Tin TeePee/Log Cabin

We See The Manatees

2012-02-02T17:44:00.001-07:00

When we first got here to Cedar Key we drove over to Manatee Springs State Park hoping to see a manatee—not that day but today we saw the manatees!! When Jerry and Wanda were here they drove to Crystal River and saw lots of manatees. While watching from the bridge a man told them about another “secret” spot where manatees could be viewed in quieter surroundings. Well, guys you were right, we found the little bridge, walked right up and saw our first gentle creature. Glad this wasn’t the only one we saw—a manatee mailbox holder.

Photographing the animals is hard with the murkiness of the water and the sunlight.

A few manatee facts:

Referred to as sea cows taken from their languid pace and their eating habits—plant life.
Glide along at about 5mph but can swim at 15mph in short bursts
8-13 feet long, 450—1300 lbs.
Must breathe air when they surface, can be submerged for up to 15 minutes.
Live 40+ years
Calves are born underwater and taken to surface by mom for first breath.
Endangered, susceptible to being hit by motorboat propellers as they swim so close to surface, also become entangled in fishing nets.

There were hundreds of these very skinny foot long fish swimming in the canal?????

The neighborhood where we viewed the manatees was beautiful--

The tree to Michael’s left is loaded with oranges.

Poinsettias growing in the ground!!! Beautiful flower gardens everywhere.

Another manatee.

If I was the owner of this house I would be a might worried—those are buzzards on top of the roof—who are they waiting for???

Came home, Michael looked at the back of his eyelids for a while and I researched campgrounds—do I have him convinced to take me to the Atlantic coast??? Tonight the campground served one of JB’s favorites—tube steaks! We met and visited with some great folks, one couple in their early 40’s who just retired from the military and are on their maiden voyage with their new to them motorhome.

An awesome day in Florida. You know JB and Brenda warned us about those “no-see’um bugs”—geez those little buggers bite and yep, you never see them, you only feel the bite! Michael never gets bug bites, I always get bug bites, well yesterday while he was washing the jeep he was attacked by a swarm of those no-see’ums!!! He can’t stop scratching!!

A Chore Day

2012-02-01T16:57:00.001-07:00

Yes, even living in a motorhome chores are a necessary evil. When you own one of those vacuum cleaners with a canister from which you dump the contents into the trash you can really see just how much sand has been tracked into the coach in a week’s time! And we even do “Brenda style”—take our shoes off at the door! Of course Miss Emmi brings in her share of sand too and she wears no shoes.

Michael vacuumed and washed the jeep. Our motorhome has this thick plexi-glass cover over the entire front beneath the windshield designed to protect the paint job. The front of the motorhome cannot be washed without removing this shield and it’s a pain to remove. You also can’t access the generator without loosening the bolts which hold the shield in place. Michael loosened and removed the thing so he could check the generator and wash the front of the rig.

I did a load of laundry here in my washer/dryer and did the inside chores—you know, cleaned the bathroom, vacuumed, etc.—exciting!

After our long hike yesterday we shortened our walk this morning to about 3 miles. After lunch I went into Cedar Key with the purpose of visiting this cute little consignment shop I kept seeing—nope, closed on Wednesday and Thursday! Instead I paid a visit to the ATM and the bookstore finding two cool books—one about Cedar Key and the other, Visiting Small Town Florida by Bruce Hunt. The name of the bookstore is Curmudgeonalia and the name fits I think! There is a sign on the door that says, “yes, the books are new, yes I sell the books at cover price just like any other book store.” Well, all righty then!!! There are several of these type signs all throughout the bookstore. Interesting!

The produce stand was open today and I purchased some clams for dinner along with strawberries and various other fruits. We are going to miss Sandy’s produce stand when we head out of here on Friday or Saturday.

The clamssteamed in white wine with garlic and onion were delicious.

you can’t tell from the photo but this tree had the biggest pine cones.

Another great day in Florida.

An Unexpected Hike

2012-01-31T17:14:00.001-07:00

Michael took Miss Emmi for a walk around the park this morning and I got us ready packing up some snacks. Our destination was Trenton, Florida. Looking at another campground and the quilt shop at Trenton.

We first drove to Old Town again and tried out the Nature Coast Trail, miles and miles of paved (yes, JB) paths following an old railroad bed connecting Old Town, Trenton and Chiefland. Beautiful scenery and a bridge over the Suwanee River.

That walk, stroll, whatever was probably about 2 miles. We then headed over toward Trenton to Otter Springs—readers Al and Karen are workcamping there and had recommended their campground as being nice and quiet. Beautiful spot under many live oak trees, a spring feeding into the Suwanee River—we can launch the kayak right from the campground and a heated indoor pool!!! And great ice cream bars in the office/store refrigerator/freezer!! There was a nature trail leading to the river which the ladies in the office said was about a mile one way. Off we went—well, I think we took a wrong turn—this is getting to be a habit!!! Over an hour later we are back at the jeep—hot, sweaty and famished. We did find the river. Unfortunately we missed Karen and Al—they were off on an adventure.

On to Trenton to find the quilt shop and lunch. The brochure we had mentioned a café located within the quilt shop—should have know better! Yes, it was a quaint little café with a menu that read: quiche, salads, etc. They did offer as a special a taco salad which my husband would have been happy to eat but they had just served the last one. Dear Michael retreated to the car and I attempted to browse through the quilt shop—not happening, I was so hungry I couldn’t even think straight.

We left to find a burger spot—very good burgers and delicious milkshakes. By then we were both so tired after our six miles of walking we pointed the jeep toward home.

Suwanee River at the campground.

A Little Of This And That

2012-01-30T19:22:00.001-07:00

Hiking is good for us—yes it is—are we trying to convince ourselves, no we know how we feel after hiking four miles—great! Off we went this morning to what has become again our favorite place, the Cedar Scrub Preserve. About halfway through our walk we heard this little guy and were able to pick out which tree from which he was getting his morning snack.

Am I right Judy, he is a red bellied woodpecker??

Saw nothing else on our walk this morning, a good thing!

Michael worked on the taxes again—I began to dread the sound of “do you remember last April when you------?” How in the world am I supposed to remember a week ago what I charged on the American Express much less almost a year ago????

My pizza dough frozen last week worked well today to make another delicious pizza—finally I’m successful in making pizza dough! After lunch I worked on that blessed quilt fixing the rest of my mistakes—the rows are all done, now to sew those together and get the borders on.

We took a break late afternoon and went into town for a couple grocery items—I wanted to make this soup I found in a magazine, Pasta Figioli—it has kale (which I bought at the produce stand last Thursday, white beans and various other things—my husband ate it!!! and said, “it’s not too bad!” Not a supreme compliment but at least he didn’t say, “could we not have this again!”

My friend Kelly from Kansas City after visiting us last summer sent Michael and I a collection of DVD’s entitled The National Parks, America’s Best Idea, a film by Ken Burns. For the last four nights we have watched one of the almost 2 hour long DVD’s. They are without a doubt awesome, we have both learned so much about our national parks—there are 58 national parks not counting national monuments. The photography is stunning and the commentary very interesting—how our parks came to be is an incredible story.

Another beautiful day in Florida!

Not Much Going On Today

2012-01-29T17:22:00.001-07:00

Another four mile hike this morning and the only critters we ran into were two legged ones—a very nice couple just out for a stroll.

We enjoyed a delicious lunch, oven fries, steak on the grill and a big salad. After lunch I dragged out all my sewing stuff—it’s almost more trouble than it’s worth to sew in the motorhome. I use the dining table and kitchen counter top which means in order to fix a meal everything has to be put away.

I am struggling with the current quilt project—poorly written pattern as usual, my poor choice of fabrics (didn’t use enough different colors), and poor piecing. Poor piecing because I didn’t follow my original quilting teacher’s admonitions—never freehand cut triangles and expect those triangles to make a perfect square when sewn together. There are several methods for making accurate half square triangles and this pattern does not ever mention using any of those methods. The pattern never tells you what size your finished blocks should be. It just tells you to cut a square and whack it in half diagonally. Not gonna work—my blocks weren’t square, some of my points are off—it’s frustrating to spend that kind of money on fabric and not have an accurate quilt when you are finished. GRRRRR

Michael worked on the taxes and I didn’t hear too much growling from his corner except from Emmi so things must be going OK. Emmi sits on the back of the couch growling and snorting at folks passing by. She doesn’t bark, just snorts and growls until one of us tells her to knock it off.

A couple walks through the RV park with Emmi and that’s about it for our day. The folks who manage this park got wind that we were thinking of leaving—not for price, just for a change of scenery. The banker dude whose bank now owns this park told them to make us an offer for three months that we just may find hard to turn down!!

Back To Hiking In The Woods

2012-01-28T18:47:00.001-07:00

We decided this morning not to let a few snakes and alligators get to us rattlesnake hardened Montanan’s—off we went to hike our four miles in the Cedar Key Scrub Preserve. Saw nothing but a few birds and some animal tracks.

Several days ago Judy from The Patchwork Times posted a link for a bread recipe. The recipe, Dee’s Health Bread came from the website Allrecipes. Now, I’m not your normal bread maker—have never liked kneading bread. I did use the Artisan Bread In Five Minutes A Day cookbook a lot to make bread but just haven’t ever gotten into the yeast and kneading thing. The dough for the breads made using the Artisan recipes is kept in the refrigerator until ready to use, no kneading necessary. RV refrigerators are not big enough to keep a large container full of bread dough—I tried it last year!

The recipe Judy used sounded so good I decided to give it a try—it is without a doubt the best bread! I didn’t have any cracked wheat so I used a little more sunflower seeds and flaxseed. And having only one oversized loaf pan I had to improvise a little. Making half the recipe gave us three loaves of beautiful, tasty bread. We gave one loaf to our neighbors Blair and Evelyn who always come out with dog treats for Emmi when we walk by. The first loaf looked like this before I remembered to take a photo:

I cooked the second two loaves side by side on a cookie sheet—a little deformed looking but still delicious—a keeper recipe.

Spent some time reading in the sun, it was a little cool and windy today but sitting in the warmth of the sun felt good. The rest of the afternoon I spent sewing for the first time since leaving home. At my last quilt retreat I made most of the blocks for a flannel quilt—today I finished making the blocks.

Gave Michael a haircut and that was about the extent of our Florida day.

Touring Around

2012-01-27T16:27:00.001-07:00

Michael took Emmi for a walk around the park—it’s about 3/4 mile while I got ready to go. We were off to see new sights today.

First to Chiefland, Fanning Springs then Old Town. No stops in between, in Old Town we took Highway 349 south and found our kind of campground. Way out in the country (with a Verizon tower right across the road from the entrance) down a gravel road out to the Suwanee River. The campground isn’t actually on the river although they do have river frontage—you just have to take this awesome boardwalk through the swamp to get to the river—about a 1/4 mile of boardwalk! The camp host told us the owners built everything in this park themselves at night and on weekends including this boardwalk. They both had day jobs while building the park. No night lighting at all, just around the shower house. Cable TV and WiFi but only in the clubhouse. The price of $450 per month includes electric and the cable!! OK, we like this one. Very friendly campers—everyone waved as we drove around looking at different sites. Suwanee River Hideaway RV Park. And JB there is a 3 mile trail (not paved) through the forest around the perimeter of the campground.

Farther south we found another beautiful park right on the Suwanee River—premium river front sites with your windshield parked out over the water were $838 per month!!!!! This includes cable, WiFi at your site (good thing, phones nor aircards work here) and electric. A little steep if you ask me, this isn’t ocean front we are talking about here! And while the woman who helped me in the office was super nice, no one was out of their RV’s and the park was fairly full in the non-premium non-riverfornt sites. No, probably not the one for us.

On to Suwanee where we found lunch at a quaint little café—pretty good. Then the going gets rough—we take a gravel road to Horseshoe Beach, another quaint little ocean front town with a series of canals with houses and boat houses. From there we were going to try and find our way to Steinhatchee through the back roads—and as Al from the Bayfield Bunch said, there are no mountains to show you the direction you should be taking. We drove and drove along these bumpy, narrow roads, through pine and swamp cabbage swamps--

Until finally we came to a locked gate!!!! Nope, this is not the way. Turned around, drove and drove getting back to the highway leaving Steinhatchee for another day. After getting lost we decided a McDonald’s ice cream was in order. We finally arrived home just after 5pm—whew!!

Islands off shore from Horseshoe Beach and some of the islands are big enough to have homes on them! As you can see by the water, the wind was blowing here today, Florida must think we are homesick for windy Montana.

I’m done for the day!

A Haircut And A Parade

2012-01-26T17:20:00.001-07:00

It was 65 degrees outside when we got up this morning—we are liking this Florida weather. Windy all day but not as windy as our area of Montana was yesterday—90mph winds, portions of freeways and roads were closed, semi trucks blown off the road—nope not as windy. The bay waters were very choppy though, glad we went kayaking yesterday. Cedar Key has a great sidewalk system and we used those sidewalks to do our 4 mile hike this morning—works well! Nice place for a rest stop.

Stopped at Sandy’s Produce stand and got some Plant City, FL strawberries—we have had some of these strawberries and some other kinds of strawberries. The Plant City ones are the best. We also got grapefruit, cantaloupe and watermelon. I made homemade pizza last night—tried a new recipe for the dough and it was delicious. Had leftover pizza for lunch.

I had thought about getting a hair cut using my friend Elaine’s hairdresser in Ocala. But as usual I got antsy when the hair begins to get too long and didn’t want to go all the way to Ocala. Since I needed some groceries I decided to just go to Chiefland, get groceries at Wal Mart and get my hair cut at a salon I noticed the first day we drove through there. I hit it lucky this time—got a great haircut!

This afternoon we went into Cedar Key and watched the homecoming parade—yep, homecoming. Seems Cedar Key doesn’t have a football team so they plan homecoming around basketball season. For such a small town, the parade was fun--

School mascot—can you guess—the Sharks.

A different sort of vehicle for search and rescue around here.

We are in Gator land, too.

I think everyone in town owns a golf cart.Nice old car—beautiful paint job.

All in all a good day! Tonight the resort was doing a chili feed—shouldn’t have gone there—enough said!

A Walk In The Cemetery And Kayaking

2012-01-25T15:52:00.001-07:00

Someone here in the park told us about a boardwalk around the Cedar Key cemetery out to the water so off we went this morning—hopefully no snakes in the cemetery. Of course we chose the day when the low tide was at its lowest—all we saw when we walked out to the water was mud and these two guys who eventually got moving again. Michael said he sure would hate to see the inside of that motor—they churned mud and churned mud trying to get into open water again.I was taking the photo directly into the sun so the quality is poor but you can see all the mud churning up at the back of the boat—they are sitting in the only water out there, everything else is mud.

Still, it was a nice walk and we even got onto some sandy beach at one time. The boardwalk circles around the cemetery—call me morbid but I love to walk through old cemeteries, looking at gravestones and wondering what happened to people. Here are some of my photos I took, the oldest gravestone we found was a person born in 1820.

It was just such a nice warm (almost hot) day that we decided to go kayaking this afternoon. It was great to be out on the water—we paddled all the way around the island you can see from the mainland.Backside of the islandCedar Key off in the distance.

Old abandoned pier on the island

He looks like a statue doesn’t he?

Another wonderful day in Florida. Trying a new pizza dough recipe tonight, update tomorrow.

No Elaine, the alligators don’t come into the park—“Buddy” guards the entrance And Ron and Thelma, the name of this RV park is Cedar Key RV Resort.

Another Lazy Day

2012-01-24T16:46:00.001-07:00

Days like this could become a habit—sitting outside in our lounge chairs, Michael painting, me reading and occasionally getting up to throw the ball for Emmi. Chatting with our neighbors as they walk by—yep we could get used to this.

We did go downtown Cedar Key today and walk around some of the neighborhoods for exercise—less snakes and alligators

On the way in we noticed what seemed to be low, low tide, we’ve never seen the water this low. Made us really think about what the two experts told us—only go out at high tide.

We saw another dolphin while walking around downtown and these beautiful flowers:

It was a very warm and humid day today and by the time we got back to the jeep we were ready for those nice seats. Stopped by Southern Cross Seafood and picked up some scallops for dinner and oh, my were they delicious. I used a recipe from the Pioneer Woman blog—YUM!

When we drove into the park this morning “Buddy” and a turtle were sunning themselves—can a turtle swim fast enough to get away from an alligator??

Another great day in Florida.

Walking, A Big One and New Friends

2012-01-23T18:47:00.001-07:00

We decided to go back out to the Suwanee National Wildlife Refuge for our walk and ended up hiking close to four miles. Our original planned route was closed off for a prescribed burn but we found another road that was doable. We had hiked along probably for about 2 miles when we came to two ponds, one on either side of the road—murky, icky ponds. While looking at one of these little ponds I heard something hit the water—turtle?? alligator??—I was all ready on edge when we strolled over to look at the other pond. Michael noticed (can you hear the shark music) an object along the far edge of the water and said something about it looking like an alligator but it was probably an old stump. Well, I zoomed the camera in for a close up and that was no tree stump:

That is one huge alligator! Decided we had hiked long enough for one day! YIKES!!

Today was Monday—time to strip the bed, wash the sheets and towels and try to vacuum up some of the grit and sand we seem to track in side. Remember when we checked in to this park, found out it was in foreclosure, found out the laundromat consisted of only two washers and two dryers for 80 RV sites?? Well yesterday one of the camp hosts, Chuck stopped to visit and mentioned that the banker whose bank now owns this RV park was right across the street—Chuck suggested we voice our likes and dislikes about the park. I told the man we really loved the layout of the park, the huge sites, the trees and I told him what I didn’t like—the non-heated pool and not enough washers and dryers. I also mentioned that the back porch of the lodge, outside, wasn’t the greatest place for doing laundry.

Chuck was grinning from ear to ear when he came by this morning to tell us the laundromat is being moved inside to a “conference” room and more washers and dryers are being added. Ask and you shall receive I guess when the banker wants to encourage business! And they are in the process of getting quotes for solar heating the pool!!

Jerry and Wanda are the folks from Mississippi traveling in a little Casita RV. I’ve learned the people who own Casitas are close knit and call the little rigs, “eggs.” Jerry writes a blog called EggRollings. They along with their friends James and Brenda who arrived yesterday in their maiden voyage Casita are thinking of taking a trip to Alaska this summer in the cute little “eggs.” Tonight they all invited us to go into Cedar Key, watch the sunset and have dinner—what a good time we had getting to know these folks better. They can be blamed for all these sunset photos:

A very enjoyable evening and a colorful sunset.

A Low Key Sunday

2012-01-22T18:54:00.001-07:00

Today is my dear sister Ann’s birthday—sounds as if they had a wonderful celebration lunch at Mom’s back in Arkansas today—Happy Birthday Ann, we love you!

I attended church this morning at the United Methodist Church. A very nice, friendly bunch of people, a good service and a beautiful old building. Michael went downtown while I was at church and took photos of some of the old buildings—he brought along his paints and is going to try painting again.

Back home I made lunch, we walked the dog, sat outside and read, visited with neighbors, just a low key Sunday. This resort has a central location for a campfire and almost every night there will be people gathered around the fire—tonight we went down for a while and visited taking Ms Emmi with us.

The people who came in later last night in a Country Coach motorhome are from New York, they own a campground on Lake George in upstate New York. Still having teenagers at home they get away for a couple weeks in the winter months. The two of them along with their corgi, Minnie, were down by the campfire and I noticed her wine glass—it was identical to the ones we have in our motorhome in what our little Arkansas friend Harley called the “Hollywood” cabinet (it has lights inside). The glasses came with this 1996 coach when we bought it—I just thought the glasses were purchased by previous owners. But I found out tonight, nope, all Country Coaches came with those same glasses in the same kind of cabinet—who knew! All six of my glasses are still intact, Debbie says there are only two of the original ones left in her cabinet—her coach is a 2002. Guess I will take better care of those wine glasses, the ones hanging from the top.

OK, can you tell it was a very quiet day around here, a whole paragraph devoted to wine glasses. But it was a good day in Florida.

A Different Kind Of Day

2012-01-21T17:09:00.001-07:00

We’ve been hanging out over here in the Forgotten Coast, Nature Coast, whatever coast they call it and have forgotten that Florida is a populated state! Today we experienced some population. There is a planned retirement village south of Ocala called The Villages. There are 12 different quilt guilds within The Villages with over 650 members total. The Guilds sponsored a “Quilting Marketplace” today at the Village conference center.

Getting there we experienced a lot of this:And the cowboy in this family decided The Villages was a little too hoity-toity for him and his wife agreed.

My, my. Even Wal Mart and McDonald’s have to conform to the rules with the signs.

No looming golden arches for this town! I’ve never seen so many golf carts in one place, ever, not even in Mission, Texas!! There must be many golf courses plus I think golf carts are the standard mode of transportation around there.

The “Quilting Marketplace” was very well done, lots of wonderful vendors but like Paulette and her buddies just experienced at the huge Road to California quilt show, there were lines to get in and the vendor booths were packed. It was not a pleasant shopping experience but I did manage to pick up another wool kit for hand stitching as we go down the road. Michael and Emmi entertained themselves while I shopped and then we got the h**l out of The Villages.

Treated ourselves to a Blizzard at the Dairy Queen in Crystal River. We arrived home about 3pm and I went to bed—I had developed a “charlie horse”, muscle spasm, something very painful in my right leg and hip. I slept for over an hour so I must have needed that—I don’t often take naps and felt much better.

A couple walks and ball games with the pooch then I made dinner. I’ve become a convection oven convert—my roasted potatoes/garlic/onions/red peppers were delicious. Served with grilled pork chops and coleslaw.

New rigs are arriving in our park daily—tonight another Country Coach pulled in and parked a couple spots from us.

A different kind of day, think we will go back to nature tomorrow!

A Hike, Lunch, Another Pink Motorhome Story

2012-01-20T16:39:00.001-07:00

A couple days ago I was messing around on Blogger Dashboard—looking at ways comments are posted and saw that ALL my comments were listed there. Being the tidy person that I am, I began to delete those comments when all of a sudden I had this sick feeling in my stomach. Yep, when I deleted that list of comments on Blogger Dashboard, I deleted those same comments on the blog! I only pushed the button enough to delete several days worth, at least not the entire blog’s comments from beginning! That will teach me to read first!

Fleas and ticks in Arizona versus Florida. One of those wonderful anonymous commenters which I so love left a comment of this sort, “Should have known better than to believe Janna, of course there are fleas and ticks in Arizona.” OK, while there may be fleas and ticks in the areas of AZ where there are pine forests, I’ve never had to medicate my dogs for either pest while hanging out in the desert, period. Where we live in Montana I do not have to medicate my pets for fleas or ticks. Maybe someone will invent an eradication collar for anonymous commenters who won’t sign their names????

Today we went off in search of somewhere else to walk with less snakes we hoped! The Lower Suwannee National Wildlife Refuge provided the place—just your kind of spot Judy! We found kneesas in cypress knees. We found the huge Suwannee River We found willets which looked as if they were walking on waterand no Judy, I didn’t know what they were but this kind bird person came along and told us what the bird was. And speaking of kind person—these two ladies were just a wealth of information. A small rally came into our RV park yesterday and one of the motorhomes is a newer Country Coach. One of the women who was visiting the bird lady who lives in Cedar Key six months of the year asked us where we were staying. Turns out Jan and her husband Jim are the Country Coach people here at the park! The woman who lives in Cedar Key told us about all sorts of things to do.

By the time we had walked over three miles, chatted, looked, etc. we were getting very hungry. On the northern edge of the wildlife refuge is a small fishing community called Fowlers Bluff. We saw a sign for a restaurant and decided to take a look. Right on the banks of the Suwannee River is this little store/restaurant dive—the food was a complete surprise. One of the best pieces of fish I have ever eatenhomemade tarter sauce that was to die for. Michael had a philly cheesesteak and while the place was out of hoagie buns, he said it was even better served on Texas toastVery, very good and a cheerful, fun waitress to boot!

OK JB, this pink motorhome stuff is getting to be a habit! I go up to the clubhouse late this afternoon to retrieve mail my Mom sent. I’m chatting with Connie, one of the hosts and this woman working on a jigsaw puzzle says to me, “do you have a pink motorhome?!!!!” She and her husband have a home in Mississippi, travel in a Casita travel trailer and have met Judy of Travels With Emma. This morning over breakfast they were discussing the color of the motorhome across from them, was it pink or not—deciding it was pink the husband who heard us say last night around the campfire that we were from Montana said, “that’s the lady with the pink motorhome who writes a blog.” Guilty!

The folks, Jim and Judy with the newer Country Coach stopped by this afternoon for a chat. They are fulltimers with a RV lot in the Hill Country of Texas.

Tonight we went into town for gas and to have an adult beverage at the Island Hotel—built in 1859 as a general store it is now a bed and breakfast with an acclaimed restaurant. On Friday nights a band plays in the tiny bar—it is the local thing to do, go to The Island, have a drink and listen to music. We were too early for the music but we enjoyed meeting Angie, the bartender and checking out all the photos of celebrities who have visited the hotel.

I read the following quote this morning and decided it was blog worthy, “No matter where you end up in retirement, remember that relationships are more important than the weather. The warmest climate can be found amidst the safety and security of family and friends.” By Tom Sightings | U.S.News & World Report LP And I think it is very true to an extent—although we love traveling in the winter escaping the cold and snow, we do miss our friends immensely! Are you listening guys??? Are you listening Terry????

Saw this on LoraLee’s Facebook page and liked so I stole it! This sign was located at the boat dock next to the restaurant where we had lunch, it was hard to believe we were 20 miles from the Gulf.

It has been a wonderful day here in Florida, tomorrow we are off on another adventure.

The Rain Left

2012-01-19T16:14:00.001-07:00

Last night when I took Emmi out for her last trip the stars were out—rain all gone. Woke to beautiful sunshine but very damp around here! Decided our normal walking spot would be too wet—some tall grass—probably soaking us. Instead we headed off to the Lower Suwannee National Wildlife Refuge for a hike. Only two miles but it was beautiful through forests, across boardwalks, along the marshes and finally out to the bay. Not very many people around, a perfect morning.

This sign told us about Shell Mound—there is a trail leading to the top of the mound giving you a beautiful view of the bay:

Once back home we stowed the Emmi girl and walked down to the clubhouse for Betty’s (one of the camp host) homemade sausage and spinach soup—it was really good and Mr. Michael even liked it! We didn’t have to do much talking, only eating as all the talking was taken care of by one of our table mates!

Michael worked on our entry door lock—it had suddenly decided to not latch part of the time—all fixed now. I played ball with Emmi—she was intent on retrieving her own ball out of the bay:A couple walks around the park throughout the afternoon, another game of ball with Emmi, Mr. Michael took a nap, I gave myself a pedicure and that’s about it for our Thursday afternoon in Florida.

Happy, happy birthday Ms Gina!

We Discover Gainsville

2012-01-18T17:03:00.001-07:00

Woke to the wonderful sound of rain on the roof this morning and we certainly don’t begrudge Florida a rainy day every now and then—it is so dry here. It not only rained, it poured at times. Decided it would be a good day to check out the city of Gainsville.

Leaving Ms Emmi home alone we headed out about 10am—it is about 58 miles to Gainsville, much closer to us than any larger city we frequent in Montana! First stop was Sam’s Club for some produce such as grapes and cases of water. A very quiet Sam’s Club! Gainsville has anything one might want except a Costco!

The mall was our next stop, yours truly needed some girly kind of things—makeup, etc. which Wal Mart doesn’t carry—time to shop at a “real” store! Michael was very patient sitting in the jeep with his big Sudoku book he got for Christmas.

We tried a local restaurant/brewhouse for lunch, BJ’s—it was delicious. Michael had a huge platter of nachos and I had a big salad with chicken.

Last stop was Petsmart—Emmi has been bitten by three ticks since we’ve been down here in spite of having a dose of that Frontline stuff in place. I wanted to see if there was anything better—there is a veterinarian in this particular Petsmart and they recommended a tick collar in addition to the liquid flea/tick monthly application. The vet said the products such as Frontline and Advantix don’t work as well for ticks. So hopefully she won’t have “any more bugs on her!” I must say Arizona doesn’t have ticks, fleas, alligators or water moccasins!! Maybe that’s telling us something??? Nope, we are staying put.

Emmi was thrilled to see us as usual—we managed to get in a short walk between rain storms. Dinner was pork tenderloin on the grill, lima beans for me, peas for Michael and a grilled tomato for me. Can you tell my husband likes different things to eat than me?? At least I am accommodating!

Another great day in Florida! And warm!

Peter and Bea—send me an email through this blog with your email address and I will provide the info you requested. You can find my email address by clicking on “view my complete profile.”

A Drive Through The Country

2012-01-17T15:47:00.001-07:00

Missouri readers Leonard and Sondra had told us about a National Forest campground here in Florida which allowed long term winter stays—full hookups, friendly people, could use the national America The Beautiful Senior Pass, hiking—sounded like the one for us so off we went.

From here at the resort we took the scenic route on the back roads through some of the most beautiful country—huge moss covered live oaks hanging over the roadways and massive, beautiful horse farms. Gigantic homes and even bigger horse barns and arenas. Immaculate pastures, small boxes of fencing around each of the trees in the pasture for protection. I just kept “oohing” and “awing”. No shortage of money in that area but we did see several for sale. None of my photos were worth publishing, sorry JB!

We found the USFS park and while it is a beautiful spot with access to a wonderful little lake, it’s not for us—we are too connected to this 21rst century—our cellphone would not work so I doubt our internet would either. Across the road from the USFS park was a private park and we stopped there, gathered information and drove around. Again, nice enough park but no phone service. The only WiFi they offered was in the clubhouse. So, struck out again. But, we are also perfectly happy right where we are—if we could find another spot such as this it would be fun to see different country—if not, we will stay put. It sure is fun to go look though—thanks Leonard and Sondra for the tip!

Found a great little spot right across the street from the USFS campground to have lunch—real hamburgers and I enjoyed sweet potato fries, very yummy!

He wouldn’t turn around and face me dang it!

A great day, now we are kicked back in our easy chairs using that internet we are so tied to!

No Snakes, A New Critter And Exciting Quilting News

2012-01-16T17:30:00.001-07:00

Clear blue skies and warmer temperatures created a gorgeous day for us here in Florida. All the ugly snakes stayed hidden and I didn’t have nightmares about snakes last night. Someone commented on last night’s blog, “You never saw a cottonmouth on the lakes in Arkansas?” Well, yes I have—but that was a long time ago. I have vivid memories of a moccasin chasing my Grandmother down by the pond and her screaming at me, “go get a hoe, go get a hoe.”

Remember this quilt belonging to my friend Caryl? She entered the quilt in the Wickenburg, AZ quilt show produced by North Ranch, the Escapees RV park in Congress, AZ. There are different categories in which one can enter quilts, Caryl entered four quilts. This quilt won second place in its category competing against 40 other beautiful quilts. We are thrilled!!! Another of Caryl’s quilts won a first place in its category. All the voting is done by “Viewer’s Choice” meaning anyone who views the quilt show can vote. Just thrilled!!!!

Michael did a little jeep maintenance today and I did some of the laundry. We kept Emmi entertained with her ball.

Late this afternoon we loaded the kayak and all the other stuff

including the pooch. Sunset was around 6pm today and high tide was at 6:49pm, perfect! We hadn’t kayaked from this boat launch before so were a bit cautious—as I’ve said before, the water can be shallow around here and there are oyster beds creating razor sharp edges that could rip a fiber kayak such as ours. We needn’t have worried, there was plenty of water and we just try to stay out in the channel away from the many little islands.

But the most awesome part of today’s journey, we noticed something out in front of us—a wake was being created and there were no other boats around—suddenly a dolphin surfaced not 50 yards in front of us. I almost cried it was just such a special moment!

Sunset wasn’t very colorful, no clouds but it did create some beautiful colors out there on the water.

A very special day here in Florida!

Holy Smokes!

2012-01-15T15:56:00.001-07:00

Another chilly morning here in Florida and once again I sure was glad it was Michael who drew the short straw for Emmi’s morning constitutional! And he even washed the dishes last night after our guests left—pretty cool husband I must say.

We’ve become quite laid back here in Jimmy Buffet land (did you know Jimmy Buffet’s sister lives in our neck of the woods in Montana??), not getting up until after 7am, dragging out our coffee/computer time for a couple hours and finally heading out for a walk around 10am when the sun has warmed things up a bit.

As we were walking along this morning, thank God I saw him before Emmi did, we encountered this scary fellow:We Googled and Googled different websites trying to figure out what he is and think he may be a water moccasin/cottonmouth snake. Or he could be a water snake. The triangular head makes us think water moccasin. Whatever he is the snake scared the you know what out of both of us! We walked four miles this morning and after we saw this fellow we were a lot more cautious!

After a lunch of last night’s leftovers we headed into Cedar Key to visit the Cedar Key Historical Museum. Very well done little museum. The population of Cedar Key peaked in 1883 at 1887 residents, today’s population is around 900 people. Cedar Key has weathered seven hurricanes but with a lot of the very old buildings still standing the shallow water surrounding the island must keep Cedar Key from experiencing really heavy damage???

Another interesting fact—the high school has burned twice, once in 1943 and again in 2002. Pencil slats were made in Cedar Key and shipped to Pennsylvania for lead insertion. There is no hospital or doctor on the island. And in 1993 the clamming aquaculture was started and is still successful today. We love this little town.

Back out to the motorhome Emmi was of course glad to see us. Our neighbor across the street who witnessed Emmi’s exuberant dance of welcome said, “she sure is happy to see you, isn’t she?”

Another great day in Florida, warmer weather is coming!

Really, Who Turned Off The Heat

2012-01-14T17:28:00.001-07:00

It was a cold morning for Florida, 31 degrees and that dang wind was cold again! We even fired up the hydro hot heat system this morning. Sure am glad Michael has the morning duty with Emmi!

We were having guests today—Mark and Elaine who have lived in Florida a large portion of their adult lives had never seen Cedar Key. They arrived about 2pm and after a tour of the motorhome off we went the big town of Cedar Key. We wandered down to the wharf area and into a few shops, I did find a birthday present.

After our tour we came back out to the resort and sat ourselves down for a good visit. The Pioneer Woman jalapeno poppers were well received as was the routine southern style cheese dip. I puttered in the kitchen while we all visited with Elaine asking what she could do to help me. I told her RV kitchens are only big enough for one cook!

For dinner I used our convection oven to cook a beef tenderloin roast, first searing it on the grill. Let me tell you that was one delicious cut of meat and the oven cooked it to perfection. We also enjoyed garlic mashed potatoes and salad with poppy seed dressing. For dessert I made a blackberry cobbler from again, The Pioneer Woman cookbook. We enjoyed our first Blue Bell ice cream of the year with the cobbler. Can’t get Blue Bell ice cream in Montana and I was thrilled to see the Chiefland Wal Mart carries it.

Before it was totally dark Elaine and Mark headed back to Ocala with lots of warnings about the suicidal deer. It was a wonderful evening spent with good friends.

Here are some photos of the four of us, none of which turned out very well—sun was too bright this afternoon. Another woman standing near us volunteered to take a photo of the four of us and it is slightly out of focus—but you get the gist—we were having a good time.

Good Thing I’m Not A Real Birder

2012-01-13T16:18:00.001-07:00

Well, Bird Lady Judy has spoken and my bird photo last night was not the elusive Florida Scrub Jay but just a plain old mockingbird! Dang good thing I don’t make my living as a birder! I’m not even going to attempt to name this one, I will just wait for Judy to tell me what it is!! I think I know what it is???

Even the mushrooms have sand on their tops.

We managed to stay on the right path while walking this morning and Michael didn’t make any more “get in the doghouse” comments. As Al from the Bayfield Bunch pointed out, there are no mountains in Florida to use as reference points. The area where we are walking has very dense undergrowth making you lose sight of almost everything on the horizon. There is a cell tower in Cedar Key that we can see sometimes and use as a guide.

An anonymous commenter asked what camera I was using to take photos—it is a Canon SX30IS and I love it. Since I became a digital camera user all but one of my cameras has been a Canon. I’m familiar with the location of the buttons and their functions. I love this camera but I said that all ready didn’t I!

Karen In The Woods has mentioned in a comment about how much her husband Steve loves the boiled peanuts you see for sale on almost every corner, in every convenience store and at every produce stand here in Florida. Michael wanted to try a bag—he picked the Cajun kind—YUK, double YUK!!! Those things stunk up the whole jeep on the way home, he ate two of them and threw the rest out. I didn’t even try the things. We will leave all the boiled peanuts for you Steve!

We have guests coming for dinner tomorrow night, Elaine and Mark. Drove into Cedar Key this afternoon stopping at the bank for laundry quarters—when I entered the bank this pleasant southern speaking woman says, “how you doing honey?” I replied, “just fine, how are you?” I could hear my southern drawl getting really southern! The people down here are the nicest! Stopped at the local market, same thing, “how you doing honey?” Managed to snag a couple more bottles of that great wine I took to Elaine and Mark’s in Ocala the other night. Really good stuff and less than $15 a bottle—Pascual Toso Cabernet Sauvignon, 2009, made in Argentina.

Who turned off the heat down here??? Emmi hardly ever gets us up in the middle of the night—this morning at 3am Emmi and I were stumbling around outside and the wind was howling. That wind brought some cooler temps and when we took our walk this morning the wind was downright cold. It has remained cold all day and the wind has a bitter touch, too. But as Karen says, “a cold day in Florida is a dang sight better than a winter one in Wisconsin or Montana!!”

I did some cooking today—made a delicious appetizer from the Pioneer Woman Cooks cookbook. Barbecue Jalapeno poppers. Oh, my are they good—made a few extra so we could sample.

And that’s about it for our day in Florida. LoraLee sent our mail and we got some delayed Christmas cards with those nice long newsy letters—we enjoyed those and the local weekly newspapers we get when home.

We did see on the news where they found the body of the 43 year old Sidney, MT school teacher who went out for an early morning run Tuesday and never came home. Our hearts go out to her family and friends, too sad!

We Got Lost

2012-01-12T17:42:00.001-07:00

Remember that handy/dandy husband I said I loved last night, well he’s in the dog house tonight. As we left the jeep this morning starting out on our four mile walk I said, “oh, dang it, I left the map in the jeep.” The handy/dandy husband said, “are we going the same way (four miles) we went the other day, if so I can get us there.” Off we went with no map.

Seven miles later we got back to the jeep after getting lost! Took a wrong turn somewhere! And as we were only hiking four miles, we didn’t take any water. As Al from The Bayfield Bunch says, “those jeep seats sure felt good!!” And the water we had in the jeep sure tasted good to all of us, including Emmi! Michael also made the mistake of saying, “well, I did it for your own good so you would get more exercise.” Yep, he’s in the dog house, he might should have left off the last statement!

I think we saw a Florida Scrub Jay this morning—we will await Bird Lady Judy’s judgment:

I saw a huge wild pig on our hike this morning and heard what sounded like a whole bunch more pigs in the bushes.

We came home and instead of eating the whole house like I wanted to after that little journey we had salads for lunch with chicken I cooked yesterday.

After lunch we drove over to Chiefland (20 miles) and gave some more money to the Walton family. We found the best produce market—it may be the same one Karen In The Woods told us about. Huge fresh Florida navel oranges, grapefruit, tomatoes, lemons and limes. We are going to be eating so healthy!

The soil here is sand, white sand. In the plowed hayfields we pass you can see the white sand peaking up between the newly sprouted hay. Where we walk the trail is sometimes through huge pine trees and shaded, other times it is a very sandy path and feels as if you are walking on the beach. Good for those calf muscles!

Looks like the jungle doesn’t it!

Another good day in Florida!

A Stay At Home Day

2012-01-11T16:58:00.001-07:00

We woke to the sound of rain on the roof—it didn’t rain long, just a shower or two through the morning. Florida like much of the south needs rain. Michael remarked, “even when it rains down here it is still warm.” We are liking this weather although the weatherman has frequently droned on about it getting “much colder on Friday.” I highly doubt the weathermen in Florida have a clue what “much colder” means!

In January 2011 while we were in Louisiana visiting Gina and Rollie we purchased a reclining loveseat for this motorhome. The springs weren’t very good causing both of us to gimp around as if we were old folks when we got off the couch. Michael took some springs out of the old furniture we removed from this motorhome and brought those springs with us. Today he turned the sofa upside down and installed those springs. Have I mentioned I love this handyman husband I have??? Tonight my rear end is appropriately and comfortably supported!

While he was doing this I performed such exciting tasks as bathroom cleaning! And I bathed Ms Emmi in preparation for giving her a Florida haircut after lunch. I pan sautéed some chicken breast tenderloins for lunch and made homemade oven fries in my convection oven. I’ve never been able to use this oven very much because we’ve always boondocked and convection ovens do not run on the inverter!! After lunch puppy looking Emmi became a schnauzer again. While we were visiting Jim and Ellie I was lamenting the fact that her dogs were so well groomed and then there was the ragamuffin Emmi! No more, she is now a well groomed dog, too!

As a belated birthday present my friend Gina gave me a copy of The Pioneer Woman Cooks cookbook. I love the Pioneer Woman blog—today I had time to sit down and read some of the book—it’s so much fun! The recipes are great but I love all the chatter she includes also.

This afternoon we drove out to the coast to see if there were any waves—nope, not in this shallow coastal area, only really rough chop which the experts say can swamp a kayak in nothing flat. So needless to say, we did not kayak today. Just a little windy out there today! I love this old house in downtown Cedar Key, two stories built on what I call stilts and very long and narrow—painted a beautiful yellow color, an entry gate and courtyard with huge overhanging palm trees—it speaks of tropical and island living.

Another good day in Florida.

A Driving Tour

2012-01-10T17:19:00.001-07:00

This life is growing on us! Up around 7am, Michael takes Emmi out, coffee and computers then a long walk for all of us. We had planned to kayak again today but the weather wasn’t looking favorable, instead we took a nice drive.

Our mission was to check out various RV parks we had read about to see if we wanted to move when our month is up here. NOPE! This RV park is deluxe compared to the other two we saw today. One of the parks, Rock Crusher Canyon RV Park in Crystal River is very nice—good sized sites, privacy vegetation between sites, heated/screened pool, lots of activities, huge—but still not as nice as Cedar Key. The other one on Lake Rousseau was awful—packed in like sardines. No, we both like this park and this is where we will stay—no heated pool or not!

After we left Crystal River and the Dunnellon area we decided to check out Rainbow Springs State Park. Elaine and Mark had mentioned this park as a beautiful spot. Rainbow Springs is a first magnitude headspring basin producing 400-600 million gallons of water per day forming the Rainbow River. Think about that, 400-600 MILLION GALLONS of water per DAY! That’s a whole lot of water!

It is a beautiful spot—no where in the literature does it mention the waterfalls are man-made, I guess we just assumed they were natural. The tallest of the falls was closed due to a leak. The park is lovely, quiet—the actual spring water is a gorgeous shade of green, the park is planted with all kinds of blooming plants of which only the camellias were blooming and frost had bitten most of these several days ago. We did find a few still beautiful flowers:

At one time this park must have been a commercial venture—there was a zoo located here in the past. The gift shop and concession area were closed, there was a fire over the weekend. Bless the woman’s heart that was taking our entrance money, she failed to mention any of the closures until after she took our money. She also failed to ask me if it was OK to give Emmi a dog treat before she handed it to Emmi. Thankfully Emmi is quite picky about her dog treats and spit it out. I told the woman thank you and discreetly retrieved the treat putting it in my pocket. I’m sure this park is probably packed in the summer with people swimming in the spring made pool. Personally I’m not too sure about swimming in any water that isn’t in a swimming pool in Florida after seeing our friend “Buddy” the alligator here in the RV park pond.

Our first stop of the day was out to the coast at Inglis, Florida. An idyllic setting except notice the background in both of these photographs????

It was a wonderful day seeing new country and enjoying Florida.

Kayaking In The Ocean

2012-01-09T16:14:00.001-07:00

If anyone had told me a year ago I would be kayaking in the ocean I would have said, “oh, no, not me, not out there in that big ocean with all those waves.” Well that’s exactly what we did today, we went kayaking in the ocean. This area called The Hidden Coast is very sediment filled from the many rivers which dump into the ocean, one being the large Suwanee River. The high tides are considered to be not very deep and low tides leave huge mud flats exposed. And there are no waves except those created by fishing boats.

It was so cool—we paddled out to this island which you can hike onto. Emmi went with us and was the star attraction at the dock with her pink lifejacket. Our Folbot kayak attracted a lot of attention, too. The guy renting out the hard sided kayaks had to come look at it and ask all sorts of questions. The kayak is really a nice boat and fits us well.

Before we headed into town for kayaking we took a walk in the Cedar Key Scrub Preserve again and as we were walking along, Michael said, “CAT!!!” And he didn’t mean kitty cat! All I saw was the back end of the cat going into the bushes. It was the size of bobcat or lynx—don’t know if they have those species in Florida or not. As we were driving by the small pond near the clubhouse this morning we spotted the resident alligator, when we came back from kayaking he was sunning himself, YIKES! Hang onto Emmi!!

Another great day in Florida! For lunch I made a red sauce with clams over pasta and this afternoon when we got back from kayaking I mixed up a batch of bread (yep, I brought that KitchenAid mixer with me this year) and it is now cooking in our convection oven—smells very good in this motorhome.

A Great Day

2012-01-08T20:10:00.001-07:00

A beautiful Florida Sunday morning, we woke to warm temps and blue skies, not a cloud in the sky and no fog. Before we came to Florida many people warned us about the bugs—I grew up in the south, I know all about bugs but Michael grew up in Montana. We have our share of bugs up there in the cold country but maybe because it is so cold the bugs just don’t grow as large. Michael found this bug on one of our screens today and said, “now I know what they mean about Florida bugs!!” I had a lot of things I wanted to accomplish today so instead of taking a long hike we drove into Cedar Key and walked along the waterfront watching the birds, people and boats. We watched two different clam boats come in with their haul:

We thought this looked like a great spot to enjoy a beverage. While down by the waterfront we watched probably high school age kids bring in a small boat and tie it to the wharf. We wanted to ask some kayaking questions of the kayak rental place and discovered these two young men were now holding down the fort while their dad or grandfather was off doing something else. I was so impressed by these two kids—very knowledgeable, extra polite, very articulate for their age—a joy to talk to. Now we know where to launch the kayak.

Back home I decided to take my sheets and towels up to the “laundromat.” Two washers and two dryers for 80 RV spots a laundromat this does not make! And it is outside on the porch!! What were the developers of this upscale RV resort thinking????? It was actually fun to sit in the rocking chairs, talk to everyone coming and going while my clothes washed and dried. The washer and dryer we have on board works very well for washing, not so good for drying. In the Arizona desert I could hang the clothes on my portable drying rack and in two hours the clothes were dry. Not in Florida—a pair of jeans I washed on Friday was finally dry today! So, for larger loads such as sheets and towels it is just easier to head to the laundromat.

For 12 years I worked for the Kimberly-Clark Corporation as a nurse consultant. One of my co-workers and best of friends Elaine and her husband Mark live in Ocala a little over an hour from us. This afternoon we drove over there for a delightful evening. Mark grilled some awesome steaks and Elaine cooked up enough side dishes for a small army. The appetizer stuffed mushrooms were to die for! And while the food was delicious the company was outstanding. We so enjoyed ourselves! Elaine’s comment when she saw the photo on the camera, “I think I need to stand on a stool.” Thank you guys for a wonderful evening!

On the way home through the back woods of Florida I could have sworn we were on the Boulder Road back home as many deer as we dodged, GEEZ!!!

Emmi helping Dad drive in the RV park.

It was a wonderful, wonderful day!

A Fun Filled Day

2012-01-07T17:39:00.001-07:00

It was foggy and misting rain when we got up this morning but by noon the sun was shining and the temps were perfect. We had located a spot for hiking yesterday and after breakfast off we went. Cedar Key Scrub State Reserve just up the road a couple miles. We walked just over four miles and much of it through sand as if we were walking on the beach or in one of those southwest desert washes. The Reserve is home to the Florida Scrub Jay found only in Florida, state protected and federally listed as a threatened species. We saw lots of the Jay’s but none would sit still long enough to be photographed. Instead I did get a photograph of this bird, a female cardinal, I think:

We came back to the motorhome where I made lunch, taco salads then we saddled up again and set off on a drive. First over to Chiefland for gas then we drove out to Manatee Springs hoping to catch a glimpse of a manatee—not today, they were all in hiding but I got some great photos of other things:

Who let that cowboy come into Florida??

There were hundreds of these buzzards in the trees across the river from the boardwalk, some taking a bath, some just squawking! Made me wonder who they were all waiting for????

This little guy and Emmi had a chat—he was quite busy eating that nut.

Back to the motorhome and just as we were climbing out of the jeep a truck pulled up in front and a woman’s voice said, “hello, are you Janna, I read your blog.” YIKES!! Someone found me! The couple in the front seat, Janet and Sheldon are from Ontario and had friends with them whose names elude me (if I don’t write it down, I forget names!). Janet and Sheldon have been coming to Florida for years; they are all staying in a RV park in New Port Richey and drove up to see if they could find us—when Janet’s husband asked how she was going to find us she said, “all I have to do is look for a pink motorhome and a yellow jeep.” See what you started John! We had a very enjoyable chat but we couldn’t convince them to get out and sit a spell as we say in the south—it was almost 5pm and they had a 100+ mile drive ahead of them. Very nice to meet blog readers, hopefully our paths will cross again!

When we visited the Cedar Key Visitor Center yesterday I noticed a flyer advertising a quilt show for Saturday evening at a gallery just across the street. So, off we went this evening—it was a small show and reception with beautiful quilts, many of them “art” quilts (and guess who didn’t have a camera). By the time we walked through the quilt show we were starving and headed to Tony’s—OK, Laurie and Odel—we each ate a bowl of the best clam chowder—all the ads for this restaurant proclaim Tony’s clam chowder as “World Famous, World Champion Chowder.” Well, this little (and it is little probably seating less than 30 people) restaurant won the world clam chowder cook-off held in Rhode Island in 2009, 2010 and 2011. Because this team has won 3 years in a row, they are not eligible to attend again!!! And oh, my, while I’m not the clam chowder connoisseur Odel is, that was one delicious bowl of chowder!!

As we drove out of Cedar Key tonight the sun had set giving everything a pinkish glow. We are sure liking this place.

Our First Day In Cedar Key

2012-01-06T16:14:00.001-07:00

We took our time starting the day, drinking coffee, reading blogs—Michael did a little stock buying, I did a load of laundry in my handy/dandy on board washer/dryer. On that note, the laundromat at this resort is on the back porch of the clubhouse, outside—which tells me it doesn’t get very cold here—two washers and two dryers.

Lunch outside in the sun at the picnic table then we headed into Cedar Key to check out the town. Oh, my!!! It is stunningly beautiful, way bigger than we expected it to be—very charming! Very charming! Lots of places to stay and lots of restaurants. We stopped at the Visitor’s Center retrieving all kinds of reading material and getting advice on kayaking. The absolute one thing the lady said is “pay attention to the tide tables, or you will find yourself stranded on a mud flat!!!” OK, all righty then!!

The little grocery store is well stocked—produce was a bit lacking but that’s OK, we found Sandy’s Produce Stand! And not only did we buy some of those beautiful strawberries, we bought clams! I cooked clams tonight for the first time in my life—steamed them with onion, garlic, lemon juice, butter and white wine—delicious!!! And we won’t go thirsty here, the little grocery store had an excellent selection of wines!!!

We were pleasantly surprised with the little town of Cedar Key and are looking forward to exploring some more.

Jill and Terry, Jeane—this is a fabulous place with fabulous weather! It was 72 degrees today, perfect! We had our happy hour tonight outside in the sunshine, perfect!

Cedar Key Florida

2012-01-05T17:39:00.001-07:00

2789 miles and $1400 of fuel—we made it to Cedar Key today around 2pm. I told Michael we better see everything we ever want to see in Florida on this trip—that’s a long way and a whole lot of money!

The park is gorgeous, the lots are huge, the folks in the office let us borrow their golf cart to pick a spot. The original spot we reserved has some electrical issues. This resort was built with the intent of selling RV lots—then the economy tanked. It is currently in foreclosure and there are only seven out of 80 lots sold. As you can see from the photos, not many lots are rented either. Due to the foreclosure I think some things were misrepresented to us—we were told the pool was heated, it is not so the pool is not useable. We were promised a particular lot but the electric issues to those rows have not been resolved (I made this reservation at least three months ago). We chose a corner lot so we have a big “yard” and no neighbors on one side. Once we were parked Michael started pulling out the lawn chairs and tables. Once the sun started to go down he started washing the rig—I started cleaning on the inside. By supper time we had a nice clean rig and jeep.

We stopped in Chiefland at the Wal Mart which is about 20 miles from this park. It is one of the best stocked Wal Mart’s I’ve ever been in. Even had my Greek yogurt in large containers.

Emmi was excited to see her ball in one of the bays and we walked down to the back of the park where there are no rigs and played a game. She was one little tired, panting dog!

I think we are going to like it here, tomorrow we will explore the big city of Cedar Key.

Onward To Ho Hum

2012-01-04T16:48:00.001-07:00

We left Summerdale, Alabama just after 9am this morning giving Jim and Ellie big hugs and some “see ya later down the road.” As Ellie said, “this visit was way too short.” They gave us something to remember them by—a large jar of their homemade salsa, YUM!

Driving through lots of small towns and a couple bigger ones—Panama City and Panama City Beach were just one big long red light—lots of stops. Once we left Panama City in our rear view mirror the roads became a lot less traveled and we began to see why this part of Florida is called the Forgotten Coast. Our destination today was the Ho Hum RV Park in Carrabella, Florida. We read Laurie and Odel’s rave review of this RV park out in the middle of nowhere and decided to make it one of our stops. Definitely a no frills kind of park but with ocean front property, who needs frills!

Emmi and I went for a walk on the beach while Michael hooked up our utilities. For dinner we had some awesome lasagna compliments of Ms Gina—it was so good!

Tomorrow we will finally reach our destination of Cedar Key, Florida—we are a LOOONG way from home!

Short Travel Day

2012-01-03T19:02:00.001-07:00

With lots of hugs we departed Gina and Rollie’s driveway this morning just before 9am. Michael managed to make the turn out of their driveway without losing the jeep in the ditch! I was proud of him! Rollie headed back to Houston and work this morning, too.

We had an easy 224 miles drive to Summerdale, Alabama and the Plantation Escapees Park. Our chief reason for being here—Jim and Ellie!! We haven’t seen Jim and Ellie since this summer when they visited us in Montana. They are some of our Arizona desert buddies—we taught them how to boondock—or rather it was a little of the blind leading the blind but we all managed quite well that winter.

When we arrived Ellie and I took all the pooches for a short walk—a nasty cold wind was blowing. After that walk we all gathered in their rig and visited for a while. Michael and I took Emmi for a walk—this park has a couple huge vacant fields and Emmi was ready to play ball.

Ellie served us a wonderful dinner for this chilly weather we are having—chili with cornbread, YUM! And peach cobbler for dessert. We enjoyed some wine, lots of conversation and catching up. A great evening! And I guess we aren’t starting the diet just yet.

This is a great RV park—someone knew what they were doing when it was planned—large sites, lots of room between rows, trees, grass. Out in the country and quiet, no lights. If we are staying in a RV park—this is the kind of RV park we like.

It is cold here—the entire south is experiencing a cold front—I had to retrieve the wool socks and store the flip flops. Dang it!!!!The other night I was pretty sure I had put Emmi in the bed. When I went back to the bedroom I couldn’t find her, thought she had jumped off the bed, looked everywhere which is a small area in a motorhome with no slides. Went back to the bedroom to look again, said her name and this is what I saw—she was all snuggled down for the night—NOT—at least not on my pillow!

Hey we recognize that Phaeton next to that pink Country Coach with the dirty yellow jeep.

A Busy, Busy Day

2012-01-02T20:37:00.001-07:00

Gina and I headed out early this morning leaving Michael and Rollie to make jambalaya while we were gone. Really we left Rollie to make jambalaya and Michael to supervise cause as we all know, Michael doesn’t cook!

Shopping was on the ladies’ agenda today. We hit the craft stores—Hobby Lobby and Hancock’s searching for quilt fabrics and notions for Gina. Made a stop at Coffee Call for sustenance for continued shopping—beignets and coffee—then off to DSW, the coolest shoe store, huge shoe store. Wal Mart was our last stop and it was a zoo. I think everyone who wasn’t working today was in that store!

We came home to find things smelling very good around Gina and Rollie’s house. Dana and Rickey joined us for dinner and football, watching the Oregon Ducks beat Wisconsin.

It was a much cooler/lower humidity day here in Louisiana, Gina was bringing plants in off the deck in anticipation of a freeze tonight. I hope her flower beds don’t get frosted too much—the beds are beautiful—blooming flowers in January, amazing!

Gina purchased my older Pfaff sewing machine from me. As she is quite vertically challenged, she is always having to pay to have altered almost any pair of jeans she purchases. Well, today she learned how to hem jeans—she is very excited!

Once again it has been such a great time spent here with friends, words can’t describe this unexpected friendship we have developed with Gina and Rollie—they are more like family than friends! Tomorrow we say “see you later” and start our journey toward Florida. Tomorrow night we are stopping in to visit some more friends—stay tuned!

Happy New Year

2012-01-01T19:00:00.001-07:00

What a wonderful day and way to start the New Year!! And of course it involved eating. This photo is for Vera—here’s what those beignets are supposed to look like:

We slept in this morning but were up, dressed and ready to go about 9am—off for more eating. This morning we were invited to Miss Wanda and Mr. Phil’s—parents of Parker who is Ashley’s husband and Ashley is the daughter of Gina and Rollie—WHEW—everybody got that??? What a gracious, welcoming family! And a beautiful home!!! Michael got to try grits for the first time—shrimp and cheese grits—he actually liked the grits! We so enjoyed meeting the Jenkins family!

A couple weeks ago, Gina called to tell me about a surprise—she and Rollie are going to be grandparents again. Ashley and Parker will welcome Miss Jolee into the world around the first of May. Talk about excitement around here, Michael and I have even caught it!

We headed back home after brunch and a couple of hours after that, guess what—we are eating again—our menu for good luck and wealth in the New Year. Cabbage, black eyed peas, smoked pork and turkey. That turkey had to be the best turkey I have ever eaten! Michael ate a few peas for good luck but said he would have to hang onto my coat tails this year for the wealth part as he wasn’t eating any cabbage! Dana and Rickey joined us as well as Mr. Rollie (Rollie’s Dad) and Ms. Jan. Gina’s table.

We all sat around and groaned for a while before Gina and I dug out the sewing machine and had a lesson. Michael and Rollie flew the remote control helicopters sending Emmi into a frenzy! Fireworks, guns, thunder don’t bother Emmi but that buzzing helicopter sure did! See the helicopter out in front of him to his right?

And of course we had to have dessert—cream cheese pound cake or king cake!

One of the best New Year’s Days we’ve ever had—simply wonderful spent with such good friends.

New Year’s Eve

2012-01-01T08:05:00.001-07:00

A short post before we are off for another gathering this morning! Yesterday was a low key, laid back day in preparation for our big night out! And a big night out it was. But before the day started, I was inside the motorhome eating my yogurt and granola in preparation for the big “eat” when Gina knocks on the door and presents us with a huge plate of homemade beignets!!!!! I guess the diet isn’t going to start for a few more days! Rollie said since we weren’t taking the cowboy to New Orleans this time he would bring the cowboy some New Orleans.

Rollie and Michael spent the day smoking turkeys and pork on Rollie’s handy dandy smoker. Gina and I took a quick trip to Hobby Lobby and the grocery store before returning home. Gina spent the day in the kitchen preparing home cooked meals to freeze for Ashley and Parker to take home with them. What a wonderful Mom and Mother-in-law those two have!

We did have time to have lunch out in the sunshine and have a couple swing breaks:

Last night Rollie and Gina treated us to dinner at Flemings—a very upscale, elegant steakhouse. Mr. Clark even wore his hat! Ashley and Parker along with Dana and Ricky joined us. The food was delicious but the company was superb! It was a delight to spend New Year’s Eve with these wonderful friends.

After dinner we went back to Ricky and Dana’s—one house down from Gina and Rollie’s—for an after dinner glass of wine and to watch the fireworks from their front porch. Their neighbors put on quite the show!

A special New Year’s Eve.

Onward To Louisiana

2011-12-30T20:46:00.001-07:00

With sadness and anticipation we left Arkansas today. Sad to leave the family behind and eagerly anticipating seeing Gina and Rollie. We had an easy 300 mile drive through southern Arkansas, Mississippi and on down to Louisiana. And yes, Mr. Michael had to cross the big river again:

And somewhere on this journey today I realized it was 70 degrees outside and I was still wearing wool socks! That situation was quickly remedied:

Gina and Rollie prepared a wonderful dinner of ribs, potato salad and beans—guess we aren’t starting our diet yet! It was so incredibly good to see them and get all caught up! Their daughter Ashley and her husband Parker are here for a couple more days—it was good to see them again, too.

Emmi is having fun visiting with Gina and Rollie’s pooches. Zoey has a duck and will not share her duck with Emmi! Poor little Angel has surgery on her eye and is still a little under the weather.

When I got this new laptop for Christmas I loaded the new version of Live Writer and for the life of me I couldn’t figure out how to make my photos default to the same size every time I inserted a picture. Well our resident blogger computer expert Rick, sent a link from his blog with a very good video clip and now I’m in business!

It was a great day in retirement!

Another Day Of Visiting

2011-12-29T20:52:00.001-07:00

We must have relaxed after all that driving, I don’t think either of us moved all night last night. My sister Ann left for work, we never heard her car leave—she said her dog Spot barked, we never heard him.

My niece’s husband dropped the girls by here this morning and they accompanied Mom and me to Wal Mart for a grocery buying expedition. Leah and Elizabeth love spending time in the motorhome and hanging out with Emmi.

While back in Montana my hairdresser and I had discussed growing out my hair. Well, that didn’t last long! I called Niki’s hairdresser today and she was able to work me in and cut my hair this afternoon—YES! Now I look like myself again.

Dinner tonight was another family affair. We fixed pork tenderloin on the grill, roasted potatoes with onions, roasted brussel sprouts with carrots and apple, steamed spinach and a host of leftovers. I love my family so much and it is wonderful to be able to spend time with them again so soon.

After dinner Bradley (a friend of my niece and her husband who has been to see us in Montana) came by bringing his other daughter, Tucker. The older daughter had arrived with Niki earlier in the evening. It was great to see Bradley and we are sorry his wife Kerri was working tonight!Harley and Tucker belonging to friends Kerri and Bradley.

My Mom and her granddaughter Niki—they have a special relationship that is a joy to see.

Emmi is worn out, those girls played ball with her all afternoon.

Nat was to have had some skin cancer Mohs procedures done in Montana today—tonight I called to see how he was doing—he didn’t have the Mohs procedures done—he has shingles!!!!!

1750 Miles Later

2011-12-28T20:52:00.001-07:00

Yesterday afternoon late we arrived in one of our favorite stopping spots along the route to my family home in Arkansas, McGee Creek State Park in southeastern Oklahoma. We have stayed there twice before and last night as usual, we were only one of two rigs in the whole park. The campground sits right on a lake and is far enough out in the country to be very quiet with no lights! Our idea of heaven! And nobody trying to steal the jeep!!!!

None of the sites are pull through so we just picked our favorite site and pulled in unhooking the jeep this morning when it came time to leave.

Kelly from The Bayfield Bunch wanted to know where I was sleeping during the jeep caper—in the bed beside Michael—my hearing is excellent, way too excellent and I sleep with earplugs or I would not get any sleep at all. I am such a light sleeper my Daddy used to say I could hear an ant crawl across the floor. I can still hear things such as phones ringing, Michael snoring (if he snores) etc. but I guess I didn’t hear the attempt by the jeep thieves.

1750 miles later we backed into my sister Ann and her husband Danny’s driveway today. We’ve been visiting and eating; eating and visiting—what we do best when the family gets together here in Arkansas. We exchanged belated Christmas gifts and I got to hug those two little great nieces really hard. There are lots of good cooks in my family!

We are snug in our motorhome, our internet works—we are loving this Millenicom business. Tomorrow more visiting and playing with the great nieces—their Mom has to work. Very good to be back in Arkansas again so soon after my November visit.

And yes, the jeep escapade happened in a park, not boondocking. A city park with nice pull through spots, electric and water.

Lots Of Miles

2011-12-27T13:53:00.001-07:00

We are putting lots of miles under our belt today and I’m writing the blog early—we are getting off the interstate system soon and I doubt we have internet tonight. We just came through Oklahoma City just a while ago—that is one busy city!

Paranoia or cautious—a question I’ve often asked Michael when I see him locking the jeep onto the motorhome. Not only does he put a lock through the ball hitch mechanism but he also wraps a cable around the jeep bumper and locks this cable to the hitch. Last night I decided he was just cautious!

At 2am I became aware that Michael was in the living area getting dressed—someone was messing with the jeep—he heard and felt a couple thumps and jerks. He dressed quickly, grabbed the 44 pistol and headed out the door. As soon as the door opened who ever it was jumped in their car and roared off. Needless to say we had a very difficult time getting back to sleep!

It was a chilly morning while Michael unhooked our utilities; Emmi and I played ball which has been good today as she has slept all day on the couch except for a couple quick potty breaks.

Onward!

On The Road Again

2011-12-26T16:48:00.001-07:00

Man oh man did the wind blow last night, and blow some more! It was blowing hard when we went to bed but at 2am we were both awake thinking we were in a rolling boat! Even in some of the Arizona winds I don’t think our coach ever rocked that hard! In spite of all that we did sleep well in the parking lot of a closed antique car museum in Murdo, South Dakota. Our little propane heater kept us warm, we enjoyed our dinner of homemade spaghetti, our internet connection was great—what more could we ask for??

We drove 612 miles yesterday and 443 today. About 4:30pm we were approaching the little town of Concordia, Kansas. I had read about a city owned park at the airport with free electric and water hookups, dump station on site. They request you leave a donation which we most certainly will. It is a cool little spot right beside Hwy 81. Lots of big old trees and acres of grass for Emmi dog ball playing! We got a later start this morning and just decided we had driven long enough—parked, took a walk, played ball and ordered a pizza to be delivered—just a might spoiled I would say!

Our spot in the Airport RV Park—it is just a little airstrip, you can see the “control tower” with the searchlights on top just over the top of our RV.

Onward tomorrow.

Merry Christmas

2011-12-25T15:14:00.001-07:00

Why is it when you are getting on the road you can’t sleep the night before? We both were wide awake at 3am, tossed and turned, finally got up at 3:30am. Took our time closing down the house, checking for last minute forgotten items and loading all that last minute stuff into the rig. We were rolling out of the driveway just before 6am. Stopped in Big Timber at the Town Pump to give the hungry beast a drink of $3.78/gallon diesel fuel. Saw a high school friend of Michael’s, Sox, who wished us safe travels.

The rest of the day we have spent driving and driving on dry roads, thank the good Lord! Not one speck of ice or snow on the freeway, just alongside the road. Forgive the bugs on the windshield!

We stopped in a rest area a little while ago and Michael got out the ball for Emmi—of course she was thrilled, I think she thought we had left the red ball back in Montana!

Our plan here at 3pm is to make it just south of Murdo, South Dakota which will mean driving for a little while in the dark which we don’t usually like to do. But, the plan is to get to warmer country, the sooner, the better.

Merry Christmas to all our friends and family, here’s hoping you had a wonderful day.

Christmas Eve

2011-12-24T13:32:00.000-07:00

Today is Christmas Eve and my late Dad’s birthday. Miss him so much but especially at this time of year.

We had an exciting phone call this morning, our granddaughter Laci called from Italy to get permission for opening her Christmas package—she talked to us on the phone as she opened the present and was very excited when she saw what we got her. I took one of the awesome photos they as a family had made this past October, sent it to Costco.com and had the photo placed on a 4 foot long piece of canvas. It was just spectacular—one of the best Christmas presents I’ve ever thought of!

Tonight we enjoyed a wonderful family evening at Lonn and LoraLee’s. Our oldest granddaughter Katie and her husband Michael were there as well as Nat. The meal was outstanding, crab legs, ham, roasted potatoes, salad plus pumpkin pie and cherry cheesecake pie for dessert. We exchanged gifts—Katie and Laci gave us some of the framed photographs the family had made in October. We loved everything we were gifted with and I think our gifts were also a success!

Late this evening we headed back over the mountain to our side and sent Nat on his way back to town. One more sleep. And, I’m typing this blog on the present my sweet Santa gave me, a new Toshiba laptop!!! Don’t I have a nice Santa???

May you and your family have a wonderful Christmas Eve and Day. May your New Year be healthy, happy and prosperous. May our fellow RV travelers have safe travels.

Almost Christmas

2011-12-23T22:19:00.001-07:00

We are still carting stuff down the driveway to the motorhome, those cupboards I thought were going to be empty—not so empty any more and I have another load ready to go. Cleaned out both freezers this morning and loaded that stuff into the motorhome freezer—I did a good job this year, not buying any type frozen stuff for about six weeks so the coach freezer wasn’t so packed.

I made a pot of beef/vegetable soup for on the road eating. I also used one of the packages of spaghetti sauce I had made and froze to make another eat on the road meal. We both after a hard day’s drive hate to try and find a place to eat out in a strange town, usually in the dark!

This bird, a hawk I think, likes to hang out in this particular tree, yesterday he was screeching at Emmi—she wasn’t impressed.

Hey, stop taking my photo Mr. Red says! We have three of these feeders into which we place a big round bale of hay. Lonn comes over periodically to check the feeders and refill if needed. The horses also have shelter they can enter if needed—our horses as do most horses, prefer to be out. About the only time we see our horses use their shelter is to avoid the bugs in the summertime.

Tonight we had a wonderful dinner with Jill and Terry at the Grand—said our goodbyes and see you later’s—hopefully they will be coming down to visit us this winter.

Two more sleeps or as Michael said they say in the military—a day and a wakeup.

More Loading

2011-12-22T16:46:00.001-07:00

Michael remarked a few days ago, perhaps we shouldn’t have started loading the motorhome so early, we keep finding more and more things to go in! I certainly hope we are almost finished!

It was a very cold morning with about six inches of new snow. It only warmed up to 22 degrees all day. Now the wind is supposed to start and the temps to warm up. The warmer temps I can take but no wind would be nice.

Today I finished the binding on a little Christmas wallhanging I started a couple years ago. It is the cutest thing! Back side, I frequently use Kona muslin for the back side of wall hangings—who is going to see it anyway?? The center block is a panel as are all the other smaller snowmen blocks. The other blocks and borders are pieced. This pattern had an error making it impossible to put the black and white checked border together as written. The pattern contained contact info for the writer and when I contacted her this is what she said, “yes, we knew that and have corrected the pattern.” She offered to send me the new directions via email which I accepted—the new directions were also incorrect!! We often complain at quilt retreat about poorly written patterns—it is the group’s consensus that patterns are just written—no one ever really tries to make the quilt from the pattern. Paulette has blogged about this same issue.

My friend Kelly who lives in Kansas City has been having a really rough time lately—husband having surgery, Mom developing dementia really suddenly, work, etc. But in spite of all that she took the time to send Michael and me a package from Harry & David’s. It was so beautifully packaged I hated to take it apart: Michael spent the day puttering, plowing snow and fixing a plumbing leak. We are both ready to head on out of here!

She Loved It

2011-12-21T21:09:00.001-07:00

Geez, it would have been nice if JB and Brenda had kept the blizzard up there in Alberta for a while longer! At least the foot of snow didn’t materialize and we only got about four more inches. Not very nice outside today! But Emmi still loves to play ball.

Well, my friend Caryl received her quilt yesterday and she loved it—couldn’t stop raving about it. I am very pleased!

Started packing up the sewing stuff today—I’m not taking much, not near what I usually take—I’m thinking we are going to new country and I may want to do more sightseeing and playing. Just a few little projects and some wool stitchery for doing while Michael is heading our rig down the road.

After lunch we drove to town for a couple quick errands—roads were not very nice. This evening we attended the 50th birthday party for Holly, the new owner of the McLeod Bar. It was fun—lots of friends and neighbors—very good food. We didn’t stay long, it was very crowded and neither of us is much into loud music and crowds anymore—guess we are getting old. About 4pm it started snowing again, HARD, and the roads were really not nice.

Miss Emmi was very glad we came home early.

Another One Of Those Where Did The Day Go

2011-12-20T18:42:00.001-07:00

Congratulations to our friends Jeane and Steve on the birth of their fourth grandchild, Avery Jade born to Reed and Hillary this morning.

What happened to the day—I thought at the beginning of this week I had loads of time for sewing, finishing packing, cooking, etc. Yesterday and today have gone by and not much is being accomplished. I have filled a laundry basket with stuff that needs to go down to the motorhome.

Our weather is due to deteriorate tonight and tomorrow—six to twelve inches of snow, YUCK! But by Friday sunny and warmer.

I had an appointment with my nurse practitioner today—I wanted to see if I needed to be on cholesterol lowering meds (nope, she didn’t thing so—YEA) and to get a prescription for a shingles vaccine. Doctors recommend anyone over the age of 60 receive the vaccine. When Michael was so sick in 2010 and taking the chemo drugs he received one. I have read so much about shingles and have so many friends who have suffered from this painful disease—I’m prone to cold sores and having had chicken pox, I thought it best I get vaccinated. Well, the CDC has lowered the recommended age to anyone 50 years and older, our clinic in Big Timber had the vaccine—so I was the proud recipient of the shingles vaccine today. The vaccine is expensive and some insurance companies will pay and some won’t. If mine doesn’t pay I will be out $270!

Ran a bunch more errands in Big Timber, came home, played ball with Emmi and stitched up a new coat for her. We had sautéed scallops and steamed spinach for dinner. After dinner Michael is downstairs loading some more shells for Lonn.

Tomorrow I better get with some sort of program or another??

My morning breakfast club all lined up on the deck railings.

Winter Came Back

2011-12-19T17:31:00.001-07:00

55 degrees on Sunday, 16 this morning and three inches of that powdery white stuff. Michael sure was glad he took the motorhome to the bottom of our driveway yesterday.

I made four batches of granola before lunch so I wouldn’t have to make any on the road—that should last until we get to Florida. He can eat eggs or something else if we run out!

This afternoon I played ball with Emmi a couple times—she doesn’t care how cold it is outside. I cut out two new coats for her today—one from an old Carhart coat Michael had and one from a vest of mine I had in the thrift store bag. I would have stitched up the vests but I didn’t have any darker colored velcro—will get some when I go to town tomorrow.

But I did make myself a Kindle cover gotta perfect the design, it is not quite right yet but will work for me.

We are both so ready to get in that motorhome and head out—soon!

What Incredible Talent

2011-12-18T19:58:00.001-07:00

Who would have known that our little town here in Montana had such incredible talent? There is a program at the Lutheran Church—the After School Program. Small children with working parents can come there after school, have a snack and participate in planned activities. There are many volunteers in the community who assist with the program. Tonight’s concert was a benefit for this After School Program.

If I had closed my eyes I would have thought perhaps I was sitting in some concert hall instead of the Lutheran Church in Big Timber, MT. We in this community are blessed with people who can play all sorts of instruments and sing with passion. I haven’t enjoyed myself that much in a long time!

My little point and shoot Canon doesn’t like low lighting situations so my photos aren’t the greatest--

from the left, Tom—a very talented pianist and singer who with his wife Sally moved here several years ago. Boe, the son of my good friend Mary—what a voice!, Jaclyn whose voice would give you chills, and my friend and massage therapist Gayle whose voice will knock your socks off.

This woman, Laura, sang some very upbeat, jazzy Christmas numbers—so entertaining!

The two women, Lisa and Gloria I did not know—very gifted musicians with great voices, Duane, a rancher whose family has lived here forever played an instrument called a dobro and also the banjo. This group sang some bluegrass gospel and a very traditional Christmas carol.

Gayle again and Boe, both of whom grew up here.

There were three little girls who performed piano solos at the beginning, flutes, saxophones, trumpets and awesome piano music. A man in his 80’s played a mean harmonica. The church was packed, standing room only—a super enjoyable evening.

Mike and Emmi held down the fort while I was in town. We moved the motorhome down our steep driveway and parked in front of the storage shed we use belonging to Joe and Tammy. The coach is loaded as much as it can be—only last minute stuff to go!

Nat came for lunch today and I tried a roasted pork loin recipe that was delicious using kind of a citrus base and roasting the pork with sweet potatoes and apples. YUM

Six days till departure!!

The Loading Has Started

2011-12-17T17:13:00.001-07:00

I convinced Michael to let me turn the heat on in the motorhome today so I could start loading everything instead of having to load so much at the last minute. I lost count of how many times I went in and out of the motorhome but tonight my aching bones tell me it was a bunch of trips!

And, I think we are going to be enjoying a lot of pancakes this winter with chokecherry syrup. I Googled “jelly that doesn’t jell” today and followed the exact recipe I found on two different websites for re-making the jelly but it’s not looking good again! GRRRR

Lonn came over just after lunch—he and Michael spent a couple hours re-loading shells for a gun he has—I stay clear when that’s happening, way too much concentration going on!

Emmi spent the day either chasing her ball or staring at the ball willing someone to come along and throw it for her.

On our walk this morning Emmi scared up a flock of these grouse:

A productive day in Montana except for the dang jelly!

Two Trips To Town

2011-12-16T21:02:00.000-07:00

Got all the stuff ready to make jelly this morning then headed to town. Yes, it is a strange time of year to be making jelly but—right before we left on our fall Canadian vacation we picked chokecherries which I juiced and then froze the juice. When we leave for the winter we remove everything from our refrigerators and freezer leaving them all unplugged for the time we are gone. So, time to make that jelly.

While in town I picked up a few last minute items and had a wonderful, awesome massage! My quilting sore neck and shoulders feel much better!

We had a quick lunch when I got home then I got on with the jelly making—chokecherry juice is a deep, deep red color and stains anything it touches—I am sure to wear dark clothing when working with this red juice, no white shirts. I made 19 half pints of jelly and the jury is still out on whether it is going to set or not??? I’ve had a heck of a time making jelly the last couple years—when I started making jelly and didn’t have a clue what I was doing the jelly always set. Now, it’s a 50/50 crap shoot! We may have chokecherry syrup which is very, very good too.

Tonight we enjoyed a wonderful dinner at The Grand with Lonn and LoraLee, I had a filet mignon you could have cut with a fork, the meat was so tender. But I think the best part was the lemon sorbet I had for dessert—heavenly! A delightful evening!

We came home to find one little dog who was very glad to see us!

A Day Of This And That

2011-12-15T18:30:00.001-07:00

It is such a relief to have that last quilt finished—I just did a little of this and that all day. And yes, I am going to post photos but not until the owner of the quilt has seen it.

I loaded up some boxes with items that can’t go into the motorhome until we start leaving the heat on—canned goods, cleaning supplies, etc. It felt good to get started on the packing process.

Got all my ironing caught up—I have a catch all basket downstairs by the ironing board—it contained summertime placemats, napkins from several dinner parties ago, capri pants (and we all know the last time I wore short pants in Montana) and several of Michael’s shirts. Got it all done—yippee!

After lunch we headed into town. We had a meeting with our attorney—we had our wills re-done, along with durable power of attorney and living wills drafted. That was a hard kick in the pocketbook!!!

Poor Al of the Bayfield Bunch and poor Kelly, too! Hope he is feeling better soon!

A good day!

It’s Finished, It’s Finished

2011-12-14T18:33:00.001-07:00

Just a few moments ago at about 6pm I finished my last customer quilt for the season—I am too tired to go back downstairs and take photos but I will tomorrow, I promise. It is stunning if I do say so myself, the first time I have ever done that kind of intense custom quilting and my neck and shoulders are telling me so!

Here’s a couple photos of the other two quilts I finished and sent to Arkansas—one belonging to my Aunt Marg

One belonging to Marti, my Aunt’s friend and made from a free pattern designed by Judy of The Patchwork Times.

Michael was a busy beaver today—he worked on the bear spray barrels and when I went outside about 3:30 to play ball with Emmi I heard the chainsaw up in the pasture. He cut a LOT of firewood into manageable pieces, hauling it down to the house with the backhoe. We should have enough wood to last us until we leave and some to warm us when we get home in the spring cause we all know what spring in Montana is like!

He also went to the post office for me this morning mailing Laci in Italy some goodies and my friend Kelly’s Christmas package. Last night I got a bug and wrapped all our Christmas presents—I just have a couple more that are to be delivered—sure hope it’s soon, Christmas is coming fast!

It was a very productive busy day for both of us. This afternoon I dragged out the old bread machine which hasn’t been used in years and made a batch of bread using one of the gluten free flour/bread mixes I ordered from Amazon.com. It’s good, really good! With butter and honey, it’s really good!

It has looked this dark and stormy all day.

John, Emmi is really, really attached to this ball, I think we have created another Meg!!!

One Last Trip To Billings

2011-12-13T17:45:00.001-07:00

Foggy morning of 16 degrees, chilly and we were off to Billings. Nat agreed to babysit the Emmi girl and we were pulling out of his driveway just after 9am.

A quick stop at Wal Mart for some gift cards and gasoline anti-freeze for our Kawasaki mule which hasn’t been starting well then it was on to the hair dresser’s for me. One last good haircut as Brenda remarked when she left Alberta, before we head south. I adore my hair dresser, she is a young, ambitious woman just over 30 years old—she does a great job!

Michael had a quick checkup at the doctor’s office where he got a clean bill and we were off to our favorite place for lunch, Jake’s. Michael had “knife and fork nachos” and I had coconut crusted shrimp—both very good!

Costco was a pre-Christmas mad house and we were glad we only had a couple items to pick up. A few more errands in Big Timber—bank, post office, tire shop, etc. and we were home—nope we didn’t forget the dog either!

And John, Emmi LOVES her Jolly Ball we bought at Petsmart. We got a smaller size than Mac and Meg have, gave it to Emmi tonight and she just chased and shook that ball to death. I don’t think she can destroy that one!

Good to be home and relaxing! Back to quilting tomorrow!

Winter Came Back

2011-12-12T17:20:00.001-07:00

We were sitting in a cloud bank this morning at 12 degrees and the high temp was only 20—a big change from the last few days. Even the Emmi girl thought the fire in the downstairs stove felt good.

Pioneer Woman Cheesy Corn Chowder for lunch with a big salad and thankfully almost all those iced sugar cookies are gone! I was able to show a little restraint today!

Michael got the motorhome turned around facing down the driveway—he’s afraid it might snow and it would be no fun to try and turn that big old thing around with snow on the ground. We are hoping our weather pattern holds for a couple more weeks with no snow—highly doubtful this time of year!

Quilted some more today—jeez, how do people who have real jobs and work out of their homes do it?? Do they shut the door and threaten anyone disturbing them with their life?? Do they never talk on the phone??? Do they never stop and cook lunch and dinner for spouses??? Do they totally ignore the dog??? I got a lot accomplished but there is still more quilting to be done!

The UPS man and the mailman are loving us these days—I better leave a box of cookies for both of them! The package we got from Amazon today via the post office was one heavy box—it contained gluten free Pamela’s bread flour and pancake mix in addition to Christmas presents.

Recycled photo, couldn’t even see the mountains all day today.

Sunday In Montana

2011-12-11T17:50:00.001-07:00

The day started out with perfect weather, sunshine and about 40 degrees. After lunch we lost the sunshine, gained a breeze and the temps dropped a little.

Nat came for lunch, we had beef tenderloin, garlic mashed potatoes and peas. For dessert we had some of those blessed frosted sugar cookies I keep eating—pretty soon all those cookies will be gone and straight to my hips!!!

Friends Denny and Ellen dropped by for a quick visit this afternoon and in the midst of their visit our granddaughter Laci called. In this household we rarely answer “unknown number, unknown name” calls which show up on caller ID. Today I answered it as I thought Sunday was a strange time for any solicitors to be calling—glad I did as it was Laci.

After lunch and visiting I spent the rest of the day working on Caryl’s quilt. I am making progress, slowly but surely! When you start a new row of machine quilting the beginning and ending stitches have to be secured—many quilters, me included, just take several tiny, tiny stitches at the beginning and again at the end to secure those stitches. Quilt judges at quilt shows sometimes don’t like that method—instead the judges prefer that the beginning and ending threads be knotted and that knot buried in the layers of the quilt—VERY time consuming but that’s what I’m doing on this quilt. Caryl hopes to enter this quilt in some Arizona quilt shows.

Michael loaded some of our belongings into the motorhome today—I sorted out some clothes, etc. for him to load. Here in Montana we can’t load anything that might freeze until the last couple days when we run the electric heat inside the coach. Two weeks from tomorrow!

Second Pump Install A Success

2011-12-10T16:59:00.001-07:00

Michael got right after working on the motorhome after our walk this morning. Wasn’t the lunar eclipse just spectacular—we got to see the partial as well as the total eclipse before the moon went over the hill.

All our cables for the various electronic items in the motorhome are nicely organized now, we have a new idea for where to put the TV for more comfortable viewing and the second pump is installed with no leaks or breaks, hurray!!

I quilted today—when you are doing intense custom quilting it doesn’t seem as if you make much progress in four hours time. Now that I have the design elements in my head I think the work will go faster!

It was a glorious day weather wise, about 45 degrees, sunny and no wind. Emmi spent almost the entire day outside playing with her ball. We enjoyed a lunch of grilled burgers (without buns), oven french fries (white for Michael, sweet potato for me) and peas.

Two weeks and one day before we head south—yippee! Now, I just have to get started loading that motorhome!

A hawk of some kind Judy??

If you look closely, you can see the bird high up in the tree to the right.

A Wonderful December Day

2011-12-09T22:08:00.001-07:00

Last night we joined Geoff and Nancy, Boo and Terry along with George and Shirley for dinner at the McLeod bar. It was an enjoyable evening visiting with friends.

After our early morning walk I was scurrying around to get Laci’s package to the McLeod post office for shipping to Italy. The postal service recommends packages being shipped to service men and women be shipped by December 12 which is Monday. This package was oversized and I wanted to get a jump on the due date!

When I returned from the post office Geoff and Claire were here discussing bear spray barrels and solving the problems of the world. I decided to finish baking my Christmas cookies while all those problems were being solved.

Tonight we drove into Big Timber and watched the lighted Christmas parade, one of the best ever. The temp was in the 30’s but the wind was blowing making it a might chilly to be standing on the street! The parade made it all worthwhile—it is so fun to see all our friends and neighbors, have people call out to us from the floats and throw us candy. After the parade the American Legion sets off a spectacular fireworks display—a simply wonderful Christmas season night.

After the parade we drove out to Jill and Terry’s for a Christmas party. We all thought we were having wine and appetizers—nope, Jill had prepared a feast with beef tenderloin, ham, homemade biscuits, cheeses, etc.—a feast! Jill is a great cook and her home was decorated beautifully. We spent an enjoyable few hours eating and visiting with friends.

The moon over our mountains is breathtaking reflecting in the snow. as we were driving home tonight. This shot was taken as we were heading into town tonight before it was dark.

Michael was able to remove the broken pump from the motorhome and install the new one today—he is pleased.

No Electricity and Going To Billings

2011-12-08T18:06:00.001-07:00

Sitting here this morning enjoying my coffee and my fellow bloggers when all of a sudden we have no power, YIKES! How am I supposed to shower, dry my hair, etc when we have no electricity—we do live out in the country! Never mind how am I supposed to go on with my day when I wasn’t finished reading blogs???

Called the power company and at 8:30am when they still had no idea what caused the outage, I packed up hair dryer, curling iron, etc. and we headed into Nat’s. He had electricity and a warm bathroom!

Once I was ready we left Miss Emmi with Nat and headed off to Billings on some nasty roads to do a little Christmas shopping and to have lunch. We had a great day and I even got to visit my favorite quilt shop in Billings—Fiberworks. I purchased some various shades of wool—Paulette has been inspiring me to do more wool stuff and I figure that a 2000 mile plus trip across the US in a motorhome will give me plenty of time for stitching!

Emmi was glad to see us, Nat had horse shoe pitching buddies coming and off we went for home.

We picked up some Christmas gifts I had ordered from Costco and let me tell you, Costco outdid themselves—the two people receiving these presents are going to be thrilled! I can’t wait!

The wind is howling and that’s about it for our day—no photos, I should have taken one of the jeep loaded to the gills when we got home!

Funny Emails, Pumps, Two Pounds of Butter

2011-12-07T18:53:00.001-07:00

“Clarks,
I have weathered the great plains blizzard. I spent the last two days in and around Amarillo, TX. Then driving in excess of 900 miles yesterday to get to Laughlin, NV to enjoy the warm weather, and then to wake up and read a blog that says one of my best friends likes GRANOLA!!!!!!!!!!!
If you read about a drowning in the great Colorado River, you will know it is I. I don't know if I can take it anymore. If Mike starts wearing flower bouquets on his head and joins the flower children don't tell me!!!! I want to remember him as a cowboy who wore a cowboy hat and ate meat!!!!!
Lol lol have a good holiday season, I don't think I will sacrifice myself just cause Mike is eating granola!!! Have a good holiday season
Take care,
Sarge”

We received the above email this morning and I haven’t stopped laughing all day—every time I think about it I giggle. Sarge is one of Michael’s best friends from high school days. Sarge has taken his fifth wheel to Nevada seeking warmer temps than what we are having here in Montana!

Michael worked ALL day long installing in the motorhome one of those pumps he purchased from eBay. Crawling under the motorhome, crawling out. We had to strip the bed and remove the mattress. He then unbolted this huge heavy covering over the engine—not the cover that lifts on hydraulic cylinders but this big, heavy, insulated cover. When I returned from Livingston and Big Timber with his antifreeze it was dark. He wanted to at least get the antifreeze back in, start the engine, check for leaks and put that cover back over the engine so critters (mice) couldn’t enter the motorhome. Well, dang it all—we both had lights and flashlights checking for leaks and I discovered a drip under the motorhome. Michael once again crawled back under the motorhome—uh, oh—he had tightened a fitting too tight and broken the new pump!!!! I guess that’s why he bought two of those pumps off eBay!!! But, a whole day of work down the drain! Poor Michael!!

If you look closely at the above photo you can see Michael’s boot sticking out behind the wheel—Emmi kept him company all day and at times seemed to be looking in the tool bag, “OK, Dad, what tool do you need next?”

I used over two pounds of butter, five eggs and six cups of sugar making cookies. Two batches of sugar cookies which are still in the refrigerator awaiting the rolling out and cutting process; three batches of oatmeal/chocolate chip/pecan.

Stopped in at my friend Gemma’s to wish her a happy birthday and drop off cookies before heading over to Livingston. Remember Gina purchased one of my sewing machines—I wanted to get it all cleaned up and spruced up before taking it south with us. I took it to the quilt shop over in Livingston—they are a Pfaff dealership and will get it looking spiffy!

Well—that’s about it for our busy day!

Sleigh Building and Quilting

2011-12-06T18:20:00.001-07:00

The title about sums up what we both did today. Emmi played ball. Lonn came over bringing parts—and by the time he left this afternoon I could recognize pieces of a sleigh. He and his Dad welded and bent pipes out in the shop all day stopping only for a lunch of spaghetti and caesar salad.

I finished the Christmas wall hanging and even got the binding sewn onto the quilt. After finishing my project I loaded my last customer quilt for the year onto the frame. It is a small quilt, more of a wall hanging but my friend wants custom quilting as she has plans to enter the quilt in a couple shows in Arizona.

The UPS man is going to hate us for the next couple weeks—he made the first of many deliveries today right as Michael was finishing up plowing snow off the driveway.

Moon coming up over the hills this afternoon.

Just A Might Chilly

2011-12-05T17:39:00.001-07:00

Yep, around here it is just a might chilly as in below zero this morning! Even the Emmi girl didn’t want to be outside for long! We took our walk in record time—gotta keep moving or freeze in place! But we did have sunshine all day!

The RV Goddess had a recipe for lasagna soup today on her blog—I made it for lunch, delicious in spite of the fact I had no spinach or Italian sausage to put in the soup—used hamburger instead of sausage and just left out the spinach. The soup hit the spot on this cold day.

And, it was a good day to run the self-cleaning feature of the oven. Those suckers get REALLY hot when in the cleaning cycle but it did help warm the house! Now my oven is squeaky clean. When the cleaning cycle finished I made two batches of granola. My husband has become addicted to it!

Worked on the little Christmas wall hanging—it is adorable! When the mail came we had two packages—one a little Singer Featherweight I purchased on eBay the other day—it needs a little work but nothing Michael can’t handle. The other package contained our new Millenicom aircard. And guess what—it works here at the house!!! With a external regular antenna on the roof but nothing else! The speeds are slower than our DSL, but it works!! We may get a booster and see what happens!

I’m off to indulge myself—my friend Shirley subscribes to a ton of magazines and passes them on to me. When Mike went down to their house today to look at a project he brought back a huge stack of magazines—I’m excited—doesn’t take much to get me excited does it????

We were successful in getting that Christmas card photo taken last night before our guests arrived—finally!

Snow Again And A Party

2011-12-04T21:09:00.001-07:00

We woke to tiny snowflakes drifting down then the blizzard started—our walk was a little brisk to say the least. Michael plowed the snow away from the house and garage as we have guests coming tonight—this afternoon the sun came out.

Grey capped rosy finches come visiting every year about this time in droves. My friend and neighbor up the road, Nancy, must have better bird seed than me this year because my “drove” is a little less this winter and her flock is huge. I still bet we have 25-30 of these birds cleaning out the feeder every day!

Tonight we had a Christmas gathering of our East/West Boulder friends: Nancy and Geoff, George and Shirley, Claire and Robyn, Boo and Terry. We had appetizer type food—cold shrimp, cheese, etc. The company was great, a wonderful evening.

Emmi went from person to person with her duck entertaining everyone with her antics. The breeder where we got Emmi sent us an email the other day—she has puppies, one really small like Emmi. The thought was tempting but I got over the need REALLY quickly!

Kind Of A Lazy Saturday

2011-12-03T16:54:00.001-07:00

Both Montana’s college football teams faced playoff matches today—the University of Montana played the University of Central Arkansas which I attended for a couple years straight out of high school (we won’t talk about how long ago that was). The poor Arkansas boys couldn’t stand the cold here in Missoula today and were soundly beaten. Montana State University in Bozeman which Michael attended and from which our granddaughter Katie graduated beat New Hampshire. Both teams advance to play again next weekend. Am I a football fan—nope—but Nat and the rest of the family are.

We didn’t do much at all today—walked the dog twice in the frigid temps—it was 4 degrees when we got up this morning. I attempted to make my first gluten free pizza crust—I wasn’t impressed but Michael thought it was good. I didn’t have all the right ingredients and substituted some—maybe next time will be better.

Did some Christmas shopping from my comfy easy chair, I’m almost finished! We will attempt that Christmas card photo again tomorrow afternoon, hope the wind dies down and the temps warm up just a bit!

Michael’s motorhome heating pump came today—yep, on Saturday, via FedEx Ground which doesn’t usually manage to deliver to us. Now if the weather warms up and he can install this pump. His other job today was to reconfigure our Dillon loading press for making bullets to fit some gun Lonn has. That wasn’t so successful, Dillon managed to send us a wrong part—but Dillon is a great company to deal with, Monday Michael will call and get the right one headed our way.

I decided to work on a little Christmas wall hanging of my own today. I ordered some additional thread for this year’s last customer quilt and want to wait until the thread arrives before starting that project. It is fun to finally get to work on something for me—it is a cute, whimsical little wall hanging.

And that’s the extent of our Saturday!

Doesn’t that photo just make you shiver with cold???

Does This Look Like We Should Still Be Here

2011-12-02T21:21:00.001-07:00

This storm blew in about lunch time and at times we could hardly see the motorhome from the house.

Michael worked on our road with the enclosed backhoe and Emmi slept and slept. I think we should join her, it is a good day for sleeping!

I played with the longarm, adjusting the wheels hoping to give me more control when I start Caryl’s quilt. Loaded a practice piece and practiced the art of McTavishing—a custom quilting technique I’ve never tried but have always wanted to. It is the right technique to use on this quilt of Caryl’s. After practicing I came back upstairs and watched Karen McTavish’s video hoping to gain some more pointers.

This evening we drove into town on snow packed and icy roads to have dinner at the Grand with Jill and Terry. A very enjoyable evening with good friends!

Why is it so difficult to take a decent photo for Christmas cards?? I set up the tripod, we grabbed the dog and took some photos out on the deck with the snow covered trees in the background. ONE photo was partially acceptable and it’s not the greatest. We will try again Sunday!

Watch Out, It’s A Rant

2011-12-01T18:24:00.001-07:00

As I mentioned last night Nat and I headed to Billings fairly early this morning to see the dermatologist and the eye doctor. GEEZ—how in the world could two doctor’s appointments take all blessed day long????

Number one rant—if I am seeing a gynecologist who still delivers babies (which I don’t) I would expect the doctor to be running late on occasion—he’s delivering babies who wait for no one—I know, I’ve had to help deliver one myself when the doc didn’t get there!!!!! If I’m seeing the cardiologist or heart surgeon, I would expect emergencies, but the dermatologist????? Did someone have an exploding wart??? We waited 20 minutes past our appointment time at Billings Clinic before I said anything and probably 10 more minutes after I asked what was going on. Not one word of apology from the doctor when we were finally called. If the appointment had been for me I would have walked.

And another thing, if a person is 89 years old, odds are he STILL has Medicare and STILL has the same supplemental Medicare insurance he has had since he was 65 years old! Why is it EVERY time you go to the doctor you have to show your Medicare cards??????? What a total waste of time!!!!

Next stop was Costco to see the optometrist. That became a long, long involved process as the doctor thinks Nat may be having some glaucoma issues. She performed some additional tests and thinks he should see a glaucoma specialist. Poor Nat, he was exhausted when we left there. Nat chose to have new lenses put into frames he all ready has.

While Nat was being tortured I did my Costco shopping and we were ready to head to Famous Dave’s for lunch. A bad choice for some reason today. Took forever to get two sandwiches and our food was cold.

Can you tell it wasn’t a good day????? The weather stinks today, cold and very windy which just makes it so hard to do anything. I could hardly get the door open to Ace Hardware in the wind with a box of quilts in my arms—shipped Aunt Margaret and Marti’s quilts to them.

OK, I’m done, I’ve poured myself a large glass of wine and vented to my husband and all of you, I’m done!

And The Weather Outside If Frightful

2011-11-30T18:41:00.001-07:00

Nasty, nasty day—cold, snowing, blowing, you name it we’ve had it today! Still Emmi wants to go outside and play ball!

I finished Marti’s quilt today and it is simply gorgeous. It is a pleasure to quilt when things progress so well!

Michael loaded a few items into the storage bays of the motorhome and worked on cleaning his shop. Remember Steve’s “project” the 1946 Chevy truck with no engine—Michael put an engine in the truck. Well, that “project” has been resurrected and now the plan is to turn the truck into a hot rod. So, room in the garage is needed and thus Michael was cleaning.

We’ve been trying to decide what to do about internet this winter season. We’ve always had a Verizon aircard and contract until last February when our contract expired. We continued on with Verizon month to month until we arrived home in April. Cell phones and aircards don’t work here at our house, not enough signal. Rollie and Gina introduced us to Millenicom and I think that’s where we are going. I spoke with the folks at the 3G store today but no one can compare with the 20GB plan for $60 a month which Millenicom offers.

Did some online Christmas shopping today—my goal is to buy the majority of our Christmas presents online—which I did last year. I am just not into crowds and traffic. I do have to go to Billings tomorrow—taking Nat to the dermatologist and to have his eyes examined. Hope the roads aren’t too bad!

A Quilting Frenzy!

2011-11-29T19:26:00.001-07:00

Made super progress on Marti’s quilt today—I am grinning from ear to ear tonight—it is looking great Marti! I am at the halfway point and couldn’t be more pleased!

Leftovers for lunch cause I was a quilting away and didn’t have time to cook a bunch. I did make cornbread using my friend Cheryl’s recipe substituting almond flour/meal for the regular flour—by george the muffins were good! A little greasy—I’m sure almond flour has lots of oil so next time I may reduce the amount of additional oil added.

Michael worked hard today, he fixed the metal roof on the horse shelter and cut up several loads of firewood. He also got the kitchen fan working in the motorhome.

Remember a few days ago I talked about him working on the hydronic heating system in our Country Coach motorhome? A pump died last winter and we had not replaced it—a new one Michael found on the internet was $200. A couple days ago he ran across the exact pump on eBay, today at just after 4pm the auction was ending for this particular pump. Well, shortly after lunch we lost our internet and long distance phone service. Once the phone service came back Michael found out that a major fiber-optic cable had been cut here in Montana—but still no internet and it was getting close to 4pm and the end of the auction. So, Mike called LoraLee, had her sign into his eBay account and make his bid—he won the pump auction for $50!!!!

In September of 2000 our log barn burned to the ground. It was not a typical barn for housing animals, we stored “stuff” in the bottom half of the structure and upstairs was a 2 bedroom apartment. Lonn, LoraLee and the girls lived in the apartment for a short while and at the time of the fire Nat was staying in the apartment—his wife and Michael’s Mom had just died the previous June.

Nat woke from an after lunch nap to smoke and flames everywhere and barely got out. Our volunteer fire department could do little else but watch it burn after they arrived.

See the little red guy in the back with the yarn beard—that was all that was left of our Christmas ornaments after the fire. A long time ago Nat built these wooden crates for storing things away from mice. All our Christmas ornaments and the ornaments I had inherited from Michael’s Mom were stored in those wooden boxes in the barn. Some of Joy’s ornaments dated back to her childhood and certainly to Michael’s childhood. My own ornaments had been collected through all my adult years. I was heartbroken and Christmas decorating has never been the same. The little yarn Santa was made by Michael’s Grandmother when he was a little boy and I was overjoyed when I found it stored in a drawer in our house!

Now, for the really cool part of the barn fire story. The next day we were digging around in the debris and ashes to see if we could salvage anything when I noticed something white and shiny. Yes, all six of these little porcelain angels were in the Christmas ornament boxes and all six survived the fire. The angel holding the music score in the right front is missing her left wing—the only causality. The angels were Joy’s when she was a child. How cool is that??!!!

Miss Emmi decided today those Santa’s and snowmen must be for her to play with—she was soundly scolded, we will see if it helps! The Santa with the flag I purchased the Christmas following September 11. The white bearded Santa plays Deck The Halls and scared our previous schnauzer, Jazz, to death. The others I’ve just collected post fire.

Having that fire has given Michael and I both a new respect for fires. You say to your husband, “honey, I smell something funny, something burning,” and he would say, “I don’t smell anything.” Not any more, when one of us says something smells like it is burning we both start looking and quickly.

Just a little family history today. And hooray the internet is back and I can post this blog—isn’t it crazy how much we depend on the internet these days!

I’m Tired

2011-11-28T18:31:00.001-07:00

Four loads of laundry, several ball games with Emmi, a walk, finished a quilt and loaded the backing for another one, cooked a fabulous lunch, talked on the phone, geez I’m tired!

When I lived in Powell, Wyoming there was a much talked about lodge between Cody, Wyoming and Yellowstone Park—I think the name of it was Brannon’s. The restaurant had a price fixed menu—one price for the meal and wine and it wasn’t inexpensive to say the least. There were also cabins if you consumed a little too much wine at dinner, you could stay the night and a wonderful breakfast basket was delivered to your door the next morning. I never had the privilege of having dinner at Brannon’s but I do have Nancy Brannon’s cookbook, The Lighter Side of Italy.

The cookbook is filled with delicious sounding Italian recipes in which a large portion of the fat and cholesterol have been reduced—still delicious. I’ve yet to try a recipe from this 1992 cookbook that I didn’t love. Today I cooked a recipe I’ve used many times, Piquant Tomato Sauce and served it over rice pasta accompanied by a big green salad. YUM!

OK, did anyone catch the “rice pasta” in the above paragraph?? When Al of the Bayfield Bunch talked about eliminating wheat from his diet a while back, Michael said, “I’m gonna try that.” Well he’s been off wheat for three plus weeks and we have established that he is probably wheat/gluten sensitive. The two times he has fallen off the wagon and had something containing wheat he became VERY congested and the congestion hangs around for at least a week. He ate TWO big pieces of apple pie on Thanksgiving Day and has paid the price since. Michael says he feels much better not eating wheat and if that’s the case, no wheat it is. OH, NO, no more homemade bread!!!! Guess I will have to figure out how to make some other kind of bread!

Michael worked on the motorhome most of the day, fixing and cleaning—he should have it in tip top shape soon!

I finished Aunt Margaret’s quilt today—here’s a sneak photo just a simple meander but beautiful!

I’ve loaded the backing for Marti’s huge quilt she made using Judy’s from the Patchwork Times free pattern—I’ll get started quilting it tomorrow.

Michael is over there on his laptop researching diesel prices in various places across the US—departure day is coming right up!

Emmi 3 Soccer Balls 0

2011-11-27T17:36:00.001-07:00

Since Emmi discovered soccer balls this summer we’ve purchased probably 3 or 4 various kinds of soccer type balls. Somehow that little dog manages to dig at, worry and bite those balls, stripping away the outer layers until we hear the tell tale “hiss/pop” and the ball is done for. Emmi has been reduced to this actual pet ball, a hard, unyielding, hard on people toes when kicked ball. There’s gotta be a better solution!

Nat came for lunch, we had grilled pork chops, roasted brussel sprouts/carrots/pears (Laurie’s recipe) and baked potatoes. The guys had frozen chocolate yogurt for dessert, I had leftover pumpkin pie.

Michael moved the motorhome forward to the garage area again today and is working on fixing this and that. One thing was our electric step cover that slides over the steps leading out of the motorhome. On our way home from Canada this fall it stopped retracting back into its spot—not good. We would have to crawl out the door and shove really hard on the cover pushing the thing back where it belonged. Michael checked fuses, lubricated the parts, etc. with no success. He belongs to the Country Coach Motorhome Forum and searched for step cover issues finding the solution—you won’t believe this—“tap the slide drive mechanism with a hammer.” And it works! There is a micro switch inside the mechanism which sticks—solution—hit it with a hammer! OK!!

I finished the customer quilt today and loaded another one which happens to be for my Aunt Margaret. Elaine and Sue had questions, “like Sue I'm stumped started a quilt and almost finished it in one day?”and “You started today and almost finished today???? geez.” Ladies—I don’t piece the actual customer quilts—someone else does the piecing, I am just providing the quilting of the “sandwich”—pieced top, batting and backing. The customer quilt I started and almost finished yesterday was small 66”X 85” and the quilting pattern I used was a Christmas pantograph—a printed pattern I followed with a laser light. Quick and easy!

The wind is back!

Sunset on the East Boulder.

Our meandering little creek just off the deck.

House Is Decorated

2011-11-26T18:34:00.001-07:00

Sue of Big Dawg and Freeway left a comment on yesterday’s blog regarding my decorating for Christmas so soon. Sue also had some thoughts on stockings and Christmas cards. I love the holidays and love putting up our tree—we only put up the big tree every other year when we stay in Montana through Christmas and I want plenty of time to enjoy it so it goes up the day after Thanksgiving. When I was growing up we used a real tree that we went out into the woods and cut—Mom was so afraid of fires she wouldn’t put the tree up until about 2 weeks before Christmas—not long enough! And when we were kids, we had stockings which contained fruit and nuts—never any gifts. Michael, Emmi and I have stockings but we don’t make a big deal of it, usually Emmi is the only one that gets anything in her stocking.

As for Christmas cards, as an adult, I’ve always sent out cards. I’ve missed a couple years here and there but usually I’ve got the cards out by the first of December. Like Sue I love going to the mailbox in December and seeing the cards.

I started a customer quilt today and almost finished it—a Christmas one I’m quilting with gold thread—beautiful!

My husband was such a huge help today—he rarely helps me put up Christmas decorations but must have heard me cursing the strings of lights—you know the ones that you test then hang only to find out sections of the lights have suddenly decided not to work. Michael found this handy gadget at Harbor Freight (not sure what he bought it for in the first place but it sure worked today). You plug the lights into this little box then use the wand which looks like a fire starter striker wand—you slowly pass the wand over the strand of lights, it emits a tone which decreases significantly in volume when you pass over a defective bulb!!!! Now isn’t that too cool!!!! He was successful in repairing several strands of lights and gave up on a few.

We saw these three guys on our walk this morning, they were having a discussion about who owned the harem!!

It was a glorious day, 40 degrees and no wind—a first in many, many days!

It Came A Blizzard Today

2011-11-25T18:48:00.001-07:00

Yikes! While Michael was splitting firewood the Montana way a nasty storm blew in and on that bare ground in the photo we got about 3 inches of snow half of which promptly got blown into the next county. The temps dropped 10 degrees very rapidly and the rest of the day was blustery and cold.

I made about a dozen trips up and down the stairs retrieving Christmas decorations. Tonight the tree is up and the lights are on but no decorations yet. For lunch we had leftovers—once again, very good!

Just after lunch we went into Big Timber to do the only Black Friday shopping we were going to do. No bargain could entice me to Billings today, nothing! I used to go out on Black Friday with my sister and Mom when I lived in Arkansas but since moving to Montana, nope, not worth it! I did hear a rumor that Gina and Rollie were out with Rollie’s sister Dana and her husband Ricky at the ungodly hour of 3:30am!!!! They found a few bargains. I did a little shopping at Cinnabar Creek and then we went out to Nat’s and put up a little Christmas tree for him.

Saw Santa and rumor has it we really know him quite well. Saw Santa’s wife and had a nice chat.

Exchanged a few text messages with Gina—they were home watching the LSU/Arkansas game and were gloating just a little! I bet there are some unhappy Razorback fans tonight!

On the way home from town the sun going down gave the clouds awesome colors.

Wonderful Thanksgiving

2011-11-24T19:28:00.001-07:00

We are so truly blessed in our household—we had a wonderful Thanksgiving lunch with friends Terry and Jill, Kerri and James and Jeane and Steve. And with family, Nat. My guest list fluctuated greatly before today—Lonn and LoraLee were able to go to Miles City for Thanksgiving at Katie and Michael’s—Katie’s first time to cook a turkey—I’m anxious to hear how it went! Jill and Terry have always wanted to come to our house for Thanksgiving but family kept them occupied in past years—it worked out at the last minute this year that they were able to come. Gwen and Arch frequently are here but had family this year.

I forgot to take photos of my beautiful table and of the awesome array of food! Jill brought delicious appetizers and Jeane provided a homemade green bean casserole that put the cream of mushroom soup one to shame. We had sweet potatoes with praline topping and I think that southern speaking James ate 2 pounds of sweet potatoes all by himself—he really enjoyed those potatoes! The turkey breasts turned out perfectly, garlic mashed potatoes—even my gravy was good (I’m not a very good gravy maker).

And, those Costco pies were enjoyed by all—you just can’t beat those great tasting, BIG pies for $6.00!!! It was just a special day, we are so glad our friends and family could join us this year.

Talked to all the family back in Arkansas where they too enjoyed a delicious feast.

We hope all our friends and family had a wonderful Thanksgiving.

Thanksgiving Preparations

2011-11-23T16:58:00.001-07:00

When we went for a walk this morning I said it sure would be great when we take off for Florida because then maybe I could have some new material to photograph! Not only did Emmi need an anchor on our morning walk but so did we—the wind was howling, pushing us around. And our temps are unseasonably warm—52 degrees today! Quite the change from last Thanksgiving when our weather was treacherous—3 feet of snow, below zero temps and high winds!

Michael changed the oil in the jeep and truck today. After he finished that project he pulled the motorhome forward to the shop, put it up on blocks and removed the heater booster pump that died on our way through Texas last winter. He is such a handy husband to have around!

I spent the day cleaning house and prepping for our Thanksgiving feast. Pre-made the sweet potatoes and part of the stuffing recipe. Got all the china, silver and crystal out, didn’t have to do too much polishing. And ironed the tablecloth. Tomorrow I should not have much to do—put the turkey in the oven, finish the stuffing and make mashed potatoes. I’m ready!

Emmi and I got in a couple games of soccer today—due to the higher temps our yard and driveway are muddy messes and so is the dog when we are finished playing soccer!

I feel much better today and have eaten regular food so I guess my little bout is over—thank goodness—just in time for the Thanksgiving feast!

A Breezy Day

2011-11-22T16:44:00.001-07:00

It felt great to get out and take a walk today in spite of the fact I’m a little under the weather with what I think is a case of food poisoning. YUK!

I started swamping out the house—Michael and Emmi home alone does not equal a spotless house for sure and we have Thanksgiving guests coming! Time to get out the vacuum.

Even Emmi got clean today—I gave her a good brushing which she hates, then a bath and finally a modest trim—didn’t want to cut too much hair off, it might get cold around here again.

When we were in Costco yesterday I purchased a Lacrose weather monitoring station like the one we purchased Nat a month or so ago. Michael installed the station this afternoon without turning the air too blue!

We have seven guests coming for Thanksgiving dinner, one of our smaller crowds through the years. I will start some of the cooking tomorrow and all the guests are bringing something too—it will be a feast.

It was a warm day for this time of year, 48 degrees and of course the wind blew all day. It is definitely winter—bleak landscapes.

Home

2011-11-21T17:53:00.001-07:00

We rolled in the door just a few minutes ago. In spite of the horrible weather in Little Rock this morning—rain, wind, thunder and lightening—my plane took off on time and I stayed right on time through all my connections arriving in Billings a little early just before 1pm. Lunch at Jake’s followed by a quick stop at Costco for pies and last minute Thanksgiving stuff.

Before I left for Arkansas we signed up for email statements from our local telephone company. In exchange for doing that we received a coupon for a free turkey at our local grocery store. Sounded good to me! So we stopped in Big Timber, picked up turkey breasts and acquired four more guests for Thanksgiving dinner!

I had a fabulous time in Arkansas with the family! We ate, shopped, visited and ate some more. I see some long walks in my near future!

My Mom and one of the members of Niki’s extended family. Isn’t he the sweetest!

Emmi girl was ecstatic to see her Mom today at the airport and I think Michael was a little happy, too! It is good to be home.

Sunday On Barnes Hill

2011-11-20T16:55:00.000-07:00

OH, my, it is so warm and humid here! I had forgotten what humidity was like--it is as if you are melting--your makeup is sliding off your face before you even get it applied, your hair is falling flat. But, on the other hand, poor Michael said he would take some of this heat!

We all went to church where my brother-in-law Danny is the pastor--afterwards the church had their annual Thanksgiving dinner potluck. Yep, once again we are eating! It was good to see a lot of the people I grew up with in this same church community.

After church and lunch we all came home to relax and play with babies. Four children in one small house--the house I grew up in--becomes more than a little chaotic! Poor Chuck retreated to his motorhome to watch a little football--if I had known that was where he was hiding, I might have joined him!

It has been a wonderful visit and now I am ready to head back to Michael and Emmi, get Thanksgiving dinner all lined out and start making plans for our December departure!

Happy Birthday

2011-11-19T19:06:00.000-07:00

Oh, dear, I need to go home before I have to waddle home!! Today we loaded the entire gang into Niki's Tahoe and headed for the big town of Sheridan--did a little shopping and had lunch at Uncle Henry's! Delicious barbeque!!!

My dear Mom had a birthday today. She has four surviving sisters and they all gathered at the home of Aunt Mary for a birthday lunch. Our gang stopped by to say hello to all the Aunts and Uncles. More eating!

And then tonight we all gathered at Danny and Ann's for a dinner of steaks, baked potatoes and salad. See, I need to go home! When my two siblings and myself are gathered together with all the children we number 14, without Michael tonight it was 13. That's a lot of talking and eating going on!

Happy Birthday Mom, we sure love you lots!

The weather here in Arkansas is warm tonight, shirt sleeve warm! Unlike the frigid temps of Montana. Arkansas won their football game today, I'm not so sure the Montana relatives are as happy!

Shopping in Arkansas

2011-11-18T16:13:00.000-07:00

At home I use Live Writer to publish the blog and LOVE the auto save feature. Blogger Dashboard ate my blog last night then Chuck's internet connection died--so that's my excuse and I'm sticking to it!

Yesterday we did what all good southerners do--cooked and ate, ate and cooked. I baked some cookies using the Real Simple Magazine Chewy Gingersnap recipe--delicious but don't cook the cookies for as long as the recipe says!

When my brother Ross went to work for the power company as an electrician 30 years ago, he bought Mom a new dryer. That dryer has lasted all these years and recently gave up the ghost, think the new one she had delivered from Lowe's yesterday will last that long??? Highly doubt it!

My sister Ann, my niece Niki and I went shopping today in Little Rock. The girls went with their Dad, one of the foster babies went to daycare and we took the infant with us. We had a fabulous day! Lots of good shopping and lunch and more shopping. Those two foster babies my niece and her husband Eric have are adorable!

It is deer season in Arkansas, a state holiday almost! Tonight we are going to the deer camp for supper--hamburgers (I sure hope the burgers aren't venison!!)! I am sure to see lots of people I know!

Michael is home in Montana holding down the fort and watching it snow.

I Need To Get Out More

2011-11-17T06:55:00.000-07:00

It was a long, long day of travel yesterday with connecting flights in two cities. When I consulted for the Kimberly-Clark company, I traveled a lot, at least twice a month I was on an airplane, sometimes more frequently. I had all the perks--airline status (which I miss significantly) and hotel points. I flew in first class more often than I did in coach. I loved my job and the travel that went with it--Michael accompanied me sometimes to places such as Nova Scotia and Hawaii. Then September 11 happened and travel became NOT fun anymore. The Kimberly-Clark Corp. changed too and my job became really NOT fun. So, retired I became.

It's been a while since I was on an airplane, the crazy security practices haven't changed--tell me what difference it makes if I have my liquids and gels in a plastic bag versus my suitcase???? Tell me what difference it makes if I take off my scarf and coat??? Do these security practices make me feel safer--not one little bit, not one little bit!!!! And airlines charging to carry your luggage--give me a break!! So, you get to the plane late, no room in the bins, they then will check your bag for free!! The poor flight attendants are now luggage police trying to fit everyones bags into the overheads because people are sick to death of being pushed around and aren't going to pay to check their luggage, me included.

And did you know the airlines no longer take cash for booze??? As I said above, it's been a while since I flew!!!! The woman I sat next to on the plane was one big bag of nerves--for one thing, she needed a cigarette in the worst way! When the flight attendant wouldn't take her cash for a drink, she went ballistic as she didn't have a credit card! I was going to say, "wait, wait, let me buy you a drink!" but our other seatmate beat me to it!!!!

Flights were on time and Mom and Chuck were there waiting to pick me and my unchecked bag up. It was late when we arrived at their house and we all headed off to bed.

A day in Arkansas is about to begin. I will try to take some photos today to add tonight!

I Saved A Chickadee

2011-11-15T17:17:00.001-07:00

Last night we thought the wind was going to take the roof off the house. We were very surprised to see no trees down when we took our walk this morning. It snowed some during the night and the wind was still howling this morning making the 10 above seem like 10 below!

While cooking lunch I heard a bird hit one of our windows. We have bright shiny CD’s attached to the windows to deter that happening but sometimes the little guys just seem to be suicidal! I went to the window and there was a little chickadee quivering on the deck in the snow. Ran outside, scooped him up and came around the corner of the house out of the wind. He was blinking his eyes and moving some so I took him out to the garage where Michael was working and there was a warm fire in the stove. Put the tiny guy in one of those clear plastic lettuce containers and left Michael to babysit. He said that in not too long the bird began fluttering against the container so Michael took him outside, opened the box and the little guy flew up into a tree. Success!

After lunch we drove into town to deliver quilts and acquire Michael some bachelor food. This morning I made two batches of granola and three batches of spaghetti partly to keep Michael fed while I am gone.

Tomorrow I am heading off to Arkansas to visit my family. Mom’s 75th birthday is Saturday. Blog posting may be sporadic as I am not lugging along a laptop, just my iPod Touch—a new one arrived yesterday morning—yea for Apple!!

This quilt which I finished yesterday belongs to Barb, one of my quilting buddies. It is an oversized queen. Some of the detail shows better on the back.

Quilt Is Done and The Wind Is Still Blowing

2011-11-14T18:09:00.001-07:00

Geez what a miserable day weather wise—so incredibly windy that we didn’t walk up into our pastures—were afraid we might end up in the next county!! Had to put an anchor on Emmi to keep her grounded! :))

I finished the quilt I had on the frame for Barb and it is beautiful. Once she has seen the finished project I will post photos. That quilt was a learning experience for me!

Emmi and played soccer a couple times today. She is the most comical little thing—obsessed with that orange soccer ball!

Kick it to me again Mom, kick it!!! Now I’m tired!!

Michael did some more work on a cattle guard and our road today at least using the backhoe which has an enclosed cab.

We were busy all day—doesn’t sound like much when you are writing a blog though!

A friend sent us the following:

Enjoy!

A Dreary Sunday

2011-11-13T16:23:00.001-07:00

Cold, bitter wind all day with storms blowing through every couple hours—spitting snow and sleet. We did take a walk but our pace was a little faster than usual trying to get out of the wind. Emmi and I got in a couple soccer games with her new bright orange soccer ball.

Joe and Jeff came up just before lunch to thank me for the birthday treats I left and to get us all caught up on what’s going on in their family and the beer world. Joe is the marketing director for a major US brewing company.

Michael cleaned our cattle guards—I wondered about his sanity in deciding to do this type project outside in an excavator without a cab! But he was warmly dressed and off he went. For those of you who don’t know about cattle guards—they are heavy steel grates placed over a deeply dug hole—we can drive over these guards but animals such as horses or cows won’t cross the cattle guard, thus the guards serve as a gate without having to open a swinging gate. The deep holes fill in every couple of years with mud and gravel which washes down the road into the holes. Michael lifts the cattle guard off its supports and digs out the holes.

And as for me—I’ve been either playing soccer with Emmi or quilting. I am getting closer to the end of this quilt.

This photo shows one of the storms that blew through today.

A friend sent us the following joke and I loved it!!

A teenage boy had just passed his driving test and inquired of his father as to when they could discuss his use of the car.
His father said he'd make a deal with his son: 'You bring your grades up from a C to a B average, study your Bible a little, and get your hair cut. Then we'll talk about the car.'
The boy thought about that for a moment, decided he'd settle for the offer, and they agreed on it.
After about six weeks his father said, 'Son, you've brought your grades up and I've observed that you have been studying your Bible, but I'm disappointed you haven't had your hair cut.
The boy said, 'You know, Dad, I've been thinking about that, and I've noticed in my studies of the Bible that Samson had long hair, John the Baptist had long hair, Moses had long hair...and there's even strong evidence that Jesus had long hair.'
You're going to love the Dad's reply:

'Did you also notice they all walked everywhere they went?'

Yesterday and Today

2011-11-12T22:15:00.001-07:00

I spent the day trying to quilt yesterday and didn’t seem to accomplish much! But I really did get at least one pass made with the longarm. Today I made a lot more progress, the end is in sight!!! Yippee!!!

Michael has spent a lot of time looking for used running boards to fit the truck we bought a few weeks ago. He found a set in Livingston and I bargained with him—I will go with you to get the running boards if you buy me dinner! So, off we went.

First, though, we went back up the Boulder to take some photographs of the fireplace insert Michael has been building for a very old cabin up there. It is a cool old cabin which has been in the remodel stage for several years. Michael had to add masonry around the insert, the fireplace was huge! With time those rocks will darken and look like the rest of the fireplace. It was fun to see that old cabin, I had never been in it before.

We took the back road over the mountain to Livingston stopping at Lonn and LoraLee’s to deliver some thread to LoraLee. The running boards were purchased and by this time without reservations we were afraid we couldn’t get into the Rib and Chop House on a Friday night. We settled for the local Mexican restaurant and yep, it was settling—not the best!

On our way to Livingston, sunset over the Crazy Mountains was breathtaking!

Nat came up for lunch today, I made Chicken Fettuccine and we also enjoyed the red velvet brownies with cream cheese icing I had made. The majority of the brownies went down to Joe and Tammy’s—their son celebrated his first birthday away from home at college here in Montana. Joe was flying in this morning to spend the weekend with Jeff and I took most of those delicious brownies down to their house—complete with candles!

Tonight we are going out to the Road Kill Cafe—a local institution. When I came here 17 years ago, the McLeod Bar, aka Road Kill Cafe was fun, the food was good—homemade french fries, real hamburgers, in the winter on Friday and Saturday nights, the best steaks anywhere. Many memories were made in that bar—Christmas tree trimming parties, summer McLeod marathon parties, Halloween parties. The first time I was ever in the McLeod Bar with Michael 17 years ago a party of people came in, one of the men in the group spoke to Michael calling him by name. After the group had finished their dinner they came up to the bar to pay the tab—the man pulled up a bar stool and began to talk to Michael (this is only our second date). I kept thinking, geez, that man looks familiar! As the man continues to visit with Michael I realized, that’s Tom Brokaw!! Yep, McLeod, Montana is home to many of the rich and famous.

Well, about five years ago the bar was sold and that was the end of the good times. The bar was owned by people who were perpetually drunk and there were rumors of drug dealing. The food was inedible and we just stopped going. This past summer the bar sold again to a single woman from New Jersey. She gutted it and is trying to bring the bar back from the dead. Tonight we joined our friends Jim and Kathy at the McLeod Bar for the first time in many years. The bar at this time serves only sandwiches, soups and some salads. The new owner hopes to expand the kitchen to include burgers, etc. soon and we are ready. The new decor is beautiful and clean—a place we would be glad to go to again. Maybe we can make new memories.

Cold, cold, nasty weather today, even a snowstorm. Tonight the wind is howling. And that’s it for our Saturday.

Veteran’s Day

2011-11-11T20:31:00.001-07:00

Today we in the United States celebrate Veteran’s Day—a day to thank the men and women who defended our country in past horrific wars and who are still defending us to this day. Thank you, all of you!!

Nat in about 1942, he served as a bomber aboard B29 aircraft during World War II.

Michael in 1964, my what a handsome soldier! Michael served in the Army Reserves during the Vietnam War.

And Laci, our Granddaughter who served a tour in Iraq and is currently serving in the USAF in Italy.

Thank you all so much for helping to maintain our freedoms.

Luncheon and A Whole Lot Of Not Much Else

2011-11-10T18:21:00.001-07:00

Wow, Apple does take care of you. I spoke with the Apple people yesterday afternoon on our way home from Billings, the young lady said my box would ship out for overnight delivery and I should receive the box on Friday. About 4pm, the Federal Express man drove in our driveway a day early!!! In order to send the iPod back I would have had to go to town tomorrow. I asked the young man if he would mind waiting while I packaged up the iPod and he readily agreed. I was impressed! So, off it went, overnight to where ever Apple is.

My friend Jeane is on the board of a local organization Sweet Grass Health and Wellness. They held a fundraising luncheon in Big Timber today and I was one of Jeane’s guests. The entertainment was so cool, little tiny tikes, 2-5 years old hoola hooping! It was amazing how long one little boy could keep that adult size hoola hoop up around his waist. He received a rousing round of applause!!

I ran a couple errands, one of which involved dropping off color cards for thread to one of my quilting buddies, Mary, who is the financial officer at the local health care facility, Pioneer Medical Center. While there I decided to go visit some elderly friends in the nursing home—Jim was glad to see me, recognized me and I promised to go back with Michael in tow. Jim and his late wife Beryl at one time owned the ranch that adjoins ours. Maxine and her late husband Barney used to own another ranch just up the road from us—not sure Maxine recognized me—she was intent on playing a nursing home version of the TV show Wheel of Fortune.

Michael finished his fireplace project up the Boulder today and that is the last of his jobs for the season or so he thought! One of the neighbors of the woman who contracted with Michael to build the trail up the side of the mountain wants a trail up the back of her property—she waylaid me at the luncheon today. So, he may not be finished! On the other hand, the weather forecast for the weekend is for snow so any more excavating work may be on hold till spring.

And other than playing with Emmi, that’s about it for our Thursday.

When Emmi wants something she can be VERY persistent. Her spot of choice is Michael’s lap and here is what she does if something other than herself is occupying the lap: She gives him the “stare.” And she can maintain that stare for a long, long time until he finally gives in and moves the computer over to the side table. Finally, she says!!

One of our local rancher friends has a field which grew grain this summer. Throughout the fall we have noticed several pheasants eating up the leftovers.

What A Day

2011-11-09T19:49:00.001-07:00

Geez, when you haven’t been to the big city in a month it makes for a very, very long day. Couple that with frustrations and it makes for an even longer day!

Did you know that if you purchase an Apple product at a Best Buy store and it dies in less than a year Best Buy will do absolutely nothing about it???? And as we live in Montana, a state that even FedEx has trouble finding sometimes, there is no Apple store. Nope, not one Apple store. So, Apple is now sending me overnight a box with which to ship my iPod back to them—they will then ship me a new one overnight. I have to say, at least Apple is going the extra mile!

We were surprised last year when researching the purchase of the iPod that Costco does not sell Apple products. The young man who helped us said that Apple would not work with Costco and so Costco chose not to sell their products. Costco stands behind the electronics they sell—you can return anything within one year of purchase and you get your money back. Guess where I’m shopping for electronics from now on. After the non-service Best Buy gave us on the Toshiba laptop I purchased for Michael last Christmas and now this, nope, not sure I’m gonna be a Best Buy shopper any more!

Michael got his eyes examined at Costco and that’s another story. I got a much needed haircut and an even more needed coloring of the gray! We had lunch at Famous Dave’s then it was on to Costco where began the next frustration—yep, even Costco wasn’t immune today!

What store in their right mind would rearrange the whole store right before the holiday season??? I swear it took us twice as long to shop for groceries today. And they didn’t do a minor overhaul—it was major!!! Gum and candy, used to be at the front of the store, nope, all the way in the back now. Couldn’t find the peanut butter for the longest time. Every woman I passed in the aisles was grumbling under her breath about the “new look”!!! GEEZ!!

So, here it is after 7pm and we are just now sitting down after unloading our truck! Had a great chat with Rollie on the way home—he and Gina along with Rollie’s sister Dana and her husband Ricky are headed off on a cruise this weekend. I told Rollie that since he would have so much free time on this cruise, maybe he could write a blog????

A long day and good to be home.

A Relaxing Day

2011-11-08T18:28:00.001-07:00

I fretted about that challenging quilt during the night and this morning made up my mind to solve my dilemma! I am doing a design in the many, many little triangles and squares called continuous curve. In the quilting world I knew there was a way to do this continuous curve business without ever having to stop and tie off your threads, I’d done it before on other quilts, I just couldn’t get my path right on this one.

A couple years ago I took a quilting class from the national educator for the company which manufactured my longarm and I had kept the notes. Once I saw Dawn’s comment—“treat it like a house, finish one floor before starting another,” the light bulb went off, hurray!!! I am now doing continuous curve at the speed of light—well, not quite! So, now I am relaxed about this quilt!

Shirley came up this morning to purchase some flannel and batting—she has her own personal quilt store, just up the hill. We had a short little visit before she left to sew.

Michael came really close to finishing his fireplace insert project up the Boulder this morning and is very pleased. After he came home for lunch we headed into Big Timber for some tire work on his new work truck and for me to get a massage.

Now I am really relaxed. We were in town just as the sun was setting, forgive the light poles, railroad tracks, traffic signs—the sunset was just too beautiful not to photograph

On our way home tonight we saw two raccoons crossing the road, two pheasants and a million deer—one was a huge buck mule deer right by the road. Life is good up the Boulder.

Quilting and Cutting Wood

2011-11-07T17:29:00.001-07:00

The title just about tells you everything we did today! I quilted all day—there is a challenging quilt on the frame and I have struggled for inspiration! Today I just went for it, didn’t have to do much ripping, only a little.

Michael went up the Boulder and worked on his fireplace project until noon and after lunch he spent the afternoon working hard cutting up firewood. And even harder splitting it by hand! I bet he has some sore muscles tomorrow!

It was another day with sunshine but cold, I think it was a balmy 10 degrees when we got up early again this morning. Maybe by the end of the week we will have our internal clocks regulated???

While our granddaughter Laci was home recently the family took the opportunity to have family portraits made. A young lady from Livingston, Jesse Sarrazin took the photos and the results were fantastic.

Lonn is on the left with Laci, our USAF granddaughter, LoraLee, Katie and her husband Michael.

I really like this one!

And that’s it for our Monday.

A Cold Sunday

2011-11-06T17:29:00.001-07:00

Whew, sunshine coupled with a bitter wind does not make for warm temperatures. Nasty outside today! We did manage to get in a couple walks. I am all ready envying Rick and Paulette their palm trees, green grass and sunshine!

Nat came up for lunch, when he arrived Emmi met him at the door and just “talked and talked” to him. Made his day I think, he is quite fond of that Emmi girl!

My iPod died!!! My less than a year old iPod died!!! Sure makes for boring quilting—I can’t listen to my audiobook! Guess we will return it to Best Buy when we go to Billings.

Rod over at Retired Rod has been complaining about strange calls to his cellphone—foreign speaking people wanting loans, etc. Yesterday when we were getting all the excavator calls the phone rang, it was a strange number we didn’t recognize and had no name attached. We answered the phone as we were trying to sell something and it was my Mom!!! Not her cell phone number and when Michael looked up the area code—the Bronx, New York!!! Later in the day Mom called again, same thing—strange, different number and not her cell number! Weird phone happenings around the country!

Photo of Michael’s stove he built—it is working well!

Our First Real Snow Fall

2011-11-05T16:09:00.001-06:00

When I let Emmi out first thing this morning little tiny snowflakes were drifting down. We probably accumulated about two-three inches. It has stayed cold all day and now is snowing a little again.

Last night about 7pm I listed our old Komatsu mini-excavator on Craigslist. The last time Michael used it—remember the story of me pushing the machine up onto the trailer with the backhoe—well, it needs a new engine and Michael felt as if he has done enough mechanic-ing lately. So, he decided to sell it.

By 9pm we had five or six calls about it with one guy committing to come look today. At 9pm we shut down the phones—when we built this house my handy husband installed a switch—all we have to do is turn the switch off and all our phones stop ringing and go to voicemail.

When Michael got up this morning there were two phone messages and two emails. One of the phone guys said he would take it sight unseen if the guy coming to look didn’t buy the machine. Before the looker got here we probably had another 5-6 calls!!!! The guy wrote the check and left to return for the excavator when the weather is better. Wish we had about 10 of those to sell!!! Oh, and by the way, the buyer knows it needs a new engine!!!

I finished one customer quilt and loaded another one today. Spent some time just sitting in a chair staring at this one looking for inspiration.

And that’s about it for our exciting Saturday.

All I Did Today Was Quilt

2011-11-04T18:43:00.001-06:00

My Dad used to say, “I wore out my hide last night tossing and turning.” Well, I think that’s what I did last night. I’ve had another stupid cold or something—I’m beginning to think it is allergies cause I never give it to anyone else—and spent a great deal of the night tossing and coughing. Feeling better today but still have the cough.

Spent the entire day working on a customer quilt but that’s not quite true, I did sew the binding down on the table runner I made at quilt retreat. A while back Judy from Patchwork Times showed how to sew a binding by machine. Bindings are traditionally sewn onto the edges of the quilt’s front, turned to the back and stitched down by hand. I tried Judy’s method of pinning and using the sewing machine once and wasn’t very successful but today I gave it another go on the table runner and was mostly successful! And it is just a table runner and it is for me.

Michael went up the Boulder and worked on his fireplace/stove project again this morning then spent the afternoon out in shop puttering.

And that’s it for our Friday, snow is in our forecast for tonight—I could do without that!

Sewing Machine Day

2011-11-03T17:39:00.001-06:00

Jeane came up this morning and we sat and stumbled through some exercises on our smarter than us sewing machines. We enjoyed a lunch of homemade spaghetti sauce over whole wheat pasta and a great salad. Then it was off to LoraLee’s (she has the exact machine Jeane and I purchased) for more sewing machine lessons! Now, I won’t say I’m a computer expert by any means, I’ve been known to bend Rick’s ear for computer advice, I’ve been known to turn the air blue when the dumb computer won’t cooperate, but let me tell you, these computerized sewing machines are way smarter than me! It was a fun afternoon and we gained a lot of valuable advice!

Back home we found Michael had installed the new stove he built for downstairs in our basement. He put a glass door on the front, now it looks so welcoming when you go down the stairs. Cool!! And this stove is bigger so will hold wood which will burn for a longer time than the other stove.

And not much else went on in our world today—I did talk to Brenda today—hope she gets those jeep problems resolved! And as usual, she was cooking away!

Sunrise over the East Boulder this morning.

Success, The Engine Is Out

2011-11-02T18:17:00.001-06:00

This was at 2:30pm this afternoon—this little old thermometer read 10 above early this morning, BRRRR!

Michael went up the Boulder to do some more fireplace work and when he came home managed to get the engine out of the Ford truck. He comes into the quilting studio and asks, “can you come help me a minute?” Sure, why not—whoa, wait a minute, you want me to operate the backhoe???? What if I drop the thing??? What if I ding up the truck???? Success, the engine has cleared the truck and I didn’t destroy anything! Michael finished up the job- Thank goodness we have equipment!

I spent the day working on a customer quilt and got about halfway—yea! I have lots of quilts to finish before we leave for the winter and it makes my day when things go well!

Emmi girl was outside all day—as long as the sun is shining she is a happy girl in spite of the cold. She needed her coat this morning--

And since Mr. Rollie is way too busy to write a blog I wanted all you guys out there to see Rollie, Gina and their new grandbaby—Abigail Faith—she is absolutely adorable Michael remarked when he saw the photos, “she has more hair than her Grandpa!” Such a little sweetheart!

Congratulations to Kelly over at the Bayfield Bunch—she has a new grandbaby, too.

An Upside Down Day

2011-11-01T21:02:00.001-06:00

At least that’s what it feels like for me tonight! We took a walk in the chilly morning then Michael headed off to work on his fireplace project up the Boulder.

I loaded a customer quilt, talked on the phone and fixed lunch—the Pioneer Woman corn chowder and a spinach salad.

Then it was time to head to town—we had an appointment with our attorney to re-do our wills which hadn’t been reworked since we sold our ranch almost six years ago—kind of past due! Several more errands and off for home.

The weather had been strange all day—sun, then clouds, spitting rain and snow. When we started home from town our little valley looked as if winter was arriving but by the time we drove in the driveway the sun was shining.

We hadn’t been home long when the phone rang, our friends who own the little “inconvenience” store in Neihart which we visit often were in Big Timber visiting their daughter and wanted to come up. Nancy has never been to this house and Royal wanted her to see it. We invited them for dinner—after all, I had made three batches of spaghetti sauce yesterday.

Royal and Nancy arrived bringing a nice bottle of wine—we had a great evening. Sometimes the “new” spouse feels left out of the conversation—not understanding all the old stories, etc. Not so with this couple—they are just the nicest people to talk to. I enjoy listening to Mike and Royal’s stories even if I have heard the tales before! Royal and Nancy have experienced a tragedy, the loss of a child, and it seems to have strengthened their sense of right, wrong and what is important in life. They are special folks without a doubt.

As they were leaving a few minutes ago and we all stepped outside, we were greeted with white stuff—yep, the ground is white for the first time this year.

Paula, this is for you—I finished sewing the binding on this little quilt today—isn’t he just the cutest turkey???

A Busy Monday

2011-10-31T16:50:00.001-06:00

We started our day with a walk up into the hayfields. It is hunting season here and all the deer we were seeing have gone into hiding, I sincerely believe the animals know when someone is out to get them!

Our weather is deteriorating—cool, cloudy and windy all day with some rain this afternoon that may turn to snow overnight. My heart goes out to those people on the east coast! Way too early for weather like that!

I spent the day cleaning, cooking and doing laundry—I am exhausted! But my house is sparkly clean and we have Pioneer Woman corn chowder and a triple batch of spaghetti sauce for eating. Oh, and a batch of homemade granola.

Michael went up the Boulder this morning to start getting the fireplace ready for the insert he has built.

And that’s about it for our day—hopefully I am headed to the quilting studio tomorrow. I have some customer quilts to do and we leave here in less than two months—better get cracking.

Happy Halloween!

I guess it was mighty windy this past weekend while I was away, most of our leaves are now gone.

I’m Home

2011-10-30T16:09:00.001-06:00

Whew, quilt retreats are a lot of work. Shirley and I arrived back on the East Boulder about 3pm. We had an incredible time and accomplished lots but it wasn’t all work and no play. Jeane and Barb disappeared for a long time Friday afternoon and the rest of us had our suspicions and we were right. Barb and Jeane planned a 60’s party for us—they toured the Red Lodge, MT thrift stores acquiring their attire—tight sweaters, sneakers, bobbie socks and scarves.

We were all gifted with our own 60’s style eye glasses and scarves. Even our cook, Terry got into the act making her own poodle skirt! Barb and her husband Dale own a turntable and a huge number of records so we even had the music!!!!

We had so much fun and as usual the food Terry prepared was outstanding! We even had root beer floats for dessert!!

Here are some of the quilts that were crafted this weekend.

We eleven women just had the best of times—good friends, lots of sewing with great food and wine thrown in—what could be better!!

Blog Posting Problems

2011-10-29T08:24:00.001-06:00

Can’t figure out whether it is the slow satellite internet connection we have here or a Live Writer problem but I am having way too much trouble posting a blog. It is cutting into my quilting time so with that said, no more blogs until I get home to high speed!! Have a great weekend!

Fall Quilt Retreat Day 1

2011-10-27T19:31:00.001-06:00

Shirley and I left home at the very early hour of 7:15am but it was OK, we were on a mission—our fall quilt retreat. Stopped for coffee in Big Timber and headed to Absarokee, Montana home of the Cloud Nine Quilt Shop. Shirley needed flannel fabric for a quilt and I needed not a thing but a smaller than usual amount of fabric jumped in my bag before I could get out of there!

Off to our usual restaurant, Cafe Regis, for breakfast/brunch. I had some wonderful cornmeal pancakes and bacon. A delicious meal!

Off to the Washoe Quilt Shop before heading to Medicine Flower Lodge and unloading. Can you believe it takes just two people all this stuff for four days of quilting???

Some of us had projects almost completed and thus were able to hang finished projects on the wall by late afternoon: Mary and her cute little winter quilt. The pumpkin table runner is the one I started before leaving home and the other beautiful white pinwheel one belongs to Bette. My photographs here in this fluorescent lighted room do not show the true colors. We all have our stations set up, some of us are a little more neat than others, this is Gay’s little spot!! and some of us are a little more frustrated than others:

Jeane is deciding never again to make a quilt with that many tiny pieces!

Dinner provided by the resort was spectacular as usual and we enjoyed some great wines brought by all. Donna served us all chocolate wine before dinner—now I could make a dessert out of that stuff!

Off to quilt, back tomorrow!

I’m Ready

2011-10-26T21:04:00.001-06:00

Dang it was cold this morning! 15 degrees, I guess summer is really over for sure! And it never got very warm all day even in the sun, I guess it is time for colder weather??

Spent the day getting ready for quilt retreat starting tomorrow. I made a big pot of beef stew for lunch so Michael could have leftovers while I am gone. When we were in Carter, MT after coming home from Canada I purchased fabric for making a flannel quilt. Because I changed the color scheme of the quilt from that shown on the pattern I had a hard time getting the pieces cut. Should have cut the pieces right after buying the fabric!!! Gathered all the rest of my stuff and now it looks as if I am moving to Red Lodge—takes a lot of stuff for quilting four days!

Tonight we drove over to Lonn and LoraLee’s to say goodbye to Laci. She leaves to head back to Italy on Friday—she has one more year of service in Italy and isn’t anxious to go back! Both those granddaughters really love home! LoraLee made a delicious supper—ribs, twice baked potatoes, salad, and pound cake with fresh raspberries.

LoraLee has a new puppy, a yorkie/poo. Buddy is a cute, tiny little thing and gave Emmi a run tonight. Emmi is now totally sacked out in Michael’s lap, too tired to go.

Michael finished his stoves today and also has the engine ready to pull out of the Ford pickup, YIKES!!! Here is the stove he built for us:

And here is a different view of our mountains—the Crazy Mountains to the north.

Cold Day

2011-10-25T18:34:00.001-06:00

We woke to sunshiny skies with a beautiful, crisp white blanket of snow on the mountains around us. It was brisk all day today.

After our walk Michael spent the day working on his stove project and I spent the day sewing. Finished a customer quilt and started packing items for my quilt retreat coming up this weekend.

We had eaten so much beef and other meats the last week or so that yesterday and today we ate vegetarian! Can you believe Michael has had no meat for two days??? I’ve come up with some creative recipes in my notebook—I’m sure most of you cooks have a book like mine, I rip a recipe out of a magazine or newspaper and stuff it into this notebook. I have the best of intentions—every winter I am going to scan into the computer all those recipes—hasn’t happened yet! Anyway, I remembered a couple of recipes using eggs. Last night I fixed a dinner frittata—a dish featuring eggs, potatoes, onions and bell peppers.

Today for lunch I used the following recipe and it was delicious!

Chilaquiles Casserole submitted to Park Electric Magazine by Carol Beadle

8 large eggs

1 – 8oz can creamed corn

1 – 4.5oz can diced green chilies

2 cups cottage cheese

1 cup milk

¾ tsp salt

½ tsp pepper

1/8 tsp ground red pepper

6 – 6inch corn tortillas cut into strips

4 oz shredded Cheddar cheese

4 oz Mozzarella cheese shredded

Combine first eight ingredients. Stir in tortilla strips and cheese. Pour mixture into lightly greased 9”x13” baking dish. Cover and chill eight hours. Uncover and bake at 325 degrees for 50-55 minutes or until set. Let stand 15 minutes before serving. Cut into squares and serve with fresh salsa. I made half the recipe and it worked well.

We got an email from Rollie and Gina today—remember they purchased our other jeep from us—it had a soft top and zipper windows. Well, Rollie sent us a photo of the new look—hard top and roll up windows. I am sure they will enjoy it so much more. Soft top jeeps at highway speeds are incredibly noisy!

I loved how the sun seem to be highlighting the golden aspen trees in these two photos.