Helping to find our Grandson's First Christmas Tree

What a memorable day we had today!  I have to go back a year to start my story.  Last year I had just started reading one of my now favorite blogs, "Under the Tulip Tree", by Julie Smith (find her blog link on the right in my favorite blog list), her sister is Alicia Paulson, author of another blog, "Posie Gets Cozy" (also in my blog list).  (I just love love love their writings and photos!!)


So... anyhoo... I was reading Julie's blog and was entranced by their visit to "Merrywood Farm", a lovely and charming tree farm.  So, a year ago I sent a link to my daughter-in-law telling her we should go there next year.  So, yesterday Kristi called to see if we wanted to go there with them today.  SURE!  So, we headed off at 11 am and headed to their house in our Dodge Ram pickup truck (to haul their tree home in) and then followed them to the farm, over hill and dale we wove our way there.


I was immediately enchanted by the farm.

The sign at the entrance was so pretty.  Here is a link to their website:  Merrywood Farm

There was a beautiful old  tractor as we drove in to the parking area.

A machine shed was there with this gorgeous old pickup truck parked inside.  A 1940 Chevy, my hubby tells me.

In the barn there was a well appointed milk room with vintage and antique equipment around the room.

On the weekend they offer free pony rides to the visiting children, no rides today but we did get to befriend a pony, this is 1 1/2 year old Caleb petting his soft muzzle.

 Caleb is so cute!

 Kristi and the boys checking out trees down the lane.

 Dayle, Travis, Hayden, Kristi and Caleb by a pretty tree.

 This is the one!

The owner, William Keyser, drove us in his farm cart to get the tree then took us down to the pond to show us a new Beaver dam that his beavers had just made!  So neat!

Then he took a photo of all of us on the steps of his beautiful gazebo.  They have weddings at the farm too.

This is the barn and wagon and the trailer for hauling trees.

 The house.

William had a nice fire in a fire pit for us to warm up by, Hayden is fascinated with the fire and Caleb is drinking the warm spiced apple cider that he gave all of us.

After all that exercise we headed to "Five Guys Burgers & Fries" and tried them out for the first time, it was good, filling and fun!  Caleb and Hayden.

Travis, Kristi, Hayden & Caleb enjoying lunch.

On the way home we stopped at the pond near their house to feed the ducks and nutria some leftover french fries.

Have you ever seen a nutria?  BIG funny rat like things!!


Then we got to the kids house and Travis re-cut the base of the tree and put it in the base and brought it in and strung 400 little white lights around it.  Kristi decorated and it looks so pretty!


Just a great day.  I hope you are all enjoying your holiday preparations!  ((hugs)) Teresa

Beginning of the *Magic*

Today my dear husband brought the tree down from upstairs and set it up.  We used to have fresh trees all the years that the kids were growing up, I loved the aroma of the pine boughs, but the drying tree, the pine needles, the frightening thought of the tree bursting into flames made us decide to go with a "pretend" tree.  It's so nice to be able to set it up early and not worry about wrapping a fire hazard with electric wires.. :-)  

The photo above is of a vintage box of Christmas ornaments that we actually found in the rafters of my husband's parents house when we were going through it with his sisters before the house and all it's contents were to be sold.  I treasure this box and it's ornaments inside. The tins are my small collection of Christmas red tins, vintage of course.  The little one is my newest, a gift in a "swap" of crochet friends on Ravelry in the "We Love Lucy" group.  We all came together with a common interest of our friend and fellow blogger, Lucy, from Attic24 in the UK.

Above is a sneak preview of the outside lights taken through our leaded glass window.

I've just gotten a few things out, more to come, but this is my hand-carved wooden Santa and some lead crystal tea lights that were a surprise Christmas gift from my husband a few years ago.  He hit the mark with these, I love them!  I made the little cotton stuffed snowman.  I have quite a large collection of Santas and Snowmen and women that I will photograph once they are all on display.


The day after Thanksgiving we got a call right before we got up and it was our youngest son and his wife - could we please rush to the Emergency Room at the local hospital and pick up our baby grandson Caleb, there had been an accident of a falling dresser and 2 1/2 year old Hayden had a nasty gash in his temple right next to his eye!  OH MY!  So, hubby raced there to get him while I made him some coffee and waited for them to arrive.  Poor Hayden had to get 5 stitches!  I imagine he'll have a real shiner in a day or two.  Thank heavens it wasn't a broken bone or worse!


At any rate, I wanted to say hello and show you a glimpse of how the farmhouse is starting to be dressed for the season! Tomorrow the ornaments go on the tree and more Santas and Snowmen will come out of their tissue hiding places to take center stage for the next 4 or 5 weeks.  


I hope you are all having a lovely beginning to the holiday season, I know I am getting quite in the swing of things!


((hugs)) Teresa  o<[]:-{D

A Feast was enjoyed by all

We paced ourselves.. a lot of effort goes into hosting a Thanksgiving Feast!  Lists are made, shopping is done, more shopping for things you forgot the first time, housekeeping is done over many days.. then the cooking begins.  Dayle is our turkey and dressing master.  He got a 22 lb. bird and yesterday he made his dressing, homemade orange cranberry dressing, and his honey wheat rolls.  Today he stuffed the bird and put it in the oven - dinner was set to occur at 5 pm.  I put the leaves in the table, laid the fresh tablecloth, got the crystal goblets out, fabric napkins and silverware - candlesticks with beeswax candles I rolled myself.  Then I peeled and boiled fresh yams, and when done I added grated orange peel & squeezed some of the orange over them, butter, cinnamon, brown sugar and pecans - and covered with mini-marshmallows.  I put together the green bean and onion bake and peeled the big Russet potatoes, boiled them, then whipped them with milk and butter.


The kids arrived and we began to enjoy visiting.  While Dayle sliced turkey I made the gravy.  


Then.... as we sat there waiting to begin I asked for everyone's attention and told them how happy I was they were here.  The sad part was our youngest son Travis, his wife and two baby boys weren't able to join us as they'd come down with a cold and didn't want to expose the rest of us to their illness.  Our daughter Amy brought 2 homemade pumpkin pies for dessert.


I hope those of you who celebrate Thanksgiving enjoyed a nice dinner with friends and/or family.  And to those of you who visit from around the world - I'm looking forward to us all sharing Christmas together!


Peace and Love -- ((hugs)) Teresa

Sunshine, Snow & Thanksgiving

We had some pretty snow yesterday - not a lot but the deck is all white with it this morning.  See the chicken house up on the hill?  It's in the low 20s here still and it's almost noon.  We're cozy here in the farmhouse with the fire going.  Soon we'll have some chili for lunch that we made the other day.  Heated up with 3 cheeses grated on the top.  Mmmm.

The sun was streaming into the dining room this morning... day after tomorrow this table will have 5 leaves in it and will be set with a tablecloth, my Christmas dishes and crystal goblets, fabric napkins and candles and will be laden with a feast of roasted turkey, dressing, mashed potatoes, turkey gravy, homemade wheat yeast rolls, veggies and ambrosia and sparkling apple cider.  All of our kids, spouses and grandkids will be here.  14 of us.  Can't wait!!


I have a story to tell about this table.  On a visit to family in Oklahoma some 20 years ago, I was poking around in grandma and grandpa's abandoned farmhouse and outbuildings.  I found in the house the "Kitchen Queen" cabinet and in the chicken house I spied a beautifully turned "leg" under loads of debris.. with help from family members we dug and found my grandparents old 5 legged farm table with 5 leaves laying on top.  With help from family and a pickup truck we loaded the kitchen queen, the table and leaves and a blue painted china cabinet and a family friend let me store them in his barn.  


A few years later my husband and I drove our Peugeot station wagon to Oklahoma from Oregon to rescue these pieces and bring them home.  Once home I found a restorer to fix up both pieces and now they are my pride and joy.


Here is a link to more photos and a poem I wrote in honor of our first Thanksgiving dinner upon this family table.  I printed the poem on parchment and rolled it and tied it with a ribbon and placed one at each place setting at the table and then read the poem before we began dinner.  


Thanksgiving Poem

Table & Kitchen Queen

The above link will show the kitchen queen, sorry about the duplication of the poem.  I hope you all have a great week around the world and those who celebrate Thanksgiving I hope you have a day full of family, love and delicious meals.  


((hugs))  Teresa

It's *S*N*O*W*I*N*G*!

The weathermen kept promising the "S" word.. and it came this afternoon!!  Big beautiful snowflakes.  We're cozy in our little farmhouse with the fire blazing.  We have chili beans simmering on the stove - I'm going to add sauteed ground beef, chopped green pepper and onion and lots of tomatoes and chili powder, some cumin and red pepper and Tabasco.  :-)  Perhaps some cornbread to accompany it.  Mmmm.

 Here is a photo of the snow falling in front of the red barn.

 This big pretty hydrangea wasn't prepared for this! LOL

Here is a pot of still blooming Blue Lobelia.  Not for long!


I've been organizing my yarn stash... oh my! I better get some projects done to use up some of this soft and pretty yarny delicious-ness!  


I got inspired by the lovely Vanessa from "doyoumindifiknit" - she's doing this really fun pointy diagonal stripe scarf pattern to share with all of us.. meantime I think I have the "secret" of it figured out and have started a holiday one of my own.  I'm not going to divulge the secret, but this is what mine looks like so far... the fun idea behind this design is that you end the scarf on a point and the other end is a point too. :-)

And here is one of my crochet Christmas stockings that I designed myself...

 Below is a tiny stocking ornament I make for my kids and grandkids with their initials on them.  These are definitely fun!  I love seeing them on the tree, along with my hearts.  

I hope you're having a wonderful day, evening or week, wherever you are on this grand spinning globe we all share!  ((hugs))  Teresa


Thought you might want to see how the chili turned out.. :-)

10 Fun Facts

Thanks to Clara for the "Beautiful Blogger Award"!  Here are 10 Fun Facts About Myself. (This is a fun thing to give to your blog friends!)

1. I am a life-long artist and craftswoman - my first memory of drawing was when I was 4 years old I drew a picture on our chalkboard, only to be horrified later that someone erased it! :-)


2. I met my husband when I was 14 and a freshman in high-school and he was 16 and a junior.  I was on a date with another boy and he took me to a pizza parlor and there were 3 of his friends across the table being silly and one of them was my future husband. :-)


3. I'd love to live on a tropical island in a thatched hut with my wooden schooner at anchor in my own harbor and I'd paint beautiful pictures of the surroundings and have a one woman show in NY once a year where all my paintings would sell for exorbitant prices which would fund my lifestyle the rest of the year. 


4. I am a Pollyanna, happy most of the time, see the bright side of most things, am happy even when it's dark and rainy because I have a warm home and a good husband and a loving family and friends.  


5. I lived out a childhood fantasy and was finally able to own my own horse when we moved onto some land when the kids were little and my wonderful husband built us a barn and I got to have my VERY OWN HORSE!


6. I wanted to raise my kids and give them things I didn't have as a child - we got milk goats and they grew up with fresh milk and eggs from our own animals.  We eventually had a herd of registered Nubian dairy goats and the kids showed them at the County Fair and I was the 4-H leader for Dairy Goats for 5 years.  


7. When I was a little girl I could climb higher than the boys up in the trees.


8. I learned to cook really good from my Oklahoma born and raised mother.  But did not get her "pie gene".  


9. I love to decorate my house for the seasons and most especially Christmas.


10.  I have come to love reading blogs and making friends from all over the world with my little corner of the internet. :-)


Now I will pass this award along to these following bloggers:

• Mereknits
• MandasChallenges
• KnittingKitties
• Tickety-Boo
• mynestofyarnandbuttons
• BunnyMummy
• themisadventuresofanordinaryhousewife
• urbantortoise
• nicoleandthebee
• tabiboo

I hope you have a wonderful weekend and thank you so much for coming by for a visit!!  ((hugs))  Teresa

Pink Earflap Hat is done!!

Yay! I finished one of my granddaughter's little pink Peruvian style ear flap hats!  I need to try this one on them both to make sure it's the right fit, then I'll make the 2nd one.  It feels *SUPERB* to get a project done with the never-ending Granny Stripe blanket I'm still working on. :-)

I did this hat just from experience, no pattern at all - I did use Lucy's wonderful flower instructions.  Lucy's Blog  


We drove to town this afternoon armed with a lengthy list of things to make our Thanksgiving Feast for us, Mom & Pop, our 3 adult children, their 3 spouses and their 2 children each... 14 of us!  A 22 lb turkey, bread cubes for sage dressing, veggies for it too, big lovely russet potatoes, lots of raw yams, mini marshmallows, green beans, corn, etc.  


What a blechy day to go out to run errands!!  Cold, windy, rainy, darkish.. and the weathermen are predicting SNOW!  The holidays and all the weather surrounding the season has come fast!


I'll talk more about Thanksgiving soon - and explain to those precious readers from other countries about our feast and it's history and traditions.


((hugs)).. Teresa 

Waterfalls and a Holiday Sneak Preview

My husband volunteered with me at the Multnomah Falls Visitors Center today.  We had an enjoyable time meeting a lot of young people that are here from all over the USA to participate in a Cross Country Nationals competition to be held at Fort Vancouver, WA.  FV is a wonderful recreation of what the historic fort looked like when it was run by Hudson's Bay Co.  

The photo above I just love as it shows how much water is gushing over the falls now due to lots of rain lately - and I thought it was fun how the girl in the black jacket stands out in front of the white water and the girl in the white jacket stands out against the dark background.  You can also see the little extra waterfall to the right that comes out during the rainy times.

Above is the Benson Bridge with the water rushing over the lower falls and crashing into the lower pool, see the mist swirling up as it hits the water?

Above is a photo I took of our living room decorated for Christmas a few years ago.  I am already anxious to begin transforming our room into this sparkly magic place.  I crocheted the stocking on the far left and far right.  The 2nd one in on the left is made of a vintage Hudson's Bay Indian blanket and the other one is one I bought that was just so cute that was all appliqued with Santa and his sleigh.  I put peppermint colored candles in my antique ship's lanterns and have Santa and his sleigh on the mantel between two Christmas trees that I decorated with miniature ornaments.  Can you envision the sound of the crackling wood fire and the smell of the pine boughs, peppermint candy canes and woodsmoke? 

Tomorrow we go shopping for our turkey for Thanksgiving and all the accoutrements - green bean bake with onions, candied yams with brown sugar, cinnamon, pecans and mini marshmallows toasted on the top, mashed potatoes, turkey gravy, homemade yeast honey wheat rolls, ice cold sparkling apple cider, homemade orange cranberry sauce - and Dayle's homemade sage dressing and a big beautiful roasted turkey.  OH BOY! :-)

Our 3 children and their spouses and all 6 grandchildren will be with us on Thursday.  It will be noisy and crazy and there will be last minute gravy making and potato mashing by me and table setting and candles being lit and cider poured.. and yes there will be photos.

I hope you all have a great weekend and week ahead.  ((hugs)) Teresa

2 Pink Hats for 2 Pink Babies

I am working on 2 hats for my 2 granddaughters.  One of the reasons I love crochet is I don't need a pattern, I can just build these hats as I go, intuitively.  I went to Michaels last week to take advantage of some yarn sales with my extra 20% off coupon and this skein of yarn caught my eye.  I had no idea what I would do with it, but decided to make some hats for my granddaughters.  I started crocheting and OH MY! this lovely design emerged!  

The yarn is Bernat Baby Jacquards "Florals" and this color is called "Rosebud".  I am going to make earflaps with ties and a flower for the top.  I will for sure show you how it turns out but I just wanted to share how pretty this yarn crochets up!!

We've spent time the last 2 days with our youngest son, his lovely wife, and our 2 grandsons.  Oh my! Little boys are so energetic!  Sorry this photo is so fuzzy, I didn't take my good Canon for this visit and used my iPhone - but you can see how cute and wiggly they are.  2 1/2 and 1 1/2.  They are so fun!!  Their mommy told me they both need new winter hats, so I will be working on those after I finish the pink hats! :-)

My DIL and I collaborated on dinner last night here at the farm and made chicken fried steak, maple sausage, country gravy, hashbrowns, scrambled eggs, biscuits served with butter and our homemade raspberry freezer jam.  Our son raved over how pretty and tasty the jam was so we will be making LOTS more raspberry freezer jam next summer! :-)

Today is housekeeping day so off I go.. have a great day!!  ((hugs)) Teresa

A Bridge, Vintage Knitting Needles and the Garden

Driving home from the parade on Thursday we shot this photo using my iPhone of the Stark Street Bridge over the Sandy River that we use to go to "town" - Gresham, Oregon.  It was a nice sunny day and the light on the bridge was nice.  

 Below is a photo I took yesterday - the leaves on this Japanese Maple turn a brilliant red in the fall - and the sun was illuminating them so beautifully and I realized that many of the leaves had already fallen so I'd better grab this shot before they were all gone.  This is our "water feature" that we had installed after we had a new deck put in.  The Blue Heron you see is a decoy we use to keep the real thing from eating our pond fish - supposedly due to those birds being territorial it keeps them away but we don't think it works! :-)  We're down to 3 goldfish from our 3rd buy of fish, last time we bought 21 of them!

 I'm not sure you can see the effect I was after in the photo below - but the red leaves were reflecting in the water.

The tree below is a Pin Oak and it's the kind that turns red and the leaves stay on the tree all winter and then fall off in the Spring when the new leaves come out.  I love the tree but the fall leaves in Spring are not fun.  The leaves are just beginning to turn, but I will get a shot when they are all red and it's spectacular!

I just had to show you!  I was reading one of my fave blogs, "Crochet with Raymond" and she showed her mom's knitting and she uses these gorgeous vintage Tortoise Shell knitting needles and I fell in love with them.  So, I went to eBay and did a search and found these "Shellonite" needles, and promptly bid on a pair.  They must be made in Australia as all the needles like this are there on eBay -- the cool thing is he added a 2nd pair, the ones with the original label as a gift to me!  How utterly cool is that!??  Now I must make something with them.  Aren't they pretty?

We had such a busy week - and this weekend is cloudy, cold with a light rain falling and is just perfect for enjoying the warm glow from our pellet stove, we're watching "Pawn Stars", HGTV and the Food Network on TV.  I plan on doing some serious crochet action on a darling little girl hat that I'm making for one of my granddaughters with the uber cool Bernat Baby Jacquards "Florals". Hubby just told me he's going to make us chicken noodle soup for lunch! :-)


Thank you for coming to visit, I'd love it if you'd leave a message to say hello, and I hope you have a wonderful weekend with warmth and happy family moments.


((hugs)) Teresa

Veteran's Day Parade, Portland, Oregon

Wow, what a day!!  My Portland Chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution participated in the Veteran's Day Parade in the Hollywood District.  First up was decorating our cars - hubby actually *won* a 2002 Ford Thunderbird in a raffle - so that's what we drove.  Then the group photo!  21 people in our group. (one guy was not a member of our group).  

Below is a photo of a band and some motorcyclists.

 Our group marching along carrying our banner.

 

Below is a photo our daughter took of us going by in the parade.  She brought our 2 little granddaughters to view the parade, it was so neat for us grandparents to see them waving on the side!!

Below is our group having lunch together after the parade.

Here is Grandpa holding his two little granddaughters - wearing the new black Stetson hat that I got him for Christmas last year.  It's a 1st Air Cavalry hat - he was a helicopter pilot in Vietnam and was shot while flying as a scout.  We're very proud of his service and so glad he made it back to become a father and grandfather.

After lunch he took me to Michaels and helped me pick out 20 skeins of yummy yarn that was on sale, with a 20% off coupon over the sale price! Woo hoo!

This wool is more beautiful than the photo shows and VERY soft.  Love it!

I got Vanna's Choice, and some really neat sparkly stuff and some Red Heart.  What a haul!

Then we wound our way home down the beautiful Sandy River gorge - I took this photo using my "Hipstamatic" app on my iPhone.  Really artsy photos can be created with this app.

Well, now we're very tired and are enjoying watching the parade on all the local TV news shows!  Thanks for coming by for a visit.  ((hugs)) Teresa