More stuff

Remember that I told you about the little stools I made from the old chairs so that my fur babies needed to get up on the beds?  Well here they are and it seems that I should have a bed exclusively for them.  Oh wait a minute, they do have their own beds.  This is just for nap time.

Last weekend we went out to get our tree and you can see how pretty the forest was and the snow was deeeeeep!  We did however successfully get our trees and mine is up and decorated.  We had a beautiful day to do this and again ate our picnic lunch overlooking the forest.

This past weekend I had the opportunity to go to Sheridan WY with my friend and neighbor to spend a few days with her mother.  She lives at the foot of the Big Horn Mts and needless to say it is beautiful there also.  We shopped and ate and toured a mansion one evening with friends.
It was amazing and there were musicians and figgy pudding and apple cider and just felt like Christmas!!

Her yard is overrun with whitetail deer and wild turkeys and you feel like you have returned to the turn of century and see our state as the  pioneers must have seen it when first they came.

This is the trunk I have begun to paint, but today will be reserved for baking my Christmas cookies.  I have 5 batches of dough in the fridge and am late in getting started to it will be a marathon of baking today.  The trunk will wait!

WINTER PROJECTS

This is the first of several projects that are floating around in the back of my pea brain.  And thankfully, the Mr. just goes along with my ideasHe is always there to help with my requests although sometimes I have to step back and let him take charge.

What initiated this endeavor was the purchase of new beds and the inability for one of my little furkids to access the comfy spot he always claims as his.  The other little grey guy can fly but Roger has a body built for laps only.

Last year a friend had given me an old broken table and 3 chairs and her thought was that I might

 use the wood for something.  I did take the backs and make garden angels for her daughters, but I needed some stools to put at the end of the beds.  So the Mr. first cut off the legs, and then I took offnthe old grungy seat covers.

As you can see...very grungy and they had been stored in the crawl space for about a year.  There was another original cover under these fake needlepoint covers and a million staples.

My real surprise was that there was actually straw as the first layer of padding, followed by

some other kind of cotton or wool substance. And that meant that these chairs were really old. How long has it been since straw was used in padding furniture?

So as you can see, after using a couple of garage sale seat pads which had a nice 2 inch  foam, and scrounging through my fabric stash, I recovered them with a pleather fake tooled fabric.

My adventure with the staple gun was another story.  We have 3 and they, of course, use different size staples.  The electric one which we purchased at some time to make things easier

was jammed and neither of us could even figure how to open it so I was back to using one of the old arthritis aggravating machines.

I am however, pleased with outcome and the little furkids can jump up on the bed with ease.

Today we are headed out for another adventure.  We have our tree permits and this will be the 4th year since we have had Christmas here and we are very close to tree cutting areas if we can access them.  We got a really nice snow in our area Thanksgiving and that will determine how available the forest will be for us.

So with thermos in hand and turkey sandwiches, armed with shovels, chains (yes we have been stuck) and saws we will be on the "hunt" for the perfect trees.  I always want a tall skinny tree and our partners in crime usually get a big fat tree.  We will have the camera and intend to document this trip again.

I have an old trunk that my mother-in-law gave me years ago..a steamer trunk to be exact.  It was in really poor shape on the outside, but it is in good shape inside.

I have hauled it around for about 40 years and it has been painted several times and the paint has chipped so I am giving it another life and will be documenting it on one of my next posts....perhaps after the tree adventure.

Hope all had a nice Thanksgiving and a shout out to my sister who had a birthday this past week.

"He who has imagination without learning has wings but not feet." ~ Joseph Joubert

Bread

When I was in Washington state visiting our daughter, she gave me a "starter".  I posted earlier the other bread from her recipe and decided to get a little adventurous.  With the ability to search anything from my iPad I found some sourdough recipes and the first, pancakes was a terrific success.  Out west here, sourdough is popular and was a staple for every household from the covered wagon chief to the chuckwagon cook.  Being miles from any town, the ability to make bread was a necessity and you took care of your "starter".  After doing a little research on starters, I discovered that I wasn't caring for

mine properly.  You have to feed it once a week if you keep it in the fridge and twice a day if on the counter.  I don't bake with it often so into the fridge it went.  However, I put it on the counter and after a couple of hours, I checked it and it was bubbling quite nicely.  There is too much more to discuss here now, but as you can see, the pancakes, the bread, and the cinnamon rolls tasted just as good as they look!

The next post will be about my dilemma  to fix the problem of my little furkids ability to get up on our beds.  We ended up with two beds
and one footstool, so both pups had

to get up on the same bed. For some of you, this may appear to be a silly problem, but these are my babes and my blood pressure tools.  (sort of) And in addition, I have one dog who thinks he owns me.  He has a really chunky body and short legs, but he is not fat, just big bones.  He reminds me of a little bulldog in stature or shortsure.

With the Thanksgiving holiday this week, we remember how blessed we are and remember those who are less fortunate.  Be kind and pay it forward.

Back on line

 I took some time away from the blog...vacation, illness (bloody shingles), not bloody per say, but irritating, and just plain time away.  I am finally finding time to post and a friend and I are finishing some projects that have been sitting unfinished for years, one being this birdhouse I have had for about 8 years in this primed state.  It is still not completed, but is getting there.

I have much more to do, but it will get done!  I have also been working on a baby quilt, which is on it's way to the gramma, my sister.  In addition, I have been purging!  I have been cleaning cupboards, shelves, closets, chests, - anything that is storage for "stuff".  Who in the world needs 25 wine glasses?  I do not like clutter or trinkets sitting around. I have a few things that I collect, but my tastes gravitate to primitive and simple and I really like to repurpose rather than buy new.  So yesterday, after lunch, the Mr. and I worked over two dining room chairs that were given to me last year along with a table in pieces.  The wood was really pretty.  These chairs have been sitting in the crawl space after I took the backs off to use in another project.  We needed some small stools to put at the end of our beds so that our little fur babies could access them.  (yes our dogs are allowed on the beds--it is what we do)
So we cut off the legs and remaining back support and I recovered the seats and that will be my next post.

I have still been going to quilt with my pals on Mondays and it has been so rewarding.  We are nearly finished with our row by row quilt strips and they are really wonderful.  As we, the baby boomers age, I see those who have little energy, become "older".  They have no hobbies and not much contact with the outside world.  I learned so much from my father and I remember that as he aged, he and my mother stayed busy, went to coffee, played cards, went to rock shows, etc.  On the other hand, my husband's father retired and never left the house.  There were 20 years difference nearly when the two passed. Thankfully, the Mr. and I have been fortunate to have our health and are able to "get out and about" and are trying to keep our youth as long as possible.  With all that is happening in our world today, we are also thankful that we live in this little isolated part of the world where our power comes from small co-ops and we are not on the national computerized grid.  (That is another story.)

" 'Tis the gift to be simple. 'Tis the gift to be free." ~ Old Shaker Hymn

Vacation

The Mr. and I and Spencer and Roger (our little furkids) took a vacation and drove to Washington state to see our daughter and son-in-law.  We found plenty of "dog friendly" places to stay and they were great little travelers.  Our kids welcomed them with open arms, but Lulu her cat, wasn't as welcoming although she pretty much stayed out of their way and sight as they invaded her space.

The pot above, which I believe to be a rustic enameled chamber pot, was a find at a yard sale last year and I finally found a use for it. I really like reusing things with a former life.

 This wonderful piece of yummy bread is a gift from my daughter.  She gave me a starter which was she made from grapes as the active ingredient in the fermenting process.
It is a batter bread (no kneading) which is baked in a cast iron Dutch oven.  I was worried that the altitude had affected it as the top cracked so much, but she assured me that it was just fine and it WAS!  I will be using this for other recipes that I will be researching as I love to bake! (a testament to the roll around my gut)

Among my collections are these miniature rolling pins. As a child I had one and most little girls did get to help in the kitchen rolling out dough for pies or cookies.  So when I arrived at my daughter's, she presented me with 4 more!  I love them and it is a reminder of my childhood.  They are not easy to locate, but they do not take up much space and with once exception, there are no duplicates.

With the temperatures dropping, and the trees in their winter fall colors, which by the way, has been spectacular, I have been getting the gardens ready for the first real frost and the snows that will follow.  On our trip home, we passed through the town in Oregon on  Monday before the terrible shootings.  Each day is a blessing so hug your loved ones and live it as if it were your last.

Fall?

Maybe pumpkins in the Wheelbarrow? It is supposed to freeze tonight so the hoses have been disconnected and the garden?  Well it is probably done except for the root crops.  This week I scored a great find in this rusty ol' wheelbarrow at a yard sale.  I have had one before, and I love to plant in them in the spring so even though this has a flat and came with a spare of sorts, I don't care!!  I love it and may use it for my miniature garden...on my bucket list.  The enameled pot, probably a chamber pot was a $1.00 score and i think it is a perfect planter don't you?  I am a fan of primitive decor and I think

it is because we don't recycle enough. Things had a previous life and if they could talk! I would love it if I could rummage through the landfill here, but we are not allowed to do that and there is some great stuff there!  Call me nuts maybe, but that's OK.

The quilt retreat held here last month was such a success and this
is the table topper we did as a quilt as you go project.  However, I felt like it needed something more to really express the fall theme it reflects.  I had a piece of fabric with these pumpkins so I shared with my quilt buddies and now it is fall!

Row by Row

Monday was our row exchange and these are a row for my good friend's quilt.  Her original was a leaf and several rows have been added since with a variety of patterns.  It is paper pieced which I like to do.

This was a sad week for us as we had to say goodbye to Hildy, our old border collie mix.  She would have been 14 in December and was the best dog we ever had.  I could go on about the love she gave us and the joy having her with us always played such an important part of our lives, but anyone who has had a fur kid probably knows this.

The two little boys and the Mr. and I went for a drive to the mountains yesterday.  Although we did not camp but once this year, the area is so close that we can make day trips easily.  With lunch in hand, we headed up Black Hall road and eventually found a couple of neighbors who were camped there.  They had just pulled off the lake with some nice trout on the string and we all went back to their camp for lunch.  The trees are just beginning to change colors and there is still much evidence of the damage the bark beetles left, but still fairly pristine and spectacular.

There is so much logging because of the dead trees that the log trucks are traveling the forrest roads like freeways.  On our way back, we encountered several in a train behind a derailed truck with engine trouble probably.  Luckily we had enough room to pass.  The other thing we did was search for a couple of geocaches (sp). Two were located with ease and we did log in both and left a small toy alligator in one.  It was our intention to leave one someplace, but that will be for another trip.  It was a very good day!

"To be beautiful and to be calm is the ideal of nature." ~ Richard Jefferies