites...

A really cool old tree!
And this grasshopper came along for the ride on our windshield for a little while..

We also saw two sets of mother and baby deer while out driving - the babies were very small with lots of spots - unfortunately, no pictures!
Meanwhile, Tom washed and compounded his tractor, hoping for great results...

My cousin gave me her old dishes with roosters on them, so Rilla helped me reorganize my cabinets - it's so good to have someone tall around besides Tom!

Our neighbor, Donna and Raymond drove up on Friday to join us. Raymond settled right in...

Donna, Rilla and I took a short walk to gather some wildflowers for our table

On Saturday, the boys played golf, and we headed over to West Jefferson for Christmas in July. It was really crowded, but we managed to find a couple of fun things for the house. First, this rooster for the porch (he's much less scary looking in person!)

And this cute sketch of roosters called "The Boys" by a local artist...

After we all got back home, we had the traditional chicken barbecue. Raymond insisted that the grill be FULL and it was - 12 leg quarters and a half dozen breasts!

and here's out dinner table and view for the Fourth - pretty nice, huh?

And here are the group shots - first, the girls....
And the boys...

Many Many updates

I am "woefully" behind in my posts - so here's a long post with lots of pictures - in no particular order....

New chest in our room.

Dresser that was in the can house at the old house that Tom refinished - and a second hand mirror I found at a consignment shop.

Headboard for our King bed

Runners for the hall.

Second hand vase with new flowers

Bluebird houses....Tom put up 3 around the house, and within 45 minutes we had 2 pairs checking them out and fighting over who was going to get which one!

New curtain for the kitchen

Harry and Anne back up on the wall

Rooster hook for the porch

Funky chicken napkin holder

And last but not least - moonrise over Catherine's Knob!