Well, Hello!

So many things, so little time, and yet, I seem to have a lot of time on my hands. I am the queen of procrastination. This is a habit I really need to stop. There are so many things I want to do and yet, I pass on a lot of those things daily. Why? You don't have to answer that. I am sure all of us have questions about ourselves and our habits that we each individually need to scour our own brains for the answers to. Here let me just jump down off the podium. I'm done with that psychology class.

Ah, but I have gotten something done! Two things that I wanted to do in fact. One was to put together a design "wall". I tried a few months back to make something that was in my head, but when it came out of my head and started to be an actual physical thing, it didn't work. That, my friends, is why I am not building bridges and stuff such as that!

Not too long ago, I joined one of the local quilting clubs. To get myself out there and mingle with my tribe. I am so glad I did that. Mind you, I am still working on getting myself out there. I don't go every week and when I do go I don't stay all day as most of the others do. I'm working on that. I don't know if I ever mentioned this, but I have a bit of an "anxiety problem". Meeting new people can at times, be very painful for me. Once I have gotten to know new people, I can't be shut up, it's just the initial few months. I really have to WORK at it. I moved here in January, I have met maybe ten people. Five of whom are my neighbors. Okay, wait. I have gotten off subject.

I joined the club; Sunbonnet Sue Quilt Club. The ladies are nice, and welcoming, I WILL be fine there. There have been two seminars since I started. One was a visiting quilter, book writer, fantastic designer, sewist, etc., etc., Pat Speth. She came and showed us all of her lovely Nickel Quilts. They are all just fantastic. She showed us many ways to cut and sew together blocks from charm packs. I purchased her "The Big Book of Nickel Quilts" and when I was going through it the other day to get some inspiration, I found she had put little tips and ideas here and there in the book. One of those tips was how to put together a design board that could be portable. I just needed two things to make that board, so I took my JoAnns Fabrics 60% off coupon and went to get what I needed, and now I have a design board. (Boy, that was a long way to get to tell you what I had made!)

The other thing I finally got going on was to finish up some half square triangles that I had made up a almost two years ago. (Gees, can it really be that long???!!!) Yes. Low and behold, I had made them out of two charm packs. I didn't like just the half square triangle by itself, so I sewed those together to make hour glass blocks. Four inch blocks by the way now. They are shrinking! I don't remember what the charm pack is that I bought originally, but I bought a Moda charm pack in white to add to the first one I bought. Now. I didn't care for the first batch I sewed, and turning them into hourglass blocks didn't help AT ALL. I still don't like them, but they are what they are, so I will continue with them and make a light quilt to throw on the couch. I may use up some old batting that isn't worth a dime and practice my free motion quilting with it. Who knows? I may start to like it a little after a bit.

Here's my design board with my hourglass blocks on it. I may do some sashing between the blocks, and experiment with that. There's a lot of possibilities...

I really need to get with my quilting. I know now that I need so much more practice. I also know, being in the club will help me get new skills and learn from the other ladies.

The amount of things I need to do is going to take way more time to do, unless I really get on it.

My list:

Three quilts for my nephews and niece. Christmas..ha ha ha

Christmas stockings for my friends (three of those). Christmas ha ha ha

Finish a travel bag for my daughter that I started a while back.  no time line

Finish a quilt for the same daughter that I started a while back before the travel bag a while back

Finish a quilt that I started in the beginning of 2014. no time lines on those either

And then...

Start designing and making wall quilts for sale

along with repairing my loom that the cats broke (Yes, my cats broke the loom) and re-start working with that...gees...yes, I have the time too, I just have to use it.

I'll be back. With a progress report... I'm still unpacking from my move in January...I'll stop now, so I can get started...

Long Time No...Nothing...

I was looking back through what posts I started and maybe something I could finish to post and found the above title. There was literally nothing in the post. So I figured, what the heck, I'll put something.

We did finally finish the fences. At least 98% of the fences, but the 2% not finish will remain not finished, because it would involve being in the midst of 12 foot high blackberry bushes. And no...not doing that. The horses have been free to roam five acres for a while now and apparently, they love it. Cause, that's what horses do, right?

I added a new member to our family. The guy I hired to come out to dig posts holes for us, offered me his mini-horse. She has been all by herself in his backyard since his kids left for college, and they sold the regular sized horses. Since he saw we had plenty of companion animals for her to be around, well, it just seemed like the right thing to do. Of course, I could never have turned him down. Who wouldn't want a mini version of what we already had? The top wire on that fence is 47". That is just how mini "Mini" is!

She had to stay with the goats for a couple of days so I knew she'd be safe with our horses. I needn't have worried at all. She dove right into being a "big" horse as soon as I turned her loose! She's a little spit fire, that one! She came complete with attitude!

And...August 11th, we are getting one more full sized horse and two more mini's! A friend of my daughter's is moving up here with her boyfriend to our farm, and she is bringing the herd with her! She will be renting the mobile that is absolutely and completely torn apart at this moment. Of course, we started digging in when we found out that we would have a tenant, and the more we dug, the worse it got. I went today and bought three sheets of flooring plywood, because the bathroom and part of the kitchen floors were pretty much gone. I had to buy enough wood to reframe some walls. Ack! Isn't that always the way it is? Darn Murphy and his laws anyway! I have to buy a bathtub, and a water heater as well. Then we are tearing out all the old insulation and I am putting all new in. Luckily the guy half of my new tenants is in construction and I am offering them free rent to finish the place once they get up here. In the meantime, we want to get a bedroom and bathroom going for them, they can have their meals here with us until we get their house done. I don't think I have any pictures of the mobile except on my phone. Since I am not tech savvy, I will have to wait for a lesson to post those.

My sister and niece and her three young-un's are coming to visit at the end of the month. Which means I had to get myself in gear and start getting some stuff done in the house. I did make some headway putting sewing room items where they need to be. I actually saw my sewing table! It's not complete yet, but I will be back on that full force tomorrow, so I can move more items in and make room in the living room. They were going to drive up in an RV, but decided against that. I have room for them to sleep here. Most of them are under eight, you can pretty much put kids anywhere; right? My sister and niece can sleep on the sofa bed. I don't think it's too bad...I'm getting a big fat blow up mattress just in case. I can't wait for them to get here!

That's it for now. I promise to work on keeping up here. Have a wonderful whatever you are up to!

Distracted, In A Good Way

By this girl...on the right.

She and her two sisters conspired together (first time ever I think) and she came up from California for a surprise visit. That is my oldest daughter on the right and my youngest on the left. My middle daughter didn't join us for this expedition. I knew nothing until I pulled in my driveway and saw her. Well, of course, I cried. I was surprised and very happy and so pleased that they would do such a nice thing. I am still weepy...while I am writing about it!
So from the fifteenth until yesterday, all we did was the basic care of farm and animals. She jumped in and helped. So she could play with the goats, chickens and geese babies. She also went horse back riding for about a second. She's not one for heights and heaven forbid she should be six feet in the air on top of my horse! Her sister's boyfriend who has never been on or around horses rode around the farm a couple of times with her and seemed fairly at ease with it all.

When we weren't playing farmer, we went exploring. We went all the way to the most northern part of the contiguous United States. Beautiful! The water is just crazy colored. Something I would have expected from tropical places.

It's not the best shot, but I didn't want to slip off and FEEL the water! Or the bumps all the way down.

This is the other side of the trail...which was mostly...

It was fun. I ran out of breath several times on the way back, because it was all uphill, and I am way of shape for hiking. The drive home was fun/long. We stopped at a little restaurant called Pat's Place. It's on an Indian Reservation for the Makah Indians. We had seen a sign for the restaurant driving out to where we hiked, that said Fry Bread. Well, none of us wanted to pass that up. We had Indian Tacos, which were to die for. and made friends with the cook to boot. He was a very nice man with a fabulous sense of humor, which is good for us, because we are usually cutting up about one thing or another and we can get a little boisterous when we are together. He had as much fun as we did I think! Then the next day when we were back home, who did we run into, but the cook and the restaurant owner, Pat! (This is something, because our little drive was about three hours out there!) They had come into town for provisions for the restaurant. So we stopped and chatted with them for a few minutes. It's fun making new friends.

Back on the farm all is quiet. Yesterday, I took my girl to the airport, to return to San Francisco. Boo! I missed her as soon as I dropped her off. Then drove the long way home (2-1/4 hours) wishing we had just one more day. Today she called me and told me she got this job she had been hoping for, so she won't be back in July. Good news/Bad news kind of thing...I love that she got her job. She's been workng per diem for a long while now. She can breath a little easier and we will see her in September when we go down there.

So, that was my weekend! Nothing got done, but I'm happy about it this time! 

Wishing you a great week!

Fencing, not fencing.

Here we are...fence building, not fence building. I guess I am too impatient. I just want my animals out...where they belong! Not cooped up in a...well...coop. The goats are still rooming with the chickens, the horses are literally in a garage. Albeit, the garage floor is not cement, it's not a barn, and the horses have little room to move about. I bought five acres, I would like to use it!

Part of the problem here is the ROCKS! Can I now say that I hate rocks! I think I shared before, that we are on an old river bed. We have River Rocks. If there is a market for those, I would like to tap into it, because I would be a rich woman right now. Of course, then I would not have five beautiful acres of green pasture. 

There are two young men that I have hired pulling the rocks out of the holes I had bored out last week for my fence posts. The holes were holes in every sense of the word except for there wasn't an opening, the rocks just spill back into the hole because the auger can't pull them out like it does the dirt. 

My daughter did get the wood posts and all the T-Posts in along the back of the property and the posts around "Goat Island". We haven't got the fencing itself up. We ran out of time. My daughter works full time, and then on her weekends she works here trying to help get the animals situated. 

In the meantime, one of my goals moving up here and "retiring" was to enjoy all the local events. It is Irrigation Time. They turned on the irrigation water April 15th. That calls for a parade! Yes! And fireworks! Yes! And big muscled logger type guys competing for our enjoyment! Yes!

I got a ton of videos for the parade before my camera was full, so sorry, I didn't get any pictures of the logging guys!

The weather couldn't have been more perfect. In fact, it was a little too warm...I moved here because it is cooler than where I lived in California, not this weekend! It was fun, I got to see how the small town does it's celebrating and I like it! I also got an idea of what I need to do for next year. I will be making quilty type things to sell at these events. That was also one of my plans...to work hard during the winter to get my "wares" in order and then spend the summer sharing them with everyone and meeting the locals and having fun.

So, I'm off to go do my errands in town, back to finish up my chores around here, which includes making a master list of everything that needs to get done, so we can start striking things off the list. Oy, there's a lot to do...until next time my friends...be well!

Adventures in Puddles

Maybe almost a pond.
I had a guy come out today to drill holes for fence posts. I know some of you are thinking, post hole digger, do it yourselves, save some money. Or maybe you aren't thinking that, but anyway...we have what they call Dungeness Potatoes here.
The river (the Dungeness River) used to run all through here. It is now about 1/2 mile west of me. In its heyday, it dropped tons, and tons of river rock all through this little valley. I now live on this rock.
And when I need to dig a hole...a substantial hole, I have to call in a guy. With equipment to dig holes, cause I'm not getting past the rock.
My daughter and I mapped out where we wanted the holes dug yesterday and spray painted the spots for him. He was chugging right along until he came down to my lower land where there is still rock, but there is also dirt. Yay! Dirt. He dug one hole, then two holes, he said it was like cutting softened butter. He got about a foot into the third hole and water came out! He came over to the house and told me he had struck water, where is it coming from? I don't know, the previous owner never said anything about water over there where we dug.  I got on the phone and called him, then called again, and again. He called right back. After three calls, wouldn't you? I told him what had happened, he came right over. Conveniently, he lives right across the street.
He went straight back to the complete opposite corner of the property and shut off a valve. That stopped the water! He had shut the valve off for the irrigation for the neighbor where the water was leaking. Then he came and told me that there wasn't supposed to be anything there, and he called the neighbor who's fence is right there. That neighbor came right over. (Good thing this is an extremely friendly place)
I let the men talk. I listened. It turns out that there is a pipe there for irrigation that no one had talked about or drawn on paper or anything. By the time they had determined where the water was from, my hole digger guy cleared out some dirt and they got down to where this pipe is and found it was just  a small plastic pipe with a rubber coupler on it. The neighbor who's pipe it is told me he would fix it even though this should fall on me, I asked for the hole to be dug...but I won't argue...
I was thinking for a while there that this could be the best place for that pond I wanted! I'm not quite prepared for the pond just yet. That will be in a few months, but now I know how I can fill it!

The spot where I almost had a pond is right up against the darker fence line to the right, behind the trees.
Isn't it beautiful here? The picture below is in the western part of my property. It will be the backyard of whoever rents my mobile home. The luckys!

Well, I'm worn out. Are you? More to come...have a wonderful...

There she is. In all her glory. I do live in a barn! Yes. This adorable little house started its life as a small barn and the previous owners changed it up a bit adding a front room, master bedroom, kitchen and 2 bathrooms.  They changed the upper portion of the barn into a loft bedroom. This place is so cute! There's five acres to boot!

I have to say thank you to Nanette for stopping by, leaving a comment about how she had wanted to read about my adventures and was disappointed that I had not added anything. Her comment prompted me to get off my duff, or rather get on my duff and say something about what is going on.

Here goes...

My daughter and I moved here after a whirlwind of what we could do and what we wanted to do and then what we just did do. I received my house back in the San Francisco Bay Area as a gift from my father who had passed away the year before. I could not afford to stay in that house. Property taxes, utility costs, gas prices driving to and from a job I hated just weren't making it easy for me. She was in a dead end, go no where, boring position. I had an anxious buyer for my house. Someone who we know well, who wanted to completely gut it and make it their own. We came up here to the Pacific Northwest last December and looked at properties, found one, went back home and made all the stuff  that needs to happen, work. Our friend got the house she wanted we got the house and property we wanted, We quit our jobs, packed up and left.

My daughter is working, I am "retired". We brought three horses, six dogs, two cats, two chickens and three fish with us. Since we got here in late January, I found three of the cutest goats, four more chickens (babies), and tomorrow I am picking up four goslings. My days are filled with feeding cleaning, playing with and loving my critters. I go out in the morning just after a few sips of coffee and feed all the "livestock" make sure they have water and are comfortable. Then I either come in and go to work on putting stuff away from the move (yes, I am still doing that) or I make a list and go out and buy groceries, things we need or stuff for the animals. Some of the critters...

I have all my craft room stuff still disorganized. All my weaving things are either in my craft room or the front room. I just have so many distractions.

Then, since there is never enough to do and I have two parcels on my land I found this free mobile home and had it brought here to fix up and rent out. This is a major project, heaven only knows when I can get this done!

So far, this is it. I have a laundry list of to-dos. I'll will try to keep this up to date, so you all can join in the fun! It will be good for me to do this. I can list my plans for you to see and then come back and show you what I have accomplished! 

Thanks again Nanette!