Mooove slowly and don't hug cows, hikers told

Read this article this morning, about hikers and cattle. I found it hilarious!!

Well, the garage sale is done! Whew! On Friday, I managed, all by myself, to put up my HUGE white tarp to cover the sale area. Well, it pretty much covers the entire side yard, which is great. Because ya just never know what will show up.... rain, sleet, snow, wind, sun. We went with the latter this time around.

Made $150.40 on Saturday, and another 50 bucks or so on Sunday. C'mon baby, momma needs new glasses!! But that's not too bad, considering I didn't have any furniture, it was just "stuff". Man, 10 yrs ago, I didn't have a pot to pee in - now I've become a pack rat!! Jeez!!

My Hitachi tv didn't find a new home at the sale. 10 bucks, couldn't even get an offer on it. This was my first major purchase, back in 1979 or so. Damn thing cost me $700. Cost me more than my bloody car did!! I got that $500. Mind you, it wasn't new, and Dave liked me even back then, so he and his buddy Rollie made 2 cars into one.

So my tv, and a whole 1/2 ton truck load of stuff went to Sally Ann yesterday. If I had the time or inclination, I could have probably sold it all on ebay!! But that's okay, Sally Ann and auctions and other 2nd hand stores were my friends when I first moved down here, so maybe some other woman in the same circumstances will appreciate some of the things. And some of the items, I actually just returned BACK to Sally Ann! Thanks! It was greatly appreciated! :-)

some other plants, and stuff...

This is my clay chimenea... originally it was kinda brownish/grayish. Not one to leave things as they are... I painted it! Just used the inexpensive acrylic paints, and get this... Future Floor wax to seal it. It's acrylic too. Hey, found the instructions on the internet, and damned if it didn't work! Started off with my small fires in it to "cure" it, and viola, I have a useable working fire pot for the back yard! It's so cool when it catches, 'cause you can hear the whoom as it goes up the chimney. I'm quite proud of the little begger! :-)


This actually has wax inside of it, a candle. I just liked it 'cause of the face. So I hide him behind greenery, and he peeps out at people.


This is my iron chemenea... just a couple of problems with it. It's open all the way around, so sometimes everything gets blown all over the place. And it rusts!!


This is an up close of my Flax Flowers, hmmmm.... guess the camera didn't focus like it was supposed to.


This is what the Flax plant looks like. Looks waaaay better when it is fresh in the spring.


My Gerbera Daisy. Love these flowers!

And if you take a look at the bottom of the plant, you can see a baby gerbera growing. What's cool about these flowers, they don't grow up, then bud. The flower actually begins at the bottom, and only enlarges as it gets taller.

Inuksuit

This is my Inuksuk in the front yard - should have taken the picture laying down in front of it!!


And here is my Inuksuk in the back yard. I'm showing it, 'cause people thought they were pretty neat too. So while I'm showing my "yard", I might as well show everything. Just to bore the "heck" out of everyone out there! LOL

We went to the mountains a few years ago and got these wonderful rocks from a very old slide area. At my house, I used them for stepping stones. But then when I moved to this house, I really wanted to build one (or two), so off we went to the mountains again. Dave had to keep reminding me that his truck is a HALF ton, it can only take so much weight. But they (the rocks) are soooooo sweet!! :-) Paddy was with us that trip, we were sorta building them out there, to get an idea of which rocks would balance properly. I have a feeling the Inuksuit may have to stay with the house if/when/where we sell it. They are almost too much of a puzzle to put together again. And who knows, maybe it will be a selling feature? If the people that came thru today had their way, they certainly would be. Lots and LOTS of positive feedback on our little "cozy" backyard, as one fella called it.

Apple Trees too!

This is our Crab Apple Tree - I cannot take ANY credit for the unique shape, that was done by the people that lived here before us. Cool, eh? Lots of garage sale people remarked on the trees too, along with my Morning Glories.













Then here is the other apple tree. Haven't a clue what kind of apples they are, but they are really nummy right off the tree. They begin yellow, but when they are touched by the sun, they go partially pink. Of course, those ones are on the VERY top of the tree!!














When I was in Water Valley last year for their celtic festival, I came across these "faces", and I knew EXACTLY where one would go!! (by the way, highly recommend their festival - it's an itty bitty town, and the whole town becomes involved in it. So you can go inside this or that place, or the pub, and there is celtic music and dancing and drums and EVERYTHING.... EVERYWHERE! Really cool.)













And here are some of the apples, looking upwards... Free for the taking!!

Morning Glories

I absolutely LOVE these flowers/vines!! I had soooo many people commenting on them today at the garage sale, I thought I'd throw some pics here on my blog. Just 'cause. :-)

Girl's Weekend August 3 - 7, 2006

The Girls' Weekend out...

Because there was such concern about a place to go to - between fire bans and rain storms in the forecast - and FINDING a place that wasn't full up for the long weekend... we ended back at Wyndham-Carseland Provincial Park. $20 a night, gone up from last year, even if you are in a tent!! And the $20 gets you..... nadda. A smelly potty. No firewood. No drinking water. And if I had a trailer - no trailer hook-ups! And the campground was full!!! Go figure!!

All this whining is coming from someone who just spent time "roughing it" in the mountains! LOL But at least there, it was FREE!!

One nice thing about the campground, and the spot we were in, is that we were on the river side of the road/campground (WOW, is the Bow River ever low!!), and the spots have really decent space and trees between sites. So a person isn't camping on the neighbors doorstep, so to speak.

I got there at 11:30 on the Thursday morning before the long weekend. I didn't even bother with the closer loops, I went directly to Loop C, where we had camped last year. HOLY MOLY!! It's darn near full!! Wait, there is a combined site - # 154 & 155. Hmmm.... let check some more. By time I hit the end of the Loop C, I actually drove down the road the WRONG way to get back to the site FAST!! Damned lucky I was to find it!! (A combined site is two picnic tables, one fire pit, and lots of room)

So there I am, in this large site, just me and my truck. I get my tent and tarps put up.




My tent... (and tarps!)

Looked around and decided where the best place would be to have the girls' put their tent. Put up a tarp back wall and "ceiling" for them to have shelter - hooked it to a picnic table.




Also created a "kitchen" shelter. Okay, that's done. Now what?





It's hot. I'm getting some decent sun here!! Proceeded to split all the wood I had bought from C.T. WOW. Talk about nice dry wood!! In the meantime, some "neighbors" (read "guys") had passed by a few times, with fishing rods. Making comments about how busy I've been. Had an offer to go over to their place to have a wobbly pop. Do the smile and laugh thing (read "please go away" here!)

The girls called (gotta love cell phones!), they are on their way, should be at the campground around 7ish. Yep, about 7:10, they showed up. Horns blaring as they came down the road! LOL

We got them all set up under the tarps I had put up for them, with one eye on to the west, 'cause yep, it's beginning to look nasty!! Sure enough - here it comes!! Blowing and raining! Thank goodness they had put "walls" onto the tarps I had hung, but we still got dumped on!



















Our kitchen, after the storm -














This is what it did look like, BEFORE... when I had made it all pretty!















And Deb, drying out...














This is Sophy, our resident wood hunter/gatherer











She LOVES to throw rope over dead branches and yank them out of the tree! Kept stealing my leather gloves, SOMEONE GET THAT GIRL HER OWN GLOVES!!

This was pretty cool, we had put one of the long tree branches in the fire, and kept shoving in as it burned; then we pulled it out later so that it would be out by time we went to bed. But it kept smoldering, and where there was a knot, the smoke curled out of it. Looked kinda cool, so I had to take a picture of it!!














Then Friday, it's cool and breezy. Which turns into COLD and WINDY by evening time. We all toodle to our respective tents about 9:45 p.m. cause it's just too damned cold! Poor Gracie shivered 2 nights in a row, but by the 3rd night I figured out how to keep her warm. Place a rubber backed fleece blanket down first, then cover her with another fleece/rubber backed blanket. Keeps her toasty warm. On Friday, I opened the truck door to get something, and she jumped immediately into the back seat and was NOT coming out!! "I wanna go home!" it was like she was saying. So I left her there for a few hours to have a sleep. :-)





But Saturday, awoke to bright blue sunny skies!


We had beautiful weather from that point on. Whew! Even got sunburned! Would rather have the crappy stuff at the beginning - nothing worse than putting away gear that's sopping wet!!

Unfortunately, I didn't take pics of this.... but get this - Deb dry shaves her legs. And Sophia actually has shaving gel with her, and proceeds to shave her legs!! White foam everywhere!! What on earth?????

And S - man, we began to call her "Ethel". You know, from the song "The Streak"?
Ethel! Is that you Ethel? What do you think you're doin? You
get your clothes on !!

Whoa, yes they call him The Streak!
Ethel, where you goin'? Ethel, you shameless hussy!!
Say it isn't SO, Ethel!!

Because she must have done at least 5 clothing changes a day!! We MADE her go under the tarps, so that the neighbors wouldn't be INcensed. (to quote the song)

We all read our books. Mine was "Chill of Fear" by Kay Hooper. Pretty damned good book.



And here is Deb, buried in her book!








Each cooked a supper. We had salmon. Pork chops. Taber corn. Baked spuds. Of course, we had to have weiners over the fire. And marshmallows!! :-)

Last night we played Crib - man, that Sophy creamed me every time!! Every time I'd lay down a card, she's peg points off of me!! Gracie got some swimming in; like I said, the river is LOW! Walked down to the weir.



Saw Great Blue Herons and Pelicans and Flickers, Chickadees came right into the camp while I was cooking breakfast one morning; and Goldfinch and sparrows, and some kind of strange black goose thing that made really bizarre croaking calls - there was a whole bunch of them up and across the river from the weir. Every so often, one would fly overhead, with this almost raven croak happening - continuously. For the life of me, I can't find out what kind of bird that was!! Driving me nuts!!

I finally got to see Deb's new tat... mine is on the small coloured one, and hers is the BIG one! LOL

















So even tho it cost me $80, plus wood, plus food.... It was a GREAT weekend. Once the weather smartened up!!

Sophy left camp first. Then Deb & I kinda hung around. Took our time putting everything away. Visited. It was a nice way to finish the weekend. And then off to our respective homes... probably last camping trip this year!



I had taken the Tuesday after the long weekend off, so that I could do laundry, etc. Whew. In the process of cleaning stuff up, I'm thinking I need to do ONE more garage sale... maybe the weekend before the long weekend? Do the sale, and THIS year, take what doesn't sell to Sally Ann. Then maybe I'll have room in the garage to put away my camping gear!! LOL

TTFN

Paddy & Friends!

We finally got home late Friday afternoon from our wonderful camping trip, July 28th. Smelling to high heaven. :-)

I had to pee sooooooo badly, I grabbed the house keys and flew into the house. While sitting there, I noticed the shower curtain looked "off". And the bath mat, normally hung over the tub, was on the floor. Shrugged it off, after all, Brewster had been locked up in the house for 3 days with Lynx.... When I went into the livingroom to open the curtains... there were TWO glasses on the table. Hmmm... thought I had loaded all the dishes and ran the dishwasher before we left. Went to listen to the messages on the answering machine, which is flashing like crazy. About the 4th one in - is a message from Paddy - he's going to be at the house on Thursday night with a couple of his friends, for the weekend. Shit!! That was last night!! Well, where are they??? Did they go back to Red Deer?

Turns out, they got here, we weren't home (not for another 24 hrs!), thank goodness P still had the key to the house. So he made the beds for him and his friends, they ate at Subway, and made themselves at home. They showed up about 15 minutes after we got home, so I got to make a GREAT first impression on his buddies!! Tanned and dirty, smelling of wood smoke and god only knows what else, crazy cowboy hat on my head (like I'm taking THAT off!), and my tats making an appearance. Ya, don't I look like everyone's Mom!???

And a great introduction to us - "Here, Guys. Help unload the truck". Next thing you know, I have three 17-yr olds helping us old folks out! Hey, they have to earn their keep somehow!! Of course, it's absolutely chaotic. Gracie & Brewster. TALL young men up and down the stairs. Rubbermaid containers EVERYWHERE!! On the deck, downstairs, upstairs in kitchen.

We visited for a bit, ordered pizza, had our showers. There, this is more like a "Mom" should look and smell! LOL

We had them, off and on, at the house. They usually disappeared in the evenings, AFTER supper. But they were normally home around midnight. Both of Paddy's friends used good manners, nice to see. :-) Of course, they are being on their best behaviour!! But really nice guys, I'm glad they all took this little road trip down here. The blond is Phil, and the dark-haired one is Ben. And the one in the middle, wearing green, is my baby. Chowing down on breakfast, last day....

Camping trip July 25, 26, 27, 28

Eager anticipation.....


Aaahhhh..... finally got to the mountains!! I had checked out the Forestry Trunk road last summer, just to see what Dutch Creek and Livingstone Falls campgrounds were like. THIS time, we said (truth be told - I said!) screw the campgrounds, lets go check it out further in the west country. So we took a road that headed straight west, in between those other two campgrounds.

Now THIS is my kind of camping!! No restraints. No close people. Heck, hardly ANY people! Okay, so no picnic table or potty, but hey, my rubbermaid containers worked for "tables" and we dug a latrine. Knew I had brought the shovel for a reason!! FREE camping. FREE firewood - just had to go pick up where the forestry guys had been. And I could breathe!! Fresh air!!


Our camp, from the road

Our camp, close up



We could still hear the radio, but cell phones wouldn't work. Go figure! At one point, the radio announced that it was 30 above back home, and we looked at each other, we were a good 5-7 degrees cooler. YIPPEEEEE!!! Gracie had no leash on her the whole time - she doesn't ever go far from our side. If she got out of sight, I would just whistle for her, and she'd show up. Most of the time she spent checking out the squirrel in the trees.

Nary a bark out of her the whole time, until we had a fella on a quad show up to visit with us. She didn't even bark at the cattle!! Here they are - having a "stare off" with each other. LOL













D was bored - there was nothing to do, he said. EXACTLY!! LOL I brought him our Yahtzee hand held video game; at one point, he points it toward the trees, and tries clicking it, like he would a tv remote. "There's something wrong with this remote!" he says. "I can only get the nature channel!" What AM I to do with this man?????

The 1st day, after we had set up camp, we drove up the road aways, until we got to the OLDMAN FALLS.







I didn't even know there was an Oldman Falls!! So that was pretty cool. It isn't large like Ram Falls, but it's not teeny tiny either.

Of course, later, we got a rainstorm/boomers/lightning/hail blow thru. But it only lasted an hour at most. And we stayed dry, courtesy of my tarps! Then it cleared up!! I even got to see a hawk riding the thermals early that evening, 9ish!! God, it was wonderful!!

Then D shows up in my peripheral vision while I'm watching the hawk, and gets down on both knees in front of me. I seriously thought he was going to grab me around the knees and BEG me to go home!! Instead, when I look down at him, he's holding out a box, with a goofy grin on his face. A box from a jewelery store. He's proposing to me!! OMG!! DID NOT SEE THAT ONE COMING!!

I look back up at the hawk for confirmation (and to buy some time!). The one and only time I ever went to a tarot card reader, she had said to me that anytime I have an important question to answer, and if I were to see a hawk, the answer would be "yes". Guess my spirit guides were there to help me, 'cause the hawk was still soaring. :-)

- A messenger from spirit
- American Indians believe that by following the path of the hawk, you will be led on the right path
And my one books says about Red-tailed Hawk, which I'm "borrowing" for me:
If you are clearly aware of what you were thinking or doing when Red Hawk showed itself to you, look to that as a place to ignite your fire.

I said yes, and joined him down there on both of my knees. Good god, my eyes are leaking!! I'm such a "girl"!! LOL Of course, then Gracie thought this was a wonderful game, "can I play too????" Eased that awkward moment!! LOL

I just want to point out tho - almost the first complete sentence out of my mouth was concern that we didn't have to be married right away!! LOL Gotta do "baby steps" thang here!! Let me get used to the idea of being "engaged", for crying out loud!! Thank goodness for D - he said sure, it can be another 10 yrs from now. WHEW!! LOL

The 2nd day - we actually got to see a bear!! Dave calls me over to the river, and points east to the other side - "There's a bear over there!" I only see a butt in the bush, I thought it was a cow, 'cause they are everywhere. Then it turned it's head, and I could see the profile. Damn, it IS a bear!! The bear was soooooo busy on the other side of the river - in its own little world, busy in the bushes. Eating berries would be my guess. Then it turned and faced us. There was that moment of "deer in the headlights" look from it. CRAP, who put PEOPLE there???!!! Next thing you know, the poor thing high-tails it up the slope of the treed hill, and was GONE!! Well, it would have high-tailed it, if it had a tail!! My guess that it was quite a young one, by the way we startled it, and the VERY quick way it took off up the hill. Interesting enough, about 20 minutes before we saw it, Gracie was scenting. Nose up in the air, facing east. Then scenting west. Nope, faces east again and keeps on "smelling". We didn't see anything, at that time. With her scenting the bear before he ever saw us, my guess is that we were downwind of the critter, and that would explain why he didn't smell us! There was poor Dave - "Can we go home now???!!!" LOL

Unfortunately, I didn't have my camera with me, for either the hawk and subsequent events; nor the bear! DUH. Oh well, as you can see, I do have some other wonderful shots!

I love Indian Paintbrushes!!


And Fireweed! :-)










3rd Day - We drove out and up to Livingstone Falls. It's not a HUGE fall, by any stretch of the imagination. Couple of fly fishermen working the waters. There was even a group of older kids on a HUGE tire inner tube floating (?) down the river. Which is pretty narrow and fast in places, and where they ended up, who knows!! In Lethbridge perhaps? LOL Lots of HUGE slow moving horseflies... SMACK those biters!! GGRRR!!!








On the way back to our camp, we drove into other "campsites" to check them out. There is some really decent established spots out there, at one we got out and went down to the river. Gracie did her little swim in a little "pool".

There was this really cool rock formation, of sorts. I don't know much about that kind of thing, but it was pretty neat!




We finally stayed up late enough to see the stars that night. Well, it was cloudy the first night, then the other nights, we were pooped from a day in the sun and fresh air, so we toddled off to sleep. But the last night, HAD to stay up to watch the stars come out! And I was rewarded with seeing a brief shooting star!! I haven't seen one of those in years!! Sweet!! :-)

Gracie & I taking a quiet moment. :-)

On the 4th day - it was time to pack up and go home. We found a great place for me to pick Wolf Willow "berries". The bush is called either a Wolf Willow, or Silver Willow tree.

Here is an example of something I had made with the seeds. First you have to scrape, with your fingernails, all the pulp off of the seed. Then the seeds need to be softened, so I boil them in water (old pot highly recommended!) Then I push them onto wire, to create the hole. DO NOT USE STRING!! When they dry, they get stuck!!


We finally got home late Friday afternoon. Smelling to high heaven.
:-) Can I say I had a great time???
YOU BET!!!