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! 

Artisans Faire

 Last Saturday I did an Artisans Faire with my yarn and some crocheted items.  I also invited a couple of friends to bring some of their knitted and woven items because I didn't feel like I had enough to fill my table.  - my yarn and other items are on the card table on the right - the other three ladies had the table on the left, with stacking cubes. 

 
If you click on the pictures they will biggify a little and you can see all the different yarn I had to sell.

I sold 5 skeins out of 20 - well, make that 4 skeins out of 20 and the one that was on my spinning wheel...

The other artisans were pretty happy with their sales though

This lady had lotions, lip balms and scrubs. 

There were several very fine jewelery booths.

My friend Linda put together this pretty basket for a door prize from all of the artisans.

Our friend Jim was there as a featured musician with his Nyckelharpe - it is a traditional Norwegian instrument. I also had my guitar and played for about 1/2 hour.  I can't believe that I used to sing and play for three hours with only two 15 minute breaks.  That would kill me now!!!

One of the vendors was called "The Bag Lady" - Turns out she went to high school with some friends of mine -  2 degrees of separation....

At this point, I'm not sure if I will participate in the faire next year - it is a LOT of work, setting up and taking down, being there all day, etc.  - I made enough to buy some Christmas presents for my sisters, pay for Chinese take-out so I wouldn't have to make dinner -Got lots of nice compliments on my yarn, but, that doesn't pay for the fiber to spin...

I'm Embarassed...

I'm very embarassed -

The Shepherd came in to the bedroom this morning - all he did was take his jacket off, but I was sleeping and it scare't me -

Mummy said I jumped off the big bed and ran out of the room like my butt was on fire!

She thinks I though he was that ebil orang kitty that chases me sometimes when I'm outside.

I let The Shepherd pick me up and put me back on the bed, but I tried to get him with my slashers.  It was not a good day.  

No Cauliflower this year

 The Shepherd's cauliflower plants grew large and lush this year

 There was only one problem -

they were all empty.

The people he sold plants to had crop failures too, so he knew it wasn't just him.  Guess we won't be buying that seed again.







The pumpkins, however, were making a break for it.  Reaching for the sky - "up the beanstock" - or the bamboo, as the case may be.

Unfortunately, it got too heavy and came crashing down last weekend.

Artisan Faire is tomorrow - the bags and boxes are all ready to be packed into the car.  Whew. 

Ahoy Mateys-

Avast me Brigands and Shiver Me Timbers!!

IT'S MEOW LIKE A PIRATE DAY!!!

But, I'm not any kind of hand with Photo Shop, so you;ll have to close your eyes and imagine George in a little tri-corner pirate's hat, maybe with a little skull and crossbones on it.  And maybe a little parrot sitting on his shoulder - Yeah, that's it, an orange and green parrot - who speaks in Portugese...

George is looking out over Bellingham Bay to see if there are any ships that might be hauling 'nip or Party Mix that he could Pirate upon.  Mostly the Party Mix - he's not much into the 'nip...

Har, har har --- Hope you have a great one! 

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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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It's "MO CATS DAY"!

Someone on the innernets had the nerve to say:

“09-09-09 should be “no Cats Day!”

What we think about that is NO WAY, NO WAY!

Now it’s offichul, it’s all “ayes” an’ not a “nay”

Every 09-09 will be MO-CATS DAY! 

 


 Sorry we haven't been around much - it seems like all of Mummy's spare time is spent sitting behind her string making machine or making loops with the string with little metal hooks.  What's with that?

(I'm getting ready for the 2012 Squalicum Valley Artisans Faire and have to have something to sell!)

Meanwhile us poor kitties languish without anyone with opposable thumbs to do our typing and beck and call.  


( Like they don't have anything to do....)


 "Who's that over there?"

"It's me, you dweeb"

(Bella, don't talk to your sister like that!)

And the summer is moving along - the weather has been wonderful - not to very hot - but the smell of fall is in the air.  

Some friends came and helped The Shepherd put a new plastic cover on the greenhouse last weekend - The expected life time of one of those plastic covers is about 5 years, this one had been up for 12 and was full of little tiny holes from kitty claws.....

There are still spots of color in The Shepherd's garden though. 











And warm sand to lie in -

"Yes, as a matter of fact, I do own the road"

Everyone have a great week and Happy Mo Cats Day! 

A sunny Sunday

Sorta ruined by the barky dogs that live next door -

This video doesn't do them justice - sometimes I try to think of them as singing - maybe like the dogs who bark to the Star Wars song, or something like that.  Today, they barked ALL DAY LONG, sorta ruining our Sunny Sunday...

In the jungle, the mighty jungle

 

The lion waits tonight....

For the bounty of this earth -

From The Shepherd's garden


We'll have Broccoli, chicken & penne pasta for dinner - and I just found a recipe for Zuccini Bites while I was surfing the web (ie. wasting time) this afternoon.  I think I'll try them too.  

He grew the little orange cherry tomatoes just for me!  And they are yummy! 

What the heck? And Random thoughts....

It may look like an empty box to you, but it was a whole afternoon of sorting, filing and shredding. 

It may look like an empty box to you, but to me it's a sense of accomplishment.

It may look like an empty box to you, but to me it looks just like the other six boxes (that are still full of stuff that needs sorted, shredded or filed)  Oh, well.

One of the things I found in the box was a little grocery list - it read:

Velveeta,
Champagne,
1/2 & 1/2,
3 salad kits and
turkey. 

What do you suppose I was going to make with those ingredients? ? ? ? ?

 

My dad used to sing this old song to us when we were kids:  

On Monday was bread and gravy,
on Tuesday was gravy and bread.
On Wed. and Thur. was gravy and toast,
which is nothing but gravy and bread.
So on Friday I went to the landlord
and asked for a bit of a change
so on Saturday morning by way of a change
we had gravy w/o any bread.

That's kind of how I feel about green beans right now.  Don't get me wrong, I really love green beans, but I've had them for every dinner and several lunches for about two weeks - I'm ready for gravy without any bread. 

Have a great day! 

The Caturday Report!

 Hello Effurykitty & Effurybody!

It's the Caturday Report - a day late as usual - I keep telling Mummy that beans and kitties expect the Caturday Report to come out on Caturday - but she said she was busy and this was a good as you were going to get.

The big news this week was THE FAIR! 

 Mummy and The Shepherd entered some things in the NW Washington Fair, which happened last week in Lynden WA.  It was a beautiful week for the fair, in that it didn't rain, but boy was it hot.  Mummy & The Shepherd went out on Wednesday so she could do her "civic duty" and spin in public in the wool barn. It was so hot, that Mummy said she was almost as roasted as the yummy BBQ Roasted beef sandwich with baked beans that she had for dinner. 

She had also entered a couple of things in the Wool Show.  All items in the Wool Show must be made from handspun yarn and then hand crafted.

She took out the fingerless gloves that she made for her nephew Jason. 




 Here is the note that she put with the gloves: 

Class B – Items made from Handspun yarn

Lot 22 – Men’s gloves – (fingerless) 

I spun this yarn from a bump of plain red merino roving, but I knew I was going to use it to crochet these fingerless gloves for my nephew,  He is football coach for a small High school in Eastern WA, and their team colors are red and black.  While I was spinning the yarn, I added bits of black and white roving here and there to give the yarn a little bit of added zip!  I made the cuffs extra long to fit under his jacket.  Go Broncos!  





 
  
The other thing that she took out was a scarf that she just made.  She said that she hated the color of the yarn, but really liked how it worked out for the scarf because of the striping.  The scarf is right below the green and black sweaters.  The pattern is called "Mosaic's Scarf's Little Sister"  It was really fun to make. 

She got BLUE ribbons on both items. 






Here is a closer picture of the scarf that she took today after The Shepherd brought it home from the fair.  She got points taken off because, as you can see, the corner of the scarf curls up.  That's because she didn't block it.  That's because she didn't decide until 10:00 the night before things needed to be out at the fairground that she was even going to take anything out.  Pure dumb luck to get the blue ribbon, - well, actually, the yarn was well spun, and the crocheting on the scarf was very well done.  She thought she would get a red ribbon on the fingerless gloves because the seam was not straight, which the judge did comment on.  But again, she knew her yarn was well constructed  and the crocheting was very even.  

Here is the story that she put with the scarf:

Class B Items made from handspun yarn

Lot 21 – scarf

The fiber that this yarn is from was part of a “roving of the month” Christmas present from my sisters.  I love the soft cushy feel of Corriedale fiber and thought the yarn it made would be perfect to use for this little mosaic scarf for my co-workers to wear around the office this next winter (it gets REALLY cold in our office – last year I made them all fingerless gloves)   It is just the right length so it will not get caught in the shredder and it has so many colors that it will go with almost any outfit they might be wearing and keep them warm and toasty to boot.   The Judges liked her stories too. 

This is Rita's fleece - it got a blue ribbon too. 

 

As you can see, it has very nice crimp in the fleece.  Sorry, this fleece was sold last spring at the Wonderful Woollies sale - but if you are interested, I'm sure that The Shepherd would take your name for next year. 

The Shepherd took out two fleeces, but the Wool Barn lady would only let him enter on under his name, so he entered the other one under Mummy's name.  She got a Blue Ribbon too! 

They were beat out for best of show by a Romney ram's fleece owned by Mummy's friend Janet.  Oh, well, we beat her out last year. 

This is Eva's fleece - Mummy said it is so different from Rita's - soft and buttery, and hardly any crimp.  This one was sold last spring too - the ladies who bought them were nice enough to let The Shepherd take them to Black Sheep and to our Fair. 

Well, that's all I have to tell you for now.  Effuryone have a GREAT WEEK!!! 


XOX  Your Roving Reporter, Gracie

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More Olympic yarn -

 Here is some more yarn I spun while we were watching the Olympics -

It is a romney blend that I got from the Dawn's Custom Carding booth, from The Pines Farm.

I don't know where the yellow in this picture comes from, because you certainly can't see it in the yarn itself. 

It is about 12-13 WPI (wraps per inch) which converts to sport weight.  I think it would work well for a hat, that would be felted.  The yarn seems kind of scratchy to me - but so did the fiber - I should know better by now, don't you think? 

Stay tuned for exciting news about the fair!






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