Yard Work and Such

After I wrote my post last night, I decided I was going to get some yard work accomplished today. Well unless it was raining, which it wasn't at all. It looked like this.

 

A blue and white puffy cloud day. With this nice fresh air and it felt wonderful to be outside.

I told you that this was going to be a project. Here is it now. A little before and after.

 

Sasha likes nice clean places. Isn't it nice? Now, ask me if Ron and I can move? Or stand up
or walk. We sound like old creaky gates. I hula hoed down the driveway. He decided to take the weed
eater and strap it to himself and then he raked piles while I was cleaning down the driveway and when I got
that done I came and raked and picked up piles. Elliot mowed the lawn and Ron got out the tractor and did a little tractoring and I have my first square. I have to break every thing down in squares and that way I can work and get every thing done in that square. Don't ask me why this works for my brain, but it works and I tell Ron I could conquer the world if I could do it in squares.

Then of course, it started raining. It didn't last long and we are back to a puffy cloud day.

While I was dragging a trash can through the front yard to get to the side yard, I passed my very weedy
flowerbeds. Look what I spotted.

Isn't it gorgeous? I think it is a Freesia. Just growing there pretty as a picture.

I do like surprises in my flowerbeds. I had no idea when I planted these, I don't remember them from last year but I must have planted them for Emilie's wedding.

I do wish I could work like that eight hours a day. A gardener broke down in front of the house when I was taking the trash can out to the road, you have no idea how I wanted to ask him since he was already broke down would he just like to grab his weed eater and go to work? I didn't. I just hobbled back down the driveway to put up tools.

Now I have to stand up and start making sounds like I am cooking dinner. But the way I look at it, spring training started today. Now onto March!!!

~Kim~

 

" Who bends a knee where violets grow
A hundred secret things shall know.
---A Charm for Spring Flowers," Poems Rachel Field, 1957

A Weekend Post

 

Today I drove down this road that is next to the almond orchards. I thought they would be in fuller bloom, but it did cool off this week. It still smelled heavenly.

I took out the road, but it makes it too small.

I used to live over here and we always had a good garden and fruit trees because there would be so many bees in the orchards. Out here, where we live now,  we just don't have the bees, just the little wild orchard bees.

I got my store all filled up this week on Etsy. I added new rugs. 

Pattern by Bird in Hand Primitives

Mother Earth by Maggie Bonanomi

I know it is early for pumpkins, but I needed stock in my store. So I just added it

.

It is a Kessie Pattern

Sharon Smith Mrs. Rabbit

I feel like since this is a cold weekend I will sit with this giant of a rug on my lap and bind it.
I have my current rug, and I am still deciding if I like it or not.

Another Kessie Pattern.

I took some photos today. I will show you a couple of pretty ones, and then my nightmare picture.

A Lupin, There used to be so many out here. I was so happy to see this one.

My secret nightmare. The whole darn place has weeds like this. Millions of them. I panic now when I go outside and I am sick at my stomach because do you know how many hours I will be working to get it looking like this:

 

Now you know the secret behind my fear of spring. Aw well I have done it so many times before, I can do it again. It just seems like such a long , long way down that fence row. It is just as bad the other way.

 

I just had to show you this table with this rug on it. I really, really love my table.

I hope you have a wonderful weekend.
~Kim~

February 10, 2015

My thoughts on marriage.

"Being married is a gift. It is ordained by Jesus, it is the picture of Jesus, the bridegroom, and
the church is the bride."
"Marriage is a total surrender of self. This means sacrifice. There is nothing about a marriage that self sacrifice won't heal. Give up your right to yourself. Take up your cross daily. Follow Me, ( Jesus)
Daily choosing to be loving, leaving, cleaving and being one flesh...Daily.
---I was being a hard hearted wench and needed to get my brain back in the game. ---

Thinking On Thursday

 

I have no idea where this week has gone. It is more like Whew!!! Is it Thursday already? Has your week been like that? I think we must have won the skunk battle. No new digging for over a week now. Unless of course, the skunk was/is a momma skunk and she has had babies, and just hasn't ventured to the outside world. I still go out and put the chickens to bed every night. I am the worst coward, because I forget about locking them in, five days out of seven. I forget to go out when there is light in the sky, and have to take a flash light with me. I have this vision of me walking up on a skunk and it getting me. Then having to stay outside in the cold, buck naked while Ron spays me down with skunk deodorizer and then drip drying and then getting washed in the hose.

There is no way I would come in the house and have that smell everywhere. So far though, I haven't seen one face to face.

 

I have been hooking and binding rugs all this week. I can tell it has been a lot as my hands woke me up this morning aching. Or it could be the change in weather. We have some more storms coming to us. We are almost at our yearly total for rain. Hold on to your seats. Here in the town I live in, we have had 4.11 inches of rain. A normal year, is 4.19 we are right now 98% of normal. I was very excited to see that. With the next couple of storms we might be ahead of the game. I thought you would be excited to see how little rain we do get compared to other places. It is after all a desert. albeit, a blooming one.

 

I was driving this week, the almond orchards are almost in full bloom. It is so pretty to see when they are blooming and the petals are drifting down like snowflakes and the ground is white with the blossoms.  I need to go back and take pictures of them. In the movie McFarland, they did a very nice job I think of portraying the central valley and how it looks when you drive the 99 Freeway.

 

 It is almost time to change the calendars. We will get winter next week after all of the warmth we have had for February. I am glad to get a bit of rain and snow in the mountains. I hope you have a lovely Thursday.

~Kim~

 

" Change is a fine thing; growth is necessary in our ideas, our institutions and our way of life. And
yet I think we should be very careful not to become a regimented people, and not to discard the value
of individuality."
---The Book of Stillmeadow, March, p. 112
Gladys Taber

Rainy Days and Mondays

Happy Monday!

We had lots of nice rain last night. I could only think of the song Rainy Day and Mondays and that poem called Rain in the night. I thought it was a good day to revisit it. I hope you have a wonderful Monday.

Rain in the Night,
Raining, raining
All night long,
Sometimes loud, sometimes soft,
Just like a song.

 

There'll be rivers in the gutters
And lakes along the street.
It will make our lazy kitty
Wash his little dirty feet.

 

The roses will wear diamonds
Like kings and queens at court;
But the pansies all get muddy
Because they are so short.

 

I'll sail my boat to-morrow
In wonderful new places,
But first I'll take my watering-pot
And wash the pansies' faces.
---Amelia Burr---

 " How precious is Your lovingkindness, O God!
Therefore the children of men put their trust
under the shadow of  Your wings."
(Psalm 36:7)

Still Winter

It happened, I let myself be lulled into that idea that spring was going to stay. Though, I admit to it being not like any of you with the Matterhorn right outside your back door. Pansy flowers are such happy flowers and not a pansy in any stretch of imagination. We have that area of high pressure firmly in place in the pacific.
So we have was is called " An Inside Slider." The weatherman says it doesn't happen very often, but it does.

Part of the snow storm from the east has broken off and is coming our way. It will be our first cold storm with snow of the season. Our storms have been mostly tropical in nature this winter. So a real storm with snow is good. It is nice to be in the house anyway, if I make my mind ignore the weeds. So how is that for talking about the weather. I like weather.

I rearranged and made my table more presentable than the picture the other day. I think it looks nice.

I like how it looks, even without being redone. I really do like that top. I like that silky feel to it because it has been used so much in the past.

Here is what I hope it looks like when I get finished with it. 

 

I just love this look, but I do like the old farm table look.  I think it would be really nice to have a flat surface to draw rugs out on. My poor dining room table has sharpie lines on it and you know I don't want to ruin my dining room table.

Speaking of rugs, Here is what I am working on when I am not on the computer or talking on the phone. Or watching funny videos on Face Book.

 

This is the rug that has a stack of farm animals on it. I started with the cow. I can't wait to do the sheep. I love that sheep. The other ones are cute too. I find hooking my own designs to be my favorite. Just because they are mine I guess.

This week in Karen Kahle's blog she sends out she was showing some wonderful rugs she is going to be listing soon in her Etsy store. She used colors from her little Vintage Colors Dye Book. She has a package of all of the colors she used in the book. I was so glad as I was going to be buying them so I felt pretty happy she has them all together to buy in a pack. I can't wait to start dyeing wool again.

We are coming into our last week of February next week. My daughter will be here in two short weeks. I am so excited for March to get here. All of my kids and grands will be under one roof. I am blessed indeed.

I hope you have a lovely Saturday,
~Kim~

 

" Trust the Oak and the Elm and the great Beech. Take care of the Birch, for though she is honest she is too young not to be changeable. But shun the Ash and the Alder; for the Ash is an Ogre---You will know him by his thick fingers; and the Alder will smother you with her web of hair if you let her near you at night."

"Phantastes  1858---George MacDonald "

Old Tables and New Rugs

 

Are your weeks flying by like mine? It seems like every day there is just so much to do. I do wish we never had to eat or sleep. Think of the work I could get done. This weekend when my daughter, Emilie came over she told me how she was looking for new end tables for her house. One of the places that I watch all of the time here in town is a place called Farm Girls Vintage Finds.
 I showed Emilie a table I liked, and I never meant for her to buy it for me but she did. "She sweetly said it was an early birthday present. The only problem was could she borrow my car? " It is way out south of town and I would have never found it on my own so I was glad we went together. Imagine if you will, my pasture out back, filled with old farm junk. Paradise if you ask me.

I admit, a little rough, but aren't all dreams?

Nice legs.

Nice top, though a little warped. 

 

 

It has a drawer that needs a handle and a little work.

I also bought that those glass door knobs out there. I have a couple of projects on my brain and I need those for handles.

I want to paint it a cream chalk paint color, put a zinc top on it and a pull to match my hutch. I wanted to use it  draw rug patterns on and I can see that drawer just filled with Sharpies. It is very solid. I think in its real life it was a pastry table. Someone used it and loved it and I will bring it back to life once again. I think it is just beautiful.

I put my latest rug on it to see how big  and nice the top is to work on.

There is lots of room.

This is the rug I managed to steam yesterday and I hope to get it bound and finished today.

Pattern by Bird in Hand Primitives

I have a thing right now going on about whales, and weather vanes.

 

Since I have learned that I can keep calm if I bring a project with me, I made this up out of some leftover wool pennies I had and sat in the dentist office yesterday and worked on this. It is amazing how much I can get done if I just sit. I really need to assemble more little projects like this and keep them in the car.

Now I need to go play house and rearrange furniture today. My favorite thing to do in the whole world.
One of the funny things I saw yesterday at the Farm Girls place was stacks of old metal buckets. I told Emilie that when we raised " bucket calves." When I was a kid, we used those kind of buckets, you know Julia and Alica, the kind that would hook to the fence, they never worked here because the calf would always hunch (my Mama sayings)  is that the word? Milk replacer would go flying everywhere so it was just easier to hold it.
Anyway, as I looked at them,  I thought they would look nice filled with flowers hanging on the porch. :) So many as Anne of Green Gables would say, " Scope for imagination."

Have a wonderful day,
~Kim~

---The Book of Stillmeadow--- February

"One morning you poke your nose out and you know all of a sudden that there will be
another spring. You smell it in the air; and no matter how deep the snow is, you think nothing of it.
You dash out without your arctics and Mackinaw and catch a raging cold,
but no matter---spring is coming! TallyHo!
Gladys Taber

29 days until the first day of spring.

Walking Around On a Beachy Day.

 

Today is a perfect beach kind of day. It is overcast and gray and foggy. All I need is the sound of the surf  and it would feel just like a day at the beach. There were even some sea gulls flying over.

Today I had my camera with me and my friend the hummingbird let me take its picture. The day is so gray though, there are no colors.

 

Normally, when I lift my camera, he flies away. When I lifted it today it just sat there singing its little funny song. I kept walking closer and closer until it did its little dance to tell me I was close enough so I stopped.

It had stopped singing.

 

It was warning me to stop, and don't come any closer.  I stopped and backed up slowly and it went back to singing. It is a very observant bird. It flies down to watch every single thing we do, it likes to be just above our heads when we are working. It has been chasing off migrating hummers. As far as I can tell I can't see that it has a mate. Birds really are very good at conveying moods, and watching them I can find when something is just not right. Today marks a year ago that I had my first eye surgery. I feel so thankful to live in this time.

Blooming Lemon Tree

Hydrangeas starting to leaf out.

Cherry Tree starting to bloom

It is a lovely morning to be walking around. I hope your day is wonderful and full of laughter. I better get this day going because today I do have miles to go before I sleep.
Happy Wednesday!
~Kim~

"Time is a created thing and a gift. We can't make any more of it;we can only receive it and be faithful stewards in the use of it."
---From Discipline; The Glad Surrender, Elisabeth Elliot.

" See then that you walk circumspectly,
not as fools but as wise, redeeming the time."
( Ephesians 5:15,16)