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!’

A nice sunny day here, above freezing, and nothing to complain about being it’s Feb. 6, and my amaryllis are blooming! Such huge, colorful flowers. This is a Minerva,

And this is a new one I picked up from Bachman’s, Paris,


And some beads I just finished cleaning and photo’ing, just need to get them listed,

And I’m still on a murrini-making kick,

It really is amazing how putting clear over them (the ones on the right side are encased with clear) can really bring out the colors.

I don’t keep too many beads for myself, but gosh, I think I’m keeping this one,

I love orchids because the blossoms last so very long, but I love amaryllis because they are so very, very bright and vibrant. Here’s a couple that I have blooming right now,


Some new beads,

I’ve been getting away from making the big hole beads, trying to get out of my rut, and have been getting back into the small beads and focal beads,

I love, love, love Dark Aurae, but it’s so hard to work with sometimes. I really like getting the green shimmers, but it’s such a touchy combination of oxygen/propane, it’s really hard to get, so mostly I end up with just the blues. But they look pretty too!

Two years ago today David collapsed and we called the ambulance. Two days later, he was gone. It seems like a lifetime ago, so very, very long ago.

I am in a rut, and I need to make some changes, except I don’t know what to do. There are lots of things I’d like to do, get back into drawing/painting, genealogy, needlework, sewing, quilting, jewelry, maybe even pottery, but there’s this inertia built up like a brick wall.

Maybe I’ll go wash some dishes instead...

BRRRRRR! We’ve got the January temps, -15° with -25° wind chill. Still no snow to speak of, we just got a light dusting last night. This is not good for the plants.