God was painting this morning

something new

Some photos

Beads again

Beads

Frost

Lunch

Took the last of the bread dough from the fridge (wheat with coarse ground cornmeal), rolled it out thin and stuck it in the oven to pre-cook. Chopped up an onion and fried it, then added the last of the counter-ripened green tomatoes of summer, cut in chunks. A few green olives and a sprinkle of adobo, then I pulled out the crust, spread sauce and topping on, grated a bit of cheese over it all and put it back in for ten minutes. Yum!

The wind is back

Winter always means wind, here. At home I loved the wind, but here, not so much. It's cold and cutting and since we live on the edge of town, we always wind up with other people's garbage clinging to the fence and the sunflowers----plastic shopping bags rattling in the trees.

I've made a windbreak of hay bales for the buns and they come out when the sun is just right and huddle in a roiling ball of white fur in the shelter of it, blinking and furling their ears.

Fellowship of the traveling sunbeam

We don't keep our house very warm in the winter, we leave the thermostat on 60-62 during the day and 50-55 at night. The littles (chihuahuas) are very grateful for the morning sunbeams and will all three crowd together so they can be in the sun.
It reminds me of some kind of chihuahua sundial, I can tell time by the location of the dogpile!

Quiet days

Much happening, but I've had no words....like floating down a river with a camera, you may not take pictures for a distance, but you still traveled that distance..

Con got her first deer. I was very worried that something might go wrong, but it didn't. She made a perfect shot, right through the lungs at about 70 yards, and that was all it took. He was a big one, five points on one side, with the other side missing, so he would have had a nice spread. We will mount the one side and the stump of the other for her anyway.

We had venison for Thanksgiving, and it was good..


Everything seems like it's waiting, very still and silent.

Bunnies

Ten babies!

The first day I only saw one baby bun, the next day I saw three, then it snowed Thursday and I didn't see any. Yesterday I saw three again, today there are ten!

I was standing by the enclosure and watching them, when I realized one was quite a bit smaller then the others, and up came another, and another, and another....til there were ten babies bouncing around like cottonballs. Of course no camera, but maybe tomorrow...

Babies!

Jubilee year

Turned 49 last week, and so this is my 50th year....my year of jubilee.
I've been pondering this, and what it means to me, if anything.
It's the year of freedom from bondage, of lands reverting to their proper owner.

I think I'll start by releasing all emotional debts....forgiving any and all offenses against me from the past.

Bare trees

was an old Fleetwood Mac album before the witchy one came on board.

Also the view from my window. The little ash tree dropped everything in one day, but the locusts are still hanging on a bit.

Time to get the garlic in the ground, probably next week. It wouldn't be proper to plant when my fingers don't freeze! I actually bought some grocery store garlic to try, as well as the named varieties. Fifty cents a bulb beats 1-2 dollars and it will at least be edible. I probably won't be able to tell the difference, since my pallate is untrained....

Pizza

Crust:
3 cups warm water
1 1/2 T salt
1 1/2 T yeast
6-7 cups of flour (I like to mix it up a bit, add some whole wheat or fresh-ground cornmeal)

Stir yeast and salt into warm water, stir in flour.
Dough will be somewhat sticky, that's ok.
Set bowl aside for 20 minutes in a warm place while you work on the rest.

Saute some chopped onion and garlic if you like it in oil, add some finely chopped summer squash and continue to cook. You can also use thinly sliced and chopped winter squash or pumpkin. I like Kabocha and buttercup for this, but any squash will work.
I like to season the sauteed part fairly strongly with adobo, curry, ras el hanout, or whatever your favorite blend happens to be.

Take about a fourth of your dough (flour your hands) and roll it out on a lightly floured board. Oil a cookie sheet and sprinkle with cornmeal. Place the rolled out dough on the cookie sheet, poke it all over with a fork so it doesn't puff, and bake at 350-375 till slightly browned on the edges.

Take out, spread with your sauce of choice, sprinkle on your toppings, and smother in grated cheese, again your choice, and slip back in the oven for 10-15 minutes.

Remove and enjoy.

Other toppings we use are green chilis, fresh when we have them, canned if not, olives, canned mushrooms, chickpeas, shredded chicken, etc...

Days gone by

Some photos

Helloooo in there....


Kissy face!



It's cold this morning!

Vignettes

Driving home at sundown: a tree full of blackbirds, sleek little outlines like leaves, a blue heron launching against the fading light, going wherever they go at night..

We put up our new mailbox last night and Con painted the post with an old can of gold spray paint we had hanging around. Not sure how long I can keep her from painting the box itself, it is plain grey, after all....

Feels like home

Black sky and bright leaves, I love that combination! It's been chilly, and we finally turned the furnace on. I was planning to wait til the first of November, but I can't make beads if my fingers are too chilly, guess it's that age thing creeping up! This is the time of year that I remember the cottonwoods blazing against a dark sky and the smell of snow on the wind.

Tomorrow is the last outdoor market day in Morrill, I think I'll still go, in spite of the weather. We can tape the table cover down and bundle up a bit.

Sadness in our church family; Pastor's father-in-law passed away last week, and Sister Veva's mother also. The older I get, the more grateful I am for the gift of eternal life.

Drive by beads

I haven't had any new listings for a while.....between the bead show, the parvo, and the farmers market. I made three batches of bread yesterday morning, 18 loaves. I only have six glass bread pans so I had to rotate things through just right. We drove off to the market with Connie holding the last batch out in her lap on a tray-- they were much to hot to bag.

Anyway, bead and dog pics coming right up!

Can you tell someone loves clean laundry?

October already

Should be little white puffballs popping up any time now!
We bought three white bunnies earlier in the summer, planning to breed for meat eventually. Meaning someday, not right away. We looked, we researched, we offended the bunnies greatly in our quest to get one boy and two girls. We were certain that we had succeeded until the neighbor lady who knows animals very well double checked us. Turns out we managed to get three girls. Oh, well, not the end of the world.

Fast forward a month and some odd behavior on the part of one of the "girls", which I assumed was dominance and pecking order establishment. Picked up the "dominant" girl one day and whoops, that ain't no girl!

So much for planned and controlled breeding! We had allowed the buns to dig burrows since we didn't have the building supplies for a proper hutch, and now there's no way to see when the babies are born, we'll have to wait for the moms to wean them and bring them upstairs.

Meanwhile it's time get the hutch made, since the babies are going to find it much easier to get through and under the fence.

Blessed

I am very blessed!
My puppies are home from the vet: Gabriel was horribly ill all week and had to be hospitalized, and Peanut began showing symptoms on Saturday, so he went in for observation also. Turned out Gabe had parvo, which was a surprise because he'd had a couple of his shots already. He was so sick, it's good to see him with bright eyes and an appetite.
Peanut is torn between never ever speaking to me again and being glad I brought him home....it's funny. I've never seen such a moody dog.

Sweeping cobwebs

There! I think I got them all!
Seems like I've been busy, but if you ask me what I accomplished, I'm not sure I could tell you.

We've had colds and a sick puppy dog, got most of the mud/dirt out of the bead room and off my glass--it doesn't just burn off, unfortunately!

Next week I am going to take a day and do nothing constructive whatsoever....we'll see if I can make it past noon!

A dog's life

Mud

in my house....in my workroom.
A thunderstorm rolled through last night and the hole though the foundation wasn't sealed up yet from replacing the water line. Needless to say, I'm feeling a bit discouraged at the moment.

Hope

Just found a couple of tiny Galeux D'eysines squash hiding in the tomatoes! Long story there, I had planted them in the spring and nothing happened, for 3-4 weeks. I finally put the last of the tomato plants in the squash bed, and chalked it up to bad seed. Well, a week later, what do I see but squash seedlings popping up! I left them alone, as they can just as well vine out into the lawn, but I really didn't expect any results. Now it seems I may have squash after all!!

Cicada emergent and Monty would be proud

I caught this cicada crawling out of its old skin, and came back later to check on it, it was all the way out and waiting for its wings to harden.








The bun, well, what can you say about that? Ni! Ni!

This is my favorite time

It's still hot, but not QUITE as, the sunflowers are blooming, the sweet corn is ready....there's that stillness and waiting just before the headlong descent into autumn and then winter.
As usual, I've not done what I think I ought, but that's always the case....

A few new beads over on Etsy, before I dive into canning sweet corn!

Beads

I'm a listing fool today...it's not my favorite activity, so I tend to save it up and do a large grouping all at once.


When we had the two computer crashes in a row, I lost all of my mailing list, so if you were on my mailing list for sales, etc, I lost you...

If you'd like to be on that list again, just let me know. You can leave a comment for me here, or drop me a line through Etsy. About once a month, I email with links to new things, announce the freebie of the month, etc.