Dirty Horses and Christmas Stuff

I have no idea if the video thing will work. I thought I'd give it a try. It is the reason I think a horse with white on it hates being white. I think she rolls more than the other horses.

And we have my girl, Charlotte, all dressed up for helping Santa. She's okay with it for about 5 seconds unless you press the button that makes it play music and flash the lights. She's not okay with that!

I baked cookies. Lots of cookies. I swear everywhere I go the air smells and tastes like cookies. Since I can't eat much in the cookie department this is just unfair. Thank goodness my sweet tooth is small. On the other hand I never met a potato I didn't like.

And last but not least, here is the wreath I made for the front door.

Dear Mother Nature,

I realize it's been a while since you have released a nice amount of rain on us. I also get that we need the water to survive. But here's what I'm thinkin'; maybe you could release the water a little more often in shorter spells. Say at night, during the week, two nights a week. That way nothing is flooded and even the adobe I live on will have time to really soak the water up. I'm telling you this is a win win situation. You could do your thing for the earth and we wouldn't flood, have fewer car accidents, we have plenty of water, and the kids could play outside. And while I'm making requests, I'd like to put in my order for sunny days from December 21st until the day after Christmas. This will make travel much easier for those going to visit their loved ones and give the kids a chance to burn off all that Christmas excitement by riding their new bikes, using their new skates and sports equipment outside. The Mom's of the world would appreciate it.

While we are on the subject of weather let's address the issue of fog. I don't mind the fog at all. In fact it's kinda quiet and cozy sometimes. But extended periods of fog have a depressing effect on us humans. I'm thinking it would be better if the fog forms around sunrise as usual but then burns off about 11 in the morning. That way you can have your fog and we can have our sunshine.

While we are having this chat I would like to know when, exactly, did you decide that I needed old lady skin? I looked out the truck window while riding with my Honey one day and saw the underside of my arm flapping and wrinkling in the wind. I know I'm getting older but I see no reason why you had to spring this on me so quickly. But I will admit that it goes well with the chicken skin on my neck.

I do want to thank you for my husband's diminishing eye sight though. He noticed the outside of me when we met and for the first 10 years or so. I can only attribute his undiminished passion for me to his aging eyes. I look better without his glasses. Love truly is blind.

I know I'm asking a lot for one measly human. I want you to know that I absolutely love your work. Your sunrises and sunsets are spectacular. The smell of blooming things in the spring is fabulous. And the colors! You have a way with colors, year round, that is extraordinary! No one can match your deep blue skies, or delicate pink almond blossoms. You make purple and green go with red and blue all in one fabulous vista. Your waterfalls and rock formations are inspiring. I admit to a soft place in my soul for your pine trees. Your oceans and seas can't be matched by anything man has made. And you tuck tiny beautiful surprises in rock crevasses and spots of shade. I'm sure you know by now I'm a big fan of your animal kingdom, although I don't understand the need for flies or mosquitoes. I know I'm just one small human but I appreciate all you do for us. I will try my best not to get in the way of your work.

Love,
Elayne

A Sunny Monday

A week or so D went to Turlock to run an errand or two. Now I always dread it when he goes shopping alone because he's a worse impulse shopper than I am. And that's saying something! Anyway, this time he came back from Bed Bath & Beyond with this little gadget. It's a tool for avocados. He noticed I eat them. Often. Anyway, I'm a paring knife kind of avocado eater and didn't put much stock in the tool. Then I used it. Ladies, if you see one of these gems around get one. The knife blade thingy cuts right through the skin and it's easy to hold. Those three blades bite right into the pit and made getting that thing out of there a snap. And the little slicer part takes the avocado out of the skin and slices it neatly in one swift move. I love this silly thing. And I can't even hurt myself with it.

 I have been trying to finish some stuff up before Christmas guests and that includes what was on my spinning wheel. Here is how the blue Merino wool came out. It's about 300 yards of a sport weight yarn. Pretty, I think.

This is not my horse. This is the landlord's horse and she lives here and we care for her. She was in pretty bad shape when we moved in. It seems no one really knew how to care for a horse. She's old and has some serious issues with her legs. The saying goes that if you have a horse with bad feet or legs you don't have a horse. At least not one you can ride. She is not rideable by any means. But when we moved in she could barely walk. Today I took her out of her stall and put her in her area and she took off at a canter. A nice normal canter. Last year she couldn't do that. I'm glad to see she's feeling so much better. She seems happier too.

This is the cinch I made for my horse and that's the matching breast collar I just finished for her. She'll be styling the next time she's tacked up. Now if I can find sport boots the right shade of blue. So far no luck.
We use them on our horses to support and protect their legs.

And the Christmas tree again. I posted it by mistake and I couldn't delete it without deleting all the pictures and starting over. I'm sure there is a way but I don't know what it is yet.

We spent the weekend watching movies and staying out of the rain. D got a Kindle Fire HD for Christmas. It turns out that with the HD model you can stream movies to your TV. We are Amazon Prime members and there are lots of free movies we can watch. His Fire came with a HDMI cable and we just plugged one end in the Fire and the other into the TV and we had free Hi Def movies all weekend. Cool. My Fire doesn't do that. No place for the cable to plug in. I wonder what next year's model will do?

I'm in a Fog

 I'm always talking about my big dog, Charlotte and the funny stuff she does. Well, as you can see in the photo above she knows how to keep me laughing while relaxing on the love seat in the living room. I'm still taking Christmas out of the boxes and I turn around and there she is. I think there's a lesson in her attitude.

I am so busy I don't know if I'm coming or going these days! And apparently I've been remiss in telling everyone I got a job at the new Walmart they are building in town. I haven't started yet because the store isn't finished. We were told that we would be starting in January. I got a call a couple days before Thanksgiving to come in the day before Thanksgiving for orientation. At orientation we were told they get the store keys mid January and that we would be putting up all the displays and stocking the shelves. We were also told this is the only overtime we would get but they understand we didn't have any notice and that we have Christmas plans already. So we have to just let them know when we aren't available. In my interview I was told if we said we couldn't come in we would have our hours cut. So I'm not sure what will happen but I need a couple days in December and that's that. Oh yes, I almost forgot to say I will be working in Fabrics and Crafts, and I'm not sure, but I think that includes Home Decor.

Here is my tiny little lemon tree. It has over a dozen lemons on it. I bought it because I thought the trees that D dug up when we moved would never make it. The lime tree didn't look too bad but the lemon tree looked dead. Of course D said it would be fine and it is flourishing better than when it was in the dirt. I hate it when D gets an "I told you so".

I woke up to the fog yesterday. We haven't had a good foggy stretch in many years. This is the view from my back porch. It cleared up nicely in an hour or so. But I had to drive to Turlock and it just got foggier and foggier as I headed east. Today the fog has lifted to be just barely foggy enough to be depressing. I'd rather have the heavy fog if I'm not driving. At least it makes you feel like you're wrapped in a blanket.

I know, I know, out of order again. One of my geraniums thinks it's spring. It's much prettier than this picture shows because it's a deeper, richer red. Quite stunning really. And I still have tomatoes on my tomato vine. I don't think they will get a chance to ripen. Rain is on the way and without sun it's not going to happen.

I will post pictures of the village under the tree this year in another post. We splurged and got a new fake tree this year. This one has "snow" on it. And for the first time it has all Wizard of Oz ornaments on it. There aren't enough of them but I love it anyway.

This year I'm not decorating as much as I usually do. But I still have a little bit of Christmas to get out of the boxes so I better get back to it.

My Blue Period

 Okay, I haven't blogged for a while. I've been trying the face book thing. But it's always on my phone and I don't type fast there. I feel people would get bored with a long post so I like this for one thing and that for another.

In any case I've been spinning, knitting, and crocheting my little heart out. Except when we went to Sturgis on vacation where I mostly just rode on the back of the bike. And crashed when we got back to camp.

I bought that blue fiber you see in the photo above, at a thing we went to in September. I haven't purchased any fiber or yarn in a very long time.  Maybe since February. I've been hitting the stash pretty hard. But who can resist those beautiful shades of blue? I call it Shannon blue since that's the color my daughter, Shannon, likes so much.

 I am attempting to keep the color run true by spinning identical pieces on two different bobbins. Now I realize this may not work. I can't seem to split the fiber evenly. But, what the heck, it make me feel like it might work in a couple spots at least. The end result remains to be seen.

 Darryl decided to learn to make cinches. The cinch is the thing that attaches to the saddle to hold the saddle on the horse. Mohair is the best and most comfortable for the horse. At least we think so. But we are fiber people so we might lean toward a more natural product if we can.  It is darn near impossible to find or buy a 38" or long mohair cinch. And if you happen to have a draft cross horse or draft horse you will need a long cinch. Anyway, after Darryl took a class and I saw what he made I got sucked in as well. 

The cinch in the photo above was being made by a young lady in my class. I got to take the class just for the cost of materials because my over achiever husband impressed the instructor so much when he took the class that he was asked to assist with this class. So I lucked out.

This is a picture of my second cinch. Darryl taught me to make the basic cinch out of scraps of stuff we had at home so I could make a vaquero style in the class. It's just a little fancier than the basic cinch. Everyone kinda shook their heads when they saw the colors I chose. But this is the color I want on my little pinto horse. And I chose the black and reddish brown because they are the colors on her. When I finished my cinch everyone loved it. One guy liked it so much he copied the pattern I put on the ends by the buckles. I made it up and the instructor was pretty impressed that I took it out a few times until I got the effect I wanted. It's a short cinch for my little horse so it doesn't have bars between the center diamond and the ends. Most cinches do.

This shows all three of my projects. The two cinches and the breast collar. The light colored cinch on the right was the practice one I did at home out of old cinch stuff and yarn scraps. Everyone seemed to like it because it's stained and looks old even though I just made it. I'm gonna hang it on the wall as a decoration. It's not strong enough to be used. Underneath the two cinches is two wings of a breast collar. If it was to be done all in mohair there would be a third piece hanging straight down from the center ring. I made this because my neighbor wanted to replace her husband's horse's breast collar. He is a leather worker and will make the third piece out of leather. He doesn't know that yet because it's a Christmas present for him. I embroidered their brand on the brown part where the breast collar attaches to the saddle. I can remove that if she doesn't like it. It's a little hard to see but their brand is the Horseshoe L ranch. He's a conservative guy so I put it in gray so it didn't jump out at you.

Now I am going to make a breast collar to match the cinch for my little horse. I think I'll make a collar for my dog. Darryl is working on a hat band. But he wants a matching breast collar for his horse. I will post a photo of the really cool cinch he made another time.

Just what I need. Another hobby.

See? I'm Trying.

 I happen to have these photos on my phone so I was able to upload quickly. I am still packing and rushing around like a chicken with my head cut off. I wonder if they really do that. Anyway, this is supposed to have good ventilation. As a matter of fact FABULOUS ventilation. Your helmet needs to be replaced every five years and my old helmet is four years old. So this trip is a good excuse to replace it. And D keeps nagging me about it.

As you can see it's white. Well, that simply won't do so I had to bling it up. So I added the reflective flames and bought a few jillion crystals and outlines a flame in crystals at the top front of the helmet. It  looks pretty cool. But really it's about being seen. The flames are reflective at night. I will try to add a photo but it will be out of order. They crystals are sparkly in the daytime. People notice the helmet. I figure if they do they might also notice there is a motorcycle under my butt and maybe not kill us. I'm going to wear white/pale blue leathers as well. If it's not killer hot. My mesh jacket is white too.

I got other birthday stuff too. I just haven't had time to take cool photos and show them off. My sister, Patricia, gave me a Clydesdale horse! Okay, okay, it's a Zoobie. That means it's a pillow stuffed with a blanket horse. It's cute as all get out. I have it on my bed.

But my daughters went all out this year. I have two quilt tops that are from my lovely ex mother-in-laws family. They went unfinished for years. Well, Shannon had them to do a little research for me and she finished one and then she and Kelly had it quilted for me. It's just about the most meaningful gift I could have received. I want to take it with me on vacation. I don't think I can fit it in.

Back to work. I still have stuff to finish up to get ready.

I'm Baaack!

No pictures today. I'm crazy busy. Like that's something new. You see, the thing is, we are getting ready to go on vacation and I feel like I'm running further behind than usual. I don't know if anyone will even try to read this blog any more but that's okay. It will be a good experience anyway.

So, I'm going to try to blog while we are on vacation. You know post pictures and stuff. We are headed to Sturgis, South Dakota for bike week. And we will be camping most of the way. I know that the campground we will be staying in has WiFi. But how much Internet access we will have going to and returning from will be a crap shoot.

We will be traveling on our bike pulling our tent trailer. We are traveling with some friends of ours that will be towing their bikes on a trailer behind their 40' RV. Kind of both ends of the spectrum. We are independent of them though. We will use our own gear and if there isn't camping available for us we will stay in a motel. They can park and stay in their rig.

The adventure begins Saturday morning. We are shooting for Lovelock, Nevada for our first night.

Let the adventure begin!!