Happy Easter

We're on relaxed baby watch right now. Their udders are VERY full, but they haven't dropped yet.   They held off for Easter. 

Pretty pictures from Hawaii

No, I'm not in Hawaii, but my sister is and she sent me this stunning picture of a hibiscus yesterday.  She also said it was 80 degrees.   Sigh.

OUR FLOWER COMMUNION

    "The Flower Communion is an annual ritual in many Unitarian Universalist churches that celebrates beauty, human uniqueness, diversity, and community.
     Originally created in 1923 by Unitarian minister Norbert Capek of Prague, Czechoslovakia, the Flower Ceremony was introduced to the United States by Rev. Maya Capek, Norbert's widow.
     In this ceremony, everyone in the congregation brings a flower. Each person places a flower on the altar or in a shared vase. The congregation and minister bless the flowers, and they're redistributed. Each person brings home a different flower than the one they brought." (From the website www.uua.org)

Each flower unique.

Each person is unique.

By themselves, they may look rather plain -

Our Flower Communion at church was last weekend.  It also coincided with our "Good Bye" service for our minister, Rev. Marcia Stanard who is leaving us after three years to become the new minister for Atkinson Memorial Church in Oregon City.  We will miss her alot, but she has proved to us and to the world, that even a church as small as ours deserves and can sustain a great minister.

You take that one plain flower and add another and another, and soon you have a display of great beauty.

I think people are like that, too.  Don't you?


PS - and if you get to Oregon City on a Sunday morning (starting late August)  stop by Atkinson Memorial for a great church service.  Tell them "A friend of your minister" sent you!   








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HAPPY VALENTINE'S DAY!

Happy Valentine's Day Everybody!

This is a favorite picture of a Valentine's flower bowl that The Shepherd gave me a few years ago.  I just love this picture - it just says "Spring is around the corner!"

This pretty necklace was made by one of my spinner pals.

And then there has to be a little Valentine's bling - no, this isn't mine, a talented spinner pal of mine also makes jewelry - isn't this just the bomb? 










And nothing says "Spring is just around the corner" like our Witch Hazel bush - peeking through the landscape to say "Hello!  I'm here to remind you that winter will soon be on it's merry way" 


 




So, HAPPY VALENTINE'S DAY to all our friends - peoples, kitties, woofies, what ever or where ever you may be.  I hope this brings a little love to your heart. 

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New Year's Greetings!

 So, this is what we've been doing -

I've been spending a lot of time spinning.

The Shepherd wants another sweater vest from his sheep's yarn - This is "Donna" 








The roving was done for us by Evergreen Fibers in Woodinville - He did a really nice job. 

We went to brunch at our friend Nancy's farm to celebrate New Years - Lots of good music, good food and good friends.  I had finished two bobbins of "Donna" so I took my spinning wheel and started plying it.  I'll take a picture of it when I get it skeined up. 

This is some CVM/Romeldale  yarn that I spun up last month -

 and this is some "Kathy Green Roving" - She uses a high micron count fiber and through a process of combing, dying & carding comes up with a yummy, easy to spin fiber.  Some of my favorite! 

The kids have been spending a lot of time snoozing.  They are such funny & affectionate kitties.  

Sorry I haven't been blogging much lately - my "new eye" is at war with my other eye and, obviously the prescription in my glasses (which is over 2 years old) is not corrected yet.  So I end up trying to focus both eyes, generally unsuccessfully. - making it extremely difficult to see/read what is on my computer screen.  BUT, tomorrow is my one month appointment  from my surgery and my Dr. said I would get my new prescription TOMORROW - You can better bet I'll be checking out some optical shops this weekend to get new glasses - YAY!!!

Til next time - Happy New Year from everyone here on the farm! 

Pretty in Pink

Peony

 It's a Princess Pink Paradise around the gardens this month. 

Heirloom peony

Silver Cloud Rose (technically lavender, but it smells pink.)

Japanese Maple

Lupine

Wild Bleeding Heart

Pink Dogwood

Azalea

Rosa Glauca

Oriental Poppy

April Showers bring May Flowers

 The patch of tulips right beside where I park my car.

These pictures are from early last month.

The little green flower buds grow and grow

And grow

And start to show some color

Then they burst out in all their glory.

We took bouquets to church and I took a vase full to work for our anniversary - they lasted all week and just kept getting bigger and bigger.

They are called peony tulips and The Shepherd doesn't remember where he got them, but everyone always insists that they aren't tulips - like we wouldn't know???

But last week they got kind of beat down by the rain.

It's supposed to be 70 degrees this weekend.  Yippie!

Happy May (2nd) Day! 

Looking back & Random thoughts -

 It's been a busy time here - trying to catch up on everything I let slide before the Artisan Faire, and getting my church newsletter done.  And unlike "someone I know" , I'm not good at all about stashing my camera in my pocket to get interesting shots of the Mreowws & Bella & the sheepies - so you get a re--hash of some of my favorite pictures from our vacation SEVEN years ago when we went to see the Sequoias in California,  and some Random Thoughts I've had recently.  

Resurrection lilies - I've never been able to get them to grow in our yard - but they are so pretty.  They come up in the spring with all kinds of foliage, that dies down and then in the fall, up pops these beautiful flowers.

A friend of mine's mom passed away a couple of weeks ago and the service was last Saturday.  I learned a long time ago, that even though I may not want to go to a funeral/memorial service, I'm not going for the deceased, but to show my respect to the living. And that has never failed me.

This service, heavily Christian, didn't do much for me - but after giving it MUCH thought over the past week, I realized it was exactly what her family needed to hear.

Random Thought -   In the wake of Hurricane Issac, I was stunned to find out, that over 200,000 people are still living in tent cities from the aftermath of the January 12 2010 earthquake in Haiti. That's over two and a half years ago!!! 

What are we thinking?  In an era of millionaire ball players and TV programs featuring toddlers in tiaras it just seems wrong. 





The Stardust Motel - No, we didn't stay there, but it was on the street where we stopped to get fuel - I don't even remember the town (although, now, I could probably google it and do street view to find what city).  Every once in a while, I just think about how life used to be so simple, and how staying at The Stardust Motel would have been the Cat's Pajamas -


"Sometimes I wonder why I spend

The lonely nights

Dreaming of a song.

The melody haunts my reverie

And I am once again with you.

When our love was new, and each kiss an inspiration.

But that was long ago, and now my consolation

Is in the stardust of a song.

Beside the garden wall, when stars are bright
You are in my arms
The nightingale tells his fairy tale
Of paradise where roses grew.
Though I dream in vain, in my heart you will remain
My stardust melody
The memory of loves refrain".

From “Stardust” by Hubbel, Golden & Carmichael

 

 It deeply saddened me to hear that the Washington State Dept. of Wildlife decided to kill the Wedge wolf pack

I imagine if the wolves were killing our sheep, I would feel differently, but it didn't seem to me like they (the  DoW or the rancher) tried very hard to secure those cows, or to retrain the wolves. 

A similar thing is happening down in the rural areas around Seattle.  People are sure that mountain lions are killing their dogs and other pets.  Well, don't let the darn things run loose - keep them inside at night. At lease in this case, since there hasn't been an actual sighting, the DoW is holding judgement - 

A friend once told me that this picture looked like we had this tree loaded up onto the back of the pick-up - ready to take it home.

Let me assure you, that if he could have, he would have...

Next week is the Mrreow's "assigned" birthday - 10-10-10.  As barn cats no one "registered" their date of birth - and when we got them, I was just told that they were "born in October"  - so, I decided that 10-10-10 was a very lucky day, don't you think?  .

Their feral beginnings still show heavily from time to time.   Unlike other kitties I've been owned by, loud sounds (pans clanking in the kitchen, etc.) or unexpected movements from The Shepherd seem to throw them into a tizzy & zip, out the cat door.  But pretty soon they come sheepishly back into the house - with an aire about them of "Do de doot doot do - I didn't see nuthin, did you?"  Funny kitties.

Hope you have a great week! 

It's Caturday!

Hello effury Kitty and effury Body!

It's ME, George and I'm happy to announce that The Shepherd is the guest photographer for today's Caturday report.

Mummy has been busy keeping up the blog for the 2012 Squalicum Valley Artisans Faire that she will be participating in next Saturday. Not only has she been working on that blog (and ignoring ours!), but she has been working at her string machine or sitting with the little metal hook night and day to get things ready for her sales table.


The cool thing that I heard today is that she will be home almost all next week from the Salt Mine! She'll be doing the last minute things for the sale, but just maybe we'll get a little extra snuggle time in the mornings!

Speaking of snuggle time, The Shepherd says the Miss Bella and I find the darndest places to sleep.  They are really nice and shady, and we are cooled by the earth under the barky stuff.

It has been pretty hot here in the Northwest - it has only rained one or two times since the first of August.  The lawns are all drying up and brown.  The Shepherd is not very happy about that, because that is part of what he does for a living - mow lawns - and if the lawns don't grow, he don't mow, if you know what I mean...

The Shepherd doesn't use the computer at all, so when he brings in his camera, and Mummy dumps the pictures out of it into her computer, he says they enter a black hole and he never sees them again.  So Mummy sat at the computer for the longest time this morning, organizing the pictures that he took over the last 9 or 10 months and sent them all over the interwebs to a place called Walgreens Photo Shop - they printed them all up (144 pictures!) and they were ready for her to pick up this afternoon.

She says technology is marvelous - what ever that means.

These are some of the pictures that were hiding inside his camera.  The broccoli is all gone now, but there is some in the freezer, and the corn that the raccoons don't get will be ready in a couple of days.  It is so good that Mummy says she doesn't even need to put butter on it - and Mummy is the butter queen, so she ought to know! 
 





 This was another thing that happened earlier this summer - on the 4th of July, I remember, because both Mummy and The Shepherd were home.  They heard a big crash, and thought that the neighbor guy was doing something with machinery.

Turns out, it was someone who missed our corner (see those black tire stripes where he hit the brakes?)

 Well, he didn't hit them fast enough and crashed right into our fence and then he backed out and drove away!

The Shepherd was really mad.  Look what it did to the fence! 


 





These last three pictures are from a place where The Shepherd goes to do his yard keeping work.  Isn't it pretty there?  Looks like a wonderful place for kitty to sleep, under all those ferns -

 And look at this - dinner on the fin -

A guy could really enjoy living here. 

Mummy says she gets all these great blogging ideas while she is driving around doing errands, and thinks that she will remember them when she gets home - nope, they fly out of her brain the minute she hits the driveway.

We're going to make her start carrying a little note book to write her great ideas in. 

We hope you all have a great week -

XOX  George

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Wordless Wednesday