A Stupendous Day

How’s that for an adjective???  It was simply a wonderful day spent with Jeane at Fiberworks Quilt Shop in Billings.  The owner, Laura Heine was teaching a collage class—you could either do a bear, a horse or a giraffe.  Here are photos of Laura’s finished samples:

I am doing the bear—you take large scale floral prints and fussy cut the flowers/leaves/grapes, etc., fuse the shapes to Steam A Seam 2, and then layer the pieces in pleasing arrangements in the bear outline on voile fabric.  Once you are happy with the arrangement, you fuse the the shapes to the voile.  The bear shape is then cut and fused to your backing fabric which has borders all ready attached and the whole thing is quilted. 

It was so much fun—there were eight of us taking the class and we all came with a variety of floral prints—by the end of the day we were all sharing flowers/leaves/butterflies.  The shop dog kept us company, Hannah is a two year old docile lab who likes bread crusts—I became her new best friend when sharing my sandwich with her.

Laura Heine is a fabulous teacher, I’ve enjoyed every class I’ve ever taken from her.  She is a vendor at Road To California, Paulette, stop by and check out her fabulous designs!

Jeane and I didn’t even realize it was a hundred miles to Billings and a hundred miles back—we chatted and chatted some more, the miles flew by.  Once back to Big Timber I stopped by Nat’s to pick up the parts he had gotten in town for Michael then headed up the Boulder.  We had breakfast for supper and we are both thinking we hear the bed calling us—it was an early morning!

It’s Not Santa

It’s the cowboy cleaning the chimney!  Our downstairs stove had started to smoke rather nasty causing Michael to decide it was time to clean the chimney.  By the time we were finished both of us were just a mite filthy!!

After I finished blog reading and my coffee this morning I started hauling all the Christmas stuff upstairs.  Throughout the day I worked on getting our tree set up—I said on Facebook, “I wish someone would invent a tree you could take out of the box, shake and it would be ready to go.”  I got some interesting replies—a couple friends said they leave their trees decorated, cover them and store in their storage/basement rooms.  Greg and Jan have an interesting fold up tree for their motorhome.  I could leave our tree decorated but it won’t fit upright in any of our storage rooms!

We bought this tree in 2001 on sale at Home Depot I think—our living room isn’t very large but has 10’ ceilings and this tree is tall and skinny, making it fit just right.  Twelve years later it is still in really good shape—it isn’t pre-lit so we have to fight the battle every year with strands of lights not working but once decorated it is beautiful. 

Michael worked on the Tin Tee Pee and I finished up a little wool project--

That’s about it for our Black Friday—no crazy shopping for us although I did get online and shop just a little. 

Thanksgiving 2013

Happy Thanksgiving to all our family and friends—we sincerely hope you all had a great day!  Michael and I have so much to be thankful for—our health, our wonderful families, great friends, this beautiful place in which we live, the list goes on and on.  I spoke on the phone with my family in Arkansas and we enjoyed Thanksgiving at Lonn and LoraLee’s with the granddaughters and their husbands.  We were joined by other friends and family members too—14 in all I think.  And, there was absolutely no shortage of food! 

In all the excitement of visiting and catching up I frequently forget to pull out the camera—today was one of those days—here are some shots either Michael or I managed to take:

We are very blessed and thankful on this Thanksgiving Day.

Thanksgiving Preparations

I think I should have stayed out of the kitchen today!!  I consider myself to be a good cook as does the cowboy but I’ve just never been a pie crust maker.  Decided to try my hand again at making a “real” pie crust for the apple pie—wrong decision!  I tossed two batches of pie dough before I finally made one which held together long enough to get into the pie plate!  It ‘s not Brenda caliber but it looks pretty—we will see how it tastes tomorrow!

On to the next mess—pizza for lunch—remember I was bragging about the pizza I made last week, everything about it was right—well things didn’t go so great today!!  The dough wouldn’t cooperate (must be a dough thing today!), I finally got the pizza made but when I went to slide it from the pizza peel onto the hot baking stone in the oven, it wouldn’t budge.  When it finally did budge, it budged cheese and sauce off the far side of the crust onto the stone—that made for a smoky mess in my kitchen! 

And that wasn’t the last mess!  At home in Arkansas one of our traditional dishes is a jello based salad called Sinful Salad.  It has strawberry jello, strawberries, bananas, pineapple, and pecans with a layer of sour cream between.  As I was dumping the bananas into the jello, somehow I managed to pour RED jello down the front of the kitchen cabinet and onto the floor—which I had just mopped!! 

The cowboy better not even think about asking, “what’s for supper!”  I am too tired to clean up any more messes!

I am still loving Gertrude, the Roomba vacuum—that little thing does the best job!  You do have to move some stuff around—I have to block her path to our coffee table—she gets hung up under there and has to be rescued! 

Michael has worked on the Tin Tee Pee all day and is still out there—it’s looking good! 

Chuck and Anneke commented on last nights’ blog: “So you do not subscribe to the travel light system:)”  I guess we don’t, !  It’s kind of a joke in our family—when we had a fifth wheel pulled by our one ton Ford dually, Michael would chastise me all the time about taking too much stuff.  When we bought this used 1995 Country Coach it came with a 450hp engine—now when he tells me I can’t take something I say, “but that 450 will pull anything!”  Seriously, we are careful about weight—we both watch what we are packing.

John is going to miss seeing our yellow jeep behind our pink bus—I’m not. We talked about getting some pink decals for the trailer! 

Another busy, good day on the Boulder and at least we didn’t have to go to Billings!

A Shopping Trip

Nothing exciting, only parts to repair the poor little Tin Tee Pee.  I went to yoga this morning and Michael started working on the trailer.  By the time I got back he knew what parts were needed and of course they weren’t obtainable in Big Timber—yep, we were off to Billings again.  I think the Cadillac could probably go there all on its own! 

We dropped off a customer quilt in town, picked up a couple things at the auto parts store and were in Billings by just after 4pm.  The RV parts store, Home Depot, Lowe’s and of course Costco.  By 8pm we were home with everything put away. 

Tammy and Joe are here, coming up to visit Michael and Emmi while I was at yoga.  They came bearing gifts—See’s Candy and beer—not just any beer, Joe is the marketing director for Sierra Nevada Brewing Company.  He brought us their seasonal beer—Celebration and a dark/chocolate/sweet beer called Narwhal—Joe said if we didn’t like the Narwhal to drink, some people were making ice cream floats out of it—hmmmmmm?? 

Is it gonna fit????

Yep, all the toys fit.  This trailer does not weigh much more than our previous cargo trailer although it is longer.  The extra weight is in the ATV’s which weigh about 1000 pounds total.  I guess I will bring less quilting stuff??  or less food??—there are grocery stores where we are going, right?? 

Another busy day in the Boulder.

Geez Louise

What next, when it rains it pours, if it’s not one thing, it’s another, some days are better than others—yep, all those fit us today!!!

Last night when we got home there was a message on our phone—a couple in Livingston wanted to come and look at the Avion—our little Tin Tee Pee we restored.  They arrived just after noon, spent some time looking at it and made us an offer which we accepted.  The guy was a little nervous about coming off our hill, down our driveway with the trailer in tow as he only had a 2 wheel drive truck.  So, since we had to get the title notarized for him, Michael offered to bring the trailer to town with our truck and we would make the switch in Big Timber.  Bill and Laura headed off to Big Timber and we were to meet them there in a couple hours.

That’s when the trouble started!!!  Michael hooked up the trailer, I loaded Emmi and all her paraphernalia in the truck and we were off.  The cowboy was even cautious enough to put chains on the front tires of the Ford dually as our driveway is still snow packed from the last storm.  We had not gone three miles on the pavement when we heard a loud bang and the truck gave a lurch.  Smoke began to pour from the underneath side of the trailer.  Michael got us stopped and off on the shoulder of the road—it was not a pretty picture!  We lost a tire and when the tire came off the rim it did some damage to the underneath side of the rig.

We unhooked from the trailer and came home to get hydraulic jacks, tools, bolts, etc.  I called Bill and Laura and explained what had happened—we agreed to destroy their check and they said to call us when we got it repaired—if they hadn’t found something else by then they would still be interested.

OK—we were supposed to be in Harlowtown at 6pm to retrieve the notarized title for the trailer we purchased yesterday.  There was no way Michael could get a tire on the trailer and get it home before it was time to leave.  So I took my car and was parked behind the trailer, fetching stuff for Michael, watching traffic (not much on the Boulder Road) and waiting for our friend Jim who lives up the road to come help Mike.  I left the car running with Emmi inside---can you see what is about to happen???  I went back to the car to get something and you guessed it—Emmi had locked us out of the car—we have ONE key fob and ONE key for that Cadillac and both of those were inside with Ms. Emmi!!!!! 

Geez, what next!!  Michael was able to use the radio antenna from the Ford dually to unlock the door—something he learned on YouTube when he locked the keys inside one of those Jeep Cherokees he was fixing up!! 

All righty—I am off to Harlowtown leaving Michael and Jim to get the trailer home.  I made it back home safe and sound about 8pm avoiding all the deer and elk plus I have the title for the cargo trailer safe in hand.  

Now, here is the good part of this saga—the phone rings a while ago and it is Bill—if Michael can repair the damage to the trailer to their satisfaction, they still want the little Tin Tee Pee. 

I’m exhausted, the cowboy is exhausted—I think we hear our bed calling!!

Trailer Success, Sort Of

Over the hills and through the woods again—we were off in search of a new to us trailer for hauling the jeep and ATV’s when we travel south.  Lewistown, MT is about 2.5 hours from us—and a beautiful drive.  We pulled our big one ton Ford dually pick-up out of the storage barn and we were off with Ms. Emmi about 9:30.  We just rolled back up the driveway with trailer in tow about 5pm after stopping and having a hamburger with Nat. 

It’s a 28 foot custom built cargo trailer—we are trying to out do John and Brenda in length when we head down the road pulling the trailer behind the motorhome! It is very nice with diamond plated flooring, lots of tie downs, cabinets, lighting, an electric jack—pretty nice for the cowboy!

We have to go about halfway back to Lewiston tomorrow evening—the young man who sold us the trailer had not had his seller signature notarized on the title—and do you think we could find a notary public in small town Montana on a Sunday—nope, not happening.  So he is getting the title notarized tomorrow and meeting us halfway—in Harlowton. 

Well, you can tell how much we get out and go to the movies—the movie was LAST Vegas, not Las Vegas and it was delightful, extremely funny—we all thoroughly enjoyed it!  But the best part—Geoff and Nancy have a daughter who lives in Big Timber—she met us at the theater and gifted us with 4 movie tickets!  What a sweet, generous thing to do!!  I think Beth is afraid her Mom and Dad are becoming recluses up the Boulder along with the rest of us—I think she was glad they were “getting out!”  Whatever, it was just the sweetest thing for her to do!

It’s good to be home!  Look at this incredible show Mother Nature put on for us coming up the Boulder tonight.

Saturday On The Boulder

Another cold start to our day, 16 degrees and the temps just barely made it above freezing all day.  The sun shown all day and a lot of our snow on the south facing slopes left—yea! 

Michael worked on the 1995 diesel truck for most of the day—when we hauled that trailer to town the other day, we could smell brakes getting hot.  Seems the emergency brake cable was the culprit—not any more, the cowboy fixed it.

For lunch we enjoyed some more of the Pioneer Woman Dr. Pepper Pulled Pork—I froze the rest in two serving sized bags—the pork will be something we can heat up quickly while traveling—when we depart the frozen north shortly after Christmas.  Marty and Roz—I hope you went to the link I provided to Pioneer Woman’s actual recipe—there are a couple more steps she mentions such as using the cooking liquid to moisten the meat before serving. 

Paulette asked where we go when we travel south—it’s usually anybody’s guess.  Usually Arizona, one year it was Florida (too far), and sometimes Texas.  This year we are stopping in Utah, Nevada and probably on into Arizona.  We have lots of friends in AZ we would love to hook up with.  You never know with the cowboy behind the wheel!

I spent the rest of the day working on Christmas projects—it’s a secret!  But here’s something which isn’t a secret anymore—I gave Jeane her little modern quilt yesterday and she loved it—so did I!!

Tonight we are heading into town with Nancy and Geoff to see a movie—shocked??  We never go to the movies but Las Vegas is showing—it stars Michael Douglas and Morgan Freeman plus a couple others I can’t remember.  And, we’ve not been to the movie theater since it has gone digital and been spruced up!  Will let you know what we thought of the movie.

Ladies Day Out

We had a great time in Bozeman today, Jill, Jeane, Nancy and myself—Nancy picked me up and was gracious enough to humor my memory loss by taking me by the clinic and waiting while I had blood drawn. The clinic was having its twice yearly health fair type blood draw—it’s an inexpensive way to get a major amount of information at a low cost—$90 for a complete blood screening plus a vitamin D test.  The clinic won’t file insurance claims for these tests—cash only-- but do give you the form for submission to your insurance company.

Meeting at Jill’s we all piled into Jeane’s new Highlander and off we went to the big city of Bozeman for a fun day of shopping/laughing/lunch/shopping/eating/talking.  It was such a relaxed day—we are an extremely compatible group—no hurry, no worries.  I managed to do some Christmas shopping and lots of window shopping.  Bozeman is such a great town for browsing, lunching, and special gift buying.  I am almost finished with my Christmas shopping!!

I had the privilege of driving Jeane’s new car home—what a nice driving rig—at one time I was VERY glad there wasn’t a policeman around when I looked at the speedometer!!  We arrived at Jill’s, sorted out the bags, said goodbye and headed up the Boulder. 

Michael and Emmi had a good day—they went to Big Timber for truck parts, stopped at Granddad’s and ate some Cheetoes—I usually frown on Michael’s eating Cheetoes—that’s his “when the wife is not around” snack!

A very good day in Montana.

A Cold Thursday

Wow, it was minus 1 degree this morning when Michael got up, never got above 25 degrees all day in spite of bright blue skies and as I type this it is 9 degrees—gonna be another cold one tonight!

We geared up and took a walk—before we left I replaced the zipper in my “walking” coat and made Emmi a new set (four) socks!  Industrious I would say before 8am!  Let me tell you, we walked fast!

It was frosty, frosty—the snow crunched as we walked and our cheeks quickly became rosy!

Off to yoga for me and we had a full house—eight of us.  Lesley brought a friend, Mary, who with her husband is a private pilot—what a cool job!  Julia led us through a fabulous workout and had us all groaning by the end!

We sold our enclosed trailer—the one we hauled the jeep in behind the motorhome and I used for my quilting while we were in Texas.  We would like to take our ATV’s and the jeep with us when we head south—that trailer was just a tad too narrow and short.  It is also our plan to install solar on top of the trailer and Michael felt that trailer wasn’t heavy duty enough to carry our toys and the solar system.  So, the cowboy is living on Craigslist these days searching for a new trailer.   We sold it to friends and delivered it to Big Timber this afternoon.  Wow—the roads were treacherous as were the streets in Big Timber—I almost bit the dust outside Ace Hardware or shall we say bit the ice!!

Our little town still has a grain elevator/feed store/ranch supply store—I’ve always loved to go there and drive up and under/next to the grain elevator.  I go in, tell them what I want, they make out a ticket, I sign my name and off I go—someone comes out and puts my sunflower seeds in the truck.  At the end of the month, we get a bill.  Small town and I love it!

On the way to and from town we saw 5 bald eagles—we occasionally see eagles this time of year but five in one day is a lot!  I only had the Canon point and shoot, thus my distance photos are not the greatest.

Such majestic birds!

I made the Pioneer Woman Spicy Dr. Pepper Shredded Pork recipe again today—that stuff is delicious!!!  A 5 pound pork butt roast, one can of chipotle peppers, 2 cans of Dr. Pepper and 2 tablespoons of brown sugar.  Oh, and an onion cut into wedges—put the pork on top of the onion wedges, pour the chipotle peppers on top of the roast, pour in the Dr. Pepper and lastly, stir in the brown sugar.  Cover with a lid and  bake for about 5-6 hours at 300 degrees.  Check and if the meat is not falling apart, cook longer.  I make this recipe, we eat it for lunch one day then I freeze the rest in one meal size portions for Michael and I.  Makes a good meal to fix while traveling in the motorhome. 

Life is good! 

Just A Little Extreme

It was 62 degrees yesterday afternoon in Billings, today our temps took a little dip--

yep, 13 degrees at 5pm.  It snowed much of the day and we have about 5 inches on the ground—ole man winter came back with a vengeance!!

Before the heavy snow started Michael hauled  firewood down to the house—a good thing!  For lunch I made pizza and I think I’ve finally, after dozens of pizzas, made the perfect pizza—at least for us.  Somewhere (Facebook/blog???) I read about a free Craftsy class featuring Peter Reinhart—Perfect Pizza At Home.  Reinhart is a chef and has written several books on the art of baking bread.  It was an awesome class—I learned some great tips and today the class paid off—lunch was delicious!!

This afternoon I finished Jeane’s quilt and started getting another customer quilt for Donna ready for the frame. 

About 4:30 we all suited up, including Emmi and headed out for a cold, cold walk!  Slogging up the hill in five inches of new snow is a breath taker too!!  Emmi has homemade boots for when the temps are really cold, otherwise the snow sticks up inside the pads of her feet making her stop and hold her foot up with a pathetic, “help me” look on her face. 

Winter Visitors, Doctors and Dentists, Happy Birthday

A couple times lately Michael has noticed these evening grosbeaks at our house—it isn’t a bird we usually see this time of year and not very often even in summer.  There are about seven of the birds and they sit in the tree over our sunflower seed feeder then fly off.  Today I spread sunflower seeds along the deck rail—when I came back later they were all on the railing eating—cool!!

Today is my sweet Mom’s birthday—Happy Birthday Mom, glad you made it home to Arkansas in time to celebrate in style with the family!!!

Today was Michael’s day to visit the dermatologist—Michael is as prone to skin cancers as is his Dad so we visit the dermatologist about twice a year.  Dr. Williams used the nitrogen to freeze multiple lesions leaving Michael looking as if he has chicken pox! 

The doctor also sent us to Costco with a prescription for the Carac cream—a chemotherapy type cream which targets pre-cancerous lesions.  Michael has used this cream in the past and when we purchased the stuff a year or so ago, we almost had a heart attack at $250 for a small tube of the stuff—liquid gold!!!  Today when I went to pick up the prescription I just about fainted—$478 for the same size tube—is it now made from platinum???!!!!!  I told the young woman helping me to keep the cream, I wasn’t purchasing it, period.  I will try and find it through other sources. 

Lunch, Wal Mart, Costco and then it was off to the dentist for me—seems I had a cavity which needed filling.  A brief, painless session, out the door and we were heading home.  Visited with Nat a while, retrieved Ms. Emmi and now we are sitting with out feet up.

For a November day it sure was nice, 62 degrees and sunny—all that is to change tomorrow with a predicted low of 5 above!!!  BRRRR

iPad Mini Deals

Did anyone notice the blog Chris over at Technomadia posted over the weekend about “Millenicom’s ridiculously awesome iPad Mini deals”????  The cowboy and I are diehard Millenicom and Straight Talk fans—we favor these easy to use cell phone and internet companies over traditional ones such as Verizon due to our circumstances.  We live miles and miles from the nearest cell tower—no cell service at our house, zip, nada, unless you want to hike up the hill into the hay field to what Gina and Rollie refer to as the “phone booth”.  The views from the phone booth are to die for but with a foot of snow on the ground and a howling wind—not so pleasant!!!

Millenicom and Straight Talk have what we need which is internet only when we are traveling and an affordable cell phone which we can use when we are out and about away from the ranch.   Our home internet is DSL provided by our local telephone co-op.  Our Straight Talk Samsung smart phone costs us about $45 per month—no contract, month to month billing and unlimited talk, text and 2G data.  We did have to buy the phone which cost about $150 if I remember correctly.

Millenicom has plans which include a 20GB data plan for $70 per month and an unlimited data plan for $80 per month.  Millenicom allows you to activate and disconnect service at will—we activate our plan when traveling, shut it down when we get home and back to our land line DSL. 

So, with all that said, check out Chris’ post—the deals on iPads were too good to pass up and rumor has it Santa has placed his order for this household.  Can you believe it Rollie????

Talk about coincidence—4 years ago today we were a two man Demolition Crew, removing most of the windows and doors from Lonnie and LoraLee’s house before the rest of the structure was destroyed.  Those windows were hauled home in our gooseneck stock trailer where they have resided ever since—guess we don’t need to haul horses very often.  Today we unloaded the windows, doors and partially unloaded the five garage doors we also had hauled home—everything went in Michael’s new shed—with room to spare.  That was a hard afternoons’ work!!!  

Michael was reading an online article on Market Watch and saw this photo:

The rig going out to sea in the foreground of the photo is Olympus, the rig in the background is Jack St. Malo—Rollie’s rig.  Great photo! 

Another productive day in Montana.

It’s Getting To Be A Habit

Swimming at Chico that is—Sarge and Sarah live near Chico and invited us over this afternoon for a swim and dinner—so off we go over the hill and through the woods dropping off the wood splitter at Lonnie’s on the way. 

Nat came for lunch—I made another big ole pot of beef vegetable soup and some more homemade bread.  I worry about inviting him for lunch when we have snow on the ground and the wind is blowing that snow around.  He drives really, really slow and everyone knows it’s him—he is never late and if he should be, I will send Michael out to look for him. 

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Amendment—just about 10 minutes before 12pm when Nat should have arrived our phone rang and caller ID showed his number in town.  Seems he started up the Boulder and about the nine mile marker hit a patch of ice—he decided it would be best “for an old man to turn around and go back home.” 

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While I am sorry Nat didn’t get here for lunch, I am glad he made a good decision!

Nasty weather for walking this morning, a little snow on the ground and a cold, gusty wind.  We made good time on our walk—being cold makes you walk faster!

My phone rang yesterday morning and it was Jill—“I’m at a flea market and these people talk like you!”  She and her daughter Kerri are visiting Jill’s son Fritz in Memphis, TN—I think she is making fun of my southern accent—but in a good way!

Thought you folks might like to see a photo of our gorgeous granddaughters, Laci on the left, Katie on the right, looks like they are dressed up for a night on the town.

 

Katie and her husband Michael.

Our friends Jane and Rich are out in California welcoming their newest grandchild—a boy, Anders Jonathan.  He’s a cutie—full head of hair—wonder what his sister Tegan is thinking about him??

Mom and Chuck left Aransas Pass, Texas yesterday and are now safely home in Arkansas—they are very glad to be home!

Life is good!

Hard To Fool The Cowboy

Yesterday for lunch I decided to serve some cauliflower—you see, the cowboy doesn’t like cauliflower in any shape or form.  So, I thought I would fool him and mash the cauliflower like Ms. Pat does for Mike!  I added some garlic and one very small potato to the boiling cauliflower, mashing it all together with some butter and milk when it was done.  The cowboy took one bite, then another, then said, “is there any chance you got cauliflower mixed in with the potatoes???”  I lost it, laughing until tears ran down my face—needless to say, he didn’t eat any more of it but I loved it!!! 

Remember our two feet of snow in early October—it was a heavy, wet snow and the leaves were still on the trees.  We lost lots of branches and tree tops in that storm—today was clean-up day.  Michael cut--

while I used the Kawasaki mule to haul 12 loads to the burn pile and to the firewood pile.  By lunch time we were both about done in!  Chicken fajitas for lunch then Michael went out to the motorhome and dismantled our reclining loveseat to see if he could add some foam to the cushions.  We purchased that loveseat in Louisiana while visiting Gina and Rollie one Christmas.  The foam in the seats didn’t last very long and my handy cowboy thought he could replace the seat foam—he’s right and he can, he’s on the internet as I type this blog searching for foam!  

I hauled a few more loads to the burn pile and then started in on more fun projects—quilting Jeane’s quilt.  I love it when the thread color choice is perfect, the tension is perfect and the design I chose is perfect—everything is perfect. 

Wow—did our weather ever deteriorate!!!  About 4pm it started snowing horizontally and the temps dropped—winter is back!

I bet Al knew this but I didn’t—when you take a photo with the flash on in a snowstorm, the snowflakes show up—I was thrilled when I started working with these photos in Picasa!