Life at the moment....

Right now I am.....

.Humming 'More precious then Silver' to myself'.

. Writing a post on my blog (duh).

. Wondering if I like lists or not.

. Resting from transplanting strawberry plants and a Willow tree that just came from Illinois today.

. reminding myself that I have an alpaca about to give birth in 28 days or less.

. Impatiently waiting to get chickies again (alas, not until September!)

. Laughing about a new chicken breed that I learned about; a Ko Shamo. These birds are so ugly that they're cute! Methinks I should try getting a trio just for grins. :D

. Thinking I would love to have rabbits again.

. Chuckling about a conversation I had with a stranger today on treadle sewing machines.

. Wondering what I should do after this.

. I can't believe it's 7:20 p.m. as I write this; it's still so light outside!

. Missing San Juan Island and Puget Sound.

. Wishing I could live at San Juan. Then thinking how much I love it right where I am.

. Thinking about the whales and sea otters I saw there. Oops, that's for a post yet to come.

. Wondering how on earth Joshua Messick (famous hammered dulcimer player) manages to play with 3 to 4 hammers in each hand.

. And then thinking about how I've met his sister and probably met him a few years ago at a wedding and didn't even realize who he was.

Thinking my thoughts are too scatterbrained for a almost-18 year old. Sheesh.

A random post for ya'. ;D

~Caitlyn

Now this is my kind of instrument

For years I have been intrigued with Bowed Psalteries. I keep telling myself "someday you are going to get one." But until then, I shall enjoy listening to them. This recording was so beautiful to listen to that I just had to share it with y'all. :) Enjoy!





This next clip shows the Baritone Psaltery that I've been looking at (er, dreaming about I guess). I loved the deep notes.... :)



Sorry the whole screen isn't showing. Not sure why it's doing that...

~Caitlyn

What business?

I have come to a conclusion.

I am not a very good business-woman. ;)

I'm not very good at pricing things; as I always tend to put things at a lower price than they are worth. And I muchly prefer trading, bartering and haggling than plain ol' buying and selling.

Yesterday, a friend asked how my Etsy shop was coming along and I jokingly replied: "What shop? I've been too busy giving my yarn away to sell any of it!" Of course my friend was suprised (okay, borderlined on shocked), why on earth would I give such beautiful yarn away!

I explained that while yes I do have yarn in my shop right now (a measly 6 skeins), I absolutely love to just give my yarn away. I am not gifted with the talent of saying "just the right thing at the right time", writing my thoughts down is even harder. But I know how to give a hug, a knowing smile, or a skein of yarn.....

A lot of thought and love goes into each skein that I make. Right now, it is taking me about two weeks of work to make one single skein; but I love doing it. Spinning yarn gives one a chance to just sit. And think. And pray. And sing. I like to pray for the person who will be recieving the skein that I am creating.

I decided that it doesn't matter if I'm not a very good business person. Some may call my spinning a business, but to me, it's my ministry. I have prayed that the Lord would work through me and allow me to glorify His name through something. I found it through my yarn. To be able to give someone a gift of yarn is giving that person possibilites. Some may never do anything with the yarn, others may have an idea, or maybe, others may make something with their gift.... And then..... Give it away to continue the gift....

No, I haven't given away oodles and doodles of skeins, actually, I've only given away a very small handful. It's not something that I want to be handing out left and right, exactly. But rather, each one being a gift! Each skein is purposefully given; sometimes the skeins are later in being given than I was hoping, but, better late than never, right?

Ach, I'm not sure how this is all sounding. Did I already mention that I'm not good at writing things down? ;)

~Caitlyn

Oh Bother....

Last night we had some really high winds.

You could hear the house creaking.

I didn't dare look outside to see how my greenhouse was faring.

In the morning, I looked out my window and saw.... No Greenhouse!

A different window gave me a view that showed my poor little greenhouse 15 feet from its original spot, and completely totaled.



I have a better picture of just how bad it looks, but for some reason my computer won't let me download anymore. Grrrr. The front view is much more catastrophic looking. ;)

Pots were broken, all my plants were laying in a puddle of water outside their pots, a few of the bars that go to the greenhouse were cracked and I can no longer find the stakes that were supposed to keep it down!! :-/


Surprisingly though, I only lost one plant. I was able to gently scoop up the survivors and am working on getting them all in new pots. I am really grateful though, that I moved my remaining 30 lavender plants indoors a few days ago (and never got around to putting them back outside), so at the time, there were only 15 plants in the greenhouse.

Note to self: You get what you pay for.

~Caitlyn

Prepare yourself for something very long...

I'm baaaaack!! Oh wait, I forgot to tell you where we were going, didn't I? ;) Every seven years, daddy gets a two month sabbatical from work, so we decided to celebrate the beginning by exploring Washington state!

So on Saturday the 20th, bags packed, directions left for house/animal sitter, 72 lavender plants precariously set on top of everyone's things in the back, 10 people in one vehicle prepared to travel 344 miles to our destination. Whew!

Some friends of ours have a beach house up in Camano Island and offered to let us stay in their house for our 5 day stay. Did I mention that the house had two bedrooms and 1 bathroom? Surprisingly, all went very smoothly.

We had to stop half way to Camano to drop off some lavender plants that I sold. Luckily, none of the plants tipped over, and the buyers were pleased with all the plants. That was the most stressful ride for me; 72 wobbling plants that all look like they were going to fall over. :-/

Further up, we went and explored the NW Trek (no idea where it was except that it was in WA) which was a little bit like a zoo. It was all wild animals native to the NW. The predators were each in their own large, enclosed space, so that people could see them, and the herbivores (e.g. deer, elk, bison) were allowed to freely roam the hundreds of acres. We got to ride the tram and see the the different animals in their own natural habitat; it was pretty neat. :) The animals are so used to the tram, that they will literally sit just a few feet away from the pathway.

Walking somewhere. ;)

Mr. Cougar.

So cute...

Okay, this poor moose has become a bit of a family joke. This girlie was so big (about seven feet tall) and looked so awkward that I couldn't resist nicknaming her "TwinkleToes"! ;D Meg absolutely loved her; so now we tease her about her pet moose that she is surely going to have someday.

Bald Eagle

Personally, I liked this sweet doeling.

There was a lot of bison! This one is a lone bachelor.

My favorite! A sleepy Grizzly bear. I loved his tulip shaped ears and his pigeon-toed walk. :)

A Lynx.

Hmmmm, a zonked wolf. He looks so ferocious, doesn't he?

Elk...

This little lady was hilarious. She is a 14 year old, Bighorned sheep. Average lifespan for Bighorned sheep? 10 years. Guess she's been too busy to think about dyin'. ;D She decided that she would shake things up a little during our ride and wouldn't get out of the road. Then she wanted to know what would happen if she hooked our fender with her horns. Well, we came out in one piece! And she did eventually move. :)

The weather was absolutely perfect. And we all had a fun time there...

Fast forward 200 more miles. We reached the beach house at I think 9 at night? It was too dark to see much, but we could hear the water. The beach house was on the edge of Puget sound. So it was like being next to a calm lake, but we still had all the marine life. I was actually glad that it was too dark to see much. How much better to see it for the first time at dawn! It really was gorgeous. Instead of a sandy shore, it was rocky; but there were shells everywhere!! The little ones had fun seeing who could find the most.

Well, I shall end here for the moment and continue later on all the rest of the days...

~Caitlyn

Truffles...

Oh dear.... I'm hooked!

If all else fails; methinks I could at least be a chocolatier!? ;D

To coat the truffles, you have to put a teaspoon of melted chocolate into your palm and then roll the truffle balls into it. This is what my hands looked like after coating 2 dozen truffles! Fun, huh?

The coated and dripping candies looking rather rough....

And voila! The finished product! Emily had the idea of putting a chocolate glaze on them. The effect was quite nice if I do say so myself! ;)

I was delighted to find that they had the nice crack that store bought truffles have, when you bite into them. :D And, by the way that they have been disappearing off the plate, I'm guessing that my family likes them. :)

~Caitlyn

Random

I started out looking for just one picture in dad's files and, well... It kind turned into a lot more but these were the only ones that didn't take a week to download (okay, so maybe they're not that slow). :P Enjoy. Maybe I'll put more randomness up later. :D

(burn to learn scene, not our house!)

~Megan

My goofy girl

My Mira girl is so funny....

Under all her shy, quietness, she really has quite the quirky personality. :)

With all our fine weather that we've been having, She has taken to having her afternoon naps outside in the sun. Observe:

She looks dead doesn't she?! Unfortunately, with pictures you can't see her head lolling from one side to the other as she snores softly. ;D

Alas, I wasn't stealthy enough, and the other alpacas caught me spying upon them. Mira woke with a start as the the others stampeded past her to get their share of pettings.

Coming over to see what the hulabaloo is about...

And then giving me a bleary eyes look of reproach for waking her.

Sorry Mira.

~Caitlyn

They're here!!

Hurray!! Our seeds came in the mail yesterday! It is utter torture, I am dying to start planting, but I know I need to wait a few more days.... I start next Wednesday. Do you think I can make it?

~Caitlyn

Mmmmm.... Methinks I am going to be busy soon!

I got a book from the library...

Maybe I shouldn't have...

But it was so tempting...

Oh well, I'm glad I did,anyway!


Ahem, never go to the library (or to their website) when you are craving chocolate!

Of the late, I've been dreaming up raspberry flavored, homemade truffles made of fine, tempered chocolate, baked hot chocolate and chocolate cheesecakes...

Tommorow the required ingredients will find their way into my grocery cart and then into our kitchen....

Toodle pip and cheerio!

~Caitlyn

Reminiscing

On paper, er, screen that is, 'Reminiscing' looks like a very oddly spelled word. ;)

Today while doing chores I popped a favorite Celtic CD in our cd player, and listened to the lilting, joyful sounding music. Well, that was how it was at first....

It all starts with nodding your head in time to the music, then it leads to humming with it, then a sister comes along, looks at you, grins and before you know you are both setting to the music in tandem!

Meg and I love nothing more than to think back of favorite dances, or not so favorite, that we've done together. :) 'The waterfall Waltz', 'Mary's Wedding', 'Boston Teaparty'. [sigh] Good memories all about it....

We stopped attending the weekly ECD (English Country Dance), mostly because of the distance, and it's always hard to do when there are little ones to keep busy.

I remember during a masquerade ball that we went to, Meg and I danced together for almost the whole thing. There was one dance in particular (can't remember the name) that was reeeaallyy slow; Meg and I don't do well together during slow dances (she likes to go fast). So we started goofing around, oh, we still did the dance perfectly, but we added those silly things one would only do with a sister or sibling. :) We made faces at each other as we passed or did 'two-hand turns', added extra goofy steps to the slower parts, etc... We actually started laughing out loud! People started watching us to see what we would do next and I think perhaps some of them wished to join in our silliness. ;D That dance is now in our "list of favorites" despite its slowness; because Meg and I had so much fun together doing it!

Doing a fast. crazy dance with my sister Megan is the absolute best!! We both get to laughing and then we forget what the next step is; but then, during the fast ones, most everyone forgets the next part! Meg and I like to twirl each other (I looove being twirled!) while dancing too.

In our little kitchen is where Meg and I always seem to end up dancing. We set together, do favorite moves from favorite dances and choreograph our own dances to go with our CD's. 'Tis fun. :)

Poor Emily, the age limit for dancing was 13, and she was 12 when we were attending! Alas, we had stopped about a month before her birthday, so she never got to go to a ball and very rarely got to dance during the weekly dances. :( Meg and I always include her in our 'spur-of-the-moment' dances, and she got to do enough dances that she can reminisce with us.

I think our favorite thing to do (usually at night when we're in bed) is to ask the question: "If you could do any dance, which would you choose?" That's always a hard one to answer. The Dingle dance was fun. But short. The Gothic dance is fun and fast! But it's best if there is at least 70 people. How about the Contra dance? Very fun, but also very long. The Waterfall Waltz, Whip-the-Willow, Say-I-Do.... Which one does one choose? Personally, I think I like ALL of them, but if I got to choose just one, I think I would choose the slow dance called "Enchanted Place". Each move mirrors a part from the story of 'Winnie the Pooh'! I love the slow, graceful, trickiness about it!

Meg says she would choose the fast and crazy 'Contra dance'.

And Emily would choose 'The Gothic dance'. Another fast and crazy one. :)

Good memories all about it...

~Caitlyn

And the Winner Is.....

I'll be honest.

I couldn't bring myself to pull the winner's name out of the hat! So there was only one logical solution to my un-timely dilema.

Call the two year old brother over and ask him to pull a slip of paper out! ;)

Luckily, he was very willing to join in "see-see's" odd, new game. So he reached in.... And pulled out a name....

The unfolding....

The winner!!

Congratulations to Sarah G. over at 'Rural Legacy! I will get your new treasure to you as soon as possible!

A thank you to everyone who entered my first little drawing. It meant a lot to me. :)

Now, to find something else to giveaway.... ;D

On the subject of yarn, Here are two deliciously soft cashmere skeins that I finished a couple days ago and are now on their way to be washed, blocked twisted, labeled and sent to their new owners!

These were sooo fun to spin. One skein the color of ivory, the other of milk chocolate...

I tried twisting both skeins together, just for fun, and ended up loving the look! Someday I'm going to try selling a 2-in-1 skein like this in my shop. ;) Ooooh, I could call it 'Hot Chocolate'!

Well, all for now! But I'll be back... :)

~Caitlyn