New Life Old Farmers

With all the wild bird life we have here, I often think about how much my bird loving mom would have enjoyed it.  The quail, hawks, owls, blue heron and geese would have had her thrilled, but to see the eagles…. she would have just been beside herself.  The bald eagles come into the valley this time of year for calving season, feasting on the placenta from the new-born calves.

With friends visiting us (hearty Southern Californians who braved the cold for 3 days with 3 suitcases to hold no less than 3-5 layers of clothing at all times) My Loving Spouse took Her Loving Spouse on a drive, so we could have some ‘girl time’.  The guys hit a site about 4 miles from the house along the river bank where 10 eagles were hanging out.  They got to see the wonder of one diving into the river and catching a fish, sailing just over their heads.

We all returned and it was a wonder to me to see them all.  The older ones show off their ‘bald’ head.  I only wish I had a fancy camera with a proper zoom lens to share the site with you with the awe it deserves.  I hope I do not someday take all this for granted, to see all these eagles just sitting in a tree.

How blessed we are to experience such things….

It was quite the day for our goose hunters.  My Loving Spouse said, it was the most fun he has had hunting in years. ( It wasn’t actually so much fun for the geese.)  The day included Our Friend the Farmer and one of his young grandsons who was eager to learn to hunt and get his first goose.  Luckily for the Grandson, My Loving Spouse just happened to have a boy sized shot-gun for him to use.  The hunters have a new agreement, that the small gun will stay with Our Friend the Farmer so he can teach his collection of grand-kids how to shoot, until such time as My Loving Spouse has a grandchild to teach.  Since our kids only have two puppies and a hedge hog, odds are that it will be away from home for some time.  My Loving Spouse grew up bird hunting in England, so I am delighted that he has a new pal here to hunt with.

There were the multiple phone calls to organize the big hunt, the usual questions…

What to wear?  Camo to match the weeds or white to match the snow?  What time should we go?  Early or earlier?

Whatever they decided must have been just right as the mighty hunters bagged some nice geese.  My favorite shot is of the Grandson with a goose almost as big as he is.

Our Friend the Farmer making memories with his Grandson…..

My Loving Spouse took care of Phase One of the ‘after the hunt’ work called plucking and ‘stuff”, which you only want to do for just so many geese.  Phase Two became my job, which is called find someone who’d like some geese.  I did find a fun couple from church and as most married couples who’ve been together a long time, they have their own special language.

I called the wife, “Would you like some geese?  They still have the feathers?”  She said, “Sure.  Can you freeze them with the feathers on?”

The Wife then told her Husband that we were bringing him some ducks.  As he is known to rescue many baby animals he was wondering what in the world he was going to do with a couple of baby ducks to raise.  When we showed up, not with two live baby ducks, but two dead geese, he was quite delighted.

Here it is, my unabashed plug for my iPhone.

It can tell me, that while I am waiting at the Seattle airport to collect friends, the friends were sent to Spokane. (5 hours away by car).

It can keep me informed and even entertained… Thanks Spell Tower.

It can even make calls, “Honey, I am going to be a bit late”

To kick off The Teen’s birthday, we got up at O-dark-thirty and went to iHop for her birthday breakfast.

An act of love, as I may not exactly be a morning person, which I believe the bags under my eyes attest to fairly well.

Today is her real birthday, but her calendar is so full with fun activities, that the family dinner and celebration will be tomorrow.

The Teen is doing great!

As much of our move was to give this sweet girl a better life, all I can say is…

“Yay God!

Thank you!”

My Loving Spouse is so very, very excited.  Our Friend the Farmer has asked him to go hunting with the boys.  The thing is, when you ‘go hunting’, shouldn’t you actually ‘go’ somewhere?

From what I understand, and trust me, I realize that I don’t really understand hunting in the country yet, (or hunting anywhere for that matter).  Here is ‘the plan’.  Cross the street, move the cows, go into the field and hunt the goose or rather the geese.  I might actually have it wrong, it could be move the cows, cross the street, go into the field and then hunt the goose/geese.  I don’t think they even need to pack a lunch.

Now, I have seen hunters in action in England.  Okay, the hunters weren’t really ‘in action’, they were actually heading into the pub for their ‘after the hunt’ pint, but still they were looking sharp, as English hunters are known to do.  See exhibit: A

So, it was only natural that The Teen and I gently inquired/grilled My Loving Spouse as to what he was going to wear, when he goes hunting.

Wool pants? – no

Tie? – no

Hunting jacket? – no

Tweed cap – but of course!

Exhibit B:  My Loving Spouse on a recent mole hunt

He’s looking good and they’re crossing the street.

Watch out geese, your goose might be cooked.

Our warm and cozy family room is just that, warm and cozy, plus it is looking good!  The decision to add a set of French doors came about from the whole notion that a warm wife, might just possibly be a saner wife.  My Loving Spouse is a big fan of my staying sane and a few weeks ago when the weather outside was at 19 degrees and inside about 20 degrees (Fahrenheit, for my British friends), he knew he had a problem.  The heat from the wood stove was going everywhere in this wonderful, big old house, except where I was, which was our cozy, cold family room.  His first idea was to hang an old quilt in the double doorway.  I’m sorry to say, that he got ‘the look’ from me and quickly came up with a classier solution.

The doors have not only made it warmer, but have enabled us to use our home differently.  The big winners are our dogs.  Previously, they were banned from the house as they’d run all over, find the cat liter and eat it.  (I know it is gross, but this is our reality!)  With doors now to close, the dogs evenings are spent curled up by the stove.  Happy hounds!

We bought new French doors, and hard as it may be to believe, we even bought a tool My Loving Spouse did not already own.  The tool cost less than $5 and made chiseling out the wood for the hinges much easier.  I knew we needed the tool as soon as I learned it was called a ‘Butt Marker’ and yes, I burst out laughing at Lowes’s!!!  A ‘Butt Marker’…. all I could think of was how I’ve spent most of my life trying to make sure my butt didn’t mark anything!

The ‘Butt Marker’ in action.

Our ‘Grand-puppy’ Starbuck gives My Loving Spouse some help with the installation.

In…

Staining the doors to make them match the trim.

A trip to the workshop to dig around all our old bits and the new doors are adorned with wonderful old door knobs and plates.

Stunning doors that look as if they have been here for a very long time!

Now, I just need to paint the room, find a rug, fix the windows….

I dropped my first egg.  Darn it.  It was one of those days.  I was in a bit of a funk and the egg just slipped out and went…splat.

I’ve applied for the same job twice and finally got to the interview process last Friday.  This job makes me excited, and I think it would be ‘right’.  Aid at the Developmental Pre-school serving and helping the little ones and the teaching staff.  A way to come full circle from the days my little one was struggling.  One of the interview questions was, “Could I run fast enough to catch a 5-year-old running away?”  Could I catch them?  I am a trained expert in this field, as I am in juice clean up and crowd control.  I was impressed as well, at my ability to get in and out of those tiny little chairs we had to interview in.  However, they said they’d ‘call’ and they didn’t.

In an effort to be productive, I started to varnish the new French doors.  Unfortunately, I was ‘under instructed’ from My Loving Spouse, who had said, “It is just like painting.  You can do it.”  Yes, well it turns out to be not just like painting and a lot harder.  Luckily, he walked in just as I was mucking it up.  Upon hearing that I was having a ‘ bad day’ and needing to get me off the whole ‘varnishing is easy’ job, he had a brilliant idea.  “Why don’t you go get Jubal and plow the driveway?”  This was a good on many levels:

• It got me away from the varnish job and out of his hair as he fixed it
• I got to be outside, which I really needed
• The driveway was full of snow, so it would take some time
• Jubal is my ‘farm Prozac’ and I always feel better after he and I have a good work out

Yep, worked like a charm.  After plowing the driveway and getting Jubal back into the barn without incident I checked the eggs again.  The girls did not disappoint me and there were two more eggs!  As My Loving Spouse was admiring my plowing job, I managed to drop my second egg.  However, this time if fell into the deep soft snow and all was fine!

As I have mentioned, the Queen’s realm was lacking the majesty it deserved.  Isn’t it amazing what a little paint, cleaning and organizing can do for a room?  I, the Queen am happy in my new realm and smile whenever I go in the laundry room.

My special paint, ‘Someone screwed up half price blue’ is clean, inviting and easily worth twice its price.  The shelves that I have always loved and brought with us, have not had a home in our new house, but they did just fit here in the laundry room, at least after I bent the floor heater a teeny tiny bit and hammered them into place, then they fit.  I needed a way to organize everyone’s clothes, (because I do wash them, but I don’t deliver them).  I was too cheap frugal to spend a lot of money on fancy big baskets, so I modge-podged apple boxes with newspaper.  Being that this is Washington, apple boxes are easy to find.  I felt a little funny modge-podging them, as really, who does this?  BUT, I liked them and after all this is  my room/realm.  Then I remembered that my mother had wall papered waste baskets to match the wall paper in different rooms and this thought was oddly NOT comforting.  However, I continued to modge-podge away anyway.

My all time favorite of the laundry room is my ‘new’ detergent holder.  A very old-fashioned aluminum cooler that I found in our garage and ear marked as ‘mine’ and ‘do not throw it away’ because it is cool and I’m going to use it for something.  It does not have a lid, so for this use, it is perfect.

We got the arctic wind to stop blowing through the laundry room by picking up two cast off doors for a few dollars from The Habitat for Humanity store.  Adding these missing doors certainly makes the room warmer and cleaner.  This space will still someday (God willing) become part of the Master bathroom so I didn’t want to spend very much money on it.  However, we spent less than $80, and it was well worth it and the Queen of the Laundry is pretty darn happy.

True confession, even though I gave many, many, many away, we still have some pumpkins left!  Stored in the barn for future uses is a small pile of pumpkins.  Well, you don’t just throw away something that the cow and the chickens will eat.  Yes, the ones out in the yard are a bit frozen.  However, if I stomp on them a bit then Elsie Gump will still eat them, she likes her pumpkin broken up, frozen or not.

I did find one more use for my biggest pumpkin.  It is the official horse-feed-line-divider.  The horses’ hay needs to be kept in two piles or Dolly as ‘head of the herd’ will try to drive Dixie off of the food.  I’d have to say, that as a horse-feed-line-divider, my mighty pumpkin looks a bit less than impressive and gets rolled around a bit when the trough is empty, but all in all, it does seem to be doing the job.

My Sons may have originally led the crowd in the eye rolling department whenever my amazing pumpkin patch was mentioned, however now they love, love, love  left over pumpkins, some saved especially for them.  Why?  Two words… target practice… and really big ‘splats’, which is more than two words, but you get my drift.  The day after Christmas my two were out setting up pumpkins on fence posts.  I didn’t know which we’d run out of first, shot-gun shells or pumpkins.

When they were young, I was the one primarily playing catch with them in the yard, so when they said, “Mom, do you want to try it?”  What’s a good mom to do?  I have to say, that I may have been slightly under informed at exactly how this particular gun might work.  No one told me to hold on tight or that it would try to knock me down.  I’m sure there are a few girl friends back home who will be very impressed that this footage even exists.  Hopefully, this link works, if so, make sure you stay with it to the end, as it is the look on my face which I find priceless. Ellen & the shot-gun

Yes, I got the pumpkin and yes, we still have a few pumpkins left.