I've been watching A LOT of BBC Jane Austen films, and so for my next sweater, I'm working on this great victorian inspired cardigan that is seamless construction.
It's called the Puff Sleeved Cardigan by Stephanie Japel, but of course, I still can't get my image to rotate. Sigh.
Over the new year holiday I worked on some mittens, the lavender pair to match a hat of mine, and the darker pair for my roommate, a UW fan who loves purple!
These worked up really quickly, only taking about 2 1/2 hours per mit.
Here are pictures of the beautifully hand made jewelry box that Papa gave me for Christmas, it's solid mahogany and such a charming piece!!
Thanks Papa!!! Happy Christmas!!
Well, it's been a busy season, but I did manage to finish a few pending projects and make a couple cute ornaments.
I've been working on a few small sewing projects this week, along with continuing knitting my shawl collared sweater. I was happy to be knitting by the fire earlier this week but it did make the whole condo smell like campfire after.
Here are some coasters I just made for my roomie... I love the fabric!
And some mail pockets for near the front door...
Finally, I put together a Kindle cover, which, if another one is made it will be modified slightly. I think I prefer the envelope triangle cover to the straight cover, for stability.
I haven't taken a break from knitting, but I'm getting back into the swing of things full force now that winter has descending upon the Pacific Northwest. I'm working on a Debbie Bliss sweater; both arms are complete and I'm working on the ribbing on the back. It's my first attempt at a sweater that will need to be seamed.
Last weekend, I did some glass mosaic art. I'm planning on doing more mixed media projects now that I have more space.
Speaking of space, here it is!
I'm so excited to be able to have a space for my projects that can be set up permanently, with all of my supplied and notions near at hand.
Here are some squares that I cut out of felted sweaters, I think it will make a cozy pillow.
Last week I also went to a quilt/fiber arts show and I'm inspired to try to my hand at art quilting. It's kind of like painting with a sewing machine. I'm going to try to turn this picture (Hurricane Ridge from a trip this August)...
...into a small pieced quilt using these fabrics and inspiration....
Here we go!
Today I spent a lot of time with cows, which was my first choice. The new guests wanted to set off on a nice long trail ride, to which I said no thanks. But I did head out to the barn to help get all the horses ready, which is the fun part. I really really really like working with the animals!
On the way to the barn I said hello to the longhorn herd,
and the baby goats,
So I stuck around the ranch and offered to help Kathy (the ranch owner, ranch hand, mom, innkeeper, etc extraordinaire) feed. The feed truck had a flat tire though so first we rounded up so similar sized tires and then headed into town to the tire place with air leaking all the way.
Things got fixed up fine....
Mmmmmmm, Moooooooooove, Mmmmmmm, Hungry Cows!!
This afternoon the guests went on another ride, and I went to help Kathy work some of the calves. We were trying to sort the mamas with their calves to get the ones that hadn't been tagged yet. It proved to be a fairly difficult task, but I'm sure not even a little afraid of cows anymore after running all around that pen with them.
Unfortunately I didn't get a lot of pictures, what with the running and all. I got in the chutes behind the calves to hold them down while Kathy gave them shots and tagged 'em. The calves have an easier castration than the horses. She just put this little rubber ring around the two danglers and eventually they just fall off! It's a kind and humane way to take care of business.
Here I am with a yearling that we brought in!
Same unflattering puffy vest, I know. But the pockets are fab and it was nice and warm!
Here is Kathy with some of the calves we were trying to match to mama cows....
Gates and hay have lost their novelty but I'm even more in love with cows now than before! And now I'm clean again, and well fed, and campfired, so it's time to rest my aching back and bruised legs in this comfy bed.
I woke up pretty sore this morning, so I decided to skip the feeding and have an easy start. I played with the baby goats and cuddled with the barn cats before a late morning trail ride on Lucy.
Lucy and I were in the rear, because while she is a great and responsive horse, she's a bit of a bitch and likes to kick. I appreciated her.
Yes, I know the puffy vest is unflattering, but it was warm and has good pockets. I was covered in dirt today!
This is one of the areas that we rode through. We rode for just about three hours I think... my sit-bones and knees were screaming at me so I was happy to get back to the ranch for lunch. I had a great time on Lucy though, and I'm hoping to do some arena work tomorrow with her or another reining horse.
It was a chilly overcast afternoon so I declined the kayaking offer and decided to hang out in the barn. I wanted to groom some horses! Most of them have been up on the mountain for most of the winter and hadn't had much pampering, so it was a fun task. I only really got three of them really well but that took up a few hours.
This is the filly and mama Daisy who is about ready to foal....
Isn't she huge? I spent a lot of time loving on her this afternoon, every time I tried to brush the filly she'd rub up against me, as well she should, what a back ache she must have!
The barn is full of all kinds of animals. Mr. Handsome the bottle-fed calf, crazy eyed alien goat, Rodney the billy goat, a variety of cows and a bull, half dozen cats, more chickens and roosters than any barn ever needed, a peacock, two baby goats, a few dogs, and of course, the horses.
I loved spending time in the barn working with the animals! And I've really enjoyed getting to know Jenny from Germany, the wrangler here to work for the summer.
This afternoon some more guests arrived a family of ladies (three generations) from Seattle. I'm happy to have more folks around, I felt like there was too much attention on me as the only guest and I'd rather observe than be the focus.
The longhorns came out with the new guests, they were just hanging out in the front lawn! Kinda freaked me out at first, but apparently they are friendly. We also walked some of the dogs that are boarding here with Dr. June, the local vet. Walk is a relative term. I had a couple 50lb poodles pulling me kell nell across the whole pasture and wrapping their leashes all around me. The other folks thought it was hilarious, I thought it was exhausting! After that we were going to bottle feed some baby animals when we got word that the cows were out in the neighbors pasture, again.
So we jumped in the truck with wrangler John and rode down here....
Those are actually some pretty large outbuildings with the cattle corral beyond it. The cows have free range of the mountains up above. But they wandered to the far right and mowed down a barbed wire fence to get into the green grass. Poor John had just fixed this fence today from the breakout last night, but the cows went over it again. Ain't nothing gonna stand between a mama cow and green grass.
So we had to walk all the way down there to the furthest cow and push them all back into the corral for the night til the fence can be repaired.
And that was my day. And boy do my feet hurt, and my back, and my butt, and my knees. Now it's 11:15 and I'm going to go to sleep so I can do it all again tomorrow! Yeehaw!!!
Day One. I wasn't too sure what to expect, but we started off with a nice french toast breakfast and rain. I was invited to help feed the cows and horses so I put on my shiny fatbabys and my down vest and packed my camera and chapstick.
Turns out there were about 80 pairs of cattle to feed (mama and baby) and only 20 or so horses, because the other 50 horses were out at pasture and fending for themselves. We jumped into the feed truck and I drove us over to the hay stacks. Then a tractor/forklift pushed a 1500lb hay bale onto the back of the truck!
So we took the hay to a few different places this morning. First it went to the cows and we had to slowly let off a few flakes of hay at a time around the corral. It was really hard to only let a couple flakes off at a time while holding the remaining 1000lbs on the back of the truck, while it was moving and we were trying to stay on the back of the truck too. Slippery!
These horses were hungry! They were playful, sticking their noses deep in the hay and flicking it all back up. Next I helped with a smaller bale for Daisy, who is about to foal! I'm hoping to see the birth while I'm here, but it usually happens in the middle of the night, so we'll see!
Next we lost half of one of the big bales over the side and were trying to recover the strings and spread it out a bit.
Yeehaw!
Next we did a little work clearing out the side of a new road up to a pasture. (I know this will make my mama jealous!)
After lunch we went for a short trail ride. This is Lucky. He likes to eat when we're supposed to be moving, so we worked out a little system where I would count to three then yank of the reins and kick at the same time to get his head up off the ground and get him back moving again. (Of course I still haven't figured out how to rotate pictures in Typepad!)
Next we gave bottles to a couple kids (baby goats) and a calf, which was great! I love baby animals! Who doesn't? Then I thought I was going to get a break but it was time to go castrate a horse. So we drove over to another place where a poor stallion was about to become a gelding. Interesting to watch a 900lb horse melt to the ground after anesthesia. Then they said "someone go sit on his head." So I headed over to do just that and they said "no, don't actually sit on him, just kinda kneel there half on his neck and cover his eyes." So that's what I did while they located the offending organs and went about removing them. I'm glad I didn't have to be up close for that part. I just told the horse that everything would be ok and he was a good boy! Then of course Dr. June brought the nuts home for the dogs too eat.
When we got back to the ranch we noticed all the horses were grazing in the front yard, unfenced. Hmmmm. So we had to run all over a herd them back over the corral. That was a lot of running. And they were bigger than us. But when we clapped and waved they pretty much ran where we wanted them to, which was convenient. Except for the mule, he was a bit stubborn about returning to the pen.
So we went down for dinner finally and then a phone call came in that some cows were out and in the neighbors pasture. So we had to gear back up and drive down there and herd a bunch of cows back in. Then the horses got out again and we had to herd them all back in too! Darn fences! Darn darn fences! So after all that I'm pretty much done. Actually, I was done about 5pm but then came the de-nutting and horse chasing. Had a great conversation about churches and southern hospitality with a wrangler from Colorado. And may be going kayaking with an accountant tomorrow, weather permitting. But for now, I'm ready to hit the hay! Ha! Hay is soooo not comfortable. I'm glad I have a feather mattress.
I have a lot to report on so I'm going to post a lot of pictures and not waste too much time on writing!
En route to the K Diamond K:
I was on my way down toward that body of water, which I then had to cross on this ferry....
I missed the ferry by about 30 seconds so I had to sit and wait for it to drop off and come back my way. I was the first one on and it was an interesting view:
That was an experience! I'm pretty sure I was crossing the Columbia River along Hwy 21 going North in Washington state, but I could be wrong. I'm not really all that sure where I am right now.
This little pole was all that stood between my engine and the water.
About 50 miles north of the ferry crossing I came to a dirt road turn off at mile marker 156, and was met by this fellow....
This is Louie the spitting llama. Behind him you can see the main barn to the left and another smaller barn to the right. It was a quiet first night at the lodge, I'm the only guest here this week so I've been hanging with the family and staff at the ranch. I met several animals and people and had a nice supper and hot bath in my fabulous room. Hand made quilts, log cabin walls, real log wood furniture, it's legit!
Next up: What does 1500lbs of hay look like?
Seeking simplicity, humility, and beauty, through God, daily.
Recent Comments