WOW, what a busy month it's been!  Husband was away working, then several truck repairs, two road trips, daughter had stitches in her finger.....whew!  I am SO ready to settle back in at the farm and get back to my regularly scheduled life!

This is the top of White Pass on the morning of October 14th.  My oldest daugher & I transported 28 show rabbits from our western side of Washington to the eastern side - over a mountain pass and into apple country!

 I, of course, had to stop on the other side and gather acorns!  I ADORE oak trees, leaves, squirrels.....Didn't see a squirrel, but gathered some fabulous HUGE acorns I can use in my craft projects!  Daughter was very decent about scrabbling around on the side of the highway with for nuts.

 My mountain.  I've always lived where this mountain was in view so I feel a part ownership in it, of course.
Mount Rainier is a massive stratovolcano located 54 miles (87 km) southeast of Seattle in the state of Washington, United States. It is the most topographically prominent mountain in the contiguous United States and the Cascade Volcanic Arc, with a summit elevation of 14,411 ft .  Mt. Rainier is considered one of the most dangerous volcanoes in the world.  
Not only that.....it's beautiful!

 A two day trip and back home we were.  For a week.  Then off to the Seaside went my husband and I in celebration of our 34th anniversary (which is actually not for a couple more weeks...)  This was the view from our room at the Oceanview Best Western.  We had planned to stay for 3 nights, but only made it for two before we had seen everything and since we can't sit still for long, we headed back to the farm! 

 We shopped our way through thrift and antique shops while we were gone and I LOVED this sign in one of them!

 The proprietor of the shop made all this faux food herself and it was stunning and very real looking.  We had to tip the soup bowl to make sure it wasn't really soup!!

 In between truck repairs and my daughter slicing her finger with a rotary cutter (ouch) and needing stitches, I worked on primitives again.  I think the selling season for Fall stuff is pretty much passed and now I'm making stuff for the winter and Christmas seasons.  Here's a frosty snowman......

 ....and a frosty snow girl.....

 A drawer full of jolly, happy, souls.....and an ice fishing snowman!

 I'm tired and sort of stressed from such a busy few weeks so I'm taking a bit of vacation from my, well, vacations and working on my art stuff which I find to be very soothing. 

This week I'm going back to my actual life, so I think I'll make bread, get my husband to butcher some rabbits so they can be canned and maybe I'll get to the pie cherries in the freezer and make pie filling.  We're going to need the freezer space in another month or so when we butcher a beef.

Our church service today was excellent and gave me some much needed encouragement and confirmation.  I'm glad to be home!

 Until next time............

Living, He loved me; dying, He saved me;
Buried, He carried my sins far away;
Rising, He justified freely forever;
One day He’s coming—O glorious day!   

Thanks for ordinary everyday stuff!

 God painted this on the top of the car in the night.  I don't know if it took Him all night (I doubt it) but I'm gonna guess that if I tried to paint this, it would take forever.  I like that He shows His amazing-ness over and over in big and small ways to me!  I often need reminding.....

I'm so thankful that God sent His only son to die for ME!

 I wandered outside this morning during chore time and admired all the FABULOUS FALL STUFF out there.  If it weren't so cold and wet outside, I'd just stay outside as long as Fall lasts, just to enjoy every leaf, every bit of color!

I'm so thankful for the beauty that is Fall.

 My Adirondack chair was a present from my incredible offspring!  They KNEW I have always wanted one and they managed to get it home and HIDE IT until they presented it to lil ole totally surprised me!

I'm SO thankful for my kids.

 This is my beloved chore wagon!  Have you ever tried to carry a gallon of milk any great distance?  Add a stainless pail or two, a milk filter and.....you have to set it all down and REST before you get to the house!  But NOT if you own a chore wagon!

I'm so thankful for my beloved husband who bought me this chore wagon!

 This is my home.  Doesn't it look inviting and homey and old-fashioned?  Aren't my trees adorable??  Can you see my espaliered apple tree? 

I'm so thankful to live OUT IN THE STICKS in this way cool house (do people say that anymore?)!!!

 This is Paxton.  Isn't her coat shiny?  It's kind of like a new copper penny.  She's a sweetie.  She's the most 'thinking' goat we've got.  She doesn't panic if something happens, but stops and thinks before she acts.  Wish I could be more like Paxton some days!

Thanks, Paxton, for being a lesson to me.

 I watch this tree in my yard every year as it changes color almost daily.  Then comes the day when the leaves begin to disappear....
So sad, but.....

God has promised that as long as the earth is still here, there will be Winter, then Spring, then Summer and then my beloved Fall will be back and I'll get to watch this tree again!

Genesis 8:22 KJV

King James Version

While the earth remaineth, seedtime and harvest, and cold and heat, and summer and winter, and day and night shall not cease .

 This is Marcail.  She is a funny bunny and she LOVES to play games with Mama (that's me).  Every day I feed & water her, pet her, and then we play this game with her toy.  I put it on her head and praise her profusely.....she'll eventually knock it off and we do it again (bunnies don't get bored with games easily.....I guess I don't either!). 

 This is a pecan pie.  You KNOW I'm thankful for this!  

(Easy!  Put 3 eggs, 1/2 cup sugar, 1 cup corn syrup, dash salt, 1/3 cup melted butter in a bowl.  Stir, then add 1 cup pecans, 1/2 cup oats and 1/2 cup coconut.  Toss it in an unbaked single pie crust and bake for 44 1/2 minutes (kidding) or so until a knife inserted comes out clean.  Make a fresh pot of coffee, milk a goat and fill the creamer and you've got a fabulous dessert!!!)

 Well, my wanderings came to an end and my camera ran out of battery, so I had to come in and get on with the mundane things of life (making the bed, vacuuming the living room...) and then on to making more primitives!  Today I'm doing finishing touches on SEVEN primitive rag dolls to sell on Ebay and a basket of primitive pumpkins. 

I'm thankful for Ebay, too.

Life isn't always easy and there's so much to distract us and keep us drained, unhappy, unhealthy.....But if you look around you, I promise that you can always find something to be thankful for - maybe where you least expect it!

Rabbit Show, Apple Pie Filling, Primitives & time for the First Fire!

 Here's what I'm all about today.  I went to a Rabbit Show last weekend and caught a cold!  So, I'm occasionally sitting down, reading one of the GREATEST authors EVER (Stephen Bly), blowing my nose (sorry) and trying to learn to TAT.  It's one of those things not too many people do any more, so I want to do it!  Oh boy, am I struggling and looking totally uncoordinated!!!

 This is hot cider.  Did I mention I have a cold?  I LOVE the way apples have a star in the middle if you cut them crossways!!!!  (This apple is a Liberty - one of the easiest to grow and very faithful to produce!)

 This is the scene of the crime......the rabbit show where cold germs were obviously lurking in the shadows and.......hmmm.  Why did I catch cold and none of the rabbits did?  Lucky buns!

 My good ole Elmira wood cookstove!  I love it!  She heats my house and you can cook on her too ;-)    p.s.  I have an electric range just like everyone else, but if the power goes out I'm ahead of the game!  Besides, everyone who knows ANYTHING knows that food tastes better cooked on a woodstove.

(In case you were worried, we do take all the stuff off the top and away from the sides when burning a fire.....)

 Last week we made apple pie filling out of some of our King apples.

 We're a great team - my mom works on dishes, my two daughters & I made the filling and canned it.  I think we ended up with a little over 50 quarts. 

 Easy as pie!  Or, as my Grandpa used to say...Easy as falling off a log!

 Of course we got hungry, so I made bagels!  Have you ever had fresh, hot, homemade bagels?  They are easy to make and FABULOUSLY delicious.  We split them while they're hot, spread generously with butter & our own honey.  Just add a cup of coffee and you are good to go for hours!

 Cayenne peppers.  They're pretty and they grew so I'm drying them.  I don't actually use cayenne peppers much.......

 In my spare (don't laugh) time, I'm making this quilt.  It's a pattern by Eleanor Burns called Hole in the Wall.  It'll have sashing in between the blocks, but I haven't gotten that far yet!

 Whipping out a few primitives, too.  I've done a few sets of squirrels & acorns......

 One lil rag doll............

 A few more bats..........

Then I bought myself a present on Ebay all the way from Bulgaria!  This is a small tin that used to hold sewing machine attachments.  Do you know what it says?  (A friend of mine at our Quilting group did!)

Answer:  Gritzner  (German sewing machine maker)

'Nuf for now.  Here's an encouraging word:

"Do not regret growing older. It is a privilege denied to many."

Fall is here and I love every minute of it!

 These are Pumpkin Scones - I found the recipe on the Mennonite Girls Can Cook blog and OH MAN were they delicious!!!!!  You'd better get right over there and scroll through the posts until you find it and make them right away! 

I'm totally into Fall mode now, and these were perfect with coffee and a 'Cinnamon Roll' scented candle on the table.....

I LOVE FALL.  Leaves, squirrels, acorns, Oak leaves, Maple leaves, pumpkins, quilts......

 This is Tunyr.  (Pronounced Tuner).  He is around 17 years old now.  He owns my younger daughter.  Years back, when both he and my daughter were younger, he caught and was bitten by a bat.  Because she is spoiled loved, we actually sent the bat to a laboratory to be tested for rabies, so that she wouldn't lose her ridiculously expensive beloved pet.  Fortunately, the bat was not rabid and Tunyr lives on.  And on.

 This is part of the view from my back porch, looking to the south.  The hill to the right in back is about 3100 feet in elevation.  The cool fir tree in the fog is mine.  I have claimed it and named it The Feather Tree.  It's actually Weyerhaueser Timber's tree, but it's on the property line and I love it more than they do :-)  I made a wall hanging of it (quilted) even.  Have they done that?  I don't think so.

Wasn't this a grand Autumn morning picture???

 This is a sideways picture of my weaving loom.  (?)
It was at my son's house and had to be moved, so I dismantled it and put it back together in my own sewing rooms.  UGH.  It was heavy and FULL of parts!  The good news is that it went back together with no parts left over, so I probably did it right. 

Soon I shall begin to learn the art of weaving.  When canning season ends.  And our building project is finished and my daughter moves into it.....

 I've had these pumpkin primitives started but not finished for awhile now, so today I got to work on them and got them listed on Ebay.

We occasionally traipse through our woods to gather moss, sticks, nuts, pinecones etc.  My younger daughter & I both have artistic bent.  My older daughter refers to it as 'gathering with nuts in May' and thinks we are just plain bent, forget the artistic part ;-)

Our woods is a wonderous place and we just beat the rains on Friday, gathering baskets of really nice

mosses, twisted sticks, hemlock & cedar cones.

Saw signs of bear, scared a flock of wild ducks out of the beaver dam and just missed running over a chipmunk with my truck, but that was the extent of the livestock we encountered.  The rains held off and we barely needed the 4-wheel-drive to make it back up to the house from our valley.....

I'm trying to learn to tat.  I think I've finally figured out the basic double stitch & picot.  I'll practice on that for awhile and then watch a few more YouTube videos & see if I can figure out what's next.

Well, that's it from this hilltop for today.  Tomorrow we need to make pie filling out of the 7 boxes of King apples we picked yesterday.  I'll try to remember to take a few pictures.....and make a pie while we're at it!

Fall is in the Air (and on the ground, too.....)

 Well, I would say "I'm back!", because it's been 12 days since I posted, but most likely no one would notice.  You know how some people stand out in a crowd or at a party?  Well, I'm a blender.  I blend with the scenery or the background.  Not necessarily a bad thing.....just sayin'.....

I love the twirly top on this sweetmeat squash.  The squash grew fine, but  it's been a weird garden year - too much humidity or something and lots of the veggies grew strangely or not at all.  

 We're not in danger of starving, however.  Fall has definitely set in, the rains and cool temps are darting in and out.  We're starting to plan when to put our beef in the freezer and where to park the hay equipment this year so it won't get wet. 

Today we canned up the potatoes that are too small to keep long.  The King apples are about ready to be pie filling but today is a cancer treatment day for my mom and a bit of grocery shopping, too.

 A fabulous use for leftover mashed potatoes (or in this case, ones that cooked a bit too long for canning) is to make Potato Cheese Puffs!!

Just mash up some cooked spuds with an egg, a little flour, some grated cheddar and garlic....drop by spoonfuls into your deep fryer (you DO have a deep fryer, don't you???) and keep warm in the oven until......

 .....you have enough for an ARMY and you've made sweet-n-sour sauce to go with and VOILA!  A delicious lunch!

Easy peasy, boss.

 We canned about 21 quarts of little spuds.  The sad thing is that the red spuds and the purple spuds all blend with the rest after they're canned :-(

This is Boris & Natasha.  I'm still making Fall primitives.  I LOVE Fall and wish it lasted for 6 months instead of just a couple three. 

Autumn, falling leaves, cooler days....pumpkins & squash, flannel shirts, warm sox!!  A bit of melancholy always goes along as we reflect on the changing seasons - both the calendar seasons and the changing seasons of life.

Psalm 118:24 says, “This is the day the Lord has made; we will rejoice and be glad in it.” 

Apple pie, canning salmon & other stuff

 I have a 'new to me' Newcomb Loom - the Studio model.  Apparently the factory in Davenport Iowa closed down many years ago after having made looms from at least the late 1800s into the early 1970s.  I finally located a really nice lady who is sending me the manual & instructions for it!  (Thank you SO much, Jeanne!!)

Try to say 'Newcomb Loom Co.' a few times and you'll understand why my family keeps laughing at me.....

 It's been kind of an odd garden year with the weather a bit off this year.  A lot of the apples have fallen off before ripening, but I did pick a basket full of Chehalis apples & a few Gravensteins and......

 .....oh yeah!   made a couple of fresh apple pies.  Is there really anything more delicious than fresh apple pie?   With coffee, of course.  It's good for breakfast, too!

 My husband has been enjoying the local fishing and keeps bringing home salmon to be canned or frozen.  I believe some are pink and some are silver.  All I know is they all take a loooooooong time in the pressure canner!  About an hour & 40 minutes, to be exact!

 We decided not to buy & can albacore this year, but to can the salmon since he's able to catch those. 

We did drive out to Westport WA on Saturday to buy a little cod & halibut and to play!  We walked on the beach - the temperature was around 76* and NO WIND!  For those of you not familiar with the Washington coast, this is practically unheard of!  Usually it is cold and windy on our coast line!  We had a marvelous day, ate a delicious steak dinner at Bennett's Seafood Restaurant and found.....

 .....not this............

 ......but this AMAZING find at one of the shops!!  I am SO thrilled with this one!  One one end it is stamped New York/Great Britain.  It is a shipping container that no doubt made its way by cargo ship from the Scotland factory with  a new Singer Sewing machine in it destined for a housewife in the United States!  Wish it could tell its story!

Maddie the chihuahua was unimpressed.

Then yesterday my mom, daughters & I decided to have a 'ladies shopping/lunch' day out and I found some fun primitives to work into my ebay primitive sales and decor.

We had a wonderful day together and now today it's back to the grindstone - housekeeping, cooking, sewing and more construction!