Life

A Buck, Finally a Picture of that Blanket I finished, Some Pictures of Alpaca Stuff

/ LDSVenus / 4 Comments

I showed you a picture of a doe that was eating under a tree in the snow before and I took a picture of a Buck a couple of days ago eating under the same tree. They sure are pretty but pretty pesky here in town.

I finished the Look for Happiness Blanket by Fifty Four Ten Studio a few weeks ago and just haven’t gotten around to showing it, so here it is. I made the medium size for a lap blanket. I still need to wash and block it. Hope she will like it. It took me some time, but I found it a peaceful knit and enjoyed this pattern, so I didn’t hurry through it. :). Taking pictures at night sure doesn’t give true color, lol, this is actually a denim color so it’s a little darker and brighter than it shows up. Maybe someday I will master taking pictures for my blog, or not.

The next two pictures I took last week at the Farm’s annual open to the public Christmas celebration. I neglected to get pictures of the alpaca who were wearing candy cane horns, tho I have to admit most of them managed to get them off, lol. But there were cookies (an alpaca cookie I managed to snag). I accidentally broke it on the way home (breaking things seem to be my thing), but it still took a pretty picture and his reg farm hand drew a picture in the snow of an alpaca before people came out, I thought it was cute. Along with the cookies there was also hot chocolate for the people who came out. They also had Santa who asked all the kids what they wanted for Christmas and he gave them all a gift bag with alpaca goodies. Because it was cold we didn’t have a ton of people, but they had put together 50 gift bags for the kids and they were all claimed ;). I think everyone had fun. They are debating, for this next Saturday because of the Alberta clipper that is heading this way with very cold temps, on rather they will open, don’t want little ones getting frostbite. They would still keep the store open for people wanting to shop for Christmas. It will depend on if the clipper arrives on time or is slower moving. It is supposed to be -30 with the wind chills by Monday, winds from 30 to 50 miles per hr in some areas of IA, ugh.

These minus temps are our late Jan and early Feb temps, I can hardly wait to see what they will be in Jan and Feb :0. Even our mid winter thaw (warm up) is coming early, the week before Christmas, according to the weather man, sigh. We need it tho, in 2008 there was no mid winter thaw (we always get one, but not that year, it’s generally in Jan) so the snow on the ground did not melt and when it melted in the spring there was so much snow melting from the top of IA on down that the Cedar River flooded big time, over flowing 5 miles on each side of the river. Rail road cars had been put on the tracks that go over the bridges to try to keep the bridges from being washed away, but the flood was so high it took the rail road cars that had been filled with big rocks to weigh them down more, right off the bridge. A Dairy Queen that was a few blocks away from the river was flooded over the roof. So we need that mid winter thaw. Maybe it means spring will come sooner! I’ll just keep that thought.

Stay warm!!!

Snow Day!! 11-28-2025

/ LDSVenus / 8 Comments

We are having a snow storm, first big snow of the winter, and boy is it!! I woke up at 3:30 AM to get a shot of the snow and there was a deer there, so I captured that in my picture, so cute. The next picture is the storm alert, so we have about 10 to 12 more hrs to go of this snow storm, at least the wind isn’t terrible. The last picture I took a few hrs ago of the snowfall so far. I’d love snow more if it was warm :P. This storm is across many states, so if any of you out there are in this storm take care and stay warm. 🙂

*Update* as of 10:30pm we have 12 inches of snow, some towns got 14 inches. All said and done we ended up with about 14 inches. Is it spring yet?

New Cria at the Farm!

/ LDSVenus / 10 Comments

We had a birth this morning! A little boy (we were hoping for a little girl) but he is so cute and will be a rose grey like his mom, he’s so little! My son is watching to make sure he could latch on to nurse and the little one did, the colostrum is important. He will be weighed this evening and they will pick out a name for him so he can be registered. I told my son he should name the little one Ozzy Osborn, but he said, he doesn’t look like an Ozzy, and I thought, what does an Ozzy alpaca look like? LOL. Anyway a name will be forthcoming. He’s doing well so far, he was about an hr old in the right bottom picture. My son put one of his whippet’s sweaters on him because it started raining, so he wouldn’t get cold. The mom wasn’t real happy but she allowed it.

Monday Funny???

/ LDSVenus / 2 Comments

Oh dear, I watch shark week to remember why I don’t swim in the ocean, now I have one more reason to not swim in the ocean, salt water crocs in the water at the beaches where it’s warm enough for them to survive, sigh. This one thinks he’s hidden in a wave, sorry dude that’s a fail, lol.

Mother’s Day Gift

/ LDSVenus / 6 Comments

My daughter likes to give me living flowers for Mother’s Day. Last year it was the beautiful braided Hibiscus Tree, and this year it’s a beautiful aqua orchid. I’ve never seen one this color before, I love it!!! She also gave me a gift card :). Children are a blessing.

Spring Flowers!

/ LDSVenus / 6 Comments

As promised the blossom of the Agaparthus plant. It’s a little puny but probably because the plant is a little bit puny too :P. But the color is beautiful :). The next one is a flowering Magnolia tree. I love those, they are so pretty!

Spring is Here!!!!

/ LDSVenus / 3 Comments

It’s officially Spring when I see the first Robin! Two pictures because the first one that shows his red breast was blurry :(, and the 2nd picture was just his back, but there we go!! I had to pull over on the side of the road or into a driveway to get these pictures, hehe. Fortunately there were not any cars on the road at the time. The last several years I could not catch the first Robins returning for Spring so I was so excited to get them this year!!!

Accident, Snow and Time Change

/ LDSVenus / 8 Comments

Well a deer and I had an argument over who should have right of way on the road, tho he neglected to tell me he had an issue with it as he made his point. It was a road with fields and lots of open area and it was night (on my way home from a church meeting) and this was my first experience with a deer’s right to the road. I saw a brown blur out of the corner of my left eye and thought, is that a dog, “boom” no it was a deer. From the damage it looks like he may have been trying to stop and hit me sideways. He didn’t fall over the hood or windshield so they were undamaged, I pulled over to see the damage and didn’t see the deer on the road, hope he’s ok. I felt like I had received a tender mercy from the Lord because the deer could have been in front of me and I’d have hit him head on, or hitting and damaging my door breaking my window on me, and all the damage those two places would have done. Tho’ it’s a bit pricey to fix for body work and the guy who did the estimate said it was safe to drive as it was body damage wise, and I was not injured. I took my car in to my mechanic for an oil change and had them look it over for other things that might have been damaged other than the driver’s front wheel well. They put it up on the lift and said they did not see any undercarriage damage, they didn’t see any leaks and the level of the fluids of my car were all ok. My car is 15 years old and I did not have full coverage because at it’s age they would probably just have totaled it and the money I would have received from the insurance would not replace it with a car as good, as it only has 50K miles on it. So I’ll pay the little over 3K to have it fixed and be glad I still have a good and safe car, but I will be on the look out for those dang deer!

We did have snow last Wed (about 2 inches) and snow yesterday (about 1 inch). But I forgot to load them in my pictures so no pictures of that today. But we are supposed to be in the 60’s this next week before it gets cold again!!!

Ok just a little vent about the time change. From the picture I’m sure you know where I stand. I know people are excited for that extra hour of light right now, but there are consequences when we change things that the Lord set up when he created the world and time. Changing time back and forth is harder on you as you get older and the studies show that older people tend to have more heart attacks when this happens every year. Also now children will be walking to school when it’s dark, just before light. Yes there are children who live a mile or two away from school (1 mile for elementary and 2 miles for high school) who’s parents work and can’t drive them and they have to walk to school. Again I know some people are very excited for an extra hour of daylight in the early spring because (especially in the midwest and places north) it gets dark in the winter around Christmas around 5pm but now in March it’s 6:20 so see it’s already getting lighter after work. So just be patient for a few months and let the light get here normally and naturally so others will be safe. The federal government probably won’t change it, even tho they changed it to begin with. So I will contact my state congress to put a bug in their ear to change it fully back to standard time for my state anyway.

Update on the Baby Blanket & Frigid Temps.

/ LDSVenus / 6 Comments

The first picture is the Look for Happiness blanket (baby size). I am about 3/4’s finished. Getting excited to get this finished, even tho I am enjoying it, I have other things to get busy on!! The lightbulb markers you see running up the left side are counting 10 center patterns (four rows per pattern) because I need 39 and it is easier to keep track of how many I’ve knitted :). Nine center patterns left then the top border :). I will make this again!

The 2nd picture is our weather from yesterday afternoon to 3am this morning. We were almost as cold today, but starting tomorrow we will be a few degrees warmer and by Friday we will actually hit the lower to middle teens (without wind chill). I have stayed in my house yesterday and today, not my favorite thing getting out in way below 0 degrees weather. They are promising us lower 40’s on Sunday and Monday, impatiently waiting! Spring is getting closer even if it doesn’t feel like it :P.

Yarn I Got for a Christmas Project

/ LDSVenus / 8 Comments

I wish they would quit changing things on WordPress, this took an hour to get the pictures almost where I wanted them because creating the one choice I usually use, made them way to big and very long with no way to make them smaller. Ugh!

Anyway, my mind is un-fogged and I can think straight again and knitting on the blanket again, I’ll put a picture up of my progress in a few days or a week. I was very sick for 3 weeks in Jan, with some ugly respiratory virus’, RSV and influenza A, not at the same time (thank goodness!) but as I was almost over one I got sick with the other, very nasty critters.

The first picture is from some extra cold air that came down from Canada in Jan. Yes that is frost on the inside of the metal plate on my sliding glass door inside my apt. If I’d get some heavy thermal drapes that might not happen or if it did, I wouldn’t see it :P. I’m not a cold weather girl, but here I am anyway. sigh.

The second picture is the yarn I ordered before Christmas but didn’t get to start the Christmas gifts I wanted to do, partly because I was sick with a cold (this has been an ugly winter for getting sick for everyone I know!!) and wasn’t up to it. But now I can tell you what I got them for. I bought some patterns from Arne & Carlos and the Christmas tree decorations with the knitting Christmas ball color work ornaments was one of them. I will need to buy more of this yarn as I go. There are 24 ornaments in this pattern for $7, but just before Christmas they are 1/2 off. I’m really not into color work, but these aren’t very big and maybe I’ll decide I like it better than I did years ago. I haven’t started working on any yet, they will still be gifts, but I have a blanket and a couple of hats and a pair of fingerless mitts to finish first. All this sick stuff reset my brain and now that I feel human again, my knitting mojo is back. But this year I will have a little less time to knit because the new calling I now have in my church is much busier than the calling I had before. Especially while I figure out what I’m doing and get use to it!!! Having a little anxiety over the change and that is normal for me with change :P, but the knitting should help with that!