The Old Windmill

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I love windmills and through the years, heaven knows, I've worked on more windmills than I ever imagined I would. I have learned to read hand signals with the best of them and those of you who are ranch wives and work along side your husbands, know exactly what I mean by that. We become professional mind readers as this wave means one thing and that wave means another, unless it's accompanied by a head tilt then it means the same as the first. LOL. Honestly, we ranch wives have a sense of humor for a reason.

I wish I had pictures from the days when we were first married and we worked on windmills all the time, but it was just the 2 of us and that required all hands on deck. The ranch we lived on had 24 and nary a week went by when we weren't working on at least one. When the wind didn't blow, we had to hook up pump jacks to them and that required a whole other set of repair skills.

Poor DH married a gal that didn't know the first thing about windmills, but I'm a fast learner, although I might have dropped some sucker rod down the pipe once or twice. That won't make any sense to those of you who are not well versed in windmill speak, but in a simplified version, the sucker rods are jointed, and sometimes there were 12 or 15, and you often have to pull them using a block and tackle in order to replace the leathers or fix the check which is seated at the bottom. If you drop the sucker rod before they are connected, then you get to pull all the pipe to retrieve said sucker rod. In other words, this does not make for a happy hubby. Most of you could care less, but for those of you who have a mechanically inquisitive mind, I've included a simplified diagram:

I look back now and laugh, but there might have been a tear or two during those marathon windmill sessions and I think I ought to be awarded some kind of honorary degree since I'm pretty sure I have reached some sort of windmill pulling sidekick status through the years.

I still love windmills though and I have a hard time passing one by without capturing it with my camera:

Thankfully, this ranch only had 2 working windmills on it and we've converted them to solar wells so my windmill pulling days are over.

And you had to slog through all of that for me to tell you that I am working on a windmill once again:

I started this last year, or maybe the year before, but I became frustrated with the chart. I've done a lot of cross stitch through the years, but this chart is printed so tiny - each square is less than an inch - and I just could not keep track of what went where. It may have something to do with my aging eyes too:

but even with a magnifying glass and my reading glasses, I was unpicking more stitches than I was stitching so I laid it aside. Then a few weeks ago, I took the chart to town and had it enlarged for .33 cents.

 Money well spent and I am back to windmilling.

I had to pull a few stitches from when I worked on it previously, but at least I haven't dropped the sucker rod!

Helping the Boss

No ranch help means that I am called into action more than usual these days. Poor DH really does deserve better help, but hey...I'm cheap labor! And we've worked together for 30 years so he's stuck with me.

The horses needed a little tlc:

Combing out witches' knots:

                                                 

And we needed to process the heifers. The pictures aren't great because I'm not very skilled when it comes to moving cattle through an alley, sliding gates, spraying them, and taking pictures at the same time. I always thought I was a decent multi-tasker, but apparently not. DH brought them up in small bunches:

   While I worked the gates and brought them into the alley:

We just run them through the chute, pour on Cydectin and give them a quick vaccination:

                                            

And then DH drove them out of the pens:

                            

 about 5 miles to El Tank


                            

where I picked him up:

Happy heifers:

                           

We finished up just before noon and were thankful that there were leftovers for dinner. After dinner, I had a date with the lawn mower. We've had a spectacular year in the rain department and I've spent a lot of time behind this thing. Hopefully I'll be putting it away for the winter after this round. I can't get over how green everything is around here at the end of October.

                               

I am loving these shorter days, but it seems like we aren't getting much done. I guess it makes for more sewing time in the evenings, but I just don't sew once the sun goes down unless its hand stitching bindings or working on a cross stitch project. Speaking of...I haven't done any cross stitching since last winter. I left a project partially undone.

                                     


 This seems like a good time to pick it back up. I might even stitch past 9 tonight...unless I'm needed early in the morning. Guess I better check with the boss. :)

Cross Stitch Revival

I've been itching to start a cross stitch project and I've got three on the table from which to choose.

I've had this pattern for a while. I bought it the same time I bought the "Little Bit" bear cub pattern that I made for my father-in-law:

 When I go to their house and look at it on the wall I have two reactions:

1. I am utterly charmed and enchanted by this little guy. Somehow, his personality seeps through the stitches.
2. The person who stitched this was utterly insane.

And this is the pattern I bought at that time - I've shown it before

I think I want to start this one. but I'm not sure I want to use the white background that was included. I think it's too stark and pristine and I was thinking I wanted  a more rustic look. However, I wasn't sure about using a rustic background because I thought it might just make the sky look dirty. So, should I stitch it on white and tea or coffee dye  it once it is stitched?  The thought of that scares me. Maybe the white makes the detail stand out. Maybe I ought to quit second guessing myself and just stitch.  After all, I was drawn to this piece immediately just the way it was and I love a bright blue sky with big, white clouds rolling across it in real life. I think I just talked myself into using the white background. :)

I also found this piece while browsing patterns:

It ought to be a quick stitch and I think I'll look for a linen in a light oatmeal color for it. I just wish linen wasn't so crazy expensive. And then I ordered this:

Proof that I've had another bout of insanity.This pattern was a computer download. I've not worked one of these before and I'm a little overwhelmed. There are 66 pages to print out and 150 different colors in this chart. I have a large collection of DMC floss. I went through it all the other day and I was missing 24 colors so I added those and wound them onto the little floss keepers.

I had no idea that those little numbered stickers for the floss holders even existed. I got pretty excited when I saw those. Its been a really long time since I bought any new floss. I'm talking 15 years long and I started cross stitching 29 years ago so I've been collecting floss for a long time. I always just used a sharpie marker to write the number on the plastic tab.

Then I emptied a floss box and placed all the colors together:

Guess that means I'm actually planning on stitching this one. It's going to be 20" x 14". It doesn't matter what I stitch this on as every square is covered by stitches.

Summer does not allow me much stitching time so I don't know what I'm thinking, but that's not all that unusual. :)

As I Escaped Town, I Shopped

Once I left my Mom's on Thursday morning, I pointed that truck west and let the diesel scream. However, I hit the brakes when I stumbled upon a cross stitch store. Shoot, I haven't been in one of those for 20 years. No pictures since I didn't have a camera with me. I know. Bad blogger. Still, very cute store called Stitches From the Heart.

A while back, Carol over at The Polka Dot Chicken, mentioned she was going to stitch the Santa's Village from Needleworks and I had to stitch along (well, Carol didn't TELL me I had to...I just HAD to) so I ordered the pattern.

  Each month you get a house to add to Santa's village and they're just tiny little things with all kinds of cute details. The second one should be here shortly - they had already stitched it. (Shhh...I was told the third one is the Post Office.)

However, I didn't have anything to stitch it on, and since Carol was not here to hold my hand, I figured I would take advantage of the next best thing. I have been wanting to try linen so I picked up a piece of that...ouch! Expensive stuff! Good thing I had some birthday money in my pocket! One minute it was there, and the next minute, it was gone. Funny how that happens.

The manager was there and happened to be stitching the Santa Village too. As soon as I mentioned "Santa Village", their eyes lit up and the manager was so sweet to show me hers and visit with me about it. Looking at the linen, I had a conversation with my eyes. When they first saw the linen, my mouth said, "Oh! That is lovely! I'll take it!"
But my eyes replied, "Hold on there girlie! Just how do you expect me to SEE those tiny squares? Did you not notice that they are MINUSCULE and that WE are OLD?"

Not to worry. The kind lady magically presented me with this handy dandy magnifying glass. DH laughed when I called it my magic microscope. All set!

I was good. I only picked up one more pattern and it is a small one, but I can't wait to get started on it. When you see it, you will say, "Well, OF COURSE she would get THAT!"

See why it had to come home with me? I think I'll have to switch a couple of things on the shadows though. I don't like the way you can't see the details of the letters on the T, A, and S.

And this is a piece I have on the back burner. I've had it for a couple of years, but haven't decided what to stitch it on. I bought it the same time I bought my Little Bit Kit, but I needed a break after stitching that little guy, which by the way, was a HUGE hit with my in-laws. White is not my favorite thing to stitch on, but that may be the best option with this or the clouds would be rustic-y if I used something with a tea stained look, and I think the white will make the colors pop on this piece. I'll be saving my pennies for more linen.

The best thing about this windmill is that we don't have to pull it!

100 Follower Giveaway and another project for the Christmas Train!

Oh, y'all are amazing! When I started this little blog, I never imagined more than a handful of people would even give a hoot. I was thinking 4 or 5. This is just such a wonderful community and I am constantly inspired and amazed and entertained by all of you. So thank you for taking the time to stop in and peek into life at the end of the dirt road.

So since I can't very well have y'all gathered at my dining room table and feed you (which is pretty much the answer to everything around here), I will celebrate you with a giveaway and you have a choice! Three choices! I wanted to give you something that you could use whether you're a quilter, or  knitter, or cross-stitcher, or scrapbooker.

1. I have a layer cake of Blush that I have been hoarding for some time that can be yours

2. Or I will send you a $25 gift card to Hobby Lobby
3. Or you may choose a $25 gift card to JoAnns

Hopefully I've covered all the bases!

so if you'll leave a comment and tell me one of your guilty pleasures and which gift you would like, I'll put your name in the hat. At the moment, mine happens to be a handful of animal crackers dunked into Nutella one at a time. I also really dislike leaving my dirt road, but when I do, I love puttering around in little towns that I drove through. My Mom asks why it takes me so long when I drive to visit her and I feel guilty.

I will leave this open until Midnight (Mountain Time), Sunday night, May 6th and choose the winner on Monday morning. Oh, and I have to limit this to followers since the reason I am having this giveaway is because of my followers so no anonymous comments please and please make sure you are not a non-reply blogger because I will have no way of contacting you and that makes me sad because I want you to win. :)

Now, if anyone can tell me what happened to April, I would appreciate it. I'm not complaining though because time cannot speed up enough since I'm waiting for our boy to come home.

Here's my contribution to the April Christmas Through the Year and I promise you will NOT see him again, unless Darlene and Cheryl call for a recap at the end of the year and then you can blame it on them :) He's going to hibernate for the remainder of the year:

The Last Stitch!

I finally added the last stitch to Little Bit! I am elated! I am ecstatic! I started this 'little' project last year, but I set it aside in March and didn't pick it up again until this January and as you know, I have been a woman on a mission. Well I finally came up for air!

DH asked me how many hours I had invested in this little guy and I just gave him 'the look'. I haven't a clue and I don't want to know. Let's just call it 'umpteen'...x 10. So here he is in all his finished glory:

I'll bet y'all are tired of seeing him too. This is the biggest cross stitch project I've ever stitched. He's 16"x16" and it's solid stitching.
I may or may not have jumped up and broken into the Snoopy Dance. Cue Peanuts music. Next time I head to town he's coming along for the ride and  I'm going to have him framed. Actually next time will probably be tomorrow. Just need to wait for a phone call from Jesse at the Seed store. Then I'll be taking a bear to town and bringing back baby chicks. Yay!

I've been working on him for so long that I feel kind of lost tonight. However, breakfast is at 5 am so I would be wise to turn in early. Probably not a good idea to pull out the next project tonight.

March Christmas Train and Little Bit...again

 Well once more I'm coming in at the tail end of the month with my Christmas Through the Year project for the month. Wouldn't you know that the wind would blow on the last day when I decided to take pictures so today you get flying stockings:


I made 6 stockings for the Stockings for Soldiers project. I'll pick things up throughout the rest of the year to fill them. I made some of these last year and I really enjoyed filling them and sending them off.

Surely all of y'all have heard about Darlene and Cheryl's year -long Christmas gift making project by now, but just in case, you can pop in over here to learn more and you can join in at any time. Thank you both for keeping me accountable.

Tucking in my progress on Little Bit this month too. Here's where I was last month:




And 31 days later:



 Still stitching like a crazy woman and  hoping to put the last stitch in by the end of April.
 Then in May I can have it framed and add it to the Christmas box! I will be SOOOO glad to tuck this little fella away. I am getting tired of working on him and my quilting is suffering greatly.

A Little Bit of Progress

Thought I'd pop in and give y'all an update on my little stitching project. I don't have much else to show for the month of  February because this little critter has been hogging all of my time. This past Sunday was absolutely gorgeous and I spent most of it outside. Yesterday the wind blew. No, it REALLY blew. Think 50-60 mph sustained winds. All day.We live in the desert, surrounded by dirt. I felt really spoiled. I only stepped outside to chore and came back in feeling a bit like I had been sandblasted. I've heard that people pay good money for facial scrubs and I get mine for free. :)

I know that my stitiching time is about to decrease...dramatically, so I stitched like...well...the wind this month. So here's where I left off last month:

And here's Little Bit today:

It doesn't look like much, but I feel like all I did was stitch this month.

I am going to be really sick of brown, but I'm excited to give him to my FIL for Christmas.

What are y'all doing with your 'extra' day today? I am off to clean out the chicken coop! :)

Finally Framed!

Thank y'all for all of your comments on my last post. I really appreicate your input and it looks like it was unanimous: dark it is! Alas, I haven't made any more progress in that department. I finally had to give in and make a trip to town where I did score 12 yards of cording:


Next up: piping!
I haven't worked on much else because my little cross-stitch bear has been hogging all of my free time. I am bound and determined to give this to my FIL for Christmas this year. Yes, I know Christmas is still 10 months away, but this project is 16" x 16" and I'm thinking I'll be needing every one of those days between now and Christmas. Honestly, if I have 5 minutes, I am plopping myself down to add a few stitches. I'll share my progress with y'all at the end of the month.

I did finish piecing my Many Trips top!


Yay!  I had some backing picked out, but the top is really busy and so is the backing I had chosen...too busy, so I ordered 12 yards of Caramel Mirage from Connecting Threads. Yes, 12 yards. This is a monster quilt. I'm going to blame it on Saska. She told me to make it bigger. :)
The caramel has a bit of a leather look to it and I also made the binding for it this week:


  I hope to get it Jackie, my long arm quilter, this week. I really dislike making the backing for quilts, especially ones this big. I think I'm just going to have her stitch a large stipple on it. I'm ready for a finish!

I have an old project to share with you though. A very old project. Actually, its been finished for years, decades even, but I never had it framed so I took it in to Hobby Lobby when they had 50% off of their framing, but yikes! Even with a coupon, it was pricey. Still, I put a lot of time into this piece and I'm happy to finally have it hanging on our wall:


On a side note, I wanted to reply to some comments, but some of y'all are non-reply bloggers and I have no way of contacting you. You may have your settings that way on purpose, but if you just aren't sure how to change them, its simple and SewCalGal has posted steps on how to do that:

If you use a Google/Blogger account to leave comments, you can verify your settings and fix them, if needed.
If you have a blogger account, to check your settings:

a) go to https://www.google.com/accounts/ManageAccount

b) click on Blogger Settings

c) be sure the box for "Show my email address" is checked.

d) click Save Profile
 
Back to my bear. :)

My First Stitch

I did not grow up in a sewing family. My Mom did not sew. My grandmothers did not sew. The sewing gene does not flow through my veins. In fact I had a strong dislike for all things related to a needle and thread... or anything else related to being indoors for that matter. I loved to read, but I prefered to lose myself in the pages under a tree. In high school, all the girls took home-ec. I shuddered at the thought. I crumbled at the feet of the principal and begged him to let me take shop. He took pity on me and I was thrilled. My apologies to my husband who married me even thought I could not cook back then.

Looking back, I get the feeling that the good Lord was quite amused by that feisty teenager. He knew. He knew that one day I would be sucked into becoming domestic. He just quietly sat back and let me gallavant through those carefree years.

So how did I, the welding torch yielding teen, get to this point?

It started after college...in a feedlot...in Idaho. DH and I both worked at Simplot Feedlot. I worked in the office and sat in a little room dispensing various feed mixtures into the trucks that pulled up below me. There was a lot of free time and a sweet girl that trained me told me that she would cross-stitch in between trucks. I imagine I looked at her in horror at the thought. She probably patted me on the shoulder and said, "There...there...it'll be alright." Then she lent me a book of patterns and I was hooked. This was in the 80's. This was my first project:

It looks very 80's. The little wooden hoop with lace and bow make me laugh today. It brings back good memories...and not so good memories of the smell that accompanies a feedlot. We weren't there very long before we were wisked away to run a ranch in New Mexico, but the friendships that we formed from back then continue and here I am, 25 years later, still stitching. When I asked for a sewing machine after our first child was born, I'm pretty sure my Mom thought I had taken leave of my senses. I still cross-stitched some, but I loved making clothes for the kids and somewhere down the line, cross-stitch was put aside.

I've been running across various blogs and feeling nostalgic when they share their beautiful cross-stitch  projects. I haven't sross-stitched in over 10 years. I've given lots and lots of them away, but today I pulled out some that I still had. I even took a piece in for framing when I had to take DH in to pick up his truck yesterday.

And...last year, I saw a piece that I had to make for my in-laws. I worked on it for a few months and then put it aside when the days became longer because by the time we came in in the evening, it was all we could do to eat, shower, and fall into bed. However, I am determined to give this to my in-laws for Christmas this year so I try to sit and stitch a bit in the evenings.

Here's my current project and this is where I left off last April:


My father-in-law is crazy about bears and this little fella's kinda cute! It's 16"x16" so I'll be stitching on it for a while.

And here are a few oldies. This one hangs in my kitchen:


And this one was in the cedar chest, but I dug it out and am looking for a spot to hang it. I thought the laundry room, but the laundry room is our front room, our mud room, our collection spot for every glove and spur and coat and hat and pair of chaps and it just doesn't fit. Besides the only wall in there is cinder block and it's a bear to get  nail in it.

See, I was drawn to quilts long before I ever even thought about making one.

Thanks for letting me meander down memory lane. I still have some pieces that I never framed and I think I'll take a piece in every month and get that done.

Here's my progress on this little guy for the month of January:



There's so much subtle shading in this piece. The white part has about 8 different shades and I bout went cross-eyed trying to work on his little body. My eyes simply are not what they used to be.
I'm hoping that this'll keep me accountable! :)