I woke up to a small amount of snow covering the prairie here. It is cold...only 18 degrees, but not as cold as the rest of the nation in places. Above, this is what I woke up to yesterday morning. These two little bucks just outside my living room window, doing a little sparing between bites of my lawn. The sun was just rising and as I sat in my chair next to Coalette who had crawled into my sewing basket for a short nap, I was thankful to be enjoying more critter activity. In town there are deer that live there all year and you may have to stop to let them cross the street any place there. The big bucks will nap in the shade of a tree and they are spectacular when the antlers are in velvet. We only get the deer out here in the winter. Venison anyone? I think not!
The Mr. and his friend and neighbor went for a drive yesterday into Colorado for lotto tickets and lunch and it was a three hour block of time for me to get this quilt finally sandwiched so that I can begin to quilt it. First the backing was stretched and taped to the floor (for lack of a larger surface like a table...you improvise and blue painter's tape worked great). The next picture shows the sandwich with batting and the quilt top. It was then pinned to keep the 3 layers in place and rolled up from both sides to prepare to quilt. I hope to get started on it soon, but that took 2 hours. When my friend and I go for the day, we spend all day and she called when the guys got back wondering why the guys were gone only 3 hours. She was doing similar work and was looking forward to some "me" time without her Mr. She works still during the week at a job 50 miles away, but I am fortunate to be over that daily grind and time away from cooking, laundry, housework is precious when you don't have much of it.
When we girls go for an out of town jaunt, we always hit a big flea market and some antique shops and since it is a two hour drive for us, by the time we "touch everything" at the flea market, we have spent 3 hours and our day is more than half over. The guys just don't need to touch everything unless they get to a ranch supply or a big box improvement store and where they went yesterday, neither place existed. Winters are long here and the wind blows constantly it seems, but the peace and quiet and time to enjoy doing nothing without guilt are well worth it in the winter of my life. I have a sister not much younger than me, who in the winter of her life is working to keep a different type of retirement. She has many different animals and lots of them...all kinds of fowl, rabbits, goats, dogs, cats, and more and with that, life and death happen every day it seems. Their winter has been cold for the south and it is a struggle to feed and keep water for them thawed in the elements. Chores must be done morning and night, critters escape and they deal with the threat of other animals killing to survive. She lives out in the country also, but unlike her, I get my eggs from my neighbor. As children, we had to gather eggs and chickens still lay eggs in the winter time. I hated gathering eggs and would make her get the eggs as I took a stick and shooed the chickens away from the nest...I always got pecked if I didn't. It is a healthier life when you raise your own food but keeping critters is a lot of work, especially in the winter. But our daddy, rest his soul, would approve. It is how we were raised.
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