10 on Tuesday

John and I are having a wonderful time in Utah with John, Jill, and the Grands. The weather was definitely with us on our 2-day drive. Christmas Day was a festival of toys, ripped wrapping paper, food, and family. Each day is a party around here!!!

Ten on Tuesday: This will be the final 10 on Tuesday post: And the title for this one is:

10 Things to Change in the New Year

1. Spend more time with my John...we tend to watch our own programs on different TV's in the house and not in the same room.

2. Try to do housework more often...I would rather knit or sew than go anywhere near the vacuum or a dustrag.

3. Be more diligent about sending birthday cards.

4. Knit one pair of socks each month from the sets I've made up in the studio.

5. Learn how to spin with a drop spindle.

6. Watch the Yoga dvd and start doing yoga at least once a week.

7. Start using the Magic Bullet at least once a week.

8. Make plans to take a short trip to Rhode Island in 2011.

9. Make the doll clothes for my granddaughters that they've requested.

10. Write in my journal 5 minutes each day

These 10 things reguire an attitude change in me for them to be effective. So I'm adding an 11th thing to the list - CHANGE MY ATTITUDE!

Let's see how well I do...If anyone has an hints as to how I can effect these changes, please comment.

Happy New Year to everyone...I am so thankful to all of you for your friendship and continued support of this blog.

Until next time...

HAPPY THANKSGIVING

John and I were supposed to drive to his sister's house for Thanksgiving today. The weather changed our plans. Our high today was 31 degrees and that was at 9:30 this morning....it went down to 25 degrees by 11:00 a.m. Add the rain and sleet, and you have icy conditions. John and I agreed that we wouldn't drive to Theresa's house, rather we would stay home, safe and warm and dry. Sad to miss this family get-together but glad we will have a chance to do it another time. ICE ON THE TREE OUTSIDE MY STUDIO WINDOW.

CLOSER TO THE TREE - YES THAT GRASS IS GREEN. GO FIGURE!

ICE BEGINS TO GATHER ON THE BACK DECK.

THAT'S ABOUT ALL THE SNOW WE GOT!

The roads are still icy so we won't be going anywhere today. That's fine....we have food in the freezer and we have each other.

Wishing all our friends a Happy Thanksgiving. Our grateful prayer are with you all.

Thanks for stopping by.

Ten on Tuesday

This week's 10 on Tuesday is 10 Movies you want to see at the Theater. We don't usually go to the movies in town, rather we wait till the movie comes out on DVD and are able to sit in our easy chairs and eat popcorn while watching. And we can hit the pause button if we need to make a bathroom break. But if I had unlimited time and money, these are the movies I'd want to see at the theater:

1. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, part 1.
2. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, part 2. ( I know, I need to wait till May of next year for this one)
3. Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader
4. One for the Money (It comes out next year. This is the money made from Janet Evanovich's Stephanie Plum series of books.)
5. Blood Fare (It also comes out next year - not sure if it will be in the theatres or go directly to DVD but our son is in this one so we will definitely see it!)
6. Red - what can I say? I love Helen Mirren!
7. Secretariat - I've only seen the promos but it looks interesting.
8. Unstoppable - I'm not normally interested in an action film but the promos grabbed me.
9. Fair Game - I wonder how Hollywood is going to treat the Valerie Plame issue.
10. The Next 3 Days - again, I really don't care of Russell Crowe, but the story intrigues me.

What's on your list?

Thanks for stopping by.

OUCHIE, OUCHIE!

Picture this: Late afternoon on a Friday, 2 men working diligently to dig a hole thru rock and clay (they've spent the last 2 weekends pouring water into the hole to loosen the clay). Finally, they think they have it deep enough to sink a post and cement it in place. Now, picture one of the 2 men pounding the new post into the ground...pound, pound, pound....smash! It happened so fast, yet, he tells me he knew it was coming as it was happening and was powerless to stop it. This is his thumb, shortly after it happened - it's almost twice that size this morning. No, it's not broken, just bloody and swollen. Poor baby can't do much with his left hand. Makes one understand why we were given oposable thumbs! Poor John....he is NOT used to being unoccupied...thank goodness we've got a lot of movies on DVD and plenty of beer and coffee!

Until next time!

Ten on Tuesday

This week's Ten on Tuesday blog post is supposed to be about 10 Dream Vacations. Let's see how far I can get.....

1. Anywhere my son and his family are - mostly in Utah.

2. Ireland - I've always wanted to go there.

3. Paris - My second favorite city in the entire world.

4. Hong Kong - my very favorite city of the ones I've visited.

5. Australia - just saying the name of the country makes me smile!

6. England and Scotland - I visited both places and would love to go back.

7. Maine - I absolutely adore Maine - especially the Casco Bay area and the tiny island of Little Diamond.

8. Rhode Island - where I believe my heart really lies.

9. New Hampshire - especially in the peak of autumn...those leaves have to be seen to be believed.

10. Alaska - I've always had a desire to see Alaska.


Wow! I came up with 10 places to go on vacation! There isn't one of them that takes precedence over another...no particular order, except for seeing my grandchildren and their mom and dad.

What's on your list?

Thanks for stopping by.

KoolAid Dyeing 101

Mom and I decided to dye some mini skeins of yarn with KoolAid. I've never done this before but it turned out really, really easy! And we had a blast. First, we wound about 20 yards of undyed sock yarn and placed them into a shallow bowl of warm water with a dab of dishwashing liquid . Let that sit for about 30 minutes to 'open' the yarn. While the yarn was soaking, we added one pouch of sugarless KoolAid to 8 oz. of water and stirred till it was dissolved.

We are now ready to experiment!

We put plastic wrap in a shallow microwave plate (I used a pie plate) and made a 'bumper' along the center so I could do two sections of yarn at a time. Squeeze (gently) the soaked yarn and place in the well of the plastic wrap. We spooned dye randomly onto the yarn using whatever colours we wanted. Place the pie plate into the microwave and nuke it on high for 2 minutes. Let it sit for 2 minutes and nuke again if the liquid in the plate hasn't turned clear or slightly 'foggy'. I only nuked this set for 2 minutes and decided it was done. Let it cool entirely - there must be no heat left in the yarn OR the plate. Rinse with tap water the same temperature as the yarn - heat or cold will shock the yarn and cause it to begin felting.

After squeezing out as much liquid as you can, without twisting -it causes felting - hang the hanks up to dry - our hanks were so small that they dried overnight.

Here you have my 4 mini skeins of 20 yards - we used orange, blue, green, and orange. I totally forgot to buy red or yellow KoolAid.

And here are Mom's 4 skeins. They turned out so entirely cool! This is one easy, fast, and fun method to dye your own yarns...it can be done with larger skeins, you might need more than 1 package of KoolAid for each colour, though.

Thanks for stopping by.

Crafty Ladies

Mom and I spent this morning working on some folded iris cards. She'd never heard of them and said she'd try them for me. This is the one she made....her very first iris folded card. I think she's hooked! Then she made the card on the left....using grosgrain ribbons as her paper strips and paper punching the dots on the planter. It's too cute! I made the card on the right - using various ribbons and alternating the colors so it stripes. I'm quite pleased with that one, too.

Finally, here is a Halloween cauldron whose pattern I got from the internet. I'm going to use this card as a giveaway for my class tomorrow.

More soon. Thanks for stopping by.

Utah Visits Missouri

The Utah family visited us for a week recently. What a wonderful experience for us all. My mom flew in from Arizona for a 3 week visit right after the kids got here and she got to meet her newest great-grandson, Hewston.

Emily did some homework in my studio while I knitted, then we made dessert together.

We went to Silver Dollar City for the day and then spent the night at one of the timeshares in Branson. Had dinner at Mel's Hard Luck Diner. If you even get a chance to go there, don't hesitate. The wait staff all sing and the food is awesome. We got there 5 minutes before they closed the doors (didn't realize they were getting ready to close and they never told us). We were the last to leave, of course. But the staff was gracious and the service was superb! The kids loved it. One of the waiters sang a lovely song and Charlotte was mesmerized! He saw that she was focused on him and began to sing directly to her - I think she's in love!

The next day we left Branson and began making our way home...stopping at my friend's farm so the kids could ride her horses. William was happy to sit on the horse and let Papa lead Summer around the paddock, and Charlotte and Emily took turns on Sydney, with their dad leading the horse. Mom, Jill, Hewston, and I sat in the shade of the barn watching....what a delightful afternoon we had!

And Papa John spent quite a bit of time holding that lovely little bundle. We all did, actually.

On their last day here, William asked Papa, "Will you take me for a ride on your Grasshopper, Papa?". They got their shoes on and spent an hour outside, riding with Papa....Everybody took a turn. What fun!

The kids loaded up the rental van and headed back to finish the day in St. Louis, then flew home early the next day. We surely do miss them, but we will spend Christmas with them in Utah so that will sustain us.

That's about all for now. Thanks for stopping by.

Roosters

Ha! You thought I meant chickens, didn't you! Nope, these turkeys have decided to roost on top of the fencing near the barn. That's where John finds them each night, waiting for him to put them in the barn for the night. We had one turkey lost due to an incident with a feral cat, but the rest of them are faring quite well. They sure can fly, too. That grey-ish white one on the right flew over 200 feet the other day when I let the dogs out into the run and didn't see the turkeys were out there. They scattered like the wind.

Autumn has arrived here. The temperature has fallen to the mid 70's during the day and the humidity is no higher than my age. Temps at night are into the 50's. Looking forward to some lovely days ahead.

Stay tuned. I'll have some grandkid pics soon - they are coming for a visit in a bit over a week....yeah!

Thanks for stopping by.

Happy Grandparents Day!

Today is Grandparents Day in the U.S. I have only one grandparent left, my grandfather's wife, Carol. I only met Carol once, in the summer of 1959 when my mom, my brothers and I spent most of the summer at my maternal grandparents' farm in Ohio. We went up to Michigan for a week and saw my paternal grandfather and his wife. Carol was a librarian and she must have inspired my love for books. She gave my grandfather another 4 boys in addition to my own father. All of my grandparents are gone except Carol. I hear from her every year at Christmastime. And a couple of years ago, we had a tornado set down here in Marshfield and evidently it made the news cause I got a call from her to make sure we were ok. Although I've not seen her in over 50 years, Carol is still in my life. Happy Grandparents Day, Carol!





When our son was small, I had made Christmas stockings for each of us - felted, beaded, sequins galore. Those stockings have been used for over 30 years. Mine was eaten by one of the previous dogs a couple of years ago and I made a new one for me but John and John both still use their original ones.


When John III became engaged to Jill, he called me and asked me to make a stocking for Jill and one for her daughter, Emily. He picked out the patterns and sent them to me. The one for Emily had 137 pieces ! And he asked me to make them in - get this - October! In time for THIS Christmas? Yes, Mom, please??? Well, I got them done and they are still used. And for each of the grandchildren, as they come along, I make a Christmas stocking as well.


I spent yesterday putting the finishing touches to a Christmas stocking for our newest grandson. Hewston was born at the end of May. This one is blue and white, mostly, with touches of purple. There are a ton of sequins on this one. It finally was finished yesterday. Happy First Christmas, Hewston!



Thanks for stopping by.

Baby Turkey Talk

They don't exactly cluck, and they don't exactly gobble, and they don't exactly whistle....just baby turkey talk....cute, huh?

Why Did the Turkeys Cross the Driveway?

I recently told you about our turkeys....they are now old enough to be let out during the day to roam the property and they then, all by themselves, go back to the barn for the night. John shuts the door so no nighttime critters can get the birds. This is what I came home to this afternoon. I'm not sure they've ventured this far before.

The first picture was taken just after I pulled into the left wing of the circle drive...they were going from the far western side of our property, across the driveway and heading over in front of the house. The second picture was taken just outside the front door, in the shade of the old elm tree in front of my studio windows. They were all working their way toward the barn. They were quietly making little turkey noises - not quite clucks, not quite gobbles...will try to get a video up (if I can figure out how to do it) for later.

Have a wonderful holiday weekend, all of you, whether you celebrate Labor Day as we do in the USA or not.

Thanks for stopping by.

TRENCHING PROGRESS

Yesterday I went with John to our local Man Store to get the rest of the piping and fittings for the drainage in the front yard. He had called a local guy to come out and dig out the ditches again, and bigger, yesterday morning. During that time, the guy had cut the electrical wires to the well pump with his digger. John fixed that this morning, then got to work fitting all the pipes together for the drainage. Now he needs to lift it all up, place 2 inches of gravel in the bottom of the ditch, then lay the pipes again, this time for real, and put another 8 inches of gravel on top of that. Then push all the dirt back. The next procedure is laying the blocks to define the front gardens and separate them from the circle driveway.

I am so proud of John....he has done a wonderful job of this drainage project.

Thanks for stopping by!

Canning Tomatoes

John is growing tomatoes this summer....many, many tomatoes. He has 11 plants of Romas and each weekend he brings in around 20 pounds of tomatoes. We spent one weekend, blanching tomatoes to get the skin off, and then freezing them. Got 4 one gallon freezer bags full. Last weekend we decided to can the tomatoes. 20 pounds of tomatoes will give you 7 quarts of canned tomatoes. I am not sure if we will freeze or can this next weekend....will keep you updated.

Thanks for stopping by.

Plea!

I know there are a few folks who read my blog who quilt. I have a special request. I've got an idea for a small quilt and I want to use Hawaiian print fabrics. My stash of Hawaiian prints is incredibly small (as in a handful!). If any of you have any scraps that are no smaller than 3" by 7", and you don't have plans for them, I'd be happy to take them off your hands. Send me a note and I can give you my snail address.

Thanks for stopping by!

New Quilt, New Foal, and a New Computer!

00Our neighbors to the south of us have several horses in the pasture. I certainly don't pay a lot of attention to them on a regular basis, as evidenced by the fact that a new baby was born last week and I never even noticed that the mare was pregnant! I came home from work on Wednesday and this is what I saw - it wasn't there when I left for work at 11:00 that morning! Not sure if it's a boy or girl - doesn't matter really. Our grandson, William, is nuts about horses so I sent him an email with pictures of the baby. He's even more excited about coming to visit Nana and Papa now that we have horses in the fields next door!

And about 18 months ago Jill asked me to make a quilt for the downstairs family room. Of course, I can't say no to my daughter-in-law! It took me till now to get in gear and make the quilt. I'm quite proud of the way it came out, my quilter did a fantastic job on the quilting. Jill got it just after her birthday! We're all happy now!

John's been toying with the idea of getting me a laptop computer for a while now. In fact, he admitted that he was going to get me one for our anniversary last month. We talked last week and finally decided to bite the bullet and get one. It should arrive today if the tracking is correct. I can't wait to get my programs loaded and the LAN set up so I can access all my documents from the studio instead of stopping what I'm doing and going to the other side of the house where the office is located. Thanks, John....you're still proving that you are my HERO!

Thanks for stopping by.

Trenching 2010

We've lived here for 7 years now. And all that time, there has been no landscaping done at all. Other things have taken a front seat, I understand that. I am NOT a person to go outside and garden...outside creeps me out...I can't explain it. And my family knows that I don't do outside. So things like landscaping and outdoor decorations have needed to wait till more important things, like fencing and haying and cows, chickens, turkeys, and pigs were all situated and well-established. This past weekend was the time! My front 'yard' is finally in the beginning stages.

First up - trenching for drainage. This first picture shows how John marked for where the drainage lines are going. This is the ONLY one that didn't get done in the time he had left on the rental trencher....not bad!


Next we have the front trench going out toward the south pasture. That's the main trench that all the other ones will drain toward. And the next picture shows John and John, our neighbor, who spent all day in the blistering heat and humidty digging the trenches.



Here's a closeup of one of the trenches.

Now for some statistics for all you out there who like that kind of stuff:

143 linear feet dug, 2 feet deep and 6 inches wide. The last trench that didn't get dug is 23 feet long and John plans on digging that by hand - but not today. He's doing some cleanup of the trenches today, and maybe watch a John Wayne movie as a reward for all his hard work!

Next time, The Great Chicken Massacre!

Thanks for stopping by.

Wedding Anniversary

This is really late....John and I celebrated our 37th wedding anniversary last week. I absolutely can not believe it's been 37 years. We've both got a lot of miles on us and, hopefully, a lot more to come. John took me out to dinner the day after our special day - he helped a friend with some haying on "the day" -- golly, it's been a long time since we've been out for a nice dinner. We dined at the Gallery Bistro in downtown Springfield - all I can say is that the food was yummy and the service was beyond wonderful! Well worth the large money it cost.

I love you, John...you have made my life very full - full of love, full of adventure, full of memories.

Hey, thanks for stopping by folks!

County Fair and other Stuff

They say that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery so our daughter-in-law, Jill ought to be seriously flattered! She made these really cool plant stakes for their garden in Utah and I saw them when I visited in April and June...decided I needed to make them for Mr. Wonderful's garden. Here they are. He just needs to attach the stakes to them and they are ready for the Pieceful Harbor Garden .


Our County Fair is held in July each year. The middle week, in fact. And I try to enter something each year. This year, I entered 2 knitted items and one quilted item. Here you have "Charlotte Visits Giraffic Park". I began this quilt when Charlotte was born - 5 years ago. It seems only fitting that I should finish it right about the time she starts school. This little lovely took 2nd place in its division.

Next we have the knee socks with celtic designs along each outside calf. I started them when I was in Utah - for a competition - and asked Jill if she'd like to have them when I got them done. She said she would. It's hard to see the celtic design but, believe me, it's there!

And I entered my very first piece of lace - a scarf - rather proud of that one, too. You will note that both the socks and the scarf took 1st place ribbons.

I'm trying to decide what to enter next year....will have to work on several other quilts to get them finished in time for next year's Fair - thank goodness I've got a whole year to get them done.

In chicken news, I will probably be posting some of the pictures taken during the Great Chicken Massacre next time. We ended up with 22 chickens - sold 15 of them and gave away 4 of them. Truthfully, haven't even cooked one yet..maybe this next weekend. We have 28 more chickens in the chicken tractor. They are 3 weeks old so another 5 weeks and they begin the killing spree again. Sounds gruesome, doesn't it? I honestly couldn't tell you cause I stayed away from the Killing Field the entire weekend it happened.

The topic for Ten on Tuesday is supposed to be 10 Things To Take Camping. Hah! Not gonna happen, friends. Those of you who know me know that camping is a 4 letter word to me. So I'm skipping the Ten on Tuesday subject this week.

Thanks for stopping by.

Summer

It surely is summer in the Ozarks - hot and humid! Today is no different from any other day - sunny, with clouds moving in during the day, very hot and quite drippy with humidty. Rain is expected sometime tomorrow...it won't cool it down any, believe me.

Today is the day of the Great Chicken Massacre at Pieceful Harbor! John and our neighbor are killing chickens - 54 of them to be exact. Those chicks are now 8+ weeks old and ready to become freezer fodder. No, I'm not posting any pictures so don't even look for them. Not happenin', folks.

I haven't anything else of any interest to anyone to post so I'm going to close this and hope I have something interesting to tell you soon. In the meantime, thanks for stopping by.

Ten on Tuesday - a List

I recently joined a group that sends each member a reminder on Sunday to do a blog posting on Tuesday entitled "Ten on Tuesday". They give us a topic and we post on our own blogs. Today's topic is "10 Books on My Summer Reading List". I only have 7 on my list so I guess that's all you're gonna get from me this week.

1. The Search by Nora Roberts. DONE
2. Sizzlin' Sixteen by Janet Evanovich - I'm reading this one now! DONE
3. Thursdays at Eight by Debbie Macomber - This will be a re-read for me since I read it back when it came out in the late 80's! DONE
4. A Winter's Bone by Daniel Woodress - a local author whose book has recently come out as a movie. I want to read the book before we go see it at the theatre. DONE
5. The Last Song by Nicholas Sparks - I haven't read this one yet and summertime seems as good as any time to read it.
6. This Time Together by Carol Burnett - I just love that lady. DONE
7. The Help by Kathryn Stockett - I started it while I was in Utah and need to finish it.DONE

There you are - my 10 on Tuesday is really 7 on Tuesday Afternoon. I'll try to do better next week.

John came in last night and said that something had killed one of the baby turkeys overnight. He said it might be a cat or a possum...but that the bird was only dead, not mutilated. There were a couple of tooth marks on the neck but nothing else. He worked really hard to get the pen secure from another attack on the 3 remaining babies. This morning, he went out to check on them and found that 2 more were dead. He looked around and found the culprit - a 4 foot long black snake! When he got home this evening he went out there and killed that snake! Smacked it upside the head several times to stun it and then whacked it several more times with a shovel to chop off its head. He picked up 30 more baby chickens and 6 more baby turkeys this afternoon so he needs to make sure they are all secure. He is out in the barn as I write this, making sure the babies are safe. My hero!

I realized that I totally forgot to show you all a picture of John's chicken tractor. Here it is, just before he put the babies in it.

The chickens go inside the enclosure and, using a furniture trolley, John can move the tractor each morning and afternoon to a new space on the lawn. The chickens eat all the bugs within that 'square' and, of course, fertilize it, and then they are moved to a new space to do it all over again. Next year, the areas that were fertilized by the baby chicks this summer will be green and healthy - all organic and NO SMELL!!!!!!

Thanks for stopping by.

Rainbows and Turkeys

We had a terrifically short rainstorm late yesterday afternoon. Thunder, lightning, wind, and rain for about 20 minutes. Then the sun broke thru from the west and, while the rain was still beating down, this is what we saw out the southeast side of our property. It stayed for about 20 minutes. The colours were so intense...just inspiring!

I promised you turkeys and here they are. John went out to the barn yesterday, before the rain, and got these two clear pictures.

I'm working on a quilt for a dear girl in Utah...yes, Beansie, I'm working on it! Not sure it will be done by your birthday, but it's coming along!

Thanks for stopping by.

From top to bottom they are: Blue Slate, Royal Palm, Bourbon Red, and Black Spanish. John got one of each to see which he prefers. They are now about a month old and still only the size of your hand. They make the slightist peeping noise..you almost have to be on top of them to hear it.

I'm working on a project for a special girl in Utah....no, I'm not telling till it's done. It's coming along and I hope to have it posted by the end of July (?????).

Thanks for stopping by.

I'm Baaaaack!

I just returned from Utah where I went to meet our newest grandson, Hewston. What a wonderful baby and what a wonderful family he has come into! I spent far too much time holding him and didn't get any pictures...thanks goodness John III took some when he was in the hospital!






I have Big John out taking pictures of our newest arrivals at Pieceful Harbor - baby turkeys...more later!



Thanks for stopping by and thanks for continuing to follow my blog - such as it is!