ReluctantFarmChick.com

Seems like I’m a stamping fool these days.  Not that I have more time or anything – just a higher need for stamped stuff around holidays, I suppose.  And I’ve signed up for some stamping – just so I’d have an excuse to do something I love, and in some cases get paid for it.  I’ll share a few of my recent projects:

October was Pastor Appreciation month.  We generally do something for the entire family.  This year we got the kids each a gift card.  Here is the card I made to hold the gift card.

This is just a little card – can’t remember the exact dimensions, but something like 3" wide and 4" tall.  It’s made from a single strip of cardstock, so when you open it, it looks like this:

I totally copied this idea from Amy.  She’s got way more time on her stamping hands than I do on mine – so it’s a fair trade   The card (or money, in this case) slides in a little slot created with a word-window punch, and the bit of folded up card is kept in place with brads.  Very convenient.

Of course, the pastor has 5 kids, so this is what I ended up with:

That was a midnight project.  Luckily they didn’t take too much thought or time.  The fronts of them are decorated with Designer Series paper and ribbon – only one little stamped image.  And another on the inside.  As an afterthought.

Another project that had to be mass-produced was a batch of cards for Prince Farming and his brother to send to people who send them referrals.  I also copied this one – but not as shamefully.  I don’t remember where the original idea came from, but I think I changed it enough to call it mostly mine.  Nothing I stamp is ever my own original idea though.  Just for the record.

Here’s the card front:

The inside goes like this:

I printed the cards on my printer – except for that little "thank you" – it’s totally and completely hand stamped.  Thank you very much.

And of course, the pile shot:

I used another set of Designer Series paper for the card fronts.  And the fold-down part is punched with a spiral punch – to make it look like it was torn out of a notebook.  Sort of.  The window for the "thank you" was punched with small and large oval punches.  And the little tab thing on the white card was punched with the "round tab" punch.  Lots of punching, a bit of gluing.  And voila.  Done.  I had a friend help me with most of the process – stamping is always better with friends.  Thanks Rhylma!

The next project is not stamped.  Not at all.  And it went together in like 5 minutes flat.  The original idea was shown at St*mpin’Up! Convention in July.  Then my friend Louise posted a copy on her blog.  And so I jumped on the band wagon and made one too.  Very fun.  And seasonal.

Excuse the flash on the glass-  couldn’t figure out how to get a decent picture without the camera and ceiling reflecting in the glass – the flash was a better alternative.  This was created with a shadow box, miscellaneous fall findings (fake) and a vinyl "rub-on" otherwise known as "Decor Elements" created for Home-Decor purposes.  Way fun.  Now I need to create something similar for the other seasons so I can create a corner just for seasonal decor.  Fun.

My next stamping will show the cards we’re making at my "stamp-a-stack" next Monday evening. (For the record, when I last blogged about this event, I thought it was coming up imminently – as in tomorrow night.  Part way through the week I realized that I had an extra week to work with.  There is absolutely NOTHING like the gift of time – it’s a wonderful thing.)  And of course I need to design and stamp our Christmas Cards for the year.  AND I’ve signed up for the "Very Vintage Christmas Swap" over at Foxgloves, Fabric, and Folly.  So there’ll definitely be some stamping happening there.  I’m excited about that opportunity.

Here’s wishing a happy week to everyone.  Thanks for stopping by.

I keep watching for something STUNNING to appear in my sky.  And this week, the most stunning thing is that there wasn’t anything stunning.  It’s been very gray and fall almost winter-like.  Sometimes drizzly, sometimes misty, but always gray.  So here are some pictures taken just this morning (Thursday) to prove my point.  I realize now that it’s beautiful in its own way.

You don’t have to point out that this isn’t a picture of the sky – but if the trees look like this, can you imagine what the sky looks like?  Just open up a blank word document, create the entire page to a very light gray, and you’ll have the right image.  There is no variation – no tone-on-tone.  Just plain whitish-gray.

After taking the picture above, the farm dogs came up the lane, so I retook the shot – with them in it.

The grayish dog is an Australian Cattle dog, also known as a Blue-Heeler.  We adopted him as a biggish puppy from a family in town because he needed to live in the country and run.  The other dog adopted us – she is incredibly friendly, but her friendliness manifests in a low growl, which we translate as "welcome, I’m so glad to see you" but people who don’t know her translate as "I’m not going to get out of my car without sharing my sack lunch with this dog."  She has lived on our farm ever since we bought it – we feed her, get her rabies shots updated and all.  So that must make her ours, right!?  The dogs run all over and play like they’ve never been apart.  (I actually think this paragraph makes this post part of my "Critters of Gredemeer" series, don’t you?  DONE)

Both of the above pictures were taken out of our front door.  The back looks a bit brighter today because the hills aren’t so close by.  But it’s still super misty.

And so I don’t leave out you pond watchers, here’s your shot of the week:

The clouds have been thick and present all week.  And we’ve gotten some much-needed rain.  Unfortunately with the rain comes some pretty chilly temperatures.  I’m very grateful for our outdoor wood furnace, and for Prince Farming and our son who keep it well stocked.  It allows me to sit inside with short sleeves and bare feet.  Just the way I like it.

You can see more skies – sunny, cloudy, or clear by visiting skyley.  Hundreds of people are watching the skies on your behalf.

This holiday crept up on me unawares.  The only reason I knew it was happening was because the bank was closed when I got there.  And there was an event in "Veteran’s Park" in our little town.  I know if I listened to the radio or got out a bit more there’d be no way I’d miss the holiday – it’s not like it goes unpublished.  We were doing a cooking class in the community room (you know – that wellness job of mine).  And Jake, the very gregarious director of tourism (who says his job is to get "heads in the bed" for our town), asked if we’d come across the street after our class for a short ceremony.  They were going to add the name of a young soldier to the monument in honor of our town’s boys whose lives have been given for our country.  I’d never attended such a ceremony, and given the size of our town (population less than 3,000) I thought it would be a good thing to experience.

It was quite a ceremony, with a local TV station reporting and the highschool ROTC cadets strutting their stuff as Color Guard.

The Master of Ceremonies is a local church pastor who did a very nice job.

There was a collection of veterans who gave a gun salute to the fallen soldier.  And a lone soldier in the distance who did taps.  The drizzle and cold weather were particularly gray.  It was all fittingly somber.

I felt so sorry for the family of the soldier.  They have made the ultimate sacrifice – the death of their young son.   I couldn’t hold back tears as they unveiled the soldier’s name on the monument – to forever be honored for his service and his sacrifice.  There are so many more who serve and sacrifice for the freedoms that we enjoy.  It was a great reminder of something that I so often take for granted.

Every week I swear I’m going to blog more faithfully.  I mean, there’s so much going on – it’s not like I’m lacking for information.  But I have this feeling of needing to have "stellar" writing – something witty or amusing or clever.  And my life just isn’t that witty or amusing or clever.  So here’s the ramble.

This past weekend my kids participated in a choral festival in Georgia.  There were over 200 kids there from all over the place.  I went down with a friend to listen to their performance and was totally blown away by the quality!  Granted, their teacher here worked with them for the past several months so they’d be familiar with the music.  But bringing that hodge podge of miscellaneous groups together and getting them to sound like something decent is quite the feat.  Here’s a poor-quality iPhone shot of part of the group.

The empty chairs are where the strings came in during some of the pieces – they added quite a lot to the overall effect.  We drove home after the program – which means we got to bed somewhere around 1:30am.  Maybe that’s how come I feel so totally wasted today (my dad always said "you paint the week red on Saturday night – we were out on Friday night, but it’s having the same effect).

A project that has been looming for a little while is getting our chickens OUT of the garage and into a new dwelling somewhere on the farm.  I’ll take pictures of them soon – but just know that chickens do not take a long time to grow up.  Prince Farming is quite fond of his chicks and is worried about what wild life might not respect chicken life as much as he does.  I told him we might need to appease the Raccoon and Hawk gods with a sacrifice or two, but he’s wanting to take a chance without that pay-off.  Last Thursday we started working on getting the small barn ready for chickens.  It’s been a bit of a dumping ground since we moved here, so there is a lot of clean-up to do.  It’s not done.  I did spend some time helping to stack some HUGE logs.  They were HEAVY.  And after only 2 hours of work out there my back ached.  And my wrists haven’t been the same since.  We were going to do more work on the chicken house on Sunday, but . . . . I’ll have to tell you about that another time.  Brace yourselves.  It just might involve a cow story.

This week we have a cooking class – actually we call it a "Lunch & Munch" – don’t know where that term came from, but it’s stuck.  In my non-farm, non-home life, I am the coordinator for a Wellness program which is grant driven (not-for-profit).  We do all kinds of lifestyle classes, including smoking cessation, healthy living, dealing with diabetes, cooking classes, and wellness lectures in public schools, among other things.  It’s a fairly new program, and from year to year we never know how much work we’ll have to do (or get paid to do – there’s always a lot to do).  So tomorrow is a short class – we’ll do the same thing twice (11am and 12pm).  We have to have everything done in short order because people come through on their lunch hour and hope to get interesting information and a good meal out of the deal.  So today we prepped and cooked.  And we video-taped the demonstration so that people could be eating while they watch how to prepare the dishes.  I am also responsible for the recipe cards – had to get them printed, cut, and collated.  It’s been a FULL day.  And tomorrow will be the same.

Next week I have committed (advertised and everything) to having a Christmas Card stamp class.  I’m very excited about doing a class again – it’s been over a year already (can’t believe I said that out loud!).  So I needed to figure out what I’m doing so I could get an order placed so my materials would be here in time for the event.  I’ll post about that soon – I want to have the cards done so you can see what I’m up to.  It just added to an already full day today.  I placed an order.  I just hope I have thought it all through enough to have what I need.

This week is full speed ahead.  Thursday is going to get here and I’ll be ready to take a nap, but I’ll have the chicken thing to contend with.  Unless Prince Farming gets distracted by something more pressing.  One can only hope.  Although I’m REALLY ready to have those smelly things  (chickens) OUT of the garage.  It just doesn’t seem fitting to have 25 fully grown chickens roosting in the garage, does it?!

This about sums up my rambling post:

It’s hard to believe this is my 12th Skywatch post!  In some ways I feel like I’ve been watching the sky for way longer than a few months.  In other ways I still feel like such a newbie/amateur.  But skywatching is in my blood now.  Not a day goes by without some sky observation – whether out loud, or just an internal conversation (you know – with the voices).

I was heading out the door on Sunday and Prince Farming said "if you want a cool sky picture, you should take it now" (or something along those lines).  My arms were full of stuff – so I handed him the camera, and this is what he got.  I always enjoy how the mist hangs around here in the mornings – but these layers were particularly interesting and appealing and mysterious.

Last weekend we were driving into an amazing sunset.  By the time we could pull over for a shot it was too late to see the fantastic display, but I got this picture.  I love silhouette shots (probably because with this kind of light and my kind of camera – and my kind of skill – that’s all I can get).  This isn’t stellar – just a sort of "happy spot" for me – so thanks for obliging me.

This one didn’t turn out too badly – still silhouette-ish though.

The light in the late afternoons has been stunning – really highlighting the awesome colors.  I keep threatening to go for a "walk-about" to get some different fall shots.  But here is a familiar view – the light makes the place look less like a farm and more like a park.  Or it would, if I knew how to take this shot differently.  How blessed are we!?

That pile of something near the tree is where Prince Farming is digging out a tree stump.  Aren’t you glad that tree isn’t there anymore?  You wouldn’t see much of the pond if it were.  The stump was a bit hazardous to the equipment.  Prince Farming had borrowed a little excavator (you remember – for the barn plumbing job) and tried to dig around the stump enough to get it out.  No luck.  He’ll have to wait his turn with the dozer to get it out the rest of the way.  And the cows have moved to the far field – those black specks in front of the far tree-line is part of the herd.  They seem to be loving life.   Last week I saw them run – just for the sake of it.  Don’t know if it was to warm up a bit, or because something spooked them.  I looked for dogs, but saw none.  They just sort of took off.  Too funny.  The herd is going to double some time this month – our farmer friend "Uncle Robert" has been holding on to a small herd for us.  When it’s convenient he’ll load them up and bring them over.  I hope their introduction to our farm is less blog-worthy than the current herd.  You were spared the details because they came during my pre-blogging life.  But they inspired me to start blogging because of all the adventures (and mis-adventures) they created.

You can see more amazing sky pictures from all around the world by visiting here.

What is it about grocery check-out lines that make people buy this?

I mean – even self-proclaimed "NON-COOKS" get sucked into the whole marketing thing.  I’m not talking about anyone specific here-  just sort of in general terms.  And you know that when they’ve bought that, you can BET there’s probably something like this at home:

Or does this look more familiar? (to you "organized" types)

I wonder if it’s the size – the convenient, easy to grab, pictures of each recipe advertising that is most appealing?

Or maybe it’s the promise of something "Easy."

Or possibly the fact that anyone who makes these purchases is a closet-lottery-winner wannabe?  Or desirous of being proclaimed the greatest mom-cook EVER in the ENTIRE world.

I mean, who doesn’t want to be a winner?

But in some cases (again, no finger-pointing or name-calling going on here), what would make this inexplicable hankering for instruction books to do things a person never intended, wouldn’t promise, didn’t claim to do, and family makes out fine without?  It’s a mystery!

But if you start to classify these impulse buys, you’d have to take a stab at guesses as to what was going through said shopper’s mind.  And it must happen in sort of waves, because there is generally a fairly consistent theme going on.  Maybe there is a need for a home-spun holiday – something that might not really have happened (or been perceived to have happened) in a childhood.  Maybe only read about in magazines.  During these people’s/shopper’s childhoods.  (Because living in the southern hemisphere where "Homespun Christmas" took on a whole different meaning.)

And maybe that need was bigger than just a few small books.  Maybe the need qualified for a BIG book.

Or maybe, just comfort food.  Possibly during various cold spells – the draw of a warm, filling, but not-too-heavy meal.  With an emphasis on the ease of accomplishing this task.

Of course, if the shopper is a mom, with – say, the job of promoting wellness (in their out-of-home life), you could well expect this possible addition to the collection:

But one would notice that this collection of "health-related cooking" is markedly smaller than the collection of holiday-baking of UNhealthy things.  One would wonder what that might mean!?

And, since that mom might have issues around children, disrespect, observation of lack-of-parenting-skills in some peers, and feelings of general disconnectedness with the home-room type moms who tolerate everything and still feel great about pumping sugar into classrooms regardless of how out of control their kids might seem, you might even understand this purchase:

Of course, because of that desire to connect, the progression easily follows to the possibility of these purchases:

This entertainment obviously stretches across seasons and times, because there’s a strong possibility of this addition to the collection:

At times when cooking seems downright avoidable, why would this purchase ever occur?  I mean – really!  Bring in the professionals here, because to me -

when someone says "let’s beat the heat" or "Celebrate summer!" – it means "let’s jump into the pond."  It certainly NEVER has a cooking connotation.  And does that cover even look  appealing?

Casually browsing this collection of over-the-years purchases, one would observe the fact that with one exception (because of sheer carelessness, I’m sure) each of these books are in pristine condition.  NO dog-eared pages, no flour-stained covers, no "flop-open to a timeless favorite" – NOTHING.  They could be sold as antiques (in 10-15 years) in mint condition.  Were they maybe purchased from a "collectors" standpoint?  It seems highly improbable, based on their "everything in it’s place and a place for everything" dwelling.  I mean, you could most likely find this hodge-podge collection right here

Where the actual family favorites and commonly eaten recipes are kept.  Where you’d find something along these lines:

No, there MUST be some sort of DSM-IV code for this phenomenon.  Maybe this research should be submitted for DSM-V consideration.

If any of you have missed posting a Skywatch entry for one week, you might understand how I’m feeling.  It is amazing how many skies there are to share, and missing one week just really makes a person feel behind.  But I’m going to shake these feelings of behindness – goodness knows they’re manifesting all over in my life – and I’ll just enjoy the opportunity I have now to share.  So glad to be back.  Life feels a little out of balance.  There’s nothing like a few skies to browse to wash the tension out of my shoulders (only to have it wrenched back in when I realize how much time I’ve spent visiting sky blogs and how much behinder I just got!)

Fall is in full swing.  The colors haven’t been as intensely varied as in years passed, but I’m still enjoying the colors.  And the cool air (it’s been downright COLD this week!).  The skies change too – I’ve never taken the time to observe the sky changes before this year.  It’s been so much fun!

The clouds seem more dense on some of these fall evenings.  I love to watch them – these were traveling at quite a clip.  They had some other places to see.  Wish they’d take me along!

These clouds were content just to sit and watch my pond.  And the cows.

With the sun coming up a bit later, it’s easier for me to see some colors from the Library window.  I love how the mist just hangs in this picture.  This is quite typical of where we live – sometimes it takes quite some time to burn off.

The color on this evening was SO dense it made the whole farm feel orange. 

Happy fall, and happy sky watching!  Thanks for stopping by.  You can see more amazing sky pictures from all around the world by visiting here.

Actually, this is what I WANT to be – a stamping fool.  Nothing to do but stamp.  Wouldn’t life be grand?  My stamp room would be all orderly and neat.  A place for everything and everything in its place.  All adequately stocked and readily available.  And I could just create.  And create.  And create. 

The flaw in that little scenario is that the ability to create, like the ability to keep blogging, requires inspiration.  (and time).  Inspiration comes in the form of "life."  And if your life is stamping, the inspiration would no doubt dwindle.  At least it would for me.  So for now, I can just dream about a stamping life.  And in the crazy rush of the rest of my life, I can take some time to do some stamping.  It’s like a little oasis of therapy.  I LOVE it.

My friend Amber came to visit me last week.  It’s so much fun to stamp with fellow-stampers.  And Amber can inspire me (there are others who can too – they just don’t come over and visit. . . . Louise, Amy, . . . . etc.)  I have a list of stamping that I actually need to accomplish.  I got a great start on that when Amber was here.

I forgot to point out the stamping that occurred in preparation for the barn party.  Did you notice?  I stamped some invitations.  You can check that out here.  And then of course because I had so much help with that event, I stamped some thank you cards.  My newest toy tool is the "Big Shot"  It is a die-cutting machine.  One day I’ll do an entry on the "tools of stamping".  I actually need to do a little confession here.  Or two.  I purchased this "Big Shot" at convention in July.  And I’ve watched tutorials on how to use it.  But Amber had to come and do a little demonstration to get me going.  That, and inspiration, and time.  Okay.  That’s my first confession.  My next confession is worser.  I am using a non-St*mpinUp product with my Big Shot.  Ummm.  And I really like it.  It’s a C*ttlebug folder that embosses designs onto otherwise regular paper.  It used to really annoy me when I saw other people who claimed to be loyal company followers using these embossing folders.  And now I’ve gone and crossed over to their side.  I still have pangs of guilt over it, but that’s just until I see how fabulously cool it all goes together.  In my dream I imagine my company collaborating with their company and creating the ultimate – complimentary embossing folders.  That would be amazing.  But until then, I’ll just have to cheat a little (but do we HAVE to use that word?!!)

So here’s the thank you card I created.  It’s my first embossing folder creation:

My next project was to create invitations to Prince Farming’s Office Christmas party.  It’s a fairly formal affair, no kids and fully catered.  Over the years the invitations have varied in stamping-ness.  You’ll notice that this invitation has absolutely NO ink or stamped image.  It is a complete departure for me, but i loved the process.  I used a different embossing folder and the Big Shot with die-cut thingys for the bird (wings on both sides, thank you) and the word "peace"  I pre-printed the inside invite stuff to make it all "official" like.  Whatever.

While in the stamp room I just got on a roll.  Amber left.  But there was still inspiration left in me.  So I got a new "victim" who is perfectly enthusiastic.  Together, we created these little gifts – again, not a stamp in sight – for the kids in our church who are away at school (academy and college).

You can’t just make one.  You have to make a FLOCK of them (we have about 17 kids away from home).  Aren’t they cute?

Our church puts together packages to send to these kids – potluck style.  Everyone brings whatever they think of and we put it all in shoeboxes and wrap them up and address them.  Those kids have to know we love them!  It’s tradition to have a stamped card in there too.  Some people donate money to put in the card.  I had to rush through this job because of. . . life.  So these were done right before we put the packages together.

Here is the whole batch. . .

Next on my list. . . 50 cards for business referrals (for Prince Farming & his brother), and Christmas cards.  Haven’t done those in a few years (don’t act so shocked).  And a few gifts.  And the endless quest to a clear and organized stamp room.

So many of you have emailed and offered support during the planning of our Barn Party – I thought you’d want a report.  Nothing funny here.  Just a bunch of pictures from a tired but satisfied chik.  Of course, there are pictures missing, because I was half in a daze and half running around like a chicken with my head cut off.  So hopefully you’ll get an idea of the experience by browsing through this photo essay.

CLEAN UP:

Don’t know how many people clean their barn.  With a broom.  But here we go.  And when brooms just don’t cut it:

We have some great friends – they spent HOURS helping us prepare and pull off the barn party.

There is no picture of Prince Farming and my son going up and down the lane fences with weed-eaters.  Nor is there a picture of my niece who learned to drive on our small tractor – pulling the bush hog – for the first time ever – so the fields would be manageable.  What a star!

We sold tickets.  This was a fund-raiser party.  Our Pathfinder Club (sort of a co-ed Scouts program) sold the meal (haystacks) to raise money for a huge trip they’re taking next summer to Osh Kosh.  The 8th Graders sold baked goods and desserts to raise money for their class trip and graduation expenses.

Here are our same friends – still hard at work (we should be watching the one whose fingers are in the money box more closely!)  In the background you can see the food tables.

While we ate, we had a local band (Luther led out, I can’t remember what they called themselves).  They’re very talented, and sing/play a variety of folk music.

In between eating and talking and listening, there were a variety of activities.  I didn’t get photos of all of them, but here were a few favorites:

Not all the vehicles were this imposing.  They seemed to have a blast.

Here the kids pillow faught "to the fall" (when someones hay stack tipped over.)

Face painting is always a hit.  Here they worked with temporary tattoos or Rubber stamps (with washable skin ink and markers).

For those who didn’t want to go on their own, they could ride with a stable (opposite of unstable) rider.  Several little kids were led around this small field.  Or their parents rode with them.  Or the parents rode alone.  And when they didn’t have customers, the riders (my nieces) did this:

The miniature horse lives with these guys, and loves to follow wherever they go.  He’s so cute!

We had several team / individual contests planned.  I was the MC, so didn’t get pictures, but someone got a picture of me:

That would be me with my chicken hat.  Pathetic thing.  Looks like the chicken was having a hard time laying that egg.  And that egg probably thinks about as well as normal "cackleberries" do.  I believe I was cheering on the pie-eating contestants here.

We had a corn-shelling relay race (teams had to grab an ear of field corn, run to the wagon to husk and shell the corn (take all the kernals off) then run back to their team to tag the next person).  It took a lot longer than I anticipated but they didn’t want me to cut it short, so we let them do half of the husks (12 per team).

There was also a Tug ‘o War.  The first round was over in a hurry.  The winners got foam animal visors (horses, maybe).  The next war was a bit more evenly matched, and they started wearing down.  The winners actually had to have help from the side-lines to get the tape over the mark.  Their team more than doubled in number to overcome their very strong opponents.

The pie-eating contest was. . . disgusting.  I felt like throwing up for those crazy people.  They weren’t allowed to use their hands.  They were covered with black trash can liners, but still managed to get their clothes full of chocolate pudding.  These two stuck it out to the end, but weren’t the winners.  My pictures are too bright (you can’t see what’s going on) because of the sun’s angle (or the angle of the shots, I suppose)

There was also a beanbag toss game that Blackie brought for us to play.   People seemed to enjoy it (the object was to throw a beanbag into the hole in the box 30 feet away – with 4 tries, I think).  There was another player throwing in this direction.  At times, this drew quite a crowd.

And the kids had a blast with the climbing rope.

This must not have been taken at the party, because normally there were tons of kids around.

We also had a jail.  People paid to have someone thrown into jail.  The victims had to sit in the jail (a horse stall) for 10 minutes or pick a task out of a bag.  If they chose NOT to do the task, they had to double their time in jail AND pay a ticket to get out.  I was thrown into jail and opted to sing "Mary had a Little Lamb" opera-style.  Luckily most of the people were on a hay ride at the time, so I only embarrassed myself in front of a few people.  The other time, I had to "gallop" around the barn on a stick horse yelling "yee haw" and pushing the horses ear to make the music play.  Whatever.  There weren’t very many people who chose the embarrassing way out of  jail.  I just didn’t have time to sit.  In hindsight, maybe I should have just used all my tickets to keep myself in there the whole time.  Didn’t think that one through, huh?

We ended the party with a couple of hay rides, pulled by my favorite father-in-law (yes, he’s also my only one!)

When they got back, there was a campfire and hot chocolate.  And clean-up.  Most people left around then.

The weather was perfect.  We had around 125 people come by (in waves).  It was fun to visit and see the kids enjoying themselves.  This year worked out well because the barn is not inhabited by cows yet.  Next year’s party (in our barn) is not a guaranteed thing.  We’ll have to see how messy it gets (being new to this whole farm thing and all). 

There have been so many awesome pictures of moons on Skywatch.  Every time I’ve attempted capturing a moon shot, I’ve been miserably disappointed.  But because of my slight OCD tendencies I keep trying.  Even though in my head I kept repeating "Idiots are those who keep doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results."  I kept doing it.

1) spotting a cool moon

2) running in for my camera

3) pointing and shooting

4) pointing and shooting

5) pointing and shooting

6) repeat steps #3-5 four or more times.

I mean – if I could have a penny for all of my failed/deleted moon shots, I might be able to help out with the national economic crisis in a significant way. 

This past week (or maybe 10 days), I have stumbled upon shareable shots.  I’m amazed.  And that whole "idiot theory" just got shot down.  Because it’s the same nut, loose, behind the same camera, pushing the same button, with the same shaky hands.  And here’s what I got.. . .

This is from outside my front door.  I know you can’t see the cool color of the leaves, but who cares!?  Do you see that white thing?  That’s a MOON, thank you very much!  And if you were to ask me to ignore the moon and focus on the trees so you could see their color. . . ?  Ummm.  You might need to check with a different chik.  This one hasn’t a clue.  (And luckily my OCD hasn’t latched on to that little task.)

But guess what!?  We went to see Elk again (one of my brothers and his family came to visit, so we took another little outing).  Check this out:

My hands weren’t shaking!!  And that isn’t a figment of my (or your) imagination!  And you can trust me on this:  I did NOT put the moon there with the aid of paint shop, or iPhoto editing, or . . . (here I show pure ignorance) that other fancy photo-editing software you all play with to add or change effects.  This moon is the real deal.

Please allow this digression:  The next picture appears to not be clear.  But let me preface your viewing with a detail.  There was a significant halo around this moon – so it even seemed sort of blurry when I was looking at it in real life.  Really!  It was the coolest thing.  My daughter suggested I take this shot for my skywatch post.

And, umm. . .  You can see the fall colors in this shot (which is good, because it would otherwise be quite a boring photo).  This is taken from the side of our house. 

On the far right of the picture you can see the beginnings of a rock face.  There are actually cliffs there where some people repel and do other dangerous and stupid extreme things.  I’ve hiked up there.  Twice maybe.  A  LONG time ago.  I think it was before I married Prince Farming.  Probably in an attempt to show him how tough I was.  I am totally resenting that little endeavor, even from this far in the future.  I should have made him carry me up there if he wanted me to be there.  Then he would have known that I’m really not made of all the stuff farm people are made of.  That picking up and stacking 16′ lengths of 6 x 6 lumber (in the dark) after a day of crazy shopping in the big city while planning a barn party is really out of my league.  Even on the days when I don’t have a sick and throwing-up stomach.  I really MUST have a talk with my daughter about her choices of activities.  Doing Herculean feats while courting will NOT render her desired results.  Her herculean activities will only redouble in her aging years and bite her in her butt.  Which is no small thing (I’m talking about the activities that aren’t small – no comment on the butt, people!)

Good grief.  Isn’t this a skywatch post?  I’m so sorry for taking you down that path.  Something must have snapped in me. I will refrain from dragging this out for any longer than I already have.  I know you have things to do and blogs to visit.  Thanks for stopping by mine.  You can see other amazing sky pictures (and STUNNING moon shots) every week by visiting this site.

Oh – you’re still here?  I know what you’re missing.  Alright already.  Here you go:

Aren’t the colors pretty?  Can’t wait till the reds start peaking – should be this weekend.  We’re supposed to have a bit of a cold spell, which should help out the color variety in a big way.

Happy Skywatch Friday!