Happy Birthday, Grandma!
Typical overly eventful week here at Freedom Hall. Still quilting, canning, writing books, editing magazines, planting, weeding, watering, tending our growing flock of animals, repairing outbuildings, and sorting junk. I've also decided to open a booth upstairs from the boot and tack shop in Colfax. They had some extra space upstairs, so they're renting out spaces by month. Mine is a 10 1/2 x 9 1/2 foot space, but I have one extra bonus - one of the "walls" is the overhang for the stairs, so I get to hang things over the railing to attract attention as people go downstairs. That sounds like a small thing, but if you've ever done merchandising you know that's a pretty good thing. I take "ownership" of it August 1st, so I've been busily painting and sewing and doing all the other things needed to get a booth like that ready. I'll be selling woodcrafts and cloth items (think "Country Gift Store"). I'm advertising in the quarterly quilting newsletter, and the local county newspaper, so we're hoping we'll do ok.
Hm.. what else...? Well, Danny's ear is healing fine. It's scabbing now, so it looks pretty disgusting, but I guess that's part of it. Thursday we drove to Spokane so Mike could take some M$ certification exams and we could do some shopping. We also went to the llama farm and bought two llamas. :) We haven't brought them home yet - it's that whole fence thing all over again - but you can see fuzzy pictures of them here. Ours are Scotty and Tango. Hopefully, they'll help keep Danny company, and will get along well with whatever additional livestock we get, and maybe I'll even get into spinning llama wool. Who knows, at this point?
Thursday night our water pressure got really bad because our well pump died. By Friday morning it was nil. So Mike's been hauling water to the house from the spring and boiling it for use. Today the pump fixer guy came out and installed a new pump (the cost was almost enough to buy four more llamas) and wiring. So now we have water again. <sigh> If it's not one thing, it's another!
Well, I think I smell dinner downstairs. Drop me a line and let me know how you're doing!
Happy Birthday, Aunt Bobbie!
Woo-hoo! An update in under a week! What is the world coming to? ;-)
Well, the fun just never ends around here. Thursday afternoon Danny injured herself. She was sticking her head over the fence to eat grass on the other side (she's got 3 acres of pastures, so why she was doing this behooves me) and when she pulled her head back she caught her ear on a nail and cut about a 3-inch gash in her ear. I discovered this when I went out to groom her in the evening, and immediately went into panic mode. We called the vet, who advised us to (1) put fly spray around her head and ear so she wouldn't toss her head so much, (2) put ointment on the infection, and (3) stable her to keep her calm. Danny was NOT happy about this advice. But we did it as best we could (we got the fly spray on one ear, ointment in the general head area, and put her in her stable). She didn't like being in her stable - Mike had wanted to ease her into it, having her rest in there a little while each day so that when the storms came and we had to stable her full-time, she wouldn't be so traumatized but alas, the injury came the day after the stall was completed. She stall-walked (think pacing) for a good hour, then finally settled down. She munched happily on some horse feed (something she doesn't get in her pasture yet), slurped a little water, and nibbled on some grass Mike had scythed for her. We also got a feel for just how inefficient a horse's digestive system really is.
The vet came over at 10AM the next morning, looked at the ear, and said it would heal on its own. She said we should try to clip her mane between her ears, to keep hair out of the wound. Well! Danny likes neither the look, the sound, or the notion of clippers. She reared up on her hind legs (something I had yet to see her do) and backed away. She was having none of it. The vet tried to get her used to just the sound first, but it was hopeless. I went in and got my fabric scissors and the vet trimmed some hair out of her mane. She was extremely edgy, so we just put her back in her pasture. She's been gradually "coming down" since then, and this morning Mike was even able to get a good shot of ointment on her wound, which - I'm happy to report - is healing nicely.
I joined the Colfax quilt guild. It's called the Whitman Samplers' Quilt Guild. I might be doing a website for them in the near future - if so, I'll put the URL in the diary so you can see what it looks like. I've also started on my "challenge" quilt. What this means is the owner of the quilt shop - Becky's Fabrics and Bernina - picks a fabric (in this case dark green Thimbleberries) and you design a quilt using it. I've started cutting out mine. I'll upload a picture of it when it's done. I have to have the whole thing completed (quilted, not just the top sewn) by October 2nd. Needless to say, I'll be "cheating" (machine-quilting). I've decided there are worse sins. :-)
We've got lots of crops coming in. The tomatoes are starting to turn red, Mike nibbles on radishes from time to time, he had some baby lettuces with dinner last night, and we had wilted mixed greens the night before.
Well, I guess that's all the news that's fit to print. Be sure to check out the new section - "You Know You're a Horse/Mule/Donkey Person When..."
Happy birthday to my nephew Don!
The day after the last update, Danny got loose. The wire lift-up latch on her pasture was evidently loose, and she just lifted it up and walked right on out! We, of course, panicked. Drove the countryside, at least as much as we could. Told what few neighbors we knew.. met a few more and told them. We skipped the Fourth of July doings down at the park (ice cream social and fireworks display) because Danny decided to have her own little Independence Day. There was no sign of her for two days. Then a neighbor we had never met named Randy drove up on his motorcycle and said his neighbor had a horse in their yard. So the word has spread. We drove over to check it out, and it was her - 6 miles away, fly-bitten like the dickens, and exhausted. We don't have a trailer, so we then had the problem of how to get her home. Mike started walking her home and I went into St. John to try to find someone with a trailer who would help us out. Eventually two very sweet strangers (friends-of-a-friend kind of thing) followed me to go get her. Mike had already walked about halfway (that's three miles!!) but Danny had just about decided she was done walking. We loaded her up, took her home, and rigged a better latch. She's (luckilly) stayed put ever since.
We're still doing lots of gardening. We got our first harvest - radishes. They're all just about done, and Mike picked a bunch of them and ate them with dinner last night. I don't like radishes, so he had no competition. :) Planted right next to the radishes are the turnips, and they're getting about done. So we might have turnip greens soon. There are also more beans and squash coming up, more lettuce, and the yellow squash are just getting huge (well, compared to everything else). The tomato plants are also putting on a few more blossoms.
I've joined the quilting cult. Well, it's not exactly a cult, but it's definitely cliquish. Anyway, I've started taking classes and joining quilting bees. My first was Friday night (the 9th). At the quilt shop in Pullman they have something called the Night Owls Quilting Group. The first Friday of every month (July was delayed a week because of the holiday), a group of no more than 10 women meet at 6PM and quilt into the wee hours of the morning (I was there til after 1AM). I met lots of women, and we had a great time - laughing and cutting up (no pun intended). Just so happens that earlier that day, I had gone to the quilt shop in Colfax because Colfax was having its annual concrete river festival (think citywide garage sale). I had turned my sewing machine over to them earlier to be repaired. Becky told me my old Bicor was dead beyond resurrection, but that she had a nice low-end used machine (the little old lady only sewed churches on it on Sundays) that she would sell me. I bought it (of course) and am dying to machine-sew a quilt. Yes, I'm going to cheat. But not until I finish the first one I started by hand. I want to be able to say I did SOMEthing by hand. I did machine-sew a dress pattern - it's a little jumper. The stitching is just terrible, but I fixed it as best as I could. First-timer's disease, you know. I'm not discouraged - if you see the dress you'll agree that it can only get better!
Tomorrow I go to the Endicott library to do some volunteer work. They're only open Tuesdays and Fridays, for four hours each day, and I thought it would be fun to help out. Wednesday I have a meeting of the Colfax Quilters' Association (which I'm going to join), and Friday probably more library.
Mike's still working his tail off. Yesterday morning (5AM!!!) he drove to Spokane to pick up our cute little trees. We're planting those fast-growing trees. Some willows and some... I forget - something else. They have to "rest" for a couple of days, so we'll prolly plant them on Wednesday. He's been writing, weeding, tearing down old fencing, clearing brush, rototilling, planting, picking strawberries, disinfecting the chicken coop (we're just waiting for the chicks now), and doing any other number of duties. Busy as ever.
Well, I'd better go get some weeding done before it gets too hot. Hope you're all doing well!
A lot has been going on since my last update. As you probably have seen, there are lots of new pictures up. If you haven't seen this yet, go back to the home page and take a look - there are bridal shower photos, pictures of Danny-girl (the horse), and all kinds of other knick-knacks. Tomorrow I'll be working on wedding photos and the wedding/honeymoon update.
Well, obviously we bought a horse. She's a 13-year-old Thoroughbred mare, 16 hands high, brown (no white markings at all), registered. We bought her from a couple out by Spokane, and she was delivered here almost a week ago, on June 28th. She's fitting right in, and has jogged down a little track in her (3-acre) pasture. Some time next week, we're going into Spokane to get a saddle and a bridle so she can be ridden; she's been getting a little restless. Mike has been easing into taking care of her little by little, which turns out to be a very good thing. The other day I hurt my foot (too stupid a story to relate here) and so Mike's been having to take care of her full-time while I recuperate. He's learned to groom her, halter her, lead her, and even give her a few commands (mostly "whoa" and "ok, let's go"). Since we basically are novices at horses, most of our Farm Lessons for awhile will probably be about her.
On the "work" front -- Mike's still writing. He's working on a VB/ADO book now, but will be writing more Access and SQL Server stuff soon. He's also still doing flurries of tech-edits. I'm going to be starting another tech-editing project, for a PhotoShop project, sometime this month (if it doesn't get pushed back).
Garden update - Lots of things have come up. Mostly weeds. :) They're so tenacious!! Food-wise we have squash, some peppers, beans galore, peas, potatoes, onions, radishes (they're almost ready to harvest), carrots, brussel sprouts, cabbage, cucumbers, lettuce, and watermelon. No fruit yet, but seedlings and sets are popping up. The tomato plants we put out a few weeks ago are still hanging on. Those that already had fruit on them have developed more fruit. Those that didn't, still don't. Mike has been developing a web page to be published as soon as our DSL line gets put in - it's a farm diary and it's incredibly detailed. I'll put up the link as soon as it's ready. (If you want to bookmark it now, it's going to be http://www.larkfarm.com .) Weeding is a never-ending battle, and they seem to thrive anywhere. We just go do some weeding in between everything else, like fencing, gate-building, quilting, cooking, baking, painting, planting, clearing brush, horse-tending, and computering (giggle). Oh, yeah, and eating and sleeping. :)