Yard Sale Finds...

I have just been cruising  my photos thinking about things that I need to blog on and it dawned on me that I have neglected my super yard sale finds for like a long time.  Mom and I went about 3 weeks ago and found these babies.  This tray of stamps was $2.00 - yes - $2.00!!!!  See the flower that is rubber up?  That has another rubber flower on the other side and they are special :-)  They are special because you stamp the image and then cut along the lines like a spiral - once you have them cut out you use a quilling tool and wind them up into little 3-D roses! 

And the 4 leaf clover is good too.  Can never have too many of those when you have a child in 4-H.

And these are the other two trays of stamps that I also got for $2.00 each.

This tray also has one of those special stamps but it is the next 2 sizes down!  And see the rooster - love it!

My mom ended up getting a tray of stamps also and I can't wait to see her use them.

The trays are 11" x 14" and they are actually from those acrylic frames that you can get for pictures that usually have a cardboard box thing in them to hold your pictures.  This is an excellent way to store stamps since they are just the right depth.  Not only did I get some awesome stamps but a new idea for storage.

Speaking of eggs...

I took this picture last week and I forgot all about it until now.  We have been getting this egg darn near every day that is way to big to fit in the carton.  See the white egg (next to the blue green one), that is an extra large store bought egg.  Now look at the one in front of it that is oblong...

This egg is about 3-1/2" long and I cannot wrap my thumb and forefinger around it!  Plus, this is always a double yoker.  This lady chicken is quite the woman to be spitting out these little bomb size egg.

Eggs delivered

What a busy morning...

We took Hunter to school and headed out to see my goat children on the north end of town and to deliver eggs to their sitter - Virginia.  The fog was pretty thick and wet and it seemed that my babies are getting less excited to see me when I come to visit.  My Black Sugar was acting kind of strange but her babies Salt & Pepper came up for scratches.  Here are a couple of picures that I took while we were there.

My Black Sugar is in the middle and this is a picture that I took when we first arrived - nasty wet fog.

This is one of our little LaManchas and her name is Flora.  She has put on so much winter hair that she looks like a little cotton ball!  She is always glad to see me since she was a bottle baby.

 

Here is a picture of sweet Virginia (the goat sitter who sure loves her job!) with Silver standing right in front of her and Hershey to the right with Terra behind him.

After we said hello to all my furry friends we delivered eggs to Jenn & Jeff (our niece and nephew) then to the fire department and on up to Grandpa Tony's.  We had a good visit with Jenn & Jeff as always.

We seem to be selling between 7-9 dozen eggs a week depending on the week since a few customers are every other week.  A bag of chicken feed cost $11.25 and it sure seems like the chickens are pile driving about 3 a week.  Once you figure in the eggs we eat I think we are breaking about even before we pay for the light to stay on everyday for 12 hours.

   Yeah right...breaking even...only in my dreams!

I know that at least once a day my husband wishes I didn't love animals so much ;-)

Tomorrow...time to deliver the eggs

Tomorrow is Friday and that means that it is time to go around delivering eggs to all of our wonderful customers.  I get to have my hubby with me on this trip which is nice.  The chickens are eating way more money than they are producing with the cold weather but it still has it's rewards.

One of the rewards is getting to see everyone on Friday's.  We go the the fire department and deliver to a few of the guys there but get to visit with anyone who is around.  Then we head out to see Virginia to chat and check on our goats that are chowing down on her pasture.  Once we finish there we are heading out to Meeker Ranch for our first egg delivery and then on up to see Grandpa Tony and his lovely wife Lyn. 

It is nice to just stop and talk to people once a week.  I am enjoying this whole egg delivery thing...I like being able to stop and really hear what the answer is when I ask "How are you?"

More ATCs...

This is an ATC for Breast Cancer Awareness in October.  A wonderful lady named Gay Bowman on ScrapSistersStudio.com (formerly AllMomentsRemembered.com) hosted this swap and I cannot wait to get everything back so I can see all the different ATCs.  I designed this particular ATC in Corel, cut out the oval, pasted it onto black cardstock and outlined it with some stickles.  On the back it states that it is "In Memory of my Aunt Donna".

This is an ATC for Circles.  It is the very first swap I am hosting and this is my creation.   I cut out the word circles with my Cricut, the silver brass circle is from a belt I picked up at a yard sale and the ribbon is plain old purple 1/4" stock.
I am waiting for the other ATCs to finish coming in and then I will swap them and mail all of them out to their perspective new homes.  This trade is on ScrapSistersStudio.com and I will post a picture of all the ATCs after I mail them.

The Man Behind the License Plate

This is our hay, goat, wood, mule, atv haulin' F350 diesel crew cab - notice what the license plate spells?  That is BUGLE for the sound a bull elk makes.  Yellowstone is the only place that we do not get asked if Warren "plays the horn"!  This truck also wears a proud Pettyjohn bumper made by ProLine that will mow anything down that happens into the road on a dark night.

So, can you guess what he is looking at?  It is a huge 6 point bull in rut chasing his cows around in the field in front of Warren.  This gets him so excited that it is funny - it's like nothing else exists when he talks about elk.

This is the bull he is looking at to the right...

And this is the bull he is looking at to the left!  Ah - UTOPIA!

Then, as an extra special treat, we see this big, bad boy just before dusk on our last evening in the park.

West Yellowstone General Pictures

OK - so just in case no one knows - Warren drives almost everywhere we go.   And, just let me further qualify that I CAN AND DO DRIVE!  I drive to town and I drive to Bend and Redmond.  I just prefer not to and I find it very mind numbing.  He doesn't mind driving and is rather good at it.  So, this is my general view when we are on road trips and I have a lot of these pics.  This one is different because it is more of a sillouette and it is foggy outside.

This is the motel that we stayed at in West Yellowstone, Montana.  It is the Yellowstone Lodge and it was rather nice.  We were on the 3rd floor and the 6th window in from the right.  We had a nice view to the south overlooking the Hibernation Station and into the forest.

This is a beautiful bronze statue that we looked down upon from our room.  It is at the entrance of the Hibernation Station. 

This picture was taken in town next to my favorite store Smith & Chandler.  We have not been to Yellowstone since 2006 and these bison statues are now all over town.  Each one of the statues is painted differently and they are all very beautiful. 

Golden Eagle on the River

This picture was taken on the Yellowstone River and it is a golden eagle.  He was a real show stopper and he was on this log for about 1-1/2 days just watching people.  He was just down the road from where we see the bald eagles nest in the spring.  It was funny to see him in the same spot everytime we went by.

Where the deer and the antelope roam...

Apparently this buck antelope was checking out the latest horseshoe score before he headed on over to the soccer game.  We were walking around Gardiner, Montana (the north entrance to Yellowstone) when we happened upon this guy.

We saw this guy out for a stroll all by himself.  Odds are that he was looking for a few girlfriends.

This is a small group that we happened upon in the Lamar Valley.  They are all watching the one loan doeling running around like her bottom caught fire.  We watched her run circles around the group for quite a while and I was able to get some really cute video footage.

Bison In the Mist

The first morning we arrived early, since we drove in from Idaho Falls, and it was really foggy down by Old Faithfull.   This is a raven sitting up in a tree watching the bison go by.

This is a small herd of bison going through - over the sidewalks and through the parking area.  They don't really care about people or cars since they are just going from one place to another. 

This is a picture of the largest bull in the bunch.  The car kind of gives a reference to how big they are.  The bison in front of the bull is one of this years calves and it was born the tail end of May - they grow very fast.

Halloween ATCs

I joined 3 ATC swaps for Halloween since it is easy for me to think of Halloween things. This little purple guy is my "Purple People Eater" going to Idaho tomorrow. He was going to Idaho today until I realized that the PO is not open.... :-). I used my Cricut Paper Dolls cartridge for everything but the moon. He was fun since he is purple.

This is my "Out By the Fence". I used some ribbon I bought at Michael's, punched the fence with my medium Sizzix die and the pumpkin with my Sizzlets die. The yellow is just a circle punch like the moon in the first ATC.

This one is "Hangin' Out in the Web". I used a Cuttlebug spider web embossing folder and brushed it with a little silver stamp pad. The ribbon is from Michael's and the spider was cut out with a Sizzlet.

Time flies when you are busy...Duh!

Wow! Where the time goes when you are trying to get life lined out and get jobs! We went to Idaho Falls, Idaho for some training and then onto Yellowstone for 2 days. I will tell you about the training and the rest of Yellowstone over the next few days...

For now - We got to see lots of bugling bulls and some wonderful fuzzy 1/2 grown calves. 2 days is just not enough time in Yellowstone. Unfortunately they had one of the main roads closed to replace a bridge between Madison and Norris so we had to go around to get to Mammoth and it was 117 miles - CRAZY!

This is a picture of some cows getting the good grass while they waiting for the snow to come in. It got really cold and windy on this particular evening - winter is setting in quickly. This little girl was enjoying life while she danced around and made funny little faces. It was almost like she knew she was getting her picture taken.

This is a bull we just missed watching cross the river by a few minutes. He is a 6x6 and he was keeping his cows in the trees - magnificent!

This little guy was funny as all get out. Warren was walking down the side of the road taking video of a bull across the road and this little guy was racing him - kind of. Every time Warren stopped this little guy stopped and looked at him and then he waould start walking every time Warren did. I don't even think Warren knew he was doing this because his focus was on the bull across the road. He finally ran off to be with his mommy when the bigger bull steped out of the trees.

This is a picture of the bull across the road. He is not gigantic but he will do! I liked the setting with the trees and the branches so I took a couple pictures of him framed by the dead branches.