The orchids are Blooming!

It is that time of year.  The orchids are blooming in our home. Again.  We have several more reaching the bloom time in the next few weeks.  It is a nice reminder of life when the rest of the world is blanketed in ice, snow and white EVERYWHERE!
Here are a few of my beauties:

One





TWO

 

 

Three

 

A Closer Look

The New beauty my husband bought me for Valentine's Day!

(#4)

 

This one is in my bedroom (#5) and it actually looks even better now....I should re-photograph.

 

Stay tuned because there will be more blooming soon!



Another snow day! Really?!

Well you know what that calls for....more snow pictures!  My trusty sidekick loves these days, as she curls up on the couch next to me in a small little ball.  I believe that she is attempting to not appear as a 90lb dog curled up on a pillow but that's just a guess as she is pleading the 5th here!  I think she's just more than happy to have someone home with her!

                                                         She is sooo funny!

So, many of these next pictures are from throughout the winter but since I haven't kept up on posts in a while, and was unable to upload photos, they are coming to you all at once- lucky you!

Cheese Triangles/ Tiropitas

This was making greek appetizers on one of my snow days.

Some of you have had these and know how yummy they are.  I made just over 100 of these and they are pretty much all gone.  I have to buy more ingredients to make more! 

 



Sunset

Hopefully you can see the cardinal in this picture.  Just click on it to enlarge it.

Beautiful sky

The view out the kitchen window-notice the snow height.  It's at the height of the window!

 

 

 

 

This tree is buried!  I will try to find a summer pic for comparison!

Look at that overhang!  Notice the door knob just above the snow drift!?!

 

Then there is a little weaving.....

Still working on the dishtowels

 

Can not wait to pull them all off!  I have been making these since November!!  I am certain the first couple ones are bad!  However I feel like improvements have come as I proceeded. We shall see!

 

Choppin' trees....an oldie

I can finally update! Yeah! ;)
Remember this summer when I said there were a lot of projects going on?  Then I mentioned that we were having some trees cut down.....do you remember this?!? Well....I never posted anything on it and I am FINALLY coming around to do so.

The morning sunrise....what a great start to the day!
 

The first chop!

Amazing!

So close to the house

Some big trees!

 All in all we had 3.5 trees removed.  We are not in the sport of cutting trees, these trees were dead or dying due to the terrible emerald Ash borer.  I was extremely sad to watch the large tree on the hill go.  We did leave behind a 30 ft. stump because the tree was too large for the tree service to cut.  They estimated the tree to be near 150 yrs old. It has overseen this property and everything that has happened here....a real piece of history.

Good Night!

 

 

Snowed In!!

I started this post a while ago! 
Well.....when we bought this land/ house, I said that it would be awesome if we got snowed in....we'll guess what!?!  It happened!  I have now been off work 3 additional days....hanging out, cleaning, relaxing, weaving.....it's really been fabulous and I am loving it!

So now as I am updating, we have had 7.5 snow days!  Crazy....I've never had this many days off.  However we now have 1.5 days to make up in June which is a bit of a bummer!  But... of all the years that I have been teaching, this winter's snow days were much needed here.

We have not let any of this time go to waste.  Drew and I have gone cross country skiing, snow shoeing, downhill skiing and just enjoyed nature.

Here are a few of our pics from walks around the property.

 

Drew is as tall as the roof!

 

This woodpecker had been busy!!!

Neat twisted bark

Neat Old Tree

My sweet baby loving nature!

 

Critter prints were everywhere!  They are busy near the water sources.

website error

I have to apologize because I have not been able to post any pictures.  I have several posts in draft mode but keep getting error messages.  At this time I am unable to do any further posts....this has been going on all fall....not sure how to fix it!!

**apparently this seems to have a connection to photos on my camera....maybe the file size....so I will try a new route so it does not take me an hr+ to update!**

Weaving

The weaving has begun!  I bought the additional tools needed to begin thanks to someone here in town that was looking to unload a few items.  She has been a great resource!  So Drew helped me to warp the back beam after I planned my projects and I threaded all of the heddles and off I went!  I have completed 2 dish towels thus far and am starting on a 3rd. 

While weaving I also get to enjoy some awesome views out these west facing windows.  Here are a few shots of the sunset while weaving the other night!

 

The photos are not the best at capturing the actual beauty I witnessed but they give you an idea.  You can also see the start of my weaving!

We also experienced our first snow fall and have had several more since then.....actually it is snowing here right now!

I think that it is going to be a beautiful winter and we cannot wait to snowshoe around here!!

I know this is not much but it is all I have time for.

Stay tuned!

 

 

 

 

 

Loom

I did it....I bought a loom.  I have been thinking about it, dreaming about it, talking about it and searching them on the web.....and now I own one !  We picked it up this afternoon.  We tried to get it up the stairs in what we had decided would be my "craft room" in one of the smaller bedrooms upstairs, and there it sits....in the middle of the kitchen!  It just so happens that old farm houses built in the late 1800's/early 1900's have really narrow stair cases.  You think that maybe we would have thought about that....nope!  So I looked that bad boy over and decided we could disassemble it further and get it up there no prob!  Right?!?  Wrong!! Very wrong. However it doesn't end there.  I actually used my fore thought, measured the feet of the loom and went upstairs to measure the actual door way, because I had a 'feeling' and my 'feeling' was correct..... The door way is also quite small on my 'proposed' craft room and there is about a 1/4 clearance.  Did I mention the 1/4 clearance requires a straight shot in the doorway and that doorway just so happens to be at a funny angle so there is no straight shot!?!  Haa...yes...back to the drawing board!

So the rest of my day will be spent cleaning and rearranging furniture to get creative.  Yes, this thing is big, but it is going to make some cool things in the future and I am super excited about this!  Stay tuned for pictures of my new toy....the trials and tribulations of getting it up and running and my first big project!

**Update**
Got the loom all set up.  Took some rearranging creativity on our first level, but it is ready to roll.  I took myself to the weaving shop on my way home....spent an hr there and left a whole lot more excited!!  I'm kinda really geeked now to get started!!  I really need to sit down and plan a project here soon!