The Scene of the Crime. . .

First, there are the discarded bits of twist wire...












then the broken clips that ended up in the bottom of the water bucket











and the serious bendey parts on the gate....
















And the "Doo, tee, doo, doo" - "Who me?" attitude of a certain couple of boys....









Not necessarily the crime of the century, but it has earned Vern the nick name of "Lizard Lips"

















When a couple of fellows who think they have been incarcerated in "the big house" suddenly meet you at the inside gate...













You know you have a Houdini in the pasture...




























Yup, Ole "Lizard Lips" is pretty lucky that The Shepherd REALLY like his fleece -

He'd be on his way to the land of little white packages in the freezer -

Sharing Their Sadness -

Our friends Kathy & Ralph from Sheep Thrills Farm in Arizona have lost their friend Ziggy. He was a grand old man of about 16 years old, having come to their home as a stray (they are one of the people who have that invisible "Stray Cats are Welcome Here" sign in their driveway).

He had been loosing weight for about a year and pretty sick for a couple of weeks now - Kathy & Ralph had done everything that they could think of to help him regain his health, but it was not to be.

I am so very sad for them, as, like many of you out there, we have lost a kitty who was such a character that he left a permanent imprint on our hearts. When I look through my photos for "Looking Back Sunday" the older ones are so full of Neelix pictures. Sometimes I can look through them, sometimes I just can't and feel like we really should have tried to do more - to push the vet to do more tests - but, it's a "could-a, should-a, would-a situation at best. Nothing I can say or do will bring him back.

Because they have "connections" I asked our friends Karla & Miss Peach to alert the members of the Cat Blogosphere that Ziggy had crossed The Rainbow Bridge. This group, like no other, can offer sympathy that is so heart felt and meaningful. I hope their words of condolence will help K&R get through this hard time.

Our friends Karla & Miss Peach also wrote a beautiful poem for us the weekend when Neelix went to the Bridge. It still "makes my eyes leak" but I'll reprint it here in honor of Ziggy.

For Neelix (and his "mom & dad") -

Close your eyes now, my longtime friend,
and let this time of suffering
come to a peaceful end.
We'll walk together soon, I'm sure,
as winter turns to spring,
when snow gives way to budding leaves
and birds begin to sing.
The gentle breeze shall call your name
along the water's edge.
For what we shared and what you meant
shall never be forgot.
Your friendship spans the years behind,
your memory ahead.
You'll always be there next to me,
companion and good friend.

Keep an eye out for Neelix, Zig - I'm sure he'll show you all around -

Looking Back Sunday

Three years ago The Shepherd & I decided to take a trip up the Skagit River to see the eagles - the week before there had been reports of over 50 eagles roosting in the trees - the weekend we went - not so many - like we saw ONE eagle - can you see it just below the halfway point of this picture?

It was a beautiful day - cold and clear - but it was a long and disappointing drive - to top it all off, The Shepherd was in a huge amount of pain - this was right after he had fallen down a bank at work and hurt his back (the accident that eventually led to his being bedridden for a whole month and finally having surgery)






This is the yarn that I spun last winter for a sweater vest for The Shepherd. From the charts that I could find, I figured that I needed to spin up 1200 yards (!) of yarn. Whew- what a project! It was FINALLY delivered to the woman who is knitting said sweater last month at our spinner guild meeting. I got an email from her tonight - she said it is fairly easy to knit with - as long as she chooses skeins where the yarn is all the same size - and I thought they were ALL the same size - hmmm.... Guess that McMorran Yarn Balance that The Shepherd got me for my birthday this year will start to come in handy... (I finally got it ordered from Paradise Fibers in Spokane - hopefully it will be here next week)


Here is a picture of some of the plants in my rock garden from a couple of years ago - I just liked all the colors in this picture.

I feel like the Rabbit from Alice in Wonderland - so many things to do and so little time. We went to see a Japanese Taiko drumming troop called TAO this afternoon - I snuck some pretty decent pictures - I'll post more about it next week sometime.

The Color's of January

It has been so warm this month - (we're on a course to have the warmest January on record!) that the witch hazel is in full bloom!

Bulbs are popping their little heads up all over the garden. The Shepherd/aka The Gardener is afraid that what happened last year will happen again this year - a hard freeze in February killed a LOT of stuff in our yard. Lets hope that doesn't happen this year.

Work is busy - 6 day weeks most of the month - but I took yesterday off - we went to Oak Harbor (about a 90 mile round trip) to have Chinese food. It was worth the trip. Saw swans and a lot of eagles - my camera was sitting on the kitchen counter. Darn.

Bilingual barnyard

A flock of sheep are hanging out in the barn, having a little snack and happily going "baa baa" to each other and discussing life as usual when suddenly they hear a "moo moooooooooooooooo!"

They look around and see only sheep. They carry on playing as before.

"Moooooo mooooooooooo mmmoo!"







Pearl can hear it all too clearly next to her. She shuffles away a little from her friend, a worried look on her face, and then asks, "Andre, why are you mooing? You're a sheep. Sheep go 'baa'!"










Her friend replies, "I know. But, I thought I would learn a foreign language!"


(just for the record, Violet says that this is one of the silliest jokes she's ever heard)




Revised from Doc's Daily Chuckle.

I'd rather be........

...in Hawaii at the Maui Ocean Center -

I got to thinking about Hawaii tonight because I spent the ENTIRE day entering payroll items in our new computer program - and our Controller had done quite a bit of set up before hand -

Why does this make me think of Hawaii?



Because the last time I did this was just before we went to Hawaii in 2004 -

The Maui Ocean Center was the highlight - otherwise it was the vacation from hell...

#1 - The Shepherd came down with pneumonia -
#2 - We were on Maui in October - generally a fairly nice time of year to be there - but they were "havin' a heat wave..." - even the locals were complaining about the heat...




It was nice and cool in this underwater tunnel - not so much in our condo - NO AIR CONDITIONING! They had ceiling fans, but no AC - the only place we had AC was in the car we rented - but The Shepherd was so sick, we really didn't go anyplace for two days. Bummer...







We did go to some beautiful botanical gardens tho - this one specialized in proteas -











And I think this is my favorite picture from the whole trip - I can almost smell the fragrance from these beautiful blossoms when I look at this picture.

Oh well.

New Year's at Nancy's

Every year on New Year's Day our friend Nancy has a brunch for friends - It started out being a bunch of us who used to hang out at a little restaurant called the Cookie Cafe. When it closed, we no longer saw each other on Friday nights - so what better way to get together - music and food.







Now, we have added new friends and even our neighbors come out - (how is that - go half way across the county to see someone who lives two blocks away!)











Since the start we've had a preponderance of old "rock and rollers" but now there is a contingent of great bluegrass pickers & singers - nothing could be better -














This year a couple of us brought our spinning wheel. Ellen's husband is one of the bluegrass players - I brought my wheel too - everyone was very interested in what we were doing -












And it gives us all an opportunity to bring our best dishes or try a new one.

I have traditionally made Aebelskivers - which are a little round pancake made in a special pan. But when I do that, I don't get to visit with anyone, because I'm in the kitchen making them - so I decided to bring a hot dish similar to a strata - Apple, Bacon & Cheddar Bread Pudding. It was very good. I doubled the recipe (as shown is the regular recipe) except for the apples and only used them in the middle - I think it would have been nice to have had some warm maple syrup or some hollandaise sauce to give it a little bit of "oomph" - Here is the recipe:

APPLE BACON & CHEDDAR BREAD PUDDING

3 tablespoons butter or margarine

2 medium Granny Smith apples, peeled and coarsely chopped (about 2 cups)

3 tablespoons packed brown sugar

4 cups cubed firm bread

1 pound bacon, cooked, drained and chopped

2 cups shredded sharp Cheddar cheese (8 ounces)

2 1/2 cups milk

1 tbsp Dijonaise (or other Dijon style) mustard

2 teaspoons Worcestershire sauce

¼ teaspoon salt

1/8 teaspoon pepper

5 eggs

1. Grease 2-quart casserole. In 10-inch skillet, melt butter over medium heat. Cook apples in butter 2 to 3 minutes, stirring occasionally, until crisp-tender. Stir in brown sugar; reduce heat to low. Cook 5 to 6 minutes, stirring occasionally, until apples are tender.

2. Layer half each of the bread, bacon and cheese in casserole. Add the apples. Repeat with remaining bread, bacon and cheese.

3. Mix all remaining ingredients; pour over cheese. Cover tightly and refrigerate at least 2 hours but no longer than 24 hours.

4. Heat oven to 350ºF. Bake uncovered 40 to 45 minutes or until knife inserted in center comes out clean. Let stand 10 minutes before serving.

I fried up my bacon bits the night before (on New Years Eve - woo hoo) and had planned to put together the dish so it would have overnight to sit - but the fridge was still full of Christmas ham, and other assorted leftovers, so, I got up early to make it on Friday a.m. - so it only sat about 1/2 hour before I put it in the oven - it was OK - (I mooshed it a lot with a big spoon) Using the packaged shredded cheese saved me a lot of time too - it's premeasured to two cups - oh, and I didn't peel the apples either - just chopped them up in 1/2 inch cubes...