American Idol

Am I the only one who thinks that American Idol is just bad karaoke? I would like to dedicate my new blog music to the American Idol contestants who sang really awful songs this week and last. Here are some awesome songs that you COULD have sung.

I can't wait until Nashville Star comes back. That is an awesome singing contest. And whatever happened to Rock Star?

Google Reader

Oh how I love thee, let me count the ways!

So my sister told me about Google reader yesterday. Now instead of clicking on a bunch of different links to check on different blogs, all I have to do is log in!

I'm really excited now because there were blogs that I just stopped checking because the person would update every month or so. I got tired of checking. Now I can check all the blogs at one time. I love it!

With all the spring weather I'm thinking about shearing sheep (April - May) and planting the garden. Also taking the scouts fishing before they all start turning 9 in April.

The sheep shearing should be quite fun. I'm also thinking about keeping my ear to the ground for a black merino sheep. It might be fun to work with dark fiber. If I was able to find a bottle baby then even better. Cheaper anyway.

Here are my latest projects.

Church bags for C and A. What do you think?









I think its about time. They are 3 and 5 and don't need a diaper bag anymore. I was thinking that C was old enough to carry around a Book of Mormon and A could put 2 toys in her bag for Sacrament meeting. I would then confiscate the bag. I am pretty sure that if I let her take it to her class I would play find the bag after church every Sunday.

Here is my bag. It felted differently than I expected it to. I'm also not done with it and am facing a few decisions about it.



First does it need a thin board in the bottom to help it keep its boxy shape.

Second I was thinking I might want to put a few pockets in the bag. These would be crocheted and then felted and then sewn into the bag.

Do I want a liner. If I put a thin board in the bottom, then I would want a liner so I could line the board. I could still put pockets in it but I don't think the lining fabric could support much weight. So they would be small pockets. I don't know how helpful those would be.

Anyway, things to think about for me.

Does anyone think it needs more flowers?

So I went into the other room and saw a chair pushed over to the cupboard. A decided to help herself to some dum dum suckers that we bought yesterday for a treat. I went into their room and their were C and A eating suckers. C says "A got the suckers". I then gave her a lecture about how she could have come and told me rather than sharing in the bounty. I confiscated all of the suckers and told them that they were stuck in their room for punishment.

I guess it could have been worse. They could have found more crayons and gone to town on their walls again. Have I mentioned that Magic Erasers are my friend?

Spring is here!

Yesterday I thoughtI should check on our snow crocuses. Well guess what? Their up! About 5 are blossoming and about 15 or so are up and we're still waiting on the rest of the group to show up.




Here is a pic of Callie. She is the one sheep who day after day gets her head stuck in the fence.



What is funny is that you'll see her stuck and so you'll head out to help her out.




She can get herself out. The other day I thought, I'm going to pet her and get her used to me a little more. By the time I get out there she is standing up and trying to pull her head out. I pet her once and then she was out. Stupid sheep.

Here is a pic of the mob.



Except someone is missing...the last scaredy sheep.

Here is a pic of our chickens.



We're going to get 2-3 more chickens from a person who advertised on Craigslist. At $3 each its a great price. And their in the same town as us! Yay!

Here's a bonus pic of Callie and the freckles on her nose.

I'm strange

I can deal with that. :)

Am I the only one who will have my blog in the background when I'm surfing the net because I like the music so much?

Today its snowing. We've just had the most wonderful days of warm weather. Its been in the 40's and even a day in the 50's I think. Anyway, it was so nice! My hubby said something about precipitation this morning. That means rain right? Wrong. I guess it means snow :( . But I just called him and he said that the roads were clear and its actually about 32 degrees out there. So hopefully it will be pretty for a while and then melt. But you know, it sure is pretty. Its coming down thick and fast and covering everything. The sheep are all standing around in it like it doesn't bother them. I remember going out there after one bad snow storm and they all had like 4-6 inches undisturbed on their coats. I tried to brush it off and they didn't like that.

C continues to be a great reader. She and I went over the words 'cannot' and 'she'. Her teacher explains it using marriage. The 2 letters s and h get married and make a new word. So I told C that 2 words can get married also and make a new word. She is reading so well! I love this preschool! I have A signed up for next year and just found out that the teacher is already taking names for the year after. So I put A in there for that year also. So 2 years of preschool. The teacher is so awesome! And truthfully A has been so envious of C being able to go to preschool. So I couldn't put it off a year if I wanted to.

This last week we had 2 days where we got 4 eggs. That black silkie looks like she may be getting regular. The last time I wrote about her she had started giving an egg every other day. Then she stopped for about a week and a half. Well she's back on that again. I think it may stick now. I've read that chickens take a month or 2 to become regular.

We're probably going to buy 1-2 more chickens or chicks this spring. We have just enough eggs for us but one of the chickens eggs are really super sized meaning that she is on the older end of the laying 2 years. So we just want to have another chicken in the chute and ready to take over.

I've been very blessed the past month. My local wool shop where I bought my spinning wheel called me a few times with free wool. Some had gotten wet in their barn and some was too short and some was yearling wool. Then they called me again after learning that I'm going through an obsession with bag making and felting and offered me some wool that was to coarse to sell to spinners or wear next to your skin. But perfect for bags. I have washed and stored the first group, but haven't gone through the more coarse stuff to see if I can use it. I'm sure I'll be able to. I'm so happy and excited that they thought of me when they came across that.

Mom and Dad got all the paperwork submitted on Wednesday for their mission. So they will have a call in the next 1-3 weeks. I'm super excited about it. I'm trying not to be nervous about taking care of the fruit trees and yard etc (acre and a half ) until my sister gets here. I'm sure we'll manage. Besides, I do have family in town who we could call for an emergency yard care session.

So yesterday I had a fire going all day. When it got up to 69 I closed the draft most of the way, but didn't want it to go out and have to restart it in the evening to keep us warm all night. So I kept adding wood. Anyway, I didn't keep it in check very well. It was around 75 in the hallway when I finally went to bed around midnight. Whoops! I loved it. Hubby hated it. Oh well. I love our wood stove. We have had the heat pump on a total of 1 time this year.

not pregnant

So Bertha the goat is not pregnant. Just really REALLY fat. Needless to say she needs to go on a diet :)

Well, I should say we don't know for sure that she isn't pregnant. Just that my sister who has experience in this arena gave her a once over and said that it seems very unlikely that she is pregnant. Many factors came into this discover. One being that we thought she was due the first of February. She'd be bursting out all over with baby by now.

I'm happy. Now I don't have to worry about her.

Valentines Day

We celebrated half heartedly. As my husband said last night, 'I don't need a holiday to tell you how much I love you'. Awww. He is pretty sweet.

On the spur of the moment I made cupcakes and the kids and I went over and shared them with Grandma. I saved some cupcake batter and I had more in the oven as hubby came home. That must have inspired him because he decided to make our favorite sweet and sour chicken for dinner. And he wouldn't tell me what he was making. So that was a yummy surprise.

All in all it was a nice day.

C got to have her first Valentines day celebration with kids at Preschool. It sounded like they had a pretty fun party.

Preschool has been a great decision for her. She can read words like A, At, An, My, the, see, and more than I can remember right now. She's progressing very nicely. She should be reading really well by the end of the year, and hopefully I can work with her over the summer. I'm excited for where she'll be in kindergarten. But I am sad to think of her in kindergarten all day (or half day?). I'm going to miss her helpfulness. Hopefully A will mature a bit more in that way.

oh wow

So I have had a real problem with dry skin all over my hands this year. I think it may have something to do with taking care of animals at cold temps. Or maybe its just being outside more. Who knows. I just know I've had to use a lot more lotion that normal. I've been really using Mary Kay's Santin Hands Hand Cream. We all know that Cream is much better for your hands than lotion. But anyway. This cream came as part of my satin hands hand kit. It has this way cool kit that totally makes your hands feel like satin.

Step one is called Extra Emollient Night Cream. This is a heavy greasy feeling but nicely scented substance. The next step is Buffing Cream that is blue and has some grit in it to help get all the dead skin off. After this you use Cleansing Gel which I'm not sure if its just supposed to clean all the other stuff off of your hands or if it is supposed to clean your skin extra well. Next comes the Hand Cream. After all of this your hands feel SO good. They are so soft.

But the problem I was running into this year was that my thumb knuckles just didn't seem to take the moisture at all. They were ROUGH.

And life went on and I forgot to moisturize with just eh hand cream often enough and last night it was just awful. I was looking at my hands and noticed that some of my other knuckles were starting to have sections of skin split. I've never had something that extreme happen and didn't know if cream would be enough.

So I tried putting on just the Extra Emollient Night Cream last night just before I hopped into bed. I thought, 'hey, that is what the label says, right?'.

Anyway, I am happy to report that my hands this morning are impressive. They feel so much better!

So go check it out. I highly recommend Mary Kay's Satin Hands line. Especially the kit. Its AWESOME! Go find a Consultant!

ignore that last post.

Nothing to see there. I just re-read it and boy did I ramble.

A couple of interesting things that I didn't cover in that post... Mom and Dad have completed all of the medical stuff that they needed for their mission papers, and said that they will be making their next appointments with the Bishop and Stake Pres this next week! I'm really excited about that! Also a little worried, but that is for selfish reasons. I'm a little uncertain about maintaining this property without them until Aug when my sister is moving into their place. Besides that I'm totally excited!!!

Also, did I mention that Bertha the goat was pregnant? I think I did. Anyway it was the neighbors sneaky pygmy goat that did the deed. This is the second time in the last 3 years we've had this problem. Of course the first time it was different goats on both sides. Anyway back to the point. Bertha will be having the goat any day now. I'm hoping for a girl so that we don't have to worry about fixing it. Also, I'm thinking about keeping the goats. I know I've said I would be getting rid of them, but I'm a little worried that the sheep won't be able to keep the pasture down on their own. So I think We'll keep them until we know for sure. If the sheep need help, then we'll keep the goats (and don't tell hubby, but we might think about getting a couple more sheep if the price was right, and THEN get rid of the goats). My real deal is that the goats have no return. You don't have to do much to maintain them, but feeding them all winter for no value in return gets old.

I need to post some pics. I'll see if I can get on that :)

blah

So I don't have anything specific to blog about. Just a bunch of random stuff.

We've been getting a lot of snow for the past few weeks. The last few days we've had new snow. This morning about an inch and yesterday about 3 inches. I'd normally stay home and enjoy it all but preschool and feeding the animals has me out and about.

Our chickens are doing just fine with the cold weather. Egg production has been down a little. We've gone from getting 3 eggs some days to about 2. Our Black silkie is now and official member of the egg producing society. For the past week or so she's been giving us an egg every other day. Which according to the web is normal. so Yay! We get a cute little taupe colored egg every other day. Its cute, but I'm a little afraid to use them in my cooking due to most recipes asking for a large egg. I already have to deal with all the different egg sizes that my rhode island reds hand out. They give X-large and large? I think. When making bread I grab 2 of each size in the hopes that it will average out to the right size.

The sheep are growing fluffier and fatter with wool all the time. Charlie, the lone male is still very friendly. Cally (or gladys as I've re-named her) has become slightly jumpy when I'm around. I think its because she got out a few times and I had to catch her. For some reason that seems to make the sheep jumpy for a few months. One of the scardy sheep has warmed up a bit. She and Gladys hang out and are equally jumpy together. Then there is still one holdout for the scardy sheep status.

The rabbit continues to do well despite the cold weather. She hasn't gotten out since the last episode. Mostly because I don't get her out. Well, except that once when she was covered with snow and I grabbed her to wipe it all off. Still hoping to find a home for her.

A fellow ward member was telling me that they had a coyote get 2 of their chickens. They never put them in a coop before this, so I guess it sort of serves them right. But it still isn't pleasant. And since they live about a mile away it makes me a little scared for my chickens and sheep and rabbit. And reminded me about when the neighbor last summer told us about hunting for 2 wolves that were hanging out around the neighborhood. A little scary for the animals.

Oh, and on the wool front. Cleo over at The Sheep Shed was so nice this past weekend. She called out of the blue and asked me if I wanted some wool! I was all for it. Who could say no to free? Anyway, she gave me a couple of bags of wool that had been in a wet corner of her barn. They needed to be dried out before storage. But besides that they were just fine! She said that she had found ice in one of the bags! Anyway, a day or so in front of our fireplace and they were dry as a bone! I'll probably was them this month sometime and then store them until I decide what color and what I want to do with them.

She also gave me about 1 lb 9 oz of brown merino. I've never used dark brown wool before so that has been an adventure. First I did some research and found that I had to wash it in water that was 160 degrees. That was almost boiling! So it took me a while to get water that hot. Then I couldn't let the water get cooler than 160 degrees or the lanolin could redeposit on the wool. So I got the water to about 170 degrees and it sat in the water for about 15-20 minutes. But you know what? that wool had almost zero felting!!!! That is big for me. I usually handle the wool way to much and end up with a lot of felting.

This time I put the wool in mesh laundry bags and didn't handle it much at all. I just handled the laundry bags. I also spun the wool dry in the washing machine. by the next day it was dry and ready for carding.

Well, I'm about halfway through with carding the wool and so far have about and oz of wool that got clean, but still has a bit of lanolin on it. Which is fine. Its much easier to boil a pan of water than it is to get a whole laundry bucket of water boiling. After I'm done with this, I'll clean the other wool. I'm planning on using the mesh bags again and hopefully I'll be successful again with the lack of felting!!!!!

On to other subjects....

Mom and A have a really bad cold. They have of course spread it to Myself and C. But that's life.

With all of this snow we've been spending a bit of time over at mom and dad's house. Since they live next door its fun to go over for a change of scenery. We've been working on fun puzzles and the kids like to play with grandma's toys. Over all, its been great fun to have somewhere to go when the weather is horrible.

I've finished spinning enough wool for a church bag for myself. I'm really excited to get started on it! I did have enough wool spun at Christmas, but then my mother in law saw the bag I made for my mom and requested one for her birthday. She requested it several times while she was over for Christmas. So what could I do? I just wish that people who don't know how to do crafts realized how long they took. Her birthday was january 14th. lets just say I worked like a madwoman. Also, I wasn't able to put as much thought into it as I would have wanted. But it was cute. Somehow it turned out much bigger than the one I did for Mom. Also instead of a tulip, I put daisy's on it.

I think on my bag I'm going to got back and do the tulip again, but this time I'm going to use the picture from the cake that you make in Nancy Drew and the Secret of Shadow Ranch. Its a really pretty tulip in red and green. Although I'll probably change the color to white or something that will look good on a purpley pinkish bag.

Hiding

I'm currently hiding from my mother in law. She stayed the night last night. I think she was lonely. But now she is cleaning my kitchen and probably putting everything in the wrong places (I still hide things from myself, will my kitchen ever recover?) of course I'm joking. but I am hiding. I just needed a break. My back was hurting. But now it feels fine. Should I go shower and let her continue to clean, or go and help. I feel like a bad person because this is even an option for me.

On the whole, it feels quite hilarious.

I think I'm in a weird mood.