A cool find...

 

In our trade-town we have a monthly market downtown called Saturdays On State.  (State is the name of the main downtown street).  It's a vintage style market with lots of repurposed furniture, antiques, old west things, Pyrex and even some handmade knitted and crocheted things.  It's a lot of fun and we ranchgirls try to take that one day a month and treat ourselves to a day out shopping and eating lunch out.  This time I scored a really cool 1950s vintage floor lamp.  I spotted it immediately amongst all the other very wonderful stuff, and I just knew I would be taking it home.  The lampshade alone is worth around $60 to $75 on Ebay, but I got the entire lamp for $58.  I felt it was very fair.  It's heavy duty and the fiberglass shade imprinted with feathers looks so fitting in my ranch home.  At least I think so.  

  

The bug-a-boo in the lamp was the fact that it had this ginormous light bulb in it that I was sure could not be found nowadays.  I asked the seller about it and she said she thought I could replace the entire guts of the lamp.  I knew that could be an option, but I thought I'd try to hunt down the bulbs.  Nope.  Nothing.  When I got home I figured I'd order a kit for the lamp, but then FirstBornSon had a better idea.  He said I should try to find an adapter for it to screw into the socket base where the bulb was screwed in.  I found that my lamp had a "mogul sized base" and I needed a "medium sized base" so I checked on Amazon and sure enough, they had an adapter from mogul to medium for about $5.  Easy fix!  I was thrilled.  I share this with you so that if you ever come across a really wonderful, old lamp that has a huge light socket, buy it, and get yourself a $5 adapter.  Easy to fix!

 

 Here's my own little quiet corner where I read and drink my coffee each morning, and sit and reflect each evening.  I set the lamp right next to me to provide a little extra light when I need it.  The log is my side table.  Usually my favorite coffee mug sits there.

It has turned cold here again.  We're just 2* tonight.  Pretty cold for little lambies to be born.  Thankfully we have a good barn that is bedded with a heavy layer of straw that insulates against some of the cold.  But tomorrow is a new day, and it sounds like it will warm up and the sun will shine.  We will take as many ewes and lambs out as we can tomorrow.  It's all going pretty well.

Pat the dog...

While I pat the dog, I'll show you my pretty fingernails!  I haven't actually *done* my nails in quite some time.  Probably, it was for someone's wedding a year or so ago, but I can't be sure, and even then, it wasn't an all-out manicure kind of thing.  No.  Just a swoosh over my nails with a coat of something soft and shimmery and nothing more.  But this time, because of my daughter's urging, I tried something that's all the rage in nail art -- Jamberry Nails.  These are laminated nails that stick on by heat application; they are not nail polish.  It's a do-it-yourself manicure that, for me, took over an hour to do.  But.....I am not the fussiest, most careful, nor the most patient person with this sort of thing.  It was a challenge for me especially since this set is clear on the bottom.  Perhaps if they had been a color or pattern, it might have been easier for my 52 year old eyes to see better while applying them.  Nonetheless, I did it, and honestly, I'm pretty proud of how they turned out.  Imperfect, but good enough for this ranchwife.  My hands look rather feminine and fancy!  The Jamberries make my nails look longer than they really are.  They barely peek past the top of my fingertips, but the way this French-tip manicure is designed, it makes my short nails look longer.  I like that.

So far, I've only been wearing the Jamberries two days, and I admit that I have not been particularly careful with them.  I should be.  I've washed cast iron skillets with a Curly Kate, I've scraped sticky glue adhesive off a bottle with my nails (mistake), I've been working up at the shed too, so I've not treated my nails with much care.  Therefore, I have had to trim the ends a wee bit on some of my most-used-nails.  I found that if I warmed up the bottom of a tweezer over a candle and pressed my Jamberry wrap down it worked to re-adhere a little edge that was coming up.

It is said that the nail wraps should last about two weeks.  We'll see.  Have any of you tried Jamberry Nail Wraps?  If you are going to, be sure to watch a few YouTube videos first.  I started in without doing it and messed up a couple of my wraps.  Oh well, now I know better.  If you have tried Jamberry Nails, will you use them again?  Did they hold up well for you?

Now.... back to patting the dog.

Napkin trick...

This summer I've been having fun doing a napkin trick at my kitchen sink window.  I bought a package of varicolored napkins at Target a while ago -- two napkins of each color.  Every so often I change them out.   I love the look of cafe curtain rings and cheery colors right where I do my daily kitchen chores. 

I did the turquoise napkin trick first of all and then followed it up with yellow napkins (currently in the laundry), and now I'm sporting the 1970s orange look.  One thing I do that makes the napkins look more "curtainy" is to press them into quarters.  Then when they hang, they look crisp and neat and more like a curtain.  I first saw the brilliant idea at Flower Patch Farmgirl here.   I'm keeping an eye out for pretty napkins, and I'm thinking about making a few both to use and to hang at the window.  Do you use cloth napkins at home?  I especially like them, but paper napkins are sure handy, aren't they?

This and that around home....

 Hubs built us a new gadget.  I really wanted to put the name of it in the title to my post, but I figured I'd get all kinds of weird comments and spam if I did.  Anyway, this is what we call a nipple bar.  T. built this box out of scrap lumber and then made individual boxes to accommodate the bottles.  He drilled holes in the bottoms so that the nipples would slide through for the lambs to reach.  They can really tug and pull on the bottles so the boxes keep them from sliding around and flying out.  It works like a dream and as you can see, we can feed six bummies at a time!  Hooray for us because we are now feeding 24 bummies!

 Here are the little fellas looking out a fence panel at me.  

Aren't they just the sweetest?

This one must be telling her friend a secret.

  

And since Thimbleanna asked, here is the Mama Sheep.  I would have tried to take a picture of me and the bummies together, but that's rather hard since they love me so much I can't do a thing when I'm in the pen with them. This is my feeding get-up....a sweatshirt over my shirt (to protect it from stink and filth and woolie fuzz and a stocking cap to keep some of the stink and flying milk out of my hair.  It gives me "hat hair" but I don't mind because it also calms down my extra-curly hair a little bit.

 

Now that lambing is behind us, we have started up The Next Big Thing -- calving heifers.  Heifers will be first-time mamas and so they need a bit more watching and tending-to than regular cows who have had multiple calves.  We have them close by the barn so we can get them in easily if they need assistance, and we are keeping watch over them through the nighttime hours too.  I've got the 12:30 a.m. check and FirstSon has the 2:30 a.m. check while Hubs has the 4:30 a.m. wake-up call.  Needless to say, we all hope for a nap time every once in a while.

 

These are the Ladies in Waiting 

(waiting for their babies to be born)

 

 I took a picture of this granary tonight on my way to the chicken coop.  It sits right beside the coop and a big stack of hay bales.  Way back at Christmastime, FirstSon decided to weld a cross and string a bunch of lights on it and attach it high up on this granary for all to see.  He hasn't taken it down, and I'm kind of glad of it.  I like seeing that cross lit up across the barnyard.  It reminds me, "The earth is the LORD’s and the fullness thereof, the world and those who dwell therein," and "every beast of the forest is Mine, the cattle on a thousand hills." (Psalm 24 and Psalm 50)

Fridge space -- turntables...

 

No, I haven't got a new fridge yet.  No, the girls didn't break the fridge over Super Bowl Sunday.  The old thing is still slumping along, but what I do want to share with you is a nifty little idea that makes getting into a crappy less-than-desirable fridge a little more pleasant -- turntables!

While visiting a friend recently, I noticed she had turntables everywhere in her kitchen -- in the fridge, on the counter top holding salt, pepper, and oil, and in the kitchen cabinets holding condiments of every kind.  My goodness, what a handy way to find the things you want!  Instead of rummaging through everything to get at the items you need, just fling the turntable and you've seen it all.  I bought four 12" turntables from Amazon here for about $7.50, and they are just so wonderful!  I bought a 9" turntable for my spice cupboard at Target, but after I put it in, I found that I couldn't shut the door.  Pooh!  I'm sure I'll be able to find a good use for it in the house yet --  perhaps for the vitamins or for a bathroom shelf.

I plan to get a few more turntables and use them in the vet cupboard.  We are always digging and hunting for the right medicines, and a turntable would make it so much easier to see everything.  I love the Lazy Susan that my dad made me for the big kitchen counter top.  It's so handy.  Do you use turntables at your house?  Do you have any fridge organization tips?  Do tell.  Oh, Clarice at Storybook Woods has a nice post about her new friggie  here.

Snow fell last night and we woke up to a 4-5" blanket of white stuff.  The sun is shining so brightly that it makes walking outside from the dark lambing shed blinding.  I love the warmth it is radiating here today.  We're climbing up to 40 degrees now.  Joy!

Around home....

 Lots of little things to share with you like this great big, brown egg that one of my Red Star hens laid.  It did not fit into my jumbo egg carton so I just had to put it into a dish and wait to use it.  I was quite sure it was a double-yolker, and yes, it was, as you can see by the picture. A two-fer!

 

I counted it as two full eggs in my recipe.  Hubby said, "If we had just 6 of these hens laying double-yolkers, we'd have plenty of chickens."  He is right on that, but we don't get to pick and choose our hens.  I have found that when a hen starts laying doubles, she continues doing it for the majority of her egg-laying life.

  

There was a birthday in the family this week.  My Second Daughter (she's my son's wife) had her 26th birthday so I had to make her a little somethin' somethin' for the occasion --an embroidered tea towel.  I had some of the flower applique pieces from Cuppycake's quilt so I used them and stitched around them with the blanket stitch.  Easy-peasy and fun.

Only Daughter (G) and her baby, Cuppycake, came for the week to visit.  Daddy is gone away on business for several days so the girls came out to stay with Papa and me.  We're very glad about that.  Tomorrow we are going to make baby-feet Christmas card prints and have them photo copied.  Aren't these super-cute?

The temperature is really dipping now.  I woke up this morning to 16 degrees and now tonight as I type, we are at the same temperature.  Tomorrow is supposed to be our last *nice* day before the deep chill hits us with lows down to 0 degrees.  I took a quick walk-about today -- no 2 mile walk to the mailbox for me.  It was so cold I felt like I was walking in the arctic with the wind blowing like it was.  I even had my hat tied snug around my chin so my ears didn't freeze.  I am going to have to exchange my fall gloves for winter mittens right away.  The water on the pond near the house is frozen over now and we must take care to check the water tanks in the feed lots lest they freeze up and the calves can't drink.

We've been seeing six to seven turkeys around the shelter belts lately so Miss Lonely Turkey now has some friends to pal around with.  I haven't seen her around the barnyard lately so I'm guessing she flew up to join the others.  I'm happy for her.

Thank you for your kind prayers and wishes for my injured rib.  It's getting much, much better, but I still feel the ol' wooden spoon-in-the-side feeling and sneezing is difficult.  I suspect it'll take a little more time to get over it.  Ah well.

I found this really cute sign on Pinterest that I loved and just had to share it with you.  You can print it for free here.  I found another printable sign that you may like to frame for the Thanksgiving Holiday here.  Give Thanks!  I think that's a good note to end on.

This and that....

The branding is all done for the year.  We finished the last of it this morning and all the cows and calves are turned out to pasture.  They will like being all on their own for awhile.

  The smelly, smokey work clothes are all washed and hanging on the line so it's time for a coffee break.

This is the way I make my afternoon coffee.

It's rich and dark.  Just the way I like it.

 The everyday bread is made and cooling.  I'm having a slice with butter and raw honey.

I like raw honey because it has all the good bee stuff in it --

pollen, wings, honeycomb and etc.

The picnic table is freshly painted and waiting for the kids to come home for a Father's Day barbecue tomorrow.  If it's nice, we'll play croquet on the lawn.

I put a matching pump on my canning jar soap dispenser.  

We finished off the Suave shampoo bottle
so I took it off this silver pump, trimmed the straw to fit and attached it.  

Make one if you want.

 I just had to show you this purple and white columbine.

I must remember to collect seeds from it to share.

 

The yellow iris have bloomed.

Remember the Boraxo powdered hand soap I was telling you about?

It's wonderful!

Hubs said he really likes using it and so do I.

I've been working on Betsy's quilt and I'm about to call it a CRAZY Quilt because it's driving me crazy!  My sewing machine started skipping stitches and breaking thread as I began the free-motion quilting so I took the machine apart and gave it a good cleaning.  Tried quilting again and had more of the same.  I changed the needle and had better luck, but it continued with the thread breaking and that's when I realized it had to be the spray adhesive I used to baste it together.  I looked at the can and it said "permanent."  Humph! 

I safety pinned the quilt and tossed it in the washer to see if some of that adhesive would wash out.  Most of it did, but I must still wrestle with the remains.  Lil Miss Betsy will never know how crazy her Gram has been at getting this quilt done for her.  She'll just snuggle with it and enjoy it's bright colors.

I began cutting denim circles out for J's graduation quilt.  

It'll be a circle quilt like this one.

Have a happy day.

(do you remember this from the 60's and 70's?)

Biscuits, Boraxo, and buckets o' posies...

 Are you a biscuit eater?  I am!  I've been thinking about biscuits with cream and apricot jam for a long time and yesterday was the day they happened!  It was drizzly and cool and I thought HP and I would have biscuits and coffee for afternoon tea.  They were even better than I imagined.  Just when others like GG at Firefily Cottage are blogging about chugging down green smoothies and keeping it healthy, I'm making biscuits.  Ah well.  I really do intend to make one of those green smoothies....at least I'm gonna try.

 Today we went to town to get some supplies for branding coming up next week.  We also made a grocery run and a quick stop at the local Pamida for some garden herbs.  While I was moseying down the soap aisle at my rancher-friendly grocery store, I came upon this powdered hand soap -- Boraxo.  I had never seen it before, but I definitely knew the name Borax so I read the label and decided it might make an extra-good soap to try at the mudroom sink where the dirtiest of the dirty wash up.  I took a turn at using it after planting the herbs and flowers and I liked it!  Now I'm wondering how I can make this stuff at home.  Can't be that hard, can it?  Borax and grated soap flakes, I'm thinking.  Kind of like the homemade laundry powder.  Check this out:  25 household uses for Borax.

 I've got my buckets o' posies all planted and I'm happy, happy just looking at them.  There's just something about bright red geraniums on the front porch, don't you think?

Hanging just above the geraniums is my only hanging pot of the summer.  I used to hang lots of pots and baskets around, but they dry out so quickly in our summer heat and wind that I decided against it this year.  I do like to hang this old tea kettle though, so I planted some blue lobelia in it.

I've been working at my garden beds lately and although it's been very cool and wet here, the peas, beans and zucchini are coming up and so are the radishes and lettuce.  I might even have a couple heads of Buttercrunch to pull up for a salad this weekend.  Oh, how I love me some green stuff from the garden.  No green smoothies from my lettuce.  Just salad -- at least for now.  Hubby is going to build me a garden gate to put up on my new deer-proof fence.  It's not going to be anything fancy.  Just a rustic look for a ranchwife's garden.  Simple yet cute.  I'll snap some pictures of that soon.

  Vincent van Gogh, Irissen, 1889

My flower beds have changed from the reds and yellows of tulips and daffodils to the blues and purples of iris, blue flax, alium, and purple columbine.  How did it changed over night?  Flower fairies?

More than anything, I must have flowers, always, always. 

~Claude Monet

The beginnings....

The beginnings of a wedding cuff for a good friend.

The first calf is born out of the cows.

I saw the first grackle. (I don't like grackles)

Lambs are racing happily on the green.

The fresh-laundered towels are on the clothesline and I have more laundry scheduled to go out.  It's still a chilly morning, but promises to be a sunny, nice day.

After a wee bit of wet snow this past week, the grass should really shoot up.

Wet, spring snow is poor man's fertilizer. 

It does wonders for the grass and plants.

Have a Happy Day!

On the grassy banks,

Lambkins at their pranks;

Wooly sisters, woolly brothers,

Jumping off their feet;

While their woolly mothers

Watch by them and bleat.

~Christina Rossetti

Simple things turn into special things...

 French Tea Garden by Childe Hassam

Bread and water can so easily be toast and tea.
~Author Unknown 

Simple things turn into special things...

Water and Epsom salts turn into a healthy, relaxing bath.

Paper and pen turn into a letter to a friend.

Paper and crayons turn into art.

Words and a tune turn into a cheery song.

Fruit and sugar turn into jam for scones.

Needle, thread and calico turn into a patchwork quilt.

Knitting needles and yarn turn into cozy slippers. 
Water and cold air turn into frosty crystals.

A hug and kiss turn into balm for the soul.

Can you think of more?

Heffalump or snuffleupagus?

Whichever you prefer, that's what I've been feeling like for the past two days.  Sneezing, sniffling, snuffling,  achooo-ing -- all makes my very chapped nose feel large and snout-ish, like a Heffalump or a Snuffleupagus.   I've been doing all I can to take this creature down.... vitamin C three times a day, going for walks in the fresh air, eating bits of raw garlic, taking hot baths, drinking mugs and mugs of herb tea, eating peppermint candies (to de-stuff), and coating my sore-from-blowing nose with Bee Butter or vitamin E oil.  Napping is what I want to do, but it is difficult when one's nose is either stuffed up and won't breathe, or when it's running all over the pillowcase. O bother! (as Pooh would say)

My latest tea concoction is a mix of peppermint leaves, a chunk of ginger root, honey and a lemon slice to float on top.  I think it helps somewhat, but the bits of candied ginger (beside the mug) is what I like best.  I don't know if it is very medicinal, but it's tasty, sweet, and warm to my mouth.

Now we are experienced I think.

Have you ever had a yard sale?  I never had.  My parents never had a yard sale either.  I wonder, is it a relatively *new* thing to have yard sales or have they been going on for centuries?   Is there an historical record of yard sales somewhere?

My brief yard sale history starts here.  Only-Daughter and her hubby recently bought a sweet little house in Hometown USA and since they are newlyweds, they have very little furniture and stuff to fill up their sweet little house.  Only-Daughter had no yard sale experience since being raised on a ranch in the boonies -- until she met this friend.  A friend who loves yard sailing!  It all started with a quick stop here and there one late Saturday morning, but then she began taking my girl out into the deep water,  setting sail at 7:30 a.m. to be the first to anchor at the best destinations where you can buy a whole dining room set for a mere $20!  O-D was thrilled and amazed and continued sailing with her friend most Saturday mornings, with nothing but $25 in their pockets and cups of latte in their hands.  Soon O-D got the crazy idea that she could have a yard sale in her own front yard, selling her brother-in-law's junk and her mother's junk.  She, herself, had only had a few wedding picture frames to toss onto the sale tables.

When she told me she wanted to have a yard sale, I was not sure.  It meant that I would have to face stuff that I do not see nor want to see on a daily basis, stuff that I put away and forget about.  This would mean a trip to the crawl space!!  (Twilight Zone music here) A place I do not like to go.  I don't mind fetching canning jars and the pressure canner from the crawl space, but I do not like to go sifting through the junk and accumulated stuff  that my kids bring home from college and past apartments.   One time I had thought about cleaning out the crawl space and organizing it, but then I had a better idea.  I would leave it to my kids.  One day, when I am gone from this earth, they can sort through Mom & Dad's junk and decide what to do with it.  Simple solution, don't you think?

Well, as it turned out, I came up with some items to take to the yard sale.  Really, not a lot of stuff.  Not as much as I thought I would haul in.  Hubs wouldn't let me take any of the golf clubs.  He said he's saving them to cut off and re-grip into children's clubs for the grandkids.  I hauled in a few boxes of my stuff and a box of my DIL's stuff and together with Only-Daughter's BIL's stuff, we had a nice assortment of things to sell.

We set up at 7:00 a.m. and had our first sailors at 7:15 asking if they could look around while we set up.  They didn't find anything they wanted.  At about 7:30 an older gentleman came to sniff out the sale items.  He asked where the antiques were.  We said we only had junk for sale, no antiques.  Sorry.  It got quite busy with people slowly driving by and gawking out the window and others stopping for a closer look-see but we weren't moving any stuff.  By 9:00 I was ready to call it quits, but we promised on the yard sale sign:  8-noon, so we had to honor our promise.  By the last hour of the sale, we were having a clearance sale with everything half off the marked price.

At noon the temperature was 95 degrees which caused us to break into profuse sweating and thirst.  We began picking up everything and reboxing the unsold junk to take to the Good Will.  We folded  up the tables and chairs and put them away, and I could tell by the way she was traipsing around and by the way her jaw was set that Only-Daughter was never doing this again.  Me neither.  We poured ourselves tall glasses of ice water and sat down to figure how it all tallied up.


SOLD:
a grocery sack of terry cloth rags
a fishing tackle box with lures (very popular item) slashed to half the asking price
gently used cover-alls

a picnic basket (never used)
a plastic spice rack
a vibrating travel pillow
a pair of roller blade knee pads
two dresses
a tank top
2 pair of shoes
a blond wig (the buyer needed for a play she was in)
hunter green hot mitts
a couple books

How did we come out financially?  Brother-in-law raked in $40 while DIL captured $10 on her picnic basket.  I netted a whopping $11.50 on some clothes and shoes.  Only Daughter and her hub got the free lunch....on me.   In the email she sent me later that evening O-D wrote:   "Now we are experienced I think!"
 Yup.  I think so.

Countrygirl salad spinner....

Today you will know that I'm a little crazy when you hear about my "salad spinner."  Here it is in the picture.  It's one of those mesh bags that you get onions or apples in.  After washing your garden lettuce leaves in the sink, you load up the mesh bag and take it outside where the spinning happens....

Grab the bag by the end and start spinning it around and around.  Get a little wrist action into it.

Spin it around another time or two until the water stops spraying out....

Imagine me trying to take a picture with one hand whilst spinning lettuce with the other.  Ahem!
Now it's time to make salad.

Ta-da!  Lovely spun lettuce makes a perfect green leaf salad.

And the winner is.....

Thank you, everyone, for always posting such kind comments here.  I appreciate each and every one of them.  The winner of the Peterson Guide to Birds of North America is Tina of IneXplicable.   This lady has a lovely photography blog that I think you'd enjoy visiting.  Congrats, Tina!  Please contact me via email so I can get the book shipped to you.  gumbolily62(at)gmail(dot)com

This and that....

It's been raining here and cold here lately, but I was in the mood for some sunshine!  This lemon cake, served with homemade lemon curd and whipped cream, was like eating sunshine from a fork.  I sent some cake and curd with my college boy to share with his friends and we've been nibbling at the rest.  If you've never had real lemon curd, you are really missing out!  It's pretty easy to make if you have plenty of eggs and lemons.

LEMON CURD

2 1/3 c. sugar

2 tsp. cornstarch

1 cup fresh lemon juice

4 large eggs

4 large egg yolks

4 T. butter, cut into pats

3 tsp. lemon zest (or more)

In pyrex bowl mix together the sugar and cornstarch.

Whisk in lemon juice and eggs and yolks.

Put in the microwave for 2 minutes and whisk, continue to cook at 2 minute intervals and whisk until the lemon curd becomes thick.  Add butter lastly and whisk well.  Allow lemon curd to cool and then refrigerate.  This recipe makes about 3 cups.  You may store curd in jars in the frig for a week.  I like it on everything from cake to biscuits to toast or straight off the spoon.

.......................................................

Today was another windy, cloudy day so I didn't get to hang my bedding on the clothesline like I usually do on Monday.  The laundry all went through the dryer.  Since it was an "indoor day" I decided to make another bonnet to stay at my house for the days that Hazel Peach comes to visit.  This way we always have a sun hat for working and playing in the yard.  I really like this one.  It's reversible.

I also spent a chunk of time with my itibit sampler.  I embroidered three more squares and am about ready to go stitch some more tonight.  It seems some days I get the bug to stitch, and I don't want to quit.  I'm looking forward to finishing my sampler and then possibly starting another.   Amy from the 39 Squares Stitch-Along is going to have another stitch-along called Counting My Blessings.  The idea is to embroider one hundred square inch blocks, each one representing a blessing or a prayer.  I really like this idea.  It might take an eternity for me to finish, and it's not because I don't have enough blessings, I do, I just don't always keep up with everyone in the stitch-alongs.  But  that's okay with me.  I'll just begin and see where the project takes me.

Another item of interest is that BW, the calf, has a mommy.  He hardly knows what to do with her since his birth mother didn't lick him off, let alone feed him.  The men had to suckle BW on her so he would get the idea of where the milk comes from.  He thinks it comes from us!  This particular mama cow lost her calf to a fast-moving strain of intestinal disease.  The vet posted the dead calf (did an autopsy) and found out what it was, and we plan to vaccinate the young cows' calves as soon as we can get the vaccine.  In the meantime, BW and his new mama are getting to know each other.  I think he'll enjoy sucking real milk from the cow much more than drinking that icky powdered milk we were feeding him, don't you?

Reflections....

I took a long walk

thought about a lot of things

prayed

and then I saw...

 reflections