......more new library here............

This is the entrance facing south/Franklin Street..... there are supposed to be 58 parking spaces on three sides of the building (there is NO space at the back side of the building for anything). And I'm hoping those 58 spaces will include more than one handicap space like we have now.

This is the north entrance; we were told all entrances will have attractive round white columns in keeping with our historic little town. I don't know about shutters or other "traditional"/"historical" additions......will have to see as they are added. I do hope some more detail work is in the plans so we don't have another ugly, "modern" brick building.

And this is the main front entrance as seen from Franklin Street.......notice how narrow the driveway is; this truck is parked at the edge of the property line near the street.

This is the nice big foyer/entry hall as you come into the main front door, and there are some large rooms all around and some small rooms. At least there are some windows and we will get more daylight than in the old building. Notice the dropped ceiling with lots of blocks of fluorescent lights and all the black space above is filled with ductwork............more indoor shots tomorrow!

disappearing flowers...........

This is one of the last of the beautiful pink cone flowers from this first year's crop........I've saved the seeds, hopefully to help a new and larger patch of them come up next summer. They are truly one of our more drought-resistant flowers for this area, and can live weeks with no rain!

And this lone little purple petunia is a volunteer all by itself among our new bed of peonies! It has bravely bloomed (with little water or help from us) all summer; another good choice for dry areas. I don't know if these white patches on the petals make it a "mutant", or not, but it's really pretty with the contrast to the dark purple!

And last, but not least at all...............your royal highness, Mister Buddy Cat. Or Butt-cat! Or Bad-cat! Or Bubba-cat.............sheesh! Are we sickening with our pets, or what????! This is Baby Sister's pink bed he has taken over. She is ticked off, of course. So this week we found her a new little round bed at the dollar store and put it down in another room...........she got in it and loves it. And how long do you think it took this little boy cat to try it out the first time she got up to get a snack???!!!!!! She's old and arthritic and cranky (like me) and wishes we would take him back to wherever the hell we got him from.

......the old and the new.............

This is our little local public library........I've been reading here since before I started to school. I loved to sit in the little chairs at the little tables in the "children's room". And I have checked out thousands of books and magazines from this building over the years and now the "powers that be" have decided we need a newer and larger building. They could have added another story above; and another wing in the rear; and another wing to the right that would connect/butt against the beautiful old courthouse.
........so this is going to be the "front" entrance to the humongous new library building, only one block away. With very little parking. And no "character" at all. But it has LOTS of space and little rooms and big rooms and computer rooms and research rooms, etc. And three entrances! And all that high-peaked roof space up there?.........well it's not another story to be used for anything.........it's FULL of miles of ductwork for the heating and air conditioning units.
I'm just too old for this and don't like change anyway. Especially to the tune of millions of dollars from us taxpayers and property owners, who can ill afford this new luxury building. By the way, our Warren County is about 97th down the list of North Carolina's 100 poorest counties! I only hope when they move my beloved books they will also find space for the memorials that were given in honor of loved ones, like the main counter and wonderful old original oil paintings and the children's little chairs and tables with the memorial plaques attached. I'll go sit there and do my reading and grieve for my beloved "old" library building.

On a happier note, I took off across the farm to a neighbor's house the other day and saw what our "farmer/cousin/neighbors" next door had done in their old vegetable garden space! Aren't these the neatest corn shocks you ever saw?!! I thought for a minute I was in Williamsburg, VA! But they assured me there were more shocks to be made, and pumpkins growing down further in the field........won't they be ready for Halloween and Thanksgiving?!! I'll keep you posted..........

Autumn's coming!

The squirrels have been having a big time eating the pecans, hickory nuts and everything else in sight here on the huge field rocks along the driveway. And they are all nice and fat and sleek, so if they're storing some of this food away for winter, they will not go hungry!

Click on this photo to enlarge it in order to see how overcome my hummingbird feeder is with honeybees! And the ones inside have drowned when they couldn't get back out! This is the first year in the 40 yrs. here that this has ever happened on my feeders............I'm wondering if there is a wild or "humanized" colony of the bees nearby that has not been living there before now. I'm trying to decide whether to just take it down and let the poor hummers find food elsewhere in the neighborhood in order to save the honey bees. Or to keep feeding what few hummers come thru the bees and let more bees die! And hummers get stung only to die! What a mess.......the hummers in this region usually feed through October; we have many "stragglers" coming out of Canada and states up north that pass thru here on their long and arduous trip to South America for the winter. Thank God we've heard of a new kind of feeder for next year that is designed to keep all bees, hornets, wasps, and yellow jackets OUT!

Now for some beautiful beading going on at our Sunday afternoon "beading bees" recently.......this gorgeous shell cabochon above has glints of pink and gold and greens in it. My dear artist friend "Dee" is doing wonderful rounds with the tiniest beads to make a nice brooch....... and left-handed, at that!!! I'm amazed................
And the other artist friend, Betty R. is working on this humongous, gorgeous dragonfly........with aqua water and green leaves and pink lotus blossoms! And what amazes me is that she's using those wretched teeny-weeny size 15 delica seed beads!

We laugh and cuss and drop beads and eat snacks and have a great time; and most of the time we EVENTUALLY finish our projects and it's always nice to get compliments on things we've put so much time and effort into!

Now and "then"...............

These koi/goldfish of DH's at the back deck are getting huge! We're still feeding them twice a day; I guess when they get the signal from Mother Nature they'll slow up on eating for the winter months. I don't know if he will put their heating elements in each pond this winter or let them freeze over. Either way, the fish begin to slow down eating in October and finally stop altogether, so their systems can go into "hibernation" mode. Heck, we humans should/could learn a lesson from this fish lore, couldn't we?!! Heh, heh......... I tend to just "hibernate" all winter and KEEP eating!

Each and every week we can see more and more mud at the edge of the big farm pond. DH cut the grass last week down there and was able to mow a wide strip of the dark green grasses that are usually under water! We were counting on getting the remnants of the weird "Fay" storm that sat on Florida for a week, but that may not happen now. It's pretty bad when we pray for rain ............. even from a hurricane!

This is a newspaper from 1945 telling of President Roosevelt's death, and Truman taking over . I came across a slew (that's a LOT!) of old newspapers that my mama had saved and packed up very well over the years recently in the old storage building on the farm. She always loved to read, both newspapers and books and magazines, and saved the issues of important happenings of the times. I also have papers of President John F. Kennedy being asassinated; also his brother Robert Kennedy's asassination; and others of Oswald's being arrested and then his being killed. And some about Winston Churchill's death and something about General McArthur........surely there must be someone wanting these types of things for safe-keeping!? I don't know enough about ebay, etc. to find them homes, but if any of my readers know any collectors, please let me know! Thanks very much! If nothing else, the pictorial advertisements in these newspapers would make for GREAT art in collage and mixed-media!

Read, read, sew............

I just finished this new book by James Frey, and it was no way as good as the others of his. Of course the very first one was the best; the one he later had to admit to being all "made up"!!! We "hard core" readers will read
anything sometimes!

Now this new novel from Joyce Carol Oates is very good, and you can see who is learning to read with me every afternoon or night! This child is turning out to be very sociable; that's why when he was an "outdoor" cat, he worried our other old yard cats to death, wanting to play with them. Or he'd go across the road to bug my cousin's cats......they didn't want to play either. So now he follows us and Baby Sister cat around the house to "help" with everything we do.......shower, brush teeth, nap, sew, read emails.......and he's finally chosen "his" corner of the bed for night-time. MOST nights go smoothly; once in awhile he decides to play under the bed around 3 a.m., so he gets put into the hall 'til the rest of us get up!

Here's the finished mermaid pin........and I'm blessed enough to have already sold her to one of my dear friends here in town! This was a joy to make with the bright colors and the clay mermaid bead and little glass fishes. I already have another slightly different one started for a gift ......don't forget that four months from now it will be Christmas week! Ho-ho-ho!!!

Garden goodies............

I don't know what these little pumpkins are officially called, but I've always loved them and "had" to buy a few in the fall when they showed up in the local grocery stores. Well, this year my dear cousin Boltons next door grew their own (!) AND shared them with me! I've got them on the screened-in porch out of the weather where I see them in passing several times a day. I've already gotten nice comments on them, Ann and Don, so watch out! You're gonna have your summer produce in demand again! Halloween and Thanksgiving are coming! Many thanks for mine....!!!

I could not believe DH brought home MORE pretty little string beans yesterday for the new little freezer! But he does all the preparations, so I won't fuss too much........we had a little batch of these tonight with supper, but I never got them soft as we like. Hmmmmm..........and these green beans have a "sheen" instead of being dull, right off the vine. Don't know what kind they are, but they'll be pretty durn good next February, I'll bet!

Dear Husband (DH) brought home this tiny Eastern Box Turtle last night; we ALWAYS stop to get turtles out of the road. This one was so cute and smaller than what we usually find in this area, he turned the car around and brought him back home to me, and we both took photos of him/her/it.

The underside of the shell is just as pretty with the design as the top; and the little bugger wasn't but about 2 1/2 inches long. I took him down to the farm pond and put him down near the water so he could either go swimming or hide in the grasses/woods. At least he's got another chance at life!