Wordless Wednesday-More Christmas Pics

Kids and Their Presents

It's hard to get good pictures of kids opening presents because they don't sit still very often! These are a few of my favorite pictures from Christmas Day.



David and I got the kids a checkers set from Cracker Barrel. It has a rug as the board and it's huge. The kids love it! We've played several games so far.


Kylee can never have enough hair bands (not like 80's rock bands, but actual hair ties).


We also got Kylee a Cinderella snow globe. She loves it!


And Santa brought Devin a Red Ryder bb gun! He and David spent a few hours target shooting. He's a good shot!


Stay tuned for more Christmas posts during the next few days!

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas everyone! I hope you all have a great one!

Family Reunion

We adopted Elmer as a puppy, from a rescue about 2 hours from us where I grew up. He was one of 13 pups total, but 12 survived. He was one of the last 2 pups to get adopted. After we brought him home, I was looking at all of the "success stories" rescues typically post, you know, with pictures of the dogs' new families. Well, I happened to be looking at pictures of his littermates' new owners, and I saw someone I knew! Turns out one of my friends from college adopted one of Elmer's sisters!

We live about 2 hours away from each other, and we've never managed to get the dogs together...until this past weekend! My friend was coming to a little get-together we had, and I told her to bring Dakodah (her dog) along!

Here is Elmer (L), Buford (middle), and Dakodah (R).


It was really neat seeing them together, but hard to get a decent picture!


They had a lot of the same mannerisms!


Dakodah is definitely more active than Elmer, but she's got the same, sweet, lapdog personality!


It's so much fun being able to keep in touch. When you adopt from rescues, you rarely get to see the littermates grow up!

The Buffet

I love this thing. My mom found it at an estate auction years ago and it looked very different than it does now. It was black and didn't look like much. Mom got it for $80. She brought it home and stripped it and found beautiful wood underneath. She knew when she saw it that it had potential.

When she moved into her current house, there just wasn't room for it, so lucky me now I have it! I'm not sure if it belongs to me now or not, but honestly I feel more like it's caretaker rather than owner. I am very protective of it, and I'm always reminding the kids to be easy on the doors and drawers. I don't want anything to happen to it!

I love decorating it too. I love how it looks all decked out for Christmas. It's definitely my favorite piece of furniture we own.

Soap Winner!

Thanks to random.org, the winner of the soap giveaway is Susan, from Squash Blossom Farm! Thanks to everyone who entered!



Susan, just let me know for sure which scent you would like, and I'll mail it out!

Christmas Greetings

Purl & June Christmas cards, featuring Purl, are now available in the shop!

A Positive and a Negative

I realize I haven't posted pictures of the sheep and goats lately, so here you go! I moved the girls' temporary fence to a section of yard where I'd been stockpiling grass (meaning I haven't let David cut it in a long time) so they could graze a bit. They really enjoyed getting out and grazing, since they've eaten their pasture down and have been getting hay lately.

Barley is on the left, Bean is on the right.


Here's Ida. She recently tested negative for CAE! I got the results in on Friday, and I'm so glad because June is positive. I separate all of June's kids right after birth and bottle feed them, and I'm glad it's worth the hassle since Ida is negative.


And check out Ms. Wide Load, aka Darla. I also got her results on Friday..she's pregnant! I figured she was, but there's always a bit of doubt with her. She'll be on a strict diet from now until she lambs, because she packed on the pounds when she was eating alfalfa hay with the ram. I swear she looks at feed and gets fat!


And speaking of wide loads... June is due February 14th and she's already looking very wide!


I love how when I talk to the sheep they look up with mouths full of grass.

A Giveaway!

To celebrate the soap finally being in the Etsy shop, I'm having a giveaway!



The winner will get to choose one bar of soap and will also get a wooden soap tray to keep it on!

The available scents are:

Peony

Vanilla Lavender

Goat Milk & Honey

Berry Vanilla

Shea & Coconut

Unscented

Tropical Vacation

Lemongrass Verbena

Coffee Kitchen (for scrubbing odors like onion off of hands)

Santa's Pipe

Santa's Workshop

To enter, just leave a comment with what scent you would like! And you can get a second entry by "liking" Purl & June on Facebook (please make sure to leave a second blog comment if you do this)! You have until Thursday, December 15th to enter, and the winner will be announced on Friday, December 16th! Good luck!

New Shop Listings

I listed a few things in the shop last night, so check it out! I was thisclose to adding the soap, but our internet went down just as I was about to list the first scent! Drats! Check back tonight or tomorrow, and I'll be having a giveaway!

Heck With the Malls

Yesterday I participated in a craft show called Heck With the Malls, a show held by the local arts council. They do a good job trying to get people to shop locally for Christmas gifts instead of going to the big box stores.


It was a pretty steady day and I think most of us vendors did fairly well. It was a lot of fun talking to people about the stuff I made. It was also fun seeing their reactions when I told them the soap came from milk from my own goat. People seemed pretty surprised at that!


I think my favorite customers of the day were the two little girls who were about 11 years old or so. They came to my table about 5 times to look at the little felted acorns, and I heard them naming each person they'd buy an acorn for. They came back at the end of the show with enough money in hand to buy 5 of the remaining 9 acorns. I made those acorns several years ago, and each craft show I'd bring them along and sell a few. I told the girls they could have all of the remaining acorns, and one said, "Are you sure?!" They seemed tickled pink when I said I was sure. I figured any girls dedicated enough to wool acorns to visit them 5 times during the show deserved all of them!

A $2 Deal

I've been looking for something to display my soaps at the craft show so I went to our local auction a few weeks ago. The auction is huge, and you can find anything there. A lady next to me had just bought a whole lot of "stuff", and I noticed this little shelf in the pile. I asked her if she'd be willing to sell it, and she sold it to me for $2. It looked a little rough, and I didn't need the mugs, but I thought it had potential.



I took it home and started cleaning it up.


I took off the door and all the hardware and cleaned it up. I figured it'd be pretty cute with a coat of paint, so I painted it the same color as my kitchen.


It's just about the perfect size, and for $2 I think it worked out perfectly! In the future I may need to move up to something bigger, but for now it's just right.

The Big Reveal

Almost all of the soaps are labeled and ready to go for this weekend's craft show. It's their big debut and I'm excited and nervous! What if they don't sell? What if I don't have enough? Only time will tell! I think they look cute on that little shelf. I scored that shelf for $2 at an auction, but I'll do another post for it because it didn't look like this when I bought it!

Whatever soap doesn't sell on Saturday will be listed in my Etsy shop, hopefully by Sunday!

Stock Sunday

Sunday I made stock. The pot on the left is poultry stock (chicken and turkey) and the pot on the right is lamb stock. I roasted the lamb bones first and boy, the house smelled so good! I let it simmer on low overnight and Monday morning I canned 7 quarts before I went in to work (a few hours late). I would have canned another batch, but I ran out of time so some went for that night's dinner, some went into the freezer, and some is in the fridge for tomorrow's (or Friday's) dinner.

Knitting 101

Kylee has been wanting to learn how to knit for a little while now, so while I had some time this weekend I taught her. My sister posted about my niece learning to knit, and I used the same catchy rhyme Becky used to teach Charlotte. She's now working on her very own scarf! It's great to have a knitting buddy!

Feeling Froggy?

Tonight I could not find my size 8 double pointed knitting needles, so I searched and searched and finally found them....in a hat I had yet to cast off. I knit this hat twice. I started it in August, and knit the hat on the size needles called for in the pattern (I think 10s?). The hat just didn't turn out like I wanted it to. The stitches were too open. I have been wanting the perfect hat for a while now, and I was hoping it would be this hat.


It's knit out of baby alpaca yarn, which is so so soft. I re-knit it on size 8 needles, and I still am not very happy with it. Perhaps it's just not the right yarn for this pattern. I'm thinking I need to frog it again and maybe make a cowl out of the yarn. After all, I can't really feel the super soft yarn through my hair, but I'm thinking my neck would appreciate a nice soft cowl come winter.


I do love the cables though. My first second cables (since I knit the hat twice!). I'll keep looking for the perfect yarn for the pattern.

It's Crafting Time

The "big" craft show is less than a month away, so I've been busy felting things! Here are some mini sheep that may or may not get turned into Christmas tree ornaments.

And here is a little Christmas scene I just love. It will probably be sold as a set. I sort of want to keep it. I know I can make another one for myself, but I have ADD when it comes to making things. It's super hard for me to make multiples of the same thing because I get bored and want to move on to something different.

I think that little scene would look great on a mantel!

Wordless Wednesday

Someone feels left out.

Barley

I asked David to snap this picture of Barley and me yesterday. I wish she was standing a little more naturally instead of being kind of hunched up, because it makes her look slightly smaller. The little girls, Bean and Barley, have been staying in the barn pen since the ram is out in the pasture. I have never bred a ewe lamb, I've always waited to breed them as yearlings, and I was debating breeding Barley as a lamb this year. I'm leaning towards no, since I'm nervous she'll have complications and I really don't *need* her to lamb this coming spring. I'd rather wait one more year and not have any issues from her being too small.

Barley and Bean have been going outside to graze for a few hours every day. I'll put a halter on Barley and let Bean follow us. To go back in the barn, I just call the girls and they both follow right on my heels (even stepping on my heels!) and go right back in their pen. Sheep definitely go better when they're led, instead of being "pushed" from behind, like cattle.

I just love Bean and Barley and can't wait until next fall to breed them.

Soap Labels!

Check out my new soap labels! My friend Jen from Home Sweet made them for me, because I can't work am not familiar with Photoshop. This week I'll be labeling the soap and hope to have it in the Etsy shop by the weekend!

Ida Mae

Ida is almost 8 months old now and is growing up to be quite a pretty goat. I just love her and can't wait until next fall so I can breed her!




She's quite spunky too! She's figured out if she gets up on the milking stand that she'll get grain, and now she runs to the barn any chance she gets so she can hop up on the stand for a snack. I fed her up there last week so I could trim her hooves. She's a smart girl when there's food involved!



Thanks to Verde Farm for hosting Farm Friend Friday!