Oh what a difference a day makes, as the old song goes.  Compare this picture to the one of the chickens below.  The chicken one was taken only about a week or so before this new one.  Today the temps have dropped again heading towards the minus sign New Year's Eve, possibly to -4° by then.  Ouch

Today the winds are swirling and howling all over north Idaho.  Last night was so noisy we had to lock the doors on the front porch to keep them from banging open.  Bella was sleeping on my bed ~ to protect me I guess.   pant * pant * pant ...  She was hot, I was not.

Got to head up to the post office later and dreading it in this wind and cold.  The roads most likely will be like glass and very icy.  But I want to pick up the Thunder Shirt I ordered for Dexter, our border-collie lab mix.  He's so hyper, we are hoping this will calm him down (like it says in the ad). 

He is one crazy dog.  Very very loving and affectionate but waaaay too excitable, even though this picture doesn't show it.  Maybe the Thunder Shirt will help.   Stay tuned ...

As you can see, we have no snow to speak of yet.  I took this picture earlier this week.  It seemed to me those silly chickens were thinking of going swimming.  Maybe they were just thinking of summer.  Anyway, it was pretty funny, considering our pool is covered for the winter with that blue tarp.




Now Bella on the other hand was staring very hard at something the other night.  I think she was looking for Santa.  Anyway, she stood just like this for several minutes.

Merry Christmas everyone.  We hope you have a blessed Christmas, a safe New Years and a wonderful 2015.

Here's a little video gift I thought you all would like as much as I do:

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7GSTH3G1YIs

God bless you all, thanks for your friendship. 

I was just sent this from a group message.  It is so cute I couldn't resist posting it even though it is an advertisement at the end.

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GzxkNRvujiw&index=1&list=PL1-mqr0NI6-odugr7gVwiSvjqVOYAaX-M

Enjoy!

It's hard to realize I haven't written since the middle of October!  Things get so busy around here sometimes that time just slips away.  I guess that's just the way it is everywhere though, isn't it?  This is a picture I had wanted to post this fall but hadn't yet.  My niece on Hidalgo, who belongs to a good friend.  They get along very well and she is hopeful she will get to care for Hidalgo this summer.  She worked for some neighbors last summer and in turn got some great riding lessons.

Ok, on to Thanksgiving!  We decided to make our own homemade cinnamon rolls instead of buying them (we are saving that for Christmas!).  Here is a picture of the  defrosted frozen bread dough, rolled into little golf balls and placed in a bundt pan with melted butter, pecans, a cinnamon-sugar mixture, all sprinkled over the top and drizzled with melted butter.  It usually turns out really yummy except this time I couldn't find my old bundt pan so decided an angel food cake pan would have to do.  NOT.  Before it was completely done the butter / cinnamon mixture started leaking out the bottom in the oven, which started to smoke ... a LOT.  We had to take it out before it was completely done but the ones around the outside were delicious.  Guess I better buy another bundt pan.


So now it is two weeks from Christmas.  Sorry its been so long, I have so many other pictures I wanted to share but guess I will stick with just these.   Our local Community Center had a chili feed - meet Santa last Sunday so we went with the hopes of getting one of our doggies included.  They did say yes, but we won't do it again next year.  I don't think it was such a good idea since no dogs are allowed usually, but they were kind and allowed us this once.  I was standing around the corner and snapped this cute pic.


I finally was in the right place at the right time on this one.  Usually every time my niece's little dog snuggles up to our Great Pyrenees Bella, she starts growling and threatening to tear her apart.  I doubt she ever would do that but we always stop it before it happens.  This time I just happened to be standing there with my camera ready.  Guess Bella didn't know and would not have wanted us to know she really does like Jet.  

Not sure if I will be able to add much more to the blog before Christmas so if I don't, praying everyone will have a blessed and joyous one.  

Fall is certainly apparent in north Idaho this week.  We've had such warm dry weather so far I hadn't really noticed Fall too much yet until yesterday. 

I got a box and went over to the orchard after I finished feeding our goats and chickens.  It had rained pretty hard in the night and continued all day yesterday but it was only misting lightly when I went into the orchard.  The trees were dripping  from the rain and the smell of wet earth, wet forest and sweet fruit was nearly overwhelming.  It was quiet as usual except for the clucking of the chickens and occasional drop of a ripe apple. 

These are Red Delicious apples.  We love fresh apples, but mostly they are sliced and dried at our house so we can still enjoy the taste long into winter and next spring.  We even had a house guest one time that loved them so much she ate an entire gallon bag in just a few days.  We have so many already on the ground that are ready to eat and hope to get the rest off the tree this weekend.

There is one little apple on the top right with a yellow spot that is from a different tree.  Usually they are not as good as the red delicious, but this year they are wonderful.  Sweet and juicy.  Since we don't use any pesticides here you get an occasional little tiny bug spot, but for the most part they are perfect and beautiful.

Speaking of goats, here is our cute little Smoky begging for a dried yellow
plum yesterday.  Egypt is in the background and just knows he will not be able to snag one.  Smoky is the big pig of the goat pen and fights for 'his' food.  Egypt and GE don't have a chance.

The picture on the right is that beautiful full moon we had last week.  We were on our way to a volleyball game and this picture was taken from the car.

I love the way the clouds look like long fingers reaching for the moon.

Finally!  We finished putting our little goat shed together this week.  After getting it unloaded, which was a huge effort because of the weight,
and reading the directions over several times my niece and I got it mostly put up in two days.  First day was a killer.  Second day we didn't work as hard and quit earlier than the first day.

Getting the roof on was the last thing we did and probably the heaviest part of our construction job.







My niece is such a huge help, a very sharp eye for detail and also a bit of an artist so she knows what is aesthetically pleasing.  I usually follow the directions or do it my own way, then have to change it later because I don't like the way it looks.

The only really hard part was the lifting and my shoulders and arms were feeling it the next day.  She is very strong and active in sports so I don't think it bothered her as much as me.

So here is our new shed for the baby goats.  They seem to like it but I can't say I've seen them sleeping inside yet.  The day before we finished it the temperature that night was 28°.  Even our heater came on before time to get up.  Usually our house stays fairly warm when the days are warm.  If the days and nights are both cold then our house is freezing.

We placed straw in the bottom and locked one door shut while the other one will stand open until the weather turns rainy or snowy.  So far its been just beautiful.  An Indian Summer.  Days warm and sunny, nights cool sometimes frosty.  The water in the animal's buckets was frozen on top this week a few times.

And the new residents are curious about everything.  50/50 says What's Up?  And Comfey is (for once!) not the first one to get her picture taken.  She is so much bigger than he is I wonder if he will ever be a big boy, or maybe he will always just be my little boy.

Summer has finally gone.  Tonight is the first night of Fall.  I'm always sad to see summer leave, I love warm weather.  Although all of our summer or summers are not hot, I just know that our fall and winters will be cold.  Too cold for me anyway.  But now I can wear some of the nice and warm woven scarves I love so much.

The one I have on my loom in the house now is one for my daughter.  A beautiful rust color, plain weave and oh-so-soft rayon.  It is the color she wanted on the last one but I had added the cream and blue and she only wanted the rust.  So now she might get it before long.

Speaking of my daughter, she has had a lot of trouble with her left leg this summer.  First there was a blood clot in it, then it was going numb.  She fell a lot when it was going numb and finally broke her hip.  Surgery last weekend and she came home yesterday.  Lots and lots of pain for her, both before surgery and now at home.  But she is getting better and God is healing her.

Her little white parakeet  was attacked by one of our cats while we were gone the other day to the hospital.  All the kitties denied doing it but there were white feathers all over the floor when I got home that afternoon.  The redness is from the feathers being pulled out but its not blood.  She was very traumatized and quiet for a couple days but now seems to be her old talkative self.  She and the gray one chatter all day to each other and themselves in the little mirrors.  They are so cute but sure don't want to be held.  We try but they keep far away from us.

Our goats are all doing well, the cashmere boys have been mowing the pasture for the last couple months.  They finally got big enough to be able to spend time over there without Bella to guard them.  Unfortunately they can't stay over night because of the coyotes.  Bella won't stay over there at night, what a little coward she is!  Dolly lived over there, Bella will only go when she feels in the mood.  Mostly she sleeps in the house all day and most of the night.

With the inclement weather coming right around the corner, I needed a shelter for the little goats.  My builder friend has hurt himself and can't build the one I wanted, so I ordered one from our hardware store and plan on putting it together myself.  Today I unloaded all the pieces and stood them up against the fence by the woods where I will put the little shed.  From the directions, it doesn't look too hard to put together.  The only hard part is putting the roof on.  The parts all screw or slide together but the roof is pretty heavy for me.  I will get my niece to help but not sure if the two of us can do it properly.  I guess we will see.  Nice weather Fri, Sat and Sun, so am planning on completing it this weekend.

This is their picture of the shed.  I will post a picture of the one we put together when we finish putting the roof on.  

We did some really fun things this summer.  Went to the art show at the park in Cd'A, ate lots, bought a few things at the sidewalk sale and generally just enjoyed being out in that beautiful sun by the lake.  A few weeks ago we went to a gun show and took some knives to sell.  It was fun but sure didn't see too many folks buying anything.  Two days is plenty for me.

We hit a few yard sales and mostly just worked around here.  We've picked fruit, I planted a couple things in the garden (nothing turned out very well again this year) but I enjoyed mowing my grass.  I love that job, always have.  Especially now that I don't have to work as hard pushing a mower around the yard.

Meet our new little baby boy!  His name is 50/50 and is the twin brother of our little girl Comfort.  She is so sweet and mellow but we think she has been lonely because she cries every time she sees us.

Our wonderful friends from Blacke KNYGHT Mews, the farm where we got her, visited the other day and agreed she needed a companion (playmate) so they offered her own brother.  They have been so happy to be back together, we let them out of the big pen for the first time today since we got him and she ran all around the yard bouncing up and down trying to entice him to come and play with her.  He finally got it!  He took off after her (boing♪ boing♪ boing♪ ) so now she is showing him all the good places to eat weeds and check out other fun stuff like the doggie door we have to the front porch.  So now he knows how to get to the front door for treats.

He has been banded so they won't be having any babies but they will be constant companions here.  We will definitely not eat him.  Like my friend told me, they don't name anyone they are planning on eating.  That's what I always tell folks, we don't eat anyone we have named.  Next spring we plan on breeding Comfort and do plan on eating some of the offspring.  Please don't call them babies  :-(  

On another subject, check out these beautiful colors on some wool.  In searching for something on-line the other day I came across the most interesting blog named Lil Fish Studios by Lisa Jordan in Brainerd MN.  With her kind permission I have posted some pix she had on her blog about dyeing fiber.  The blue at the top of the picture was dyed with black beans (believe it or not!) and the yellow has been dyed with that awful tansy we have so much of around here.  The green is the combination of both these dyes.

I am fascinated with how beautiful they are.  Lisa is so creative I definitely will be watching and reading her blog for more fun ideas.

For anyone interested her blog address is   http://lilfishstudios.blogspot.com

Thanks Lisa!

I have been soaking black beans and tansy for a few days, we will see what I get.  I used tap water which for us is well water.  Sometimes with that type of water you don't always get what result you are looking for.  I may have to try some bottled or filtered water. 

Don't you just love summer!?  I was out in the garden the other morning early and got these beautiful sunflowers facing the sun.  They aren't the huge ones but are very pretty.  And they move their little faces around to follow the sun.

The purple flowers on the right are my favorites!  They are called Campanula.  A few years ago I dyed and spun up some fiber the colors of these pretty flowers.  If you are curious, look back in my blog at the yarns.

And this is one of my favorite old, crusty, do-nothing things in the yard.  Its been there for years and I don't know what it was used for.  But we like it and just leave it where it is.  It's in the way but we go around it.

This is one of the only really shady places in our yard and just to the right of the purple flowers.

And here is our little girly-goat.  Comfort the bottle baby.  She craves human company (don't they all!) and will follow us all over the yard.  She even follows us up to the pool.  Very curious about it but not enough to jump in or take a drink like the kitties and dogs do.

She is such a love!  She sits on our laps and smiles.  :^}   Me too!

 We've had so much rain lately!  We had our garden rototilled last month, then it started raining off and on.  Silly me, I waited too long to try and get out there to rake and weeds out that were loose.

Here's a picture of what it looks like today.  Those weeds are about knee to waist high now.  I had purchased a couple veggie plants at the store a couple weeks ago.  Waited for the rain to stop and finally took them out to the garden.

Since it was so wet I just sat them on a small cleared spot where I had removed some of the weeds.  Then ... of course I forgot they were out there.  So last week I went out to see if they were still alive.  Fortunately there was enough rain every day to keep them more than healthy.   Today is June 29 and I still have not planted them.

Oh well.  There's always tomorrow.

 If anyone thinks these hardy plants are not going to make it, take a look at our broccoli plant in this picture on the right.  You can see the weeds surrounding a darker green plant.  There's actually more than one plant as this is a six-pack container.

All it needs is a little TLC and to be freed from its prison of the container.  Talk about container gardening!  There are even a few little flowerettes of broccoli on the tops.

The picture on the left is our poor little tomato plant.  If you look very close, there is even a tiny little tomato right in the front.

See?  Not bad for still is the container.  I always said I had a brown thumb when it came to my garden.  Maybe the problem all along was me.  I should just leave well enough alone.

Actually, last year we had a pretty nice garden.  We had purchased the plants we wanted instead of doing the seed thing like the had the year before.  That didn't turn out as well as I'd hoped, so last year we got fairly large plants and had more veggies than we could use.  We gave quite a bit away to friends and the church love pantry and still had enough to use, dry, and however else we needed to use them.  And we didn't even start the plants until July.

Let's hope this year is warm and drier than the last month.

A friend sent me a new word I just had to look up.   Hugelkultur.  I've never heard of this, its a type of raised garden bed that requires very little care after its constructed and no water!  Yes!!  My kind of garden.  Here is a most interesting link I found, there is a great video towards the top of the article.  Amazing, my garden looks nearly like this already.  I just might have to try something like this.  Actually its looks like our alpaca poo-pile in the pasture, the one where we go over and get a couple tractor scoops to put on our garden.  So check it out:    http://www.richsoil.com/hugelkultur/

We haven't planted a thing yet this year.  Its such a perfect year to plant too.  Lots of spring rains, warm weather, cool nights ... we've just been too busy to get out there after I had it rototilled.  Too bad, now we have to pull the weeds by hand.  Oh well, it keeps us young and strong (Ha!).

Our goats are munching down our pasture as hoped.  Bella has resigned herself to staying with them during the day but they all demand to be brought back by late afternoon.  They even stayed out in the pouring rain the other day without too much complaining.  They do have shelter in the barn but I guess they enjoyed the coolness of it.

And Bella was so wet when I brought her back into the house.  Talk about smelly!!  Phew!  Guess our next trip will be to the groomer.  And that dog sleeps on my bed.  Fortunately she had dried off by bed time.  P.U.   :-<

We have nine more baby chickens, lost one of the big babies, now they are nine also.  So 18 big and little fuzzy creatures running around the house with their moms.  Actually the first momma chicken has for the most part ignored her chicks.  They are big enough to roam the yards by themselves.  As long as our great pyrenees Bella can't find them and eat them they are safe.  Can you find the babies?  - - - - - >

One and a half more weeks of school to go, then out for summer.  My niece wanted to help the other day (Yes!) so I showed her how to mow the yard with the big mower.  What a great job she did.  She's very adept at learning new things.  And also very careful and didn't leave any 'holidays' as my husband called them.  Those little places in the lawn that you always miss and don't see until everything is put away.

Spring is definitely a welcome season.  Everything is so green and fresh.  I had a window open the other day early in the morning and it smelled so fresh and woodsy.  We must have had a little bit of rain or heavy dew that night because it smelled damp.  We are surrounded by forest and most visitors just love the smell, but I don't usually smell it any more.  Until the other day.  Heavenly!

Our little chicks are growing, their mama is so good.  Even our rooster takes good care of them.  They walk around the yard all day, mama clucking softly at them if they lag too far behind.  Mr. Rooster right behind them and will attack anyone or anything that comes close.  I think he got Dexter our border collie yesterday.  Dex has several spots on his nose that could use a little bit of hair now.  Because Dex is a herding dog he drives the rooster crazy because he's always just feet away from him and the chickens trying to get them to go one way or another.  Its a natural thing with him.  We've not trained him to do that.  He only likes chickens and won't have anything to do with the goats. 

The pictures below are of my very first hand knit socks I made.  I actually wore a big hole in the bottom because I wore them so much.  Not on the back of the heel, but on the bottom of the heel.  I tried repairing them a couple years ago but it was awful.  I couldn't even wear them.

Then a friend sent me a couple of websites on how to do it the right way.  You can see how big the hole was on the left.  I didn't think I would ever wear them again.  I used a darning egg for the first time and I can see now why they used to be so popular.  You can hardly find the darning eggs any more.  We live in such a 'throw away' world.

The one on the right is the finished product.  I love these socks.  They are wool, and so warm.  I can wear them with no shoes in the house and it keeps my perpetually cold feet nice and toasty.

The last pair of socks I made are too large even though I have washed them several times.  They are so pretty though I just put them away in my closet.