Hazy days of fall

Harley (enemy of toes)

It's been one of those days that started out good, but has quickly led to discouragement for me.  One of my family members was stupid enough to breed her mutt dog and produce 9 puppies of which she has advertised on Facebook for $450 each.  Yeah right!  What some people will justify for purely selfish reasons like financial gain.  I could never be so irresponsible as to purposely produce so many little lives when there are so very many puppies everywhere in need of loving homes.  Just chaps my hide to no end!!!  Grrrrr!!!

Onward and upward.  Our weather lately has been more dry than wet, which is good.  The trees have mostly shed their leaves and are taking on the stark appearance of winter.  The skies are mostly grey, fog is plentiful and the temperatures are on the coolish side.  Not cold, but cool enough that a fire in the hearth feels really good.  It's a little surprising really, that we're in mid-November and we're still sleeping with a bedroom window open all night.  Nice!  And Thanksgiving is just around the corner...how the time does fly!

Kadie 29-1/2 years old...with a belly.  :)

We're back to ordering fresh fruit and veggies from Bountiful Baskets every other week.  Last week was our first one since last spring, and it didn't disappoint.  We got a head of cabbage, apples, tangerines, spinach, mushrooms, a coconut, bananas, lettuce, tomatoes and some asparagus.  I might be forgetting something, but I think that was just about everything.  And so far, everything has been delicious!

I had leftover beef broth heavy with onions from a pot roast that we had last week.  So, I sauteed the mushrooms with a little garlic in some butter and added a can of mushroom soup to the beef broth; added a little thickener and had a nice sauce that I served over egg noodles.  Yum!  As a side, I steam/fried the cabbage in a fry pan with an inch or so of water and a smidge of bacon grease and seasoned it with salt and pepper.  So good!  That was our dinner last night, and we'll be enjoying leftovers tonight.   I love leftovers!

I'm recovering from a squished pinky-toe on Monday morning.  Today I actually wore real shoes, but after a couple of hours was thankful that I'd brought my soft slippers to change into.  Maybe tomorrow...anyway, I was preparing to lead Harley out of his stall for breakfast.  I threw a lead around his neck and wasn't quite prepared when he immediately moved forward.  Note to self:  be mindful of where your toes are when dealing with a blind horse.  Live and learn.  The real bummer is that I got new winter boots that look all warm and cozy, and I haven't even been able to try them out yet.  New boots and I can't wear them - now that's a drag!  :)

It's supposed to be all stormy this coming weekend.  Winter storm warning and all that...nowadays it's always a storm blowing in when we're expected to get wind and rain.  That's pretty normal for fall in the Willamette Valley, I think.  We have no plans, except maybe unload some more firewood from the trailer into our wood shed and Friday after work I'm picking up my paint order for our living room project.  Before we get to the actual painting, I need to box up everything, including everything from the walls and prepare for a room in chaos again.  I'm seeing a trip to Goodwill in my future.  I'm really looking forward to the renovation because I think it will look beautiful (hopefully!), definitely an improvement; but if I'm honest, I am not anxious to do the work, or have our living room in disarray.  *sigh*  What I'd really like to do, is call up a professional and just have the work done.  But, that's definitely not in the budget.  Oh well, we'll just make the best of it and try to think of this as another one of life's learning curves/adventures.  Yep, that's what I'm telling myself...over and over and over.  :)

We have no plans for Thanksgiving yet, so maybe it will just be the two of us at home.  I will always cook a turkey over the long Thanksgiving weekend because it's so nice having all those wonderful leftovers, but I'm not going to invite guests over this year.  We hosted the family gathering last year, and I'm not anxious about doing all the cooking and cleaning this year.  Uh-huh.  No way.  I envision something much more casual and relaxed this year.  A real holiday.

So, overall we're preparing to settle in and get some work done, beautify where we can, take naps when all else fails and keep on, keeping on.  And as always, we are thankful for so many blessings in our lives.  A warm cozy home, more than we need of everything that we need, healthy and happy horses, dogs, cats and llama.  Can't forget Merlin!  :)  Hopefully you are all feeling the love and blessings that we are, during this time of year when we pause to reflect on all the wonderful things in our lives that we should be grateful for.

Until next time,
Lorie and the gang at Cingspots

Whistling while we work

I've got several ideas and plans rattling around in my head these days...I usually do, I think.  Anyway, with our weather taking a rather dramatic turn for the more typical fall weather in the Pacific NW, we're preparing to focus our attentions on the inside, rather than being outside as much.  Just for the record, our weather during the entire month of October was fabulous!!  We were so blessed to have spent some time at the beach and got to enjoy the last of our spectacular, warm, sunny and dry fall.  I've always said that come November, all bets are off weather-wise!  The first several days in November were greyer, and we even experienced a little precipitation, but nothing exciting.  Now that we're over a week into the month, things are normalizing. These days we're frequently experiencing fog, grey skies, rain, wind and mud.  We've also had several days with a few breaks of blue skies, fluffier clouds and a little sunshine; but nothing like glorious October.  But, I'm thankful.  In fact, the skies have been dramatic and anything but ordinary, so we take the blessings anywhere we can.  And it's been warm.  We're still sleeping with our bedroom window open to let in the cool, night-time breeze.  It feels wonderful to snuggle inside the covers while feeling the cooling and refreshing breeze on my face as I sleep.  I love it!

So, as I was saying about having ideas ratting around in my noggin...  I do.  I've got plans for renovating our living room in the works.  I am so excited!  We're going to remove all traces of the cheap, nasty-looking fake oak trim everywhere and replace it with the more appropriate for our house's style with 3/4 x 4" flat trim boards.  I've decided on Sherwin-Williams Dover White 6385.  It's considered a warm white, and we've also used that same trim color in our kitchen, entry way and laundry room.  For the walls, I've got a few selections to consider, but they're all in the warm neutrals family of beige and we're choosing a couple of shades darker for the ceiling color...probably SW 6142 for the ceiling and SW 7569 Stucco on the walls.  Our living room is a fairly large, rectangular-shaped room with three windows and the front door.  The pellet stove and brick work are on one end and that's where we usually congregate during the cooler, fall and winter months.  So, my hopes are to create a more cozy and intimate feeling of welcome when you enter the room.  When we moved into our house almost 18 years ago, every single wall in the entire house, upstairs and down, was painted a bright white and had (still do) tan carpeting.  Talk about boring!  The carpet is disgusting!  I've had it cleaned several times and there's simply nothing more that can be done with it.  It's got to go.  I considered replacing it with new carpeting, but have since decided to go with laminate/fake wood instead.  I'll more than likely use the same choice that I did for our kitchen and nook/woodstove room.  It's a fairly dark and rustic-looking flooring in the shade of walnut, but not quite that dark.  It has a very slight reddish tone to it, but is truly more in the brown family.    With the darker flooring, I still need to keep the walls fairly light, but I definitely want warm/neutrals.  I hope these color choices will look nice with our reddish-toned leather couch and loveseat.  At some point, I'll get a large area rug for the seating area.  My many throw pillows are also in the rich, dark reds, blacks and tans of what would probably be considered kind of a Southwest earthen tone??  I'm not sure, it's kind of difficult to describe, but you get the gist, right?

The one wall where the pellet stove is located is the only wall that's not painted white right now.  And I'm still in a bit of a quandary as to what to do with it.  Right now, it's paneled in a very light, (almost maple) bead board.  Maybe I'll do the painting and then decide what to do with that wall.  We could leave it as it is, remove the bead board and paint it the same as the other walls, or paint it in a contrasting color.  What to do?  Right now I'm just focusing on getting the new paint up and the new flooring and trim boards in before making a decision on that wall.  It's probably going to become a much bigger project that what I'm envisioning...that always seems to happen!

If we can accomplish this project and still haven't committed hari-kari, then it's on to our bedroom...I have definite plans already in place for that, but won't go into them right now.  First things, first.  :)

In other news that isn't news, we're still working, still interacting and caring for our horses every day (feisty, fat and furry), and maintaining everything that comes along with home ownership and rural properties.  No rest for the wicked, I'm afraid!

We just cut and stacked in our wood shed, a cord of fir for our stash.  This weekend we're getting 2 more cords of oak firewood, and that will be it for this year.  That should be more than we actually need to get through this winter, but it doesn't go bad, and it'll be nice having a little extra to layover for the next year.

We got our order of a quarter beef.  Not only does it look mighty good in our freezer, but it's really tasty as well.  We're very, very happy with the quality and the flavor of this meat.  So...the pantry and the freezer are well-stocked.  The wood shed will be full with beautiful firewood very soon, and we will then, turn our energy and attention to inside projects.  No, we never get bored!  We're feeling especially blessed and as ready as is possible for the coming winter weather...barn full of hay, plenty of bedding on hand, pellets for our stove on hand, plenty of firewood in the wood shed, pantry and freezer well stocked.  I even found lamp oil for our kerosene lamps and have plenty of candles if we ever have an electrical outage.  Yes indeed, feeling very blessed!

And that's about all she wrote!  Until next time, Lorie @ Cingspots

Happy Fall everybody...hope you find good ways to keep your hands and minds busy, and your hearts at peace.

All Hallow's Eve

We don't do much as far as anything celebratory for this holiday, except maybe eat a little more candy than normal.  In our nearly 18 years in our home, we have never received even a single trick-or-treater, but I usually buy some candy, just in case.  :)  My friend Claudia buys dilly bars and buster bars from Dairy Queen - maybe I should visit her this year...

Well, we've just returned from our trip to the beach.  The weather was absolutely glorious!  I couldn't possibly have wished for anything better.  The house was clean, open, bright, had amazing ocean views and the bed was comfortable.  We had a fire in the fireplace almost continuously and left the doors open to enjoy the fresh, coastal breeze.  I wore shorts and flip flops for walking on the beach.  Yep, the end of October in shorts and a sweatshirt.  There was just a trace of a breeze and we enjoyed every single minute of our time away.  The only fly in the ointment to an otherwise perfect holiday was, the hot tub.  It wasn't heating and I just tried it out briefly the first evening.  84 degrees is just not warm enough for a good soak.  This is the second time I've rented a vacation home with a non-working hot tub.  Just my luck.  I made up for it with long, hot showers...even took Ruby in with me once, and I think she enjoyed it.  Well, she felt much better after the showering part was finished anyway.  She was a sandy, ocean-smelling mess.  The dogs had a blast, of course.  Long walks on the beach, running through the surf, chasing seagulls and wayward bunny rabbits - what could be better?

I must have been in need of some rest because I went to bed early each evening and slept in every morning.  We ate all our meals in, except for one night out for fish and chips.  We even baked chocolate chip cookies.  Why is it that I never mind cooking while I'm on holiday?  I read a book, browsed magazines, watched movies and had several long, enjoyable and relaxing walks on the beach.  And of course, I took lots and lots of pictures.  Very low-key and exactly what we needed.  What a wonderful way to end a perfectly beautiful October.  I can hardly believe that tomorrow begins November.  Wow, where does the time go?  Before you know it, Thanksgiving will be here and then Christmas...good grief!  I don't want to even think about Christmas yet.  It's depressing for me to think about how very commercialized it's become.  I always feel like Christmas is force fed to us all by being crammed down our throats...buy, buy, buy.  Hurry, hurry, hurry...don't let the holidays sneak up on you!  Bah-humbug!  Not this gal, I'll enjoy my Christmas slowly and without going into debt.  Thank you very much.  But I digress...

Apparently, we had some very cold nights and mornings in our valley while we were away.  My Nasturtiums which had completely overtaken the front porch, except a tiny entry spot near the front door, are shriveled up and dying.  Hopefully the plants underneath them were protected from the freeze and will survive.  And the horses!  In just a few days time, they have really gotten woolly.  And fat.  Our caretakers did not spare the groceries, and they like it just fine.  I've always said that I'd rather they be overfed, than underfed while we're gone.  Keep them happy and satisfied and they're less likely to look for mischief.  That's how we like to believe anyway.  So far it's always worked in our favor.

 

We'll see you next year October!  It's been grand!!

Stay safe everyone...Happy Halloween!!  

Indian summer activities

Our park tree in full color

beautiful fall colors

Ruby

Annie

This may be the first real, true Indian Summer in the past several years, that I can remember anyway.  We've had a couple of frosts and now the most beautiful sunshine.  Many mornings have started out shrouded in mist, only to burn off and be beautiful and warm later in the day.  This is the kind of fall weather I absolutely adore!  Bring on the outdoor activities!!  Bonfires, roasting marshmallows, picking apples, chopping firewood, riding horses, taking hikes in the woods, capturing all those gorgeous Autumn colors that abound...aaaahhhh, just splendid!

Hello October and all your glory!

Walking in the woods

My beautiful (and round) Eagle

Lovebirds...Ladde and Missy

Sweet Harley

happy horses

sometimes he makes her soooo mad!

This past weekend we bathed the dogs, trimmed their nails, had a bonfire and burned our huge pile of tree trimmings that we've collected throughout the summer, cut some firewood, went out for breakfast, made homemade cabbage and tomato soup and I baked a marion berry pie.  I'm needing to make some room in the freezer for our quarter of a beef that we're expecting by the end of the month.  We haven't bought a quantity of beef in many years, so it will be nice to have this on hand.  Grass fed, grain finished, Black Angus and raised by friends of ours...it will be so nice knowing that the beef we're eating is humanely and organically raised locally.  The meat in the stores just doesn't taste good these days, so I buy very little of it.

Since we missed our horse camping trip last month due to bad weather, we're hoping to take a few days the end of this month and go to the beach.  All the campgrounds are closed for the winter now, so no horse camping...but, who doesn't love time spent at the beach?  I'm hoping to find an inexpensive beach house, and if I'm lucky, it will be beach front, have a wood stove or a fireplace, a full kitchen and a hot tub.  Sounds delicious doesn't it?  I envision long walks on a solitary beach, and then coming back for a nice, long soak in the hot tub, followed by a good book by the fire...or a movie, or maybe even a nap.  *sigh*  Mentally, I'm already there.  :)

I've still got to do the usual groundwork in preparation of a short trip though, like finding someone to cover for me at the clinic and a caretaker for the horses and the cats.  The dogs always travel with us.  They'd plot some heinous revenge if we left them at home...

happy dogs!

Missy's eye (Sugar)

our 2013 grape harvest - a good year

I'm hoping this beautiful weather sticks around for a while...through the end of October anyway, after that I've always said, come November and all bets are off.  Haha!  Winter is then upon us, as the monsoon season hits.  But fingers crossed for sunshine, brisk mornings, clear skies and frosty pumpkins for a little while longer...

How's the weather in your neck of the woods?  Do you have traditional activities that you enjoy this time of year???  I'd love to hear about them.  :)

Happy October everyone, and blessings from
Lorie @ Cingspots

As the worm turns

and other fun stuff.

Not.

I am cranky today.  I was cranky yesterday too.  Work at the clinic's been slow, people have been more than a little irritating and the weather's beautiful...and here I sit, in my cage.  And I've come to the conclusion that there is, nor will there ever be; a cure for stupid.  :(

I would like nothing better than to be somewhere warm and sunny, lying on a sandy beach, cocktail in hand, reading a really good book...far, far away from people and civilization.  Yes, it really is that bad.

*sigh*

Did I mention that people can be really, really insensitive and really, really stupid?  Oh, okay.  But in my defense, it does bear repeating.  Take our federal government for an example...now, if you want to talk stupid, that subject is a deep well my friends.  Very deep.

Just a couple of weeks ago, these fields were brown, dry and parched...now they're green and soggy.  What a difference a little lot of rain can make...the weatherman says this September was the wettest on record - ever.  Well, at least since they've been keeping records of such things anyway.  Since the late 1800's.  Yes, it's been that wet.  We had our first frost this morning.  Yesterday and now today have been beautiful.  I've been at work.  We don't have plans to go anywhere this weekend.  Oh joy...

It's too muddy to go riding anywhere.  It's too wet to go hiking anywhere.  It's too early to go Christmas shopping.  *sigh*  Normally, I love fall.  It's my favorite time of year, but if things don't improve, let's just say it feels like we're taking a major shortcut to winter.  You know what winters are like in the Pacific Northwest, right?  That's right.  Rain.  And then some more rain.  Some wind and yes, more rain.  Mud up to your eyebrows.  I am so. not. ready. for. this. crap!!!!  Sorry, I'll post another pretty cloud picture so you don't all get bummed like me...

Do you have any plans for this weekend?  What's the weather been like where you live lately?  Does anybody else out there feel like Mother Nature is all f*&^#d up????

On an unrelated topic, I got an amazing sweater and a beautiful neck scarf yesterday at the New To You consignment shop.  Oh my, the sweater is gorgeous, and long and cream-colored (my favorite) and hopefully will look half as good on me, as my imagination thinks it will look. :)   I envision black leggings or skinny jeans with boots...warm, cozy and chic, oh my!

Stay warm and dry my friends,
Blessings from C-ingspots...............................Lorie