*** Come With Me On My Morning Walk ***

Leaving our house every morning.

The path where it all begins.

Adding all these rocks was a daunting task but we loved the end results.

My Amanda Belle waiting on me with ball in mouth ready an willing with that tail a wagging away.
Come one mom!

Going up a small hill to my walking/running path.

I guess I am to slow for Miss Belle this morning.

Yes it is a family affair.
Louie is the orange tabby
Lucy is his sister, coming up behind him, she kinda blends into the dirt.
We walk a couple times a day and they ALWAYS come.
We have had guests laugh and comment about they never thought cats would go on walks.
Really? We have had cats for many years and they always came on our daily walks.

Lucy is so hard to take pictures of she is always on the move. I was lucky to capture this sweet one of her today.

Here is Lazy Louie, yes sirree he is, he slows down my walks.
He is always taking a break.
What should be a 20 min walk sometimes turns into 30 mins.
Because he stops and they screams at us if we are to far a head of him.

Isn't he handsome, my little 15lb chubby?
His sister is only 10lbs.
She watches her figure.

My sweet little Lucy.

Down the path.

The wheat was just cut this week. 

Look at how the corn is struggling. The heat is stunting its growth.
So we are praying for some rain. 

The Christmas tree line leading back to the farm.

Hello Farm!

Thanks for coming on our walk with us today.
Hope you have a safe and fun weekend.
The heat is breaking here so I plan on turning off the AC and opening all my windows!
Yeah!

Cheers,
Shel

***From Our Front Porch***

This is what we see from our newly remodled front porch. Our little valley where the train travels through out the day.

This is off the right side of our deck looking off toward the dead end road.

Yes civilization is moving in. Two 5 acre lots went up for sale for the 2nd time in 5 years. We have been lucky the first owners never built. I don't know if I could build there since the trains can be quite loud. But to each his own.

Have you ever had ONE of those kind of neighbors in your life?
Welcome to our nightmare. It is a long story and at times very disturbing, I will share it with you someday. But not today.
Don't you love my mail box? It was my parents so it is, honest to God's truth over 45 yrs old. This year hubby added the sweet platform to the right of it for my Etsy packages.
 I have a fantastic post gal who picks up all my things for me. I treat her with gift certificates through out the year for her kindness.

A closer view of our little valley.

My sweet Mail box...thanks Hubs!

Invasion of the outside world! LOL

This is what it looked like last year. Actually to be honest it has looked like this for many years. Having a farm you are always working on projects.

Here is the front porch we just finished.

The rod iron posts went perfect with my chairs. Very pleased with the results. However I want to do something special with the deck now but It takes me a while to decide how I want it to look. So for now I am happy with what we did.

Another angle coming out of the house.

From below.

Isn't this a lovely addition. It is rod Iron. It came as a panel so we worked the whole deck around it. We bought rebar by 10-12 feet long and cut them to size. I painted them with special metal paint, it all turned out to how we imagined it would. I wanted to be able to see through the bars as we sat out in the morning or evenings. 

From off the side walk.

We have to work on the under belly of this now. But our Wisconsin heat is killing us this week. See the old step under there? Yep they are the original ones. I just cant get myself to take them out. So I have other ideas for under the deck. The left there we are going to put old wagon wheels as a rail to go down. But again to hot to be outside to long.
Yesterday was 102... crazy hot.

Thanks for taking a peek at our world.
Stay cool!
Cheers,
Shel :)

**** Happy 4th ****

Happy Happy 4th of July

These are a few of my RWB items in my kitchen.

The pot is from Rowe Pottery....I have collected for years. I have star plates and other thing RWB related items.

My flag hangs in my dinning area.

My RWB guys are from a dear artist I have know for-ever. She makes these out of old candy molds and they are chalk ware.
One of my Favorite things in life.

The other uncle Sam is a Rowe Pottery product.

And together I love'm all!

Hope you are doing something special with your loved ones on this precious holiday.
We are hot as  blazes in Wisconsin so we are enjoying staying cool inside.
My hubby is at work today and I am Etsying myself silly.
It's a good day to see all the goodies I have added to the store.

Have a safe Holiday and stay COOL!

Cheers,
Shel :)

Point Reyes Light House

This is the amazing Point Reyes Lighthouse.
We went to on a  sunny day. Yet as we went to the top the fog came in and we could not see the  views  of the ocean that we had heard were spectacular. I thought it was amazing to walk among the fog. It reminded us when we ski in Colorado and the snow comes over the mountains. Crazy beautiful.

There are 300 some painstaking steps to get to this beauty

Going down those 300 some steps were a snap.
Going up? Not so much....
I am in decent shape and work out regularly but even this killed me.
I wish I took a pic of those dang steps.
However I was to tired to.
I laugh because I sat  half way up next to these awesome older women.  Who had actually been there many times and that was their half way point to stop.
 Gosh that is when my age hit me.
However I must say a saw little peanuts with their parents stop along the way so it took its toll on the young as well.
So there!!
(That is how I convince myself  that it was not just hard on me) My hubby an youngest stopped to support  me...yeah..what ever, you all were tired to. LOL

This is the entrance to the light house. I believe these are cedar trees. They were being bent over by the ocean winds someone told us. They stretched over the road an into the side of the mountain. You pass under these lovelies. Their forms were breathtaking. Like a piece of art.

See the fog past the trees? I so thrilled to capture it.  Beautiful. 

The view from the Lighthouse platform...... Beauteous!
(My make up word)
I used that word so many times during this trip.
 Beauteous and awesomeness.
Drove my kids crazy since I was the one over the years correcting their use of language.
(That is in the mom handbook)
But truly there are no words in my opinion to describe some of the things we experienced and saw.
*****

Thanks for checking us out!
Have a  Beauteous Day!
Cheers
Shel

Recipe Name Binder Book

OK folks, we all have to admit that we do some kind of cooking, or baking. I love to bake. I also love to cook. But I live with a very picky eater. So trying new things in our home comes with much trepidation. You all know that look you get when you put something new in front of that picky eater. That facial expression that you just want to slap off their face. (I am not a violent person by nature) but don't give me that look of I just threw up in my mouth when you haven't tried the food yet. However on a good note 2 of my 3 boys love to try new things. So I found this awesome recipe binder book while reading one of many blogs I love to peruse.  So I bought one for each of my sons and am filling recipes from my mom and my own that I have adapted for them. So many times one of them will ask or call long distant to find out about a recipe they had growing up. Ta Dah this will do the trick. I plan on giving it to them for Christmas and every-time I come across a another recipe I will just send it to them in a sleeve they can slip into their book.

I love the neutral  color of the book

Love this for my family.

What it looks like open.

I found the dividers at the store and will be adding the sections for whatever the category. 

Great sleeves for you to eventually add more recipes.

My personal recipe book..that is older than the hills. Are hills old? Yep in my world they are.

This is my book that I have collected recipes for years in. It is dirty and well used.

I hate my writing

I so hate my writing!!!
However you can see I do bake by the mess on the pages.
*****
I think these would be great for a shower gift or wedding gift to the new couple. I know I would have loved one myself. Unfortunately my mother-in-law would not share any recipes with me. She called them family secrets. I have ONE recipe from her, that I begged for her to give me since it was her son's favorite dessert and I wanted to make him happy. But it was like pulling teeth, so sad. Plus it broke my heart that she refused to share any others. I will not be that kind of mother-in-law I want to share it all, after all I can't take it with me and if it brings joy to those around why not share?


The place I found these were called
www.zazzle.com/recipe+binders

               I hope you all have fun recipes to share with your                            

                              loved ones over the 4th!

                                        Have a great safe day!

                                          It's hot and in the 90's here.

                                                       Cheers

                                                          Shel! :)