Tuesday, December 11, 2012

The wood stove and shed

 This is the wood shed. Out on the driveway. Me, hubby, a few daughters and grand daughters and one son-in-law, helped build this thing. It has a tarp at the back of it. It's double stacked too. The wood is nice and dry now. Not much wood in it right now. But there will be more soon. There is a lady in her late 60's who cuts, splits and stacks wood for sale. I will be buying the rest of our wood from her. She's amazing.



So this is the new stove. It heats this whole house. There are 1200 SF downstairs and 400 upstairs. It gets mighty hot up there, I am told. We did have some trouble because of creosote buildup. Then chipping out bricks to make room for new longer stove pipe. Then the elbow broke. Then hubby had to leave right after the elbow broke. Then we thankfully had a really nice warm few weeks.

Hubby was here for a few days so he and daughter got it all hooked back up again and now we are nice and toasty warm again! Just in time too, because now it's going to be down in the high 20's to low 30's at night. And this stove keeps us warm now. I am so glad I went ahead and got this one. But now it's a little bit to the right of the fireplace, due to people who are not master stove pipe installers. But I'm fine with that, as long as the house doesn't burn down.



Monday, December 10, 2012

Just look at the size of that belly already!



This goat is huge! I put the does in with the bucks Sept. 1st this year. I've never done that this early before. I had noticed that Penelope was pretty big. But tonight, good grief! Look at that! For being just 3 months along, I do believe there might be more than 2 kids in there. And she has an udder already. For a first freshener, that's pretty impressive, I think. She's not a big goat at all either. She's about 1 1/2 right now and looks like a little Pygmy, but she's not. And she is polled too. She's bred to the little Boer buck, so hopefully all those kids won't be too awful big.



                                                              This is from the top.



                                               And here's that udder. I like the teats already.


This is her from last week. I was worried the little guy didn't do anything, but apparently he was busy while I wasn't looking/. I don't think Sandy is pregnant. If she acts like she did a few weeks ago, I'll get her and the buck back together. But I am still milking her and getting about a quart a day now.

I just hope we don't get a snow storm or ice around the 1st of February now.

Holiday market pictures

Yay, I think I have figured out how to upload pictures now from my new camera!!

So this is my booth. I need the canopy to hang the window frame for the candle holders. I think. But it's dark inside. So one of the ladies in my "square" came over and said I should take the top off to bring light in and that I need to have the tables on the outside of the booth. That she has found people don't like to go inside a booth, they'd rather be on the outside. Going inside means they have committed to the whole thing.

So I  am going to get there early this Saturday and make some changes. I would love to hear what anyone thinks about this. It's got plenty of color. But it is dark. I need to come up with something to hang the window from then take the whole canopy down.






These are the hanging candle holders or night lights. They're so pretty at night with the flickering candle inside. Or hanging outside on a tree branch at night. I'm making more because I did sell several.



And these are some of the wine bottles, jars and vases. I think I am going to get my 2 card tables back and use them instead of this shelf because it's hard for people to get down far enough to see these. So this will be gone.



These 2 bottom shelves are the Christmas jars and vases. The top shelf has jars with lids. And the next shelf has vases.


Then here is my soap and wash cloth table. I did add more soap that I had forgotten about so need some more baskets too.
So any advice or comments would be great. I need all the help I can get. I am at the very end of a long row. There are 4 booths in each square.

Thanks for looking! And if you are close, come on by and visit.