I finished my drawing of a female red-breasted grosbeak. I’m not satisfied with the leaves, but I do like the way the bird turned out. Now I have to figure out what to do next.

The folks at Farmer’s Almanac must be gloating right now. The weather forecasters thought this winter was going to be warmer than last, but Farmer’s Almanac predicted a colder winter. We’re having January weather here, it’s -1°.

On the bright side, only another 5 1/2 weeks until the days start getting longer.

Am I getting old or what? Listening to the news this morning, Today Show sent in a reporter ahead of the snowstorm, and she said, “we should easily pick up more than a foot of snow, making this the first double digit snowstorm this area has seen in two years!”

Two years?!? Excuse me if I’m not impressed.

We were out yesterday getting outside stuff wrapped up, moving tractors, getting the stock tank moved and electric run to it, and got the bucket on the bobcat. That thing should make things a bit easier than they were last year. I sure am glad I went for the bigger bobcat that had a cabin heater. Sigh, they’ve been changing the forecast the closer the snowstorm got. Just a couple of days ago, it was 4”-6”, now that it’s started, it looks like we’ll be in the heaviest band, 14”. Today we’ll just hunker down and see what we end up with by the time it wraps up. I do have to go get the snowshovel, though, and get a path to the bird feeders, they’re flocking around, and the feeders are covered with snow.

My latest drawing is progressing nicely, I’m much more pleased with it than I was with the Baltimore Oriole drawing.

I must be getting old! I’m watching a rerun of the Country Music Awards and wondering, when did country music morph into rap and rock?

I’ll stick with Johnny and Waylon, and Alan Jackson.

What is it about a northwest wind in the fall sounds different than it does in the summer. A summer howler brings a welcome relief from the heat, while a howler this time of the year makes a person shudder. It just sounds cold and depressing. Winter is on its way, but at least we don’t have the snow that other places are getting, thank goodness.

I have some nice bird photos to show, a cardinal pair and a pileated woodpecker,


If you’ve never seen a pileated woodpecker, they are HUGE! About the size of a crow.

I had fun watching this cardinal. I have a hose running to a fountain, and it froze, leaving the bottom bowl covered with ice. The cardinal landed on it and was skittering all over trying to keep his balance.


Free entertainment, LOL!

I finally got around to listing some beads, and this is my favorite,

and some laughs for the day,

It feels like the calm before a storm, no wind, no birds (except the chickens) or insects (except for the flies). Just very, very quiet. The other day the wind was blowing so hard this guy really got his feathers ruffled.

Cleaning off my camera, I came across some flower photos I took last month,


The dahlias are all dug up now, ready to be packed in sawdust and put in the basement.

I was just amazed at this red-headed woodpecker! I wouldn’t have believed it if I hadn’t seen it for myself.

He pulled out a big chunk of suet

and hopped up to an empty hole at the top of the log, put the chunk into the hole and pecked it into smaller chunks.

I’m stuck on my Baltimore Oriole drawing, just something about the feathers I’m having trouble with,

so I’ve started working on a female grosbeak,

I’m liking the way this one is turning out so far.

What a gorgeous fall day!!! It’s sunny and a little bit of breeze and a wonderful 61°. The birds are enjoying it too.

It's that time of the year

October… winter is just around the corner, days are getting shorter and shorter, and I find myself craving pies, cakes and cookies. I made some pecan sticky buns the other night, and oh, they were soooooooooooooooo good! This winter I am determined to excise on a regular basis and lose weight instead of gaining it, in spite of sticky buns.

I was fully aware of the inevitability of limitations with growing older, but was not at all prepared for the pain involved. Whether it’s fibromyalgia or arthritis or whatever, I am having a hard time dealing with the pain. If it were just one thing, I think it would be easier, but I have issues with my back, my neck and shoulders, and then the sudden stabbing pains range from a deer fly bite to breath-stopping, teeth-gritting waves of pain. I get to go to a rheumatologist next month, yippee.

So far we’ve had a pretty pleasant fall, although we really could use some rain, as you can see in the photos of the cows at feeding time,

Suka and Pyr helping to get the cows in,

Such loves chickens, a bit too much, which is why he has a very expensive shock collar on him. Here he is in his stalking mode,

He’s intelligent enough to respond to verbal ‘don’t even think about it’ commands.

Speaking of chickens, we have a lot of multi-colored ones now, and they like to fly up to the deck railing to try to get to the bird feeders.

A pretty Joseph’s Coat bead on my Etsy shop,

and a chuckle for the day,

Indian Summer?

It’s a warm fall day here, the wind is blowing and the leaves are drying up. I don’t know what it portends, but we have a LOT of pine trees drying up and turning brown, even the big mature pines. I don’t recall seeing so many turning before, even in the drought years. We could use some rain, certainly. I’ve been watering my front flower garden because I plants some new perennials and bulbs. Much as I hate the hot weather, I do wish we could have another couple of months of this. I don’t think this is Indian Summer yet, because we still haven’t had a hard freeze.

We’ve got our wood and hay in for the winter, 50+ bales of hay and three-four cords of wood.

The mosquitoes and black gnats are out in force to get their last licks in. This big boy will be going to the butcher next month, and I won’t be too sad to see him go. He’s been sparring with Dexter, our bull, and I don’t want Dex getting hurt.

I was thinking this morning that I should probably take down the hummingbird feeder, but then I had a little straggler stop by, so I’ll leave it up for a bit yet. This is an earlier picture of a little girl preening herself,

I love storms, as long as they aren’t severe. The power of nature is always awe-inspiring.


The cat was sleeping on the kiln and fell off, here she was giving me the evil eye for laughing at her.

Some bead pics,



and funny Internet pics,

Simple pleasures of life: watching a baby goldfinch beg food from its parent, squawking and fluffing its wings and tail feathers.

Since it’s been too hot to work with the torch (or work outside), I’ve been spending time in the drawing room working on my Baltimore Oriole drawing. The feathers are driving me CRAZY!! I should have made the drawing bigger so I could get the details that I like, or smaller to cut out the details.
Too late now…

What a whirlwind of a month it’s been! End of last month Christian and I were out working on corner brace of pasture fence, I was pushing a pine branch out of the way, and it sprang back and a twig went straight in my ear and punctured my eardrum. Talk about freak accident! I went to Urgent Care and then to the my doctor the next morning, where he decided to have some lab work done on me. I’m deficient in Vitamin D again! Clearly my body isn’t converting sunshine to Vitamin D because I’ve been sporting a farmer’s tan from being outside so much.

I went to an eye specialist for a surgery consultation for strabismus. Five years ago she told me I would need surgery, and it had gotten to the point of not being able to walk without wearing prism glasses to see. The next week I had a pre-op exam, and the next week I had surgery. I really wait this ‘hurry up and wait’ business of going to the doctors. I sat in a side room, dressed in a hospital gown, no glasses so I couldn’t see anything, for an hour. By the time they walked me into the pre-op area, I was a nervous wreck (too many bad memories of when I was pregnant with Lukas and going through two stretches of inducement and an emergency C-section). Once they got the IV in, they were able to give me something to knock me out, thank goodness.

The surgery went well, the double vision is mostly gone, and hopefully by the end of the week I’ll be able to wear contacts again and get out of these glasses! LOL, I shrieked when I looked into the mirror the next day and saw stitches in my eyeball! Thank goodness they were the absorbing kind, and they’re pretty much gone now.

My big garden is a mess, just got too hot and too many things going on to keep up with the weeds. The gardener’s eternal hope, it’ll be better next year. My flower garden needs more color and more taming too, sigh. But I do have some blooms, Cleome,

a Copper King hibiscus,

and a couple of new hibiscus, a white one and a yellow one,

Some more bird photos, a hummer,

and Redwing Blackbirds,

We’ve got lots of grasshoppers again this year, which is bad for some of my plants and good for the chickens, because Christian likes to catch them and feed them to the chickens (can’t get any cheaper entertainment than that!),

A couple of new beads that I’m happy with,

and a couple of funny pics,