Baby, It's cold outside!!!

I am ready for a bit of above 30 temps.  When I got up this morning (at 6 am) it was 9 deg outside the window!  We are on a heatwave today, it is now 17 ... today's high of 30 will be the low in a couple of days ...

I must not have any blood as I've been cold to one degree or another in the past 2 weeks.  The shower helps, but it doesn't take long for me to feel chilled again.  I HAVE to go outside at least twice a day to feed and water my chickens.  I have 3 bowls for water; the one inside the coop, the one out in the pen and the last one for when they're outside the coop.  OK you say ... they are all FROZEN solid.  I bring the one inside the coop in to thaw, so they will have something to drink.

A few days ago we had 6" of snow, which was nice since we are way below normal, but it rained the next day and most of it is gone ... there are some frozen patches here and there, but not worth much.

My friend S and I have been crafting a lot for the 2 craft fairs we did this year.  One of them we will do again in 2017 and hopefully a new fair to us will call and say "You're in!"  Won't know until summer, but I'm still going to craft all year 'cause it's the big one here in my town!!  We need a lot more products and repeats of what's been sold and what seems to draw attention.  I have a list of items that I'd like to do, but we'll see when it comes right down to it.  I can only knit, sew or paint for so long until I need to get up and do something else for a while ... and in the summer it will be hard to do some of it, but I can knit outside and while camping, so those projects won't fall behind.  The painting and sewing (and beading) aren't so easy to take anywhere ... there is also too much dirt and dust ...

I just changed my furnace filter ... should have been done a few months ago ... My house wouldn't warm up, so I looked at it through the slats in the vent OMG ... changed now.

If I don't get back on here before Christmas, I wish you all a Very Merry Christmas and a Happy and Joyful New Year.  Hugs all around ...

WOW - Didn't realize it's been THIS long ...

I read other blogs, but then forget about my own ... that age thing again ... LOL  The summer was pretty normal, a week or two of our hot weather (Oregon style)  in the mid to upper 90's.  We only got together for camping 5 times instead of the usual 6-7.  Time conflicts for one member of the group, but the times we did go out, we has a GREAT time as usual.

My friend & I signed up for a craft fair on the second weekend of Oct.  This was the second time we joined the craft fair, but I doubt we will do this one again - just not run or managed well.  We now have one on Dec. 3, and are super looking forward to it even though we've never joined this one before, but have heard really good things about it.  I then received a call yesterday inviting us to join another on Dec. 10 ... one week after our Senior Center Craft Fair ... not sure we have enough products to do another one so close ... I will return the call and say "No, sorry, not this year"  If that group decides to have another Craft Fair next year we may consider it because my friend & I have decided that we need to craft all year long.

There just doesn't seem to be a lot of news on my end as the days are just running together ...

I had intestinal problems for about 4-5 months from March on, and I never really found out what the problem was as all my tests came back either negative (good) or that I'm very, very healthy (Extra Good!!).  I like that kind of news, but would really have liked to know what was causing the problem ... But it's great to know at my age that I'm very healthy!!

I lost my beautiful Hound 3 days after her 15th birthday (9/11)... it still hurts.  I still think I need to walk the dog, or that she can come to the PO to pick up the mail ... It's a very empty feeling when a split second later it again hits you that shes not here anymore.  I probably will get another dog, but not until after the new year.

I'm heading to my 'paint' table to finish some more items for the Craft Fair ... I need a kick in the butt so that I don't neglect my posting ... another sticky note?  A reminder on the calendar?  I'm not sure what will remind me BIG TIME ... Any ideas???

Have a great Thanksgiving everyone!!!

Time flies ...

Time sure flies when you're having fun ... NOT!  I've hit the "bored beyond comprehension" state.  I'm beginning to hate the computer!  I upgraded to Windows 10 and changed my browser to Chrome.  Boy do I miss Windows XP!!  It was easy to use, and things were called what they were ...  I needed to clear all the cookies I'd been accumulating for a while and couldn't find anything that said "cookies" ... anywhere!  I had to do a search to find out it was under a tab called "content settings"  - what a moronic name ... there are many, many more things I'm really beginning to hate!!  I'll go into them as they pop up on me, besides when they do, I really need to vent, so stay tuned ... I know they're coming ... LOL!

I also think cabin fever has set in ... we've had a bit of snow the last couple of days, not enough to get excited about.  The snow rarely lasts more than a day ... little skiff that is more annoying than useful.  It has been cold and windy though.  It's hard to sometimes even go out to feed the chickens and let them out.  They also take a while to come out of the coop.  They eat and if they can find some sunshine they run for it or if it's overcast they scoot back into the coop - I have a heat lamp in there ...

The roller coaster ride that is the election is one of the most frightening things I've seen ever since I sort-of started paying attentions to elections ... I'm a Ted Cruz supporter.  Trump scares the hell out of me and Rubio is wishy washy.  He does something and then denies it ... sorry Marco, you are not much better than Trump.  Trump is out for himself ... if he didn't think he could get something out of being President he wouldn't be running ...

There was a surprise in my mail box today ... the March/April 2016 issue of Grit magazine!  I'm going to go through it as soon as I crawl into my bed in my warm fuzzies (pj's)  I usually watch TV while playing games on my tablet, but tonight after all the votes are counted, Grit will be gone through with a fine tuned comb.  I even read the ads ... LOL  I also go to some of the web sites just to see what they're all about.

Sure wish I had more open, sunlit ground on my property, but it's covered with trees ... not a bad thing, but I'd like to rearrange the trees a bit ... that way I can have a flat garden area and a greenhouse that both get sun!  The only place for a greenhouse is in the front of the house ... and that spot is used for the snow piles in winter ... I want a permanent greenhouse ... I've been trying to get seeds to grow for many years, but I've resigned myself to getting seedlings for whatever I want to grow ... I just don't have that darn green thumb for seeds.  I try to start them indoors, but my house is really dark and the way the house is laid out I don't have good window placement for seeds ...

I had a nice vacation last year to see my daughter, son-in-law and grandson.  We met in Seattle - the grandson is in the Navy and son-in-law had a big meeting with Microsoft, so my daughter went and talked me into going ... I loved every minute of it.  And my bestest friend and her daughter met us for an afternoon of lunch and some shopping.  Bestest friend and daughter live on Widbey Island, so it was a bit of a trip, but we all agreed it was worth it.  I need another trip away from the house!!!

There are quite a few dozens of eggs in the fridge so tomorrow I'll dehydrate some more raw eggs.  I also have celery that needs to be dried too.  That'll keep me busy for a couple of days ... then what?

I'm running out of things to 'talk' about besides being more pissy, so I'll let you all go for now.  Hope things are working out well for everyone.

Ta ta

I'm still running on absent ...

I just can't get it together to post regularly ... I'm learning how Windows 10 works and it's not the easiest thing I've ever done!  There are things I want to do, things I had in Windows 7 but don't exist in W10.  I need to have reminders pop up on my screen, and make a sound, from my calendar ... I can't find instructions for it.  Now I'll agree that "I" might be the problem in either not being able to find instructions or not understanding them ... and it's not easy finding the right place to post a question or getting an answer that "I" understand ... I'm a total end user on the computer.

I have MS Edge and it doesn't seem to be compatible with my Apache Open Office program.  I need a free, simple word processing program that will work with W10. 

Ahhh, always computer issues here ...

I spent Nov dehydrating different things and trying them out.  Rehydrating and eating them.  Some are good, others not so much.  I dehydrated some canned fruit, but I think fresh would be better.  I'll try the next go round.  I dried potato flakes, but with the amount of work, I wonder if it's worth it.  If I have an abundance of potatoes, I'll probably do it, but not to save money and time.  My canned beets dried nicely and rehydrated nicely, but they lost a lot of flavor, maybe I used too much water to rehydrate ... who knows?  I also used HOT tap water where maybe I should have used boiling water and less of it.  I'll try again with canned and also fresh when I can find them.

Susan just bought me "The Ultimate Dehydrator Cookbook" by Tammy Gangloff - I LOVE IT!!  It tells you exactly how to dry, what temp and how long until done.  My Presto 6300 Dehydrator is permanently set at around 140 deg and has to be unplugged to stop.  I ordered the Presto 6301 earlier this week - it has 6 trays, timer and temp regulators.  I bought the 6300 for about $35 to see if dehydrating was something I wanted to pursue ... YES, YES, and YES!!  The 6301 will be here somewhere between Jan 5-11 ... I can hardly wait!!

We have had very low temps here for the last week or two ... like 0F overnight and right now it's 12:20 pm and 10F ... I've had a cold too, and going out in this hurts my breathing.  I have to watch the chickens heat lamp and give them fresh HOT water to thaw their waterer!  They must be good with the heat lamp as they're still laying ... go figure.  The girls are good, but even the inside water is freezing ... I just keep putting HOT water on it. 

I think in the last 2 weeks we've had a good 3-4 feet of snow with the temp staying mainly below freezing.  I have to shovel it away from the door, front and back, watch for ice and spread salt crystals so we don't end up on our butts!!

First day of the new year and it is just like any other day, except I now have a 365 blank page book to write in.  I'd better make it good ... LOL.  Oops it's a 366 blank page book - Leap Year!

Well, I'll try to keep up better ... LOL!!!