I did not Shoot My Eye Out but....

I knitted my arms off!!!!  I literally gave myself tennis elbow from knitting!!  Who knew you could do that?  I didn't.  I DO now.   Tennis elbow is pretty painful for quite some time.

I made quite a few knitted gifts this year for the Holidays.   I made a lot of the Fisherman's Wife cowl from Raverly.  I love this pattern.  Its by Kalurah Hudson.  She has a knitted version and a crochet version.  I made the knitted version.  It knit up quickly and who doesn't love Aran knittting? Everyone who received one said they loved it.  I had trouble finding enough buttons.  It called for the braided shank button and I could only find 3 sets at Central City.  I bought out one bin of yarn at Hobby Lobby so went to a polyester yarn with alpaca fiber woven in.  It seemed to work out okay.  

The cream Fisherman's wife cowls.

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Also Ravelry patterns.  The owlet sweater and Owlet hat.  See the buttons? those are the eyes of the owls.   I learned a different way to set in my sleeves with this sweater.   Gray for a little boy.

And in pink for a little girl.

3 more Owl hats for more children.

Blocking some of the cowls.

Surprisingly, I am NOT a fan of natural fiber knitting.  I find the colors tend to bleed, usually you have to hand wash and line dry and phooey! Who wants kid's items like that?  Plus natural fiber is very expensive.  I vastly prefer polyester, machine wash and dry yarn.  Even I was surprised at this since we used to raise sheep and wool.

I find knitting to be a great de-stresser and very addictive.   I love to knit.  I self-taught myself in high school (now that was a few years ago!)  Did half of a fair isle vest front and did not knit again.  I liked it but had other fish to fry at that time of my life :)   Last fall in 2014 I took some lessons and it came back quickly and I've been knitting ever since.  I really enjoyed the knitting lessons.  They have a group on Tuesday evenings I would love to attend but alas! distance is one of the limiting factors here 60 miles north of nowhere.  Very limiting in the winter.

I decided to get back into Knitting when Nancy at Wyoming Breezes sent me a pair of her hand knitted socks, which I loved.  So Nancy, YOU were the cause of my painful Christmas elbow!  

Christmas was a white Christmas here and COLD!!! very cold in Wyoming.  And it's stayed cold since with sub zero wind chills.   Weatherman says it will stay until the New Year is rung in.

As I get older, I don't get out in the sub zero temperatures much any more.   I worry about falling on the ice with no one else home and injuring myself.   I don't have chores to do since I got rid of my chickens so it works out.

Well now I think I should start earlier than September with my holiday knitting.   So have been thinking of doing slippers next year.  Like maybe felted ELF Slippers?

or

Grinch Slippers?

So many patterns!!!!!!

HAPPY KNITTING!

And a Happy New Year.

After A Brutal Snow

After a brutal snowstorm where we got 7" here at North of Nowhere and 16" where Son #1 and Son #2 Live....with winds up to 50 mph......we are talking Nasty, Cold, bad bad roads (we were snowed in till noon the first day until they got the road plowed).  And to think I thought we were going to have a brown Christmas.   Foolish Woman.

There's a car under that snow...................AND I DON"T WANT TO LOOK AT THIS SORT OF STUFF

instead let's look at:

#2 Son on his horse, Freckles when he was four years old (the boy not the horse)

#2 Son getting on Freckles by himself when he was about six

# 2 Son twenty years later on Fizzy

Hubby bringing in the mares

#1 Son on Melody and Hubby on Ratchet

Our Wedding Photo

We did not get married horseback just rode away from the church horseback.  They had ribbons and CANS tied in my horses tail.   Don't you think it would have been rather undignified if ol Pepper had bucked me off???????

AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH much better than looking at snow pictures.    Thank You.

 Merry Christmas to you all.

May your snow never blow and your feet never freeze to the ground.

Autumnul Equinox Already?

Whatcha talking about Willis????

I mean I haven't had SUMMER yet....

We went up the mountain to our lot last weekend and yep, sure 'nuff the aspens were turning yellow.

There seemed to be a lot of orange showing up in the aspens this year.   This photo is from several years ago and shows the yellow and the orange in the aspens.  Apparently the color is controlled by the amount of water the tree receives and when and also the temperatures.

We started this year with a project -- a huge project in mid February.

Morton Buildings started on our barn on the 'town' lot.  This will be where we spend winters when we both are retired.  Still will keep cows and horses but since we feed big rounds, Hubby will go and check and set bales every few days.  This is the end of day two with day one spent pouring the footings.

Below is noon of Day three -- this particular Morton building crew was from Germantown, Ohio and they were so efficient and fast!

Roof on day four

Sides on Day Five

End of Day six -- Completed.

Grandson riding Jeannie the pony in the barn with Grandpa

Granddaughters in the barn door.

AND THEN we had the electrical................

Beginning the installion of the service to the lot.

Finishing wiring the barn.

Hubby and I hung all the lights (well okay Hubby was the guy in the air,  I was the go-fer for him).  It was quite the job and took up two weeks of his summer vacation.  Then the electricians ran the cable to them and wired in the switches and boxes.  

Left to do -- I have to paint the panels we bought to place in the arena, we need to complete a tack room and bathroom and maybe a waiting room.  First we need to fill in around the bottom of the barn (see the day light on the bottom?) and then spread washed arena sand to a depth of about 3".  It's usuable now though.  Just a hard landing as it's packed dirt if you get bucked off.  LOL

I bought the lights from Orion Lighting via the web as they specialize in lighting for barns.  I'm pleased with them (I got the dust proof flourescents) and boy, do we have LIGHT at night.  It's like daylight in there.  Just what you want actually.

So this sucked up all our free time in 2015 and now 2016 we have 1) refurbish the well and get water run, 3) the house.................... we can probably take a vacation about 2020 or so... maybe.

 Hopefully....

But we LOVE the barn. Something we've both wished for our entire lives and now that we are old, we have it.  Sort of like that Corvette some guys go buy...

Saturation

SNOW in May??????????????  Yep twice the most recent on May 22 just a skiff but...............snow this late?

Last post I was worried we would not have enough moisture to really bring the grass up.  Now we are considering building an ark.   We have had rain almost every day for the past two weeks.  The ground is now saturated and flood warnings are out for this afternoon.  And it's still raining.  And the grass is knee deep to a tall cowboy - which is great!

Spring in Wyoming is not typical this year at all.  Usually we have snow in March and April.  This year nothing.  It was so dry.  And the grass was not coming up well even though the temperatures were quite warm.

Then in May it became cold.  We have not had a 70 degree day yet  here North of Nowhere and it's almost JUNE!  And the rain started and has continued.  Also not typical.

Livestock is miserable.  They have shed a lot and now they are wet and stay wet.  We had horses in the corral to feed them so they did not get so fat on the new grass but it was so muddy, we turned them out.  I felt sorry for them standing in all the mud in the corral.

The Bull has not been so fortunate.  He has to stay in until it's breeding season.  And the butcher steer is in with him and we are waiting for nice weather to get him in the freezer.

I wonder if this is what global warming will look like?   I suspect we will alternating between very rainy cool years like this year, and very dry severe droughts (not looking forward to those at all!)

Just some thoughts from Muddy Wyoming!

Changes

It has been a long time since I've posted but now I'm Baaack!

The big news is I am now retired. Not exactly by choice but I was laid off April 1st due to low oil prices.  And I am soooo tired of the commute I decided to not look for another job.

We have had a new addition to the North of Nowhere family -- our 3rd grandchild, granddaughter #2.  She is a sweetie and loves her brother and sister.

 One of the my first retired projects was this baptismal dress for her.  Taken from the Sew Beautiful magazine it was a challenging project to say the least!  It was called the Winter Christening Gown.
Granddaughter #2 is six months old in the photo that was taken by her mother.  Her mom is quite a talented photographer!

This is the picture from the Magazine:
The magazine version had embroidery on the organza overdress but after trying briefly to replicate that I quickly gave up the idea thinking I would simply ruin the organza and have to start over on that layer.  I really did not think it detracted at all from my version of the dress.

I've not chosen my next sewing project yet.  I have so MANY Many many UFO's (unfinished objects) from the years of working that it might be hard to chose one!!

Next project on the list is to start a garden!  I want to do something in raised beds and am thinking about using some of the old leaky stocks tanks we have just laying around for the bed planters.  I have one friend who has tried this and says they work great!

Will keep you all posted!

It was the Walk from Civil War Missouri that Required Tremendous Bravery

When we went to Missouri/Arkansas I thought we would find the story of a civil war soldier but it rapidly became the story of a civil war woman who must have had the bravery of a lion.

Downtown Licking, MO

Living south of Beulah, Missouri, Thomas Logan Johnson, was about to prove up in 1862 on over 160 acres of land he had filed homestead patents on in addition to lands he proved up on in 1856.  In May, he married Julia Ann Dension, ten years younger than he was. Oral family history says Julia was a small, dark-haired woman.

Logan (as he always went by) was 29 years old.  There was a spacious well built house on his farm in Spring Creek Township, Phelps County, Missouri and he was a slave owner although I've not been able to find out how many.  Known for raising fine horses, the new Mrs. Johnson must have looked forward to a bright future.

It was not to be.  In August of 1862, both the Union and Confederate armies were conscripting soldiers.  Thomas Logan Johnson went with his neighbors to Oregon County, Missouri and wound up in Company C of the Missouri 8th Infantry CSA as a 2nd Lieutenant.  He would not see his wife, nor the new baby, Annie,  who arrived in the Spring of 1863, for three years.  He also would not see any paycheck the entire time he served.

Meanwhile, Julia endured I don't know what from both Confederate and Union raiders.  The Union Army had moved into the county seat, Rolla, with 10,000 soldiers after the defeat at Wilson's Creek.  In it's infinite wisdom, the government in Washington D.C. paid it's army in useless script with the result of turning 10,000 hungry soldiers into the county raiding for their daily bread.  It must have been horrific.

How long Julia managed to stay on the farm, I haven't discovered.  But in August of 1864, the Union Provost Marshall in Rolla began seizing all the Confederate farms for 'bushwhacking' activities.  By the time the war ended in the Trans-Mississippi Area in May of 1865:

a)  Thomas Logan Johnson had fought in 3 battles;  Prairie Grove in Northern Arkansas shortly after enlisting in December of 1862, Battle of Pleasant Hill south of Shreveport, Louisiana in early April of 1864, and at Jenkins Ferry in Central Arkansas in late April of 1864 where he was on the Confederate Roll of Honor.  He was also now 1st Lieutenant of Company C. 

b) Where was Julia by the end of the war?  Somewhere near Beulah, Missouri but she had no slaves, no farm, no horses and no home. At some point, the house had been burned.  Everything had been swept away by the war.  All she had was three year old Annie.  And where was her husband?

One of the released soldiers from the unit told her.  Logan was in a military camp, Camp Magruder, near Minden, Louisana, too ill to make it home.  Twenty odd miles from Shreveport, he had been too ill to even go to Shreveport to sign the oath of allegiance - a requirement for release.  She had to go get him -- almost 400 miles through wooded countryside with a military government and hundreds of bushwhackers.  She was going to have to depend upon the generosity of strangers to eat and for shelter.

And so she decided she WAS going to get him.  She didn't know if he would be alive when she got there.  And she was taking Annie with her.  

I questioned why she would take a 3 year old on such an ardous journey.  I decided it was because she didn't know what awaited her, perhaps a dead husband, perhaps a man who couldn't make it home, perhaps she couldn't make it back.  Leaving her child to an unknown fate was not a choice she wanted to make perhaps.

Starting from Beulah according to family oral history, she made her way to Licking, Missouri, where she managed to get a horse, albeit one that was old and barely servicable, from the Union Army in Licking.  Putting Annie on the horse (and maybe herself also) she started for Louisana.

A few traces of the Civil War or post war era remained in the architecture of Licking.  However I found out nothing about the post war occupation while there as the local museum was closed.  Perhaps the next trip.

Cornice of one of the buildings in Licking.

The railroad station to the left.  This had to be a post civil war station or perhaps even early 20th century as the railroad ended in Rolla during the war.

Next -- The trip

When did Summer Happen?

Time really got away from me this summer.  It seems like I was sooooo busy yet do not have much to show for it.  Actually I had to go from part time at work to full time (and then some) and that really threw me for a loop.

The Civil War vacation was wonderful and we both so enjoyed the two weeks.  I will try to get some posts up on that.  Learned a lot!

Rebecca wants a picture of a calf so here you go ---

Most of our cows are about 3/4 angus now even though they might have a full belt.  Our bull is angus so we don't get too many belted calves anymore.  Occassionally a spot or two but the full belts are becoming rare.  Which for us is good as they dock you severely at the sale barn for white spots let alone a fully belted calf.

I did manage to do a little sewing this summer.  These were changing pad sheets I made for a gal I work with.  She had an adorable baby boy.

We went to a driving clinic in Gering Nebraska in May and had a great time! (Highly recommend the city campground in Gering.)  I fell in love with this mule who was the nicest boy ever, and his owner was a very nice person.  I believe his name was Festus and she would not part with him for love nor money and I can see why!

Course what's summer without baseball (or T-ball)?  Here #1 Granddaughter is at bat.

#1 Grandson had already had his game prior so he & Grandpa were playing catch.

AND BIG NEWS!!  We have a new granddaughter arriving late fall.  This is the little bib outfit I made for her recently, lined with green flannel and little hat to top it off.

And that pretty much sums up a summer that was way too brief.  We never even got up to the mountain this year.  But in addition to work overload, we've been busy trying to find a contractor (and are going with Morton Buildings) for a 60 x 100 arena/barn.  This is on five acres next to our #1 son near town.  A retirement place.  We will still spend spring/summer at 60 miles North of Nowhere but last winter, we decided it was no place for old people. 

Who wants to deal with this when they are retired??? Not ME.

So we will become snow birds.  Ha Ha. and go 60 miles SOUTH for the winter.  Horses will go with us, but we feed big round bales so we can set enough for the cattle for a week and come check them and feed them.  But retirement is still a few years off.  In the meantime we will enjoy that riding barn immensely.

Fall is really upon us.  In a few weeks the calves from the 'herdlet' will be shipped off and we will bring in two semi-loads of big bales of hay -- 44 tons.  Each bale weighs 1300 lbs and have to be moved with the skid-steer (tractor type machine).  I am not ready for winter again.  We had snow clear up to April and then just last week.  It seems it snows most of the year the past few years but boy did we have the GRASS this year.  And that is good.

Okay next posts have got to be about our vacation and what we found out and what we saw!