HAPPY NEW YEAR...  don't ya love my new picture... this is a pic of a Sewhet Owl, that lived in our barn a couple of winters back... should go check the barn to see if he has come back... might have to change it as it is really large.... hugs

Great Day but no Dinner

Dec 31... started writing Christmas Day, but never finished it... so here is what i wrote, then i will start over again..

Morning... had a lovely Christmas Day, Matt arrived Christmas eve... We were all up early, Joe had to work Christmas Eve, but they let him off early so he was here about 8:30, Larry and I had done the chores, so we opened gifts as soon as Joe got here... Lots of good stuff.. I got new boots that i wanted, and a fancy knife sharpener, an electric one that even sharpens serrated knifes.. and lots of gift certificates to WALMART... I know that isn't too exciting, but I wanted a pair of Prescription sun glasses and they are very expensive, but Walmart has a good selection of frames... so will end in to Kamloops soon to get them ordered..

 Dec 31.... We suppose to go up to friends for dinner... but as i was getting dressed, i decided that i wasn't feeling up to going out... stomach was quesey..so Larry and the boys went with out me... I was very disappointed, but would rather feel rotten at home then up at Clara's   so i had two pieces of raisin bread for supper... Matt's little dog drove me nuts, she is definitely a one person dog, and she was really stressed while he was gone... Matt and Joe went to Kamloops to a movie one nite, and she had calmed down nicely...
Anyway... it is hard to believe that tonite will be 2010... seems like it was just yesterday that they were saying the world would crash and burn when the clocks turned over to 2000...we made 10 years with problems...
We will be in bed by 11 tonight..card buddies will be over for supper tomorrow early, so we will play cards for a couple of hours, and then have a lovely Prime Rib with twice baked spuds, ceasar salad, brussel sprouts and peas and corn, and the a delious chocolate roll stuffed with REAL whipping cream and iced with a light chocolate icing..girlfriend had given me this recipe over 30 years ago with instructions never to let anyone else have this recipe... I mentioned it last time i saw her, and she can't remember telling me that, and that she didn't care if i passed the recipe on...all these years i had been so good not letting anyone have it..oh... guess we change as we get older..
Weather has warmed up nicely... Hens are laying very well, had 18 eggs one day.. i have a whole fridge of eggs... will take some to guild meeting, hopefully will be able to sell them all...
I messed up the other day and didn't drain the hose that we use to water the sheep well enough and then the prairie water tap froze, so Larry is trying to thaw it out...
Got my Finn all spun up... got 2500 yards out of a pound... now just have to decide what to make out of it... I have restarted the glacier green merino and silk yesterday...had to go up two needle sizes to get it the right size for my BIG hips...it is the feather and fan pattern done in a sleeveless jacket... hope it fits this time...
I got an email from a very good friend who taught me to spin 25 years ago... i h ave been trying to get Anja to start spinning again, anyway she told of me of this new lady that she met who is also trying to get her to start spinning again... are you ready for this... this new friend of Anja is known in their valley as "Rattlesnake Annie" and has run guys off her property with a 'shot gun'...  doesn't she sound like an interesting character... i would love to met her...
Better go and make up my baked spuds for tomorrow... we are playing cards early in the afternoon, so will have to have everything ready in the am... have a Truly Great New Year's Eve... please don't drink and drive...hugs 

FOG

Darn it, I hate fog... woke up to very foggy morning... don't mind it during the day, but really hate it at night... I feel like i have been dropped into a hole, the tempature has sure risen.. +2 this morning... can't believe the change.. 
I am off to Kamloops this afternoon for eye tests, 2 pm appt, but that means that i have to drive against the lights coming home after drops... oh well i can always put my sun glasses on... should be a quick trip... no shopping to do.. only one gift to buy... and it is an easy one, a gift certificate for the youngest son... he is so picky with his clothes that there is no way that i can buy him anything that fits or that he likes, so the family has decided to buy him gift certificates, that way he buys what he likes...he has very expensive tastes..
The hens are laying really well... think we have 17 hens (one died yesterday, she has always been sickly) and we are getting 14 eggs a day... we started feeding them hot mash which they just love...helps keep them warm..but Larry's chickent house is nice and toasty warm.. almost too warm...
Got a Christmas present from my cousin in Wales(we have never met in person) a cook book with Welsh reciepes, funny book, one half the page is in Welsh and the other half is in English... what a strange language (welsh that is) some very interesting pictures...
Oldest son Joe is off to the coast today, going to spend a few days with Grandma..I was talking to youngest son the other day, I guess Joe is driving him nuts, Matt says he likes it better when Joe wasn't talking to any of us..(pre separation days), but I keep reminding him that Joe is lonely now..he works 4 days and then has 4 days off..so he kind of moves in on  us on those 4 off days..I imagine he will be here over his Christmas days off..We are going to friends for dinner on
Christmas day... Joe wants us to stay home, but for years we never saw him but for a few hours on Christmas day, so we started sharing dinner with friends who were also alone..and it has gotten to be a tradition, so he will have to come with us... I will cook a turkey on Boxing day so that we have left overs...i will have to get Larry to cut one of the turkeys in half, they weigh about 24 lbs... too big for us... well had better get dressed and go feed the chucks...

MINUS -20C

Minus 20 C... sounds really cold but it is actually only -4 F... I can remember in our early marriage, we managed   -45 F with no problem... we had no running water so that meant no flush toilet so that meant putting on the pants, boots, parka, hat and gloves just to go for a pee at 2 am... lucky for me in those days I was much younger and my bladder much stronger so those night trips were few and far between.. That house had been a grainery at one time, it had wood shavings as insulation and cardboard (painted blue) on the walls... having a bath was a real chore... we had an old cast iron bathtub in a back room with no HEAT...so we plugged in a heater, and fill up as many buckets that we owned (about 6  i would think) we would have to go down to the hand pump, fill up two buckets at a time, pack them up thru 2 to 3 feet of snow, put them  on the wood stove, crank up the stove and wait a couple of hours.  By the time the water was almost boiling, the tub room was at about 30 degrees F..just around freezing.  you have got to remember that that tub was cast iron and it was cold... so now we had to move really fast...empty the buckets into the tub... the buckets must have held around 2 to 3 gallons, so you were looking at about  12 to 15 gallons in a tub that probably held 100 gallons, so you had about 4 inches of boiling water in the tub... it was too hot to get into, so then you had to rush down to the pump, pump two buckets of water, rush back up to cold tub room, very gently add the cold water and hope you didn't put too much cold in.. of course the cast iron really sucked up the heat... you had to have everything ready, hop into the tub, wet up, soap up and rise as fast as you could.. never washed my hair in the tub...took too long... so always washed it in the sink...We feed 150 cows a day while we lived there, and we went snowshoeing every weekend, no matter how cold it was..We lived there for 2 winters, and of course the spring that we left there, the owner put in a real bathroom...with heat... Summers were great up there, we rode on the cows almost everyday... cut firewood and sold it, dug earthworms for the fishing camp, and generally had a great time...

Gave my agiltiy instructor her 60th birthday shawl on Friday nite, and she was very happy with it...i was really happy with the beads.. It is the Swallow tail pattern..the fibre is superwash BFL.. which i really love... the colour was a bright pink that i didn't like so i did up a light blue dye pot, and overdyed the bright pink, then i was happy with the colour...

Sorry but i can't  download anymore pictures..dumb program... i really like the MS Live Writer, but it is acting up and keeps putting my new blogs in March 09 ... weird.. I emailed them a couple of weeks ago and still haven't heard from them...  better go and get my act in gear... even feed the wild birds this morning.. they weren't out of feed, but like to see a full feeder... see ya soon............

Two days into December

Full Moon and two days into December, and it is cold out there... -9 C this morning...Guild had our Christmas lunch at Annie's in Logan Lake..very Christmasy house..i think from where i was sitting i could see 4 Christmas Trees, and all very decorated.. full of bobbles, bells, angels, and lights... very nice...Annie also collects dolls and there were dolls everywhere...and spinning wheels..i think she has 8 of them...But believe it or not... there were 9 of us there.... AND NOT ONE DESSERT...........can ya imagine... food was good..lots of it...  Bernice is having a hip replacement next week, so we made up a basket full of wrapped gifts..so when she comes home, she gets to open a gift a day as long as she has to stay at home.....and there must have been atleast 20 gifts in there...she figures that she will be out and about before she runs out of gifts..but i would hate to fall on the ice and snow...

This is ROO, an Australian cattle dog,(blue heeler) she is on the teeter... the idea is that the dog must ride the teeter to the ground, in other words be in control at all times, but as you can tell... there is no control... and the look on her face is  "oh my GOD".. this is one of the pictures from the Calendar my friend made us...

Took my knitting to the lunch today, i needed help to decide what to do with it... it isn't big enough..so will start over again..i have knitted it about 28 inches long... lenght is good, but width isn't... so i will start over again in a bit, after i get over my disappointment... I was doing so well... oh well... will take a picture of it to show ya before i frog it.......... better go do some spinning...