I really need to have a camera in my bedroom, since that seems to be where the cutest pet photos are coming from and my camera phone just doesn’t do it.

Suka is like Pip, when he’s ready to go to sleep, he just wants to sleep. And of course, Christian has to pick on him! Suka says, ‘Just leave me alone, I’m soooo tired.’

Suka just flopped over in Christian’s arms,

and then flopped the other way onto the bed,

right next to Pip, who doesn’t like to share the bed!

And of course, now he’s wide awake...

My tip for the day: Lukas likes the foaming hand soap, but I didn’t like having to throw away the bottle and buy another one just to get foaming soap. I’ve found that filling the foaming soap bottle with water and adding about a tablespoon of shampoo gives you foaming soap. Much cheaper in the long run, and less going into the recycling.

Eeeewwwww!!!! Had to scream for Christian to come kill a BIG spider on my living room floor!! Yuckkkkkkkkkkkk!!!!!!

Today was a brisk March day, like a Minnesota March day should be, unlike the abnormal temperatures we’ve been having (not that I’m complaining!). I broke down and started up the wood stove this morning and this evening. The grass is greening up, the perennials are coming up, and the trees and bushes are budding out. If we have a late frost, I’m not going to get any apples at all this year.

When my Suka puppy is ready to go to sleep, he’s ready, no question about it. Here’s Christian bugging him while he was trying to nap,

and here he is, all comfy! He is such a clown!!!!!

Most of my beads are, in my opinion, OK, some of them are ‘Wow! That’s not too bad!’ and then there’s that very rare one that I just can’t bear to sell. Here’s one of those rare ones,

And here’s one of the ‘Wow’ ones,
Blue Opal Galaxy

Meanderings: Did you know that olive oil works very well as a hair conditioner? Put a few drops of perfume or essential oil (tea tree or lavendar oil if you have scalp issues) in and it smells very nice. It takes just a few drops smeared between your hands and then run your fingers through your hair after washing it. It takes all the snarls out and leaves it frizz-free.

Christian took Suka to the vet today for his yearly checkup and shots. My poor puppy has Lyme’s disease! The vet said this is the earliest she’s ever seen it. So he’s on medication for a month. He has to go back in in a couple of weeks to get his Lyme’s vaccination booster. Oh, and he pee’d 7 times at the vet, he was so scared. Poor puppy!

LOL, Christian found a new trick for Suka, being a lip-flapper! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FXBeWQCLf5g (turn your volume up a bit).

It is just so wrong to even be thinking about turning on the AC in the middle of March in Minnesota! At midnight last night, it was still 69°.

Some new beads to show off,
Shimmering Fire Galaxy 6443

Fire Galaxy 6455

Honey Peach Galaxy 6475

LOL!!! Channel 11 just ran a public service message warning about the dangers of frostbite! The weather forecast is calling for 80° tomorrow.

Oh, spring has sprung!!!! Way too early, but I’m not going to complain. The skies have been filled with geese, swans and sandhill cranes. This is absolutely the BEST time of the year!

My amaryllis are starting to fade, so I’m posting photos of them still in their full glory,

I’ve been trying to get some cleaning done, and ran across an old photo of Lukas. He was such a cute kid!

And here he is all grown up,

My Suka is such a big goofball! Here he is laying on the recliner,


He must be all tuckered out from being chased by the bull yesterday. We took him out to do chores last night and he started chasing one of the twins. The calf was running and bawling for mama, who was totally immersed in her food bucket. Dex’s instincts kicked in though, and he took after Suka. It was quite funny, watching him chasing Suka, and tagging along was Roast, the 6 mo. old steer. Suka ran out of the pen, the twin came back to the herd, Dex went back to his feed, and mama never batted an eye during the whole ordeal.

I discovered Pinterest and have been sucked into it, like lots of other people. It’s a fun place to browse. But after reading a couple of articles, (http://www.bizjournals.com/boston/blog/startups/2012/02/pinterest-copyright-issues.html?ana=twt and http://ddkportraits.com/2012/02/why-i-tearfully-deleted-my-pinterest-inspiration-boards/), I decided to delete all of my boards except for my beads until the legal issues are resolved.

There are two problems. This is from their Terms of Use (my underlines) that says by posting my photos on Pinterest, I’m giving them the license to use my photos for anything they want to do with it:
“By making available any Member Content through the Site, Application or Services, you hereby grant to Cold Brew Labs a worldwide, irrevocable, perpetual, non-exclusive, transferable, royalty-free license, with the right to sublicense, to use, copy, adapt, modify, distribute, license, sell, transfer, publicly display, publicly perform, transmit, stream, broadcast, access, view, and otherwise exploit such Member Content only on, through or by means of the Site, Application or Services.”

The second issue is copyright protection. The courts are in flux right now, but there has been a ruling that using a low res thumbnail can come under fair use. Pinterest uses the original photo in repinning, and the way their TOU is worded, if someone sued for copyright infringement, you’d have to hire the lawyer for both yourself and Pinterest. “You agree to defend, indemnify, and hold Cold Brew Labs, its officers, directors, employees and agents, harmless from and against any claims, liabilities, damages, losses, and expenses, including, without limitation, reasonable legal and accounting fees, arising out of or in any way connected with (i) your access to or use of the Site, Application, Services or Site Content, (ii) your Member Content, or (iii) your violation of these Terms.”

Oh, what a dreary day, it’s been snizzling, and the weather forecast is snow/rain/cloudy for the rest of the week. Sigh, I want some warm sunshine.

My nephew and his ex came up a couple of days ago to do some work. Scott has been staining and varnishing an oak door for me, and Jenelle cleaned my ceiling fans!! I walk through the house and look at them, and think, gee, I really should clean those, and then, blah, I’ll go wash some dishes instead. So I was quite happy to see her doing that! Hopefully we’ll get enough snow this week that they’ll be able to come up with Scottie and do some snowmobiling. It was enjoyable, standing out by the barn with them, watching the twins run around with their tails kinked, enjoying the sunshine. Just call it a family moment. :)

I’ve got amaryllis blooming!


Beautiful bright colors!!!!

I’m still in a rut, struggling to find something to do besides go to bed and curl up under a nice warm blanket with a good book, with a dog on each side of me. I’ve been trying to keep making beads, even though there’s no creative urge to do so. Right now the most creativity I’ve got has been going into making more murrini. Here’s two of my latest:


I really should list some beads, but I think instead I’m going to go make some more earring pairs, just until it’s late enough to turn on the blankies.

Oh, burrrrrrrrr!!! I am COLD!! It’s 16° out there, and I’m going to either go melt some glass or go to bed and turn on my electric blanket and mattress pad heater on high. Wait a minute! It’s after 8 p.m., too late to melt glass...

I do have some color to show though, I’ve got more amaryllis to show off,




Love, love, love amaryllis!!!!!

Gertrude and the twins are doing fine. We’ve named the calves Whopper and Wendy (animals destined for the butcher get names that remind us that they aren’t pets). It will be a couple of years before it’s time for them to leave, so by then we’ll be able to tell if Wendy is fertile or not. If she’s not, then we can think of her as Wendy’s Burger, or something like that.

We’ve finally gotten some snow, so I’ve been keeping them locked up in the barn. Pretty soon I’ll start letting them out during the day and introduce them to the snow. It looks like we’re getting into the March swing of things, with snowstorms piling up. There are two more systems moving in this week.

I lifted this from a talented glassworker, Sarah Hornik, http://www.glassbysarah.com/. So true!


I’m still in a beadmaking rut, so I’ve been continuing with murrini making. Here’s some of my better experiments,


I’m amazed at how much encasing can change the look of glass. Here’s an example,

It’s what making working with glass exciting (and sometimes frustrating). You just never know what you’re going to come out with.

We went out to do chores and saw that Gertrude had a calf! Finally!!! So got the bread and calcium gel and went out there to get some calcium into her, and she was standing there eating the afterbirth. No way was I going to stick my hand in that mouth! It’s a boy calf, which was a little disappointing because I was hoping for a girl. Christian went around to start doing the hay, and there was another calf by the gate! Unfortunately, it’s a girl. In cows, if a girl (called a freemartin) is part of a mixed sex pair of twins, it’s usually sterile. :(

We went out to do chores and saw that Gertrude had a calf! Finally!!! So got the bread and calcium gel and went out there to get some calcium into her, and she was standing there eating the afterbirth. No way was I going to stick my hand in that mouth! It’s a boy calf, which was a little disappointing because I was hoping for a girl. Christian went around to start doing the hay, and there was another calf by the gate! Unfortunately, it’s a girl. In cows, if a girl (called a freemartin) is part of a mixed sex pair of twins, it’s usually sterile. :(

Never watch Diners, Drive-ins & Dives when you’re trying to eat healthy.

The fudge brownies are in the oven...

The cow still hasn’t had her calf!

Meanderings tonight.

Gertrude is finally going to have her calf.

She started bagging up a couple of days ago, so we’ve been trying to get some calcium into her. It comes in a tube similar to a tube of caulk, with a gun like a caulk gun. The directions are to put the tube into the cow’s mouth so the gel is squirted at the back of the tongue. Yah, right... I ended up with most of it all of me, and even inside my sleeves.

So this morning I tried putting a dollop of it inside a slice of bread and folding it over. It worked fairly well the first time I tried it, but then she caught on. A couple of hours later Christian and I both attempted it again, and we got more in than came out. The trick is prying open her mouth (I sure am glad cows don’t have upper teeth in the front), shoving the ball of bread as far back into her mouth as I can, and then after all of the sandwiches are gone, follow up with a piece of plain bread so when she spits it out, it’s just the plain bread. We got almost a whole tube in her today (half of what she should have). Hopefully, tomorrow morning when I go out, a nice health cow and calf will be waiting for me. Then the fun really starts, as you can see from this photo, she’s going to need milking out for quite a while until the calf gets older.

I got some cute photos of Suka the other night teasing Christian with his monkey, trying to get Chris to chase him,



Obligatory bird photo, I do like these guys with that flashy red head,

I’m still having fun making murrini,


And some new beads that I’m listing tonight,

What goofballs! I gave Suka a rawhide chew, he got distracted and set it down. Pip promptly stole it. I gave Suka another one. Not good enough! Pip was guarding her chew, growling and glaring at Suka. Suka laid on the floor with the chew between his front feet and stared at Pip. Pip left her chew and came closer to Suka, so he went back to chewing. She sat there watching him until he finished, then went back to her chew. Here’s my Suka, saying ‘more, more!’