Christmas Santa Bag

I had this great idea to create a Santa gift bag out of red canvas material that I got from Joanns fabric store. I didn't want to buy a plastic bag to take gifts over to my brother's house. I purchased two yards of red canvas fabric with my 50% off coupon, for a grand total of $4.00. I thought about how I wanted to sew it on my new sewing machine that I bought way back in May. I already had put in the red thread, now I just needed to change the needle. I pinned the fabric and started sewing away. Within 30 minutes I had a bag done, except for the rope that I needed to purchase at the hardware store. I bought 8 feet of 1/2 inch rope of white nylon rope, took it home and threaded it threw my bag. The rope only cost me about $2.50 so my bag was made for $6.50, not too bad if you ask me.

Fresh and Sweet WALNUTS!!!!

Every Autumn for that last two decades I have spent my weekends gatherning many of these delightful little nuts. People just love walnuts, and puchase these nuts without hesitation. The nuts are organic, holistic, fresh, & hand picked and process from hull to half. Here is a picture of the nuts laying about awaiting my arrival to pick, clean, dry, shell. Already have about 38 lbs worth of nuts to shell and sell. This year there was a late frost that really impacted the crop. I would say we are running on 1/3 of the usual amount we would process in any given season. These are English walnuts, and yes we have some black walnut trees but too hard to process. The squirrels have been a huge problem because they steal and eat the nuts all day every day while I only can get up there on the weekends. As for cracking and shelling the nuts, my sister Isabelle got me this great device that helps me crack away with out too much hassle.

School Jog-A-Thon

Today was the school jog-a-thon and here is my class just before the official jogging at the starting line. My class brought in $328.80. We had a fun time and the majority of my students made it around the track six times.

Here is our pre-jog group photo...

My Bulletin Boards

Hello Presidential Race! Here is my board to decribe the race without showing any favor to either side. I especially like the middle posters that describe the process.

This is three different art projects, first the pumpkins sitting on the fence, then the scarecrows and lastly the trees turning color and losing their leaves. My friend and fellow teacher, Daphne, helped me put these up in this particular way. I think it looks great although if I had to do it differently I wouldn't have an orange back ground color. I had a hard time figuring out a title for this board, so I went all minimalistic.. If you have any suggestions let me know, plus Thanksgiving is coming!

Bathroom is done!

This is my new bathroom, looks kinda like it has an Island theme, but in reality, I just like the light colored wood and the nice blue/green color paint. The shower curtain ties it all together I think.

Hay Helpers

Saturday Nick and Logan came on up to the ranch and helped cover the hay. Those agile boys can get work done quickly. Thanks again Nick and Logan.

Pears gone bad! :>(

There are times when you want to can up that lovely fruit, but your schedule keeps you from getting to that fruit until you wait too long and the fruit is no longer able to be enjoyed. Well, I believe that the said fruit should be returned to the land, by way of the cow. I took the fruit back up there and gave it to Nellie and Molly and several other cows. They happily agreed to eat and enjoy the fruit.

Funny thing is there are still pears available to eat up there, just yesterday I picked two really nice pears. The third pear that picked was being enjoyed by a wasp and I made the mistake of trying to steal his fruit. Well he came right down stung me on my chest then proceeded to go down my shirt. I panicked, screamed like a school girl, then I untucked my shirt, he flew to the ground where I proceeded to step on him. Yikes!