Felting

Last weekend we had a felting workshop. On Friday a number of us made felted hats out of alpaca fiber. On Saturday we made felted scarves out of alpaca fiber & other items. It was a great time. I have pictures but of course have not downloaded them. I will work toward that later down the road. Tomorrow we are going to the Taos Wool Festival. I missed last year because I had a sore throat & was having surgery the following Monday. BUT I'm headed there tomorow.

Fall

Well, it seems like forever since I posted anything. Somehow I need to make it short & sweet to cover everything!!

The mice are about the same. The glue paper doesn't work worth anything. One fell into the 4 way sweet mix, which is usually closed but somehow it was open enough that one fell in. That same day I caught one in a trap. So I threw the one out of the sweet mix & Jamie took care of that one.

Mom is doing better mentally this week, less confused. But last week a CNA left her alone in the bathroom (a big no no) and she tired of waiting, got up & promptly fell. She broke her scapula. I was extremely upset & emailed the administrator, director of nursing & regional director that night (before I knew anything was broke). The next day she saw her Dr. & got x-rays. When we got the results I ended up spending about 30 minutes with the director, & the administrator came in during part of our discussion. The aide was suspended for 2 weeks & everything had to be reported to the state of CO. I did not make any requests as far as the aide, etc. the way it sounded to me I thought if the state allowed her to keep her certification they would keep her on. Well I found out today that they fired the aide. She called me to "apologize". I accepted her apology BUT she never did say: I left your mother alone in the bathroom & it is my fault that she fell & broke her scapula. She tried to pawn a portion of the situation off on another cna. BUT Mom is feeling better so that is the good part. It is frustrating that it happened though because there were 5 big time major indicators that Mom was high risk for a fall. Besides the fact that the cna had cared for Mom before at least twice and has listened to report every day & should have known. Anyway it was the strangest apology I've ever received.

Onward to the next problem. My roof. Now about 2 years ago I told Dennis that there were water marks on the spare bedroom ceiling & I was concerned that we had a roof leak. Later I found spots in the dining room. Dennis went into the attic & looked. He couldn't find a leak anywhere, did some talking around & decided we needed to put foam in the attic. Luckily he had not done it before he died. I had the person who repainted the house check everything out about a month ago & he felt for sure we had a leak or a number of leaks. The north side of the roof has 4 layers of shingles on it & then the tin roof. There is much too much weight AND there are places where the roof is kind of pushed in. Then my neighbor, who we bought the house from told me that the boards under the roof on the south side of the house were OSB. Well, if you put screws into OSB & tighten them, they strip the hole & will not keep the screws in. That explains why we cannot keep the metal roof tight to keep water out!!! Amazing isn't it!!! People do the strangest things. Anyway we are now in the midst of pulling up the metal roof, fixing what is below & making sure NOTHING will ever leak again.

It is cold every night & was 12 degrees last night. BURRRRRRRR. I'm not ready for winter, but it is coming, that's for sure!!!

Busy times

Well, it seems like there is something going on continually.

Last Friday I was bit by a friends beagle. Actually it is her son's beagle. He had both his beagles at his mom's & they were tied up outside. I petted the female & she was so nice & friendly. I just lost my brain at that moment apparently. I went to pet the male & he was much more aggressive acting............well, I got a good dog bite on my right hand. So I ended up seeing the NP, having my hand soaked in stuff, getting 4 stitches (two on each side) very loosely put in and being put on an antibiotic. Luckily I'm improving. I am now also using my brain & setting the alarm on my cell phone to make sure I take my antibiotics.

I've set up a natural dyeing workshop for the fiber group. It's here on the 26th of the month in the afternoon. In the meantime people had been asking for a felting workshop. I've got that finalized now & it will be hat making on the 25th & scarf making the morning of the 26th. I think we will have a great time.

No 4th cria for sure. I've attempted to mate GG for next year, but do not think it took. The male is a little young. But I guess I'll know in about a year. I'm not going to mate any more of the girls though.

I'm trying to work on the file cabinet.............awful.......I hate paperwork. But I am making some progress.

The hollyhocks are finally blossoming. They are very pretty. Of course Dennis picked them out, double hollyhocks. He had planted them in front of our bedroom window. I decided this Spring that I wanted them in a different spot and want to do something different in front of our bedroom window. So I moved them & was quite surprised that they survived and are finally blossoming!! I also have 3 or 4 lemons on Dennis' lemon tree. Now that is amazing also as my thumb isn't green. Anyway they are quite green & still growing. I miss him.

My Mom appears somewhat better mentally. Sometimes it is hard to tell as she can cover up very well. I don't like to ask questions that appear to be checking on her mental status. She gets really ticked at me. So I attempt to go with the flow. In case I haven't shared it, my new philosophy with her is "validate do not irritate." That isn't always easy for me, but I'm learning.
My sister is coming tomorrow to spend a couple of days. We'll see what all we can get done! Fall is in the air, I can smell it.

Mice

All Spring & Summer I have been fighting mice in the feed shed. It has been a challenge off & on. I had to buy some new mouse traps this summer, so I checked with the clerk at Big R as far as what she would recommend. So I have two different kinds. I have basically used sweet mix to entice them. BUT decided this summer I needed to expand my food for the traps. They tend to be able to get the sweet mix without setting off the trap.

So I tried cheese & I tried peanut butter. I found that apparently some mice are very lightweight, perhaps they fly. They can get all the peanut butter off without setting off the trap. Now I KNOW the trap works well as we will not mention how many times my thumb has suddenly been snapped when trying to get things set right. They work, I know they work. I've perhaps trapped & killed 10 mice this summer. I had one that got only one foot caught & I let him loose. BUT earlier this week I discovered a trap was missing. I looked & looked. I finally found it off in a corner..........it had a foot & part of a leg in it, but no mouse. SO IF you see a 3 legged mouse, please keep it.

Now yesterday I have another trap missing. I've looked everywhere in all the corners..........no where to be found. This is of course after finding all the other traps empty & no food left --- some of them still set & some of the traps have snapped with no results.

I really don't like mice all over the feed shed. They also are eating the hay ------- perhaps those are voles, who knows. I guess may be I need a cat, an outside cat. It would seem to me that the snakes would be eating the mice AND the foxes. Ah well.

Saturday

I decided yesterday that Willie & I would take the afternoon off today. I have a friend in Alamosa who has started a knitting shop. She has been in at least two different stores (had a portion of them), but things were a challenge in the other stores. So she found her own area above a major store in Alamosa. Today was her grand opening of her very own store. I just decided I "had" to go & check things out. So we had lunch with a neighbor. Ran to see Mom (who was sleeping, so we saved that for later). Then headed to Alamosa. There were quite a few people checking out Kimberly's new stop. She has a lot of neat yarn & lots of knitting/spinning/crocheting/weaving books. Everything is always so tempting.

Anyway of course I "had" to buy some items. She also had two drawings & for every $5 spent your name was put in the drawing. I will not confess to what all I bought & how many times I was in the drawing. I WON the 4 pm drawing. I was absolutely thrilled. The above item was the "big" item for the win. Luckily Kimberly didn't buy the peacock color ----------- I got this knitting bag in "Hollywood Pink"!!! Plus there was a book, yarn, some brittany birch needles & some notions inside. I can really take my knitting stuff with me in style now.

I had also been having a sad day anyway. These days do not happen often, but do occur when Dennis is sorely missed more than normal. This helped brighten up my day.

Life Update

Time is flying by so fast with so much going on.

My mother is still in the nursing home. I do not feel she will probably be able to return to her home and am not sure she will recover enough to make it to assisted living. She's having a lot of problems with her legs moving correctly & having enough strength. Of course it doesn't help not being able to walk that much in the nursing home. She doesn't have the strength to get up on her own & walk with the walker on her own without almost falling. So she doesn't get that much time being up practicing. Plus she is having a lot of confusion. So I do a lot of visiting & running to town to check on her.

"They" talk about global warming..............................we had our first frost August 9th. Not good. I lost some squash and some of my beans. We had another frost this week. All of this seems to be a little early for this area. It has been so cold at night that my second cutting of hay isn't doing well at all ---------- not good.

I thought I was expecting another alpaca cria. But in looking at Cookie I've decided that she isn't pregnant. I've also found out about her pregnancy last year. She had Travis. Well, I thought I bred her to Azugar & put Azugar in as Travis' Dad. Azugar was rejected by the DNA testing. I had them do other testing, etc. & it must be Hershey (still awaiting on the certificate). But the most interesting thing is I found my notes & I did breed Cookie to Azugar, twice. I then checked her against Hershey to see if she was pregnant or not (the girls typically spit & spit at the males if they are). He must have tried to mount her but didn't succeed as I put her down as spitting him off. Somehow he is the Dad!!! Anyway for this year, she must not have liked him either as that's who I bred her to last year & she sure doesn't look pregnant.

Life is so interesting.

Dennis' Flowers

These are Asian Tiger Lilles. Dennis planted them a year or two ago, I cannot remember when exactly. But this is the first year they have blossomed at all. They are beautiful. I've had a number of neighbors mention how pretty they look. Summer is about over with and they are now starting to stop producing any blossoms.