I live on a farm ... — country living

Yum and ouch ... that's what I have to say about last night's Ice Cream Social. Yum: Raspberry sauce, blueberry sauce, strawberry sauce, fresh chopped local peaches, hot caramel, hot fudge, chopped salty peanuts, whipped cream, ten-ounce blocks of french vanilla ice cream. Ouch: Ten-ounces of ice cream is a heck of a lot of ice cream even without some of each topping. I still feel full. The fund raiser went better than we thought it would, and instead of raising $300 for the classrooms at the church, they raised more like about $500. It rained early in the day,...

Today, a brief blog. Our church is having an ice cream social fund raiser tonight, so my work day will be cut short. My husband and I went over to the church last evening to set up the big outdoor party tent and tables to get a head start on preparing for tonight. "Ice Cream Social" ... how wholesome and divine the words. The community is small, so they won't raise much--maybe $300 at best. Quite a lot of work and preparation has gone into it and though it would be wonderful if more tickets could be sold, the work...

Today's blog is dedicated to Secret Mojo ... Last time my husband and I went fishing (he fishes, I man the anchor) he noticed the little metal things on the sides of the boat that hold the oars were not in good shape; one, in fact, was broken. A couple of days later he told me he had ordered oar locks. Not being familiar with the word, I heard "orlocks" so all I could conjure in my mind was a creature out of "Lord of the Rings" or something. A few days later his "orlocks" arrived via UPS on the...

A couple of days ago my daughter came to visit. My birthday was earlier this month, and she brought with her a beautiful pearl necklace and matching earrings she made for me. She designs and handcrafts exquisite gemstone and pearl jewelry. All of her findings are handmade, each piece is worked long and patiently with fine details which are her own trademarks. I am not much for jewelry, but I must say I cherish each piece she has made for me ... and I am fortunate enough to have quite a few. There is something about her jewelry that makes...

As promised, I wrote up the directions for the holiday Itty Bag I made a couple of days ago. I started a patterns page on my site, where I will post free patterns as I have them available. A little while ago I was walking through the kitchen and noticed fog in the corn fields out back. This is a new kind of fog for me, a low lying fog that eminates from the ground or from the crops ... I don't remember which. In Los Angeles we often had fog that would roll in from the ocean. Of course...