This and that....

You've heard that old saying, "Make hay while the sun shines," haven't you? Well, a couple of days ago we had temperatures in the 50's which is very warm for February in the north country. So Hubs & Sons had the idea to make some straw bales for the barn. This straw was originally baled into those big round bales that you can see in the background. The guys broke open about 5 big round bales and then pitchforked the straw up into our old square baling machine. This baler has been running since Hubs was a boy. It takes a little more TLC to operate it nowadays, but we only make just a few square bales now-and-then for the barn to be used when we are calving heifers or lambing the ewes.



Here are the bales coming out the back end -- all tucked and tied. The men made 100 squares and stacked them neatly in the barn. We'll begin getting baby calves in about 3 weeks time. The straw is used for bedding. Most of the cows have their babies in the pasture, but the heifers (first time mother cows) will be close to the house and we'll bring each through the barn to make sure everything goes well. They get extra care since it's their first calf.



I've been playing with scissors, paper, and paint this past week. I got the idea to make these paper heart chains over at Maya*made. She does the sweetest things by re-purposing newspapers into things like Valentine paper chains by using a little bit of red paint and the sewing machine to stitch them together. Click here for the instructions. I decided that I liked the potato stamped hearts best when the projects were all said and done, and it was much easier to do. I cut lots and lots of little stamped hearts and used some of them on my homemade Valentine cards too. I also saved the brown paper that covered my table and stamped it with the potato hearts to use for a gift wrap.


Picture excerpt: The Story of the Root Children

I've been browsing the children's section over at Amazon.com for some special books for a special Grandangel. I truly am the Book Fairy Grandmother and I'm constantly finding "new" old books that I love. First off, I just adore children's story books. Maybe it's because I never had any as a child. I borrowed and bought tons books for my own children growing up, some of which were so well-read that their covers were loved off. I also buy picture storybooks for myself sometimes, and now that I have a Grandangel, I have yet another excuse to linger amongst the children's book shelves. This adorable page above comes from a book entitled Story of the Root Children by Sibylle Von Olfers. And look at this sweet one called The Story of the Snow Children! **Squeal of delight** I can't wait for them to arrive in my mailbox!

One more thing.....it's snowing again.
Big, beautiful, wet flakes of snow. It's warm-ish which makes snow much more enjoyable.