My vacation

My job only lasts 10 months out of the year, so I get 2 months of "vacation". Two months of freedom, yippee!!

OK, so I still wake up at 5:30 every morning. There's so much to be done! The greenhouse is up already, and there are plants in it for my fall sale/opening. The garden is (mostly) weeded and I have lettuce and spinach and peas to harvest. The onions are HUGE - good grief! - and still not near ready to pull. The cows and chickens need their feeding twice a day and the trough needs filling every other day. Gracie the horse nickers at me over the fence whenever she isn't out in the fields enjoying the sun and green grass. Some days I get time to go up on the hill with her, and we just sit and talk for hours, not saying a word.

Spring brought me babies - two bull calves, kittens, and a new Australian shepherd/heeler cross puppy I am training to herd. So they keep me busy. The Momcow who had the last baby, Pauline, has completely changed her attitude. She has gone from a shy and quiet little heifer to a first-time MOTHER with attitude.

I have been working in the ceramics shop downstairs, too. I've got some more dwarfs to paint and a nice pitcher and bowl for my bedroom to decorate. Not to mention the fact that I've got some really nice canisters that were given to me by someone who moved - they are like blank canvases, and I am painting local scenes on them. I took pictures of some really nice windmills and old buildings around here to get my perspectives right. But what I really love are the snow scenes!

I've started an orchard, too; last year I put apples, big pie cherries, gooseberries, and plums in, this year it's more apples, the little sand cherries for jam, and some pears. They are just sticks with leaves right now, of course, but they'll grow. Like the sand cherries and peaches where I used to live, they'll provide me with some great fruit, as long as I am patient.

My neighbor Sarah is having her second child in three months; I am quietly working on a little baby quilt for her. Did you ever notice that the first baby gets all the cool stuff, but the second one - not so much? Because of where we live, I found a cute tiny cowboy and cowgirl print, and a nice bold ropin bronc-bustin print. (Here it applies to both boys and girls! One of my 'pets' at school has a voice like an angel -and barrel races, ropes and ties cattle in rodeo performances all summer. )Put those two prints together with some other 'inanimate' blocks and it will be so cute!

Oh, we'll go to the dam and the falls and get some fishing in this year. The water is so clear you can see 8 feet straight down to the bottom, and the bass and trout and crappie are huge. Fed from underground springs and runoff from the mountains, over miles and miles of sand under and on top of the ground, the water is cold, too... plunge into that on a 90 degree day and it takes your breath away! The new pup loves to plunge into water and then dry off on the grass. At a garage sale, we found a set of binoculars for $25 that has a digital camera built in, so I can't wait to try that out in the evenings when we go watch our wildlife wander.

I guess it doesn't sound like much of a vacation to most folks; it may in fact sound a lot like work! But not being at anyone's beck and call, not having to answer the phone, not having to sit in a building for 9 hours a day, is pure pleasure.