February trip first days

Each winter we take a trip to visit our daughter's family in Texas.  It is a 2 day drive from our home in North Dakota.

We had a prior appointment for Feb 8th, so didn't get started until after 2 in the afternoon.  We like to take a highway that is not in interstate, you see so much more scenery and US HWY 81 is the original route from Canada to Texas from before the interstate system was put in.  Parts of it are 2 lane and a good share of it is 4 lane.

The first day we made it into Kansas before stopping for the night. The next day we got on the road early and I took the first picture of this years trip in Oklahoma. To me the color of the dirt is just weird.

Another feature of Oklahome that we enjoy traveling through are the Arbuckle mountains.

Every time I see the name on the map or a sign, it gives me a bit of a tickle.  I read a lot of westerns, and one of the brand names for coffee back in the very old days was Arbuckle.  And another interesting thing about this area is Arbuckle Mountain Fried Pies.  They are very good.


This year, the weather was really good, no fog, no rain, and the farmguy was willing to take the time to do some sight seeing. We stopped at one of the overlook pullouts and I took a few pictures, here is one.

As we got closer to our daughter's house, we have to go through Fort Worth.  The road systems truely look like piles of spaghetti

there were some very interesting striated clouds

This year we took a fun present for our grandchildren, snow. 
I put our Yeti cooler out in the garage for several days to be sure it is chilled, then on the morning of the trip, I fill it with snow. close and latch the lid and it does pretty well for the 2 days og the trip. The kids had a great time with the snow and then they kept part of it for the next day for our granddaughter's 4th birthday party.

grampa throwing snowballs 

Along with the snowball fight, we enjoyed the fire pot.

Well, this is long enough for tonight.

There is more to come, because farmguy decided we were not going to go straight back home after our visit, we are going to do more sightseeing.
So stay tuned for some more interesting pictures.

catching up and ending 2019

Well, I still am not posting on a regular basis, so once again this is a catch up post.

I have some photos to share

I was out checking the chickens one of the last days of November and I managed to catch this sunset.

and then a few days after that, this is what we ended up with,

Above is the aftermath of the snow storm, belowis what was going on during it.  most of our windows were coated with the snow

We have had several more storms since, but I haven't taken pictures in all of them. 

Last October before the first hard frost, I was invited to pick apples from one of Farmguy's cousins.  They are yummy apples, and I canned several varieties of apple butter, and made apple sauce, and made some fried apples, and baked several types of desserts.  One of the ones we really like is Apkple Bread Pudding

it is an old recipe from my grandmother and like many recipes from nearly 100 yrs ago, it is not exact, 

3-4 slices of bread                                    - I used 8 cups of dried bread cubes

moisten with about 1 cup milk                 - I used about 3 C milk

1 - 2 C cut up apples                                 - I used a good 6 C of cut up apples

1/2 - 3/4 C sugar depending on tartness    - I used about 1 1/2C sugar & some cinnamon & nutmeg

Dot top with butter                                    - I used about 8 tbls of butter

Bake at 350 till apples are done.  Serve warm with heavy cream (G & G milked cows) or ice cream

I did some bread baking before Christmas, both Sourdough and Julekage. 

This is about half of what i made. Some for us, some for neighbors, some for friends

 I did do some Tatting before Christmas, it is about 2" tall

This post is getting long enough and late enough in the evening.  I will end 2019 here and try to get the rest caught up in the next day or so. 

Have a really great 2020

Misc catchup post

This has been an interesting summer.  We had a cool and wet spring and summer, which brought a large and amazingly varied crop of mushrooms.  This is just 1 and it was very large.

We always get together for a family camping and picnic over the 4th of July, along the shore of a lake.  This is me and a couple of our grandchildren. 

Then in early October, the 11th to be exact we had a blizzard, and received 4" of snow.  Not as much as other parts of the state, some very "lucky" farmers received about 28" of heavy wet snow. 

below are 2 of the pictures I took

                           

This is a small Black Walnut

All the rain we recieved this year and the snow caused the fields to be very wet and has made harvest very difficult. 

Also in October we went to 2 concerts, first we have gone to in all the 46  yrs we haev been married.  At the end of September, Farmguy answered a trivia question on the radio and he won tickets to a Mickey Gilley/Johny Lee concert.  It was fun.  A week later he was reading the paper and saw that Miranda Lambert and her Roadside Bars & Pink Guitars tour was stopping in Fargo ND.  We were able to get tickets and the date was just a few days after our  Anniversary.  We had a good time at that concert too. 

On November 2 one of my daughters got martried. Below is a picture of our children. 

Left to right: Elizabeth #4 Doctor of Chemistry,

Mary #1 Graphic Artist and para professional for their local school, 

Naomi #6 runs the city and county housing dept, 

Rebecca #5 works in the compliance dept for a multi state bank, 

Joseph #7 works for a national restaurant chain,

Sarah #3 PharmTech in a hosp,

Anna #2 Stockbroker/Financial Advisor.

I am so proud of my kids, they are all silly, succesful, responsible adults who have persevered through good and bad times. They are amazing people and I am glad I know them and am very proud to be there mom. I do not claim any responsibility for how they turned out.  All I did was give them a framework, they did the growing and maturing themselves with God's help. 

Let's Try This Again

It has been quite some time since I posted anything.

I have allowed many things to get in the way of posting. 

So I have decided that I need to start again. 

I will be posting more than just fiber art. 

There will still be the occasional Tatting project or maybe crochet or maybe socks. 

But there will also be some pictures.  I have gotten a new camera, and I am liking it very much.  So you may see just those on occasion. 

Back in January I was just learning this camera, and it is still an on going process, but I took these one evening while out shutting up the chickens,  that was before the 2 months of sub zero weather. 

Another subject you might see pictures of would be chickens.  I have a flock of 26, 24 hens and 2 roosters. The flock is of mixed breeds and these are the colors of eggs that I get. 

Just a couple more photos 

Sunrise over the grain bins

February 2019 snowstorm

a March 2019 snowstorm aftermath

and one morning there was fog

and when it cleared, we had this really neat frosting on the trees and other outside structures

and 1 more from March,  

The same storm that devastated the state of Nebraska also hit us here in North Dakota. 

We lost part of the roof of the pole barn where we house our calves. That should be roof, not open sky and there shouldn't be all that snow on the floor.  There was a calf that got trapped under the rafters and steel, but he wasn't hurt.  

Well, this post is long enough.  

I will try to do better about posting as we go forward into 2019

blizzard pictures

Just a few pictures of the snow we had yesterday.

didn't get much of any tatting done, still setting up farmguy's new computer and getting files transferred, takes longer then you think it should.

First up is a look across the yard from the front door, I used the zoom a bit,  there is about the same amount of door below the knob as above it, so you can see how deep it is on the ground as well as on the roof of the green shed

This is looking toward the barn, still using zoom a bit, you can see the snow piled up on the bin roof and in front of the door and clinging to the wall of the barn

Basically the same view, but taken from out in the yard later in the afternoon, you can still see snow that has to be shoveled, but much of it has been removed by tractor and snowblower.

headed past the barn and on the way to the cow yard, they are waiting for some more hay, they eat a lot when the weather is colder and stormy.  They have inside shelter, but they prefer to be out as much as possible.

The backside of the house, I thought I would show this as you can still see the snow clinging to the wall of the house.  The windows were mostly covered with snow all day yesterday, as it clung to the screens.  You can see the bottom corner of the garage in the lower left, that is the same level for the bottom of the house all along it, so you get some idea of the height of the snow piled up against the house.

Just a look at the path to the wood stove, and the snow on top of one of the wood piles. 

Pretty in the sun.

TIAS Day 6 & Snow!

Here is my day 6 for Jane E's TIAS.
I still have no clue about this one, usually I can see something, but not this year, you are mysterious Jane.  The link to participate which you can do at any time, if you haven't started, but are intrigued, is here.       Jane posts small bits of the pattern every few days, so it is easy to do in a small amount of time. She also doesn't tell us what we are making, we have to guess, which is part of the fun. 

And I am including for your pleasure a picture of the 10 inches of snow we got last night. there was no wind so it piled up on the trees and roads, schools are 2 hours late, and roads are slick because we had freezing drizzle before the snow yesterday.


This picture is in our yard, that is an Apricot tree, and some Chokecherry bushes.

This pine tree is holding big puffy loads of the snow.

Well, have to get to work here at home so once the roads are clear, I can get to work.
Have a very good tatting day, stay safe and warm and have a good cup of tea.

by the way,

Do you know that it is the 1st of May today, and we woke to snow on the ground again?

Sheesh,  will spring ever come?  Farmguy has actually been able to get a few acres of wheat planted, but last year was a wet spring too and he was done with the wheat (except for the wet spots) and started with the corn by this time last year. 

Another late spring.

Catching up and Thanks be to God for Blessings

Well, I am back home but can't say it's to stay.
It has been a Topsy Turvy week.

Last Sunday my newest grandson was born so left immediately after work Monday evening to go help with the kids. stayed at my daughter's until Wednesday morning when I got to work about noon. Then stayed home until Friday noon when I again left for my daughter's to give her a hand until today when I got home this evening.

The weather service was telling us on Wednesday that we had a winter storm forecast for Wednesday night until early Thursday morning. they forecast for 3+" of snow. this would be the 2nd measurable snowfall for this month.
we don't normally get snow this early. (yeah, I know my chemist daughter tried to explain it to me, but for all that I have a hard time believing in "global warming" when we are colder and wetter then normal for several years in a row.)

This picture is taken out of our dining room window on Thursday morning when we got up. The trees where so weighed down by the wet heavy snow, and the fact that they still had leaves there were many branches that would normally be high enough for me to walk under that were close brushing the ground. as you can see, this tree just didn't have the strength to hold up the weight. This is an apricot tree about 15' from the house, fortunately, it fell sideways and not toward the house. There were other branches broken off other trees as well.
The weather warmed up enough so by later thursday, most of the snow was gone.

And if you have been waiting for it, here is the picture of Isaac. He weighed 8lbs,4oz and measured 20".
His older brother(7) and sister(1) are enjoying and adjusting to having a baby in the house.


Thank you God for a safe delivery.

I am very far behind on emails and blogs. and housework needs doing too. plus another day away from work on tuesday, as I have the quarterly meeting with the other lay representatives from the Deanerys for the Diocese.

I have got to get a couple more things done and get to bed, or I will not be much good tomorrow at work.

STuff happens

Well, I have been back from my vacation for a couple of weeks, but with the getting back into the swing of things, the flooding, the road closures, and the severe snow storms, I haven't had the inclination to do much but the essentials.

I very much enjoyed the vacation in Charleston South Carolina area, lots of flowering bushes and trees, warm air and green, so much different then the snow storm that happened 2 days before I left. Coming back home however, was a rude awakening. I will try to remember to tell you more about my vacation in later posts.

You have no doubt heard about the flooding in Fargo ND. we are about an hour southwest from there and had the flooding first.

we had some water in the basement, although not as much as some. No, I didn't take pictures YUCK! Marvin was out in the pouring rain trying to dig a ditch in the frozen ground to drain the water away from the basement. We have occasionally had some seepage in the oldest part of the basement since it is over 85 years old and mostly rock. We have also had a bit of water come in around the windows as they built this house at the beginning of a ravine and the house is lower then the yard and fields (some one must not have taken a really good look when the original house was built back in the early 1920's).

There are 3 parts to our basement, the oldest as I said is 85+ yrs old. the middle part is 60 yrs old and the newest we added on 24 yrs ago. The middle part of the basement walls sprung a leak about 4' from the floor directly onto a couch. That was fun.

Enough about this.

The overland flooding was so bad this year that many roads were washed out or cut by the water. to illustrate the difficulties, last weekend we were invited to the neighbors for supper, they live 2.5 miles directly north of us. in order to get there we went 1m east, 1 m south, 1m east, 1m north, 1 m east, 4 m north, 3 m west, 2.5 m south. Good thing they always have good stuff to eat. we will not be able to get our mail delivered for several more weeks. The main county road north of us still has water running over it and the snow we just got the other day will have to melt and drain away, and then it will have to dryout enough for the road crew to get the road fixed. I am able to go south and around to get to work, and a couple of times a week take the time to drive to a nearby town where our mailman is leaving our mail for us.

This picture is of my husband looking at the level of water under the bridge north of our house. just south of this bridge is where the road is washed out. Normally the river is about 20' wide under this bridge and it is about 10' deep. as you can see here the river is a whole lot bigger than that and this is after a week and has gone down a couple of feet.

This past monday night it started to snow a lot. by the time it was finished on tuesday, we had received 20" of heavy wet snow. we were unable to get out to go to work on tuesday, and it wasn't until noon today that I tried to get to work.

This was the 5th time this winter that I was snowed in at home and unable to get to work.