24 Degrees?? Give Me A Break!!!

Yes after 3 days of 90 degrees, yesterday and today we're down in the 20's. I don't think I'll ever warm up!!




The puppy has had an adventurous week and she's learned so much!! She's learned about the bowl with the never ending clean water supply (the commode), she's learned about the receptacle with the easily moved swinging lid with the never ending food supply (the garbage can), and last but not least, she's learned even better than playing with a toy, is making a hole in said toy and pulling the stuffing out all over the house!! Alas she also faced a big disappointment, the goats are no longer impressed with her, and don't care if she runs up to the fence, they don't run from her so she can't chase them... bummer.

I've added four more capped/cored beads to my Etsy shop if you're interested, please check it out. www.glastique.etsy.com

ANd I've also learned a new technique. This was my first attempt done in copper so it wouldn't be an expensive mistake if I screwed it up. It's not perfect but for a first attempt I was kind of pleased, there are a few mistakes but all in all, it's a very sturdy bracelet. The next one I make I'd like to make about an inch wide and then I'll try combining sterling silver with gold filled.

I think I'll go get the house cleaned and then attempt another bracelet and try and stay warm.

90 DEGREES???? Seriously????

Yep the high yesterday at my house was 90 degrees and that was in the shade out of the sun! How unfair of Mother Nature to tease us with these wonderful warm and sunny days. I know as soon as I get acustomed to it, we'll have a snow storm! It happens every year. I have a video from one year on April 1st, it was snowing like crazy and I had hundreds of hummingbirds at my feeder!!!!

Yesterday, while I was soaking the heat, felt like the first time I'd been warm in a long time. Guess it's the lizard in me. Anyway, I had a visitor on my daffodils. These little guys are just too cool. They're called hummingbird moths. This one was about 2 inches long with racing stripes on his back. The pictures aren't that great, but to tell the truth I was amazed I got him in the picture at all, as fast as he moves!!! Of course, when I tried doing a little wildlife photography, sitting on the floor of the porch on the other side of the railing, with my camera positioned in between two rails he refused to come back.

Yes I'm a serious sufferer of spring fever!! My peach tree has already bloomed, usually we get a frost while it's blooming and no peaches but this year we ought to be good. Next time I'm in town I intend to get my tomato plants and get them started early, rather than waiting til May when a week after I get my plants in the ground the drought will start and they'll burn up. I can protect them from a freeze a lot easier than I can protect them from 100+ degrees days.

Of course I have to add one more "baby" picture. Clancey(the dog) isn't too sure about Buddy (the horse)!!

I'm trying to get motivated to do something, whether it's clean my house or make jewelry. Yesterday, I tried punching silver disks and my cutter is sticking, so it's bam, bam, bam with the hammer, disk comes out, then 10 minutes spent getting it unstuck. :0( So frustrating.

Protect your pets!!

Ok obviously I'm an animal lover, or I wouldn't have this horse puppy, two other dogs, five cats, ten goats and a horse. This was one of the headlines on my aol welcome page this morning and I thought I would pass it on.

"To help you protect your furry friends, we tapped Fiona Fisher, D.V.M, veterinary expert at JustAnswer.com, who practices in Ontario, for her roundup of common household foods and items that pose a threat to your beloved pets. Avoid these common toxins to keep your dogs and cats living long, healthy lives.

Grapes and Raisins

Healthy for you? Yes. Healthy for pets? No. In dogs and cats, grapes can cause kidney failure. "We're not exactly sure why grapes pose a health hazard to pets," says Fisher, but experts suspect it has something to do with a chemical in the fruit's skin. Raisins are even more dangerous because they contain a concentrated supply of toxins. Keep this snack out of the reach of your pets.

Bread Dough

"I see this one a lot when people make bread, leave it to rise, and come back to find their dog has helped himself to a serving," Fisher says. What's the harm? The dog's body heat will cause the dough to expand quickly resulting in severe abdominal pain and bloating. In some cases, death can occur if enough dough is eaten.

Chewing Gum

A dog might be attracted to the sweet-smelling gum that your kids are chewing or that's tucked away in your bag. But the artificial sweetener, xylitol, in many types of gum and breath mints, can be deadly to pets. The sweetener can cause a low-blood sugar crisis in your pet. In fact, just one pack of gum can kill a dog, warns Fisher.

Macadamia Nuts

Careful where you keep that bowl of mixed nuts. If they're on a low table that your dog can reach, your pup might get into trouble. Ingesting these nuts can cause tremors, weakness, unsteadiness, depression, a rapid heart rate, and a dangerous rise in body temperature that can lead to other complications. Though macadamia nut toxicity is very scary and dangerous, most dogs recover within a few days, says Fisher.

Nicotine

It may seem unlikely that a dog would eat cigarettes, but those nosy, little creatures will gobble them without a second thought. Nicotine is highly toxic so it doesn't take much to cause a health crisis for your pet, including seizures, coma and death.

Chocolate

Who doesn't find chocolate irresistible? But when it comes to dogs, chocolate is one deadly treat. Caffeine-like stimulants in chocolate known as methylxanthines can produce vomiting, diarrhea, excessive thirst and urination, hyperactivity, abnormal heart rhythm, tremors, seizures and even death, cautions Fisher.

Alcohol

"This type of poisoning happens a lot after people throw a party and their dog or cat gets into a glass of alcohol sitting around or that's spilled on the floor. Sometimes, children will think it's funny to give a dog some beer," Fisher says. And while animals may experience some of the same wobbliness and weakness that humans do after drinking, they are much more sensitive to alcohol than humans and can quickly be in a life-threatening situation, she says. Alcohol ingestion can lead to seizures, heart arrhythmia, vomiting, coma and death.

Pain Relievers

According to Veterinary Pet Insurance (VPI), the number one insurance claim by far for poisonings in 2007 was owner-induced. In most cases, the problems were caused by pet owners giving their pets drugs intended for human use. "Sometimes when the vet's office is closed and a pet is in pain, people will administer over-the-counter pain relievers like ibuprofen or acetaminophen to their dogs," Fisher says. Never give your pets these types of drugs, warns Fisher. One tablet of acetaminophen can kill a cat, she says.

Tea

Ever had your cat poke its head into your cup of tea? It's not just annoying, it can be downright dangerous depending on the type of tea you're drinking. Caffeine in your tea is toxic to both cats and dogs. Depending on how much is consumed and the size of your pet, ingesting it can lead to vomiting, diarrhea, hyperactivity, seizures, coma and even death.

Onions

You'd probably never consider giving your dog a piece of an onion, but if you toss her a piece of steak or a bit of stir fry cooked with onions, you're putting your dog in danger. Onions are toxic to dogs and cats whether they're raw or cooked. When ingested, onions can cause hemolytic anemia, a condition that destroys the red blood cells in the bloodstream. A dog with onion poisoning may become lethargic and have difficulty breathing. Generally, a large amount of onions would need to be consumed to pose a serious threat to your dog, but cats are highly sensitive to onion toxicity.

Organization

It might as well be a dirty word, you say it and I break out in a cold sweat!! I am not organized, no way, no how. My house, my work area, all in a shamble. Now I basically know where everything is, but it may take me a while to remember exactly where it is. So how am I going to make myself organized? Maybe I need a schedule. Mon-make soft glass beads, Tues-make boro beads, Weds make beadcaps and core beads, Thursday-make jewelry, Friday-take pictures,Sat-list on Etsy,Ebay,or my website,Sun-catch my breath and prepare to start over. Hmmmmm I'm going to have to think about this. But I do need to get organized.

Here are the newest capped beads I've made. I'm really loving the look. Most of them are animal print with pawprint beadcaps but my favorite is a boro bead and since it's my favorite I made hearts on the cap.

I'm still pretty boro challenged, I'm thinking it's because my torch isn't hot enough. I was going to borrow my husband's oxygen tank from the barn and his hoses but they're not the right size, so I've got a hose ordered. Soon, I hope I'll have the heat to melt the boro like butter!!! It's real funny going from boro to soft glass, I had glass melting off the mandrel sometimes as it was melting so fast!!!

My new "thang" with the dog is letting her walk with me to the mailbox without a leash. Lots of treats in my pocket ensure she doesn't get too far from me on the walk. The only problem is on the way back, no matter what treats I have, fresh horse poop beats it. As we get closer to the house, she always heads for the horse. yuck!! Yesterday, she had a traumatic trip to the mailbox. We were on our way back and I had called her and she was coming to me when she got butted by a goat! Dang goat came out of nowhere!! LOL I don't know who was more surprised, the dog or me. The goats usually keep a pretty wide berth from the dogs and in particular this one as she's new and unpredictable!! So this goat came flying up from behind me and butted her good. Today the dog kept a good distance from the goats until they started running then she fell in line behind them. She felt better after they ran from her! lol

Let's see, it's Thursday, I'm supposed to be making jewelry. Dang, I'm already off schedule!!!!

A Hot time last night

People's stupidity never ceases to amaze me. We have not had any rain in over a month, needless to say add this to the gusty winds we've been experiencing for a while the ground is DRY!! There's been a burn ban forever. Welllllllllllllllll, yesterday, someone on this huge ranch decided to have a "controlled burn" that unfortunately became an "uncontrolled burn". It started spreading in the afternoon and by nightfall it was completely out of control. Now we live in a mountainous area... is that a word?? Lots of hills and valleys and it's very remote. Unfortunately, this is one of the disadvantages of living in the woods. Anyway, this fire got down in a valley, called "Dark Corners" because it's so remote (it was often used by rustlers to hide their illgotten cattle). The fire trucks were unable to get to the fire. So not only was there a burn ban but there was also an expected cold front coming in with gusts of wind from the north, big gusts!!!
Our house sits on the side of the mountain and we're covered in trees, so our visibility is limited to the north, we were unable to see any of this going on. A neighbor called last night, he lives on top of the mountain and he was warning us it was headed towards us. My husband left to go up the mountain to get a better idea what was going on and left me with a final shot "You better start thinking about evacuating".
Now that's a heartwrenching thing to have to think about. What do you take? Of course my first thought was, what's irreplaceable?? All I could think of was pictures, pictures of my Dad as he was growing up and during the war, pictures of my children growing up. My computers would be first on the list along with the pictures... then I just kept thinking of more and more things I'd want to take with me.
Luckily, the wind was blowing the fire southeast, while we were more directly south, luckily this area is sparsely populated so there were only a few homes that could be in danger.
So last night at 11:30, I stood at my kitchen window with the binoculars watching the orange glow behind my house. It was behind a hill so we couldn't see the flames, just the glow. You could see as the wind gusted the flames got higher because the glow got brighter. It was really scary but we were able to tell by about midnight that the fire was going to go east of us and it looked like we were safe. Of course that doesn't keep you from waking up every little bit to make sure the sky is still dark and not bright orange outside your bedroom window.
This morning there was just a faint glow before the sun came up. Now that the sun's up, you really can't see anything but lots of smoke. We see fires all the time out here, usually way in the distance. We've had several that came this direction but never got too close to us. A couple years before we built our house, there was a major fire out here, that burned thousands of acres, we came up to check on our property at the time and at one point there was fire on both sides of the road, I made my husband turn around and get us out of there, it was freaky. There were like three major fires going at that time. There was another one closer to the house we were living in at the time and at night you could see the fires in the distance, flames and all.
People just don't realize I guess how fast this dry grass can burn. We've been fortunate as we've never lost anything to a fire, but we get a scare every now and then, and it's a most unpleasant feeling. My heart goes out to anyone that has been less fortunate in these cases.
Have a great day, I think I'll go count my blessings.

More beads and silver caps/cores

I'm really having fun with this technique! Unfortunately, I only have 1/4 inch tubing and three 1/4 inch mandrels to make the beads with, so it's a slow process. I can only make three beads at a time!! So that's three a day, as adding annealing time, it's a slow process!! These beads will be sold in my etsy shop, they come on a 18 inch sterling chain and sell for $25.00. My friend Irene gets first dibs on these, to see if she likes any of them and if not, I'll try again and list all three.

http://www.glastique.etsy.com/

The beads average 3/4 inches x 5/8 inches wide, so they make a nice focal, large enough to be worn alone on a chain.

Please excuse my rusty measuring tape, classy look huh????

Country Living

I live four and a half miles down this dirt road. Now obviously this is not what it looks like right now, everything is brown. But this is what it will look like come spring. This is my very favorite part about coming home. This natural tunnel goes down the road about half a mile. I know that when I get here I'm almost home and I like that!!! I've seen turkey, deer, skunks, raccoons you name it,along with snakes and crawly things. You can just barely make out a sign up the road and that's a bridge. It's a little one lane country road bridge that crosses a ravine that's about 30 ft deep. For the most part the ravine is empty, people dump their trash in it sometimes, I think there's an old microwave stuck in the dirt. About spring, which is our rainy season, it will start to have water in it, mostly it'll just be a trickle after each rain. In the seven years I've lived here, I've seen the water rise to within a foot of that bridge three times. Now if you don't think that'll get your attention, think again! The last time was 2 maybe 3 years ago. My husband and I drove down to see it. The water was rushing under the bridge, carrying all sizes of limbs. It was pretty amazing considering the bridge usually is over nothing.

My husband's spring routine used to be after the hay was cut and baled he would start to run. He would run about 4 miles and then turn around and walk back. Last spring, he was walking on his way back and had just passed this bridge when our neighbor happened to be driving down the road so she stopped and they talked. While they were talking my husband looked up and there in the middle of the road was a mountain lion. It was probably 1/2 mile away, crossing the road where my husband would have been walking had he not stopped to talk to the neighbor. We've always heard rumors there were mountain lions and panthers but of course we had never seen any until then. He and my neighbor couldn't believe their eyes!! Needless to say she offered him a ride home and he accepted. I like to think his guardian angel was watching over him that day. He hasn't run since, my son doesn't run anymore and I don't walk like I used to, which I really miss. There's just something about strapping on a gun, just to take a walk!! Kinda ruins it for you!!

Well that's my ramble for the day, have a good one!