Goodbye November!

     Golly, gee whiz, November is gone already! It was a rather quiet month. The day before Thanksgiving, I made 36 deviled eggs, two pumpkin pies and a blueberry pie. On Thanksgiving we had Wayne and Tom over for the traditional Thanksgiving dinner. Which I must say was delicious, even if I did make the whole thing myself. The two bachelors went home with a big doggie bag and the next day, the dogs got the left over turkey. I can't stand the taste of left over turkey!!!

    Tom and I went to Flagstaff on Monday to pick up the pump and other things needed to complete the repair on the community well. For a man, Tom is fun to shop with. He likes to browse, even in thrift stores and craft stores, so I didn't feel rushed. I found some Costco cookbooks at Saver's. Have you seen those? You don't have to use Costco products. I donated a bunch of stuff to Saver's including two boxes of Cooking Light magazines. I've subscribed to Cooking Light for almost 25 years and have only cooked three things from it....but I have saved those darned magazines, just in case! I have more boxes of them to donate as soon as I find them. Anyway, our next stop was the Goodwill Weigh and Pay. We had so much fun in there! I usually can't find a thing but I hit the jackpot this time. Each of my dogs got a new stuffed animal, I found some old Readers Digest books that I needed for a craft project ( I'll probably read them first). Oh, some gorgeous dinner plates that will go in Wayne's Christmas gift, (we're on a budget here!) a huge flat bowl that will end up as either a bird feeder or bird bath, a set of silicone baking mats which I will use in the craft room because glue won't stick to it and a Hoover Steam Vac with all the attachments. And it works! And it only cost $8.00. See  why I love the Goodwill Weigh and Pay? Most of the stuff, you pay $1.49 a pound but the heavy stuff has extremely low prices on it. Tom found a couple of things to buy also. We had a yummy lunch at Sizzler and then headed for Joann's and Michaels. This will be hard to believe but I didn't find much at either of those places. Does that mean I have enough craft stuff? Is that possible? Tom wanted to tour Old Town but we ran out of time so maybe we'll do that next time.

  Today the guys, Pa, Wayne and Tom are at the community well pulling up well pipe and the old pump. This has been the longest project! If our POA president had kept his nose out of things, it would have been done months ago. But he is a control freak even tho he doesn't know diddly about most things. They had gravel put in all around the driveway around the well so trucks won't sink during the wet weather. So hopefully, we won't have to go to town everytime we need water within this next month.

   I can't begin to describe our weather. It freezes at night but the days are in the 60's. Sunny days, clear skies, lots of birds at the birdbaths. We've seen so many Robins this fall plus both Western Bluebirds and Mountain Bluebirds and two red shafted Flickers! And Blue Jays, Juncos, house finches plus those pesky towhees and doves. One night I left the garden gate open and the next morning, Pa saw 10 rabbits in the garden, 10 in the front yard and 5 in the back yard, all at the same time! Where's the gun? Those cotton tails make mighty fine eating.

    Speaking of eating, I'd like to find some sort of class that teaches ya how to find things that are safe to eat off the land. Don't think I'll find anything like that around here. Obviously the ancient Indians found things to eat out here. Ha, I can just see Pa eating something I found in a ditch. Did you know you can eat baby tumble weeds? You cook them like spinach. Last night we invited Wayne to eat with us. I made spaghetti, salad and garlic bread. I have some spinach, artichoke spread that I put on my garlic bread before I broil it to brown the bread. Wayne tried it once and said he liked it so I had been putting it on all the garlic bread for the both of us. Pa wouldn't let it touch his lips. So last night I mentioned that I was going to put it on our side of the garlic bread and Wayne got a funny look on his face. Turns out he hates the stuff and can't understand why I find it so delicious. He was just being polite all those other times. Pa had a good laugh over that. I told Wayne I really appreciated the fact that he was willing to try something new whereas Pa would cut out his tongue before trying anything unusual. All thru dinner Wayne made comments about the bird poop on my garlic bread. Good thing I have a good sense of humor. I even shared some of my Lindt chocolate truffles with him for dessert. That's another thing Pa won't eat. Who in the world doesn't like chocolate truffles?  One of the reasons, I've lost my love of cooking is because Pa is a meat and potatoes man and won't try new things. I get tired of making the same old things over and over. I guess the reason I buy cookbooks is to look at all the things I can't cook because Pa won't eat them. That is one of the reasons, I won't be renewing my subscription to Cooking Light. Every time I found a recipe that looked delicious, one of the main ingredients was something Pa won't eat......like mushrooms.

    Craftwise, I'm in a grand funk. I'd like to make some Christmas decorations but why? We probably won't have a tree this year. When there are no kids around to share Christmas with, and no presents to put under the tree, it seems like a waste of time. Of course the kid in me really wants a tree so we will see. And the kid in me would love to have presents to unwrap. Unfortunately I married a relative of the Grinch who never gets in a holiday mood and would just as soon ignore all holidays and birthdays. Guess I'll never get rid of the kid in me and I really don't want to anyway......so there!

   Sorry , no pictures this time. I did take a picture this morning of the full moon so maybe I'll post it next time. I'm off to Holbrook this Sunday to spend the day with my BF Katie. Can't wait to see her and have some girl fun.  Until next time......

Snow and playin in my craft room

 We got a bit of snow yesterday. And we woke up to this today. It was so pretty.

 A view from the back yard.

 Part of the front yard. Now that it's the afternoon, the snow is all gone. It was a great morning to play in my craft room. As a matter of fact, I got so busy, I forgot to put makeup on or curl my hair. Pa came in awhile ago and commented about the straw sitting on top of my head.

 I've been making Christmas decorations using cardstock and spray glitter.

 I put the decoration inside of my trash can to spray the ornaments. I finally had to leave the room because I was about to be overcome with fumes!

 I really like how they turned out.

I bought a file similar to this card and the pine trees were so close together, when I cut it out, they turned out like fuzz so I just made my own version of it. Spent way too much time and don't think I will cut out any more.

 Just finished making this get well card. I found a picture of one on the net and made my own cut files. I'm just tickled to death on how great it turned out. I'm usually not happy with what I do....my own worst critic.

Guess I had better do something with my face and hair incase someone stops by. I'd hate to scare them to death!

Play Day

Yesterday my dear friend, Katie came over from Holbrook for a play day in the craft room. We made Christmas ball ornaments.

It is so easy! You buy clear ornaments, take the top off,pour in floor wax and gently swirl it around until you get the entire inside coated, let the floor wax drip back into the bottle of wax. Then you pour glitter into the ornament, swirl that around until the entire inside is covered and then pour out the glitter into it's container. Snap the metal top back onto the ornament and Viola! you are done. You can decorate the outside with vinyl decals, mod podge designs on, use stickers or just leave them plain. We ended up making them on the dining room table instead of the craft room....more elbow room. Lordy, we had glitter everywhere!!!! It was so much fun. The bigger one on the right side is a flat round one so I think I will make it look like a pocket watch. Katie brought a box of greeting cards she made to show me. We showed them to Pa and he acted impressed. He must have been because he mentioned them again this morning and said how nice they were and how professional they were. I'm trying to get her to put them on her blog so she can sell them. If she does, I'll let you know in case you want to buy some lovely cards. Let me tell ya, she's better than Hallmark! One talented lady. Her blog is KtsAngels and you can click on her icon on the right side of my blog to see what she is up to.

Last week, on a nice day, Pa and I took the Granniemobile and went exploring. We found a mini Indian village, probably just a clan spot and explored a bit. You could see where the hogans/houses must have been because there were stones formed in a large circle. There were about five or six of them in the surrounding area. One thing Pa noticed is that each mini village has their own pottery designs. The area just three or four miles away from this spot had different designs on the pottery shards. I should have taken pictures but didn't. Some designs must be universal because there are some of the same designs every where we look but the rest are unique. We drove along a deep wash to see if anything interesting was down there and found a coyote den with fresh tracks.

 Also saw this tree with it's roots exposed. Hard to imagine that at some point in time, the water rushed thru this wash and washed all the dirt away from the roots.The wash is probably 12 to 15 feet deep. Juniper trees must have a strong will to live! They get by with very little water.

 The next day, we went out exploring again and found this petrified tree trunk. It was at least 15 ft long. Imagine how many years it's been laying out here! Just when you think you are the first person to walk around in this spot, you find a beer bottle or an old can.

 Here's more of this tree or maybe another one. It was all in the same spot. We just left it there since we didn't need any petrified wood.

 Besides that, it 's nice to leave it for someone else to find.

 I call this the Stonehenge of Woodland Valley Ranch. I really expected to find a fire ring or some type of Indian artifact inside the circle but there was nothing except a packrat nest inbetween two rocks.

 Not a rock in sight within a mile and here are these huge stones sitting in a circle.....amazing!

 You can never be bored here at the ranch. There is always something to see and explore. Honestly, I could do this every day of the week and never get tired of it.

Another amazing site is a tree growing out of a rock formation. Very little soil but the will to live is so strong, the tree finds enough soil to grow. I think there might be a lesson here!

Woke up this morning to clouds and we got a little rain. It is still cloudy and maybe a bit of snow is expected. I don't care! I can always spend those snowy/rainy days in my craft room.

The mice just about destroyed my lilac bushes so Pa and I built metal hardware cloth cages around them with tops. The hardware cloth has quarter inch holes in it so I don't think the little bastards can get thru it but they sure will try. Heck, I had rabbits knock over the little cages I had around my wild yellow daisies so they could eat them. I really need to find some horse troughs to plant my flowers in, ya know, the long skinny kind. Wayne is thinking of getting rid of his horses so maybe I can talk him out of his. Hay has gone up to $16.00 a bale!!!!  The ranch has rabbit brush and snake brush all around which is poison to horses, it eats their brains so he can't let his horses free graze. The vet said that is probably why both horses lost their colts. They got loose for a couple of days.

Are ya ready for Thanksgiving? So far, we are having Tom and Wayne over for dinner. I'm going to invite another couple over also. Why do I do this when I hate to cook?????  It's a good thing turkey and dressing and all the trimmings are so easy to do.

Oh my, now the wind has come up and sand is blowing all over. Maybe it will blow the rain and clouds away. Good thing I didn't dust the furniture recently. The dust and sand manage to find its way inside no matter that the windows and doors are shut tight.
Until next time!