Oh my goodness it has been months since i have written... so sorry to my readers...

Had a truly crappy summer, I hurt my knee the end of June, and hobbled around all summer..went to Dr and he did no good, so finally went to a massage therapist, and he did help, but still hurting as of today..am waiting for appt with a specialist..and of course because i am favoring my right leg,my left foot is screaming in pain.. Son Joe bought L and I tickets to the Yankee Mariner ball game end of July, so I hobbled all weekend... We stayed at Tulalip Casino, what a lovely place...didn't do any shopping at the Factory outlet stores near by..lucky I didn't have to walk too far at Safeco field.. 

Had fairly good luck with the greenhouse, couldn't spend as much time out there as I would have liked..(leg hurt)... we did grow a huge pumpkin... 46 lbs.. it is still waiting to be cut up... pumpkin pie until we look like pumpkin..  

Desert Mesa spinning retreat was great again... full to the rafters.. started making plan for the 10th year annivesary...it will be a 3 day retreat...thats what everyone wanted... ya never know might make it a 3 day retreat from now on... who knows...

Haven't done agility since June with the sore knee... Maureen was running Wynn for me, until one day she (Wynn) came up really lame... wasn't putting any weight on her right leg...both of us sure miss it... took her to a Holistic Vet on Thursday, and of course she wasn't limping much.. but Dr Mills did some chiropractic and acupuncture work on her... hope it works... she does seem better today..






















we had a major tragedy end of October.. Levi died of a major blood disorder..what a shock...a dear friend of mine in Kelowna wrote a poem in memory of our boy..

Just a dog.... An Ode to Levi    by Lisa Dennis

My devoted Levi, your spirit's passed
Now only memories, I'm left to clasp
An unloved mutt, who'd been kicked around
dumped like trash at a local pound.

You came to us, and taught us much
about patience, praise, and human touch
Who adopted whom? It's hard to say
But all our lives were changed that day

An agility star, you'd never be
too stubborn willed and fancy free
No dog sport wonder, "Just a dog"
our beloved pet and blanket hog

Yet for one who live so long alone
You completed us, made house a home
Now you've left our side and shall not be back
God's called this dog to complete His pack

Okay, now that i have cried my eyes out... and shared my heart ache... i will go and feed the chickens and get some laundry done....

Oh my goodness, things have sure changed on the blog... hope i can figure it out... i need to change my picture...things are just fine around here, although I hurt my knee couple of weeks ago..haven't been to agility classes for 3 weeks.. first Wynn was lame this winter, now me... it seems a bit better today...I want to enter in a trial in Kamloops the end of Aug.. oh well, i had better get it better fast...  Joe bought us tickets to the Yankee and Mariner game in Seattle the 25th of July... i wanted to stay in Seattle, but the room cost and the cost of parking make it just too expensive... can ya believe that they charge 20 to 30 bucks to park in the hotel parking lot...So i decided we should stay at Tualip Casino, price is about the same, but no parking cost...  it is only a 35 minute drive...  Green house is doing well, lots of tomatoes, and one weenie cucumber...and lots of baby peppers... it was so hot yesterday, that we ended up putting shade cloth over it... I have a friend who works for a place that makes shade cloth for windows and decks, and if there is an mistake in the weaving they bring it back, and she said they have a warehouse full of the stuff,, I traded her a case of crab apple jelly for some... put some over our bedroom window and the  greenhouse... brought the green house temp down 10 degrees...
Butchered our meat birds this weekend, we are getting really fast, 2 hours for 12 birds, but we took two days as the temp was going up so fast..i was pleased with the weights, mostly 4 to 4 1/2 lbs, and a couple of 5+, scale only goes to 5 pounds...so we have 24 fat plumb hens in the freezer..


Been knitting my girlfriend her 50th birthday present, a shawl of course, I probably won't be around when she turns 60...just the simple "garter and lace shawl"... got the body of the shawl done, "boring", but when it came to do the lace, I just couldn't concentrate... so went to another project...I am making Father Igneous a scarf for his birthday which is the 17th of October, the first night of the spinning retreat...it is a very cool pattern...
 http://www.craftsy.com/project/view/Mustard-Knit-Scarf/17394  hope it shows up if ya go to look at it...

I am having one H of a time with this stupid blog... sometimes i can get the other blogs i follow, but most of the time, I can hardly get in to write something...
Had a great time in Nanaimo, the Regionals agility trial was very interesting, everyone from Merritt qualified for the Nationals, and they are all going back beginning of August... hope they do well..The only thing that really bothered me where the handlers and dogs that shouldn't have been there.  The Regional trials were meant for the most experienced handlers "Master dogs and handlers", I talked to some handlers that had just barely started dogs...which i found took up a lot of time..I know that being able to say you had been to Regionals would be nice, but when you start with 500 points and end up with lesss than 50 points, they aren't ready to be there.. 
Toni and I had a great visit although I did get sick one day, but it was great seeing her and meeting her new dogs... Jake, Ranger (springer spaniels) and Shortie (the orginial All Canadian--(mutt))..and of course the man in her life, "Rob"..the lawyer who loves to Log...  Rob helped me "enable" Larry's passion these days of collecting "Old Iron"..a water pump..Old Iron is stuff that is so old and rusty that takes him weeks to clean up one piece, most of it are engines that used to run threshing machines, grinders, water pumps, right now L is working on restoring a 1950 golf course lawn mower.. he can hardly wait to cut the lawn with it..it is gear driven so won't be hard to push.. This is one of the engines he has restored, I can't find the orginal picture..

Green house is doing really well..got lots of tomatoes.. the earlies "Oregon Spring" are dong really well.. the weather has been so cold here that the cukes are just starting to climb.. basil and rosemary are struggling..  Meat birds are almost ready to butcher. got new laying chicks, Rhode Island Reds" mixed,as they don't sex these ones for some reason, so will probably end up with more roosters than hens, so will probably end up with 15 roosters and 10 hens..also got the turkeys... they are so funny..15 this year, could have sold more last year... 

Joe bought us a pair of tickets to Yankee baseball in Seattle in July... couldn't believe that if you get a hotel room there, that you have to pay for parking..anywhere from $20 to 40...a night...so decided that we would stay in Tualip(spelling) at the Indian casino for 2 nights.. it is only a 40 minute drive, and the game starts at noon, so that should work...then on the way home, we plan on stopping at Costco...looking for some socks for L, they carried them in Canada until a couple of years ago... and  he loved them, but can't find them else.. and then at the Farm Store..just for snooping...

Wynn is back doing agility, her limp is better, but i am only jumping her at 10 inches instead of the 22 inches she is suppose to jump...i think i will special her at 16 inches... so she doesn't hurt herself... she is doing well, but my knees are acting up this week..hope i will be able to keep running her..i want to put her in a trial in Kamloops the end of August..

Better go get my rear in gear and go check and feed chicks,  have a great weekend... hope the sun shines on Renate B's daughters fairy tale wedding in  Pemberton this weekend..

I'm back... twice in a month... main reason is I'm bored... Larry is watching "Jail".. i get tired of watching all the drunks and druggies go thru jail.... so I have been knitting... got 3 shawlets done,one for my partner at the Food Bank, and one for a silent auction, and the one for Joe's Theresa.... and have started another one... Garter and Lace... plain garter stitch with lace around the edge, in dark brown alpaca, machine spun by Crofton wool Mills, no longer in business, and i do miss Marie and her fibre...
got my Knit Pick needle set... i do love them... but couldn't believe that they didn't include the connectors for the long cords... have to order some...

Count down to the 65th birthday... got my Gold card a couple of weeks ago, now i am really old... I am
going over to Nanaimo June the 5th..going to spend my birthday with my spinny friends on the island.  There is going to be the Regional Dog Agility that weekend, so plan on spending time with Toni and then spend a day at the Trial, and then on Sunday, I get to volunteer.. the dogs come from all over BC and the Yukon, I will never be good enough to run in that trial, but i really want to see them.. Wynn is doing better, got her on MSM, condrotin, and glucosamin (spelling  ?????), I am too lazy to get up to get the bottle to check out the spelling.  She is not limping, so i will start her doing agility again, Levi has been going to her class, I just couldn't miss any classes.  He has been doing good, but I won't trial him as he always did well at class, but messed up at Trials..I won't tell ya how many 100's of dollars i spent for 5 Qualifying scores... I had planned on running Wynn in April but had to cx as she was limping so bad...  There will be a few trials during the summer that i would like to do, but we will see..i need to win the Lottery, so  i can go to more trials..

Green House is doing good.. although even under plastic i lost 4 pepper plants and one tomato to frost.. so we put a little heater in to keep the frost at bay... tomatoes are starting to flower, and the one pepper that didn't freeze is starting to bloom.. The fruit trees here in the Nicola Valley are blooming like crazy, I have never seen so many blooms on some the old apple trees beside the Hwy.. even our two baby apple trees are covered with flowers, and my cherry trees are covered with baby cherries, I can hardly wait for them to ripen..  The saskatoons and choke cherrys are really blooming, i hope that doesn't mean it is going to be a bad winter..(lots of food for the wild critters)

My camera isn't working, so I have to use Larry's, i just change the memory card, so will take some pictures of the green house tomorrow...

I have had lots of emails from spinners wanting to know when the invites for the fall retreat will be going out.. Andrea Lawrence has sold her business, so not sure if the new girl is interested in vendoring...  Well I am off to bed, I have been waking up at 5 am this past week... need to read a bit, and hope i don't drop my book...

Take care   S

PS... this is the farm house that Larry was born in,  they had a dairy farm in Fort Langley in the 40's.. now it is a turf farm... lovely old house...

Oophs...  I haven't written since April.. so sorry... I have been busy... great excuse eh...I have been doing a lot of knitting, "flower basket shawl" for Joe's Theresa, swallow tail shawl for friend's birthday, and another "flower basket shawl" for a blind auction..(hmmm not sure that is the right word).. got the word..."SILENT" auction... those shawls are very easy, and only a 9 row repeat, so it is easy to remember..  Spring has been very slow coming this year..both my cherry trees are blooming.. yipee... i love cherries.. both apple trees are showing buds..a granny smith, and an Ambrosa... 

Larry decided that he was going to build me a green house this year, I have been waiting for 20+ years.. what do ya think... We have a company here in Merritt, called "good earth"..they compost soil and all kinds of good stuff, so we got a dump truck load... beautiful black stuff... you mix it 1 to 3of your own dirt.. then he got carried away (no picture yet).. he built a potatoe box (we have a tough time growing spuds in my garden boxs, they get really mushy when cooked, I think they get too much water when we water the rest of the boxes) so this box will only get water when i want it... and then he got carried away again, he wants strawberries, I hate them as they are so hard to weed, so he built another box for his strawberries, and put a heavy duty tarp on the ground.. so will go look for some plants today... I have kept him busy the last couple of weeks, meat chicks are coming today, and then the turkeys and the laying hens  are coming near the end of June..Larry wanted "Rhode Island Red chickens"  and of course the chicks are not sexed, so ya get roosters and hens, so we are hoping to get at least 12 hens, the roosters are raised for meat birds..

Picked up the chicks, they were 3 hours late.. brought them home, and of course all the dogs where under foot, I went thru the gate at the shop, turned to the left toward the chick house, and Dixie (the border collie) was waiting at the door of the chick house..   she laid in the door way while i watered and feed them... went back in a couple of hours, she won't let any of the other dogs near her CHICKS..  Joe teases her while she is in the house, he calls her and yells "Chickens" and she is at the door waiting for us... silly old girl....
Yankee has been talking up a storm, he makes us laugh every day...He has figured out when Cleo (the cat) is in... as soon as i take the dogs to bed, and Cleo is in the house, he starts calling 'Cleo, Cleo, and she comes out for her bedtime treat... and if she isn't in, he calls Levi... and believe it or not, he really knows when she in the house..  When the dogs are in trouble, and i call them, and they come right away, they get a "Yippee" and they get a treat for coming so good...now Yankee asks for a cookie (at treat time for the dogs) and yells 'Yippee'... he is waiting for the weather to warm up, so he can go outside..    Okay.. i have written enough today... although i need to change my picture..nite