Fun fotos...

Just because...it is after Christmas and I have a bunch of fun fotos from the month of December.

Santa's Relief Driver????

My all time favorite
ornament!

...I collect horsey ornaments. This may be
the most photographed ornament I've ever had.
I've had it for over 30 years. 
It was a cheap plastic one I picked up in
some second hand store so 
many 
years ago!

A much newer addition to my collection...

My tiny Button jointed Teddy Bears I made

years ago. Still up to no good!

Even Dragons celebrate Christmas?

I can't help it.

I think Dragons are cool.
New addition to the dragons!
A Baby Lego Dragon!

And then there was Mini-me
and Charlie doing last 

minute errands in the Village...

Little Bear and his wooden friends gather on

Christmas Eve at the Chair.

[These are old toys gifted to me

over the years.]

My ever changing toy display next to

the Christmas Chair.
It is made up of Vintage Boxes 

and

an old nesting box for hens.

I really didn't want to take down my cheery fun 'display'. I've had so much fun with it this year. 

But eventually the party ends, right?

I took down the Christmas Chair, the North Pole, and the Christmas Village and traded out the Lego buildings for the Medieval Village. I wanted to take a break from Lego so...

...before the rains hit, I grabbed some of my of my action figures and headed out. 

Ailie and Rabbit came out to play. I added the snow in post.

Time for a change up...

Goings On

Rich hasn't felt well enough to go visit his mother. It isn't a very long drive and we could do a short stay.
However he still fights for oxygen saturation. If he walks across the floor...say 10 feet across the house, even with 02 flowing, ... his 02 drops into the 80's and takes a few minutes to come back to a low acceptable saturation.

Talking exhausts him. Quiet conversation between us is halting with a little grunt or look from him. Like clockwork now he gets up about 9AM. I get his coffee, help him with getting his breakfast and meds. By 10:30 he is ready to lay down.
If we are lucky, I fill him in on what I have to do on the 'farm' and errands I may have to run by then.

Today I used his 'nap' time to run to the feed store and get mineral salt for the mules and sweet feed for Mica who needs more calories than she is getting. She is a hard keeper and has been since she arrived her 17 years ago. 
I was able to fit in a CrossFit class and I'm glad I did. It felt good and I met some different folks.
All ... very nice.

Burpees, Box Jumping [I jumped on and off a stack of 45 lbs weights], jump ropes, ... that was our WOD at AMRAP. WOD...work out of the day. AMRAP...as many repetitions as possible in a given time. This was after 3 sets of 500 meter rows combined with bar lifts and shoulder touches. No worries, this was all foreign language to me a while ago. But the end result is that I felt good afterwards. I felt relaxed and ready to take on the rest of the day.

I grabbed 50lbs of feed and a salt block and headed home in time to wake Rich up and feed him a later lunch. All was good.

During his afternoon nap, I moved Mica to a separate paddock next to Little Richard, filled the large stock tanks and filled Mica and Lil' Richard's water buckets.

Charlie and I spent the rest of time tidying up some loose end on a few items that needed a quick fix. Like the place where a deer had broken a wire.

I gathered my fertilizer [the kind that melts ice] sand, and old hay chaff together. This combination is my secret weapon for ice.

We are supposed to get some snow tonight that will turn into rain. On frozen gravel roads and driveways that causes the road to become an instant ice rink.
If we get the heavy rain we will have creeks and rivers rising from the quick run off.

Yesterday was a 'free' day. I did chores and not much else. I did put Charlie's Christmas sweater on and took him to see my MIL. I took some shots of her with Charlie and sent them to a few relatives.

Funny. My MIL has always said she didn't like dogs. She likes Charlie.

Charlie also met another resident who asked if he could pet him. I said yes. The resident gave Charlie a ride in his wheelchair.

Charlie made the day for some of the folks at the elder apartment building.



Yup. I think I'm set up for the winter storm. I wonder if it will track this way or go north?

A Gift

It is fairly rare for us to get a visit from my youngest son who lives near Wausau Wisconsin. I won't explain any of that here, but let's just say, it was wonderful that they could come to visit this year and the weather cooperated too!

I used to drive to their place each year to see them just before Christmas until Rich had his stroke. He wasn't comfortable being home alone even though I had chore volunteers and neighbors who would check on him.

I chose to take the 'kids' and parents on a hike to the Kickapoo Valley Reserve where the trail I'd chosen had enough of a variety to interest a 4 and 5 year old and a safe trail that would allow them to run off energy. Lily who had just turned 14 came along also. The Grands chose to ride in Grandma's Subaru.

I think the deciding factor was Charlie.
Elena or Nonnie as her brother calls her offered to hold Charlie so he wouldn't get car sick.

How perfect is that? Charlie gets to sit on Elena's lap in her carseat and...navigate!

Sterling fell asleep on the ride to KVR.

Once out though, the fun began. I don't think it was so much the adventure outdoors that attracted everyone, as it was ... who would be in charge of Charlie's Leash...

Not a fantastic photo, but here is Sterling aka 'Buddy' totally delighted to have Charlie's leash.
Now at the Reserve, you don't have to have your dog leashed when the birds are not nesting, however, everyone wanted a bit of Charlie.
And Charlie didn't mind at all.

Lily. What can I say about her? Just that she is heartfelt and true. I managed to get a quick shot of her. She watched over her little siblings.

My youngest son here is holding Elena and they are looking down the bluff towards the Kickapoo River.

Onward we went...

Down the 'magic' stairs into the wondrous Kickapoo River Valley...ok. My words, but why not? It is a pretty magical place.

We walked along the trails and through the covered bridge. Everyone found sticks to poke at ice. Here is the moment when I think I realize that indeed...Elena could be a Wood Princess with her Stick Scepter! That look!

Lily captures Sam and I in fur hats. Yes I am the Stinker. I loaned my fox hat to Sam so she wouldn't get cold.

I'd handed Lily one of my pocket cameras and told her to fire away. Now I know what she was doing when she was hanging back!

The trails were very icy and instead of instilling fear in the kids, the ice seemed to be just a challenge and something fun despite warnings from the parents.

We got up towards the old dam site...there is a long and very bitter history that surrounds this area, but this isn't the time to go into that. The result is that there is now a great hiking trail that is a snow shoe/cross country ski trail in the winter and bicycle, horse, hiking trail in the summer.
Let's leave it at that.

The kids had a great idea once they got on top of the dam.

The real fun was finding ice puddles and smashing them with sticks.

The fresh air and hiking wore everyone out. And the drive back home was nearly silent.

That evening Sterling and Elena entertained Rich with their antics and toys. All that laughter wore Rich out.

But it was worth it.

It was one of the best gifts we could have had. A nice short visit. Laughter, yelling, shouting, quiet moments, and kids.

And ...
Charlie was sad to see them leave.

Thank you for the gift Jeremie and Sam.

The Christmas Chair ~ how I do it.

Here is how it all starts. In 2014 I thought I'd try something a bit different. The same old Christmas tree was boring. I wandered about the old shed looking for something when I spied this old chair.
It had been painted several times and at one point I'd even thought about fixing the crack in the seat and maybe stripping it and repainting it.

This time I looked at it differently. The layers of paint, the scrape marks, and the fact that it didn't sit quite straight made it a perfect candidate for something.
I cleaned it up and brought it in the house. And thus the Christmas chair was born.

I had/have a very tiny house. Most years I shoved my cheap little tree up against the wall and only decorated the front half of it.

Step 1. Put out the chair. Simple and easy.
Step 2. Take an old round vinyl table cloth and use it as a skirt. It also covers up the gas pipe that comes into the house to the heater.
Step 3. Make sure that Morris supervises. Oh and take time to set out the dinosaur toys. I don't know why, but I thought they should be part of it. Place the tree next to the chair.
Step 4. Add some garland to the chair and start fitting branches onto the tree. Don't cover up the chair. I make this up as I go...
Step 5. This year I used the leftover branches from the partial tree to fill in the gaps.
Step 6. Toss in some boxes. The top item is the kitchen junk drawer from the original kitchen in the house. It is sitting on a bolts box I found in the dirt in the little shed.
Step 7. Take time out for some tea and play with the dinosaurs.
Step 8. It is out of order. But you can see the old vinyl table cloth and the old white rug that I set out to be a tree 'skirt' and box border.

Next sort out the lights. Of course I didn't have the lights I wanted. So I put the red string on the tree and used a white string around the boxes.

Things looked sort of okay as I started to add ornaments and hand made toys. But the lighting wasn't right.

However the bright new light colored wood on the wall is fantastic. The small room feels so much more cheery.

A quick reminder of what this section of the old house looked like...

Yuck.

Anyway here is a view of the living room with the tree from the stairs.
Pardon the Jack Russell toys that Morris left out.

The carpeting will be removed next year and the floor will be replaced. But for this winter this is it!

Here is the tree. Yes I added some more lights to make it cheery.
In case you haven't noticed, I like horse ornaments and teddy bears. These bears I made quite a few years ago. The pine cones were picked up out of the yard and painted and touched up with glitter glue.

On the chair is a carousel horse and an aluminum horse bit. I also save the unique gift labels that my daughter in law makes and add them to my collection.

Below are two of my horse ornaments I have collected from Westland Giftware.

And that is it! The Christmas Chair is up.
I'll be rearranging everything constantly. It just suits me to do so.

Naughty or Nice?

Christmas is right around the corner.
It is an interesting time of year.
Have you been Naughty or Nice?  

The weather can make it very delightful to stay home and not battle the iced or snowy and hazardous roads.

What are you doing for Christmas?  Traveling?  Staying at home?  Do you have family arriving?

Christmas Day at our place is generally for quiet celebration.  One of the things I love to do is take a Christmas Day Ride on my favorite mule.

This was taken many years ago.  Badger's first Christmas with us.  The weather was so cold that my husband snapped this through the window.

I am certainly not qualified to discuss the religious aspects of Christmas so I'm not even going there in any post.

However I do like getting together with my family near Christmas.  I've seen my oldest son and his wife, my mom, and then my youngest son, his wife, and the girls just last week when I traveled to Wausau.

This week we are traveling to another daughter's house if the weather holds on Christmas Eve.

I love the Holidays also for all the beautiful decorations.
By the way the first photo is of packages under my Christmas Chair.  The mittens were made years ago by my Grandmother.  I love to use them as decorations or hang them on my tree.

Packages make for great photographic opportunities.  This is my first shot with the Nikkor 40mm prime lens.  

So, where ever you are and what ever you do for the upcoming Holiday, stay safe and enjoy.

 

 

The Christmas Chair

Each year the day after Thanksgiving, I try and do a little bit of decoration for Christmas.  

Yesterday while doing the chores I saw a 'project' chair that had been left out in the yard, hubby had been using it to sit on and left it by one of the unoccupied dog houses.

The paint has peeled, the seat has cracked.  The chair is a mess, but perfect for one of my painting projects.

Pretty ugly right? 

I wondered how it would look as a part of my tree.

I don't have much room for decorations so I have to think small.  I only put up a portion of the tree anyway and wondered what it would be like to have the tree mixed in with the ugly peeling chair.

 

Still ugly....but wait...



A few photos can change that...

Depending on the angle chosen.

Well Morris was not impressed at all....he sat with his Angry Bird toy and watched.


However.... I got out my Dolica Tripod and decided to do some camera work.  I thought I'd put it through some paces.  I like how I can get a nice shot with the camera close to the ground.

I got this

and then this...

Of course I should have my Breyer mules here..but I need to find them first...I'm pretty sure that a short trip into the tiny attic shall produce my mules.

I guess I went with a Western Theme this year for my decorations.  
Is there room for gifts under the tree?

No.
That is the other reason that Morris looks unimpressed.
I take 'his' recliner and cover it with Christmas patterned cloth and then stack the gifts in it.

Life in a cottage.
Sure is cozy!

Sometimes I wish for a bigger house, but I'm always happy with the place we have.

Christmas

While others were celebrating with family I practiced a wonderful tradition of my own.  Don't get me wrong, we had a wonderful family Christmas with my stepdaughter and her family.  The week before I spent 'Christmas' with my mom...so essentially I had Christmas day to myself.
And I spent it wisely, I think.

I used my new over the glasses snow goggles to protect my face in the sub zero temps.

I took the puppy Dixie along with Morris for a walk in the valley and along the creek.
I ended up carrying both dogs as their feet got cold.  
No easy task, but fun and interesting never the less.

The quietness of the creek bottom was relaxing.  Dixie set up a fuss in trying to cross a downed tree.  Mr. Wonderful Morris ran back and 'showed' her how it was done.

Morris is an awesome little dog who is so full of energy and heart.  However yesterday he did show his age a bit...but not until we were done with the hike.

He laid in his special spot on the couch and remained absolutely still, even for petting.

Dixie is getting much larger than Morris.  Yet he still is the alpha dog and leads the way.  He helps her learn how to cross streams and climb logs.  He watches her and keeps an eye on me.

The creek bottom was beautiful.  It warranted the cold weather and the trek through the snow.  [Next time snow shoes!]

The perfect way to spend a Holiday.

The night the toys play...

It seems to occur when you least expect it.  You glance at the Christmas tree as you pass by it in the middle of the night.
Something strikes as not quit right or a bit of odd.  Something is out of place, but you can't put your finger on it.
Morris is curled up on his favorite spot on the couch.  He is in place and sound asleep, head buried in his blanket.

Wait, what's that?
No, that is not right.
Morris's toys are under the tree doing what?...
Surely my eyes are not seeing correctly!

Toys?  Toys!
They are still, but I know, yes I know that I did not put them like that earlier.  I'd put Morris's toys in his tub.

I go into the kitchen and get a drink of water.  I decide to turn off the Christmas tree lights and then go back to bed.

Uh oh.  I rub my eyes frantically.  Now the Christmas Bears seemed to have joined in the fun.  I eye Morris.  He is still sound asleep, or is he?  

I take a close look at everything as I turn out the lights and go back upstairs to bed.

Certainly it seems magic occurs under my tree when I least expect it...coincidence that is happens every year around Christmas?

I find myself humming a Christmas tune as I get back into bed.
This sure is a magical time of the year!