Our farm adventures

My daughter and her family came down Saturday in preparation for my surprise birthday party on Sunday.  So, I treated them to a visit to my friends house that evening before supper.

Emily gathering the eggs

I'm not sure if you'd call it a farm or a farmette or hobby farm or what...but it's a slice of heaven.


This was a great adventure for my "city kids" to learn about where food comes from and get some "hands on" experiences that they would otherwise never have.

Steph milking the goat

First we met the goats as they ran up to greet us.  That kind of freaked out the kids at first.  


You can imagine their surprise when Irving offered us a chance to milk them! 

Emily harvesting carrots

They took us out into their apple orchards and gardens where Irving showed Emily how to dig up carrots.  


It was very satisfying to watch them pull food from the earth.  I wish all kids could experience this and know they don't actually come out of the ground in those little plastic bags.

Cucumbers for the picking

Karen had Stephanie join her for some gathering of cucumbers.  


She tried to send some home with me also, but I'm already giving mine to the neighbors, and I think they're getting sick of them.


Their home is set back in a valley...and I mean waaaay back there and everywhere you turn it's beautiful.


The home features a lot of Amish workmanship and artistic touches are every where.  The girls (okay, and us, too) just kept exploring the house and oohing and aahing at every turn.

Kiersten and the Frisbee

Kiersten enjoyed playing with the biggest Frisbee she'd ever seen and enjoyed swinging on the chairs in the screen porch.


She also hung out with Romeo, their dog, as she loves dogs.   But, I don't think we're going to entice her into a future as a farmer any time soon.  

Seriously?  I don't think so!

My favorite animal on the farm was the cat, of course.  


Fluffy, who hangs out with the goats and seems to think she's one of them didn't appreciate my joke about milking the cat.


Very pretty, but not much of a sense of humor.


It was a wonderful visit and we stopped at Rocky's Supper Club on the way home for onion rings and supper.  Yummy.  The first fall out from my Weight Watchers regime.  But it will be a temporary lapse.  Being there reminded me of an incident that happened many many years ago, that I related to my family over supper.


Left Brain and I had been there with another couple long ago.  The man with us had an artificial leg.  Having had one too many as we left the bar he stumbled and fell.  While falling, his foot hooked on something and there was an awful noise as the suction released from the prosthesis...and the leg turned the other direction.  He was now laying on the ground facing east and his right toe was pointing west.


The waitress witnessing this was turning white.


Then he began to crawl to the steps where he could reattach his leg...he was drunk but still thinking!  As he crawled away the leg slowly slid from his pants leg.


Now the waitress was sitting down and turning a lovely shade of green.


He just calmly crawled out the door calling to Left Brain to pick up his leg and bring it with him.


I'm not sure where the waitress went after that.  Poor girl.  She must have thought we were terribly callous to just laugh at him during all this.


Oh...good memories.


Long Live the Queen of Old Goats

the celebration continues

My hair is ready for the birthday bash.  I finally got the curls I wanted.  


The birthday party that never ends continues on today.  I need to post photos of the latest gifts I've received, but right now I'm enjoying my visit from my daughter and family.  


The party at Carlos O'Kelly's is today, so I need to pick up my cake and some grass.  No, not that kind of grass.  I had my eye on some miscanthus the other day and couldn't decide, so since I'm in the same town that is holding my cake hostage, I'll pick it up also.  My son-in-law seemed very shocked when I mentioned the grass...or excited...not sure.


I've had some comments on how can it be a surprise party when I'm organizing it.  Well...I might just go to Manny's for lunch instead.  Now THAT would be a surprise for everyone!  But, that's too mean...even for me, so I'll show up where expected.


So, I should get out of my jammies and get going.  Hmm.  Maybe I should arrive in my birthday suit....that would be a surprise at the party.


Nah, 60 is too young for that yet.  I think I'll save that for my 70th.


Long Live the Queen of Curls

the gypsy challenge

Each year I enter the Gypsy Challenge and each year I never follow through.


With the $20 entry fee you receive an assortment of fabrics and trims to be used in the construction of a gypsy doll for the competition at the Houston Quilt Festival.


This year I decided to actually make an entry!  I sent in the form today with the name of the doll and her measurements.  Not an easy task considering I hadn't started her yet.


After today's labor I have most of the body completed.


Soon I will add the hands, boots and hopefully a head.


Long Live the Queen of Follow Through

New toys for the studio

It is imperative that the artist has the correct tools with which to do their art work.  I have a wide variety of tools at my disposal and even know how to use most of them.  I still suffer from Dreml-phobia and mostly it stays in it's nice little case, but perhaps someday.....  


There seemed to be a major flaw in my work space and I couldn't put my finger on it until the other day.  It's too darn quiet! Sometimes I enjoy the silence but I find I work better if there's some background noise.  Oh what to do...what to do?


Sam's Club.  I headed out in search of the perfect companion for me to work with.  And there she was!  Not too big...not too small....and most importantly....not too expensive!


I took home my new little flatscreen TV with a built in DVD player and then worried about the set up.  I worried for about 15 minutes until I had the cable attached and plugged it in and it took care of the rest for me.  She scanned all the channels and loaded the ones we get and then I tried out the DVD.  Everything worked just beautifully...and simply.  And simple is a very good thing.


Now that I have a friend in the studio to keep me company I find I'm able to finish some of the projects that have been patiently waiting for me.


So, I ask you....is it just me?  Does everyone need some background chatter in which to function?


Long Live the Queen of the Remote Control

Language Love

I've always loved language and have attempted learning several of them, some more successful  than others.  Don't even ask me what I said in Ojibwa in that bar...that was really embarrassing.


Recently I purchased a series of CD's called Learning in your Car and since I seem to be IN my car an exorbitant amount of time, this sounded like the perfect answer to me.  Any time I can't find something I like on the radio, I switch over to the CD for a few minutes of Spanish.


My other favorite CD is one of frog calls.  This was given to me by a friend to help me identify what frogs were living in my pond.

Now my fear is that I will start to confuse the two of them and have a Mexican version of "ribbit" going on in my pond.  I asked one of them yesterday if they had a green card and the answer given was "of course, everything we have is green....duh". 


Then his tongue zapped a fly passing by overhead and he dipped it into his little bowl of salsa before savoring it.


I took his word for it and enjoyed his Spanish frog serenade and did not demand proof of his right to be here.  I do not live in Arizona, after all.  Besides, they look so cute on the lily pad with their tiny sombreros.


Long Live the Queen of Spanish Frogs