Way out in the Middle of Nowhere

Ok, it's a usual day here at the farm. Chores are done, animals are fed, and knitting is commencing while I start working on a few things. I've been working on extending my family tree a bit more. Whatever I had done was left pretty much in the air about 8 years ago. We had a years' subscription to Ancestry, but couldn't afford to keep it. Now, there are a bit more free sites that will help you without having to pay up $70 to see them. The two parts of my tree that were stuck were on my Mother's side. The Laws' side was stuck in Kentucky at the start of the 1900's. Now this might be fine for some, but come on! I've gotten one part of my tree back to the 1500's.  So I started searching, using the LDS website. Back when I started, the only persons in their database were ones 'sealed' to their faith. It's a part of their religion: If you become a Mormon, all your ancestors were 'sealed in the faith' -or baptised in Mormon. Many ...

I've been hearing a lot of whining from people these days about this or that offending them. Here's the deal; your offensiveness is yours. No one needs to change to keep your petty little sensibilities from being nicked. YOU are stronger than that! After you read this, go look at yourself in a mirror for a while. Heck use your cell phone if you have to, but LOOK at yourself. YOU are the result of thousands of years of survival.  Your ancestral parents have survived many things for YOU to be where you are. There were three pandemics in the world over the last 700 years. One wiped out about 50 -80% of the world's population. No, I didn't say just *one* area...THE WORLD LOST UP TO 80% OF THE PEOPLE.  Had one of those  people been your ancestral parent before you were born? You wouldn't be here. But the Bubonic Plague reared it's ugly head a few more times over the millenia. In the 1600's it hit England again, decimating 30% of the population. Yet, your a...

That's Nellie trying to get straw for her nest. Yes, I've got a channel on Youtube. It has some of the best videos from the farm on there. I've been on vacation for a few days, kayaking on the Wisconsin River. It was nice. But it's time to get back to the farm. More later!

So one day my honey were out fishing and talking and we hit upon someone else idea of fun. I said, "I understand it, I just don't 'get' it." to which Dave gave me that look.  I said that while I understand the jist of whatever it was, I just couldn't understand how people would actually make a hobby out of it. Trust me, there's a lot of that out there. Now, this is not in any way demeaning these interests, but realize that other people find it just not to their liking. Things that I understand, but just don't get: 1. Fantasy Football  - I call it "D & D for jocks" 2. D & D 3. Golf  - a lot of money to hit a ball around mowed grass. 4. Raising miniature - dude, if you can't ride it, eat it or have it mow your grass, why even raise it?  5. Blinging out cars/trucks/semis - This one will tick off my Dad who would chrome his whole semi if he could but...............why? 6. Scrabooking - I know, but it just smacks lf "l...

Vicky is the kitty on the right, sitting with her pal, Tigger. Sad to say, but I had Vicky put down yesterday afternoon. She was such a good girl, and I miss her already. She was born under the deck of the next door neighbor back in '99. We lived in town back then, and Tigger had a friend who was a stray cat we called Skank. Tigger was about 6 months old, and would jump in and out of the house via the kitchen door. There was a window missing on the bottom pane about 3' off the ground that I had not gotten around to fixing by then. So Tigger and Skank would jump in and out of the house, grab food and wander the neighborhood together. One Saturday Skank was acting oddly; jumping in and out repeatedly. I went to see what was going on and lying there in front of the door on the outside with this little black furry jelly bean...Vicky. I followed Skank around for a bit and found her birthing place under the deck, grabbed the remaining survivor..another black jelly bean...and...

We lost a goose last night. She got into the road and hit by a car. We noticed Penny dead in the road when we went to do night chores. Dave gathered her up and we put her in the yard so that the other geese could see she was dead. I have a theory that they accept the loss of a flock-mate better if they see the body. Penny was the gal that looked most like her Mom, Sissy. She will be missed. No amount of harassment and nothing short of a fricking 6' fence will keep those damned geese out of the road. They've got 30 acres of land behind that road ripe for the grazing, but they just wont.  stay.   out.      of.    the.   road. ~sigh~ I've been working on things to sell in my Etsy store: Things of interest I find in my trips to Goodwill, Vintage Patterns, Some Workbasket mags from the '50's. My decision right now is that attempting to get a job that would be able to work around the schedule here would be just as disastrous as before. EVEN THO...

Yes, I am still down to the one flockmistress job and school. Finals are this week, and I have one left in Microbiology. 'Tis probably good I quit last week at the store anyways. I contracted a cold so bad that I lost my sense of smell and taste for two days. That is only the 2nd time that's ever happened. As it stands now, I am not fully recovered. I have bronchitis and also this thing where I'm just not all that hungry. Which can be good, since I've got plenty of weight to lose. When I wasn't sleeping or horking up a lung this last week, I managed to compile a pattern of all the prayer shawls I've knitted in the last year. It's all my notes on the revisions: How I made them smaller, modified to fit one brand of yarn, and one needle. ***CLICK HERE ***** for the pattern on Etsy Pattern costs $3.99 and the money goes to buying more yarn for my prayer shawl efforts. This one here is a shawl version of the 'My Way' pattern. The original knit...