Time to get walking!!

Its a great day for walking in our parts. Sunny, blue skies, upper 70s for temp. I usually try to walk about 5 days a week - at least 2 miles, sometimes more. Whats the problem?? My faithful dog, and I do mean faithful - border collie Annie was not there today. We haven't walked since way back in June when she got sick. I think she is getting better - at least she is eating but she is so thin and she needs to stay calm. Walking for her was not calming. She would put her head down and off we would go - usually passing everyone there as this was her job and we were going to get it done. Don't let go of the leash for a second or she was off, back to the truck. If we were at this usual park, which is about 2 miles from the house I could see how she found her way back - but at a strange place. There she would be sitting, waiting patiently for me to come along. Thus I never let go of that leash. Last year I thought about getting a second dog but thought we had lots of good walking years left. Now I couldn't put another dog in the truck and go off walking without her. I know she would know where I was going. It would break her heart and I would feel so guilty. So as I start the Fall walking season it will be alone with no dog to pull me along that last little way and up the hills. Maybe next month she will feel better...

Until next time....

A little of everything!!

Been a busy week and the time seems to be flying by. Today we did get to a horse show for about an hour. Just to get Tom's horse - Cooper - away from home and to a different surrounding. He was a little spooky at first but did settle down. As we got there it started to rain so we sat in the truck for about 20 minutes. Then we walked around and decided to leave as you could see more rain was coming. Thats okay, I bet we haven't had rain in about 3-4 weeks of any significance - we will take it when we can get it. Knitting has been slow also, just to dang hot. I see we are in for some cooler weather so that will help me get going a little faster. The picture below is of the ponchette I am working on. Takes 3 balls of yarn and I have about 1 1/2 done.

As you can see by the picture the egg production has picked up. We have 3 hens laying now and have been getting 3 eggs just about every day. Going to have to figure out how to bake with them - they are a bit on the small side at the moment.

Saturday evening Tom had to work on the weekend job his company is doing. I needed to pick up some things for a concert we are having a church tonight so rather than wait until today I figured I would go last night. One of the grocery stores we have doesn't let you take the carts out to the parking lot, they have a conveyer belt system that you drive up to with little totes that you groceries come from the inside out to the parking lot system. I drive up and had to sit in line to wait to be loaded. Out of habit I was looking at the totes thinking I don't see the number of one of my totes - they give you plastic cards with the tote number on and they write the numbers on your receipt. Well when it was my turn the people could not find my tote either - here they gave it to someone else. I had $70.00 in groceries and the only thing that was outside was 3 gallons of punch for tonight. Now I see why they write the numbers on your receipt - because without that you have no way to prove what you bought and that you are missing something. Must happen a lot though because they have people who will shop for all the things on your list, bag it up and take it to your truck. I split the list with the shopper and picked up half of the things and she got the rest. Amazing how I always took it for granted those groceries would be outside waiting for me. I will definitely pay more attention from now on - groceries are way to expensive to lost some of them.

Other than that I have just been working around the yard, painting the molding on the chicken house and all the other things that need to be done on a weekend. Back to work tomorrow.

Until next time.......

No picture Thursday

No pictures today, just to darn hot to mess with anything. Yesterday I had all the windows closed until around noon as it got so cold over night, today its almost 90.

Our church is holding a concert on Sunday night, the group is the Pine Ridge Boys, so it was off to spruce up the flower beds at church. With no rain those geraniums were looking kind of sad. Tom and I watered and weeded and now things look much better. I hope this concert venture that the church is undertaking is a success - but, if more than 60 people show up we will have a problem - very small church and very small parking lot. Tom hates to park cars there. What do you do with cars when there are no more spaces. The pastor was at the church while we were weeding and asked him to park cars. It will be interesting.

I am making progressd on my cropped cardigan. Off to work on that and watch the Olympics.

Until next time.....

Sunday evening

These are the 2 knitting projects I have going at the moment. The lace looking piece is called a ponchette out of hemp. Its coming out really good. I had originally bought the hemp for a market bag but just couldn't get the pattern, thus a ponchette. I actually went into the LYS and one of the girls had it on. The other pattern is for a cropped cardigan. Hard to see the yarn color but its a rust color. Having trouble getting a gauge so that in on hold until later. I also made some peach jam. The peaches that I got were huge. Of course, I had to sample the jam and now I can't wait for some toast and jam.

We just did some cleaning up today and basically taking it easy. I even got a nap today. Well off to watch the Olympics and do some more knitting.

Hope everyone has a great week.......

Sunday breakfast

Well we finally got some eggs!! I have been waiting patiently while these chickens, ate and ate and ate some more. They kept growing and since the beginning of August I have been thinking any day now we will have some fresh eggs from our very own chickens. We got 5 eggs this week. The only hen laying in the littlest one of the bunch. We kept calling her the runt but now I'm thinking she might be a banty cross because her eggs are small. That's okay though, Tom said instead of his usual 3 he will have 4 to make up the difference. I had to substitute some store bought because there weren't enough to go around. That was kind of shock when you put store bought and fresh in the frying pan together. We have had chickens before, I knew there was a huge difference, but this just confirmed it. The fresh had nice yellow yolks, the store bought were pale yolks and they actually seemed watery compared to the fresh. To my surprise the first egg I cracked in the pan was a double yolk - does that mean Good Luck??

We are still waiting to see if the 3 golden comets we have are roosters or hens. Where I got my chickens at said come over and get 3 definite hens because it sounds like the others are roosters. So I picked up another 3 golden comets from here and there is definitely a differnce in their looks and their combs. What were my chances of getting all roosters on my first batch?? They haven't started crowing and I hope somebody else starts laying soon. I really have to many now for my little space so hopefully in a couple of weeks we will have a definite on who's staying for the winter.

Dish rag tag started on Friday. I can't wait. Sounds like its going to be fun. I have everything I need and I saw that I was about in the middle - hopefully that will give me a chance to see how things go before the package arrives.

Well, I have got lots to do today. Hopefully I will be back later with my new knitting project.

Until next time.......

Wednesday blogging

Last week I picked up this neat shelf at a garage sale and I am in the process of painting it. I have got the inside done and now just have to do the outside. Not sure on the color yet - I'm still thinking but I want it done soon so I have to decide.

I am also cleaning out the basement and found this bench. One of the comments I had was to show before and after pictures. The bench is an after picture. It was several different colors but the main color being black and since I wanted to get it done I went with black. It reallty came out nice, I think it had a lot to do with the paint. To bad the store where I got the paint at went out of business.

Its been great weather here- cool at night and in the upper 70s to low 80s during the day. Makes you think Fall is just around the corner. But we all know what happens after that. I don't want to think about that just yet.

Tonight my plans include knitting and the Olympics. Hard to knit though when you have your eyes glued to the TV.

Until next time......

I can't believe I was away so long....

Nothing exciting has been going on here, just got busy doing some things and kind of fell of the blog wagon. I don't even have any pictures today, but I promise by the end of the week I will be back with pics and blogging. I had fully intended to post this weekend but knitting and the Olympics have been taking up a lot of my time. I was off work today so I have just been doing some things that I wouldn't normally do during the week. I bought a neat cabinet at a garage sale, found an old bench in the basement and have been painting them up. The cabinet is going to be for my stash of yarn - right, that will never all fit in there, and the bench is going in the family room. Tom was off also so we went to Home Depot early this morning to get a pruning saw and also Starbucks. I did sign up for dish rag tag - something I've never done before so I am looking forward to that starting on Friday. I already told Tom, the day I get the box with the instructions in I will probably have to take off work to get that dish rag knitted up. Wonder what my boss will say to that?? Have a good week everybody, be back soon.......

Look what I found at the fair!!

We went to the fair on Friday night to watch our grandson ride his horse in the championship show. He did really good but did not place - there's always next year. We had a good time sitting on the hill that surrounds the riding ring watching and talking to everyone. After he was done riding we headed out for some fair food and to see the other projects. We had the usual fair food - gyros, french fries and elephant ears. After all that we decided we had our fill until next year.

Joe did an open photography project and one of them got a second. He was pleased with that. He also did a rock project and he shows rabbits. He got grand champion with his rabbit project. Joe is a real animal lover and next year wants to show my chickens. I should insert here his Dad likes horses but is not real crazy about other animals. Sara and Joe have talked him into letting them have a barn cat, but they have no other animals. Thus he is always trying to talk me into getting something, keeping it at our house and then he will come and take care of whatever animal it is. They had some chickens that were for sale at the fair and I said we would go look at them and we would possibly get 1-2. They were silkies. By the time we got there they were all sold and they did look like nice healthy chickens. They had Jacob sheep for sale in the same barn - he didn't talk me into those, but he did try.
Also in the same building were the quilts. Sara (quilting bookworm) had entered a quilt that got a second place.

All in all I think they had a very successful fair. I can't wait to see what they take next year!!

Tonight Tom is working a night shift. They are resurfacing a bridge that can only be done on the weekend and at night. He was hoping to be home by midnight, but just called and says it looks like it will be a long night, its going very slow. I am going to go feed the horses, put on my pajama pants, knit and watch TV. Sounds like a very good night to me.

Until next time.......

Stop!! I want to get off!!

I can't believe its August 1, already. Where is the summer going, let alone the year. I think the older I get the faster life goes. So today is cleaning up in the house for a change instead of outside - its way to hot out there. We are off to the fair tonight to watch J our grandson in the Champsionship horse show. Hopefully he will do as good as did in his other classes. You have to have gotten first, second or third place in respective classes to compete in this show and they lump you together with other ages instead of your specific age group. We are going to get some fair food, talk to some old friends and enjoy the evening out. Pictures of the what went on at the fair tomorrow - I'm keeping my fingers crossed for blue ribbons.

Until next time.....