A Funny Thing Happened....

So yesterday I get a call from my son, who is home on leave.

Son: "Uh, Mom, we have a problem"

Me: "What's up?"

S: "The cows got out".

M:"Ok, so put them back in, it happens".

S: "But dad left the garage door open and they got in the garage and one of them fell into the pit".

M: "hmm, not good, ok I'll be right there". (not at all sure that there's anything that can be done about it, by me anyway, but what the heck...)
In the meantime I'm thinking about what in the world I can do about this, to rescue my poor baby from the pit. So I call a friend to come help.
Get home, and Son is still there, waiting for me. He had thought to give the poor critter some water and hay and it's just standing in there, obviously stressed, but no worse the wear.
He also throught to send a mass text that probably said something like: "need farm help, beer involved". (you know, just to make sure his friends actually did show up to help).
Which they did.

A ramp was built, and the cow was dragged out of the pit (yes, dragged, as in rope around his horns and it took 3 very large, very strong farmer boy types, and me behind "goosing" him.

He promptly ran back into his pen, and was later observed drinking and eating just fine (the way to determine if a critter is truly sick or stressed is if he's not eating and drinking).

So that was fun, no I didn't have time to run and grab my camera although I did think about it.

My vacation time was spent dragging cows out of pits and fixing fences so it didn't happen again!

Ya know, just one day that could be boring....

Butterflies and Babies

Butterflies don't taste good. And anyone who tells you otherwise maybe never tasted the yellow ones. They're nasty. Yuck! I don't know, maybe it was a moth, or a canary. It was yellow and had wings. And it didn't taste good.

You may or may not have surmised that I was on my bike when this non-tasty event occurred. Usually watching for deer is the order of the ride, but last night the yucky tasting winged creatures were all over!

I ride without a windshield, never have liked them, to me it's just one more piece of plexiglass to have to see through, but last night it may have been nice to not be peppered with winged creatures who did or didn't taste good. Keep the mouth shut!

Last night was knit night, and I worked more on the Muskrat's sweater. It's coming along really cute, I'm totally in love with it, and it's almost done.

I'll let that sit with you for a minute.

Yes. I'm Al.most.done! like only 3 inches or so on the 2nd sleeve, then sew that bad boy all together. And it's not even due until August! Am I good or what?? Well, before you get all "atta girl, way to think ahead" on me, there are two other grand-kid birthdays in August and to meet my goal of making every one of them a knitted item for their birthdays this year, I've got to get going. One will be a set of leg warmers, that's easy enough, and the other a cute little blue jean type of vest. That will be cute too. But neither are started. Or swatched for. but I DO have yarn picked out, so I'm pretty much ahead of the game on that one.

And... apparantly we're going to be blessed with another grandchild. This would be daughter #6 (I think, after awhile, all of the imports get all mixed up). The Muskrat belongs to daughter #5 (or import #1), I think I need to order some tags, like I do for the chickens, so I can keep them all straight!

But since it's an "I just found out" event and I haven't even really been formally told about it yet, he/she/it is not yet on the list. But I'm still excited. This daughter is a close friend of The Mouth (actual daughter #4) who we adopted along with several others, making her #6 (I think). Math was never real strong. So, girl...... tell me already, for sure, so I can get you on my list!

Morning Smells

The first thing I smelled this morning on my way out to do chores was the rain. What? You can't smell rain? I can, I guess that makes me superhuman or something. I can live with that. I smelled the rain, and after two days of 850 degrees the cooler weather and smell of rain was a nice change.

Then I smelled the lilacs, relaxing, mesmerizing, sweet lilac smell. Love it. They're pretty too, don't get me wrong, but the smell is why I keep them around.

Then I smelled the skunk. Much preferred the lilacs, and even the rain, but there it was, sneaking it's way through the air like a snake. A very fragrant snake. And not in a good way.

In the country there are lots of smells you just take for granted. When they fertilize the corn fields, when hay is cut, the smell of rain (it's a superhuman thing, what can I say), pine trees when the air is damp and heavy..... stuff like that. And skunks. And road kill. And the only thing worse than smelling skunk is smelling a dead skunk, which is the equivalent of live skunk plus road kill. And if it's close enough it actually smells like hot tar. Makes you appreciate the better smells, like the fertilizing of the fields.

Anyway....

Since two days of 850 degrees and being superhuman and all pretty much took me out (headache, nauseous, I know it's spelled wrong, but it's ok, I'm good in lots of other ways, and generally just worn all out) nothing got done last night. Hubby even felt sorry for me and took me out for dinner. So no cooking or cleaning up either. Sometimes 850 degrees can be made to work in your favor. And after returning home I collapsed into the chair and knitted and watched one of my favorite shows... House. Arrogant asshole at his best!

What did I knit? I knew you'd ask. Well, I worked on my Muskrat's sweater, and... are you sitting?.....

I. Even. Took. A. Picture!!

And here it is:

In case you're not familiar with what knitted pieces look like, the big piece is the back and the smaller is one of the fronts. There is a mistake, but I'm not going to point it out, if you can't see it chances are a 3 year old won't care either. Tonight, since my Wings will get their 3rd chance to take the Hawks down there will be significant progress on the front, may even get the left front done and a start on the right front. That's one of the fun things about knitting smallish sweaters, for smallish people, they go pretty fast.

I love the colors, pretty much just went through my stash and picked out 4 colors, just to see. Even I didn't think they'd look this cool together, but I'm happy with them.

There won't be much done in the garden tonight as it's raining (seeing and feeling rain isn't a superhuman feat, just smelling it is), so maybe I'll find some counters or floors or something inside the cabin to clean off or sweep. Maybe even a dustrag, but that's pushing it.

And maybe, just maybe the rain will take it one step further and give me the ultimate in spring weather.... a good old fashioned thunderstorm! In which all bets will be off and you'll find me sitting out on my porch (covered) knitting and listening to the storm. Good times!

And guess what??? My son, affectionately referred to as The Army Brat is now OUT OF IRAQ!!! YAY! Let the breathing re-commence~!!

Whacking Rhubarb

Before you go all "O.M.G she's killing her rhubarb" on me, let me explain. I planted my rhubarb a long time ago, along an old fence line. Then I fenced in the horses, which would later turn into steers, which would then become sheep and goats, and of course the chickens,and now has become my garden area. Between the rhubarb fence line and the horse fence line, which has now become the garden fenceline, there is about 6 feet by 100 feet of weeds and raspberry canes. Doing battle with raspberry canes is not my favorite activity, and my arms now have the scratches to prove it, however, their eventual surrender of juicy little reddish berries is worth it.

But not in my rhubarb.

Since the 6 feet isn't enough room to get my tiller in, I have to hoe out the weeds by hand. Not happenin'. Sorry. Not gonna weed a strip 6' by 100' by hand (or hoe), especially since it's riddled with crabgrass, all manner of forest undergrowth and raspberry canes. I'm just not that adventurous.

But neither do I really like to use gas powered appliances, since they use gas and all, but in this case, the gas powered weed whacker won. Well, technically I won, since I had to do 7 different rain dances to get this thing started, eventually I did and the rhubarb was sucessfully whacked. No, let me rephrase..... the weeds surrounding the rhubarb were whacked, and all but one or two rhubarb leaves survived. This is a good thing and it looks a lot nicer than a weed and mosquito infested patch in which to wander around lost in until you happen to run into the rhubarb.

So, the rhubarb doesn't care if it's weedy, but I do, so I whacked. And won! And Murphy (of murphy's law) didn't show his face once!

Radishes are coming up, so far no show on the spinach and carrots, and one potato plant has emerged through the hill to peek up into the sun.
Tonight maybe I'll get some lettuces planted, my designer lettuce collection depends on this, after all!

I'm still working on the multicolored cardigan for the muskrat (3 y/o granddaughter). One of these days I'll take a picture of it, the back is done as is 1/2 of one front. Tonight probably won't see much knitting, being as how I'll be playing with my designer lettuce collection, but tomorrow night there is another hockey game, so a lot of knitting will happen.

Go Wings! Pluck them Hawks!! (pay no attention to the grammer, it sounded better than "pluck those hawks"!)

Murphy Conspires With The Strawberries.

I'm sure you're hanging on with every thread of your being waiting to hear about my strawberries. You know, the stone wall I built to contain them, and the crowns that I planted, that never came up, and then the garlic that I planted there because the strawberries never came up and something had to go there?

Up to speed now? Ok. So Saturday, hubby says...."let's go for a drive". Never one to shirk off a possible adventure, we hopped into the truck and headed off for points unknown. Actually, we had a known point, but because I've been on his little adventures before, whether or not we would actually get there remained to be seen (we did..... eventually...)

Stop one... to see my muskrat (or monkey as she's also called. Some would also call her my almost 3 year old granddaughter). This was fun, they moved out (her and her mother) close to a month ago and I hadn't seen her since. While we were there, I noticed blueberry bushes by the tra-zillion, so we had to stop and dig up some of those.
Stop two... a fruit stand on the side of the road that had........STRAWBERRIES!!!!! Plants, not just crowns, where there was actual greenage visible! So of course we had to get some of those.
Stop three....lunch.... after this and a few yard sales it gets routine, so we'll just end there.

Strawberries plants people! Lots of them! On Sale!!! Enough to fill up the stone hedge (that is now planted with garlic and chives and a few beet and spinach seeds thrown in for good measure) and more!
Strawberries, the ones I've wanted for so long! Finally I have them. I paid for them and hauled them out to the truck as I heard a faint chuckle in the background. Dismissed.
Got in the truck and headed off to the next unknown stop and heard that chuckle again. What the heck?? Oh yeah, it was Murphy, for sure. The infamous Murphy who conspires to throw obstacles in my path just to watch me trip over them.
"Where are you going to put the strawberries?", he taunts?
"You already planted the stone hedge, you can't put them there".
"You'll have to find another spot"... he continued. This went on and on until he was laughing so hard he couldn't say another word.
So I'll show him! I planted those strawberries in with my garlic, and chives and beet and spinach seeds thrown in for good measure. And next year, at this time you can all read my bestselling book: Strawberries, garlic, chives and Murphy! Just to see how it all turned out!

Oh, and a special shoutout to my cousin. She's a California gal. She's a Sharks fan (as in not a Red Wings fan). I'll just leave you to digest that for a minute.

Yeah, I know, and I'm sorry, I had little to do with her upbringing.

Financial Decisions

Our farm is not a money maker, it will most likely never support itself, let alone us, but it's my hobby, my passion and it's just what I want to do.

However, that doesn't mean that we stop looking for ways to make it pay better. We scrounge and rearrange, we save "stuff" and collect "stuff" for future use and try to have fun doing it.

The latest "rearrangment" involves all of my chickens (there are somewhere close to 60 of them). I want them penned up, this protects them from critters, keeps them out of my gardens and keeps the chicken crap off of my porch and patio. I do not like chicken crap on my patio. I'm a barefoot kind of gal, always have been, always will be. I don't care if I walk around barefoot in the lawn, I know there is "residue" there, but choose to ignore it, besides, it beats shoes any day!

When the chickens are loose, it's obvious, and it's yucky, and yes, even for me, gross. Where in the world is the financial decision involving my chickens hidden in all of this?

When I keep my chickens penned up, I am happy, I know they're safe and I can walk barefoot all summer long. However, it costs at least 20-30 bucks a week to feed them. Hmmmm.

If I pen in the garden rather than the chickens, they will stay out of the garden, and basically feed themselves. They're already trained (as much as you can train a chicken) to go into the coop at night, so I can shut the door and keep the critters out that way. Then in the morning I can let them out, and let them eat bugs, weeds (not tomatoes, thank you very much - those are mine!) and be actually healthier in the long run. And yardbird beats penned up bird in taste any day of the week.

The pros for letting the chickens run loose seems to outweigh the cons, there is however one fairly large project first. To pen up the garden. Yes, I'm sure we have enough fencing (remember the note about scrounging....), so this weekend, set poles, string fence and build a gate and then let the chix out. It will be better for them, and I'll either learn to wear shoes, or learn to not care about what I step in. And I really, really, really don't like shoes.

But free range it shall be!

Check!

Outside version of chicken condo (the adolescent cage) assembled. check!
Baby stinkies, I mean baby chix moved outside. check!
asparagus weeded. check!
onions weeded. check!
beets planted. check!
spinach planted. check!
radishes planted. check!
3 loads of laundry done and hung out. check!

pictures taken of all the above. uncheck!

Busy day, and all in 1/2 day! Started raining shortly after lunch, so the rest of the day I stayed in and played with my seeds. (my laundry, if it ever dries, will smell soooooo good!)

Thunderstorm last night, power in and out. this isn't good. normally power out doesn't really affect us, however when we have baby stinkies, I mean baby birdies that need heat, it's not good to have the heat lamps go out. So the first night they're outside they're subjected to a good old fashioned thunderstorm. Only lost one, I think he/she got squished when they all huddled together.
That sounds glib. It's not meant to be. Even though these birds are destined for the table, it's still heartbreaking when a baby dies. They depend on me to keep them healthy and alive and this one got let down, it's not taken lightly. And it's not even from the financial aspect of losing eggs or meat... it's just the fact that one of my babies has died. It hurts.
But life on the farm moves on, it's not the first loss, it would be great if it were the last, but I know better.

Enough of that! tonight, the rhubarb needs to be weeded. Whether or not that gets done depends on how much happens between that and Game 7!

Go Wings!!! Drown them ducks!!!

Some Of My Critters

This post has lots of pics, sorry dial-up readers!

This is Dr. Pepper and Mr Salty. Yes, even though we raise these boys to eat, they still have names and still get lots of hugs and cuddles.

Barn Kitties (4 sisters - by next year I should have about 29 cats!) looking down out of the hay loft.

My horses, Mike McMustang and Sierra's Mercedes Benz. They look a bit rough in the spring, before they get their winter coats all combed out. They are both mustangs, both branded. Mike was captured in California and Sierra, in Wyoming.

My baby chicks are going outside TONIGHT!!! they are getting a bit stinky! Also on tap for tonight, get beets planted, then if I have time, carrots and spinach too.

Last night I dug up all of the strawberry crowns that didn't grow and used that space for my garlic and chives. I might put some radishes in there too. Rather have strawberries, but oh well!

Yeah, and about the lawn, if I don't get after that, might need to break out the haybine!

We plowed up 1/2 of our 1st hayfield last night. It's getting too weedy and doesn't produce, so tentative plan is to seed corn for a year, then put in a pasture mix. So far the tractors are not acting up. This is huge (and unusual) and now that I've said that...... aye!

In Which A Trip To TSC.....

just gets out of hand! Went to the local Tractor Supply store (my favorite store in the whole wide world!) and what did I find? Baby chix! On sale. As in clearanced out! And no more coming in! So I did what any sane, logical, demented farmer would do, I bought a bunch of them! See! Aren't they cute?
So, 47 new babies have arrived! and were housed in my bathtub, something hubby's not real fond of, but what was I supposed to do? They had to be contained, and they had to be somewhere that was waterproof, washable and I could put heat lights on them.
Below, is an example of the elaborate Chicken Condo's that I've built. My architech brother would be rolling in his grave, or maybe just laughing so hard.... never mind....
Anyway, enter the Chicken Condo. Several rooms, some with food, some with water, and 2 with heat lamps. This all lives on a tarp in our guest room until they are feathered out and it gets a bit warmer outside, then they go to the adolescent cage. There was a time I used to keep them in the barn in lights, but they got drafty anyway, so for a few weeks, they live inside.

That wasn't the only fun we had this weekend. After our momentous trip to Tractor Supply, we decided to stop by Walmart and what did we find? Come on, think about it, what sits outside of Walmart on the weekends, attended by cute little blondes in a box marked "free......". Yup. Kittens! They are so cute. 3 of them are identical, I've named them Inky, Stinky, Blinky and the other Chuck because well, she's not identical. So 4 barn kittens have come to call our zoo home. They have so much fun up in the hayloft, climbing in the hay, hiding between bales, waiting for the slightest breezes to stir up the loose strands of hay, pouncing on each other, and that's not even counting how much fun there is to be had up in the eaves. A Disneyland for kittens! That's what a hayloft is. Especially since there isn't a Mother to tell them "No"!

I didn't get ANY gardening done this weekend, the weather was beautiful, but circumstances beyond my control kept me away. I've decided to start the rest of my seeds using the paper towel method. So far the only seeds that aren't responding to this treatment are the parsley, but they take a long time to germinate anyway. I direct seeded (into pots) tomatoes, peppers, and some flowers, but being away from home and not able to tend them didn't work out so well for them. So, paper towels it is! And, because I don't buy stuff like that, I use extras that we always get when we go to places like Dairy Queen and McDonalds. That experiment will play out over the next few weeks. Tonight, maybe, just maybe I can get part of the garden tilled. My onions are doing GREAT!! My asparagus is peeking up and my strawberries NADA! I'll give them a few more weeks, then take the roots back and get a refund. Seems like I should see some green within this time!

Is It Spring Yet?

Let's take a wander around the old garden shall we? The rhubarb is coming up, no this isn't a picture of my rhubarb, my camera got left in the house this morning. Still have to dig some of that for my Dad who wants some in his garden.

I've planted my strawberries in the stone ledge border I built around the pool, they also don't look quite like the picture, actually, I'm not at all sure they're alive.

Asparagus has been planted as well. Oh, and onions. Onions are important.

Garlic is ready to go in too, although normally a fall crop, someone didn't get off their behind long enough to get it planted in the fall, so spring it will be. Started it in the house probably in January or so, not too much longer, actually the tops are starting to die back already.

My Tiger Lilies are popping up all over as is all of the mint that seems to find it's way around the place.

Started in pots are Hollyhocks (I know, they'll grow anywhere, anytime, but I wanted to make sure I got a good bunch of plants before I put them out for the rabbits to munch on - gotta feed those rabbits ya know!)

Also started are tomatoes (3 dif. kinds of regular tomatoes and 2 different strains of heirloom) as well as peppers, hot and regular.

As soon as hubby gets the garden rototilled for me (or Sunday afternoon, whichever comes first) I'll put in some radishes, carrots and spinach and beets maybe. Don't know about beets, have to check on those, but definitely the first three.

One of these nights when it's nice enough, I'm gonna grab hubby and go tooling around the countryside and woods, looking for blueberry plants to transplant. Tried to grow some from seed, but no go.

One of the next big projects in the barn related area of the homestead is to Clean. Out. The. Barn. This spring has been very busy with work and other stuff, and that just hasn't gotten done yet. If I could get hubby to get the dozer outta there, it would help. Then I have to build a wood rack (actually just reinforce it as I've already built it) and start piling all of our scrap wood up there, off the floor. The next task would be to corrall all of the binder twine, actually, this is valuable stuff. But scattered all over the floor, not so much.

In the knitting room, I'm still working on granddaughter #1's sweater. Purpley heathery Lithuanian Birds and Blooms design, and I do need to get a picture of that.

Here's the reason for a recent er, um, stash addition!

So, daugher #1 calls and says, “Go to this yardsale. They have TONS of yarn”, she says. “More yarn than I’ve ever seen in one place, ever!” She recants. “It’s your heaven”, she teases, “your own personal paradise”, she continues.. yadda, yadda, yadda….So, being the dutiful mother that I am, I went. Seriously, this woman had a problem. She needed to start her own Yarn-a-holic 12 step program. She had yarn. LOTS of it. Yes, TONS! of good stuff! Mohair, cashmere, alpaca, wool, actually very little acrylic. She had skeins and balls and cones. She had needles, and lace wires. Stitch and row counters were coming out of boxes. Patterns, books and leaflets jumped as I walked by. But she doesn’t have alot of this stuff anymore. Bet you can guess why! Because now I have a yarn problem. 8 (yes, count them - 8!) lawn and leaf bags later I’m now looking into 12 step program requirements for myself.
Part of my New Years Resolution was to knit from my stash and not buy any more new yarn. There’s a loophole here, can you spot it? Yup! New! This yarn was not New, so it didn’t count!
I wonder if justifying addictions is addressed in the 12 step programs?
Moral of this story? Sorry, got nothin’ for ya. But yard sales, garage sales and auctions rock for possible stash enhancement!

So, now that I've fessed up about my recent purchase, I better go. Got a few minutes before I leave for work and that means I have a few minutes to pet and drool, I mean to admire my recent aquisitions!

Updates.

Ok, it's been awhile. I know, I know. But.... I've been busy!

Bu-Dawgh's training has taken a back seat to a bunch of other stuff in my life. I don't know that he'll ever be allowed to be outside without the chain, he's very fond of chasing anything that moves, like my chickens. Time will tell

Knitting.... I've completed exactly 4.2 projects since last checking in. Don't ask, see above about being busy. But after this next project is done, which should be today or tomorrow (there's a direct corelation between a hockey game being televised and how much knitting is accomplished), I worked up the test swatch for one of the granddaughter's birthday sweaters. I'm doing a Lithuanian type of design from Donna Druchunas' book, Ethnic Knitting, Exploration, and blogging about it on my other blog at knitting.craftgossip.com. The solid color knitting is a different gauge than the multi color only because for some reason, I knit tighter on 2 or more colors than on just one. The purple is much more vivid in real life and the pattern isn't true, it was just to test gauge.

In the homesteading category, we find ourselves smack dab in the middle of The Great 2009 Strawberry Event. So far, our players are a pool deck in the full sun, about a trillion 5 gallon buckets full of black dirt (the skidder is broken plus there's still a mound of snow and ice where it would have to go into the pasture to retrieve buckets of dirt), and stone, turned into a hedge.

Before: Gotta get the area cleaned up from the winter first. Plus, last year I used the pool deck as king of a staging area for the gardening equipment, pots.... Also, underneath the pool deck is leftovers from the filters, decks.....

Ok, cleanup has pretty much been finished. Now to start messing stuff up again.

The rock ledge has been built and I've filled in with cement blocks I had planned to plant the strawberries in. Change of plans..... The holes in the cement blocks aren't big enough to allow the strawberries to roam, so today, I'll take out the blocks, board up the back of the planter so the good dirt doesn't walk away and then fill. (this is where the trillion 5-gallon buckets of black dirt comes in).

What's on the horizon after the Great Strawberry Event of 2009? Well, then we get to start working on the Great Chicken Pen Expansion project! Stay tuned, or better yet, bring your fence stretchers, this one could be fun!

In Which Bu Takes Me For A Walk

We've been working with walking the Bu-Dawgh. He's a tad bit excitable and very narrow minded. Likes to chase things that move, like rabbits, chickens, deer and leaves (not this time of year, the leaves are hard to chase right now), but you get the picture. He likes to run.

I don't. I will do a fast walk with the best of them, but run? Um, no! Old. Arthritis. Hips hurt. Whatever excuse you can come up with, I've already thought of it. If I'm going to run, it's gonna either be from a house on fire, a wayward steer or on the back of my horse.

Bu-Dawgh, on the other hand, would rather run than anything. And he has no qualms dragging me along behind. Through the woods, on the ice, it's always an adventure.

Enter Cesar. And his method of being the pack leader.

Ok then. Walk, Bu-Dawgh, Walk! As long as I take him for the equivalent of 5.5 hours of walking/running/chasing/dragging every day, he's good, but at this rate, my shoulders are going to give out.

I took him out for a walk the other day through the woods, not the smartest thing I've done in awhile, but it was a beautiful day. Being pulled face first through 3 foot of snow was even exhilarating, reminded me of my days on the sleds when we were younger. But back then, it was fun. Yeah, good times.

So, with a bit of a variation on Cesar's techniques (walk, don't run, don't pull, walk, that's good, ugh, no don't run, ice - slow down) we're getting there.



Weather related, it has warmed up, at least for a few days, we actually saw 50 on Saturday, with bright sun. It was beautiful. Sunday was about 40 and I hung clothes out and They Dried! This is huge. This hasn't happened in a long time. I always hang clothes out, but end up draping them over furniture in the living room by the woodstove to get them to dry.

Supposed to start raining tonight, that will be a fun little mess.



We'll see how that all plays out!

Snow. Again.

This time of year, snow is a moot point up here. There's gonna be snow. There's gonna be lots of it, and then there's gonna be more snow. It happens. Every year, you can almost set your calendar by it.

End of year, get lots of snow.
Beginning of year, snow starts to not fall quite as hard, quite as often, this is a sign that the big lakes are frozen over (or mostly frozen over).
Middle of January, the sun (remember mr. sun?) makes his appearance again, once in awhile, you know, just for a teaser. There's no heat in this sun, it's just pretty and yellow and mostly deceiving, because it makes you think thoughts of going outside to do stuff like plant the garden (which is under 3-4 foot of snow). Deceiving.
End of January, the January Thaw! where traditionally temps rise above the average for a week or so, again, deceiving us into believing that the winter gods are done with us for yet another year.
But it's not so. Phil lets us know every Feb 2 that we are not to be deceived. If you don't believe him, ask the natives. They get deceived also, but know better. They'll tell you that the snow won't go away until August (they're mostly tired of it by now and view it as a never ending curse).

Me? bring it on. I love it. I love staying inside and looking out at it. I love being outside in it. I just love it, yup, a northern girl at heart. What can I say?

But, even though I profess my never ending love of winter every chance I get, does not mean that I invite head shots with snow shovels, ice picks or skiis. I didn't do it. I didn't make it snow, I just like that it does.
And, I look forward to the thawing of the lakes, so the great Lake Effect Snows can once again dump enough of the white stuff in 20 mins to cover a house.

So what do we do until it starts snowing again, but it's too cold? (cause snow and cold, while seemingly compatible, are not! It can comfortably be 30 degrees and still snowy, what I object to is 75 below zero with a wind chill just short of Mars).
We do as Jeff Foxworthy suggests and go sit on 18+ inches of ice, drill a hole and wait for our dinner to swim by!

Gotta Love Michigan!

If It's February, It Must Be 2009!

Yesterday was a beautiful day. About 35 deg. bright sun, and down in our little hole, almost no wind. So Bu-Dawgh got the bright idea to go for a walk. In the woods. Where's there's about 3 foot of snow. (I may be short, but mid thigh, is mid thigh, and that's right around 3 foot). So I made him lead the way, figured we'd get a head start on making our path for walking to work.
This was fun, he's not tall either, there was kind of a gazelle effect as periodically he would jump up into the air (with me attached to the other end of the leash) to get a look around.
Kind of made the whole path thing hard to follow, but at least he kind of blazed the trail. Kind of. We still slogged through the snow, but it was a nice, if not invigorating, walk.

Would have been really interesting if I'd have gone with my first thought and strapped on the cross country skiis. We'd probably still be out there.

So, lately I've discovered Facebook. This is pretty cool, and I've already connected with a cousin who (whom?) I haven't seen in a coon's age. Most of my brothers are on Facebook too. And my parents. Seriously, don't you people have better things to do?

Apparantly I don't!

21 days ago!

21 days ago was my last post. If you've wondered that maybe I wandered off and fell into a snowbank, I didn't. Not un-intentionally anyway, but I did get to reading alot of my old posts and came to a conclusion. My life is kind of boring. The same stuff that happens last January, happens this January, mainly that it is cold and it snows. I routinely beat on frozen water to make it drinkable, haul firewood to heat the house and then haul ash out again.


Sidenote: I should be saving those ashes to make lye water, so I can make soap, because.... yeah, I need another hobby!


But, this January, I did take a trip. My brothers, parents and I all met in Colorado for a long weekend. The first day we hiked 40 miles up to 40,000 feet straight up. (My brother who lives in Colorado seems to think it was more like 4 miles and 11,000 feet. He's wrong, I was there, I did the math, mostly laying face down in the snow gasping for what little oxygen hadn't already been gasped by everyone else).

The following day we all strapped boards on our feet and headed out to the slopes to torture what was left of our aching muscles. Great fun! We grew up skiing, and being a bit of a fearless fool anyway, standing at the top of a really big hill and pushing off to go breakneck speed down said really big hill seemed like a great idea. Yes, I did fall a few times, but in my defense, my legs were sooooo tired from the previous day that I could not successfully accomplish what is known in the skiing world as "stopping".


We lounged in the hot tub (there were at least 16 of us in that tub and the floor had no drain - you do the math). Hmmm, a hot tub room with no drain. Someone didn't have their Wheaties that day.

I wandered into a coffee shop in outback Colorado (big buck - I think- in Fairplay, CO) and found..... are you ready....... sitting down for this one.....

YARN!! Well, not really yarn, but pre-yarn, roving in cool little packages. I didn't even care that it cost more than my plane ticket, I had to have it, just because I found it by accident in a coffee shop in some really small mountain town far far away from N. Mich.


That was pretty much the excitement for January.

This weekend, if the weather gods permit (meaning if it's not 75 degrees below zero) I've got to get out to the barn and build a calf feeder, they are wasting too much hay and I fear I may not have enough. And just now looking at the calendar, June seems to be about 1/2 year away.
This was not a good discovery. Still half a year before 1st cutting and my barn is maybe only 1/3 full. Most likely we'll be buying hay this year.

The New Roosters

My new roosters are working out well. (In case you didn't read about where they came from, they were dropped off, probably as a joke. See, people don't just drop off furry cute kittens and puppies, they drop off other livestock too.) They seem to have found their place within my little chicken community. There's a heirarchy, but they've worked it out. I found both of them battered and bloody one morning and was concerned that we may have had a creature trying to attack, but it was just them, working out which rung of the ladder they belonged on.



It has been determined that Mr. White Rooster will spend his nights guarding the barn, and Mr. Black Rooster will stay in with the ladies in the hen house. I say ladies, but there are 2 young gentlemen in with them... I don't wanna know....



And, as a gentle reminder that roosters don't only crow at sunrise, as a lot of people have been led to believe, they crow whenever they want, even if that whenever is 3 AM, Mr Black Rooster crows all the time. I have to believe he's strutting his luck with his ladies. That's ok with me, the neighbors? Probably not hearing it this time of year, I'm sure they have their windows closed.



So, on the knitting front, I've already broken 2 of my 3 New Year's Resolutions. The first being to not buy any more yarn until I can walk around in my craft room again (too much stuff in there!) and the second to not cast on for any more projects. But this didn't count (it never does!) Besides, I had to do it to fulfill the 3rd of my resolutions.

My grandson has a birthday in March, he's at that age (13) where there's nothing you could get for him other than cash or something electronic that would make him happy, except for maybe.... A scarf knit in U of M colors (blue and gold) with the U of M logo on it.

1st resolution broken - bought more yarn

2nd resolution to be broken - cast on for new project

3rd resolution to be kept - to try to knit something for each and every one of my 7 grandkids for their birthdays this year. (the twins will be interesting, as often happens with twins, their birthdays are coincidentally on the same day as each other! How does that happen??). Clearly whoever planned that one wasn't a knitter!

So, birthday one is in the works.



See? I can justify any resolution breaking, especially if it involves knitting. Got a resolution you want to break? Send it to me, I'll justify it for ya!

Keeping Murphy Away From My New Faucet...

My new faucet is here, my new faucet is here! Alert, alert!

UPS delivered it yesterday. To hubby's shop. And he forgot it. Sigh!

Oh well, that's ok really, I didn't have time to do an install last night anyway, probably won't get done until Saturday. Have to dig out the new sink and get that ready too.

And I hear there are silicone applications to be done. Yippee! Silicone is fun!

Assuming that the existing sink is the same size as the new sink it should all go fairly well. Having said that..... yeah! But it will be really nice to have that done. Might even inspire me to start thinking about refurbing my Hasty Baker Stove.

Assuming that the existing sink is the same size as the new sink is probably where all of this is gonna fall apart. I've heard they're all the same. People have said, don't worry, it will fit. But I do. Worry, that is. Because me and Murphy? Best Friends Forever! Yeah, that's us.

I've only installed one sink ever and that was close to 20 yrs ago. Thinking through the process, it didn't seem all that hard, but I'm wondering if maybe I should replace the counters also, at the same time? Hmmmm. Have to think about that. Kind of flies in the face of my "nothing new for 09" strategy (the faucet and the sink were both bought in 08, so they don't count).

What I could do is this. Dig out some of the floorboards left over after we installed the hardwood floors, use them, sand them down real good, put a nice thick layer of poly on them, that would look nice! And while I'm at it, I could build a backsplash and, and, and.....

This might work, will have to think about it some though.

Nah! The existing counters are just fine, they don't need to be replaced. And I will probably need those floorboards when we finally get the upstairs loft done. Yeah, I have enough projects, don't really need any more, and, keeping Murphy away from my new installations will probably be all I can handle!

Obligatory rooster photos, well one anyway, it's dark in the mornings and evenings when I do chores, so hard to get a good photo!

Well, It's Been Awhile

So let's take a look at what has been happening around the farm lately.


You know those old farm houses on the end of the road where people drop off stray cats and dogs? We have one of those. Well, not an old farm house, but we are at the end of the road.


And to be honest, I've only had one drop off puppy, one we ended up keeping for a long time, and the cats that show up, well cats do roam so...


But, I'm not talking here about dropping off 4 legged furry critters. Nope. Here's the story.


I was sitting at my computer the other morning and kept thinking I was hearing a rooster. We have 2 roosters, but they're young, and to my knowledge haven't found their "crow" yet. At least I've never heard them. If you've ever heard a rooster trying to learn to crow, it's not pretty. Pretty much sounds like they're being tortured. But this was a full on crow.

After daylight I ventured out to the barn to do chores and what did I see? A rooster! A real, full grown, complete with a healthy set of spurs, rooster! A really pretty one too, black, with reds, browns and iridescent greens and blues. Very pretty. Ok then. We now have an honest to goodness rooster. Whatever.


Part of my doing morning chores dictates that I open up the hen house so the chickens can escape, wander around the barnyard and peck at the grains and corns that the horses and cows leave behind. Part of my morning chores involves counting my little birdies as they exit the hen house, just to make sure I didn't lose anyone. Currently there are 14 birdies living there. Or so I thought. Until I opened up the door and out strutted another rooster, proud as could be (spent the night with 12 ladies and 2 young gentlemen....). This one was also very pretty. White with black and brown and red and other colors, iridiscent blues and greens, very pretty, but very much different from the other one.


So now I'm curious, just how many roosters found my barnyard, when did they arrive, and most importantly, how in the world did they get there?


There's close to 4 foot of snow on the ground between me and the other farms in the area, not likely they just strolled over. Domestic chickens don't fly real well, so that's not likely either. They had to have had a ride. But who??


Stay tuned for the answer coming up after this ad.....


Hey? Need your driveway plowed? Need your walk shoveled? Just call the local Mr Snowplow man (who also, conveniently as it happens, has a few extra roosters, want a couple?)


Ah Hah! There's the culprit. Seems he had a few too many (roosters). Seems they were eating him out of house and pig food. Seems last year he asked me if I wanted a few and I said, "Sure, why not!". Actually that last part I don't remember, but he swears he "mentioned" it. And while he's "swearing that he mentioned it" there's an unmistakable gleam in his eye and a shit-eating grin on his face. Uh huh! Ok. You "mentioned" it. Was I anywhere near you when this pseudo-conversation took place?


But it's all good. I needed a new face in the flock anyway, gotta introduce some new dna every now and then to keep from getting chickens with fur, or 3 eyes and stuff, or feet growing out of their ears. And these boys are gorgeous! They will make pretty babies. Unless of course they don't know how to do that, then, Mr Snowplow Man and I are gonna have a 'scussion!

When it Snows, It Rains...

I love snow, and again, the standard disclaimer applies. I have no control over whether it snows or not so don't hate me for saying that I like it. The only amount of control I may, or may not have is this; there seems to be a correlation between whether we get precipitation or not, based on whether I hang out my laundry or not.

But then again, I didn't hang out my laundry and we're getting more snow. So, see? No control.

The fact that I love snow, more snow, and even more snow is not lost on hubby. He's the one who has to make sure that we can get out and go, no matter how much snow. And he doesn't like it. At all. None of it. He'll take the cold without snow, and I'll take the snow, but you can keep the cold. It's a match made in heaven, I tell ya!

But snow isn't the only precipitation on tap currently at chez C-A-T. We have rain in the cabin. Yes, we have rain IN the cabin. Snow outside, rain inside. See it all happened this way....
Once upon a time CAT went to turn on the faucet to wash dishes. All was good. We had hot water, we had cold water, we had it all, and all was good. Until..... CAT noticed that she was wet. As was the counter, wall and floor. Seems the faucet sprung another leak. Again. Enough! It's not a fix something on the inside of the faucet to get it through kind of spray either. It's an either it's gonna spray or you can tie a rag around it to contain the spray, but either way, there's water coming out!


So, as I pen this prose, I'm also searching on ebay for a new kitchen faucet. The current faucet has no sprayer (it sprays a lot, but it's not supposed to. I told that to a customer service rep once when I called to get another thingy for the inside to keep it from spraying, and she didn't get it). It also has no lever (just a nub where the lever used to be, kind of hard to grip and get an accurate temperature, and which, with the additon of the new dishwasher and the subsequent turning up of the hot water heater, gets rather hot).

The new one will be a country styled arc faucet, with pull out sprayer, and anything but a stainless steel finish. It will also be NEW. And it will be under 100.00 with shipping, thank you very much.

I've found two that I like and another I could live with, all meeting all of the criteria (single lever, sprayer, arc, not stainless and under 100 bucks) and I set them to send alerts to my cell phone as the time to auction end got nearer. There's one I like better than the others, we'll see how this all plays out. It's almost as exciting as an episode of Survivor.

Technology! Gotta love it. Except for the VHS and DVD player, don't go there.


Man, these 3 day work weeks are tough! And next week, another 3 day work week. Not sure I'll make it. And after that, I am back up to 5 days! 5 days a week at work, until, oh, wait, until middle of January when I have a short vacation. But after that it's back to normal.

My Coffee Pot Broke.

If you're not a coffee drinker, then you don't get the significance of this. I may as well not even get up if I can't have my coffee.
Well, we can't have that either, especially, when my insomniac affected body decides it needs to be out of bed.

So I did the only responsible thing I could think of, that being to dig around in the camping stuff and find the old percolator, look in my old farm cookbooks on how to brew coffee in this archaic manner and proceed. Keep in mind, all of this had to be accomplished SANS COFFEE!!

We did pretty well, here at Chez C-A-T. And to be honest, it makes a pretty darn good cup of coffee, even if it did balk at being used on a electric stove, rather than a campfire. It does take awhile though, like about the time it takes to boil water hard enough for it to be forced through the little stemmy thing, up into the percolator thing and drip back down through the coffee grounds. And then do all of that for 6-10 mins. And then cool down enough so it doesn't scorch the tongue right outta the mouth. But the coffee is pretty good. Due to my New Years Resolution...(this is a hint here), I will use this coffee maker rather than replacing the old one. Unless of course this one takes a hit, then all bets are off. We do have to have our coffee to survive after all.

So, today is The Brat's birthday. Happy Birthday Brat! I'm not real sure how this happened, but he's 22. Seems like just yesterday he was falling out of trees, jumping off of anything guaranteed to buy him some airtime (and in one case, some hospital time), learning how to ride a 2 wheeler (while being pushed downhill by two of his helpful big sisters - "dodge the trees!"). He's always been my baby, which when he was growing up was a pretty easy position to be in, what with 4 older sisters. And now he spends his time 24/7 in Iraq. Baghdad actually. It goes without saying that I WANT HIM HOME! True to his positive nature, he finds it not so bad. He says the Iraqi's are people just like we are. They want peace and stability just like we do. They want the same things for their families that we do. When he and his buddies got one of the tanks stuck in the mud during the rainy season (rainy season? In Iraq? Who knew?), several locals showed up with shovels and tractors to help them. The kids are adorable, he says, but then he's always loved kids. And he's always wanted to help people, which I suspect is one of the reason's he's there, that and the US govt sent him there.
Like many, he was a teenager when he first set foot on that sandy soil, when he left home he was still my baby boy. Now, when he is able to come home, there's a quiet maturity about him, he's grown into a man; a man who would do just about anything for me and the girls. A protector. And I'm so proud of him. And I miss him so much.
Be safe Brat!

See what happens when I don't get my coffee?