Rainy Monday

I watched the weather the other night and knew that a cold front was heading our way. It was almost 90 degrees here and very windy yesterday, so I went ahead and did a bunch of laundry and brought in some firewood and made some firestarters (dryer lint and wax) and got prepared. It was 73 when I went to bed and the front got here about 2am. Now it's 48 degrees and very rainy and I'm SO glad that I did all the laundry yesterday. I hang everything on the line. I had also stuffed the chicken coop with about 1/2 bale of hay so they could stay snug and warm. I think I'll leave them in the coop today, they'll fare better. More shelter and more bedding for them. If I let them out of their warm, dry coop to range about the yard, they'll run around wet looking for a dry spot never thinking that perhaps the coop would be a good place to be. Silly chickens. I will be making some plastic storm windows to wire to the outside of the coop to make them a winter shelter. Sort of a greenhouse type situation. In the summer, I let the vines grow up the side and top of the coop to shade them, but in the winter they need some protection against the cold wind and the rain.

Gotta get busy. I slept in this morning and am behind schedule.

Quick Update

I've been really good the past two days getting stuff done and I wanted to write them down before I forgot.

I prepared a vege bed and planted radishes, beets, carrots, peas, spinach and lettuce. I quilted and bound a Halloween throw for myself. I finished a baby quilt for donation. I pickled some more okra. I made a stack of almost done items and have been working through the stack today. I had a stack of 90-something log cabin blocks that just needed the last log, so I pulled out all my fabric boxes and cut strips for that. I have started sewing them on, but I'm not done with that. I went back to my string piecing project and did a little more on that one. I finished the pumpkin carving (although I might do another one...they're so much fun!). Here are some photos of this year's pumpkins.

I love doing them!

It's been a while

Yeah, I know. I think it's be 9 days since my last post. I really do need to more consistant. I think I need to decide on a time of day when it's my blog time. Oh well, I'm here now and that's all that matters.

Gosh, so much has come and gone since I last posted. I've been working on donation quilts and I was able to get my onions planted last week and we cleaned the shed and started working on the hallway. We are "restoring" the house we live in. It's an old Craftsman Style home built between 1907 and 1911, not sure of the exact date. It's very difficult to work on since we're using it and it's small. No extra rooms to store everything in while we work in one particular area. We did my daughter's room and she lived in the living room for 4 months and finally got tired of it and moved back in. There's still a few things we need to do in there, but we did manage to rebuild all her windows which are the original double hung windows and refinish the floor. We have hard wood through the whole house, all of it original. We renovated the bathroom almost 2 years ago, down to the sub floor which was rotting out due to really bad upgrades in the 60's or 70's. We only have one bathroom, so we did the whole thing in a week. The church that I live next door to was kind enough to leave a door unlocked so that we could use their restrooms. I believe that we went 4 days with no water or fixtures.

So now, my daughter and I are doing the "hallway". It's a small room about 5 x 9 that connects the sewing room, the bathroom, my daughter's room and my room. Sort of a hub. It's very dark and dingy, with old off colored paint peeling off the woodwork and the sheetrock tape peeling. It's our reward for getting things done. I designate a job in there and if she gets her schoolwork done by 2:30, we get to go accomplish that particular step. Today, we are re-taping the sheetrock. It's a skill that I learned when we were re-doing her room, and I'll be teaching her how to do it in the hallway. The exciting part of the project will be the painting. We have chosen a rich pumpkin color and an antique white for all the trim. We also plan on refinishing the floor in there as well. It will be quite nice.

I will do my best to keep up with logging everything that I'm doing.

have a great day!

Camping, pt3 and everything I did last week

Day three started with a threat of rain, so while breakfast was being prepared, we all started packing up. It took us about an hour to grab some grub and get things all packed up, and then no one wanted to go home yet. We took some family pictures and then drove up to the nature center and went back up to Buffalo Springs. Sorta hung out for a couple of hours, then went to an island area of the park where we always have our "last meal". It's this cool little island in the middle of the river and it's got a picnic area on it and all the tables are stone and huge. I call them the Aslan tables. So we promptly talked my nephew into pretending he was being sacrificed. We thought his shirt was appropriate. Then kisses and hugs all around, 4 vehicles heading back to Texas and 3 vehicles heading back to the small Oklahoma town they belong in.

This week, I maintained my 7:30 wake up time, but had a couple 9-9:30 bedtimes just to recover from camping. And I can't remember what I did this week. I finished the Lone Star top and started working through my scrap quilt blocks adding what I could, then I pulled out the pile of tops completed and started piecing backs. I pickled some more okra, since it's still producing like crazy.

I've started carving my Jack o lanterns. Last year, a friend of mine taught me how to carve the craft pumpkins and I really enjoyed it immensely. This year, we found the flickering tea lights that are LEDs and they look really cool! I'll take photos soon. I carved a Sirius Black pumpkin for the Girl to go with the Harry Potter pumpkin from last year.

The day is awasting...there's lots of laundry to be done, so I need to go be productive while I still feel the need too. LOL.

Camping, pt 2

I awaken early Saturday morning, before anyone else is up. As I crawl/stumble from my tent and I look around and I see this. Our family's tent city. That's a lot of people. I get some hot water started for the coffee press and the tea pot and other random items and grab a quilt and a book and settle in for a while. I saw some deer while I was reading, just standing in the tree line watching me watch them. It was so peaceful....until THEY start waking up. Mom first, heading straight for the kitchen to start getting breakfast cooking. Then Dad, and before you know it the air is filled with the unmistakable sound of tent zippers being unzipped. One after the other, people are stumbling out of tents in their jammies or the clothes they slept in, rubbing their eyes and looking confused. They wander over to the circle of chairs and plop down, grunting morning greetings. So much for my book.

By this time, Dad is in the kitchen, stationed by the big griddle cooking sausage enough to feed an army, and Mom is giving orders to the rest of us to get us organized and awake enough to eat. The call goes out that pancakes are ready and we all get in line to go through the "chow hall". 2 pancakes a piece, they say, until everyone has eaten. Well, Andy got 3 which led us all to believe that Grandma loves him best.

After breakfast was done, a group of us decided to go for a walk up to the nature center which is about a mile and a half. We headed off up the road, about 6 of us ambling along. We wandered through the nature center and looked at all the displays and the books in the gift shop, but no one wanted to head back yet. We decided to walk another mile out through the woods to Buffalo Springs. The springs in Sulpher, Oklahoma are made of water that bubbles up through the ground from artesian wells. The CCC (Civilian Conservation Corp) was hired and trained in the 20's to do stone masonry and built all the structures at the park where we were camping. It's very pretty. We sat and dangled our feet and decided that the best plan would be to wait until 11:30 and head back and we'd hit the campsite about lunchtime and it would all be ready for us. The plan was a good one, but we ran into the Grands at the Nature Center, so obviously, lunch was not being prepared.

When we got back to the campsite, another group had shown up. My sister's oldest son and his wife and 2 children. That was a surprise, and a really nice one. I haven't seen them since their 2 year old was only 4 months. After lunch, we all decided to go swimming up at "Little Niagara", a swimming hole up the way. We all piled into the back of the truck and drove up. The water was so cold! Like, almost stop your heart cold, but it did feel good. We messed around and swam and wrestled and waded and found a stone "slide" at one of the shallower falls and just in general had a great time. Ooops...now it's time to eat again. Back to the campsite for more food. My great niece comes up with a new game during dinner "Pickle, pickle, pineapple head" which is our take on "duck, duck, goose". It's hard to play while you're eating, but fun anyway. Cleanup commences and the fire is lit. S'mores fixins break out again and then my nephew turns to me and says "What are we doing tonight?". Well, it's dark, in the woods, so we decided to go on a "night hike". These hikes have become infamous with our group, but they're always fun and interesting. My son suggests a place that I've never been to and it's easy to find, so off we go, 14 of us wandering down the road. We find the spot where we're heading in record time, and it's too early to go back so we wander around for a while until someone suggests taking the "scenic route" back. That means there's a path through the woods from the bridge back to our campsite. It's easy! You just follow the path! So we head off down the path through the woods. The full moon is beautiful and the critters are out. All is well until we come to a fork in the road. Hmmm. No one said anything about a fork in the road. So we pick the right fork. That would be the wrong fork. Of course we don't realize that until about a mile and a half later. By this time, a small group of 6 has broken off and run ahead to hide and lie in wait for the rest of us to jump out and scare us. That would have worked unless we were to come across ANOTHER fork in the path and we took different forks, which is what we did. At this point, half the group is acting like we've been lost in the wilderness for 40 days and we come across a sign that says "nature center, that way". Another mile to go, but we have a cell phone with us and we can call Grampa to come pick us up. Finally hit the nature center which is great, except the bathrooms are locked. Finally get a signal on the cell phone and call Grampa, who can hardly agree to come get us because he's laughing so hard. He shows up in his van about 10 minute later and we pile in the back. My sister finds all the chocolate goodies that have NOT been brought out for mealtimes and snacks and we tear into that stuff like crazy monkeys. Wrappers flying everywhere, boxes and bags being traded up and down the line. Of course, we didn't touch the Weight Watchers stuff. As we're driving back up to the campsite, we pass the rest of our group and wave and tell dad to gun it so we can beat them back to the site. He doesn't, of course, and they haul ass and actually get back before we can pile out of the van. A good time was had by all.

Camping, Pt 1

I'm back. I'm rested (sort of) and I'm ready to blog. It was a short trip, but it was certainly action packed so I thought it might be too much for one post. Plus, I don't have any other interesting things to talk about so I'll stretch camping out.

We, of course, were the first ones there. I'm the kind of girl who is completely packed the day before and I just want to get up and go. It was Friday, and I homeschool, so we didn't have any time restrictions like most of the other folks who were going to be there. Check in time was 12 noon, and we arrived at 12:04. We scouted out the best location and set up our tent. Early bird and all that jazz. The girl and I decided to go exploring, while my hubby decided to read a book and chill at the camp site. We wandered down to the river right by the campsite and sat on the rocks with our feet in the water, feeding the fish with cookies that we brought especially for that purpose. We've been there many times. My parents showed up next with a mini van FULL of camping equipment. Seriously, they'd taken all the seats out but the front and that thing was packed. Tents, awnings,a "camping kitchen", camping stoves, ice chests, and bedding. Lots and lots of bedding. They brought up all my sister's stuff as well, since she was bringing 4 teenagers with her and there was no room in her car for camping stuff. We helped unload and we set up the kitchen area. My mom doesn't like roughing it, so consequently it's not too bad to camp with her. She had a complete menu worked out, including grilled chicken cesear salad, tacos, and a pancake breakfast. The woman's a machine. Here is what a camping kitchen might look like. We hung around and as people started to show up, we helped them unload and get set up. Our first dinner was supposed to be Frito Chili pie, but not all the ingredients had shown up yet. Sent dad into town to pick up the few things that had been forgotten and ice, and then ate.

As people started to show up, we got a group together for a walk. It was the first of many. I think we walked up the road about a mile and then turned back. It was starting to get dark, and we knew more people would be there. When we returned, a fire was going and the s'mores fixins' were out. We started splitting of into groups of like-minded people. I hardly ever hang with the grown ups, preferring to spend time with my own kids and nieces/nephews, of which there are many. We spent the rest of the evening teasing random people as the situation dictated and just in general, having a lovely visit. In my family, you hardly ever get away with doing something stupid and pretty much everybody is open season. But it's all good natured and no one gets upset.

end of day 1