Mid Week

 

Here is is already Wednesday. My poor neglected blog. I keep trying to think of something to write. There is just so much to do right now, I find it hard to sit or be in the house. I know it is April and that smelling toasty is what we smell in June, but it is a very nice smell. I thought you would like to know that my new hula-hoe works like a dream. I worked on a 1/2 acre this morning. I really wanted to do a whole acre, but the muscles aren't up to it yet. Working in flowerbeds is so much harder.

 

There was a blimp out flying around this morning. It was too far away to get a good picture. I hope it comes back this way and I can get a good shot. I was watching a blue Heron and a egret flying over last night. I really love to see how they fly with their legs straight out with perfect flying posture. I think the neighbor I have that lives behind us must have got some new Koi for his pond. Lots of those kinds of birds have been making a beeline for his yard. They always know. Even when I lived in town, our next door neighbors put in a really nice Koi pond and I would be out in my back yard and a heron would just come flying over the fence after having his breakfast. 

 

I hope you have a lovely day today.  I always like Wednesdays. I always feel odd about it too. Since technically, it really is Woden's Day. 
I always find it interesting to find out things like that. I ran across a very cool phase and I have been trying to work it into conversation, but haven't been able to, but here it is, " ‘dree my own weird’ Isn't that just great?
Dree means to endure, and weird means destiny or fate so it means, submit to your destiny. If I had a Scottish accent I would say, " ‘dree ma ain weird’ That is why I love old books, you find such treasure like that.

Have a great middle of the week.
~Kim~

"Time and trouble will tame an advanced young woman, but an advanced old woman is uncontrollable by any earthly force."

"Paradoxical as it may seem, to believe in youth is to look backward; to look forward we must believe in age."
---Dorothy L. Sayers
( My birthday reminders to myself as my next one rapidly approaches.)

Friday Finishes...Not!

I keep thinking if I have a dead line for myself, it will make me finish more things for a post on Friday.
There is this thing called life that just seems to get in the way of my sewing. One of the things that I read a long time ago and the older I get I think it is very true.

Finding Holiness in the Ordinary:

"Henri Nouwen, in his book Out of Solitude, tells of an old Notre Dame Professor who had always complained that his work was constantly being interrupted. Like so many of us, he longed for the freedom to concentrate fully on what he considered important. Late in his life, however, the professor came to realize what he wished he had known all along that the interruptions were his work."

" The interruptions are the work. The pieces are the whole. We cannot wait for a total, personal revelation of all that God has for us to be handed down in one lump sum. God reveals Himself to us bit by spiritual bit. Even our broadest visions and our highest goals, once we know them, must be broken down and lived out in the small particulars of our every day lives if they are to have meaning."
Claire Cloninger
When God Shines Through

So every time I realize I am running around like a chicken with my head cut off, and not getting a single thing I planned done, I jerk myself back to reality and say this whole page to myself.

I planned to show you all of the things I didn't get finished, but my computer did updates this week, so it won't read my card. So you just have to take my word for it. Lots of things started just not finished. I drew out three rugs, freehand. It was so much fun.

I hope you have a lovely Friday and a even more wonderful weekend.
Thank you so much for stopping by today.

~Kim~

 

" If I hadn't started painting, I would have raised chickens."
---Grandma Moses

" Don't be afraid of death; be afraid of an unlived life."
---Tuck Everlasting, Natalie Babbitt-1975

 

Thinking Today...About Health

I will give you my disclaimer right here. I am not being paid nor do I work for the company that sells the product I am going to tell you about. But first a little history.

I have mentioned many times I grew up on a farm, first with my grandparents and then my Dad had a ranch called JBJ Cattle Ranch and we raised registered livestock. Sheep, cattle and hogs. We spent our time at fairs selling and showing animals. They were our livelihood as well as an investment. One of the things I found interesting was you could cure pretty much any illness they might have by giving them minerals and vitamins.

 

In the early nineties, my Dad was experiencing health issues. High blood pressure, diabetes, high cholesterol.
I was at the time, learning about herbs and heath and learning how treat my young family and live a healthier lifestyle. I first heard a man on the radio who had a bunch of tapes at the time called," Dead Doctors Don't Lie." He made all of these health claims that lack of minerals would cause a myriad of health issues. Why taking cholesterol and high blood pressure medicine was bad for you and just a mineral deficiency. I talked till I was blue in the face to my Dad, but he did like everyone else does, he listened to his doctors. Right before his death, he called on the phone and told me  he had spent the day with a room full of lawyers taking his deposition. The Statins he was taking at the time, caused his liver, his pancreas and his kidneys to die. 
He said, " My only hope is that maybe the truth will come out and other people won't have to die."  My Dad was 67 years old.

  I moved on with life and have tried to keep up on what is going on in health and have tried to stay as much as I can away from doctors. I was starting to see things though start to break down and aches and pains that I put down to aging. Then I got sick and seemed all of my things that would make me better were not working. One day, too sick to read or sew, I turned on the radio, something I don't do. There on the radio was that guy again. Talking about minerals. He was at one time the top vet in the United States for the zoos. He has done more autopsies on animals and has so many peer review papers. What he found that mineral deficiencies cause the illnesses we have come to just accept. I told Ron who is my Skeptic meter. He said, " Okay lets get the book." Then he said, " Okay lets get the product." So for five weeks we have been taking the minerals.
I had had a headache on the night the minerals came,  it had lasted for a week. Within 20 minutes of the first dose, my headache was gone. My carpel tunnel is gone and my hands are no longer blue. Now my cough didn't go away as fast. My lungs after taking the minerals would feel like heat was inside of them and then my cough just disappeared.

 

My daughter who is having morning sickness wrote about her experience here. The stuff is expensive. We have just been buying it off of Amazon. The reviews are worth reading. My son Elliot, was sitting one day and remarked, " I know what I like about taking this, after I take it I just feel happy." That is all I can say too, just a feeling of well being like your body says, " Oh thank you for taking care of me. " My cravings are gone and without dieting or anything Ron and I have both dropped 8 pounds. I did for one day decide to not take it and see what happened because I knew I was going to be writing about it and I still am at the stage, of can this really be? My hands ached from hooking and Ron noticed my hands were blue again.

 

I have thought and thought about this, I didn't want this to be a infomercial. I have always wondered why when you raise animals you feed them every thing you can do to keep them healthy. For us though, when you go to the doctor you are just treating symptoms. Dr. Joel Wallach in his book said that if you go to the doctor with a symptom and he tells you that you have a mineral deficiency go take this supplement, it might cost you 70 dollars but if he tells you that you have Type ll Diabetes, you will end up spending 700,000 dollars in your lifetime.

 

  I don't mean this to sound like I am bashing doctors, I am not. I am thankful we have medical care and antibiotics and things like that.  I just think you will stay healthier in the long run if you take control of your health and give it the best nutrients you can to operate at optimum health. 

Okay getting off my soap box now. I have been thinking and thinking about this and about whether to write about it or not. I do think that if my Dad had taken this and not the doctors advice, he would still be alive today. I do not want to die the same way. When a simple mineral can fix what ails me. 

This could all just be a bunch of piffle and it is just my imagination, but feeling better is really nice.

Thanks for reading, I know it is rather wordy.
~Kim~

" Our bodies need no less than 90 essential nutrients, and there are as many as 10 deficiency diseases that can result for each nutrient that is missing for any length of time. This is a total of up to 900 diseases that can be PREVENTED with proper nutrition." - Dr. Joel Wallach, BS, DVM, ND, Founder of Youngevity

Garden and Guinea Rug

I do hope you had a really nice weekend. I hope spring is where you are and this will be a nice week.
I think when spring fever hits, it does make one a bit crazy. It is so hard to be in the house. There is so much to do and so much to see.

I thought I would show you a picture of The Field of Dreams 2015.

 

Yep, here is is, the place my old chicken coop was located. The Farmers Almanac said that Saturday and Sunday was the best day for planting peppers and tomatoes so we did just that. Ron had to haul 27 loads of soil back in to bring it up to even with the yard. But before he did that he used the disk to break up the hard pan. When I was reading East of Eden, John Steinbeck mentioned that underneath this layer of top soil it his layer of hard pan. He said, which I think the time period was about late 1800-1900s that the farmers would take dynamite and set the charges to break up the hard pan. We have that layer too and it is like cement. Ron was able though to get the disk to break it up and then bring in the top soil that is nice and sandy. You can now make shovel go all the way to the top of the handle above the shovel part, it is so nice.  I am going to plant sunflowers at the back so they will be against the fence. It is a little square so I can think of all kinds of possibilities.

 

These are the poor step children plants. I of course bought too many tomatoes, and I needed just one eggplant. Ron had some hoses he wasn't using so we planted these guys out by themselves in the pasture.
We will see which group does better, the ones out in the blistering heat or the ones that will be protected.
It gets so hot out there, I need to get a thermometer, and keep track of the difference in the heat.

I managed to finally finish up my guinea  rug. I think it will be called My Three Guineas. Now to bind it.

I like this rug. I might keep it. who knows though. It sure makes me wish I had a whole flock of guineas.

I got my jury summons in the mail. About the only good thing is it didn't come on my birthday. You know I try to never, ever break the law. I have sat and thought of ways I could be a felon if I could get out of this. I thought maybe if I blew up my mail box. Then I thought, why do I freak out so bad. I don't think I would mind if so bad if I could be on a trial say for a property dispute, or I wouldn't even mind a meth lab, but every single time I have gone, it is for the most heinous murders, child molestations, and horrible stuff like that. I am sick for months, heck years in some cases, and I have nightmares so bad for the next few months afterwards. I will go though and be a good citizen. Thank goodness I have two more weeks of freedom. I always enjoy being there once I get there, I see people I haven''t seen in years, I meet nice people. It is just the court room things. I don't like the part when they put me in the jury box, and question me about my life going back to the day I was born. Depending on the case. That is when I always feel like the accused has more rights than I do, at least they have a lawyer who will object when something is asked that shouldn't be.

Aw well, I am gong to enjoy these next two weeks and pray like crazy I don't get picked for a trial. In our local paper, there have been some really bad things going on and I am a little nervous about trials coming up.
I keep telling myself it is a privilege. I just wish it felt that way.

Have a great week!
~Kim~

“The life of faith is lived one day at a time, and it has to be lived - not always looked forward to as though the "real" living were around the next corner. It is today for which we are responsible. God still owns tomorrow.”
― Elisabeth Elliot- Let Me Be A Woman.

Just A Farm Girl Kind of Day

 

Today as I walked around with my camera, I realized how much I love the simplicity of living here. Some people might come here and wonder what in the world am I talking about and how it just looks like dirt and weeds. Well, they are my dirt and weeds and I love it. I think after a week of being out and a bout, living in the car more than in the house, on days like this I appreciate getting to finally be really home. I realize how my soul craves solitude. As I was walking down the little hill to the pasture this morning, and as I turned the corner I just felt peace and joy and I felt like the whole place just shouts, " Welcome Home."

 

I have this volunteer sunflower and I have watched it like a hawk. I am glad it is up under the trees as I heard the parrots flying over doing reconnaissance, looking for sunflowers. This one they didn't see. As I was taking pictures though, I was being scolded quite loudly.

 

 Mr. Nosy Parker there, was not happy about the photo shoot. His wife was in the next tree over letting her voice be known too. He was breaking little sticks and dropping them on me. It really broke my concentration. When I would look up at him, he would pretend he was just pecking on a branch.

 

The berries are just blooming their little hearts out. I am so glad I have things around that remind me why I like gardening.

Blueberries

artichokes

My hens are just laying so well now. It has been so nice to collect eggs and every single day I think it is one of my favorite things to do. I just love my little hens.

 

I hope you have a lovely weekend. We will have a warm weekend, but it will be nice. I am thinking of playing in the garden. Ron bought new hula hoe's yesterday. You can just imagine the jokes the boys made coming in seeing the hula hoes  propped against the couch. " Is Dad bringing Hoes home again?" You know stuff like that. :) The garden shops have been out every time he has gone to buy some. Last week while trying to hula hoe, the poor old hoes are so used  bent and worn out.  I just gave up and quit trying to work. I couldn't chop a weed to save my life.

Happy Friday and the weekend!
~Kim~

 

 “Self-pity is the hens' besetting sin," remarked Mr. Payton. "Foolish fowl. How they came to achieve anything as perfect as the egg I do not know! I cannot fathom.”
― Elisabeth Enright---Gone Away Lake

Odds and Ends

 

It is so nice to see the pictures of spring and the snow melting on your blogs. I feel like I don't have to hide my flowers so much now. :) I guess because of the warm weather we have had this spring, it has made moths and butterflies hatch like crazy. The moths are the dusty miller types and the tobacco moths that are called tomato horn worms when they are in the worm stage. Those moths are so big they look like hummingbirds and I like to watch them get drinks out of the pool.

 

The butterflies are monarchs and painted ladies. Ron washed the patio off on the weekend while we were BBQing and the painted ladies would land on the damp cement and get drinks. It was amazing to see those long tiny tongues.

 

While I was sick, and didn't do much, I would sit and think of rugs I would like to hook. When I finally started feeling human I took a day and sketched out rugs I thought I might like to hook. I drew out two patterns and these are what I have to do next.

This one, is just going to be one of those rugs that I only use worms I have cut. I know that it won't put a dent in my bags and bags of cut worms but it will be fun to do anyway.

 

The next rug will be the one I do next. I couldn't believe it took as long as it did to get it to the backing stage.
First I sketched it on paper. Then I put it on a big sheet of  paper so I could have the size I wanted. Then I drew it on red dot tracer so I could have it for a rug pattern. I drew it finally on backing and then had to go over it in the places it didn't go through to the linen.  Then of course, I had to get out my sewing machine to finish the edges. Next the fun part will be to dye and cut the wool. Hook the wool into the pattern, which is like having a big coloring book in my lap. Then steaming it and binding it and steaming it again.

That is how I know I love rug hooking. I would never have the patience to do this unless it was a passion.

 

I can draw two shapes, houses and flowers. I like squares. I also officially bought real dye spoons.

 

 I showed them to my oldest son Ben, who works with metal. He was impressed. I love showing him things like that because he always can tell me how they were made and what metal. Now I think I will have better
luck with my dyeing and my colors.

 

I hope to finish up my guinea rug today, but you have to stay at home for that and I feel like I have been such a gad-a-bout for the last few days.  Have a lovely Wednesday!

~Kim~

The one tiny lupin I found.

 

"Keep your eyes open to your mercies. The man who forgets to be thankful has fallen asleep in life."
Robert Louis Stevenson

Friday Finishes

Potato Bush

I feel like every single Friday I slide in sideways. I wonder why that is? I always feel like on Friday morning I  can rest. Which isn't true in the least, because there is always so much to be done. I thought I would have more things to show you that I finished this week. Life does manage to have other plans.

I worked on this pin cushion this week. I really don't finish my cross stitch pieces but stick them in a drawer once I am finished. I decided that this one I would finish.

Pattern Country Stitches- Pin Feathers

 

Just a pin cushion that took me hours to make. I really like this one because it looked old fashioned. I got it all made and realized I was going to stain it and sand it and abuse it, and I forgot. So now it will just look all nice and brand new. I always want every thing to look like:

" One day in early spring, while out walking, I decided to follow a path. I knew I had never seen before. As I walked down the through the twisty vine covered trees, in the distance I saw a old house set back in the woods. As I approached, I could see the primroses blooming closely next to the wooden steps as if protected there by a gentle hand.


There were the pointy stems of tulips, and daffodils, and next to the porch was a old, old Lilac covered in drooping purple blooms. Old climbing roses filled the trees, with promises of rainbows of blossoms once summer had arrived.

I took a step on the porch, which creaked to announce to the ghosts that lived there, that a visitor had come.
The old screen creaked as I opened it and walked into a room with sheet covered chairs and the smell of a lonely house met my nose. My eyes were drawn upwards to the stairs, the bannister was carved with vines and the newel post was a old tulip shape. As I climbed, I knew someone had loved this place and it was a people house sadly neglected. I saw a door, to my right and I turned the glass knob, I took a step into what was once a lovely room filled with secrets. There was a old iron bed frame with the paint sadly chipping. the  old highboy along one wall  with a dried bouquet of sweet anne's lace covered in dust.  and a window seat under the window with the bow sash. There were book shelves that I am sure once was filled with old  friends.

At the end of the bed stood a old chest. I walked over and lifted the lid, and as I opened it I realized I was looking at a trunk filled with dreams. The smell of old roses and woodruff leaped out at me. There were old dance cards, and old report cards and a bundle of letters now yellowed tied with a faded blue ribbon.

On top sat a old pin cushion and sewing box, the needles now rusted from disuse...

That is what I always think of when I make old sewing things.

I hope you have a lovely weekend,
Thank you for letting me share the things that go on in my head while I am sewing.
~Kim~

There shall be eternal summer in the grateful heart.---Celia Thaxter 1835-1894

A Lovely Spring Morning

 

We had rain yesterday, so this morning it smells heavenly outside. Washed and clean. The dust has been washed from the air and now you can smell the faint perfume of flowers with the smell of wet grass and damp earth. It is cold too, like a normal April. My mistake I think for these last few years is in the assumption, that there is such a thing as normal weather. I need to accept that, weather will always be weather and it is unpredictable so enjoy right now, every day.

 

Due to the lack of a snow pack and the issues at hand in California, I won't be putting in a giant garden this year. I am though, going to put in a few (???) tomato plants and pepper plants. In the yard. Just a tiny little thing like a normal person. I won't be planting sunflowers or pumpkins. How do I have a gardening blog without a garden, who knows but that is how it will be.

 

 “It's been my experience that you can nearly always enjoy things if you make up your mind firmly that you will.”
Anne Shirley---L.M. Montgomery, Anne of Green Gables.


It is spring, and when I was 12 years old I discovered Anne of Green Gables. When I was a little girl, my Dad owned grocery stores. In that first store, he had a young woman he hired as a checker. Mrs. Berry.
We loved her and she even taught my sister to tie her shoes. She and my Mom were good friend. She had her children and stopped working. When I turned 12 and was in junior high, we got to visit the library at school on Friday afternoon. It was the best library in the whole world. It was filled with the whole set of Nancy Drew, and Little Women and My Friend Flicka and of course, all of the Black Stallion and Little House Books. I would ride home on the school bus, with my arms full of treasure.

The librarian  of course was Mrs. Berry. My Mom had gone on to heaven just the year earlier. My life was in a series of one crises after another. New Step Mother, 3 step brothers, we lived on my on grandparents property, so there was war going on between my grandparents and my Dad and my step family. The one place that was an escape was inside of books. Mrs. Berry, though, because this is and was a small town, knew of what was going on, and very quietly she started getting books for me and putting them every Friday on the corner of her desk. I look back now, and see how God put people like her in my life to quietly guide me and save me from a life of destruction, I might have chosen if not for her and introducing me to  Anne.

My life I think is made up of  people who were sent at the right time, and they were gifts to me sent from God at the perfect time. Mrs. Berry was one of those gifts. I always like to think, but those tiny things that no one would notice, what she quietly did, became a blessing that today continues to bless my life.


   " God begins with men in “the day of small things”(Charles Spurgeon)

 

I think of blogging like that. Who knew that something like meeting people from all over the world would change my life. I think of it as a small gift that happens every single day. Thank you so much for sharing your lives with me and letting me share mine with you.


So thank you so much for gracing me with the simple gifts that you bring into my life. I have been given such a gift once again. I am so blessed.


~Kim~

 

“Kindred spirits are not so scarce as I used to think. It's splendid to find out there are so many of them in the world.”
― L.M. Montgomery, Anne of Green Gables