I've Consolidated!

I've consolidated!  I have moved most of the posts from this blog, and the other blogs I was trying to keep up with to one blog only!!!  You can now keep up with me at my main blog, and the only blog I will be posting at over here! 

Angel

She's not doing so well now that she's pushing 15 years or so (she was a rescue we're not really sure how old she is other than 14+ years), she's gone from looking at the bridge to now running towards it, I figure we have a few more days left with her tops.  I made her some food from scratch tonight and she gobbled that right up, so at least she has a full tummy.

Pepper Files: Hiding from the Dog

Pepper blending in with my natural dyed fabrics in a basket in my studio, hoping Oliver won't notice him.

Crushed Egg Shells for Compost

Crushed eggshells, approximately one a half gallons worth, I dare say my compost pile is going to be so happy!

Oliver Files: After the Storm

Oliver and his ball.  We experienced a large amount of hail today, golf ball sized hail and discovered Oliver is scared of hail!

Excuse the mess this is the "nest" he made today between the dining and family rooms, he's a very busy dog that loves to build nests and each nest requires shredded paper.  Yes he has a crate and a blanket for his crate but nothing rocks his world more than a fresh nest!

The hail was about the size of grapes when it first started falling.

Salsbury Steak

Home made Salsbury Steak with Mashed Potatoes!

Garden Plot for 2014

Half scale of what the actual garden will look like, we are moving our raised beds to the back garden this year and the space is 16x29 feet.  If I planned everything correctly I will have enough room for six raised beds and four trellis panels with enough room for a minimum of 16 tomato plants.

The green panel to the left represents the asparagus patch, at the top and the rhubarb bed to the south, yes my rhubarb bed really is that big!  The wedge on the lower right represents lawn, I have to account for the garden shed door so I can get stuff out of the garden shed.

And as I look at this sketch those two herb beds could be one large herb bed instead, lol. I'll probably rework the sketch several times as we start to move the three raised beds we already have, and then start building the other two raised beds.

I'm guessing this was a good  year for us to decide to start over from scratch with our gardening efforts.  Only one of the five blueberry bushes survived the brutal winter, haven't seen any leaf buds on the current bushes yet, and none of the strawberry plants survived.  Yep, a great year to start over!

Oliver Files ~ Sick Puppy

He's been one sick puppy today, am not sure what he got into yesterday or last night, whatever it was it seems to be slowly working it's way out of his system.

Mean while... back at the studio... I cleaned an area in my studio so I can pack up my artwork for a solo show I'm hanging this weekend.  You can learn more about this upcoming show at my studio blog.

Mom for Throw Back Thursday

TBT ~ Mom for Throw Back Thursday, taken sometime around 1976-78.

Snow!

It wasn't supposed to stick to the ground, they said... yeah right!

Oliver Files New Squeek Toy

A VERY blurry photo of a very happy Oliver with a brand new squeek toy that won't get lost under the china cupboard or the sofa!  All is well it's soft enough for him to squeek to his hearts delight!

Horsemint aka Bergamont

Bergamont aka horsemint.

Oliver Files: The Chair

If you ask Oliver the chair belongs to him, not me, he's not spoiled one bit, no he's not!!!

Spring has Sprung!

Angel and Oliver hanging out in the outdoor dog run last summer.

Remember all of the hard work John did last Spring to build up my raised gardens in the front yard, here is a photo from last year?  Well we are going to move them to the north garden because mostly we get more sunlight in the back yard than we do in the front yard.  

Soooooo, today began the long process of clearing out the north garden, John removed the fence posts, and the chicken wire fencing while I cleaned up all of the trash that blew into our yard over this past winter.  I also organized all of the fence posts, etc., and otherwise acted as his runner for tools and such, while Angel and Oliver hung out in the outdoor kennel.  

Hopefully next weekend I'll have new photos to share as we embark on this new journey, but we are both in agreement that we love the raised beds and this is the direction we want to go, that and a quarter or half CSA share which we need to make a decision on in the next week or so.  I will say that I was excited to see that my raised beds are completely thawed out, a minor miracle considering this years winter and the fact that we still have ice in the back yard!

Oliver Files: The Watcher

This is the hurry up and pick out those hexagons stare, he finally gave up and went to sleep.  He really wants to play with my fabrics, and trims which wouldn't be so bad if he wasn't so insistent on shredding everything.

Said hexagons, the smaller ones were dyed with natural dyes the deep red obtained using a turkey red recipe, the blue using indigo. See my natural dyeing blog for more information.

Belated Anniversary Present

Vintage ironware sugar and creamer, John bought it for me today at JB Knacker, I've been drooling over the set for months now.

Oliver Files ~ While You Were Out

I started to feel sick on Sunday, my early Monday morning it was obvious I had picked up noro virus someplace.  I'm only starting to feel slightly better today.  This is what Oliver accomplished while I was holing up in our bedroom with the cats.  He's been busy.

Oliver Files: Time Out for Oliver

Time out for Oliver, and of course Angel goes into his crate and won't come out so both got locked inside. He has a fascination with laundry, ie fetching it and then shredding it to pieces preferably while I'm on the phone. They both fell asleep in his crate.

Angel started nodding off at this point, she spent the last two years of Silky's life (our Weimeraner) sleeping in her crate with her so it's not surprising she's sleeping in his crate now.

Oliver Files 021914

He's practicing for his full time job as professional door stop!

He's uncertain as to which side is his "good" side.

The Oliver Files: Wanna Dance?

John and Oliver play dancing in my studio while I was stitching away and Angel observed.

Oliver Files: The Family Room

Or maybe I should say his play room?  This is what the floor looked like before I went to sleep last night, in fact the rubber chicken is still stuck to the chair, where he left it!  You'd never know that the day started out with the floor clean and all of his toys in the bucket.  Angel doesn't seem to be bothered by much of this so I guess all is good.

A close up of the rubber chicken stuck to the chair.  Oliver loves shredding paper, so we've learned.

Heart

More heart shaped potatoes.

Water Heater Woes

Well the water heater died sometime between last night and this morning.  I was a third of the way through my shower when I realized that the water was getting colder, NOT hotter!  It's rather cold here in Iowa in February and while yes the house is heated, I gotta tell you a cold shower in the winter is no fun!  It was a quick shower.


So this afternoon's activities involved going to Lowe's, I needed black duck tape for a journal project, so we could look at water heaters.  There's a LOT of choices out there on the market right now like do we want 20, 30, 40, 50, or 60 gallon unit, do you want it to be energy star ok I thought they were ALL energy star now but apparently not, what kind of warranty do we want, so on and so forth.


We came home w/o a water heater, no suprise there right?  I will be making some phone calls tomorrow morning, in addition to cleaning out the laundry and furnaces rooms to make way for the new unit, and the eventual removal of the old unit.


Until then it's sponge baths and cold showers!