Looking Back Sunday - Waayyyy Back - to 2006!

Oh, Happy Day!

Tuesday, May 7 is my 7th Blogoversary!  My walk down memory lane is looking back at spring (since I started in May)

I started my blog after a diagnosis of cancer - to be able to update my friends and family in one spot - The name "A Blip on the Radar" came from my sister, who said - "Hopefully this (the cancer) will be no more than A Blip on the Radar"  -  and a blog was born.  Then, when everything "sorted out" after surgery, etc. people began to say - "You're still going to blog, aren't you?"

Hmm - I kind of enjoyed having an outlet to write and post my pictures - "Sure," I said -

That spring (2006) we had 6 lambs - It is always so much fun to see them running out in the front pasture - I'm sure you've heard my whining about not having any lambs this year, but it's really been a blessing - The Shepherd has had colds all winter (but, thankfully no pneumonia this year) - and spending nights out in a cold barn would not have been good for him.  It has also gotten progressively harder to find good new homes for the sheep - so he just decided to take a break this year.  

On my blog header it says: "Stories of everyday life on our farm, featuring cats, our little flock of Shetland Sheep and garden life, plus a recipe to try every once in a while. Wait, now there is spinning and crocheting, don't forget spinning and crocheting all that Shetland wool... So, thanks for stopping by - who knows what you'll find!!" 

So that's what I've tried to deliver - just every day life - I've made some wonderful friends - we've met up in Eugene at the Black Sheep Gathering in June, or gone to visit in Arizona.  We have sheep friends, cat friends, dog friends, crocheting & spinning friends and other friends who also write of every day life. 

It has given us a chance to show off our handsome new little fellows

or show pretty things from The Shepherd's garden.  

 and his flock.

Our special little boy "HB" brought a lot of excitement into the neighborhood - a sheep that looked like a panda!   

I started a "sitemeter" a year or so after I started blogging - it shows I've had over 48,000 visitors so, if I extrapolate out - I figure I've had over 50,000 visits to my blog.  When Blogger started keeping tabs on "referring traffic sources" - it shows that the most visitors come over from Nancy K's old blog, A Shepherd's Voice - I understand that since she isn't farming any longer, she is mostly on Facebook (which I'm not), but she has a great blog roll, so I'm sure a lot of people visit her blog, just to go through her blog roll - I know I do...

 I also get a lot of jumps from Sharon's blog "In Stitches"  Sharon is a weaver of extraordinary talent - she's also a spinner, a crafter, and a wonderful grandmother.  Her blog is one of my favorites.  (she's one of the bloggers I've met at Black Sheep Gathering)

It's also fun to look back through my "Labels" section - "From the Garden" and "Neelix"  are hands down favorites - Neelix went to "The Bridge" in August 2008 - we miss him still - George and Gracie (and Bella) have filled the holes, but he was such a character, he left awful big paws to fill.

 My post that gets the most visits (according to Blogger) is my post on "Green corn tamale pie" that I did in August of 2006.  it says I've had 447 visits to that page.  Now, I don't mean to think badly of Blogger's stats, but it seems to me,if there have been 447 visits to that page, there would be more than 1 comment.  Don't ya think?

And why would "A view from the cat door" from January of 2012 be so interesting that it would come in second with 421 visits?  I don't have a lot of confidence in Blogger's stats page.

 And maybe I'm wrong but here's my audience:

United States  25,693

Russia    7051

Canada  1486

Germany 1133

South Korea  895

United Kingdom   830

France   629

Netherlands  576

Ukraine  442

Indonesia  379

South Korea and Indonesia???   What's with that? 

Unless they just like looking at the cutest darn Shetland lambs around...

Or the prettiest, serene-ist looking ewes -

As I say in my emails -  Marietta Shetlands, Bellingham, WA, where "the ewes are strong, the rams are good looking and all the lambs are above average."

 My "most viewed months" were June of 2010 with 1906 visits and September 2012 with 1910 visits.  In June 2010 I didn't have a lot of posts, but I had a big one about Black Sheep Gathering and I was participating in a blog hop called "The colors of (the month name here)" where you would take pictures during that month and link up with other bloggers who had done the same - wow, that was a fun meme - you really got to see a lot of the world -

One of my favorites was the lady from Australia (and I've lost her blog now) who had a picture of a pasture full of kangaroos.  Just like we would have a picture of a pasture of sheep or goats.  The photographer must have made some kind of noise because they were all "heads up" and looking at the camera - what a cool picture.  

My blog has been a place of solace in times sadness and a place to celebrate in times of gladness. 

I have met many many talented people and have gotten encouragement from them on my endeavors.  

 I've gotten to show off some of the more unusual fruits and vegetables that The Shepherd has in his garden (yes, this is PURPLE asparagus)

So, who knows how much longer I'll keep blogging - maybe in another 7 years I'll have that site meter up to 100,00 visits?

And I sure appreciate your comments -  Thanks for stopping by today.

Moving on - Looking Back

Looking back through last year's photographs brought up this cheery bowl of primroses - my Valentine's day present from The Shepherd. Tomorrow we celebrate the first anniversary of owning his own business. Today he got two new customers. Yeah JP!

Looking Back Sunday - Tao Drummers

I never got around to telling you about one of the shows that we saw at the Mt. Baker Theater last year.








TAO: The Martial Art of Drumming









This is inside the theater - It was first opened in 1927 and refurbished in 1996. For many years it was a movie theater but for the past 20 years they have brought in shows ranging from Chinese acrobats to internationally know performers such as Joan Baez. Ladysmith Black Mambaza, Arlo Gutherie, Natalie McMasters, to Broadway Shows. It is also the home of the Whatcom Symphony Orchestra.

It is a jewel to have in our community.









This is the second time we have seen Japanese drummers there.

The drumming on the BIG drums takes your breath away!






Over the past 20 years we've gone to see between 6-10 performers every year.

The shows from this year didn't pique our interest very much (besides not fitting into the budget very well) - hopefully the line-up next year will be better.

Looking Back Sunday

Looking back to this week in August 2006 has lots of pictures of beautiful sunflowers in The Shepherd's garden.

The goldfinches loved his sunflower garden - and boy would they scold him when he was out and about cutting stems to sell to local florists.







We made this sign two years ago when we were at the Skagit fair. We will use it again this coming week - got a lot of halter training to do between now and next Friday...








Have you ever seen purple cauliflower? It was very tasty - but this year his purple cauliflower is still very tiny - I did however put 12 quarts of broccoli in the freezer last week (sans pill bugs and slugs, I hope)

We had broccoli/ham quiche (broccoli from the garden) for dinner, with side dishs of green beans AND sweet corn (from the garden). He also brought in the BIG YELLOW Tupperware bowl full of purple pole beans tonight but I was too tired after dinner to do them, so I stuck them in the fridge and I'll do them tomorrow night -

I was reading the cook book "The Perfect Recipe" the other day and the author talked about steaming fresh corn on the cob. A concept which had never occurred to me, but I always get frustrated boiling corn on the cob because it always seems like there is a part of the ear that is out of the water - and when you steam it, ta da, the whole ear gets cooked at the same time - I tried it tonight, it was delish and I will probably never go back to the other way.

Hope you are all having a good summer.

Looking Back Sunday

I went back to pictures from 2006, 2007, 2008 & 2009 and I picked out some rather iconic pictures of mid-June for you today.

This has always been one of my favorite shots of our flock - in fact, it was published in our local paper in the "Pets" section.






All of The Shepherd's azaleas are done blooming for this year - but a couple of years ago, they were still in full bloom mid June









This is the beautiful bouquet that we had for our Flower Communion a couple of years ago - everyone just brings a few flowers from their garden and at the end of the service everyone gets a flower to take home.










The blueberries are growing and growing













And last year, I was madly spinning this beautiful blue & "shades of other" targhee so I would have a project to work on for our trip to Black Sheep. I made a sweater for our friend's daughter - it turned out really great for the first time that I'd made something besides a rectangular baby blanket!

Oh, oh, oh, Black Sheep Gathering in
five,
four,
three,
two.
ONE!

Looking back Sunday

These pictures were taken in March- 2, 3 & 4 years ago - I could easily have taken the same pictures this past week but it RAINED and was wicked cold, all week long.

Until Saturday, that is, and the weather cooperated for our Spin-In - (of which I have loads of pictures) - not a single wheel got wet - but between working til 3:00 in the a.m. on Friday night getting ready for yesterday and the change to daylight saving time, I crashed when we got home from church today. So, no new pictures yet and dinner wasn't on the table until about 8:30 tonight (well, someone COULD have come in and woken me up... - but I think he was napping too.)




Anyhow - these are three of my favorite pictures of The Shepherds gardening handy work.

Little Wicket update: - He is growing like a weed - if it's not raining when I get home from work tomorrow night, I'll take some pictures - since, it will be light for a whole extra hour.





The forsythias and the quinces are all in full bloom right now. Between that and the cherry trees, they make such great blazes of color along the streets and the byways.

Hope you have a great week with blazes of color on your highways and byways too!

Looking back Sunday

This was our driveway two years ago this week - last year's Christmas/New Year's was close to this too - I'm so glad that we've had good weather this year!! It hasn't been particularly sunny, but it hasn't snowed either - Yay!

Hope everyone is staying warm and safe.

Looking Back Sunday

Whatcha doin T.?

Oh, I'm looking at pictures to see what I want to use for my Looking Back Sunday post.

Did ya find one?

Yes, I'm going to use the picture from when we took Susie up to her new home with Ellen and Mike in Rockport. She needed to go to a home where there were no rams around, because she shouldn't have any more babies.

I saw Ellen on Saturday at my spinner guild meeting. Susie is very lucky that she got such a nice new mom.


Off she goes to check out her new digs and her new suite mates. Ellen said she is happy and healthy with very long wool (but she'll wait til spring to shear her this time...)

Thanks, Ellen, for giving Susie such a good new home.

Speaking of rams, weather and road conditions permitting, HB & Cooper are going to the auction tomorrow. It was a nice idea to have three breeding groups, but not so nice when the bored boys started tearing things apart last week. It cost The Shepherd many many green papers to buy repair parts for the fences and things that they have torn apart. I will miss the big lugs, but I sure hope the roads are passable and that the auction will be open tomorrow. This is not a good time for us to have to shell out many green papers to fix things around here, if you know what I mean.

I'm going to go have a cup of tea (hopefully it will get rid of my sore throat) and dive into the new Joanne Fluke mystery that my sister Nance sent me last week. It came in a box with a beautiful Americana egg blue sweater and salmon colored blouse (although I'm not too sure about the ruffles...) that she got at Value Village. I love it that she loves to shop - she's get's outrageous deals on stuff and most of the time things fit (which is amazing because we have pretty different body types - she's got a good eye, I guess) - & I don't have to go shopping.

She also sent me a pair of knit slacks in the most remarkable shade of purple. They are very comfortable to wear about the house, but I don't think they'd be socially acceptable to wear out in public. What is it that makes companies produce clothes in my size in colors that are beyond comprehension? One of the many mysteries in life, that include Rubik Cubes and Sudoku.....

Have a good week, and stay warm.

Looking back Sunday

Nov. 28, 2006












Nov. 27, 2007
Nov 28, 2008





No snow yet this year - so far it's all come down in liquid form - must be global warming....

Looking Back Sunday

October 2004 - Hawaii - gotta love those orchids.

It was so hot even the locals were complaining.

Our condo had fans and no A/C.

The Shepherd had pneumonia.

None-the-less to say, it was a "memorable" vacation...








October 2005 - California, here we come -

Next to the Grand Canyon, the Giant Redwoods are the coolest things I've ever seen!









October 2006 - Every year I think "It can't get any more colorful here in The Shepherd's gardens," and then the next year it is even better.










October 2007 - Case in point.........















October 2007 was also our trip to the Grand Canyon - - see a theme here?

This year it was a stay-cation.









October 2008 -

Breeding group fleece evaluations - this is sure a pretty one.

Hope you enjoyed my October "look-back"

Looking Back Sunday

Okay, so it's Saturday - It's Sunday someplace in the world tho, so I'm doing this a day early.

Last year at this time found us in one of our favorite Vacation spots - Ocean Shores, WA. I picked a couple of my favorite pictures from our weekend.

I love watching birds - seagulls, crows, whatever - they all have fun traits - I think seagulls look like they are meditating - I think this one was looking for a French Fry...







Gotta have a good crochet project for on the road - this blanket turned out to be incredibly easy - I think I need to get another one started - just to have in case I need a baby gift.








This was just the best salad - crab and shrimp AND salmon - yum.

Tomorrow I'll tell you about this year's vacation. Tonight we're going to see Ricky Skaggs!