What the....???

Got this in an email full of fun animal pics from my niece.

Now what in the world is goin' on in this bird's brain?

And will these little kittehs be able to eat chicken flavored cat food - (mmm. tastes like "Mom"? Eeeww!)

Me? I've got a horrible cold - it's migrated from nose to chest and now to throat. Seems to be a little different every day and get a little better every day.

I got a very nice award from my friend Leigh - I'll post it this weekend.

Carry on.

Three Beautiful Things Tuesday

It's Three Beautiful Thing Tuesday! How fast the weeks go - it seems like it was just TBT/LAST Tuesday!


* Getting this picture of my dad as a young man in the mail from my sister. Surprisingly, none of us can remember ever seeing it before. He was a handsome guy. (smile)





* Finding the yarn that I think my younger sister will like for the scarf she wants me to crochet for her - the green is actually a lot more "lime" and the orange is more "orange" - but this one really showed the purple, so there you go. . I'm trying something new - a "crydon square". Each square will be different combinations of all the colors, edged and connected with the black. It is Red Heart's "soft" yarn - I know, but I couldn't find the exact colors I wanted in the other brands. And it is very soft.


* Since I'm talking about my sisters, (of which I have three, get it, Three Beautiful...), I'll take this opportunity to again say Happy Birthday to my "oldest" sister. She is really a wonderful person and works harder than anyone I know. I got her Pearl Django's new album Modern Times and she said she's really enjoying it.


And since I'm talking about family, I'll remember my mom, who, had she not died 30 years ago, would have been 88 today. Happy Birthday, Mom.

Little things that mystify me -

The lable says: "Natural catfood - High in protein, like a cat's natural diet, including real chicken and salmon"

Now, although they have shown some interest in the koi in the pond, I don't know about yours, but neither of our cats have ever said "Charter a boat, mom - we want to go deep sea fishing!"



Why doesn't cat food come in "Mouse" or "House sparrow" flavors?

Or 'nip? 'Nip flavored crunchies would be real nice...

Get Well, Rascal!

Our good friend Rascal had to have surgery today. His "dad bean" found a lump on his tummy when he was petting him the other night. They took him right to the vet the next day and the vet said it was probably nothing, but tumors grow quickly on kitties, so best to remove it ASAP. If you click on Rascal's name, it will take you to his blog, where you can see a picture of the poor little guy. They shaved off almost all his tummy hair! Brr - bad time of the year to be bald on your tummy (or anywhere else, for that matter, I guess)



Everyone wanted to wish him well - so here is Sinda saying "Get well my dear, I'll be purring for you!"




Neelix says "Hey buddy, don't let them shave any more of that tummy hair off - hope you don't have to wear that cone too long. I'll be purring for you too!"





And although they look quite scarey with their laser eyes, the girls are actually quite concerned about you Rascal, and you are in their thoughts.



Me too, little guy. Hope you have a speedy recovery!

Three Beautiful Things Tuesday!

I have been dreadfully delinquent on my Three Beautiful Thing Tuesday - in fact, (gasp!) the last TBT post I did was in OCTOBER! Oh my - Guess I'd better get cracking here!

For new readers, the object is to find Three Beautiful Things about each day. It causes us to focus on the good, when there is so much evil and ugly happening in the world (was it always that way, or do we maybe we just hear about it more easily now with TV and the internet?) The original Three Beautiful Things blog is written by a woman named Clare who lives in Kent (UK, not WA). She reminds us that it is not important to have a HUGE thing be beautiful, small things often have more impact.

My Three Beautiful Things for today are:

• Watching the joy that my friend (who raised three sons) gets from playing with her not quite two year old granddaughter.


• The gals at my favorite sub shop who made my sandwich today "just the way I like it" without any direction from me.


• Getting the notice this a.m. that our Washington Wool.net benefit auction raised over $4000 for the Black Sheep Creamery - Awesome, just awesome! (and I got that beautiful green & lavender purse that Sharon made)

A Chili kind of day

I know it might seem odd, but in the 40 odd years that I've been cooking, I've never made chili. Truth be told, even after working in a Mexican restaurant for 21 years, I'm still not a fan of spicy foods and when I think of chili, I generally equate it with that horrible canned stuff that is only good if you mix it with Rotel Mexican tomatoes and Velveta cheese and leave it in a slow cooker for a couple of hours - but that's a whole 'nother thing.

But when we had dinner with our friends Curtis & Felicity last month, she made chili for dinner, and it was so good, The Shepherd asked me if I'd get the recipe from her - she gracefully gave me the ingredient list that she uses - it is kind of a "chop and dump" kind of soup - but I was able to find another similar one on the internet so I'd have an idea of how much spice I should use.


I was pleasantly surprised - it turned out pretty good. The Shepherd got to have his chili and watch the end of a disappointing football game - and he got some cornbread too - which he really liked - even tho the game was a disappointment, the dinner was a hit.




I'm not really a big cornbread fan either - it is always too dry or too "something" (fussy, aren't I?) - but this is the cornbread recipe that I put together for the above mentioned dinner with our friends - to me, meals are always more fun if you make them potluck - after all, we all work all day, why should one person have to do all the work for our dinner. I came up with this recipe - it's not too sweet, not to cakey, and not too dry. It uses a can of "Mexi-corn" as well as a can of creamed corn and has a very good texture.



Cheesy/Corny Cornbread

1 15 oz. pkg. Krusteaz Honey Cornbread Mix
1 16 oz pkg. Marie Callender's Cornbread Mix
1 can of creamed corn
1 can of Green Giant Niblets Mexi-Corn, with liquid
1/2 cup grated cheddar cheese
2/3 cup milk
1 egg
3/4 cup water

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Lightly grease a deep 9x13 cake pan (or 10 x 15 lasagna pan) Mix all ingredients and pour into pan. Bake 30-35 minutes or until light golden brown. Store what you don't eat in the fridge (because of the corn).

Lazy day -

I just don't know what is happening around here today. The staff didn't get up until after 10:00!










Oh, go find a place to sleep - they fed you didn't they- and lookin' at your tummy, you're not going to starve...




Hrmph!

Only Three Days Left to Bid!

I added up the bids from our auction today and it looks like so far we have raised a little over $3000 for the Black Sheep Creamery folks on our second go round - But there are still a LOT of things that haven't been bid 0n yet, including many of these beautiful hand woven scarves...





They are such a bargain, you have to check them out!
Please click HERE to go to the auction site. Thank you!

Only 5 Days left on the Fundraiser Auction

So, here's the deal - the Northwest Shetland Sheep Owners Association and Washington Wool dot Net, our new fiber farm co-op are sponsoring another auction to benefit the Black Sheep Creamery in Lewis County, WA that suffered devastating losses in the early December floods. If you havn't had time to visit the auction page, I thought I'd bring a few of the items that still need bids on them to you!

You can bid on any of these items by clicking HERE


This hand woven blue tweed wool scarf was donated by Richard Harvey of Whatcom county.






The lavender one is woven of mohair - I think it is beautiful.
(and I'm sure it is soft)





Linda Smith of Puyallup donated this hand woven woll rug. It has little bits of red, yellow, green and blue in it - it would be great for a family room, don't you think. (item 52)



Remember! You can bid on any of these items by clicking HERE.

Here are two more of Richard's scarves - he generously donated two dozen of them - 12 wool (Item 31) and 12 mohair (Item 32).

My friend Michelle from Bloulderneigh in Amity, Oregon donated several "Scratchboard" portraits of dogs - this bloodhound is particularly handsome, don't you think? (Item #5)







How about this beautiful rug? It's lavendar stripes would look lovely in your bedroom, don't you think? (item # 51)



And Last, but not Least in the list of items I thought you should see is the Hound Hat. Now, personally, I don't think we could get Neelix or Sinda to dress up like this, but they are cats, and perhaps less apt to have a cold head than this jolly looking fellow. So, know a hound who needs a hat? (Item #29)

Did I tempt you with any of our offerings? I hope so!

You can bid on any of these items by clicking HERE. And remember, there are only 5 days left!

A.F.O. (Almost Finished Object)

Remember my Yarn with a Purpose?

Well, I should wait till I've figured out the "edging" but I just can't wait. This was my purpose - it is a scarf for my sister Merrill (SSHHHH - it's a secret!)






I think that the yarn turned out pretty good for flying by the seat of my pants. Of course that involved a few emails back and forth between some of my "sheepy" (Kathy) and "fibery"(Leigh),friends, I ended up predrafting rovings from a huge bat and layering them with combed silk (that's the pink that you see).

I've never made anything from wool before, and after a little questioning (oh, by the way, do you ever wear wool? type questions) I determined that my sister would not wear it if it was "scratchy" so, I need to line it. I went to Joanne's Fabrics - under the guise of buying the lining material - which I got some really soft stuff that feels like mole skin - yum - but then, I decided that I needed to get a few new crochet hooks, and maybe a couple of books with patterns in them, and perhaps this yarn would be nice - "Oh, you say, it's on sale?, Well then I'll take 3 skeins" Oh, and that clear plastic box would be nice to have to store some of my wool in while I'm spinning - Heck, I spent $48.50!

I think this is going to be dangerous to my pocket book - don't you?

P.S. I had a wonderful birthday! Thanks to everyone for all their greetings and felicitations and phone calls - it was a great day!

"Well, it's my birthday too -- yeah"

Hidden behind all those trees are the houses I grew up in. On the left is the house where my dad was born, where my grandparents lived when I was growing up. On the right is the house where my family lived. A dad & mom & 4 girls - a very "50's" type of family. It was a good place to grow up.

My grandma kept a daily diary - (I suppose you could call her an "early blogger") Every year, she would get a date book from her insurance company - it would have from six lines to 1/2 page for each day. And each day, she would write - about the weather, how many eggs they got that day, and short bits of "personal" info - "ordered seeds for next summer's garden" - "Wallace & Viola (my uncle and aunt) were by for supper" or "Went to Garden Club at Ida's today"

When we cleaned out her attic after she and my parents had all passed away, we found boxes of these yearly date books. I was most interested in finding the 1952 book. What would she have said about my birth?

Well, there it was - January 12, -(a RED LETTER day, you know) and there I was - sandwiched in between the weather and a Pamona Grange meeting. "Reid took Glennie to the hospital today. She had a baby girl. They are going to call her Tina" What? That's all? Yup. My grandma was not one to "wax poetically".

And here I am 56 years later. I got flowers from The Shepherd at work today. I brought them home so I could enjoy them over the weekend - and this afternoon, our good friend Diane brought me a lovely piece of Tiramisu cake with a candle in it. Since neither my office mate or The Shepherd like coffee flavored things, I had to eat it all myself. Ha, Ha. The Shepherd and I always take the other out to dinner for our birthday - we're going to The Black Angus this year. (Actually, if we had an Outback Steakhouse in town, that might be where I'd pick, but the closest one is 30 miles away in Burlington - so the Black Angus will do just fine.)

What? You forgot to get me a gift - well check out our On-Line Auction to benefit the Black Sheep Creamery. You are sure to find just the right special item - (OK, I was just kidding - it was simply a shameless plug for our auction)



"You say it's your birthday
Well it's my birthday too--yeah
You say it's your birthday
We're gonna have a good time
I'm glad it's your birthday
Happy birthday to you"



(The Family Shrine, as we call it - my picture is the girl in the green dress

And we are ever indebted to John Lennon & Paul McCartney (yes, the one who was in the other band before he was in WINGS) for one of the most rockin' birthday songs around.

Happy Birthday to our Dear Friend, Ms. Peach!

Our dear friend, Miss Peach is fifteen years old today! Stop by and wish her Many Happy Returns and see the fun "party" that her friends put together for her.

P.S. Another important birthday is coming up on Saturday - now I wonder whose that could be? Ha, ha, ha!

The Auction - Part Two

Where to start - I guess with the first event - the floods of December in Lewis county Washington - devastating many small farms & businesses in the area. Our NW Shetland Sheep Owners group decided that we needed to help - specifically the The Black Sheep Creamery who was hit very hard and lost a good percentage of their flock of milking sheep.

So we put on an on-line auction. I must admit that Franna did a lion's share of the work - she offered up her web page to host and kept all the records of who was bidding and who was donating. What a teriffic job she did, and now, we're at it again! There is still a great need for assistance and there have been lots of fantastic people - spinners, knitters, fiber types of all kind, who have come out of the woodwork to donate - so we're having The Auction, Part Two!

This also launches our new Washington Wool website - a co-op / marketplace for Washington shepherds. Keep an eye on it - great things will be happening!

So, CLICK HERE and join the fun - you might just find the fiber for that next project you've been thinking about!





"Those Shetland Shepherds, aren't they just the nicest lot?"

"And they've got great friends, too!"

Oh, that it were true...

The witch hazel it doing it's best to try to convince us that spring is coming -



It apparently has convinced our daffodils -

We'll see, we'll see....

And yet another funny story....

You must go visit our friend Miss Peach and read the story of The Pastor's Cat. It's worth the detour. Have a great day!

Okaaaaay.....

A friend of mine overheard a couple of young fellows talking in a music store -

"Dude - did you know that Paul McCartney was in another band BEFORE he was in Wings?"


OMG - what is the world coming to?