Crochet Me Crazy

Just back last night from a whirlwind trip to Austin for Alison's birthday! We started of the day Friday with her customary "birthday bacon".

She opened her presents and as much as she hated to leave her new keyboard...

we hit the road!

We ate at her favorite restaurant


Then we headed to the Trail of Lights where we were herded like cattle through the mile long trail. It was unbelievable the amount of people....
We took a bus shuttle over to the lights. While we were riding on the bus, Jeff got up and announced that it was his daughter's 16th birthday and asked everyone to help us sing Happy Birthday to her. Alison sat there blushing while a whole bus load of strangers sung Happy Birthday to her! :)





We went home and had birthday cake and stayed up WAY too late!



The next morning we got up and went shopping at thrift stores. We made a pretty good haul at the thrift stores. The big deal was Alison trying to get the courage up to get her ears pierced! We made it through that and then went to eat with our friends before hitting the road to come back home again.

Here is Alison's birthday gift from Morgan....

Remember the goat I said that Alison and Morgan found out in the pasture? He was born premature and is receiving special care. He needs to be bottle fed every few hours. He is deformed and has one leg shorter than the rest so he is having trouble finding his legs. If he makes it, he will be a petting zoo goat.

Nothing cuter than a baby goat....

Well, everything turned out fine with the filming last night. It was late and it was dark but it only took a few minutes. We put them on the horses and they took a silhouette shot of them riding slowly. Alison & I spent several hours out there with them again today while they used our horse, Shiloh on the set. He was just tied up in the background of the scene. It was pretty interesting having them here and it will be really fun to see the film! I found this online about the film. It's called "Spirited - A Western Short Film"

Spirited - A Western Short Film | Indiegogo

There is also a Facebook page for the film: https://www.facebook.com/SpiritedShortFilm

I was soooo tired after such a busy weekend and felt like I hadn't been sleeping very well or enough the past few nights so I decided to take a sleep-aid last night and go to bed. Ahhh....sweet sleep is washing over me when the phone rang. Huh? What? It's Jeff....he's telling me that he has hit a deer big time and is on the side of the road. His van won't drive...his radiator is out and his headlights don't even work. I'm telling him that I can't drive to get him because I took a sleeping pill. He tells me to go back to sleep....I hung up the phone and the rest is history. I called him this morning to see what he found ended up doing. He had to wait a few hours for a wrecker to come get his work van and they brought him back to San Antonio where he slept in the office. They are issuing him a new van today.

I was walking out to feed the goats when I saw this...I had to literally turn around and go back into the house to get my camera.

It's not often you see this....Gracie and two of the kitties bedded up together in the same pile of hay!

We had a film crew out at the stables this weekend filming a movie on the ranch. I'm really unsure of the details of it yet. All I know is that it is a short film that will be entered into several film festivals. Yesterday we provided a horse for a couple of scenes where the horses just had to be tied. Late last night Jeff had to bring them 3 horses for a scene. It wasn't until 1 am that they started filming and Jeff didn't get back with the horses until 2:30 am! We are supposed to be bringin horses for a riding scene tonight....they are running behind schedule and it is dark and we are still waiting. I guess we're going to be doing this in dark?!


Should be interesting...none of these actors are riders.

This morning I was met with most of the cats at the door as I came out for my morning coffee.

I started off visiting with Gracie and she kept running the cats off from me. Her way of sayings..."No, she's my human. Stay away!" The cats would run off and then come back and she'd go after them again. So I moved to the picnic table to read and drink my coffee. So here I am, surrounded by kitties.



Okay, so I you guys want to be fed...


Here is one of my favorite cats...he's a litle bit wild but he's my buddy. I call him "Bob" because of his bobbed tail.

I talked to the owner of the dog this morning. My first question was how long the dog had been missing...she said the dog had been missing since Thursday or Friday. I was hoping she was going to say he had been missing for awhile since the dog was so starved. I didn't mention this fact to her, but I told her that I would keep him if they wanted me to. She said we could have him if we wanted him, but if we decided we didn't want him, they would take him back. He had belonged to an elderly man whom they promised to take care of his dog when he went into the nursing home. At least I know a little more about him now. His name is Old Buck. They said he is deaf and he may have bad teeth....two things I had gathered but now are confirmed. I believe he doesn't see well either but she seemed to think his vision is okay....as you can see in the picture I posted, I think he has cataracts. His behavior isn't correct for a seeing/hearing dog. Either way, I believe he's very happy here and gets along well with our other animals. He won't be running free to get hit by a car. He's catching onto the fact that he is being fed now...the first couple of days he would sorda ignore the offers of food and go scrounging around the yard. Now, when I'm in the kitchen, he's realizing there's food there....much more normal behavior you would expect of a dog! He also has a limp on his back leg. They told me that he was that way when they got him so now I know that it's either aging or an old injury and not something that happened to him since he got lost. The dog has apparently been allowed to run free and would go off and get fed during the day at tourist camps but they said he would come home at night and they fed him table scraps. We'll see if I can manage to get some weight on him. They think he's 10 or 11 years old but he seems older than that to me. He's never been in the house...which I had figured out already as well. That's why he would always stop at the door and not come in unless we invited him. Now, he's coming in on his own. They are going to bring his crate to us some time this week. So yeah...we're keeping Old Buck. I'm sure the old man that he belonged to would be happy to know his dog is going to be loved and taken care of in his twilight years. He's a really sweetie....

Oh! I forgot to tell you about our new dog...well, maybe. I don't normally pick up dogs off the road but I almost hit this one and then he almost got hit again. I had to try to get him off the highway and then I saw he had a tag on so we stopped. I stopped in front of the feed store and the guys there said he'd been on the highway all dall and almost been hit numerous times. He wouldn't come when they called him. We put him in the truck and took him home with us. I was thinking ... oh no! What have I done! This is a Border Collie --- I can't keep him with my pet deer in the yard! He was wearing a rabies tag so I called the vet and they said they would look it up and give the owner's my number. So far, no call from anyone which doesn't surrise me because I don't think he's been well taken care of. Well, after some time with him, we realize how sweet this dog is and also that he is very old. I think he has cataracts and doesn't see or hear well. Well, he doesn't even seem to notice my deer and has completely left her alone...he LOVES my two little dogs and he's scared of the cats! So....he's staying if we don't find the owner. I think his teeth are bad too because he doesn't seem to be able to eat solid dog food. Since he was starving and extremely emaciated, I have been feeding him rice with a raw egg in it so he doesn't get an upset tummy and he basically just licks it up. I think I've already put a little bit of weight on him in the past two days. He loves Alison and has been sleeping on a blanket on the floor by her bed at night. I'm going to give the vet a call again tomorrow and see if they gave the owner my number.

Alison and Morgan found a newly dropped kid in the pasture when they were walking back from feeding the show goats this evening. Unusual for them to be walking and not in the truck but they wouldn't have found the baby if they wouldn't have happened to stumble upon it when walking. So that set off the chain of the events for the next couple of hours. We had to figure out which goat was the mama...then catch her. We got her and her baby in moved to a stall where they had to force her to lay down and let her baby nurse. We'll see if she's going to take care of it. She doesn't seem to interested. Not hoping for a bottle baby around Christmas. Schedules are already too hectic as it is.

Well, another success performance with afternoon of Alison's ballet. She did even better tonight than yesterday.

1st Production of Evensong was a success. We do it again this afternoon. Alison was dazzling with her smile as usual. She's becoming known for her smile when she dances. She's beginning to collect a little fan club of people that we don't know that come up to her after the show and even got a flower from a lady fromt he audience this year. I'm very proud of her.

I'm still going to make that scrap afghan but I don't think it's suitable for a gift so I've halted construction. I'm not sure that I can pull this off by Christmas or not but I've switched up colors to a bright colorful scheme and started another one! Would this be nice for an 11 year old girl? If I can finish this by Christmas, then this will be her gift. I started out with the bright colors and a yellow border....but then I didn't like the look.

I don't like the yellow border. So I decided I like it better with just the solid colors joined. Off came the yellow border and this is the way I've decided to go with it. I believe I have enough bright colors in my Simply Soft yarn stash for this.
I will be adding a bright turquoise blue next.

I'm up early this morning. We have a tin roof on our house and the cats have taken to playing games on my roof during the early morning hours. It sounds like a herd of elephants on my roof!! This morning I went outside and called to the kitties. It did stop them from playing on my roof but I'm already up so I might as well stay up. It's nice to have time to drink a cup of coffee in peace before I start my chores. I'm enjoying my second cup of coffee from my new Kuerig coffee machine that my sister gave me for my birthday!

Well, I found something to keep my hands busy on the chilly evenings. It's very "scrappy" I know.

I sat through dance tonight and took video of all the dances for Alison. She has a whole lot of dances to get down pat. I realized that she is in every dance in the show except for the other two girls that have solos dances. The performance is a Christmas show called "Evensong" which featured a lot of different types of christmas music along with scripture readings for each dance. The whole show focuses on the light in darkness and the light of the world....should be very inspiring.

I thought I would take a little break from crocheting until after Christmas now that I have finished my Blue Star afghan, but now I'm having second thoughts. I sat down last night after my busy day and thought....what do I do with my hands? I don't have anything to crochet on! I don't think I can make it....I don't have time to plan or think of a project so I got a little inspiration from this blog...Gingerbread Girl And since the crochet as you go method is fresh on my mind, I think I will just start grabbing yarn and making squares. Who knows, I might even end up with another afghan to gift before Christmas? Not...but maybe knowing me!

We found out today from Alison's ballet teacher that Alison will be getting a solo in the performance! She's so excited!! The excitement and adrynaline is pumping about the coming show this weekend. Also, I think this will be her first completely solo dance to a whole song. It's short notice since the show is this weekend but because of Alison's injury, we didn't know if she would be able to dance even the group dances. We stay late tonight after dance class for her to learn her dance.

I really should have posted more progress reports on my Blue Star Afghan as I progressed on this but I've been a bad, bad blogger. Now, I find myself FINISHED with my afghan!!

I will still have many ends to weave in. The yarn quantities were right on this afghan and I didn't have to buy extra yarn. I love this afghan....even though there were a lot of errors in the pattern and the corrections, if you are an experienced crocheter, you can get through it and it turns out lovely. I think I may actually make this again. Alison wants one in pinks. I told her I'd have to get through the whole afghan before I could make a decision about whether I would make this again. My gift recipient is very excited to get this afghan so that makes me feel good that all my hard work is appreciated. (It's hard to keep this type of gift as a surprise from someone who is at your house a lot)

We've been so busy. It's that time of year that we are going to a whole lot of ballet. Alison has prolonged classes every day from here until show date. She's been at a disadvantage because of her ankle injury but she IS dancing and she says she feels confident she can "pull it off". After the show, she will get a nice break from dance which should give her time to fully recover.

We pulled out all the Christmas decorations this week and have been "decking the house" I have a whole lot of Christmas decorations and it's always a challenge figuring out where to put all this stuff in our tiny houses we've been in. Alison always insists on getting it all out though. She loves Christmas and so do I!
Tonight, we finished by decorating the Christmas tree...


Heck, we even decked the deer out! She's wearing her reindeer antlers...

This weekend was very quiet around here. The riding season is over so there were no rides. Yesterday, I took Morgan and Alison to town. I had no particular reason to go but they wanted to go so I cheauffered them around. Morgan got a hair cut and tried to do some incognito Christmas shopping for Alison. We ended the day by going to the movie theater last night and saw Red Dawn. It's been a long time since I've gone to the movie theater. It was a good movie.