Princess Vilka

It would seem as though Princess Vilka is not nearly as distressed as we first thought.....she now owns our house.

The kids will be allowed to go into their old apartment on Monday, after the insurance company has done their investigation, to see if there is anything salvageable. They found a new place that they can move into on Monday, so back to Iowa City with "Larry" the pick-up truck, to shuttle things back and forth.....the kids opted for a "main floor" apartment this time : ).

Justin and Nicole

Well, I guess that it is about time that I updated my blog! We have just had too much going on lately and I haven't had much time to keep up with everything.

Yesterday afternoon I got a phone call from our 21 year old daughter, Nicole, in Iowa City. She was hysterically crying and all I could hear her say was, " Mmm..muwfffffffffff..pffffaaahhhhh.. FIRE...muhwahhhhhhhhhh". The one intelligible word that I got out of that made my hair stand on end. After I got her (and myself) to breathe, I got her to tell me what was happening. She said that the apartment that she, my son Justin, and another room mate share was on fire. Our kids were not home at the time that the fire started, and thankfully their room mate got out okay and was able to get all of their pets to safety....no small feat considering that they have a third floor apartment and share it with 2 cats, 2 bunnies and a ferret. The important thing was that everyone in the building got out safely. I knew that our kids were fine, but I am a mom so needless to say, Gary and I jumped in the car and made the normally 45 minute trip in considerably less time.

By the time we arrived the fire was out. Most of the fire damage was to the roof and the third floor where our kids live, and of course, lots of smoke and water damage. Since the building was deemed uninhabitable for the time being, none of the residents were allowed to retrieve any of their possessions. The Red Cross was there and offered help to anyone who needed it, which was really nice.....especially since one of the guys that lived in the basement was standing out in the parking lot barefoot, in a tee shirt and shorts and it was really cold out.
The kids made arrangements to stay with friends while they look for a new apartment.........BUT, there were homeless kitties and bunnies to contend with........oh yeah, you guessed it, a few furry refugee friends made the trip back to Eldridge with us last night.



This is Simon, he actually started out living here when he was a tiny baby. Simon and his brother Baxter were thrown out on the gravel road near our house when they were only about 2 weeks old. It was October of last year and it was cold, they were not even weaned from their mother, so of course they had to live with us "until we could find them a home". Long story short, Baxter stayed here and Simon is now Nicole's baby.

Simon has adjusted to his little vacation home with us just fine, he is familiar with our house and seems to think that our other cats and the dogs must be as thrilled to see him as he is to see them....not true. Now, this is embarrassing to admit, but we already have 4 house cats. Yes, I am a hair net away from being "the crazy cat lady". So, if you are doing the math, yes we sadly now have 6 cats in the house until the kids find a place..... shoot me now.

This is Justin's friend Vilka. Vilka is less than excited to be here. She looks cozy in this picture, but in actuality she had wedged herself underneath our rocking chair between the legs of the chair and the springs. I think that she is protesting, she can't understand why she has to be in this house with all of these undignified boy kitties, she feels that she deserves much better.

Baxter is just hoping that the spoiled princess and his long lost brother are going to become long lost again.

These pictures are of Simon and Baxter last year. They start out so cute, don't they?

I am happy to be able to give my kids one less thing to worry about, knowing that their pets are here safe with us...........but boy do I hope that they find a new place quickly! : )

Rocky and Teddy

After a lot of consideration I have decided that tomorrow Rocky and Teddy will be going to the vet and returning with a couple less body parts. Rocky is a very sweet ram with exceptional fleece, unfortunately he has aberrant horns, and at this time I am not breeding for polled genetics, so he will not be used for breeding. I had contemplated selling him to someone who does breed for polled, but he has such nice fleece (which is already spoken for for next year), that I will, at least for now, be keeping him as a fiber pet.

Pay no attention to his muddy nose, I am not sure what he was doing!

This picture doesn't do his fleece justice, but it is quite yummy and lustrous.

This is Teddy, I had hoped that he too would go to a polled breeder, but things didn't work out that way. He had only tiny 1/4 inch nubs as a lamb that broke off a couple of times and then never grew back. He has a tiny little tail, nice wool on the poll and is spotted under all that gorgeous fleece. Teddy has been sold as a fiber pet and will be going to his new home in Iowa City sometime after he is wethered.

I think that his new owner will be very happy with this pretty fiber, but I am sad to see him go : (.

Twisted friends and obese cats

Farmer's market is winding down for the season and there are only a few market dates left. I was just thinking this morning that when it is over on October 27th, we will have been there nearly every Saturday for 6 months (with the exception of "playing hookie" for the sheep show....Hmmm...where did the expression "playing hookie" come from? And is it "playing hookie", or "playing hooky"? I know for sure that it isn't "playing hockey", because that is a sport and I don't like sports, so I know that I wouldn't skip work to play hockey, plus I still have all of my teeth, so I know it wasn't that. Sorry.........I digress). It just seems really strange that the market has been going for that amount of time. Speaking of strange, we had a scarecrow contest at the market yesterday. I was not aware of the the upcoming competition since it had been planned and discussed while I was at the a fore mentioned sheep show, otherwise I would have concocted some sort of bizarre straw stuffed man creature.

There were only a few vendors that had notable entries.


This guy was created by the "corn people" that have a booth across from me. I call them the corn people because, yes, you guessed it, they sell corn. It would seem that they sell the world's best corn ever because they have a line waiting to buy their sweet corn before they even set up every Saturday morning and are sold out before the market starts at 8 a.m.. Anyway, this was their scarecrow, a nice stereotypical all-American scarecrow.


This little beauty was lovingly crafted by my friends Melsie and Jeanie (now it is all making sense isn't it? My friends are just as twisted as I am). Their scarecrowette has a shapely silver mannequin body, and if you will notice, claw hands and a fashionable burlap toga style dress with a stylish fringy flowered hemline (all the rage on the runways right now). Jeanie chose a stunning shade of green to make a devastatingly gorgeous gourd head sporting polymer clay eyes and lips handcrafted by Melsie. I believe that Jeanie laced together the marigold lei. The votes have not yet been tallied, but I am guessing that Scarecrow Chick is a shoe in to win this one.
Don't you love artsy people that think outside of the box and keep life interesting?

Here are my very artsy friends, Melsie, Scarecrow chick and Jeanie.

The market has become, for reasons that I do not comprehend, a dog show extravaganza every Saturday. Every breed imaginable is represented, sometimes donning the latest doggie fashions. But Saturday a lady was walking around carrying this huge cat. I commented to Jeanie that I thought that that cat was extremely fat, after which Jeanie laughed and was kind enough to remind me that I also have an obese cat. Which, sadly is true. I must emphasise though that it is not my fault that our cat is fat (contrary to what my children say) and I certainly don't carry him around on shopping trips.

Mr. Marshall is 14 years old. He has always been height challenged for his weight. I do not feed this cat any table scraps or treats of any kind, he is only allowed the same dry cat food as our other house cats...plain old indoor cat food, reduced calories etc. our other cats are of a relatively normal weight.......stop laughing...I probably should not have said "relatively" because obviously when compared to Mr. Marshall relativity takes on a whole new meaning, he does, after all, weigh 25+ pounds.


I don't know why I chose to share this disturbing information with you, I suppose it is because there is not much happening with the sheep right now.......but breeding season is fast approaching!

Changing leaves

I spent last weekend in Des Moines at a craft show selling my polymer clay figurines. I do some of the same shows every year so it is always fun to see some of the "regular" crafters and customers again, but it is also completely exhausting. We (My dear darling sister Marie and I) started out early on Friday, we made a stop in Iowa City to visit with a lady who may purchase some of my fiber boys, left Iowa city and drove 2 more hours to Des Moines, got checked in to our hotel, set up my booth at the show on Friday afternoon and the show started at 5 p.m. continuing until 9. Then it was back to the hotel, I tried to sleep while my dear darling sister was snoring in the next bed LIKE IT WAS HER JOB! Thankfully the hotel has a new policy, instead of supplying two standard size pillows they give you 4-5 small ones, not what I needed for sleeping, but they were GREAT ammo for throwing at my sister to jar her from her snorry slumber. Saturday the show started at 9 a.m. and ended at 5 ( same hotel, more pillow tossing). Sunday started at 10 a.m. and finished at 4 p.m., followed by a frenzied packing of all of my figurines and display tables trying to load the truck and get out of the parking lot before the other 199 crafters, then the grand finale of driving 2 1/2 hours back home ( it actually took me two hours, really, I wasn't driving fast or anything, really).

We did have time to walk around the fairgrounds Sunday morning before the show started. The APHA futurity show was going on, so I had to see all the pretty Paint babies all fancied up. Talk about some gorgeous horses! I was also lusting after this horse trailer......not that I would NEED anything like this, but LOOK at it! As much as I love my "average Joe" horses, I think that they would look a bit out of place coming out of a trailer like this LOL.

Even though it was 90 degrees on Sunday and didn't FEEL much like fall, the subtle signs of fall provided some enjoyable scenery along the drive home.

I noticed a lot of changes around our property too when I returned home....
My fall asters are in full bloom, they are pretty, but they kind of say "hey, summer is over".

The Black eyed Susans are dying back and looking a little anemic.

These are the last few blooms of my variegated False Sunflowers.
And I noticed how the leaves are changing............................................................................

Ohhhhhh, were you expecting pretty maple leaves or something??? Did I NOT mention that we live in the middle of a bunch of corn fields?? Now, I'm not going to lie, we do have a few trees, but they aren't doing anything yet. The corn harvest is in full swing though, we are serenaded by the constant hum of combines and the neighbors corn drier day and night, and when you drive anywhere around here you have to allow a few extra minutes for "farm implement avoidance".
Happy fall!