My Sister

Despite having painted a doodle of a Christmas tree and my intentions of using it as a Christmas card, life had other plans.  Unlike most years, I did not send any cards out this time around.  Business is always at its slowest this time of year and I could not even buy stamps to mail the cards!  This financial pinch caused us to get creative in celebrating the season.  We cut down our own tree out here on the ranch.  We developed our own little family traditions that do not require financial expenditures, such as baking cookies, sharing some hot chocolate, listening to Christmas music, and reading stories.  Togetherness was all that mattered.  The kids thought of gifts they would give to baby Jesus and presented their own drawings and cards to Him.

The kids enjoyed decorating their harvested tree.

We then received some payments from customers a few days before Christmas.  We still decided that we would keep the gifts down to a bare minimum.  So each child received one gift from Santa!

My sister then did something amazing to lift my spirits this season!  Remember how I was going to do the Sketchbook project?  I never did - life, busy, etc.  However, she sent me a sketchbook for Christmas.  When I opened it up there was a large sticker inside the front cover on which she wrote, "Two Sisters Sketchbook Project - Swap Date December 2011.  I have one, you have one - have fun!  Work w/any medium, pick any theme, be brilliant, release, exhale, pray."  I cannot describe the joy at having received this creative and inspiring gift!  What fun!  A chance to share our work with each other!  She is not an artist who paints and draws so much as she is an artist who loves to design and decorate interiors.  In fact, she finally got into the field professionally.  So I look forward to seeing how she will fill up her sketchbook!

Now that I am sufficiently inspired, I can move on with the year.  Life is unpredictable as I mentioned last time.  I have many more stories to share that have taken place in the last two months.  Some are not for the squeamish, and some are miraculous.  I hope you'll join us!

Life-changing Events...

It's been about one month since my last post.  Life has been very busy, unpredictable, and rather unusual. 

This is my painting for this year's Christmas card...

 
Strangely enough, I've found a couple of spare moments and began to doodle this Christmas tree watercolor.  Until life irons itself out a bit, I leave you all with best wishes, a merry Christmas, and a small cliff-hanger....

Y-Not Homestead... where you are.....?

Those Darn Cows!

Yesterday morning my son comes in first thing in the morning to inform me that the cows found a way into the garden and ate the last two cabbages.  Well, I'm not a morning person, and news such as this, on top of that....let's just say all I could do was nod and say okay.  I'm not too worried about the cabbages, really.  It's the fact that the cows got in!  Like other ruminants, they eat anything!

They are not dainty creatures.  They do not exude decorum.  They're more like bulldozers.  These midnight marauders trampled right over my chicken wire trampling the plants while chomping into anything that their noses drifted over, including my garlic!  Now, not much bothers garlic but that didn't seem to phase the beasts.  Not when you regularly see cows out in the chaparral with cactus stickers covering their entire faces!

Of course, the flowers were almost finished, but it would have been nice to enjoy the last few cosmos that WERE blooming!  To add insult to injury they left their deposits everywhere, as you can see at the bottom of the picture.

 

And more here... They didn't even bother the tomatoes!  What gives?

I'm not too keen about their manure because it's full of weed seeds.

It could have been worse!  They could have spread their destruction throughout a thriving garden!

Ugh!

A Little of This A Little of That

Since the weather is teasing us with warm days, it's prompted a mix of activities.  On top of which, we are house and cat sitting for a neighbor.  And as neighbors go they are about 14 miles of dirt road from where we are at home!  How's that for a 'neighbor?!' 

Not only is it dirt road, as all our roads are, but there are some pretty hilly, rough and rocky sections that make it hard for road maintenance.  So, maintenance usually doesn't happen.  It's a really good thing having 4 wheel drive!  But here, it's all in a day's work.  You just accept it as normal.

While driving to my neighbor's house, I took a picture of this scene.  It's only a portion of my 'backyard.'  It's our very own mini-grand canyon!  Only a couple of the ranchers out here know the only real (best) way to cross this canyon.

You just can't beat this southwestern-style vista!

On the way home, my steely-eyed six year old saw these foraging javelina out in a clearing.

Back home, I dug up the old zinnias saving most of the seed-heads.

Then I planted garlic in the raised bed.  We'll see what happens.

One of my other little projects has involved the herbs I'd hung to dry.

While separating the herbs from their dry stems, the aroma was delightfully strong and pungent!  Maybe that's what I'll do for little Christmas gifts, homemade herbal sachets...

Hopefully the weather will hold out for awhile, this has been nice compared to last year!