Monthly Archives: August 2017
These little shell socks are finished. I love them. Plus this yarn is so good about being tossed in the washer and dryer.
The geese love their fresh drinking water. Remember how small they were this spring.Ancestry.com and rabbit holes
Ancestry holes are prolific at Ancestry.com. One can certainly spend a lot of time and there are so many avenues to chase. Now if I had the $200 to purchase the international information, I’m sure I could find many more of those rabbit holes One whole day gone, but more ancient relatives found in my husband’s lineage which is a very difficult one with which to work.
Do any of you work on genealogy? It’s interesting to find the old, old stories as well as to whom you might be connected. I found that one of his lines connects to the Byrd family, but haven’t had the time yet to find if it is the same as the explorer. I have to be very careful not to open this site very often, because it is so addictive.
Dr. office visit
We spent the day going to Seattle to visit the doctor once again to make sure the replaced ankle is doing okay.. He likes to keep a check on anything that is bothersome and it appears that the tendon has become inflamed. So I’m to take it easy for a couple months (HA), wear an orthotic that I have to get approved by my insurance and then order. Wear it and return to see him in 8 weeks. (sarcastically -Lucky us, we get to make that drive again.) Really though, we are very blessed to have this medical procedure available. It has made the difference between living in a wheel chair or being able to go about my normal life here on the farm. But the trip didn’t leave me time for fun today. I think I’ll pull the socks out and see I can get a few rows done on the toes.
Little shell sock progress;
I am loving the way these “Little shell socks” have turned out. They are ready to have the toes knit in and finished off. They have been on the needles way too long. My goal was to finish them this month and that should happen.
These sheep now have permanent residence here. The hay wagon helped me get a bit closer to them. There is a saying in sheep and some other livestock “stranger danger” and until they get used to me being the one bringing food, that’s how they will think. They have luscious wool and about half are lambs. Most of them are colored, which is also sought after. So I am a happy shepherdess today.
When I was picking blueberries, I saw this beautiful dragonfly on one of the leaves.
Starter locked in neutral
10 new friends showed up. About 1/2 are lambs. They were living in the eastern part of the state which is smoky right now. Tomorrow, we will go through them and decide if we want to add them to the flock. Meanwhile they are in quarantine.
I seem to be locked in neutral today, with the brakes on. I watched a food video and did some knitting. Already it is time to go feed animals. Sometimes, I don’t know what happens to the day. Even with good intentions, enough sleep, and getting up early, things don’t get done.
Too much excitement
Today has been filled with too much excitement. I was blending some tomato sauce when the lid flew off. (no photo) The kitchen is a bit cleaner now. Then went out to put something in the freezer and found this freezer – which was over half full – has died. A quick transfer of ingredients to other freezers in the house saved the ingredients. Now all freezers are full and there will be more food coming in.
The good excitement is that the dozer is here taking out the huge blackberry patch, which is basically what looks like dead grass in this photo . We had it all weed whacked down and then just decided to have it all taken out and pasture put in. This is just a small part of all the blackberry and nettles that are on this property. My guess is that when he is done, it will be about 4 acres worth. It is too much work to whack it down every summer. He has just started, so will keep you posted
Inattention and re-doing
There was a bit of inattention going on here. No once, but twice. They had to be redone in the correct size. Now I have two cute little hedgehogs in a smaller size for what – I don’t know yet.
This morning I took the 15 large cucumbers I had picked two days ago to the gym and gave them away. Then I came home to pick some more smaller ones, but they were already big. I put them in the refrigerator. Yes, – this is the cucumber “year to remember”
Embroidered hedgehog and garden
These embroidered hedgehog are from Hatched in Africa. They are darling (background on left is accurate color). It is a set of 10 that I will make into a baby blanket bit by bit. My aim is to embroider one or two each day between other chores.
The blueberries are nearly finished. I have 55# in the freezer and the rest that I pick we will just eat. This bowl had 4#15 oz this morning. My guess is that there will get another 3-4# this year and they will be done.
These sun gold and Oregon gold tomatoes don’t stop. There are a few Romas here. Every year I am not gong to keep any volunteers as they are always the little ones. However, every year, I give in and give most of them a place. This year they consumed about 45 linear feet of space. Please help me with my resolve next year to not keep more than 6 volunteers. I want only to plant half a dozen big tomatoes and half a dozen Romas. That should be plenty.
Day in the kitchen and garden
A day in the kitchen yielded another 13 cups of relish,
And an artichoke, potato, pepper casserole, that took too much time to create and was okay, but we won’t be having it again.
This one was hiding. But thankfully it went home with the daughter who found it. We now have 22 sizeable cukes in the refrigerator meaning over 8″ plus many more pickle size on the vines. I will be finding homes for some most of it. One hears about zucchini sneaking in people’s cars, on their front porches etc. Here it will be cucumbers. The zucchini have about the same number of plants, but are not out to win the race. But I am choosing not to complain too much because winter is on its way and I will wish we had the fresh produce.
Male Cardinal is paper pieced
Between picking blueberries and cucumbers, watering, working on the tomatoes, etc., I finished this little fellow. He will finish at 8″ square and will get a mate sometime in the next week. I do enjoy getting a chance to work on projects, but often during the summer, they have to take a back seat.
There is another double batch of cucumber relish now in the refrigerator. In the morning, I will rinse it, put the rest of the ingredients in and can it.
Beau, the dog in the foreground spent some time at the vet’s on Friday. He had to have stitches in two places and they updated his shots, which were way out of date. In two weeks we go back to have the stitches out. The window that he went through to cut himself now has fencing over it. He didn’t go through glass, it was a cutout, but had a nail where screening had previously been. However, we don’t enjoy spending money at the vet’s, so have that covered.
I also went to the grocery store that day and had a physical. When chores were done, I just lay down for a bit and went to sleep and that is why no blog post.