Tilly and her shoe/foot fetish

Tilly has a shoe fetish and can often be found sleeping on top of or snuggled next to one of the numerous pairs of shoes we have laying around the house.  She also has a foot fetish and here she can be seen enjoying a nap on top of my husband's foot.

Here she can be seen enjoying a nap on top of my husband!

primitive farmer doll

I make primitive dolls to sell in a local store.  Here is my latest creation, unnamed as of yet. 

I used a piece of my husband's old flannel shirt to make his scarf.  I will make a farmer girl doll to go with him.

Turkey and Deer

 Deer and turkey visit our feeder on a regular basis now.  We have 9 turkey coming, and 9 deer.  I took this picture through a screen so it isn't that good I admit.  My husband puts down food for the deer, further down in the pasture away from the bird feeders, but they still come up to snack on the birdseed.  My concern is my hydrangea bush that is too close to the feeder; the deer will munch it down if they are still around in the spring!
 

Angel's Hiding Place

One day I couldn't find Angel Kitty.  Where could she be?  I checked all of her favorite napping spots -- no Angel.  Finally I heard a shuffling around in the back of the close in my studio.  Sure enough, there she was, tucked in next to the dolls I had made, in a paper bag.  At least someone appreciates my dolls!  

Bizarre Ice Sculpture in the Woods

Today we went up on the ridge to check the spring and see why the water wasn’t flowing into our holding tank yet.  It was warm yesterday and we thought it would be flowing by now.  We found a couple of places where the pipe had pulled apart and when Doug fixed that, the water started to flow again.  However, a surprise awaited us as we walked further into the woods.  We came upon this bizarre collection of ice stalagmites and pinnacles, the highest one reaching probably 10 feet up into the trees!  They looked like ghosts in the brown backdrop of the woods.  What had happened, we imagine, is that the water in the pipe was still frozen down the pipe past the section coming out of our spring cave furthest up on the hill, and when the water started to flow again, it was blocked at the frozen point and so it squired out of a connection that was nearby in the pipe, like a geyser.  It must have been squirting out for several days.  That connection had a bulge in it as proof of what had happened.  It would have been amazing to see this in action!   

Our spring comes from a cave up on the ridge above the house.  A black plastic pipe runs from the cave reservoir down into a 1,000-gallon holding tank, from which it then runs into the house with a pump.  When the temps dip into the single digits (we’ve had a lot of those lately), the water in the black pipe freezes up, but we still have water because we have the holding tank.  But when the temps warm up, we have to walk the pipe to find breaks and fix them to get the water flowing again.   The spring has never dried up even in a bad drought we had about 4 years ago.  Doug installed a valve in the reservoir he opens and closes depending on the season.  In the summer, he closes it off more because the flow from the cave isn’t as strong and so air can easily get into the pipe (that’s a pain too; stops the flow!) when the water level drops below the pipe opening.  In the winter he opens it to get more flow so that the water won’t freeze as quickly since it is flowing quicker.  

Here's a link to a previous blog entry I did about our cave spring, which includes some pictures of the outside of the cave:

cave spring

Fun Pens!

I admit I have a pen fetish, and every Christmas my husband surprises me with goofy or unusual pens in my stocking!  He got these at Spencer Gifts this year.

They write nice, too!

Winter Lettuce

We've had great luck growing lettuce over the winter so far this year, despite the temps dropping into the teens on many nights.  We cover it with a thin, woven, white cloth the locals call "tobacco cloth," which the farmers use to cover their tobacco seedlings as they grow.  It lets the light and water in, but keeps the cold out, at least enough that it doesn't damage the entire plant, only a little bit around some of the edges. 

Perhaps next year I'll try planting iceberg lettuce, which is more suitable for cooler weather.

Kitty Walk

Doug has two of our four cats trained to stay with him when he takes them out for walks -- Rosie and Mokkah.  In the first picture, Rosie walks next to him; Angel is in the foreground.  Angel has to be leashed because she tends to run and hide if I turn my head away from her.  She has ME trained!  She'll only let me touch her; she'll have nothing to do with my husband.

Mokkah asks where are we going next??

Tilly

Our latest cat (we now have FOUR!), Tilly, who fancies herself a member of the Red Hat Society!

Eastern Tiger Swallowtails

I've been taking a lot of pictures this year of eastern tiger swallowtails.  I find it fascinating that the female can have both a light and a dark form.  

 A few days ago I was pleasantly surprised to find dozens of these winged beauties enjoying my sunflowers! 

Sky Watch

These sky photos were taken in past years, as long ago as 2005, after thunderstorms.

We get some awesome sky views here in the "holler" but I haven't seen any as intense as it was on these days.

I wanted to post this on the Sky Watch blog, skyley.blogspot.com so decided to awaken my blog so that I could add it.    We actually have high speed internet now (yeah!) so perhaps I'll do some postings now and then! 

Thread Painting Project

I finally completed a quilting project I've been working on for several months - a quilted wall hanging done via a technique called "thread painting," or "thread play," that I did from a photograph of my cat, Angel Kitty. This is a technique I learned at the Quiltfest I attended in July in Jonesborough, TN. It is my first art quilt. I hand embroidered her whiskers at her nose, to make them stand out against her white fur, and I used Angelina fibers to make the highlights in her eyes. Also, in the grass underneath her is a little mouse!

Nice & Icy

Mother Nature decided to thwart our shopping plans the other day by delivering a storm that coated the driveway, the road, and the trees, grasses and bushes with a layer of ice, keeping us from taking our morning walk, let alone drive to town! And so I spent the day inside, trying as best I could to get some good pictures from the front deck.

We were fortunate that we only had one small cedar fall on our lane. The memory of last year when we had 22 trees down on our lane after a snowstorm around this same time, made us forgiving of this one!

The ice on the trees gave the woods an "other world"ly look. Mother Nature showed off her handiwork when the icy covering on the boughs and limbs brought out details previously unnoticed.














A hawk spent several hours perched on top of a frosty limb, waiting for lunch to fly by!

Christmas Angel (Kitty)

Angel Kitty has found another place she loves to sleep -- under the tree. We went "simple" this year with our tree. The only decorations on it are lights and garland.

Mokkah and the Fireplace

Mokkah is fascinated by the flickering flames and cinders of our propane fireplace. We have to watch her to be sure she doesn't try to crawl in behind the "logs," as she at first wanted to do.

After awhile, however, she realizes how cozy it is and she falls asleep.

Mokkah

I'm sitting in a Chick-fil-a restaurant and marveling at the speed of my laptop when using their wifi.

Last December a stray kitten showed up at our house, limping and hobbling with a bad leg. After several days of coaxing her to the porch (it didn't take that much effort; she was hungry!), we convinced her we wanted to be her friend. Finally she agreed to come inside and after that we were hooked on her and she on us. She even tolerated Angel Kitty hissing at her and chasing her.

Mokkah is now a joyful part of our family. The leg was broken but has since healed and you can hardly see a limp at all. Angel and her aren't good friends, but every month they get a little chummier! Mokkah won't let Angel keep her from TRYING to be a good friend.

When we got her, she was 15 months old per the vet, and she was all black with a brown tail. I named her "Mokkah" to be another way of saying "Mocha" because of her black/brown coloring. Since then the brown has disappeared and she is mostly black with a wisp of white on her belly. We know that she is part Siamese because we saw an adult Siamese cat hanging around at the time she showed up, plus she has Siamese eyes. Her brother was around at the time also, and he still comes around from time to time to get a free hand-out. He is identical to her except that he's bigger with more white.

I wish you all a very happy Thanksgiving!

I'm Back! Well . . . sort of

Hello all of my loyal followers! Thanks for keeping me on your list of blogs that you read! I hope you are all healthy and happy!

In case somebody hasn't noticed, it has been over a year since I wrote in this blog! One reason - the main reason - is that it is so time-consuming to upload pictures since we only have dial-up and aren't inclined to spend the money to get satellite (DSL not available in our area). We finally broke down and bought a laptop computer and so . . . I can take it downtown to where they have wifi and upload pictures quickly.

Now, "downtown" is a half hour away, so bear with me. I'll be writing periodically but still not as much as I was in 2009. I have so many other projects that occupy my time. I find it frustrating to start the upload on a picture, go and do something else, only to come back and find that it stopped in the middle of the upload. That was happening quite a bit.

Stay tuned . . .

Happy Thanksgiving!

Aleta

Baby Raccoon

We have a couple of mama raccoons who are bringing their babies around. Here is a shot I caught of one climbing the tree.

Learning to Quilt

I attended the Quiltfest from July 16-18 in Jonesborough, Tennessee. What a lot of fun it was! I took three classes in machine quilting and learned a lot! There was so much talent and creativity there and oh so much inspiration! I've been working on the quilt that I started in one of my classes, but when I lay it out on the bed, Angel Kitty is right there on top of it and she even tries to help!
Little scraps of fabric are just too tempting for kitty. No, Angel, that doesn't go there! Yikes! Watch those hind claws!I'm almost done with it and when I finish it, I'll post a picture here.

Angel Kitty and the Bunnies

What a busy summer it has been! With all of the gardening, freezing and canning the garden produce, sewing (I'm learning to machine quilt), having the grandchildren for a week, and other activities, I have been neglecting my blogging.

Our local bunnies tease Angel Kitty when we tie her out on her line. They run all around her, just out of her reach, and even jump right over her as they play tag with each other. Perhaps they are hoping she'll join in! One evening I had my camera ready and caught a few shots of the encounter.
And this guy looks at me as if to say - "What?? I didn't do nothing!"