ThirteenEleven

Happy Fall.

2009-11-03T11:01:00.004-05:00

I am not sure why flickr is blurring up these images when I link them over to blogger......

Window Wednesday

2009-09-16T14:27:00.002-04:00

The National Trust for Historic Preservation wants you to Love Your Historic Window.

(image via Preservation Nation on Flickr)

Upload your historic window pictures on the Love Your Historic Window Flickr Group.

The National Trust also has several great links on Historic Windows including this one.

A Garden Web.

2009-09-11T11:55:00.003-04:00

The spiders have been busy the past few days. Just thought I would share.

Saturday Drive

2009-09-08T14:19:00.005-04:00

Birmingham, AL

Saturday, I went with a friend to see a house she and her husband were looking into restoring in Birmingham, AL.

I kept getting distracted looking at all the lovely homes in the neighborhood.

There may or may not have been squealing when I saw this craftsman.

and gasping at this Tudor.

and I just stopped short knocking on this door and asking for the paint colors of this one.

L.O. V. E.

Plant Stand

2009-09-02T12:55:00.004-04:00

Frost is about 6-8 weeks away here in the Deep South.

I have several plants, ferns, begonias, etc. that I bring in for winter.
However plants inside the house placed on floor level creates confusion for our dog.

Last year I placed all the plants in the sun room and closed the door. With the door closed, I went on with my life, forgot about them, and stressed the plants totally out. I am so very surprised the poor neglected things lived to talk about me.

When I saw this great plant stand with MCM lines at a Flea Market a couple weeks ago and it was just a couple of dollars, I picked it up.

There it sat ignored on our front porch a week or so.

This weekend I decided to turn off Twitter and get something done.

I sanded, primed, and had planned on painting the stand orange. However the primer grey was really talking to me. I liked how it looked on our floor. ( Yes, Chris REALLY needs to stain/seal the deck. You are preaching to the choir.)

Right now it is only primed. I cannot decide to paint it orange and finish it with a clear coat or leave it the matte grey.

Decisions.....

Dressed in Yellow and Black.

2009-08-27T15:38:00.001-04:00

From my mom's garden.

Sunflowers in the Garden.

2009-08-25T14:56:00.004-04:00

It is the time of year of bright white light and strong shadows.
The past few mornings were filled with crisp air.

Happy Day.

For the Wright price....

2009-08-22T15:35:00.000-04:00

An architectural work of art could be yours.

I saw this link on Twitter the other day and I have been day dreaming since.

Go ahead and pick yours out.

FLW 's F.B. Henderson House for almost $2 million.

The Millard House for $7,733,000

or maybe the Stromquist Residence for $3.5 million.

10 Amazing Frank Lloyd Wright Homes for Sale Today via Design Crave

Also take a looksy at BeachHouse's Wright post.
and the post here.

This Place Matters.

2009-08-20T15:04:00.003-04:00

I am so going to do this. ( Well... in my spare time)

It is not so much the National Trust's photo contest as the message it is sending.
I love this campaign.

All images from "This Place Matters" Flickr Pool.

Go ahead and spend a few minutes there.

(Images uploaded to Flickr Pool by users Sarah Coolen, Seth McGee, and Wayne Kelley. )

Garden Pests

2009-07-30T14:57:00.004-04:00

What the squirrels leave behind.....

The lubbers are sure to eat......

I found all of our corn shucked on the stalk the other day. I could not figure out what may have eaten all the corn off the stalks. Twitter said that is was Raccoons or Opossums. I believed them until I caught the furry tailed rascals green handed this morning.

As far as the Lubbers.....I hat them. Nasty bugs.

Good Day!

Baby Blue Jay

2009-07-26T14:16:00.000-04:00

Last Friday, I came home to find this baby squawking on our front sidewalk.

I went to see if he was ok. Looked around for the cat. Stayed on the front porch a bit, looking for his parents. Picked him up and placed him in the shade on the grass near the same spot.
Dug a worm. Watched for his parents a little more. Decided to squish the worm a bit and feed it to the baby.

Made the baby a little nest near the same spot with pine straw from under the tree. (So he was not out in the open.) Watched over him and fed him worm bits (totally gross) and a smashed blueberry til dark.

The next morning, I got up and expected not to find him. At least not alive, but he was, squawking up at me. Like "Where in the world have you been?" I then brought him to a box on the porch nested with dryer lint. I keep up the almost every 20-30 minute feedings throughout the weekend days only to find him peacefully gone Monday morning.

I am pretty sure one of his legs were broken and he had a slim to no chance of survival anyway, but I just could not turn my head and leave him there on the hot sidewalk.

I tried.

Front Sidewalks a Dying Detail.

2009-07-24T13:43:00.007-04:00

I kinda miss the days when one would REALLY use the front sidewalk.

A stroll to town to pick up a spool of thread.

A walk to the neighbor's house to borrow a cup of sugar.

Or to step out and wave at the newest motor carriage passing by....

While most of the front sidewalks along our street are slowly disappearing.
Chris has been trying to save ours.

Yes, there are a couple cracks. At 90, who doesn't have a few crevices?

It seemed like a long wait....

2009-07-07T11:39:00.008-04:00

The first lemon yellow bloom .....

The scent of the vine on my finger tips.

The first hint of golden orange hues..

To the scarlet colors still on the vine.

To finally.....

Thin crisp bacon fried to perfection, young tender spinach leaves, Duke's mayo, fresh bread, and Alizarin crimson slices sprinkled with sea salt and ground pepper.

I wanted the tomato juice to run down my elbows as I took the first bite.

It did.

I learned something today about Pink.

2009-06-25T15:03:00.011-04:00

....And I was excited, so I thought I would share.

Let's back up a bit.

I know... It has been a whole month since you have heard from me.

Life has been busy, the vege garden has been demanding, the house has been at a standstill and I was a bit board with the blog. I am working on changing things up a bit around here. So stay tuned while I work out some details.

Anyway.....

Do you remember me telling you how ThirteenEleven was at one time all pink? The pink that your mind associates with upset stomachs and fake bubble gum flavor. ( Is there really a natural bubble gum flavor? ) Yes, I have scraped pepto pink wall paper, pepto pink plastic tile, pepto pink trim paint and even pepto carpet, 'til I needed a strong dose of Pepto-Bismol myself. ( click for THE color)

THAT color Pink has a name.

__________________________

The name of the Pink Color that was very popular for home interiors from 1953-1957.

(insert Jeopardy music)

"What is Mamie Pink, Alex?" (Aly, are you reading?)

__________________________

Mamie Pink, is the name of THAT color pink.

I was hopping through Twitter today and went to a link, then another, then another. I then landed on Save the Pink Bathrooms. As I scroll around, I land on THIS post.

"Where have I been?
Why did I not know this?"
"History and Design are my things."
"I feel like a blonde."

So go over there and read up, but basically THAT PINK color is named for
Dwight Eisenhower's wife Mamie. Mamie decorated the White House's private quarters all pink, causing a design rage of the times. Pepto Pink (oops Mamie Pink or First Lady Pink) then spewed through all the magazines, oozing into paint cans and on to the walls of your old home.

Mamie Doud Eisenhower
our 34th First Lady.

Image via Library of Congress.

Thank you Save the Pink Bathrooms for teaching me something for the day.

oh.....and giving me something to blog about.

New Bowl.

2009-05-28T14:53:00.005-04:00

Don't tell my sister.
OK.

Mom and Papa Joe bought me this bowl.
(Well not this bowl, YOU can buy this bowl on Etsy.)
They bought me a bowl like this one.

I love it.

Thank you both very much.

By the way.....
Have you seen one like this?

Isn't it cute!

Bowl images via RetroRevival shop on Etsy.

Jenni Found a Gun.

2009-05-23T16:21:00.000-04:00

A dinosaur leg.........

And a broken metal star.......

in this years Big Dig. (for the vege garden)

Here is a reminder from last year.

Pecan Tree

2009-05-21T16:11:00.000-04:00

April 28, 2009.

I know, I am slow.

I have been busy.

Door Knocker and Knob.

2009-05-19T15:05:00.006-04:00

I had to open a screen door to snap the pic of that knocker.

#1. WHY was this knocker behind a screen door? It was a nice screen door, but still.

#2. What dumb painter smeared paint all over THAT knocker?

This is a nice knob and all, but with a knocker like that... The knob kinda gets lost.

Oh.....We were Here.

Parts of the boxwood garden date back to the 1840's.

This house was finished in 1916.

I know the guy in blue, however the man with the girl popped out from behind that bush right when I snapped this pic.

We have been Adopted

2009-05-05T16:46:00.004-04:00

And somebody is not happy.

Panic ! Maybe ?

2009-04-30T15:02:00.009-04:00

At first I was not concerned when I saw the helicopter circling. The local hospital is only about a quarter mile away. We hear medic-vac choppers quite often so I glance up, sun in my eyes, glance back down and kept watering the young plants in the front flower bed.

Chris arrives home and states that chopper has a camera. Camera? I question. Then the chopper circles. I see it is the news crew from the big city. Why would the news crew be HERE? Overhead? What has Chris done now? Is there already a watering ban and I am in deep trouble? Then I see another news crew truck pass by.

I decide it is time to go in and turn on the t.v. "What is being reported from down the street?" When I worked in the city, choppers were no big thing. Just a visual reminder to avoid that area. There was a wreck, a 357 car pile up on the connector. My drive home was gonna be a pain. Maybe, I should go shopping instead.

When the news does not report live from the area, I call my Uncle. Our town is a small town. Yes, one of THOSE small towns. There are a handful of folks you can call to find out the 411 on what is happening. Uncle M is one of the few. This time, he does NOT know a thing.

Finally there is a small blip, a teaser of sorts. The long report would be on the 11:00 news.

The short report was....."A confirmed case of TYPE A unidentifiable flu" at the hospital. The local hospital, the hospital just a very short distance from our home. I also think "confirmed, unidentifiable" really means they think, but do not know.

EEEKKK!

Well this morning, word on the street passed much quicker than the news. Some of it true, some of it....not.

Yes....It is here....THAT flu. The first confirmed case in the southeast. Swine Flu, Pig Flu, Abc123 flu. CDC confirmed it, not just Rumor Mills. (You know him. He lives in every town.)

Hold on...

Just typing that made me need to wash my hands. Just whose hands have been on this mouse?

I have mixed feelings. Should I stock up on groceries, Dial soap, dust masks, and hand sanitizers? Or should I have confidence, all will be OK?

I am planning on going to the Piggly Wiggly in a bit, making sure I have everything I need for the week. I did hear that no Purell can be found in town. (Rumor told me.)

And if we really need masks.

I would fancy one of these....

Newspapers Recycled in the Garden.

2009-04-21T11:31:00.011-04:00

For the past 5 years or so, we have been recycling our old newspapers in the Vege Garden. I saw this once on a TV show and have been using this method for weed prevention in the rows successfully ever since.

The photo above shows where I placed the newspapers down in the garden late last fall. I raked backed the leaves to reveal only a tiny bit of newspaper that remains. (The grey blobs in the middle of the pic.) This spring, I had no weeds to remove in the area of the garden where I used the newspapers under the leaf mulch.

After removing any weeds and turning the soil in the garden, with my trusty, red with pink polka dotted pitch fork. ( Which is missing a prong.)

I begin to place the newspaper down in the rows of the garden. I have since read where they news paper should be at least 5 layers deep to work well. I never count, I just start placing newspaper down, overlapping the layers as I go down the row.

If it is windy, you could take the time to wet down the newspaper before placing in the garden to keep it from blowing away to your neighbors yard.

I sometime get distracted and read things I have missed in the newspaper.

Like the names of who is winning the March madness bracket contest in the local paper.

( FYI- My pics came in 5th overall in points. Not that I like watching basketball on TV, the squeaking of the shoes gets on my nerves.)

I continue down the row, and realize it is a little crooked. That will not matter once all the veges begin to grow.

Oh....The red with pink polka dotted pitch fork? I bet you are wondering......

You see sometimes my husband uses our garden tools at his work sites. In the past, these tools have been lost, forever gone. This made me very angry, until I was painting and had left over paint and thought our garden tool handles needed painting, then thought that if I painted the garden tool handles, girly like... A man would not bring them to his work site and if he did, no other man would even think of "borrowing" such girly looking tools. So far, so good. It has worked.

I then start placing the mulch on top of the newspapers. In the past I have used pinestraw and leaves as mulch. We did not have enough leaves this year to use as mulch and we do not have a big pine trees at this house, so we had to buy (shudder) mulch. (gulp) Chris suggested wheat straw. We will see how that goes. I hate having to buy what so many people place out by the curb. I want to be the weird lady who goes around collecting other peoples leaves. The piles of leaves they place out by the street for the city to pick up and place in a land fill. People use your leaves as mulch.

Anyway...
I place the straw, haw, leaves, pinestraw, mulch on top of the newspapers.

Then I remember, I found a magnifying glass in the garden and placed it on top of the straw.
Probably not a good idea. Fires start that way. oops. Luckily, I do not know about that first hand, I just saw where that happened once on Little House on the Prairie. I was 7.

I keep going until I finish the entire garden. Or at least a good stopping point.

Then I plant my little plants.

Eggplant.

Squash.

( I also have planted okra and tomatoes.)

The newspapers will allow water to seep through while aiding in keeping weeds out of the garden making our life easier in a few months.

These newspapers are also being recycled in our yard. Not being transported to a recycling center or being placed in a landfill.

Life is good.

Now... to figure out how to pick up the neighbors leaves by the curb next fall with out being the crazy leaf collecting lady.

hummm.

Wishing our planet a
HAPPY EARTH DAY!

Happy TAX Day !

2009-04-15T15:56:00.005-04:00

All the flowers....

Kinda....

Take the sting away...

Feel Better ?

I did not find the Prize Egg.

2009-04-14T10:09:00.003-04:00

Or the golden egg.

I did find these eggs.

Or pieces of eggs.

I kept finding these in the Kudzu Jungle when we were trying to clean all the brush away.

As kids, we had to find all the eggs. There was no stopping the hunt until each and every egg was found.

I hope each of you had a wonderful Easter.

Taming of the Kudzu Jungle

2009-04-07T12:54:00.007-04:00

Yard Work: Oh........ my aching arms.

For the past few weekends, when it was not raining, we have been hacking away at the privet that supports mounds of Kudzu in the back yard.

April 2008. The dead Opossum Tree is to the right.

April 2009. The Opossum Tree is to the left. Since this pic, I cleared that bit of privet to the right.

A view from the opposite direction.

April 2008.

April 2008. ( You can see where the privet is kinda dead from spraying)

April 2009. Look there is a fence. Cleared by hacking away at the privet with loppers and pulling leafless Kudzu vines.

We have gained a lot of ground in the Kudzu Jungle over the past couple of years. When we first moved in Kudzu covered at least 1/3 of the back yard.

Taken: Day 1@ ThirteenEleven. ( PO's stuff on dangerous deck.)

Each year we gain a little ground. Each year the Kudzu gains a little back. The best fighting time is now, before the Kudzu sprouts and begins the summer sprint. Then it grows a foot a day. If you only have weekends to fight the Kudzu, that gives the enemy 6 days to grow 6 feet. YIKES.

We have got to hurry.

I see little sprouts.

Blogging Blues....

2009-04-03T15:36:00.007-04:00

I have not had much to say here lately.

Maybe it is the blogging blues.

Or maybe I've just let the birds do all the talking.

Can you hear them?