Christmas 2013

I’m turning into a Scrooge…..something I thought I would never do.  I love Christmas but my pet peeve is taking hours to decorate a tree.  With that being said, this year I bought a 4 1/2 foot tree that I could put on an end table in front of the window and maybe cut down on some of the decorating time….AND, it’s a pre-lit tree – Woot, woot.  Every year, I have these little acrylic thingies that I call “star bursts” that I put over each and every light on the tree which makes the lights shine like a star.  Who would have thought that this little 4 1/2 foot tree would basically have the same amount of light on it that I usually put on my big tree.  Let’s hear it for lights.  Well, when I went to put my little star bursts on my pre-lit tree, they wouldn’t fit because of a hitch and lock knob system the new lights had on them.  M-A-N….I had to have my star bursts so I single handedly cut off every single one of those stink’n hitch and lock knobs………..taking me 3 1/2 hours.  So much for cutting out time.  But once I got started, I couldn’t quit…..that’s just me.  One less job to do next year and with this smaller tree, I’m just going to put it in a huge bag and pack it up to the attic and it will already be basically done for next year.  Following are pictures of my new little tree and some of my homemade decorations that I cut out of wood and painted many years ago.

Don’t know how this one turned out this way but it looks like Rudy had one too many to drink.  This has been a joke in our family for quite some time and Rudy is front and center on our Christmas tree every year.

These next few photos are just for the fun of it.  I learned last year how to shake and turn my camera while taking a picture and the following pictures are the results I came up with this year.  Fun!

Sick Little Deer

Around 8am this morning I looked out the window and saw this little deer standing on the lawn by our tree.  I told my husband to come and look at the deer because it wasn’t acting right and that it looked sick.  The baby deer tried to shake it’s head and body and just about fell over.  Later she/he came and layed down by our back porch and has stayed by the back porch all day.  We put some hay and water by the porch but she/he doesn’t seem to interested in eating it.  It is eating snow and the dead grass and leaves by the house.  I just looked out the door again and she/he was standing on the other side of the porch.  She/He doesn’t seem to be afraid of us too much and I was able to open the door and get a few good pictures.  The second and third pictures were taken from our dining room window.  I hope it stays around the house for awhile so we can help it get better, hopefully.  We just looked outside and it is asleep by the corner of the house so my husband went out and scattered some hay and leaves (a bag of leaves that was gathered this fall) by the back porch for it to lay on or eat.

Sick Little Deer

A Blanket of Fog

According to the weather broadcast last evening, it was supposed to get cold, real cold during the night.  I was surprised when I got up this morning and it wasn’t the 2 degrees that was predicted but a much warmer 14 degrees.  I’ll take that any day over 2 degrees……..I do not like cold weather.  Luckily, we had a fog roll in last night that blanketed our area, making it much warmer than were were expecting.  With the fog, it sure made a pretty view out our windows this morning. 

Cows Silhouetted By Fog

We had a fog roll in this morning and it left just about as quick as it rolled in.  My husband was sitting at the dining room table when he said, “this would make a cool shot with the black cows silhouetted by the white fog”.  I knew the fog was moving out fast so I hurried and grabbed my camera before it was totally gone and took these few photos.  The camera didn’t capture the aweness of how it really was with the deep contrast of whites and blacks but you at least get an inkling of how it looked.

It’s A Deal….Stick It to Him

Last week, our principal made a deal with the students that if they brought in at least 1,000 cans of food for the local food bank that on a certain day he would let them earn a foot of duct tape for each can they brought in.  Well, you can see the results for yourself – hilarious!

One-Of-A-Kind Christmas Tree

Oh my, my, my!  I walked into our local city building tonight after work to get a license for my vehicle when I saw this.  Talk about what to my wondering eyes should appear!  This is the most gorgeous, one-of-a-kind Christmas trees that I have every seen.  To top it off, one of our very own locals made it……from scratch……out of her own head…..without a pattern.  She said that she loves carousels and just made this with a bunch of items that she had collected over the years.  I was hoping that the pictures would turn out because, not only does it look like a carousel, it spins around like a carousel.  I would focus my camera on one spot and then try to follow it to get a photo.  This is a must see tree if you live in the Mackay area – seriously!

How Big’s a Herd?

I was thinking tonight…………does a herd ever get so big that it’s not a herd anymore? Just thinking!  Every night we have deer in our field by the house but tonight, we had a herd of 39….and that’s not counting the ones I couldn’t see that were behind the pine trees as I looked out the window.  I could see parts of bodies and legs here and there between branches so I know there were more deer than I was able to count.  Hmm-m-m-m.  People ask me all the time if we have decided to start raising deer instead of cattle.

Kindle Fire HD

Ok, ask me.  Ask me how excited I am.  Thanks to all my family and friends, I am now the proud owner of a new Kindle Fire HD.  Yippiekiay!  Remember a few weeks ago when I asked (pleaded/begged) for your vote on my turkey picture that I had entered in a photo contest sponsored by ATC Communications?  Well, when I walked in the door from work on Thursday, my husband said, “it looks like we have a message on the answering machine”.  When I pushed the button it stated that the person was Katie from ATC and would like us to give her a call.  It was past their working hours so I decided I would just call them in the morning.  I thought the call was about a phone bill they had billed us for that I had paid recently (I had the return check) but was not showing up on my statement.  What a surprise it was to have them tell me that I was the winner of the photo contest and had won the new Kindle Fire HD.  Talk about excited! Didn’t take long and I was headed to Arco, Idaho to pick up my Kindle.  They told me that I had won by a landslide and the closest one to me was at least 100 votes under mine.  When I got back home, I spent a few hours getting it connected to Wi-Fi and just playing around with it.  Pretty cool little invention.  I think I am going to really enjoy it!  It does everything….it’s like having a little miniature computer in my hands.  Ahh-h-h-h!  Yes, before you ask, I was playing around with it at 1:30am this morning.

Winter Lake Effect

It may be a little play/pun on words but I think we are getting what I would call…..a winter “Lake Effect”!  We received about 1” of snow yesterday early on and when it warmed up a bit, it started raining and it hasn’t quit….thus, the lake effect.  Our driveway is literally becoming a lake.  Too bad it wasn’t spring/summer and then all the little birdies could take advantage of all the water.  I love watching the birds play in our driveway puddles after a nice spring rain.

I was trying to get a close up pictures of some raindrops on the bushes to the left of our driveway but it was raining to hard and I kept getting water on the lens, making my focus a little blurry.  I was actually shooting from inside the car but it was raining so hard that beside my lens getting wet, I was getting soaked in the process.  I got one photo and that was it.  I was going for an up-close and personal shot of one tiny drop that was hanging between a forked branch.  Maybe when it stops raining and some of the drops are still hanging around, I can get my close-up.