Been Craftin'

 Since the wind has been so nasty, I've spent the past two days making some cards for my mom.

 I found some pictures of desert sunsets and desert scenery on the internet and printed them out the same size as the first layer of my card.

 Used my Silhouette Cameo to cut out designs, distressed the card stock with Tim Holtz Rusty Hinge distress Ink and Stampin Up Cajun Craze.

 Mounted the pictures behind the cut outs, glued that onto some matching cardstock and then mounted everything on a folded card.

 I'm really pleased with how they turned out. My fingers are permanently died rust color. 

 After making 12 different cards, I'm kind of tired of Southwest.

 My mom will like them tho. She doesn't have the internet or email so she sends cards out by snail mail.

 Unfortunately, my computer decided to shut down right in the middle of some cuts, ruining a half sheet of card stock. It also cut off my cutting program so I lost all the designs I made for the cards. I swear I saved them but can't find them anywhere. Luckily I  literally have thousands of cutting files saved on a flash drive so I was able to make the last 4 cards and stay with my Southwest theme.

 My crafting mojo took a vacation after making all those flowers so it was nice to feel creative for the last two days.

 If the wind doesn't stop soon, I'm going to go crazy, run down the road naked, screaming. Not that it will matter since no one lives near us. The wind wouldn't be so bad if you didn't get sand blasted along with it.

 The wind sure doesn't help the garden at all. I ran into Show Low today to take care of some things and bought some yellow squash, some zucchini and a couple of cukes. Will plant them tomorrow. The checker at Walmart gave me the name of an ortho doctor in Show Low. Said she heard good things about him so maybe I'll give him a call.

Hmmm, got a little glue on the front of this one. Maybe Ma can send it to some one she doesn't particularly like, ha ha.

You should have seen Tilly and me last night. We were chasing a mouse all over the house. She kept trying to get into a desk drawer in the kitchen so I opened the door and a mouse jumped out and ran into the pantry. She was so focused on the drawer, she wasn't paying attention to me yelling " Here! here! Tilly it's in here!" Finally grabbed her and shoved her in the pantry and things started to fly. Harley decided to help so we were all running around, sniffing here and there. Well, the dogs were sniffing. I was yelling. Tilly almost got the mouse but it ran out of the pantry back into the desk drawer. I opened the drawer and here are two little beady eyes staring at me. We were both equally freaked out. By the time Tilly got back to the drawer, the mouse jumped out and ran into Pa's office and hid behind the file case. I gave up and set two mouse traps. After we went to bed I heard a SNAP and I gave a satisfied chuckle. This morning, both traps had mice in them. That makes a grand total of 11 mice caught in the house so far this month. I guess the word's gotten out that we run a nice mice motel. I put out 5 little boxes of D-con outside and they were gone over night. Honestly, I'm a clean person and have a fairly clean house. You'd expect all those mice in a hoarder's home, not in a new home. I bought 4 big boxes of d-con today which will go outside around the garden. I need to buy it by the bucket full until we get the mice under control. I'd like to get an outside cat but since the coyotes ate the last one, I don't think it would be worth it.

That catches us up for now! Ta Ta!

I DID IT!

It took me 1 year 7 months but I finally finished reading the entire Bible from cover to cover. This is the second time I've read the entire thing. I just wish I could have retained everything I read. As is always the case, my favorite books are Proverbs and Psalms. I've also been reading the book my daughter , Cathy got me, "Jesus Calling" by Sarah Young which I enjoy so  much. Daily nuggets to read and apply to my life. Now I have to decide if I want to start all over and read the Bible all the way thru again. Maybe this time I should take notes. I find the Old Testament to be so fascinating, just from the historical point of view. The main thing I got out of the Old Testament is that God is a God of second chances....and third and fourth. Those people of old kept getting rescued over and over by God and still kept turning away from Him and he kept taking them back. Thank God, he still does that today. I can't count the many times I've fallen off the path and got back on.

Got the garden all planted. Every thing looks so sad. The sun really does a number on the seedlings which is why they are covered either by shade cloth or milk cartons. It looks like I am growing milk instead of veggies.

 One of our snakes came out for a visit. I should put him in the house so he could eat the mice. We've caught 9 mice in the house this month! Aren't they supposed to go outside in the spring and do mice things? The other morning I went to use the guest bathroom and found two mice in the toilet. One drowned and one looking up at me with those beady little black eyes. I just flushed those little suckers right down the pipe. May they rest in peace!

 Anyway, the snake lives under one of the containers. We have 3 or 4 of them now. They are so beautiful.

 Even tho everything is covered, all the plants look so sad. The milk cartons act like a mini green house plus shade the plants. Once they get a good root set going and get used to the sun, I'll take the milk cartons off and then the mice and birds can eat them!

 My strawberries are doing great so far. They've been covered with a shade cloth since day one so haven't suffered sunburn. They are getting blossoms on them so hopefully we'll get some berries before the mice get them. I'm putting D-con in the garden today so hopefully the critters will die before anything ripens. I've gotten to the point where I don't care if the Towhee birds eat the D-con. I was planning on shooting them with the pellet gun. They are fun to watch but so destructive in the garden.

 Good thing we save our milk cartons all year long.

 There are some pepper plants and broccoli in here. I planted some other peppers and cauliflower in another section of the garden and put some shade cloth over it. The wind came up and blew the shade cloth back and forth which acted like a lawn mower and cut them all down. End of those poor things. Gardening is so hard here in NE Arizona. If the sun doesn't kill your garden, the wind will. You also have to water every single day since it is so dry here. This may be my last garden unless we get some kind of hoop house and some decent gardening soil.

 I made this lattice thing to hang some plants from so the mice and rabbits would leave them alone. I got the planters from Dollar Tree. I think they are waste buckets. I cut some wire to form handles which I looped over the lattice. There are Petunias, Marigolds and some Nasturtiums. I hate to see everything die over the winter so bring a lot of plants inside and baby them. I got so tired of watering all those plants so may just let nature take it's course this year.

 Finally the lilac bushes are looking healthy in their little prisons. Everything you plant here has to be protected by some kind of barrier to keep the critters from devouring it.

The spiderworts are doing great. I transplanted these a couple of years ago from the field next door. Without the cages, the rabbits would eat them all. I read that people can eat these also.

The fence is all finished in the front of our property. Pa and I worked out butts off and got it done in less than two weeks. The gate is gone from the road. We heard we are going to get another letter from the POA because after we took the gate down, we temporarily put a chain across the road to keep the cows out while we were fencing in the front. Wouldn't you think they would know it was only temporary when they could see we were fencing in the front? Pa and I drove all over the north side of the ranch and found all sorts of properties that were not in compliance with the CC&R's. Just about anyone who fenced in their property, put the fence too close to the road. We took pictures and notes and are planning to do the same on the south side of the ranch. Then after we get our letter, I want to see an attorney and have him write to the POA and ask them to provide him with a list with other properties they targeted just to make sure we aren't being singled out for personal reasons. Our POA president says there are no exceptions which makes him the biggest hypocrite because one of his properties is a dumping ground, covered in old dried up wood that is blowing all over the ranch and is a terrible fire hazard. The CC&R's clearly state that you can't use your property as an uncovered storage area. He tore down a bunch of buildings and dumped all the wood on one of his properties. It's been there so long, it's useless and all dried up. We got lots of pictures of that!

I've been having trouble with my right knee. I can hardly put any weight on it. It's not the front of my knee but most of the pain is in the bend of the knee. Last night, my right calf was pretty swollen. I've tried ice and heat. The heat gives me the most comfort. Sometimes it feels like the knee is going to bend the wrong way when I walk. The front of the knee is swollen a bit also. I'm too old to be in pain so , yes, I'm calling for a DR. appointment. You know, I have to be dying to call a Dr. so you can imagine how much this hurts.  Plus Pa is tired me limping around and groaning in pain.

Lets see, what else is new? I got a hair cut this past week. My hair was so damaged and dry, the stylist said I really needed a hot oil treatment. She also said I need to come in every six weeks to get a trim till all of the split ends are gone. She asked when I last had my hair cut. Professionally, it's been years so I told her I whacked at it a couple years ago. She just shook her head. I don't have any pictures but it is basically a long shag. She cut about three inches off the back and layered it. Gosh, it feels so light now! I hated to get it layered because my main goal was to get it all one length so I could braid it and forget about it. Ah, the price we pay for beauty!

Pa really got after Tom the other day because of his AT&T phone. You can barely get two words out and lose the call. He has to stand on top of his 5th wheel to get a signal and that's iffy. Pa finally blew up and told him what a cheap @$$ he was. He is on his sister's plan which cost him $10.00 a month. We've offered and offered to put him on our Verizon plan. With taxes and all , it will cost him $14.59 a month. He finally agreed but I told him I wouldn't do it unless he let me buy him a phone like ours which is a 3G Barrage phone. It is heavy duty, lightly water proof and works all over the ranch.  I just got one for Pa off of Ebay. He agreed so I bought one off Ebay for Tom and it should arrive shortly. He refuses to keep his phone on because he doesn't want to be bothered by the world. We told him to just not answer if he doesn't want to talk to anyone! Plus it is harder on the battery to turn it off and on. One nice thing about the Barrage, it charges up in 15 minutes and stays charged for a week or more being on all the time. I'll have to ask the Verizon people to give him a pep talk. Pa has been helping Tom to get his truck fixed. He hasn't had any transportation for a month. He ordered parts and apparently needs more parts so ordered them yesterday. We took him to Show Low with us Wednesday so he could buy groceries. When he goes alone, it takes him the entire day to shop and he gets home after dark. That's only visiting 3 stores! When I go, I get there by 8 , visit 6 or 7 stores and am on the way home by 11:30 a.m. He can't believe it. But then, he has to compare every price, talk to every person he sees, compare more prices ( this bottle has 30 pills, each pill lasts for 4 hours is is such and such a price. This bottle has 20 pills, lasts for 6 hours and cost such and such a price. Which is the better deal?) Imagine doing that with nose spray, this bottle requires one spray up each nostril, this one requires 2 sprays up each nostril, this one has x amount of liquid in it and this other one has x amount of liquid in it and this is the price. If I shopped this way, I'd hang myself!!!!!  Ya gotta love him tho. He's really funny and entertaining and is a good friend plus being my garden mentor.

Well, friends and family and who ever else reads my blog, that's it for now. Yak at ya soon!

Shanty Town Garden

First of all, I just had to share this picture of my Grand-daughter, Sarah. Isn't she just beautiful? She was all gussied up to go to her boyfriend's senior prom. Seeing this picture just took my breath away.

 We have our first hummingbird of the season. I can hear you thinking, "Oh no, another summer of hummingbird pictures!"  Ha, ha, you are probably right.

 Since this was the first one, he/she can claim property rights and spend the entire summer chasing the other hummers away. We've already seen another one. Pa said they buzz his hat that has a red brim when he is puttering around outside.

 We tore out part of the garden fence to haul all the sand out of it. Wayne came over to drill some holes with his auger to help Pa fence the front of the property to make the POA happy. I asked him if he would take a few minutes to scrape the sand out of the garden.

 You can see how deep the sand is by where the shovel sits in the ditch where the fence was.

 Kind of hard to get any sense of depth, but just think at least 6 inches deep.

 We wanted to just scoop some sand  up but Wayne had other ideas.

 He used the back end of the tractor and scrapped out way more than 6 inches. A lot of my garden soil went with it. He dragged it over to the field. So I am back to square one with the garden.

 He dumped a couple buckets of horse poo in after he was done. I raked it all over and will roto till it after we get the front fencing done to our property. Won't do much good to plant yet because it is supposed to freeze tonight. My new strawberries are really doing well tho. If it freezes, my asparagus will freeze again.

 We decided to line two sides of the garden with corrugated roofing, hoping that would keep some of the sand from blowing in. Not too pretty but if it works, I don't care.

 Remember when you were a kid and went on Sunday drives and you would see junk yards or those road side zoos? They were always surrounded by corrugated roofing, rust and all.

 Pa said it reminded him of Shanty Town so I will have to make a sign saying "Shanty Town Garden".

With my expert help......we got two strands of barbed wire strung on the short side of the fence along with rehanging the gate. It now goes across our drive way. We are going to keep it locked and give keys to a couple of friends. Don't know what is going on in Wayne's head but as soon as he drilled holes for the pipes and rail road ties, he took off like he was on fire. I had planned on inviting him for dinner but he didn't even stop in to say bye. I told Pa that I felt weird feelings coming off him in waves like he really didn't want to help or even be here. I think the only reason he helped was because we've done so much for him. People are so strange out here. One minute they are your best friend and the next minute they don't want to have anything to do with you. I told Pa I am done helping people. DONE, DONE, DONE. Ok, there are a couple , three exceptions but I'm done being used.

 For the past couple of weeks, I've been making a bouquet for my mom for Mother's Day. Everything except the Spanish Moss is made from card stock, even the ferns and vase.

 I've got it all wrapped up and ready to send. I'll probably faint when I go to the post office to mail it but heck, my mom is worth it.

All the flowers were so time consuming! I got to the point where if I saw another flower, I was going to scream! But I had to keep going so I had enough to fill the vase. I hope it goes thru the mail ok. She may have to fluff the bouquet out a bit.

Pa and I celebrated out 18th wedding anniversary on the 26th of April. We made each other a card and neither one of us even put it in an envelope. Celebrated is stretching it a bit as it was just another day in paradise. He did his thing and I did mine. I cooked dinner, he did the dishes and that was that. Having never been married this long, is this normal? Oh well, it works for us.

Since starting seeds in the house, we have little fruit type flies all over the place! They came with the planting soil. I will be so glad when I can plant everything in the garden and get it out of the house. Usually I put a flea collar on top of the soil and that kills them off but we have so many trays of seeds, it just isn't possible. So when the time comes, I'll gently take the trays out side along with the majority of the flies and that will get rid of a lot of them. I usually bake the soil in the oven first but I had too much soil and didn't want to take the time to do it. Maybe we'll get a bug bomb and set it off in the house after I get the seedlings planted.

Poor Pa, this fencing business is exhausting him! We have to get it done as soon as possible so the cows can't get in and eat my fruit trees. The cows have so over grazed the ranch, there are very few places that still have any grass standing so I know they are just waiting for the chance to come and eat ours. Not as long as I have a pellet gun and Pa has his sling shot!

Alrighty then, that catches us up for now. Toodles!