Sharing Shadymont, My Mountain Cottage

We don't have lots of trees around our house and since Irma swept through here, I'm really happy we don't.  At our old house, built in 1977, we were in the center of large, OLD, oak trees that were constantly presenting problems for us.  We had 4 fall into the pool at one time, taking down a new fence with them.  On the same day one fell on each side of the house clipping the gutters, but thankfully not hitting the roof.  Yet, we still had days and days of cleanup.  Luckily, we knew a man who would come and cut up the trees, for the wood.  He has a business where he sells the wood in the winter time, and is always glad to get it.   This home has no trees nearby, saving us a lot of work and damage.  Many of our neighbors are not so lucky.  Our county was hit very hard, and people are still without power, tv, etc.  We were out of power for around 50 hours.  We lost some food, but even that was minimal compared to lots of folks.  We used coolers filled with ice, and also pac

Our home is practically surrounded with porches.....practically, and we enjoy everyone. I want to show you the latest look of the screened porch, not a whole lot of difference, but a favorite location around here. Accessories, by Good Will!  :)  rug, from Good Will Bird  house, Good Will  Pillow: Good Will  Pillows: Good Will  A favorite plant, succulents, a gift from my boss when I retired.  They have done so well!  Aloe  I found this adorable flower cart at GW for less than $6.  Tray, GW, 1.99 Then there is the stoop going into the mud and laundry room.  It's very small, and I have managed to fill it up.  It's like a little alcove, and I love to sit on it and watch the birds at the feeders, and hear my little DIY water feature. I bought a table and brought these very OLD chairs up from the basement.  No room for anything else. We changed up the front porch as well.  We bought new adirondack chairs

Whew!  I'm too pooped to pop!!! We had an outdoor workday today.  Hubby pressure washed the front porch, mud room stoop, and the patio outside the basement.  While he did all that, I re-painted our front porch rockers, and a small table to go between the rockers.  I moved some of my plants around to the screened porch.  I had some on the front porch, and some on the screened porch.  Now most of them are on the screened porch.  It will make it easier to water them plus we can see them from the family room.  I also mowed about 2 acres of yard, and threw a flower arrangement together for the front porch.   I re-painted the rockers because I had painted them earlier in the Spring with a flat black paint.  That just didn't look good.  So today, they got a coat of glossy black paint.  So much better!! These steps lead to the mud room.  My verbena wasn't doing well on the front porch, so I will see if it does better with more sun.  Those are my tomato plants on the litt