Twas the month before Christmas

Twas the month before Christmas

When all through our land,

Not a Christian was praying

Nor taking a stand.

See the PC Police had taken away

The reason for Christmas - no one could say.

The children were told by their schools not to sing

About Shepherds and Wise Men and Angels and things.

It might hurt people's feelings, the teachers would say

December 25th is just a ' Holiday '.

Yet the shoppers were ready with cash, checks and credit

Pushing folks down to the floor just to get it!

CDs from Madonna, an X BOX, an I-Pod

Something was changing, something quite odd!

Retailers promoted Ramadan and Kwanzaa

In hopes to sell books by Franken & Fonda.

As Targets were hanging their trees upside down

At Lowe's the word Christmas - was no where to be found.

At K-Mart and Staples and Penny's and Sears

You won't hear the word Christmas; it won't touch your ears.

Inclusive, sensitive, Di-ver-si-ty

Are words that were used to intimidate me.

Now Daschle, Now Darden, Now Sharpton, Wolf Blitzen

On Boxer, on Rather, on Kerry, on Clinton!

At the top of the Senate, there arose such a clatter

To eliminate Jesus, in all public matter.

And we spoke not a word, as they took away our faith

Forbidden to speak of salvation and grace

The true Gift of Christmas was exchanged and discarded

The reason for the season, stopped before it started.

So as you celebrate 'Winter Break' under your 'Dream Tree'

Sipping your Starbucks, listen to me.

Choose your words carefully, choose what you say

Shout MERRY CHRISTMAS ,

not Happy Holiday!

Please, all Christians join together and

wish everyone you meet

MERRY CHRISTMAS

Christ is The Reason' for the Christ-mas Season!


(I recieved this email this morning and had to share with all of you)

and I call myself a gardener.......

I have to give up gardening if I can't see any better than this. This huge, two basket ball or bigger size, hornets nest is in my smoke tree right in my front yard.
I mean it is only about 10 feet from my front porch.

10 feet from my foyer window where I now have my sewing machine setting. The place where I have spent many many hours sitting and looking out that window while working on my quilts. I do have a white opaque window sheer/balloon curtain on the window that has been lowered to almost cover the entire window.

I guess I should keep my curtains open huh?

Colton spent the night here last night and went with me to milk this morning. As we were stepping up on the porch he said in the calmest voice, "That sure is a big bees nest ,Granny."

OMG OMG OMG......that's kinda what Danny and I both said. We have both wondered how we have missed this and how long did it really take these hard workers to build this. I will feel a lot better about myself if you guys will tell me that it happens really quickly!!! OK Please let me know that I don't have to give up gardening due to poor eyesight!!!!!

On a lighter note!!

As you should know by now, it has been raining cats and dogs here this entire week. The boys were chomping at the bit to get in the woods last night to go coonhunting. It was very windy but it wasn't raining so of course they had to hit it. Well hit they did. They came back thru the door last night and Danny was laughing hysterically at Colton's expense!!! Seems his big coon dog Smokey has better traction in the mud than Colton does. Smokey took off and drug Colton for a long ways right thru the mud. He was covered. The picture doesn't even show it all. Needless to say he had to strip down and have all his clothes washed late last night!!!

For some reason he didn't find it near as funny as his Papa did!!!!

Man plans, God laughs....

That's my new motto for this farm. I borrowed it from Terri.

She mentioned it to me yesterday and I had just recently seen it on a church sign and I thought "how true, how true".

I know this isn't much to complain about but it is a glitch in the plan so here goes......

When we bought our little farm 8 years ago there was a building started that was obviously meant to be a root cellar. It was only the cinderblock foundation. In the years to come we built a building over top of it and just last year Danny decided to get inside the cellar and do some work. He worked so hard and built some really cool shelves for my canned goods. Some large shelves for my pressure canners and large pots.

He painted the inside walls and the shelves a bright white. Put gravels down on the dirt floor. It was just lovely. This year was by far our best growing season for our garden. We filled it full of canned veggies, salsa, grape juice, pickles, jams and jellies. etc etc.......lots of wonderful potatoes and apples. We were so proud of our potatoes this year because we used left over potatoes from last years crop as our seed potatoes. Now that's called living off the land!!

Danny always takes a couple apples to work with him and of course they are stored in the cellar. This morning he went out to get some apples and stepped down into the cellar as he was turning on the light. He met up with almost 2 feet of water!!!!!!! What a mess. There were cardboard boxes of potatoes sitting on the lower shelf that were falling out of the box and floating around in the water. I had a couple Rubbermaid totes full of clean canning jars waiting to be filled and the totes were also floating around. What a mess!!!

Thank goodness we have an extra water garden pump that we were able to use to pump the water out. Danny pumped about half out before he went to work this morning and I pumped the rest out today. What a mess! (sorry but it was a mess) After the water level was down to the gravel floor I dug out a hole and kept sucking the water out for ever. It was like a fresh water spring under ground. I guess it could have been one there and it had dried up over the years before the building was finished ;-) at least that's what I decided today. The ground is soaked and it will be for ever before it dries out.

See our best laid plan to enjoy those great veggies was not in God's plan for us! I was up to my knees in water today and had to have a good laugh myself!!

I pray for the people who have had flooded homes and businesses and I shouldn't be whinning about losing a few free potatoes now should I?

I am so thankful for the wonderful weather forcast that I just watched on our evening news. Sunny and in the 70's by day and 40's by night for 10 days. Unless God changes it for us we should be able to get this cellar dried up. I am not making any plans though just gonna take it one day at a time ;-)

Bike Basket Makeover

$1 yardsale bike basket (at least that's what I am calling it)
I have LOTS of this fabric that I was going to use to spice up my bedroom....lol! ....with curtains and I had big big plans for a log cabin quilt for my king size bed using this as the backing. The fabric was $1 a yard at Walmart so I bought out 2 stores. I have 5 windows in my bedroom one is a triple!! So 7 total! The stores have now gotten in more of this. I did make curtains but never quite got around to the quilt!! Imagine that!! I grew tired of the curtains and decided that I didn't need such cheerful curtains in my grown-up room ;-)

I thought this basket needed a little cheering up!
You may be seeing a lot more of this cheering up around my house soon.......I am thinking of a cover for my Kitchenaid mixer next.......

(If you look closely at the pictures you will see the stitches in my seams are showing. I hate that but I used my serger to whip this up quickly all but the last bit of triming. I didn't notice this in time to do something about it. The seams are secure but look loose, bummer)

Handi Quilter.....

It may not be so handi after all. I wrestled with this thing on Thursday and got it put up and my older Kenmore machine put in it, you know the machine with out all the new features that my newer one has. I thought it would be OK for quilting because it does a beautiful stitch and I don't have to wrestle with the quilt so I didn't need the needle down feature. I knew that I would have better control of the machine so I didn't need the speed limit feature either.

WRONG!!!! I practiced for a long time on a muslin. I broke needles. My presser foot fell off one time. I made a complete mess.
Today I decided that since I was doing nothing else besides blogging about my old blogs and telling the world how crazy I am that I would go ahead and put a real quilt in there. A real small quilt. Another Moda Charm quilt from Mary Engelbriet designs. I thought that if it was a real project that I would take my time and be more careful and gain some control of this baby. I put the new Kenmore in there and it has been great. I have learned alot from putting the quilt in the frames to controlling my machine and so on and so forth. Nothing like hands on is it?

My stitches have touched in places and made love in places but not many. I am learning! I am getting a feel for how much room I have before moving the machine. I see a longarm machine in my future! The wrinkle in the fabric is only there because I was stopped and had the needle down so as not to lose my place and the machine pulled against the quilt causing a wrinkle. The frames really do keep the fabric taut!!

Not bad for a beginner huh?

I thought this thing was gonna kick my butt. I think I have it whipped now. I better learn something soon because I have a much larger pinwheel quilt almost ready for quilting. See I can finish some projects....if I want to!!!

Look at those really cool blocks of wood (top pic) with holes drilled in them, so the table wouldn't slip off, to raise my cutting table/quilting up high enough that it won't break my back. I have asked for them for years and finally got them Thursday evening after I put the quilt frames together all by myself and didn't bother him ;-)

What was I thinking?

I was just sitting here in my good ole comfy office chair this morning pondering. Pondering all sorts of things such as......it's going to be another gorgeous warm fall day today and what is the most pressing thing or things that I need to get done while it is so nice out as the rain is to come tomorrow, a mountain of laundry, a somewhat small mountain of dishes, floors to be vacuumed......etc etc etc......

Then in my ADD infested mind I started pondering over my blog.......long story short I ended up at my first post and then started reading thru in chronological order but I stopped at this post on December 31, 2007 and laughed til I almost peed my pants. You see it was the last post of the year and I had some high hopes for the future year coming up! Boy did I think that lightening was going to hit me and cause some sort of electrical friction that was going to change around my brainwaves or I was going to drink some power drink that was going to change my chemical balance or should I say imbalance and turn me around into a totally different human being from what I am?


I mean I had some wild and crazy ideas for my new year that was approaching. I was acting as if it was somehow going to be different from all my previous years. Just go on over and read it and rest assured that you are reading a bunch of craziness that came from some outer body experience that I had that day. I mean why would I say things like that because it was already 12/31 and I posted on 11/7 that I was making socks for everyone for Christmas that year and they have yet to get socks. I have one sock from several different pair finished.........ADD you think? I just haven't had time....only 2 years.....they all have really big feet!!! Good thing Robin moved south or her toes would be getting cold awaiting socks from me!!!


I am trying to do better but it is a disease.....a really bad one......I need help! Please! I have finished a couple of old projects this year so maybe I will finish the other sock for everyone to have socks this year for Christmas!!


Robin called today and we had a good laugh together about how I never change and only make resolutions that can never be kept because I am just me. I can't be changed trust me I have tried!!


Do you guys ever look back at your older posts and wonder what you were thinking that day, or do all your wishes or intentions or resolutions come to fruition?

ps. I forgot to mention that among the many many things that I mentioned that would be done in 2008....about Leslie and my sil getting new sewing machines that year and Leslie being bitten by the sewing bug. Well we were just at a party at Leslie's house Friday evening and my sil was there and they discussed their sewing machines were not being used at all and that they were saving them for the next generation!!!!! See it's not just me is it?

There's a new guy down on the farm......

and his name is Thunder. He is a reg Nubian buck to replace our dear Durango. We lost Durango, his son Tango, and Tango's mother Violet all this year.

We had a bout with coccidia and it got both mother and son before we knew what was going on. Durango was lost in the horrible accident on the hillside right after we found out Violet was sick.
It was a tough year and I couldn't hardly bring myself to talk about it.
Saphira was really excited at first to see that we bought her a new teenage boyfriend. Now I think she could send him back to his previous home. He is loud and noisy, he stinks and he pees on his head. She didn't want any part of the pictures today!!

As I was getting this shot below the barn, he was above the barn and she had went out of his eyeshot but definately not earshot. He was hollering so loud, as Nubians are famous for, and she gave me a look as if to say "Can you shut him up? Puulleezzee. " Sorta like Danny does with the guineas!

That's Opal, our hateful old fainting doe in her new little pen all by herself. Well she is so mean to anyone else unless she spit them out of her womb. She tries to kill everyone else over food. This field is meant to be a buck pen and Danny and I built this little shed over the fence so we could have 2 new stalls for weather protection on either side of the fence. Aren't we smart? It was really my idea. Now he likes it too. He laughs that there is a fence running thru the barn!!!

You can never get enough places to stash a goat!

Horrible picture of a lovely goat. This is Ellie Mae. Saphira's and Durango's baby doe from July. I have high hopes for her next year....oh yeah .....her and Thunder!!

Got cookies? I love her stripes. She looks like a Gremlin!

It was naptime and they are still groggy. See the little stubby horn scurs on the little brown goat? I was watching and couldn't stand the thought's of Danny hurting him while dehorning him and made Danny stop too soon. The next one he did while I was gone! Smart man!

How many roosters do you count? I count too darn many! We have to have a chicken pluckin'

I love this view of the babies napping! All curled up together.

As promised ....the newest version of the rollaway nest boxes. This is what I see when I come into the coop. Actually on the outside wall of the coop. The eggs are to be layed in the box and then they are supposed to roll out into the PVC pipe and roll down to the end of the pipe where no longneck chicken can get to them and eat them.

Triple decker. A smaller perch that they don't roost on. YES!!!!

and what do you know? They work!!!!! Look at that pullet egg!!

Other than paying some bills, some office work, computer time, a little house work and getting out in the cold today for a few quick pictures thru the fence.........this is what I have been up to. It involves pinwheels my new sewing machine and a lot of Halloween candy!