Oh Say Can You See.......July 4th!!!!

Front porch is ready......

Flag that Gene's Mama made me years ago.....it always
goes on the swing. 

Back porch rocker......

 We're going to have a house full for July 4th.....the kids are all coming!!  There will be nine of us. ( Craig will be spending July 4th with Uncle Sam....no..not " The Uncle Sam" but Sam Hunt....Vivienne's Uncle Sam)  I had fun digging out all my July 4th decorations and decorating the porches.  There will be games, a cookout, swimming or should I say...cooling down in the little pool ....making homemade ice cream and maybe some fireworks....all from the front porch.  Yes, there is our annual chance of rain.  That won't stop us.  It hasn't for the past two years.  July 4th on the front porch has become a Brambly Pines tradition.  HAPPY JULY 4th YA'LL!!!!!!

A Real SUV Meets the Car Wash.....

Last November, one Wednesday we were turning out the side road from Walmart and there it was!!!!  A 2013 Honda Pilot up on the " look at me" rack in the Honda Dealership.  Our poor 2002 blue Ford Explorer which I had loved for all the years was starting to have things happen.  We knew we would have to replace it soon but I didn't care for the newer Explorers.  They are down right ugly!!  We had talked about checking out the Pilot when the time came.  Well, it came!  We drove into the dealership " just to look at the Pilot" and two hours later, we were cleaning out the Explorer and driving the Pilot home.  I am in LOVE with the "new to us" Pilot.  It has all the bells and whistles AND it still looks like a real SUV and I can't wash the top of it just like the Explorer.  I have since discovered the " car wash" in town.  I had never taken any of our cars through a car wash in my life.  I didn't even know how to do it but last week while we were in town, I decided to see what it was like.  I was tired of driving around in a nasty SUV and I knew I didn't have time to wash it at home.  Oh my Gosh!!!!  It was the best $6 I have spent in a really long time!!!  .......and there was FREE vacuuming and FREE window cleaner to use.  I am NEVER going to ride around in a dirty Pilot again....EVER!!!!!

Pickings............

This years garden has out done it'self.  Every day that I go down to water, I end up picking a basket of something.  It has been way too much for Chuck and I to eat, so I've been sharing with the BNOE and who ever comes over to see us.  About this time of year, the garden winds down and it is but there are still tomatoes, cucumbers, beets, okra, butternut squash and watermelon that is still producing....so I will keep watering and keep picking!

Corner Flower Bed....

The front corner flower bed had become a big mess with honeysuckle, poison ivy and weeds.  I kept putting off working out there until one day a couple of weeks ago, I was at Home Depot and they had their mulch on sale.  I had the guy load up the back of the Pilot with 10 bags!  Yes, I was thinking.....oh no!!!  another fiasco of getting all this mulch out of the Pilot when I get home.  Luckily that evening, the BNOE (Charlotte ) came over that evening to pick up some veggies from our garden, and she offered to unload the mulch for me.  It took me a couple of days to get all the weeds and vines out of the bed and the mulch down, but what a difference it made.  It's actually pretty to  look at now.

Porch Ceiling......

Mold......ugh!!!!

Cleaned with bleach water......

Whole porch done!!!

For the first time in six years, the ceiling to the front porch decided to get covered in mold.   The thought of cleaning it was just making me crazy.  Chuck had seen on TV some stuff that said..." wet it and forget it".  So off to Home Depot I go.  There is was....a bottle that would make 2 gallons by adding water....for $16.99!!!!!!  Well, I bought it, thinking all I was going to have to do was spray it on the ceiling and it would magically make the ceiling all nice and clean again.  Wrong!!!!  I sprayed it on and nothing at all happened.  I sprayed it again and nothing happened.  Chuck reads on the label in small print that it could take up to a month for it to work.  WHAT??????  Who wants to wait a month to see if it was going to work???????  When I clean, I want it clean NOW!  So, I waited a week and then dug out the sprayer, the bleach and the sponge on a the long handle out from the basement. I put on my old clothes that I paint in, a bandana on my head, a surgical mask and a pair of safety glasses.  Just spraying the bleach water took most of  the mold off but I had to go back and dip the sponge in the bleach water and wipe the whole ceiling down.  TA DA!!!  A pretty blue ceiling again.  I just hope it takes another six years before the mold comes back and I have to go through all that again.  The moral to this story is.....nothing takes care of mold but good ole BLEACH!! Don't waste your money on anything else.   

Moved In.......Famous Bird House.

We've had the pleasure of watching two little Carolina wrens move into the " See Rock City" bird house that hangs at the end of the front porch.  After building their nest, there were many trips back and forth with bugs and what have you in their mouths to feed the babies.  Not sure how many babies there were.  There could have been up to five of them.  I haven't seen any activity in the past week so I'm hoping that they got their "flying wings" and left the nest.  Soon, I will climb up and take the house down to clean it out, so another family can use it.

Gardenias Glore!!!

This isn't even half of the buds
blooming yet....

One of my favorite flowers is " gardenias"!  There is nothing else like their smell.....heavenly!!!  Gene and George started me a cutting off of one of their gardenia bushes six years ago and as soon as the house was built, I planted it in the back yard.  As soon as it got big enough to bloom it has given me enough flowers to keep the house smelling wonderful in the summer and even in the Fall, sometimes.  BUT!!!!  it has NEVER bloomed like it has this summer!!!!  I know there must be at least 600 blooms and buds on it.  There are so many flowers on it that it is weighing down all the branches to the ground.  I started dead heading the bush, yesterday and got two five gallon buckets full of spent flowers.  I got tired of cutting so will continue today until I have all the branches standing up again.  When I talked to Gene the other day, she said their bushes are doing the same thing.  I believe it's because we had such a mild winter last year, everything is blooming like BIG TIME CRAZY this Spring and Summer!!!!!