Trick or Treat!

A Gift From Friends

My dear friends from college blessed Jack and I with a gift certificate to the Lake Quinault Lodge.

We did all this and play scrabble! For those of you who know Jack you know that that in itself is a miracle.

We also had a delicious dinner..scallops, acorn squash, mushrooms and my favorite sweet reisling snoqualmie wine. I was sad that they were out of their creme brulee, my favorite dessert ever, but we had a yummy french rum cake instead.

Thank you friends!!!

Meet the Goats

The queen of the goats, leading them out to pasture. Try to ignore my loud, obnoxious voice.




Meet Frank, he's shy.
Here's Gabriel. He's the old man of the group.

Gophie, Ella named him. We got him as a baby after our wonderful Ahab died. Ahab, you will never be replaced!
But, we love Gophie too.

Little Zoe, she was born right here on our farm. Her dad was Starbuck who we had to give away due to his nasty behaviour.
That is her mother in the background, Dolly, the one with the little horns. She's shy too.
Now you are all better people after meeting our peaceful goats.

CHICKEN UPDATE!!

Jack has been growing his hair out and building a chicken coop. Yes, that is a pencil in his hair.

I drank a Bailey's milkshake to sooth a soul in hard times

Ella had a vanilla milkshake

We went to the fair and ground wheat,

saw some rear ends. Farm type bums, and even exotic bums.

>

And other unmentionable body parts

The coop was finished,

and the chickens released. They were in our house, in a room next to the dining room. Yes, I know, very hygenic. Unfortunately, it was the only safe place for them at the time. We lost six of them to some small hungry predator. He stole three of them when they were out in the stall and then, desperate, came back for more after they had been put away. He climbed into the box and killed two more. He couldn't get them back out of the small space he had squeezed through so that is where we found them plus one mangled one. I had to drown her. It was very depressing.

But, we were able to sell 14 of them and keep our healthy 5. Now, we think they are safe. They are right outside our bedroom window where we can keep an eye on them and we put them inside the little house part at night.

Isn't she pretty?

What's in the box?

This box arrived at the post office this morning. What do think it is?

You can find out the answer in this lopsided video. Yes, I thought I was improving the view by turning the camera vertically.



Here they are in their new home. They are Barred Plymouth Rock hens (hopefully hens!) 25 of them! We are trying the poultry experiement once again. But, this time we are older and wiser. We plan on selling most of them and keeping just a few for eggs. I think chickens will be a lot less messy than ducks.

Before we left them to go to storytime at the library I put the cover back on. It was a good thing too, because when I came back to check on them a big black hawk flew out of the stall. He must have heard them. He was just sitting there staring at them, to him they were tasty little chicky nuggets!

I knit something!

These are the booties I knit while on our Alaska trip. Ella picked out the colors. I messed up the first snowflake and did much better on the second. The heels seem to keep slipping off. I am not sure how to make them longer. If any knitters out there have some advice that would be wonderful. It is hard for me to think outside of the patterns. I just do exactly what the pattern says and don't know yet how to improvise. The fairy dress is from a cute store Elizabeth and I went to close to the BC US border. Yes, she likes pink, pink and yellow are her favorite colors.

my garden

I lost my steam in sharing my Alaska pictures. If you want to see more check my facebook page for those of you who have a profile there.



I come to share my feelings of victory. Today I finally felt that, though far from perfect, our garden is quite satisfying. My man has put hours of work into planting evergreens and laying out pathways of chips. So there are pleasant shady areas in the forest. He has nurtured our rasberries and blueberries so that they are yeilding a nice crop this year. My gardens in the front are overflowing with perrenials and I am pleased with my two rose bushes which are finally giving me large, bright, and fragrant blooms. Things look a little crazy, but, I find it beautiful, and that is what matters right?

Alaska to Washington

My sis-in-law Elizabeth and I travelled down from her ex-hometown Soldotna on the Kenai peninsula back to Washington state. 2800 miles and six nights. I will be posting a few entries with pictures of our trip so stay tuned if you are interested.

Here's E's car leaving Alaska and entering the Yukon.

The Animals We Saw

These are all out of chronological order and a couple on their sides because I CAN'T FIX THEM!!

ARRGH!

We saw many moose but this first picture is all we could catch of them on film. We even saw one with her calf....and another not 15 feet away as we were lounging in the Liard Hotsprings. One fox, a couple coyote, eagles and other birds of prey, one caribou, and some stone sheep are among the others we weren't able to catch on film. We saw many black bear including the mother with her two cubs. Jack and I didn't even see one on our honeymoon trip! The last one is an otter E spotted in the Yukon river while we were on a hike at Wolf Creek in Whithorse.

















Other types of wildlife included those pictured below. Found often displaying strange behaviour in cocoon type nests.

Happy Ella, Mad Ella

Here are some drawings by Ella and Auntie E.


Ella

Ella "mad at mommy"


Therapy? ;)