Happy Thanksgiving, Everyone!

 

Happy Thanksgiving! I've been really busy sewing, making some crafts for a couple of Christmas craft sales coming up in early December.

Clothespin bags! A limited market, for sure, but I'm hoping a few RVers might find them cute. These will be my first craft sales ever.

I've also been doing a few paintings for potential sale, encouraged by my art teacher, Kathy.

I'm keeping my expectations low, which is my usual M.O. (modus operandi), so I won't be disappointed if I don't sell any. And I'm using scenes from around the ranch, which is fun. This is an old bicycle of Sam's, and yes, under this tree is where it lives. We don't have enough space or storage. Or we have too much stuff. Take your pick.

I still have lots to do before we join friends for Thanksgiving dinner, so I'll close with a few other activities that have been going on around the ranch.

Sam has continued sanding and polishing wheels. And working on the horse trailer. And changing the oil on the car. He always has what seems like hundreds of projects that need to be done. 

I cleaned out the brush under the trees in our front yard a few weeks ago. 

This is what it looked like before. 

Lettuce is the only winter vegetable that is still growing, although we're getting lots of small tomatoes off the dead plants. And Sam harvested 4 or 5 pounds of jalapenos. Anyone want some?

We went to Benson High School homecoming football game, which was great small town fun.

Finally, all our nice flowers got eaten by stealth visitors the other day, right in Mom's front yard. We found deer tracks around the pots and later saw 5 deer cross the driveway. In this dry year, with few plants growing, I'm sure they were thankful for some tasty treats.

Have a great Thanksgiving weekend, everyone. Remember to be thankful for all that God gives us!

Cleaning out the garden, and other things

We had a couple of nights with temperatures below freezing. 28 degrees...in October! It pretty well killed off the summer garden, so Sam cleaned out the tomatillo plants and we filled the basket with 5 pounds of green bell peppers. I gave them to neighbors and friends, then cut up and froze lots more.

It even snowed!

We left most of the jalapenos for now. This was a week ago, after we gave a lot of them away. 

Our harvest after the first frost was 5 pounds, our biggest yet, but was eclipsed the very next day. 

Yellow squash are still doing pretty well. The leaves are huge.

I pulled 4 radishes, the first fall vegetables, exactly a month after planting. So I planted more.

The loofah grew very large and the plant has now died, so we'll soon see if it is big enough to use as a loofah sponge.  But enough about the garden!

Sam has been working on the horse/utility trailer.

He cut out the heavy steel wall between the main trailer and the "tack room," for more space to put the motorcycle.

Sam also set up our workout equipment in the shade beside the storage trailer, and we started using it last week. 

Today Mom Virginia wandered up to see what we were doing and Sam talked her into joining us!

Meanwhile, I've devoted my time to more artistic projects. I found some teal pumpkin paint, perfect because Mom doesn't like orange, and ended up with this weird looking face. I left the hair orange in honor of my redhead, Sam. 

Since I now use a clothesline while doing laundry, I needed a clothespin holder and found a cute "caravan peg bag" design on Etsy. I think the creator is from Great Britain: Rainbow Hare Peg Bag

It's really cute and works great. If anyone wants one for Christmas, let me know!

I continue to pursue new endeavors in painting with acrylics, and truly love it. This was an exercise in painting upside down, to encourage my brain to look for shape and color, rather than objects or scene. I think it helped! It was copied from another Erin Hanson masterpiece: ErinHanson.com

Last week, for the first time, I painted from a "live" object, a bouquet of flowers our teacher brought in. I'm fairly happy with it, and Kathy was very encouraging (as she always is). If anyone in southern Arizona wants to join us, it's really a fun class: No Fear Painting Workshop

Last, but certainly not least, last weekend we had a really fun visit from old friends, Dean and Peggy. 

We walked around the ranch.

The men had plenty of guy time to talk about tractors, trucks and guy things. 

And the remaining family members, Slinky and Jasper, totally wore themselves out. It was a fun day.

I'll say goodbye with views of a recent sunrise. 

Sam suggested sitting in our front yard to see if the clouds would produce a good one. 

It was worth it! I hope you all have a great week.