Lamb (and mama) update

He had the vet come out this afternoon - Moni is still retaining the placenta - ugh - so she got shots of banamine, (she was really grinding her teeth) an antibiotic and a hormone to help with the placenta thing. But she's being a more attentive mom. The lambs seem to be going strong - The Shepherd has been feeding them a little, but when we went out tonight to give Moni one of her shots the little black one (Bode) was enthusiastically having a little dinner. The little white one, who is now called Wicket was slumbering in the corner and was not really interested in any milk from a bottle, but his tummy seemed full and he seemed happy. Good sign.

We interrupt our regularly scheduled programming...

For BABIES -

There are two of them here - a black ram lam with a little bit of white (kroonit marking) on the head - we're calling him Bode - He weights about 5.5 lbs.

The little black & white one only weighs 2.5 lbs. We're calling him Ewok (little, fuzzy & cute)





The Shepherd is nervous about this mom - Moni is the one who lost her lambs last year and then we almost lost her in the process - right now, she is not doing a very good "mom" job - he can't tell if she has let them nurse yet - I made a flying trip to the feed store to get some colostrum replacer - which they did take - so there will be trips out to the barn every couple of hours tonight for The Shepherd. When we sheared yesterday, they were only able to crutch her (removing the wool only from the crotch and around the udder) - she wasn't having any part of shearing!

Come on Moni - get to work!

Places to go....

While many from our area have been going up to Vancouver BC to take in the 2010 Olympics, there are many fun places to go right here at home.

While you are on your way, you can stop at one of the 7 local Cruisin Coffee locations - they make the BEST Cool Coffee Creams - kind of like a mocha milkshake, but icy - and not as sweet as the ones from Micky D's Golden Arches - They also make a yummy breakfast croissant w/bacon, cheese & egg and a pretty fair deli style lunch sandwich or soups - yum - can you tell I kind of "frequent" these conveniently located spots?

What's even more fun, is they have a couple of stores in Yakima (east of the mountains) where my sister lives - so every once in a while we give each other "Coffee cards" - nothing better than picking up a cup of tea or a Cool Coffee Cream for "free" -


After the downtown Safeway went out of business this building sat empty for many years. Then half of it was a "game time" place for kids - that didn't last either - but some enterprising fellows turned it into a Public Market - there's a wonderful organic foods store called Terra Organica, a coffee shop, a deli, a couple of gift shops and -------






Chocolate Necessities (undoubtedly one of the best chocolate stores in the world...) and they have a big case of Gelato - all different flavors - this was citrus - a mix of orange, lemon and grapefruit - WOW is it good.








Does the old phrase "Like a kid in a candy store" come to mind. I picked out 9 little two truffle boxes for my friends and sisters for Valentine's day - Ok, so I picked out 10 boxes and ate the extra two truffles - and they were reallllllyyyy good!!! (weren't they ladies?)






When you get done downtown, there is no place prettier on a sunny day than down at the harbor. The Port of Bellingham does a pretty darn good job of taking care of their properties










And if you click on this last picture to biggify it you can see Mt. Baker right in the center of the photograph.

Next time, I'll tell you about "Things To Do"







Tonight's Olympic Update is a big WAY TO GO to both the Canadian (gold) and USA (silver) Women's Hockey teams.

I think all of the athletes are getting a little tired though - some of them are getting just a little bit "whiney" don't ya think?

It's really in there...

I got my "author's copy" of the new Six Word Memoir book "It All Changed In An Instant" and mine is really in there!













So mine isn't in huge big print and got it's own page, but there it is on page 108 - center stage!

And some people wait years to get published!

The Colors of February -

Normally February in our neck of the woods will have at least a week of this -

But not so this year -










We've had a LOT of this -

















And the primroses were only a dollar a pot at the grocery store - I didn't have to beg too hard for The Shepherd to put together this pretty pot for the back porch.







Snowdrops remind me of growing up in Eastern Washington - they were the first little flowers to bravely poke their little heads out - up on the scab patches (the rocky non-farmable areas) there were yellow bells that looked just like snow drops - but they were... yellow...





The peonies are starting to grow













As is the columbine - and everywhere in town the cherry trees are beginning to blossom -
Suddenly it is looking like spring around here -










And of course there is nothing like a big red amaryllis to shout out the colors of February - This one was a gift from my spinning buddy Ellin - it had 8 big beautiful blooms.

So that's about it - mostly brown with little tufts of green showing through - everything is so "on it's way" to spring - I hope we don't get any unexpected freezing weather - that would not be good...


For Colors of February from all over the world, visit Life Looms Large -


Olympics Update - Been watching the snowboarders? Wow, those kids must have rubber bones - the women were taking some hard falls last night - all this nice weather that we've been having has played havoc with the snow venues - Didn't stop our American women Lindsey Vonn and Julia Mancuso who took gold and silver in the Women's Downhill - they were flying down the slopes like they had wings.

Indoors tonight at the Pacific Coliseum was the Ice Dancing - what fun it is to watch!

Is there a Patron Saint for Lost Earrings?

This sweet little earring was my Valentine's present from The Shepherd - Actually the PAIR of earrings was my present -

We got them a couple of weeks ago when we went on a "Saturday Drive" - something that we haven't had a chance to do for a long time - both have been so busy on the weekends -

We stopped in LaConner at the Skagit (pronounce the "g" like you would in "George") county museum where they were having an exhibit of NW Native American Arts & Crafts - really some beautiful weaving and carvings - and I fell in love with this little pair of earrings. If you click on the picture to biggify it, you will see that the brown "thing" at the top of the earring is actually a rose made out of cedar bark ribbons. With the turquoise butterfly, I thought it was a nice combination of NW & SW Indian art - but they have kind of a funny bend on the wire and the times that I have worn them, I have caught the one almost coming out of my ear a couple of times - so I don't know why I didn't snag a couple of the "rubber grommets" that I have on some of my other earrings that do that, just didn't think about it I guess.

Well the other day when I got home, I realized that I only had one earring. Oh man, I was so mad and so disappointed - I had only worn them twice and already one was gone.

I imagined it somewhat like a lost animal - "Oh, here I am - don't you see me?" - We looked all along the driveway and I shook out my vest and coat - no luck. Darn. And I knew that if it was lost in the parking lot at work the guys would probably just walk right by it (that is if they didn't step on it first)...not real observant, those guys...

Well, the Patron Saint of Lost Earrings must have heard my prayers - when I got to work. I tried as much as I could to retrace my steps from the night before - no earring - but when I got to my office and looked around - THERE IT WAS, on the floor under my desk. How lucky was that???

Next time, I'll be more careful!

OLYMPIC UPDATE: One of my co-workers and his family spent the day in Vancouver yesterday at the Olympic village. They had a fabulous time - walked about 12 miles - visited all the "Hospitality Rooms", and just generally had a bang up time for "O" dollars. No time for watching Olympics tonight - it was choir practice then doing some computer work - but the Canadians got another GOLD - good for them!

His Valentine's Present.....

Well, I figured I'd better show you his new sweater before the natives got too restless.

You may remember last fall when I spun and spun to make all this yarn for our friend Denise to knit The Shepherd a new sweater vest. She brought it to our guild meeting on Saturday, so he was able to wear it to church on Valentine's Day!








One of the ladies from church is also a spinner and knitter - she gave it her full approval!


















Denise used a pattern that The Shepherd picked out from looking at MANY, MANY mens vest patterns that we found on the internet.

She also used the vest that he has worn for the past 20 years or so that his "ex" made for him. He asked me one time if it didn't bother me that he wore it - "heck no"- it is a beautiful vest made from a gorgeous brown Navajo Churro (I think) wool - (really it is a work of art with cables and everything) - but he has practically worn the poor thing out. So it was time for a new one.

Thank you Denise for your wonderful skill and care that you took - I think he's already planning which fleece he'd like made into the next vest.


Olympic Update: The Chinese won both the gold and silver in "Pairs figure skating" tonight - both couples were just fantastic - how the heck do they do that? - & Congrats to the Canadians for their GOLD medal won by Alexandre Bilodeau in the men's moguls - (he'll need that gold medal to pay for the knee reconstruction surgery they'll have to do when he's 30...)

Let the Games Begin

We are located about 45 miles south of Vancouver, British Columbia where they are currently holding the 2010 Olympic games. It is exciting to be this close and sort of "be in" on all the excitement. Last week they had a ceremony when the Olympic flame came through Blaine's Peace Arch Park (undoubtedly one of the most beautiful parks in the state) and we have several athletes and performers from Washington State who are included in the games, including speed skater Apolo Anton Ono.

Even the local "Stone & Landscape" Supply has joined in the Olympic fever and put up their own version of the Olympic Inukshuk mascot.

I've got to say that the Canadians have done a wonderful job of including their Aboriginal peoples in the celebration of these games - I hope you got to watch the opening ceremonies - they were beautiful -

We've been busy - places to go - things to do and people to see - and after 20 years of working for others, and then being on unemployment for the last two months, The Shepherd has decided to make a leap of faith and start his own gardening business. It is called JP's Serenity Gardens. I am excited for him!

In the past month, we've seen Taiko Drummers and The Smothers Brothers - taken a trip to Oak Harbor for Chinese food and worked on getting the new business going and yesterday I went to my spinner guild meeting. Wait til you see what I brought back for The Shepherd!

One thing that I have to do is restrict Anonymous comments on my blog - I have been hit by spammers and I don't like it. Normally I have about 20-30 visitors a day - last week on one day I had over 100 visitors. Now, I can't say that they were all spammers, but the increase of Anonymous comments is suspicious. I'm hoping not to have to make you do the word recognition thing - hopefully just stopping the Anonymous comments will do the trick. We'll see.

Meanwhile, there are some cute dudes in skating outfits I've got to go watch.

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...