My sisters visit, Harvest, and road trip

FAMILY VISIT

My sister, Sandy came for a visit the end of August. This is the first time that she has been to our place. She said "Liz, I thought you had a great view of the mountains". Which we do, but for her entire stay, smoke from the wildfires up north hindered the views. On clear days we can even see Longs Peak from our front window. But nothing during her visit!
Well anyway, we had a great time visiting with a cousin and his son that we have not seen for years, and my children and grandchildren were over. We also went to about 10-12 thrift and antique stores and found a few "treasures."
Here is my sister with my two dogs.

THE HARVEST
So, anyway, it was 46 degrees this am, and with the windows open last night we got to 55 degrees in the house. Think it is time to start closing our windows. Harvest time in the garden, and here is a picture of the largest beet that I have ever seen. We don't use fertilizer, just composted manure and hay/straw.

  Despite the drought here in Colorado, we have had a bumper crop of edible pod peas, Swiss Chard, zucchini and yellow summer squash. The squash is to the point that I want to leave a bag of it on every ones porch, ring the bell and run!!!The tomatoes are just starting, and the beans are poor. Only a few watermelon and cantaloupes are seen along with winter squash. The flower gardens are winding down also.
Momma Guinea fowl is hiding in a squash plant, thinking that she is incubating eggs.  One thing about Guinea's, the hens all seem to lay their eggs in a few nests, and occasionally you will see two hens incubating.  There are probably over 100 eggs in this nest.  Impossible for one hen to keep all of them warm.   So they never seem to hatch.

NEW RAM
We have been on the lookout for another ram to breed to our young females, they are like chips, you can't just have one!  We built this "goat tote" to haul him in.  He was too big for a dog kennel, and we did not want to hitch up the trailer for just one sheep.  Here is our finished tote. We added straw for bedding, and hung an eye hook in the corner to carry a water bucket, should we run into car trouble. I could not help but add the Katahdin Sheep and our phone # to bring about awareness for this wonderful breed of sheep.   Tote in the back of our pick-up.  We can haul a few goats, sheep or even our two dogs in here if needed.

 

Our new ram lamb, Chester.  He was very comfortable with his ride to our place.

On our trip to pick up Chester, we decided to fore go all the speedsters on I25 and opted to take the back roads.  We ended up taking 14 out of Ault to hiway 71.  It was a 256 mile one way trip, so took us all day to get there and back.  Near Limon we went by a Correctional Institution with signs along the road to not pick up hitch hikers.  Good tip.  South of there we came to the little town of Last Chance.  What a name. But for a good reason. We quickly found out why that name.  Now in Colorado, some areas are rather arid and we are encouraged to drink allot of water.  I had two cups of coffee, and a full thermos of water on our trip.  The nearest gas station is somewhat like 87 miles, and not a tree in sight.  But we made it. 
That stretch of hiway is so desolate, hundreds of wind turbines and plenty of wind and curving roads, and all grass.
Learning about Colorado by the back roads, proved to be an adventure.  When we finally did make it to our destination, the ram that we had decided to get, had been bit by a rattlesnake on the neck that morning, so we had to choose an alternate.

SEWING ROOM
Haven't had much time to satisfy my urge to sew, but did manage to put together this lap sized quilt for a family member, and just a little more quilting to go!

BOOK CLUB
I read the book Unbroken by Laura Hillenbrand.  I have really lead a sheltered life and had no idea what POWs went through.  This is a true story.  I hope that you will all pick it up and read it.  It has been a real life changer for me.

See Sandy, we do have mountain views.

More later........................................................................I will be cooking beets all day!

fair again!

We ended up attending the Larimer County fair again this year. Dennis was also asked by the 4H club to be the pigeon judge, he ended up judging 45 pigeons of differing breeds.
 Beautiful quilts galore, got me really motivated, probably a bad thing.

Dennis also wanted to attend as they were having a beer festival.  No, we did not drink beer, instead we went and talked to the participants about the art of brewing.  Dennis has started a new hobby.
these are hops which act as a preservative in beer making and give it a tart taste. 

The plant arrangements were just gorgeous around the well tended grounds.

Aside from fair going, we have been busy tending to the animals, the garden, and weekly watering of the trees. Three times per week we go into town and babysit our little grandchildren for a few hours.
And the never ending sewing of quilts and things, knitting and reading my books for book club.
Things that make the world go around I guess, and give one a reason to get up in the morning!

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

AGDA, and fair time!!!!

NATIONAL DAIRY GOAT SHOW
Well Dennis and I started out our July by attending the National Dairy Goat show here in Loveland Colorado.  This is an annual event, with the best of the best goats being showed.  It is held at a different location every year, and we were lucky enough to be able to attend it in our own back yard so to speak.  The black and white banded doe in the front of the picture ended up being the best Nubian, which is my favorite goat.

This is a picture of a boy feeding his Jr Doe .  A tender moment between man and animal.

WELD COUNTY FAIR
Also starting last weekend was the annual Weld County fair.  The fair is getting smaller each year, which is really too bad, but we had a great time never the less.

These are Boer goats, they are bred primarily for meat.  Not like the graceful dairy Nubians.

The highlight of the fair for me, was watching these kids, running around and playing with their goat kids. All of them were having a great time.

And of course, I had to take pictures of all the quilt exhibits.  These were down from last year also.

This is what well dressed sheep are wearing to the fair.

POND DOINGS

 

My lilies in my pond are looking better despite our record breaking high temps that we have been having all summer.

SEWING ROOM
I have been listening to the audio book by Jodie Picoult titled "Lone Wolf". It is a fascinating story, and I learned so much about wolves. Of course there is an ethical theme to her novel. But do listen to it on audio book, it will be worth your while. As I listened, I got allot done in my sewing room. I took all my scraps and put together this baby quilt. I don't have anyone in mind yet for the quilt, but I am sure it will find a good home.

I also did another table runner for the wild at heart. 

Knit up a few hats, what better time to do this as when it is 90+ degrees outside. Got to get ready for winter, don't ya know!  I don't know if you can see it in this picture, but the hat is perched atop a dishcloth that I knit.  When Julie's mother was here after the baby was born, she gave me a really easy pattern for these.  I have been knitting them up at least one per week.  They are addicting when I am watching TV.

Well, enough for now.  July was busy for us, as the summer usually is.  We just unloaded 20000 # of alfafla, yes that was not a typo, that is 10 tons.  My brother asked me if we had any tools to help us unload, and my responce to him was "Yes we do.  Our hands and our backs!"  But we both decided that this will be the last year we do this, next year we will hire someone to do this.

A sunflower from our garden.More later......................................................................................................................................

I'm Back..............................................................

Well, I am back physically, but mentally I find myself daily thinking back to Alaska! I returned home after my first ever cruise to the beautiful, breath taking state of Alaska. We experienced 50-70's degree weather up there, and when I got home it was a 108 degrees, but it was a "dry" heat. I was so sorry that I had complained about the cold all week. The total distance that I travelled by cruise ship was a whopping 2,270.1 statute miles. Half of my family members were sea sick the first 24 hours. We were awakened to the "gentle" swaying of the ship, at 1AM. Our stateroom was up on the 14th floor(of 17) and with the high winds, it was like "crack the whip" up there. My brother commented to his then green wife, "didn't you just sleep great, it was like being in a hammock all night". 

Well,in defence of the cruise ship, I must say that after that rough part, the ship was fairly steady and no further sickness.
Here is a picture of our cruise ship the Star Princess.  950 feet long, 118 feet wide.  Max number of passengers 3100, maximum number of crew 1205.  We averaged 16-19.6 knots per hour.  And enough life boats for all of us!!!!!



KETCHIKAN

Our first port of call was Ketchikan, the salmon capital of the world.   
5 salmon are fished out of these waters-chum, sockeye, king, silver and pink salmon. It is the "Banana Belt" of Alaska noted for temperate temps and a whopping 152+ inches of rain per year. They are noted for their totem poles, from the Tlingit tribe of Indians that inhabited the area.  Did you know, it is not always bad to be the low man on the totem pole.  There are life sized totem poles throughout this port, but I saw this nice little grouping in a souvenir shop.

 Noted for Creek Street, (pictured above) "Where both men and fish head upstream to spawn", the booming red light district back in the day, but now there are delightful little shops along the streams where one can shop til you drop!
  We had a great time shopping. I ended up having to purchase a warmer rain coat with fleece lining. With all my preparation for this trip,I was not prepared for the damp bone chilling winds.


TRACY ARM FJORD GLACIER

  Next we did a cruise thru the Tracy Arm Fjord Glacier-Alaska has 90% of the glaciers with 100,000 in the state covering 30,000 square miles. The ice was a aquamarine blue color, very pretty. I saw harbor seals perched atop the floating bergs. When an ice berg falls off a glacier into the sea, it is called "calving". The naturalist on board stated that the seals look like little brown speckled sausages, and the Killer Whales think that also,and find them quite tasty. Could not shop here as we were on board.

JUNEAU
On to Juneau! The capital, it is the only state capital in the US with no road access. Only accessible by sea or air. The town of Juneau is built atop mining tailings from the old mines.   I also had my picture taken with Sara Palin while I was there.

  Red Dog Saloon is a must stop and see place for all its history and ambiance.  I think the sun rose at 3 in the morning and was still lite at midnight while we were docked there.
While leaving Juneau, I spotted my first humpback whales, and not just their spouts.  One had a baby.  These whales are 50 feet long, and weigh in at 1 ton per foot.  The naturalist said they never sleep, just rest at the surface.  If they slept they would drown.   The whales did not look that big from atop the 17th floor.  The shopping was great!

SKAGWAY
The gateway to the gold rush.  There were two ways to get to the Yukon territory through Skagway, The shortest trail was the Chilkoot trail and was only 33 miles, but had a hellish 1/4 mile climb 1000 feet up. This had to be scaled 20-40 times as the Canadian government made it mandatory for each person to carry with them and have in their possession 1 ton of goods to survive in Canada.  The second route was longer the White Pass and was 10 miles longer, but did not have the vertical climb that the Chilkoot trail had.  Dead horse trail is in this pass where 3000 horses died along the route.  The horses were worked to death and then left, also if a dog could not carry its own weight it met the same fate.   They have a scenic train ride through this pass. 
Many of the men who went prospecting, by the time they made it to the Yukon, the gold was all gone.  Jack London partook in this journey.  He did not strike it rich in gold, but struck it rich in memories and wrote books of this journey.  One that I recall was "Call Of The Wild".  A book much loved by me.
Also my friend Sara Palin came with her family at 6 weeks of age and was raised here.

I did not do much shopping here, as frankly, I ran out of suit case room.  But I did manage to visit a very nice quilt shop while here.  Busy street scene of Skagway.  All the sidewalks in the historic section were plank. 


VICTORIA, BRITISH COLUMBIA

Sad, but this was our last stop on our trip. "The town of the newlyweds and the nearly deads" is what our tour guide said. Allot of young people live here, and allot of retirees. due to the temperate climate, with winter temps in the 40's.What impressed me most was the vegetation and the architecture. Beautiful flowers and gardens, and the British influence of the buildings. We only spent 5 hours here in the evening.


Craigdarroch castle. Owned by the Robert Dunsmuir who discovered the richest seam of coal in Vancouver island in 1869. His lavish home with 39 rooms is considered to be one of the finest in North America. The tour through this castle ended at 7 pm so we were unable to go through it, as that is when we arrived. It supposedly has priceless antiques, intricate woodwork and exquisite Victorian-era stained glass windows.
Bottom picture is a street scene of the Irish Pub in downtown Victoria. You can see my mom and dad in front. My dad has on the white cap and green coat, and my mom is to his left.

 
I have tried to highlight my trip, but I took 139 pictures and can't get them all in my blog unfortunately.  It was the end of another chapter of my life, and a big one. 
Oh, I forgot to mention the FOOD.  I can't say enough about it.  The chefs were great.  I had seafood every day, sometimes twice daily.  They say one puts on 1# per day when on a cruise, well in a few more weeks, I will weigh myself and check out this fact.  Also, another thing about this cruise, they have everything imaginable to do when you are stuck on board ship.  I took a few line dancing classes, saw Broadway comparable song and dance programs, they had bingo, movies, swimming pools , hot tubs, a library.  If you wanted to listen to a live string quartet, or jazz they had that.  Something going on every hour of every day.  You can go through this vacation brain dead, or really come away with learning something about the area.   A once in a lifetime adventure, but I hope that I can do it again someday.  Thank you Mom and Dad!!!

The poppies in the top of this blog are the size of coffee cup saucers and were growing in Ketchikan.  The flowers at the end of this post were in someones front yard in Victoria.

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

High Park fire, Colorado

Just an update on the fire near Fort Collins. It is now burning 36,900 acres, all uncontained. The only fall out that we are having is the air is all smoky and we are getting the ash fall out. Here is a picture at 6pm overlooking our livestock shelters. It is a sunny day, but the sun is orange behind all the smoke, and it is dark and gloomy. These pictures I took on June 14TH overlooking the town of Nunn. While doing chores this morning, I found some ash that had blown into the barn from the winds. I used my index finger for scale. We are 25miles northeast of Fort Collins, so this ash traveled far. Someone emailed me and they had this saying attached to their email, which I thought was appropriate. "In God We Trust" but NOT a single politician! More later...........................................................

Wool Festival, and High Park Fire

Yesterday Dennis and I enjoyed the day by going to the annual Wool Festival in Estes Park Colorado. The temps down on the plains(where we live) were in the upper 90's(98 at our front gate) so it was nice to go 2000 feet higher elevation to the cooler temps in the 70's. It was a beautiful clear day. Here is a picture of me looking at some of the vendors products. The felted hats, scarves and lacy shawls seemed to be the real crowd drawers. Along with the beautifully and artfully hand dyed yarns. I got several good ideas for projects that I want to tackle, and really got me motivated to exercise my artistic side. I really had to restain myself, and only made two purchases. The 3 felted pieces to the right of the picture are a future felted flower that will embellish a tote bag that I felted. You can see the oyster shell button that will serve as the center of the flower. To the left of the picture is a 30 inch tail spun yarn, that I just loved the color of. I have taken a spinning class and learned how to do this back when I lived in Arizona. This will embellish as a hat band, a knitted, then fulled, rolled brim hat that I intend to make. I received the pattern from a gal from Wisconsin. So, I went away from the market with not having spent a lot of money, but my enthusiasm and to- do list are priceless! Some of the animals that are all fiber bearing that we encountered. This is a pen of Jacobs sheep and their lambs. This is a Jacobs ram, with 4 horns, and I do believe they can get up to 6 horns. Here is a gal grooming her Lincoln sheep for the show ring. HIGH PARK FIRE When we left the animal enclosures and first stepped outside, it felt like something out of "Close Encounters of the Third Kind". As people were standing around taking pictures and gazing off to the east. A huge billowing cloud had been forming, unbeknownst to us up in Estes, it was the start of the High Park Fire that was burning 25 miles northwest of Fort Collins. So far as of this morning, 8000 acres have been burned, with temps in the 90's and humidity level or 5-10% and wind, the conditions for fire were right. We live 50 miles east of this fire and can see the smoke and smell the fire. Brings back memories of all the camp outs we have had over the years, the only thing missing are the s'mores. The predicted winds for this afternoon are to be in the 40's. We are praying that all two legged and four leggeds are OK up there. More later......................................................................

family gatherings, and June

Well, not all June, some from the end of May. Starting off we have had record breaking temps in the 90's for June thus far. Memorial Day was spent with Ryans family, the previous day we spent with Tera and Brady celebrating Tera's birthday down in Denver. Here is a table runner that I made for Tera.The animal print to the border really made this runner "pop"! Here is Grandma holding little Kaitlin. She is not too happy at the moment, but I am beaming! But Lily was her usual jovial self!Here she is showing me a toy . BARN DOINGS I am still milking my 4 Nubians does going on 13 months now. I have all this extra milk so acquired two little boer cross goats to bottle. Dangerous I know. Have not named them, but they are so cute. And a good use for the extra milk. A new use for baling twine? Living out in the country and feeding ruminants, we have a wealth of baling twine off of all the hay that we feed. We had left this twine up in the sheep shelter, where we had a heat lamp hanging this winter. Well the industrialous barn swallows decided that it would be a perfect place to set up housekeeping. Here is a picture of their nest being held up with just baling twine and a thin strand of wire. So, I went on Google and looked up how to make barn swallow nests, and built a few platforms for them in the remaining two shelters. So far no one has used them. We just love the antics of the barn swallows. Their diving and dipping into the ponds for water is truly entertaining for us. With all the warmer than normal weather that we have been enjoying this early in June, I have an algae bloom in my pond. The pond is worth its weight in gold however, with all the birds that it attracts. I get a close up view of those Meadowlarks. My pond mentor reassures me that once the water lilies get bigger, it will shade the pond and there will be less algae.The plants in the black ring are water hyacinths, they also help in algae control by picking up the nutrients with their roots. We are looking foward to the wool festival in Estes Park this coming weekend. Then my Alaskan cruise the 16th of June. Alaska is somewhat similar to Colorado in weather, you really don't know if you should dress for summer or winter, so need to take along clothes to cover you for both. Packing in a carry on will pose to be a challange. Otherwise, just doing stuff around the farm, and keeping up with my library group. The last book I read was "Back Roads" by Tawni O'dell. Yikes, dysfunction and mental illness in that family. I am still not liking the new blog format, I stll can't figure out where spell check is, so bear with me all the words that are spelled incorrectly, and my paragraphs don't seem to stay. More later..............................................................................