Wet weekend

Wow, I am glad that I am not out camping in this weather. Cold and rainy!! There is a family that camps every Memorial weekend on the property directly across the river from our place and they must not be very happy being confined to their campers and tents!! I won't be surprised to see them pull up stakes tomorrow if it continues to be nasty!

This n that

Here are 2 of the knives Phillip has been working on and the rest of the stuff I have been doing.

Phillip has more knives, some finished and some not.

I put the wire wrapping stuff away for now so I can get some sewing done. Got a lot of mending to do, and i want to make another nightgown.

I did some transplanting of flowers this AM. Mostly dwarf marigolds and some of the flowers that came up from last year. Put some cactus cuttings out along the fence line. If they do as good there as the have in the front yard, we will never see the neighbors house even. I'm surprised the marigolds didn't frost when the garden did. They were along side the house and were probably protected.

Granny

You can't give up!!!

1. So you got frosted and may have to start over. Think about not giving up on the frost damaged garden just yet. This was a killer frost on June 26th a few years ago. I was ready to call it quits, but my neighbor convinced me to keep watering. Look at the picture I took of Ame later that year. The garden did survive and we had bumper crops.
   

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Been goofing off here on the PC too much this morning

I thought that I would just put in a quick blurb before I head on down to the Community Center. We get so much stuff donated to the center, you cannot keep up with it. They are putting in a Community Garden...well rather people who don't have the right place to grow stuff at their house can all partake in the WORK and cost of plants, etc and the Community Center provides the space and water!! People are supposed to donate some of their crop to the center to sell at the Farmer's market......we'll see how this goes!

Revolting development.

Be damn glad you don't live at our house right now. If you did your ears would be singed off. Phillip is cusing a blue streak.
We had another frost last night and lost most of the garden for the 3 rd time. Just put $27.00 worth of plants in last week. Hell I never seen it frost this late even up in Idaho. If this is global warming, they can have my share. I'm ready to throw in the towel on this garden thing. I can't afford to keep replanting. Pisses me off royally.

Granny

Someone should help me with my posting layouts, that was a miserable attempt at placing the photos and adding the text!!!!

A bird in the bush, is worth two in the lens.

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Can you see anything special about this

picture?

You have to look real close!

I was in the canyon today with Ginny, and noticed this Dove nesting in a broken tree.

Another day and without another dollar.

This is what I've been up to. Been dreaming up some new ideas for wire wrap. I haven't seen anything where the stone has been framed with an outside the stone frame so I decided to figure out a design to do it. Got some others that I haven't put into the pic, but will as soon as I get some more dreamed up to do. I have to get some new wire. I want to figure out a new way to wrap crystals.

Phillip and I went out panning after I got done with the Dr's . appointment last wed. We tried a new place not so far in this time. We found gold but not as much as the other place. Needed more time that day. We did see an area that had a bunch of walking sticks we might stop and cut the next time in. Unless there is someone parked there.

Granny

YEP...IT HAS BEEN AWHILE....

Hey there, geez it has been a while since I have been into the blog......guess I should pop in more often!!! Have to go into town today,,,,yuk...but the good news is....it is a pretty day so the drive will not be bad at all!!

Thought for the day.

With so many taxes, Your take home pay won't be enough to get you there.

Here are some other pictures of flowers that I took at the collecting place at Bagdad.

I know the middle picture is of poppies but have no idea what the others are.

Bill wanted to know what some of the other flowers were in another post. I commented there to his comment.

Granny

Canyon Work

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  In the canyon this morning, we had some of our rock scree moved to the floor, so I can get to it with a rented skid-steer. We plan to use this material to continue the rock wall in the center of the circle driveway. Also we have plans to finish the fire pit that I started many moons ago. If there is any left that I can get to easy enough, before I return the equipment I plan to block off the Wild Sandlins at the property line and keep them from driving onto our property and leaving their crappy autos in the canyon road. They may not be all that thrilled about it, but we are not all that thrilled about the trailer house that they parked 20 feet [no exaggeration] from our property line. They were caught by the county pooping in a bucket and dumping it in the woods, and because they were living in the place that had absolutely no running water or electricity, nor permits for anything, the county made them leave. The trailer still sits abandoned, after a year and a half. It's not lovely. 
• I wonder how the county found out that they were squatting,,,,,and leaving.  
  
  
  

Been Thinking. Trying out new Ideas.

Both Phillip and I have been brainstorming. Phillip has come up with some real neat stone knife (letter Openers?). He has made some real cool ones. He is still in the process of making some of them so you will all have to wait for pictures when he is done. He is also working on walking sticks. Gets too bored to stick to one thing very long.

I have been dreaming up some innovative new ideas for wire wrapping. The first one didn't turn out quite like I wanted it to but it's ok if you think of what materials I have to work with. They would work out right if I used gold or silver wire but to experiment I will stick to the cheap stuff.

I'm still in the designing mode but will take pics as soon as I have something decent to show.

This is the agave in bud.

Here it is blooming.

Thought for the day.

I think everyone should take time out to stop, look and smell the flowers.

Thought for the day.

I was just sitting here thinking.

Like a lot of people I sit here looking forward to the good old days.

Granny

Spring litter

When the sun shines here, puppies just want to have fun. I took the litter of three outside to play in the rock garden, and to get a few pictures. We have to take hundreds of shots just to get a few that we can upload to the websites where we sell them. 

This litter was Ginny's 2nd and the smallest litter we have seen here. She was artificially inseminated so that may be why there was so few puppies this time. Fuey wanted to do his job, Ginny just was a little bit intimidated for some reason this time. We decided to have our Vet do the insemination but waited too long, so we were only able to get that done once. We will be much more vigilant if we need to have that done again, and get her in a few times so we can up the puppy count. With a litter of three there is a few things that you have to watch out for. The biggest worry is that the puppies may get too fat, and cause a thing known as "swimmer puppy syndrome" where they get too fat to walk when the time comes. We limited nursing time, and we were constantly placing the puppies on their sides while they were eating. The idea behind that is so they don't become turtle shaped, flat on bottom and round on top. We also put several pairs of rolled up socks in the whelping pen so that they had to crawl over them and get that extra bit of exercise. Then we lowered the temperature so that they had to crawl around to find each other for warmth, more exercise. Now they are running all over the place, and pooping up a storm. They started eating kibble about a week ago, and stopped nursing a few days ago. 

The sable female has been taken and the two tri-color brother and sister are still available. The buyer of the Pick Of Litter, [POL] requested that we not remove the tail. In 44 puppies that is a first for that one. She is such a beautiful puppy that they will have some people wondering why they made that choice. I am just curious to see what a Pembroke will look like as an adult dog with a tail. Either way it was their choice, and when they wanted us to do that, we had them pay in full up front. They are happy we are happy and the puppy is happy so all is good.

Oh yeah,, by the way artificial insemination is a two part process, the second part seems like it is a job that I could do Okay. The first part,,,well let me just say it is as hideous as you may imagine. So the Vet goes home after a day at the clinic, and his wife asks, "How was your day honey" and he replies "Great dear, except I had to jerk off a Corgi."  yeah not a job that I could do everyday!

Thars gold in them thar hills.

The morning started out warm so Phillip and I threw the prospecting gear into the rig and headed to the hills to seek our fortune. We didn't know if the snow had all gone from the roads as you can still see the snow up in the mountains. We didn't encounter any snow but could see where trees had blown down all over the place. We were not even sure we would be able to go down the cow trail they call a road. Thought maybe there were trees down across the road (trail). Luckily some one had cut up all the dead fall for firewood or cut and moved the stuff they wouldn't burn to the side. Takes about 1 hour to travel 3 1/2 miles on this road. 4 wheel all the way. The first 2 pictures are of the river where we pan. This is called a river but being from where there are rivers, I call this a creek. The 3rd picture is the hole up higher on the bank where we get the dirt. Not a lot of gravel but lots of dirty dirt. Muddies the creek good when you pan. We got a lot of fine gold. Just put the fines in a bucket to work up at home. There were some small pieces and as usual Phillip got a picker. Not going to get rich at this rate but we had a fantastic day anyway. Sat in the lawn chair, ate our lunch and listened to the birds and the creek. A hiking couple came up[ the road and stopped to see how we were doing. There were birds I'd neve seen before. Tried to find them in the bird book but couldn't find them. Did know the tanager and finches. Some bigger birds that flew through but didn't land so I could tell what they were. Phillip got some pictures of some of the flowers that were out. I'll have to include them in a latter blog entry.

Granny

Lord of the Turkey Dance

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   Yesterday I took some pictures of the Turkeys dancing at my neighbor's place. This tom is so funny, he talks to my neighbor whenever he yells "gobble, gobble, gobble" at him. What a neat critter, so beautiful, but so damn ugly. I think that my neighbor would be happy if he would just stay in the meadow, and stop pooping on the patio. My neighbor's wife would be grateful if he would stop pulling all of her plastic flowers up and scattering them around the patio too. The other day I went over to take care of their dogs and this same dumb bird was getting into it with one of those decorative glass balls that people have in their gardens. I suppose that he was seeing his reflection in it, and was trying to act the bad ass.
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Mating Season

This morning I heard a lot of noise in the woods, and I noticed that there was a courtin' goin' on. The male Flicker came up and landed on the big birdhouse at the entrance of our driveway, and started to beat the drum. That guy can really rap out a rhythm, and he makes it loud. He followed this other Flicker into a Doug Fir tree and they started to dance. I am not sure if this is his girl, or his adversary. It appears to me to be another male, but I didn't get the chance to check between their legs or whatever one does when feather brilliance doesn't make it obvious. Come to think of it, I can't remember ever seeing a Flicker that wasn't as colorful as these two. Perhaps both sexes share similar feather fashion. 

The last fling.

I think this will be the last time we go out this way til fall. It was partly cloudy this day and we had a breeze so it didn't get too hot. Even with the breeze the no-see-ums were out and were winged vampires. Phillip had shorts on but I wore long pants. With the breeze they hovered closer to the ground and got your legs. They crawled up my pant legs and chewed me up. Damn bites itch for a week. As you see Phillip squats close to the ground when he digs so he got the worst of the bites.

As you can see I got a pile of the purple agate by my bag when Phillip took pity on me and came and dug more of the stuff from the hole. Had to dig this out of a basalt that was partly decomposed but still hard to pick the stuff out. I must have found something better than he did for a change or I'd still be digging the stuff. Phillip cut some of it up and threw it in the tumbler.

Good enough to hold the color after it is cut. Lots of sagenite in the agate.

Still snow up in the Bradshaw mountains. May be a while before we can get up there to try our luck at panning.

Although it has been hot on the desert, it has been cool up here. We lost the squash and melons for the 3rd time to frost. Have some planted in cups and I think Phillip said he was going to plant them out tomorrow. If they get frosted he will self destruct.

Been quite warm but breezy this week so far. Just hope it stays that way. Had the window open last night for the first time. Makes for great sleeping.

Granny

End of one season beginning of two more

Well the snow is starting to melt and I'm about to put away the board for the winter. It was a rough season with the busted shoulder but I managed to still salvage out a season this winter. It's ok though, because even though snowboarding is almost done (still got one more visit left on my Arapaho Basin pack) that means gold panning and fishing are right around the corner. I'm going to try to get more fishing in this summer. I pretty much spent most of my free time panning, not that there is anything wrong with that, but I didn't really get any hiking or fishing in. So this summer I'll try to hit more of a balance between getting the shiny stuff and other activities.