Well, well, well. Time to blog. Such exciting things happening.
Around the homestead this week:
I get up one morning and take Denise for breakfast for her birthday and we decide to go to the Greeley museum. They have some cool stuff and then we head down to the research library. We ask for stuff for our little town and there is a ton of old articles and we have a great time going through them. Lots of stories and pictures of all the old buildings and stories of the boom town it used to be. We don’t get nearly through all of them before it’s late and we’re pushing out luck for not getting a parking ticket. It will be fun to go back and continue reading about this area.
I need to get up early this morning to get ready to go to the yarn fest. Wait, I don’t need to get up at 4:30. Why am I waking up so early and why do the cats think I need to get up this early I say “leave me alone” and stick my head back under the covers.
New little Squeaky is such a boy. I’ve never had a boy cat. They are definitely different. Every time I turn around I am saying, “stop dragging around the stopper from the sink, you are such a boy”; “stop scratching the chair, you are such a boy”; “stop spreading the litter all over, you are such a boy”; “stop pulling the drape ties off the drapes, you are such a boy”; over and over and sweet little Sweet Pea just sits and watches. She won’t go anywhere without him now though. They are buds.
Squeaky has outgrown his innocence
Well, now it’s 6:00 so I can get up It’s still dark though. I peek outside and it’s drizzly rain I can’t complain because we need it to quench the dry thirsty land. It’s been too warm, too soon. Wild fires destroyed a town two hours away. So sad. Two homes lost and barns full of farming and ranching equipment and the poor cattle. Surrounded by fire with no way out had to be shot and land owners losing all. Hay needed for the cattle who survied because the land is burnt. Thank you for the rain!!
We head out to the yarn fest and it’s really foggy and cold. Not supposed to be this cold today and not this soon. Sheep and yak and alpaca oh my!! Tons of cool yarn and stuff to look at. I pick up just a couple of things to spin and weave with and then we stop at a great BBQ place for lunch and then on back home. It’s time to light a fire. I haven’t had one in a few weeks it’s been so warm but definitely need it to kill the chill today.
We just went for an adventure to Nebraska to the Brown Sheep Wool Mill and I made a wool rug from the yarn I got there. Turned out pretty nice I think.
Next morning it’s still raining and drizzly. It was supposed to snow, then it wasn’t, then it was. Turns out it didn’t. Still really cold. A good day to stay in.
This week I lugged an entertainment center thing from down below. It’s my prize cash and carry $20 heavy wood cool old thing I bought years ago. When I get it up here I can’t get it around the corner of the stairs to get a straight shot up the stairs so I give up and call Denise. I’m sure it will take like 5 minutes to get it up the stairs. She doesn’t answer so I think she’s gone to town and that takes all day because of course we are 30 minutes from anywhere. I decide I can take the bolts off the outside and take the shelves and the outside up the stairs separately. Wow, this thing is really made well. These bolts are about 6 inches long at least and how many, Oh, I need to take out 15 of them. Ok, how hard can that be? I get out my ratchet set and get to work. Man, have I ever looked to see if there is a ratchet set that fits my drill? This is taking longer than I thought. I finally get the bolts out and then I take my rubber hammer and whack out the shelves that are so nicely fitted into the grooves. Ok, I am getting tired. Let’s just get his up the stairs and get it back together. I get it up the stairs and put the sides back on and then I have to lift the inside shelves and get them back in the grooves. Wow, they came out a lot easier than they are going back in. I huff and puff and finally get the shelves pounded back in and I get to work putting the bolts back in. Three hours later and sweating like a pig I finally finish. Right as I am almost finished the phone rings and it is Denise. “Hey, I’ve just been sitting here all day, I don’t know why I didn’t hear the phone ring.” Well, I have been needing to get that up here for a long time and now it is over Yea!!
Even though it’s a little dreary out I want to head over to Uncle Benny’s salvage yard. I hear it’s really cool and they have lots of vintage doors and windows and all sorts of cool stuff. I want to look for table legs to make a table to put my flat file on so I can maybe use it as a work top. When I get there I can’t believe what I’m seeing It’s a couple of acres of nothing but STUFF. Lots of beetle kill wood, old stained glass vintage windows, tons of old doors. The first thing I spy is an old half of a bedstead. There is a lone headboard that looks like it might have been a footboard. Nice heavy white iron with brass knobs. I have to take a picture and trudge all the way up to the front to show them because it isn’t priced. They name a price that sounds good to me so it’s mine. It will be cool in the garden with a vine growing up it. That is the new pollinator garden I’m going to put in. I sit and weave and look out the window so I decide it’s a great place for a garden to watch the birds and the bees (I am getting the hive ready to set up again and have my bees on order and just got all new frame foundations for my hive and now I need to decide where to put it – ok I digress). I see and old ringer wash and I just have to know how much it is. I take a picture and trudge up front to see how much it is because I don’t see a tag. Oh man, that’s cheap. I find table legs but they don’t do much for me so I don’t want them. I have to drive my car around the loop to go to where the washer is and they load it up for me. WooHoo. I get home and plug it in and the motor actually works. I haven’t fully checked it out yet but if it does work I can wash blankets with cat pee in it and if it doesn’t work I can use it in the garden and plant flowers in it or something. It’s totally cool. Picture to come later.
Recently I drug some stuff from my backyard up here that I will put in my new pollinator garden. My big shepherd’s hook and my Woodstock chimes and a cool art thingy with a ball that when it spins it looks like the ball is going up and down even thought it isn’t. My dragonfly bird bath is set out there now and it took me an hour to pound the shepherd’s hook into the ground. I hope it doesn’t take the wind five minutes to pull it out. Some birds have already found the bath.
I ordered 30 lilac bushes and a native plum tree from the conservation district. Every year I say I am going to order and I forget but this year I was on time (well, almost, the last day to order).
I’m sitting here contemplating what’s for dinner and Sandy calls and says there is a Rocky Mtn Oyster dinner in Grover for the FFA. Hmmm, do they have anything else to go with that? Yes, chicken (just in case). I head over to Grover with Jerry and Sandy and Ada and I actually eat a few. Not as bad as I thought they would be (if you don’t think about what they are). I had more chicken than oysters but thanks to all the new steers who sacrificed their manhood for our dinner. In the schools up here they have pictures of all the graduating classes back to when the school first opened. Ada showed me all of her grandkids, great grandkids and it went back as far as when her husband graduated so I saw a picture of him when he was 18. Her great grandson graduates this year the 100th year of the school so they are honoring the generations of the family that have gone to school there. Cool!
Along with the dinner is a silent auction. Now, I just love things up here the way it is just a different set of values and a different way of life. Some auction items are:
Kenworth t-shirt and bag; Murdoch’s bag; Welding gloves; Peterbilt pink t-shirt and hat; pliers (nice, I could use some of those big ones); a really nice knife with a bone handle; 2 alfalfa bales; Lead Ropes (no, not metal lead, lead ropes for animals); a jack; fishing rod; welding helmet; 2 rolls of barbed wire; trailer hitch; gopher bait; and last but not least, my favorite – an insemination syringe (I’m sure I could figure out a way to use this in an art project if I think long enough).
Well, the yard hydrant has sprung a leak in the line. My next big project is to find someone to come out here and dig a hole to China to fix it. Hopefully it’s not costing me much. I’m forming my own little spring. If I step just right I can see where the water is bubbling up. If it’s not one thing, it’s another.
How much more exciting can it get? Oh yeah, Connie and Jack’s goats had 6 sets of triplets and their final total I think is 32 kids.
Good thing tomorrow is a day of rest.
Patty's Old House 