Forgotten Yard Sales Finds

It must be getting nasty outside because I am starting to yearn for a good yard sale again...

I was cruising through my pictures and came upon some finds that I took pictures of because they were super awesome deals but I didn't post them because I FORGOT!

I got this nail grinder kit for $7 from a wonderful old friend and it is helping me to do some work on my altered tins.  It is just a dremmel tool marketed for animal use and it works great!

Then we have all of the wonderful blouses that I got for .25¢ each and they are all expensive name brands.  I have become a big fan of the French Laundry brand after this huge investment.

The really cool thing about yard sale clothes is that most of them are new looking, I don't have to spend a fortune and I can change my wardrobe every year!

For some reason I could not pass up this hat box type suitcase.  It's odd like me so I had to have it for $2.  I will repurpose it for memorabilia after I alter it and make it lovely to look at.

Then we have the miniaure items that I always love.  I am using these babies for beads - so cute!  I think I paid .25¢ for a set of 6.  I have little tiny pie pans that I also use but for buttons.

I miss yard sales!

A tail of barncats and how they came to be on our ranch

There was a time when we had this old snowmobile in our barn and a packrat took to making a home.  It would pack stuff in and then cover all the vent holes on the outside with rocks from the barn floor.  The dogs would sniff it but we didn't pay a whole lot of attention to the snowmobile in the dark back corner.  One day we noticed that Hunter's rubber grips on his 4-Wheeler handles were all gnawed off - what the heck?

 So, Warren drug the old thing out and opened it to see if the jack russels would get the rat.  The silly pack rat was able to squeeze down in a hole where they could not reach them so Warren had to get it with some .22 shot...

Here is his big trophy and this is why we now have barn cats!

This is Tripod or 3 legg-ed awaiting something to run out of the gutter downspout.  She is one of the first barn cats that I brought home in May 2007.  She is more of a charity case since she is missing a front leg and she now lives in the wellhouse.  Since she moved to the wellhouse and is keeping the mice down in there we had to get more cats.

One thing about ferrel cats - they are hard to spot because you rarely see them.  Here are a couple glimpses of the others I have managed to catch with the camera.

 

This is boots and he lives in the shed with Tripod - he came from someone in town that needed to relocate some ferrels to a farm.

And this is Tarbaby - she came from the Ochoco Humane Society with another black male.

They always have food and water even though some say that it does no good to feed a barn cat.  These cats eat well and still keep the rats and mice out of our shed and barn.  And, it's a good thing they don't like people or I would have them coming in the house and that would defeat the purpose!

Shelves R Us! Well, me anyhow....

One of the many things I collect is tins.  I love almost all tins and they have been a part of advertising for a very long time so some tins are very old and very special.  I find them mostly at yard sales for anywhere from FREE to $2.00 and I drag them home to keep my other tins company :-)  Here are some pictures of my tins on display and as you will see - my tins are crowded and I need room for more....

Remember I said that I need more Tin space.....?

Well, my sweet husband installed some new shelving for me while he was on his extended vacation - what a pal!  We are now out into the laundry room with shelving!

 Before...

               After...

Before...

After...

Problem solved!  For now....

Projects are never ending around here

This is the back of our house which is our oversized 3 car garage that has not really ever had a car parked in it!  We are using it for our printing, button and twisted pen making along with it being our work out room, tool storage and work area, hunting storage and my scrapbooking crafty room.  

It gets rather cold in the garage during the winter not to mention all the dust that blows in around the garage doors when it is windy - which by the way is everyday!  So, we decided to keep the wind from blowing through for the winter so we can actually maintain a nice temperature and keep the Central Oregon dust down.

 

Apparently they do not make insulation kits for garage doors so we made our own.  A roll of 6mm plastic from Lowe's and some boards from Mr. Jones and a nail gun as a gift from my parents and we were on our way.  Measure twice and cut once - Warren and I put all this up in just a couple hours and it works great.

And just for good measure we parked the motorhome in front of it to lessen the impact of the wind.

Maybe we will have enough money to remodel and permanently seal it next year but this is working great for now!

  

Parent Teacher Conferences

My husband, our son Hunter and I all went in for school conferences on Tuesday, 11/10.  This is a picture of Hunter with his teacher Mr. Jim Hite.  Every year at this time I take a picture of Hunter with his teacher for posterity and to do a scrapbook page.

So, here is the picture but the scrapbook page is another matter entirely.  Remember that I said I take the picture with the intention of making a page...hasn't happened yet!  My procrastination is a whole different subject that I will write about later....

As usual, we went to our conference and learned once again that our son is a great person and he is still very smart.  (Having a great teachers along the way has helped tremendously and we are thrilled with Mr. Hite.)  We had a really great visit with Mr. Hite and treated Hunter to Quiznos after our meeting.

We are very blessed that our son is so darn intelligent and that he is a great person.  All this and good looks too - which he gets from his daddy.  They say that it takes a village to raise a child - I'm not sure about that but close family is a wonderful thing!  Hunter is such an awesome little dude in part because my parents helped to raise him.  My dad has watched him everyday I have worked since he was 3 months old and my mom started watching him full time with Dad when she retired.  My parents are priceless and they have helped to create a very interesting young man.

Just wanted to give a shout out to Hunter:  You are a great kid - keep up the hard work!       

And then there was the feed bill

On one lovely Friday my husband hauled hay all day long.  I think he put up 13 ton in the barn with 4 trips to Lone Pine and the trusty Kubota tractor.  This tractor has changed Warren's life in such a good way.  No more bucking 70-100 pound bales to the tippy top of the barn because we can buy the big bales and "stack them up high in the barn...." like that song about Big Boy Toys!  We are talking 800-850 pound bales with orange muscle!

Isn't this cool?  I must say that he got so carried away with the hay prices being so low that he didn't have room for the tractor in the barn when he was done!  He had to put 4 bales out in the lean to.

In this picture he is about 2/3 of the way done unloading.  Nice stacking sweetie!

Now who's gonna eat all this hay with just 12 goats? 

Cinder the Kitty

This is my new baby "Cinder".  She is not really a baby but she is a very small young female cat.  We got her at the Ochoco Humane Society and she is very cuddly.

 

She is all black and pretty petite with a shorter than average tail.  She is learning to come through the cat door in the laundry room with the cat door off right now.  I am hoping to put the cat door back up in a few days so she can learn how to actually use the flap portion.

The weather out here...

This is the view at 7:19 AM this morning out our front door.  The chickens are all hiding in the coop and the snow is coming in hard.  I think we have to face the fact that winter is here.

Can't call me the Crazy Goat Lady anymore

Here is the other feeder that Warren put a roof on.  See Flora standing down at the left end just grinning away:-).  She likes the new roof!

There is a saying in the goat world community that you are always "One goat shy of being the Crazy Goat Lady".  They even make shirts and all kinds of promotional items that say this!

We were at an all time high of 32 after Trinket had her twins, Bauble and Doodad.  We are now officially down to 12 including Henry.  We have sold a few here and there and then we traded 11 for 1 steer and 2 heifers this past weekend.

Hunter and I have not discussed names for our new bovines so we will just call this guy Mr. Steer for now.  I am hoping to call him Dinner.

And we will call these two "The Girls" for now.  They were real psycho when we got them but they have settled down a lot in just a few days.  They are coming to my voice and starting to act like dorky little baby animals now.

So, now we are in the cow business and we have cowshit on our clothes - permanently!  The shit doesn't come off!  Anyone who knows me will tell you that I hate stains.  I will wash something and stain stick several times before I will give in and say die!  It totally annoys me that people put stained clothes in yard sales and I would rather throw something away than wear the stained item.

So, the cowshit, it seems to be getting on everything!  I think that it works like a metal to a magnet.  I have spotted this fine green sludge on items that I know I didn't even wear out near the cow pasture. 

If you see us about town with our green tinged outerwear please stop us and say hi but try not to laugh...until we leave anyway!

4-H Recognition Night

On November 2nd we went to 4-H recognition night for pot luck dinner and awards.  The dinner was YUMMY!

Hunter received a lapel pin for completing his first year of 4-H and he got this award for completing his record book.  He received a blue ribbon at fair for his record book :-)

I will post a picture of all his awards for shooting and fair as soon as I get the shadow box completed.

Good job little dude!

Before Warren returned to work he put roofs (is that a word?) on the feeders and they are so nice!  The snow is flying today and the feed is dry!  I took this picture just before we sold all of our "extra" goats.  I just stuck my camera inside of the feeder to get a different shot.  You see Sugar in the foreground here.

  

The children are playing on the wood rounds.  Silver is the black Alpine, Moose is next to Silver and she is a Boer with a small percentage of Nubian, then we have Pepper standing on the spool and she is 1/2 Boer and 1/2 Nubian and on the ground we have Doodad who is Boer.

 

Here is Moose hanging out on the spool.

And this is Doodad and Bauble pushing each other around on the rounds.

Halloween - Better late than NEVER

I might be a little bias but I think Warren and I have a pretty cute kid  :-)

Here he is dressed up as a firefighter to go trick-or-treating on Halloween night.

And here is the full get up.  It was so funny walking down the streets going door-to-door because all the kids would walk by and talk about what a GREAT costume he had.  All the men would remark that they "bet they knew what his dad does for a living".  Ha!  If they only knew! 

This is authentic but retired fire gear and it is excellent for keeping the trick-or-treater warm on those cold blustery nights!

Oh yes...and here I am with my little ankle biter - Brandy.  She has her little dress on and I have a jester's hat that I picked up at a guess what....?  Yard sale for $2.  I do look a bit cross eyed...probably due to the double triple flash that just blinded me!

And here is my mom trying to take a picture of me while I was taking a picture of her - Ha!  I win!

First Business Dollar :-)

This is a diaper bag that my niece, Jenn, purchased from one of our apparel catalogs.  She bought it as a present for a baby shower she was giving.  I ordered it to be sent directly to our embroiderer, she did her fantastic work and I picked it up for delivery to our customer.  The bag was done and in her hands before the shower - all in under a week! 

I love this bag and all of it's pockets!  I am thinking about getting one for all my stuff that I pack with me on a daily basis.  Diaper bags are not just for diapers anymore!

This is a picture of our first dollar for the business.  Thank you Jenn for being our first paying customer!

Craft Bazaar on 12/5/09

I finally did it!  I went and paid for a table at the Christian School Holiday Bazaar on December 5th.  I am going to advertise the business, sell twisted pens, scrapbook saying buttons, altered tins (tins decorated with themes), altered file keepers, note keepers and possibly a rag rug or two!  That means that I have to start burning the midnight oil a whole lot over the next few weeks...

I need to get a couple more rugs going...

I need to keep working on my altered tins...

Gotta make the file keepers and the note keepers...

I'm sure I will think of some other items along the way when I see something in my craft room - like the jeweled bookmarks!

ATCs for Thanksgiving

Here are my latest little creations for three different swaps.  I cut everything out with my Cricut and spent the night defining details with my felt pens, piecing and gluing.  I think they turned out ok but it seems that nothing turns out as good on paper as it does in my head.  Christmas ATCs on next on my list.

A New Line of Buttons

I started thinkin' the other day - yes, I know that is scary!

I started playing with scrapbooking expressions and then I created some buttons.  I have for sale now  and they are scanned in this picture - they look better in person.  The picture is not great because I don't want someone hijacking it :-)

The cool thing about these buttons is that I can make them as magnets!  I am off to the scrap store in town and Bend tomorrow to see if I can get any bites on my new wares.  Wish me luck!

October is full of birthdays

We usually celebrate the whole month of October since we have 3 birthdays and then Halloween.  Jenn is First on the 11th followed by Jeff on the 18th and then finally my dear dairy cow loving sister Sheree on the 20th.

We all got together for Jeff and Sheree's birthdays on the 17th and Jenn treated us all with dinner and 2 cakes!

This is a picture of my sis opening a bag full of dairy cow related items.

This is Jethro (Jeff) opening his cards.  He is a whole 32 this year!

And here is my niece Jenn  (with Bryce in the background) serving up ice cream to go with the mouth watering cakes she made for the occasion.  The cakes were great but the dinner was AWESOME!  We had lasagna with garlic bread!!!  Thank you for feeding us Jenn!

Hunter know good food when he sees it so he is digging in.  Looks like he has salad, lasagna and he going for the garlic bread.

And finally, here is a picture of my niece Jenn, my mom Mary Jo and my sister Sheree getting the garlic bread ready.