Monday, May 27, 2013

Memorial Day musings..............

Flowering Crab tree above.  Head study of Nubian Goat in tin that I made, attached to goat barn.
 
 


We had a wonderful day celebrating Tera's birthday yesterday.  Had a barbecue and I even made a German Chocolate Cake and Frosting all from scratch!  I did manage to make this wall hanging for her.  It actually is a panel, I had to add the borders and do the machine quilting.  Turned out very stunning.  On one of my online quilt groups, the gals always show their quilts outside in natural lighting, so I decided to give it a try. 

 
 The bush to the right of the quilt is an Elderberry bush.  My next project will be a Dresden Plate.  A traditional block that I have never made before.
 

Dennis's bees lined up at the bird bath drinking water.   They are also on the left side of the frog.      



    Book club books on order, Going Clear by Lawrence Wright, A Separate Peace by John Knowles, and The Mistress of Nothing by Kate Pullinger.   Once I start a book, I can't get anything else done.                                                                                                          
 
What I really wanted to say in this post, is to send my appreciation to all the military personnel past and present, and thank them for my freedoms!  A big Thank You!!!!!!!   Flying the Red White and Blue over the wishing well.  You can see how windy it is here.
 
      
Freedom is not Free!!!!!
 
More later.............................................................................Oh, I am off to Minnesota for 10 days in June, so will update you when I get home.

Saturday, May 18, 2013

I guess, life happens.

WHAT IN THE WORLD HAVE I BEEN UP TO!!!!!!!!!

April left with another storm, another 18 inches or so of snow.  Dosado had her two kid a few days before the storm hit, when it was a balmy 75degrees, but then two days later lows in the single digits.
But I think that spring is finally here.  The grass is greening up and it has been in the 80's the last couple of days. 
Here is Dosado's new kids.  Of course the flashy one is the little buck, the other is the doe.
 
 
Dennis took a couple of pictures of me bottle feeding babies.  The first is a lamb, she was one of
Kipcha's triplets born in March.  I wanted to supplement her so it would lessen the strain on Kipcha, and give the little female extra milk as the two male brothers are very aggressive when it comes to feeding time.
The little brown ewe comes at bottle time just to get scratched and loved on.
 
One the lambs are done, I go to the baby goats.  I milk the mom's twice daily and feed the babies their mom's milk in a bottle so they are tamer and easier to work with.  They do stay with the mom's at all times, so they can learn to be goats, and nurse off the mom's on and off throughout the day.  So I only need to bottle feed twice daily.  Sometimes they are not interested in the bottle, as mom has already fed them.  But this works the best for me with my schedule.
I only have one more ewe to lamb as of May 18th.  I hope she does not have triplets, as I don't want to bottle feed another.


HAPPY MOTHER'S DAY!!!!!!                                                                                                            We had a nice day with the family at Ryan's home.  Hamburgers with all the fixins' even home made french fries!!!    Here is an absolutely gorgeous picture of Tera, looks all studious. 
Tera and Ryan bought me a beautiful necklace for Mothers Day.  I told Lily that it is like a window, with Grandma's treasures in it.  It actually is a locket, with glass on both sides and filled with charms that are near and dear to  me.  Both Tera and Ryan's birthstones are in it, a small sewing machine, you all know how I like to sew, a rose, a heat with Mom engraved on it, and a rose, and a glass of red wine.     thank you  Tera and Ryan.  Here is a picture of the necklace, which will be cherished by me always.
 
A picture of Julie and the girls.
'HOME AND GARDEN SHOW
Tera wanted to go, so we did.  But I outlasted them all.  Here are the three of them lined up waiting for me to finish up with yet another sales person. Now, is this a Kodak moment or what!
GARAGE SAILING
Tera and I went to an all town garage sale in Ault, (10 miles south of us, and our closest gas station).  Boy did I get some good deals!  I bought Tera a drop leaf table for $20 and 3 chairs, for $15.  I took the table home, which was pretty beat, up but solid wood and sanded it.
Tera picked out a stain called English Chestnut.  I applied two coats of stain and then 3 coats of polyurethane. It is actually a more reddish hue than the picture here.  What a treasure!
                                                                                                        
 
SEWING ROOM
I have not been able to spend as much time as I would like, or should, in my sewing room.  However, I did get a quilt on my frame and it is waiting to be quilted.  Note the black clip on light, $1 at the Ault garage sale!
 
Also I did manage to make two blocks for quilt club on Tuesday.
 
BOOK CLUB
I just finished reading The Glass Castle:A Memoir by Jeannette Walls.  A must read, it is  her biography.  She also wrote Half Broke Horses, that I wrote about in my last blog.  She tells of her life as a child, being raised by two mentally challenged parents, one also an alcoholic. The hardships that she and her siblings had to endure.  And she rose above them to be an author and contributor to MSNBC. I gauge the measure of an author if I seek out other books that they have written.  So both of these books are good.  Read Half Broke Horses  first, it is an autobiography about her Grandmother.
 
NEW HOBBY IN THE FAMILY
Well actually, it is an old hobby.  Dennis has again started an apiary.  He was an avid bee keeper up in Glyndon MN when we lived there, getting upwards of 700# of honey from 4 hives.  We lived by the Hutterites and they used to extract the honey from the combs for us.   "Up Nort" he had the Langstroth type hives, the typical hive you see that has stacked up white boxes.  He has since started with Top Bar Hives which are more like a hollow log.  More natural for the bees.  Natural and organic, mite free, fungicide and moth
free.  Here is the package of bees that we got up in Wyoming,  thousands of bees in this  box.
Last spring we had tilled  2 1/2 acres of our property and planted bee habitat.  It has been growing nicely, as the antelope have been in there all spring grazing. Hope something is left for the bees.
Dennis has to check the bees every three days.  Here is how they have been progressing.
You can see the queen on the right lower corner of the picture below.  She is the darker one with the elongated abdomen.  Right under the 05(the date)
Well,I have rattled on enough.

More later.........................................................................................................