You know sometimes teaching thine ownself can be a real challenge. Now I have taught myself how to do many things~~sometimes that is good but sometimes ~~well sometimes it is how you say?? INTERESTING! Now take this here quilt I have been working on for what seems like my whole life but in reality has been about two months. It is a Christmas present by the way. Ahh some are thinking she is really together already working on Christmas presents. Remember I have been working on this for two months. It was in my mind a week-end project. Cut circles out of all the old blue jeans slap some fleece squares in the middle of the circles, make strips, sew strips together, presto zappo quilt is done. A friend assured me it was simple as she held up the beginning of her baby quilt proudly. She was making hers for her new grandson that was on the way. Cool I can do that. But of course I decided to sew a bigger quilt for the son whose name I drew for Christmas. No problemo I can do it. The pile of jeans was right there so I started tracing around the little blue plate and making my circles and cutting them out. Some one hundred forty of them. and then one hundred forty squares of fleece, then a hundred forty squares of batting to go under the fleece. Oh I was so pleased with myself looking at these nice little neat piles of cut out circles and squares. Wow! Then of course there was some cows needing sorting, then work to go to, and Christmas presents to crochet or whatever other bright and easy things my little overactive brain came up with. Don't forget housework, wood to pack or chop and pack, little critters to feed, phone calls, and on and on the list goes. Hours of crocheting. But never fear I did start sewing circles together and more of them and even more. Then Christmas day came so I SHOWED the quilt to the son who would be getting this labour of love. He liked it really he did! In amongst the stitching together of denim circles I fought with the sewing machine trying to convince it that working with me was better than working against me. Not very convincingly I may add as the machine kept on doing its silly thing. Then there was the fact that I had been sewing pyjamas for little grandchildren so now there is patterns and flannel everywhere and the cats decided it would be great fun to attack the nice neat piles of circles and square so they were all over the place too. Some were under the a cat who had the job of holding them in one place. Oh golly I have actually got all the circles and squares sewn together and when you lay this quilt art on the floor and look at it from the right angle it is ~~well actually maybe look at it from a left angle ~~Maybe if one took a yardstick and a sharp knife to it you could straighten out the curve MAYBEEE~~!! THEN AGAIN IT COULD BE I JUST STARTED A NEW FAD!!
Consider the work of God;
For who can make straight
what He has made crooked?
Luke 7:13
God bless
Roxanne
I was up before five this morning which is not the usual for me as I am usually up at five not before. Have a crook in "me" neck so it is easier to get up than to try to make it comfortable.
The fire in the wood heater is burning cheerfully and the tea is steaming hot in my cup. My cup with the poinsettia on it. I put most of the Christmas cups away but I love this one with its little chip out of the lip of it. I have one cup with a snowman picture on it too that I like to use all winter. Never really decided if that is a Christmas cup or a winter cup so I use it all winter too.
My tea sipping is disturbed by what sounds like a chorus of a hundred coyotes yodeling. They yip and yelp and yowl. Their voices carrying back and forth to each other. One of the dogs starts barking as she flies off the porch to chase them. No my little doggie NO come back here! And believe it or not she di
d come back~~The yipping goes on. The chorus lifts hitting high notes like some well practiced crescendo then dropping only to rise again. Their voices are clear and close. Listening to them I can tell some are here nearby the old house we live in and some are over on the other side of the river. Singing of the mice they are catching under the snow or the cats they would like to catch from the house here I am not sure. Maybe singing in the hopes of drawing the "in season" dogs out of their safety out to where they can tear them to pieces!The dogs try to out sing the coyotes. The yelping melody starts to move on down the river taking with it the song of the ones by the house. It disappears and the morning darkness becomes still with only the sound of horses crunching on the frozen surface of old crusted snow.
O come,
let us sing unto the LORD:
let us make a joyful noise to
the rock of our salvation.
Let us come before his
presence with thanksgiving,
and make a joyful noise unto
him with psalms.
Psalm 95:1
Rejoicing in the LORD
Roxanne
I never really know what to call our area~~are we rural~are we country~are we bushed~are we hillbillies? I r
eally do not know.
In my humble opinion we don't live in the city or town or village so that would make us rural right?
We have dogs, cats, chickens, a couple old horses on the place and cows when they are here on their way to or back from the range. That must mean we are country, right? There is no nearby neighbours for a couple miles one way and over 8 miles the other way so that might mean we are bushed. But we are the last ones on the power line so we can't be that bushed and we do have a telephone and internet even if it is dial up. We have a fairly well maintained dirt road goes passed us even though we rarely see traffic on it. Once in awhile someone goes up it or down it. We are surrounded by trees, and snow and ice on the river. There are moose in our stack-yard where the big round bales of hay are stored. It is well fenced to keep the animals such as cows, and horses out of it. The moose are easily jumping the fences even with the snow being about knee deep on me. We love to watch the eagles and the foxes come by for a visit and do things like steal the dog's goat rib cages they were gnawing on. The coyotes yip and yap thro
ugh the night and cross the hay meadow on their way to some other destination unknown to me. Bears in the right season cross the haymeadow on their way to fish in the river. Deer bound through the deep grass of the meadow too. Wolves can be heard on occasion moaning not too far from our bedroom window These are our main visitors. There are folks that come by for a coffee now and then. They too have similar homes homes none of us think of ourselves as bushed unless we haven't been to town for a couple of months or when we see tv commercials and realize how out of touch we really are. I mean none of us have hair that shine and flows back into place gracefully after swooshing our heads from side to side. Or think broccoli is more of a miracle than eight babies! Oh my ~~ And then there is the light airy febreeze smelling house when most of us have houses that smell of baking, or dogs or cows or all of the preceding smells! And I know with a certainty that we are NOT hillbillies cause they live in the deep south or something like that and we live in the north so that is a great difference right there. But live here we do~~ love it here ~we do!
Not too worried about whether we are considered rural or bushed or country or what but we do have a nice cozy fire going and the coffee pot is hanging around on the stove ready to pour out a cup for those who stop by as they travel around visiting or looking for cows or horses somewhere out there. There is usually some kind of food that we can rustle together for those who stop in even if it is homemade soup and biscuits or cougar meat. It is a good life and like one fella visiting us said," good thing so many folks live in the city we get all this to ourselves." Your welcome to stop in iffen your on your way somewhere or back from somewhere and going by the ranch here. If we have fallen off our snowshoes on a trail somewhere in the back part of the ranch then you can come in and heat up the coffee and we will join you when we get here...
Thou hast dealt well with thy servant,
O LORD,
according unto thy word.
Psalm 119:65
Looking forward to seeing you
God Bless
Roxanne
By early afternoon we had most of the chores done so strapping on the snowshoes and Dennis grabbing the huge sled we headed out back to check out some of the abandoned vehicles.Three dogs and one cat came with us a sort of "family" outing.The sun shone down on the crusted shiny snow. Even the shadows cast by the numerous trees seemed well defined and bright. We trudged along, one of the dogs and I ahead breaking trail. Poor Nellie doggie was falling through the snow crust up to her back. It didn't take long for her to tire of her snow swimming. She sat on her haunches looking up at me with eyes that said, "What on this snowy earth are we doing here where there is no trail?" Dear Dennis dragging the sled passed us giving us a nice trail to follow along on. Happily we followed his lead. The dogs occasionally stepping on the back of my snowshoes almost making me fall. The cat tiptoeing through the snow sometimes in a hurry, sometimes crying out for mercy. His toes were getting cold. He really could have stayed home but he wanted to come! On and on through the crusted snow we went. Our hearts pounding from the exertion of packing our winter boots and snowshoes and the weight of snow. We are so very in shape that that had to be the reason for our hearts pounding in our ears as we climbed a hill. (okay those who know us stop laughing) The sled being pulled by Dennis once again after our little stop to umm ~~you know let the cat and dogs catch up~~I realize there is something different about the sled. There to my wondering eyes is the cat sitting in the sled as pleased as punch watching the snow crusted earth slip out from under him from his new perch, as he skimmed by on the sled. He had had enough of this snowshoeing frozen tootsie situation. There really is more than one way to snowshoe!
Where there is no vision,
the people perish...
Proverbs 29:18
May your trails be untroublesome
God Bless
Roxanne
The third Sunday of the first month of a new year~~hard to believe~~that elusive thing called time quietly cascading us into 2010.
With temps much warmer than they were the last couple of months of 2009 and the daylight stretching out a wee bit longer each day we start to contemplate what we will do come the spring. Yes we could go Sasquatch hunting but they are so elusive and I heard that they love strawberry jam so I am just going to look for a good place to put some strawberry jam out and let them come to us. Then we can make big, BIG money photographing them and selling the photos~~in the meantime...We have always wanted to do something to preserve heritage breeds of this animal and that. Mostly interested in heritage breeds of cattle, chickens, pigs, but lately in my perusing around the net I have thought of other animals. Then one day when one of my knitting magazines that send emails to me had an article on wool they mentioned sheep. Not just any kind of sheep but an heritage breed called Soay Sheep! Now they have me so 
interested in them. Not a very big critter but very hardy, brought in to the areas of Scotland and England perhaps by the Vikings. They shed their wool. Are slow growing and on and on. An intriguing bit of info ~~so now where to find them in BC and just how much are these little critters going to cost one to have a breeding flock. Well the quest goes on.
Maybe I will look up heritage rabbits next!
Which brings me to dogs~~yes dogs it seems one of our pups is making himself famous. He was bought by a family that could not keep him in the yard for anything so they found him a new owner. An owner that had 52 sled dogs. With that number of sled
dogs this lady is busy to say the least. She keeps her dogs in shape and has them in agility courses. apparently she took the pup that was from our batch of pups down to the coast. He won hands down and is now being trained for some movie. Hmmm interesting. That pup is a year old now so a perfect age for training. Maybe I could interest her in some more pups for friends and neighbours. Move over Rintintin~~
Until I am rich and famous though I have these chores to do~ a sink full of dishes calling out my name, floors to sweep and wash, laundry piling up, some not so famous doggies and cats to feed. My non-heritage rabbits to feed and water and a chicken coop with a rooster named "Cornflakes" ruling the roost, that has to be cleaned today while the temps are half ways decent and before it hits 30 or 40 below again!
My thoughts wander off to Heritage seeds~~probably a lot cheaper than a Soay Sheep and perhaps easier to look after~~I think really in reality I do have no other choice but to live a very long life cause there are so many things I want to do or try like this fancy heritage knitting or was that heirloom knitting? Whatever. And then there is quilting I would love to be better than I am at it. Trying to teach yourself to quilt is always a challenge especially if you are me! LOL
What about heritage recipes? The list can just go on forever. It would be nice to find recipes that one can cook and eat too and not have the consequence of tighter pants. It is so annoying when the pants won't join in the middle.
So it is Sunday and I do not have a heritage anything as far as "things" go but I do have the LORD and He is my heritage.
For You, O God,
have heard my vows;
You have given me the heritage of those
who fear your name.
Psalm 61:5
May you be enjoying the heritage
of our LORD too
Roxanne
ps I did NOT take the photos of the Soay Sheep I found them on the net . I had never even heard of them till this last week.
