Butterfly Whisperer

The header photo on this blog shows a Monarch Butterfly.  Each year they migrate over the ocean to a place called St. Mark's Wildlife Refuge on our own North Florida coastline.  A day trip there will allow you to see hundreds literally dripping off the flowering bushes along the bay.  But a few renegades always make their way to Tallahassee, and cling to our gardens too.  It is exquisite to see.  My granddaughter can actually catch them, without harm.  I call her the butterfly whisperer.  It takes patience and quiet movements, but she reaches out and clasps them by their closed wings, only to let them go moments later.      

New Dining table arrived!

In 34 years of marriage, this is our first new dining table.  Goodwill is now the proud owner of our very tired Duncan Phyfe 1940's table.....someone will love it I know, but I am loving this one!  We found it in North Carolina last fall.  Now we can seat 8 with the leaf.

Less is more?

Well, we are waiting on a new dining room table to be delivered from North Carolina.  In the meantime, we gave our old one to Goodwill.  So we put a little chestnut table and two chairs in its place so we could have a place to eat, and it looks so cozy!  It could not seat eight, which is what our family has grown to, but I loved the space and the warm little place it provided for us to read the paper in the morn and have dinner in the eve.    

Christmas Day - part of the fam

It was a great Christmas.  It has been so long since I entered anything in my blog, that I found my browser did not support the blog anymore, so I do not know what I am doing at this point or how this will look!  But the photo shows our newest little one opening a gift, which in her world means eating the paper.   

Perry Lutheran Church in Daleyville Wisconsin

This is the church my maternal grandparents helped found.  It is still very active, and as we walked through we saw lots of sunday school rooms and places for youth to gather......very much a family church even today.  It sits just a block or two from the house I posted below, and was in walking distance for my great-grandparents on Sundays. 

Original kitchen in the little house in Daleyville.....

Restored, this kitchen is just as beautiful as it was new......LOVE the cabinetry!!!  And the floors were so mellow and smooth. 

Great-grandparents house - circe 1895. Here it is today.

We even got a tour from the current owner.  He is a house painter by trade, so he has taken off all the old asphalt shingles, (remember those?), opened up the porch again (it had been enclosed), and got it down to the original clapboard siding.  He has worked hard, and now the house is the best looking in the tiny area where there are still many old homes.  The town - Daleyville Wisconsin.  Original owners, Olavus and Ingeborg Thompson.