Oo!-Oo!-Oo! Lookin' Out My Back Door

 

My age is showing with the title of this post.  I have to show a few fall pics.  Our back yard here. 

Lots of leaves coming down now.

 

 

 The trees will be bare soon.

 

Lookin' out our front door, here. 

 

 

 

On another note,we made beans and rice for supper the other night.  I brought the beans to boil on our new rocket stove, then pulled out the sticks for the quick soak method.  Waited an hour, then started another fire, and brought it to a boil for 15 minutes.

 

Without lifting the lid, I put it into my mock wonder oven below.

 I lined this large tote with blankets and beach towels.  I lined the sunken part in the middle with a brown-black towel so the soot on the pot wouldn't get on my blankets.  I wrapped the brown towel around the pot and added the last quilt, put the lid on and took it into the house.  When we got back from evening church I cooked some rice on the stove, then pulled the beans out of the wonder oven, and they were done!!  We had beans and rice for supper with some salsa---m-m-good.  I just wanted to see if in an emergency I would be able to cook some beans without using much wood if we were without power.
I have plans on making a wonder oven that I got the plans for off of Pinterest, (now that I know it works).



Our Grandsons Basketball Games

 

Our grandsons, Cyle and Cole, started off their Basketball season with games with other home school teams in a multi state region here.  How cool is that?!  They both play for Omaha Lightning Teams from Omaha.  The number 3 with the ball here is our grandson Cole.  It was our first time to watch him play although he's been playing for a couple of years.   

 

This is him with his buddies waiting for his game to start 

 

 Our daughter, Jen, is helping keep score at the desk on the left, and Cole is on the right.

 

Our granddaughter Brittany, their sister (standing), supports them going to a lot of their games in Omaha.

There are 6 of our grand kids in this pic, along with our daughter Celeste (mother of 5 of them).  Hubby is standing--those benches get hard after a while.

 

Here is Cyle at the free throw line.  

 

...playing (#2) here... 

 

...and another shot of him shooting the ball. 

I am so proud of our grand sons, and I am so blessed to get to watch them play.

 

My sisters got to come to a few of the games.  It was a three day spree of games.  I can't remember how many games there were, but I think there were about ten that we watched....SO. MUCH. FUN!!!

 

My son-in-law, brother-in-laws, nieces, and nephews got to come to some of them also, many great nieces, and nephews too.  I didn't get a pic of them all.  Many of these pics are from our family photographer, Erin, our baby daughter, who is in none of the pics--sorry bout that.

 



Fall Yard Work

                                                             

Saturday I dug up my elephant ears---This is how they looked this summer.  Big and beautiful.

I am posting about this so I will remember how I did it, in case I want to do something differently next time.

First I cut off the tops.........

Then I dug them up and removed most of the dirt.

Here are the tools I used; a spade, claw tool, and, knife.

Next, I lined them up across the yard, and with the slope of the yard going away from me I hosed them real good to get the remaining dirt out.  The first two are done here.

Here they all are cleaned up and ready to dry out in our garage.  I have about 16 good sized ones, and 18 small ones.

My hubby cleaned out the dahlia bed.  We both worked very hard.  He also cleaned out the gutters at our house and our daughters.

We both caught some kind of 24-hour bug Monday, and have been in bed for a day.  He came down with it first, and I came down with it 6 hours after him.  He went back to work  this morning.  I'm still running a low grade fever--I hate being sick.  We had to cancel our Thanksgiving plans so our grandson Cole wouldn't get this because of his treatment he's going through.  Bummer!!

 

Fine Fall Day

We are having a beautiful Fall day here in the Ozarks.  The above pic is a collage of pictures I have taken this Fall--some from our yard.  The pic below is our backyard--the big tree and patio.

The front of the house below, taken last week.

This mornings sunrise--gorgeous!

We don't have many days left of the beautiful foliage because the leaves are coming down like crazy.

The weather has been beautiful.  Today's high expected to reach 70--not bad for mid-November.

The pond has had to be cleaned out twice to remove the leaves, so hubby got some hardware cloth to protect the pond from leaves falling in it.  Looks like it's working.

Reunion Place

This is what I was hinting about yesterday in my post.  The bridge named after my husbands family.  Just past the bridge is the "camp ground"  where the reunion takes place every year without fail.  This year was the hundred and twenty-first annual reunion.  As you can guess there are the old folks who know each other and lots of young people that only a few know.  Unless you go every year, you're in the dark as to who belongs to who.

Many years ago I started a painting of the bridge, and never finished it.  The clouds are finished, but the lower part is just an under painting.  It's in oils, and I just haven't had the inspiration to finish it.  MY BAD!--as they say.  I went ahead and hung it anyway.  I mostly finished the bridge, but I need to finish the trees, grass, and road.  I have a picture of the bridge that I took years ago that I was going by, where the floor of the bridge was just boards.  It's paved now, and I can't remember if there were guard rails in that picture or not, but here it is, as is, with my hubby standing on it looking over the edge.

And one with the light off.

You can see the Finley River in this picture.  The water level is a little lower than normal.

Our baby daughter is taking pics on the bridge here.

Here's a view looking north from the other side of the bridge.

My handsome hubby.

Looking into the water from the bridge.

Now, looking down river to the west from the bridge....

and to the east, up river.

Here's the camp ground which is just past the bridge.  There is a well by the pavillion.  They bring in stoves, refridgerators, food, cooking equipment, and a cook. 

Also a portable bathroom or two. It takes place in August, and

it lasts for a week, and many bring their tents, etc., and camp on the grounds. 

The kids play in the river, and float it on inner tubes.  Sometimes they have hayrides, and things like that.  Sometimes they have a little entertainment.  There's a big dinner every night where the local family members contribute dishes for pot luck to add to the meal.  One cousin has a motel in the nearby town where many stay; he is also a state representative. 

On Friday night before the meal everyone lines up on the long north side of the pavilion for a picture, and they use it to send out invitations for the next year on a post card.  It's a pretty big deal.

After the meal on Friday night they have a business meeting which includes read obits of those who have passed on, skits, songs, plus many other business type things where they elect officers for the coming year, collect money, and so on.

My hubby's father is pretty proud of his family's traditions, never misses, and knows alot of the people.

Country Roads

We went for a drive after church and lunch yesterday.

The leaves are beautiful--pretty close to peak in their color now.

The country roads are just beautiful.

Just look at the color of these oaks.  Oaks aren't really known for their fall color, but these have some beautiful color.

I like the beautiful sky reflection on our windshield.

We went down to the Finley River.  Here's Erin checking the water's temperature. 

Our daughter brought her camera, too, and I know her pics are better than mine.  These pics are okay though.

Erin and hubby here.  It was such a beautiful day that the Lord made.  I marvel at His creation.  Mere words cannot express the beauty and sheer wonder of it all.  I'm thankful for the eyes He gave me to see it.

Here's hubby and me at the river bank.

This next picture is leading to my next post about something down by the river.  It's in the extreme background, but I don't think you can make it out.  Don't you just love a mystery?  My kids will know what's down by the Finley River.  I'll tell you about it next post.  There's just too many pictures for one post, (unless I could learn how to post pictures like Martha Stewart, that is).



Excitement

This is actually a picture of my nephews Joplin Football Game, but I didn't have my camera last night, and I can't post without a picture--that would just be wrong.

We saw two ballgames yesterday, and both were exciting--I am now hoarse.  I hollered a lot at the first one.  My nephews team won again 35 to 7 against Republic.  This game was more of a challenge for them. They won their division, and now they go to the playoffs.  It was fun watching my nephew play; it might have been his best night this year.  We also saw history being made.  Doriel Green Beckham set the U. S. record for High School in the most yards rushed.  He's quite a player and I'm glad I got to see it.  This morning my throat is still a little raw.  I get excited. 

We came home to watch the most exciting game on T.V.  Our Cardinals came back again to win game 6 of the World Series--that was stressful and exciting.  I got pretty excited here at home too.  I thought I was going to miss the game, and I did miss part of it.  When we got home the Cards were behind by three runs, 4 to 7, and it didn't look good, then they caught up a couple more times, and won in the bottom of the eleventh inning, 10 to 9.  It was just wow.  I just love a good ball game, and I had two in one night.