Wordle Wow!!

Wow! I was in shock. It was akin to hitting the jackpot (but not worth anything monetarily!)

I have been using HASTE as my starting word for the online Wordle puzzle game for years. I knew that word had not been used by Wordle before, so I figured one day they would use it. Yesterday was that day!

I will have to pick another start word that hasn't been used before.

Competition for the Squirrels

As fall arrived I began to notice our busy squirrels. The dogs notice them as well, and enjoy the sport of chasing the  critters around the yard. 

In addition to the usual grey squirrel, we have fox squirrels. These fellas are amazingly long; long in body and in tail! 

We have plenty of trees, both oak and pine, and the squirrels love gathering seeds and nuts. 

But, they have competition:

 The girls 'graze' under the trees finding acorns to eat. I can hear them cracking the shells. Occasionally they spit out some of the shell, or maybe the little acorn 'hat'. 

Acorns aren't good for dogs...but try telling that to Corgis!

Christmas Countdown - Day 1

 You may recall that I posted about receiving the Christmas Countdown box. It's a thing for me, and my BFF. Each year we order the box, and each day before Christmas, beginning today, we open a gift, especially for quilters, curated by the Missouri Star Quilt Company. We chat with each other while opening each package, then later we might visit the official site for opening the countdown box gifts to hear more about the gift and perhaps some instructions. 

My box was not touched until this morning, when I opened the carton to remove the pretty box.

Jenny Doan is the personality of the Missouri Star Quilt Co., 

a family run business in Hamilton, Missouri.

Each box contains a card from Jenny. 

Here is the first gift:

It's a fabric panel and a pattern showing how to cut the panel 

to make a wall hanging or a table runner, or both!

I think I might be working on this today!

It's time to get busy!

Oh, Deer!

I guess the inspiration came when I got this hanging out for fall decorating. 

 I made this a few years ago:

I have an abundance of scraps, and following my surgery, 

realized I could make a background similar to the hanging, even one handed. 

I put a backing on my long arm sewing machine, followed by some batting. 

I began placing scraps on the batting, overlapping the edges. 

Then I sewed vertical and horizontal lines to hold the fabric pieces..

Having decided I would put a deer head on the fabric, adorned with bells,

I found this embroidery design:

I "auditioned" several fabrics for the deer cutout. 

I sketched the deer head, ironed on a fusible backing,

and had a friend cut it out. The Mister is left-handed.  I can only use my left hand.

Neither of us could use my right handed scissors!

I used the cutout to plan where to put bells hanging from the antlers.

I added a border, ironed on the deer and added bows and bells to the ribbons. 

...and what makes me so proud of this piece? 

I could not grip anything with my right hand, except between my fingers. I could not use my thumb, or pinch anything between my thumb and fingers on my right hand.  Most all of the work was accomplished with my left hand. I did the hand sewing with my left hand (with plenty of needle pokes on my right fingers!)

But, I finished it, and I'm happy to hang it up as a Christmas decoration in our home. 

 

Clydesdale Christmas

I heard about a "Clydesdale Experience" fairly close to us.  As I love horses, and have a special spot in my heart for "big guys" I wanted to go. 

There are several different tours available and to get into the Holiday spirit I chose the nighttime tour. It added to the magic of the evening. 

I was in awe of the horses and the family that owns and operates Grandview Clydesdales. 

This is truly a family operation with family doing almost all of the day-to-day work.

The family farm was beautifully decorated. 

Karen and her husband, Shannon, led the tour.

They have compiled several videos to give visitors a better picture of what they do..

Grandview Clydesdales is one of the largest Clydesdale farms in the world.  The original farm was in Arkansas, and an additional farm is now located near Ocala, FL (The horse capital of the world)

Each room we entered had large displays of ribbons and trophies... oh, and they only display first place and championship ribbons!

(In Canada first place ribbons are red!)

Each of the horses also earn their own custom harness. The harnesses are made in Ohio, and take two years to complete.  The fittings are stainless steel, when they need to be strong, or chromed where they need to bring some more bling. It takes two years for a harness to be made, and all of the components of the harness weigh 200 pounds! 

This is one of the shoes. The width of the shoe is somewhat larger than the horse's hoof to help spread the pounds per square inch out a bit...kinda like my Hoka sneakers!

After learning the history of Grandview Clydesdales, now in their 24th generation involved in raising and showing Clydesdales, we went out to one of the barns...the Champion's barn.

We were introduced to each horse and learned of his or her winnings. Shannon said the seven horses in this barn earn their right to be here and that it is akin to the Baseball Hall of Fame. We learned about each horse's personality, and details about their age, weight, height and more.

One of the youngest horses in the barn, 5 years old, is 19 hands tall (6' 4"), weighs 2300 lbs, and is expected to grow another 1 or 2 inches in height and put on about 300 lbs!

One of the fun things we learned is that it takes 16 bottles of Clairol black hair dye to color one of their horses, who happens to be the bay color, like the Budweiser Clydesdales*. They dye this horse for horse shows so they have a stunning team of 6 or 8 black horses. 

* We were told the Grandview has a strong relationship with the Budweiser group. Quite a few horses born and raised at Grandview have gone on to 'work' for Budweiser, and Grandview has purchased some Clydesdales from them. 

Grandview has an average of 40 clydesdales on their property, with 8-18 foals born each year. 

Karen is demonstrating how she braids the manes of horses for a show. She shows single horse classes and  is the 'groom' when Shannon drives the big hitches.  

This is "May",  a championship mare, all dressed for a show. 

(She's the one that gets her hair dyed - although it's hard to tell with the backlighting that she is a bay - brown coat with a black mane & tail. 

...and here is our Christmas card...we were told!

 

Thankful

We had a wonderfully quiet, stress-free Thanksgiving...just the two of us. We had planned to visit the Mister's sister and family but I began to feel sniffly a few days ago.  I took a Covid test, it was negative. But, The Mister's sister seems to come down with bronchitis or pneumonia often,  and I didn't want to bring that to her. 

It was all good!

The Mister's favorite dish: pearl onions in cream sauce

My favorite dish: stuffing 

Vickie & Kaitlyn's favorite taste: anything that fell on the floor!

Many Blessings

I have much to be thankful for...every day.

Blessings to you and your family. 

Thanksgiving - 1989