I am SOOOOO glad I decided to replace our central air unit now instead of next spring! Hot and humid weather on the way, but I’m trying really hard not to complain, since it’s the end of August, and there’s not too much warm weather left for us.

Life is good right now, the boys are fed and watching wrestling, I just finished listing on Etsy, and I’m listening to an Alan Jackson show. Just love his songs…

Some of my latest creations:

“The project required 6 miles of fencing, at a cost of $10,000 a mile. A Legacy Amendment grant paid for 4 miles; revenue from the grazier offset staff costs to fence 2 miles.”

http://minnesota.publicradio.org/display/web/2013/08/03/environment/sherburne-refuge-herefords-help-with-upkeep

$10,000 a mile?!?!? Last year I had to fence in all of my land because of changes in the Green Acres tax laws, so I have an idea how much it costs. What did they use to fence it in, gold plated barbed wire?!?

Just HAVE to laugh at this one... On the news tonight was a story about Zygi Wilf, the owner of the Minnesota Vikings football team, who has been pushing for the state to build him a new stadium to play in. The financing was going to come, in part, from an electronic gambling deal that was touted as a wonderful source of revenue, except it didn't turn out to be the golden goose that was promised. Then it comes out that some had tried to warn that the figures presented were really hinky, but the powers that be just didn't want to hear any naysaying, and pushed it through anyway.

So now comes this story about our football team's owner: "Superior Court Judge Deanne Wilson ruled in a 21-year legal battle Monday that brothers Zygi and Mark Wilf and their cousin Leonard committed fraud and breach of contract and fiduciary duty and had violated New Jersey's civil racketeering law."

http://espn.go.com/nfl/story/_/id/9550527/gov-mark-dayton-alarmed-vikings-owner-zygi-wilf-legal-woes

What is so funny is that our governor, according to the news tonight, wants to make sure that the state  examines the fine print of the contract for the new stadium before it is signed. OK, it's scheduled to be signed in two weeks! Wouldn't you think the fine print would have been gone over by now, by a whole team of lawyers?!? Or were they going to wait until they got to the table to read it over? I would think a contract for $477 million would be more than a couple of pages long.

Just shaking my head in disbelief...

Our central air is on the blitz, and I sure hope that the repair man coming tomorrow morning can get it fixed. Every degree it goes over 70, I lose my energy accordingly. Thank goodness I have window air conditioners in my studio and bedroom, so I can retreat to cool down. And no snide remarks from family about being a woose.

My amaryllis are really confused this year, I’ve got another one blooming! Not that I’m complaining…
I’m still working on earrings, here’s some of my latest,



and some new beads,

Meanderings tonight…

A story in Health news about mothers who can’t afford diapers, http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-204_162-57596030/affording-diapers-a-problem-for-30-percent-of-moms-study-suggests/

I wonder if they know that disposable diapers are a fairly recent development, and I wonder if there are any store that even sell cloth diapers any more. But then, when my kids were babies, I bought yards of flannel and made my own cloth diapers. 

My Peruvian daffodils were blooming, and they make for such a pretty striking flower,

I’ve had a pair of Sandhill cranes in my pasture for the past week, and they’ve been upsetting the dogs with their calls. I love to listen to them.

I’ve been getting the jewelry bug lately. It’s been years since I made jewelry, and I have bins and bins of supplies, so I thought I would get everything out and give it a try again. My wire wrapping skills have suffered, but I’m getting the hang of it again. Here are some pairs that I have in my Etsy shop,

and some of my latest beads too,

I had to place an order with Double Helix, since they just released a bunch of new test batches of silver glass. I’m going to have fun playing with them!

Laying in bed watching Letterman, and one of his topics was Nik Wallenda walking the tightrope over the Grand Canyon. There was video of Wallenda on the tightrope and praying while he was walking, praying to Jesus, God and the Holy Spirit. I wonder if he thought he was going to be protected by all that praying, and I wonder if he has read the Bible, especially the verses about the stupid and foolish facing disaster, or maybe the ones about life being a precious gift.

Just my thoughts...

Almost a month since I posted?!? Just nothing to write about, I suppose. I’ve been busy getting pasture mowed and the garden mulched. The weeds have been outpacing me, as usual. The heat has moved in this week, in the 90s. Yuck!!

Just flower photos today, I’ve got amaryllis bulbs blooming,

I made a mad dash outside to get photos, and was attacked by mosquitoes. Here’s some lilies blooming,

and my grapefruit tree has blossoms like crazy, and they smell sooooooo nice!

I thought this was an orange tree, and had one single fruit growing on it through the whole winter, and about a month ago, decided it was ripe enough to pick, and was quite surprised to find it was a grapefruit! Oh, it was so juicy and sweet-tart. Hopefully it’ll have more than one this year. I’ve got a lime tree that is getting big enough to get some blossoms on it this year, I hope.

We’re jumping from mid-April (last week my furnace was still going) to mid-June, hot and humid. I don’t remember ever having such a cold, cloudy spring before. Last week I was shocked to see a huge flock of geese heading north. Usually I see flocks that big only in the fall when they’re heading south. The grass is certainly liking this weather though.

My orchids are loving this weather too, they’re still blooming like crazy, and here’s a new one that I got as a baby last year,

and I’ve got a pretty amaryllis bulb blooming,

and the birds continue to entertain me, here’s two of the dark boys fighting,

and last but not least, a very scraggly Indigo Bunting,

Continuing from yesterday’s post, a “documentary” about mermaids,
Animal Planet scores ratings gold with fake documentary
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NVgrOXVJ77M
Reminds one of Orson Welles’ airing of War of the Worlds in the 30s.

I really have my doubts about the human race sometimes.

A teapot at J.C. Penney’s sells out because if you squint your eyes and use your imagination, it looks like Hitler.

http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2013/05/jc-penneys-hitler-tea-kettle-sold-out-in-hours-because-this-is-the-internet/276334/

My mother would keep a daily journal, and when I was younger, I thought it was kind of a waste of time. What difference would it make if she went fishing and caught nothing, or if it rained all day.

But it rubbed off on me. Although I don’t keep a daily journal, I do write down significant things. But sometimes at the end of the day, I talk to my sister and get asked what I did for the day, and my answer is ‘not much.’ So I was thinking that maybe I should be more like Mom, writing every day, so I don’t feel guilty about doing nothing when I actually got a lot of stuff accomplished, and those days that I don’t do much, maybe that will be an incentive to get going.

Along with this line of thinking, I wanted to get an app that I could access over my computer and iPad. I tried Apple’s Reminders (can’t move tasks into a different order), ToDoist (wasn’t impressed with it) and Astrid. I liked Astrid, until I couldn’t get onto their website to check my tasks. So now I’m using Wunderlist, and it’s working very well. I can put in tasks, reorder them, and then check them off when I get it done. On my list for today is to list beads, get my dahlias and glads planted, four o’clocks started, and get down into the basement and find the box that has the rest of my bulbs that I dug up last fall!

ETA: Busy day!! I listed beads, planted a dozen dahlias, 50 glads, three tuberose, six packs of flowers that I bought over the weekend, did some weeding and mulching, chores, milked the cow since she’s in heat and the bull is keeping last year’s calves away from her so she’s really full of milk (and boy, is her milk ever yellow from being on fresh grass, full of beta carotene), washed dishes, did some tilling with the electric tiller since I don’t have gas for the big one, worked on my quilt block, and made a batch of quesa fresco cheese. I am done for the day, and am going to spend the rest of the evening in my recliner!

I have Baltimore Orioles, lots and lots of them!! The dark red Oriole is still here, and a couple of others that aren’t the normal coloring. There seems to be a wide variety of coloring this year.




It’s so much fun watching them squabble, and they’re quite noisy about it too. Here’s a couple of grosbeaks,
I had an Indigo Bunting, but didn’t have the camera handy, darn it! Here’s a movie of the orioles this morning,
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MICH6KgOCO8&feature=youtu.be

An exciting day at the bird feeder this morning!!! A scarlet tanager!!!! And the dark Baltimore Oriole came back with the rest of the bunch. I had six boys here this morning (seven if you include the dark one), and one poor female.

Such a bright color!!!

Wood stove going yesterday because it was so chilly, and today it got up to 94°. Bizarre! And this morning I saw the strangest Baltimore Oriole! He was a dark rusty red instead of bright orange.

This is the normal coloring:

I’m in 7th heaven!!!!! I’ve got 5 orioles at my feeder!!!!

Incredible pictures and video of the ice tsunami at Mille Lacs Lake over the weekend, http://minnesota.cbslocal.com/photo-galleries/2013/05/11/ice-surging-off-of-lake-mille-lacs/photo-357352/. This stuff was moving just like a lava flow, and piling up 30’ high. Really weird!!

Sheesh, freezing weather tonight, and forecast of 90° by Tuesday. I would just like a nice, normal, slow spring.

Cute picture on https://www.facebook.com/lists/10201268334056816 of fishing opener,

I am so excited, spring is finally here! Well, except for the next few days, in the 40s and 50s. But we had a few days of 70s and 80s and things are starting to pop.

Lilac buds that I’m hoping are going to explode into blossoms,

Sand cherries budding out,

and YIPPPEEEE, a Baltimore Oriole!!!! He’s all puffed up because he’s so darned cold!

Now that’s it’s warming up, I’m trying to get back into listing beads, so here’s some new ones,