Gift of Peace

Gift of Peace

This is the second cross stitch piece I worked up.  It was a lot of fun.  It is called the Gift of Peace and the pattern is by Lavender and Lace.  I like the Lavender and Lace patterns.  Their patterns are all very elegant and beautiful.

My hobbies

The Menagerie 

So I love to cross stitch.  It is by far my favorite hobby.  I have other hobbies, I like to do crafty stuff with the kids and I like to toll paint.  But cross stitch is by far my go-to hobby.  My grandmother, we call her Bammer, taught me how to cross stitch and I got hooked.  I was nineteen years old when I did this piece and it was the first big piece I have ever done on my own without help.  It took me all summer to complete it.

I have a complete collection of all the DMC floss.  I have back-up's for each DMC color and I've got to the point where my back-up's have back-up's.  I have beads, specialty threads, and metallic threads.  I've got an entire plastic bin full of patterns that I'll never have enough time to complete in my lifetime.  I don't have a collection nearly as large as Bammer's but it is my goal in life.  Not only do I love the process of working on and completing a piece but I love to collect the supplies.  The majority of my supplies have come my way in the form of birthday gifts and Christmas gifts.  And when anyone asks me what I want for Christmas or my birthday, my response is always...... Anything Cross Stitch.  I'm easy to buy for when it comes to gifts.

For the next several posts, I am going to share the pieces I have completed over the years.

Animals

The one and only dog I've ever had, Nosey.

I thought I would do a continuation of yesterday’s post.  As I have mentioned, I grew up out in Pine Canyon.  It’s about three miles East of Tooele, nestled up against the base of the mountains.  When I grew up out there, it was a very small and quiet stretch of road.  Now, the fields I used to romp around in and hunt down lizards and horny toads are all houses, neighborhoods, and subdivisions.  It’s quite strange for me to venture out to Tooele these days and see how much that once little sleepy town has grown. 

I mentioned in yesterday’s post how we had an acre of ground with fruit trees and a garden.  My family lived off the land as much as we possibly could.  We had a mini orchard with a pie cherry tree, a regular cherry tree, apple trees, peach trees, pear trees, and plum trees.  We grew grapes, and had a raspberry patch to die for, it was huge and not only that, it produced some of the biggest raspberries you ever did see.  We had a garden with a nice Strawberry patch.  We grew corn, green beans, tomatoes, green peppers, peas, and pumpkins for making pumpkin pies.  My brothers and I had to help all summer long with weeding the garden and come fall we would be hands deep in helping with the canning of it all. 

Our back yard was a fun back yard, not only did we have the mini orchard and garden but we had a huge Russian Olive tree that we built a tree house in.  There was a tire swing that my dad put up and we had a Tarzan swing.  Dad would let us dig in certain parts of the yard.  Out at the very back of the yard we had a pond with a chicken coop and pig pen.  Because not only did we live off the land with fruits and vegetables but we raised our own meat.

DISCLAIMER:  I am NOT a vegetarian or a vegan.  I never have been and I have no intentions of ever becoming so.  If any of you reading this are of that persuasion, I caution you to read no further.  DISCLAIMER PART TWO: I do not believe in animal cruelty, I believe it is wrong.  For example, I personally do not like dogs and therefore would never own one.  As I said yesterday, I like cats for some of the very reasons people dislike them.  The same is true for dog owners, they love their dogs for the very reasons I dislike them.   To each their own, however, I do not agree with people who would mistreat an animal just because they didn’t like the species, or because they could earn money by making the animal fight.  I do believe however, that animals were placed on this earth by our Heavenly Father for our use.  Part of that use is for food.  I know there are people who would disagree with me on that.  I suggest we agree to disagree agreeably.  We will never see eye to eye on that point.  I’m sure you have figured out from my disclaimer that we raised animals for meat purposes.  Our animals were never mistreated or abused in any way.  They were well fed and cared for animals.  They had plenty of food, water, and shelter.  They were given all the necessities of life they needed and required.  And I know there are people out there against the very use of animals for a food source and would consider the very act of us raising these animals for that purpose as offensive and abusive.  As I said, I’m not one of those kinds of people so it would be pointless to argue that further.  I like meat, I will always eat meat.  Having that all out of the way, let’s get to the meat of my story.  Pun intended.

We had two kinds of chickens.  We had layer chickens.  These were the chickens that we would rely on for our eggs.  And let me tell you, there is nothing in this world like a fresh egg.  The pitiful things we buy in the stores are a sorry excuse for what an egg really should look and taste like.  Then we had our fryer chickens and yes folks, that was part of our meat.  We butchered our own chickens every year.  And my brothers and I had to help in the whole process.  We would start out early in the morning with what was our favorite part.  We called it going to the “movies”, much to the chagrin of mom.  She always called us her blood thirsty children.  I guess to an extent we were.  The reason we called it “going to the movies” was because after dad lopped of the head, they had to be hung upside down to let the blood drain out.  In order to not bruise and spoil the meat you had to be very quick and skilled.  You had to tie the wings and feet together quickly to prevent the chicken from flopping around and spoiling the meat.  Dad was very quick and skilled at this, but even the best of the best don’t always get it right.  Our hope was to see one of the chickens come loose and run around the yard with its head cut off.  After the butchering came our least favorite part of the process……the plucking.  The easiest way to pluck a chicken is to dip it in hot water to loosen the feathers and then pluck them out as quick and fast as you can.  The smell, wet chickens stink, the feathers would stick to your fingers and the small fine feathers were a pain to try and pull.  After the plucking, things got pretty interesting as we would watch dad gut the chickens and cut them into specific pieces.  We found the intestines to be fascinating and loved to watch dad cut open the gizzard and we could sometimes see half eaten grasshoppers.    And remember my cats I mentioned, they also loved this part.  It was a feeding frenzy as they would hang about waiting for dad to toss down the parts that were unusable.  After a while the cats would have eaten their fill and couldn’t eat any more.  Dad always saved the heart and gizzard, I had a particular taste for chicken heart and my brothers would always fight over the gizzard come our regular Sunday dinner of chicken.   My brothers and I would spend our summer days with empty gallon milk jugs out in the yard catching grasshoppers.  We would pull off the hoppers and shove them in the jug.  When our jug was full we would go out to the chicken run and dump the grasshoppers out then we would sit back and enjoy the show as the chickens would run around like nuts trying to eat as many grasshoppers as they could.  We would also hunt down the tomato worms in the tomato patch and watch the chickens flock to eat the big juicy worms. 

We also raised Turkeys.  And let me tell you, these Turkeys were nothing like the small pathetic things you find in the stores when the holidays roll around.  Our turkeys could get up to 35 pounds.  And let me tell you, butchering a 35 pound Turkey is no easy feat.  Our ward always had a Thanksgiving dinner for the widows, and dad would supply the Turkey’s for it.  The hitch is that the young men would have to come over and help to butcher and prepare the Turkey.  There was one year that I will never forget.  We had a young man in the ward who rode bulls in the rodeo.  He was a stout young fellow and figured that since he was stout and a pretty good rodeo rider that he could just sit on the Turkey while dad loped off its head.  The plan went well until the Turkey’s head came off.  I’ve never seen such shock on a person’s face before.  This Turkey stood up and took off across the yard with the young man on its back holding on for dear life.  The headless Turkey managed to buck him off sending him sprawling across the yard into the dirt.  Needless to say the poor kid never lived that event down.  He could ride bucking bulls but not a bucking Turkey. 

And we also raised pigs.  We learned a lesson one year, never buy male pigs.  No matter how well constructed your pen is, they will find a way out.  And if you want any hopes of a garden, pigs should not be in it rooting around.  And cattle prods have no effect on a full grown male pig.  We stuck with getting either female pigs or neutered males, much easier to deal with.  My mom, just recently found out that I used to go out and play in the mud with the pigs.  I thought she always knew.  Oh well.  I was smart enough to only play with the pigs when they were little.  We always bought them as piglets in the spring.  Once the pigs got big enough I would not go back into the pen.  I hope that sets your mind at ease some mom.  LOL.  I don’t know about my brothers, but I always named each pig and then later would wonder who I was eating.  I don’t know why I did that, but I did.  Members of the ward would buy a pig and my dad would raise it.  When the pigs were big enough, those who had purchased a pig would come to help wrangle them up to be sent off to the butcher shop.  One year our bishop purchased a pig.  We were having a time getting those pigs into the trailer.  Somehow I think it was the year we got the male pigs.  Anyway, this one pig got loose and ran directly between the bishops legs and took one very startled bishop on a ride around the yard. 

We had a pond out in the back yard and naturally had to have ducks and geese.  We didn’t eat the ducks and geese, we just had them for the fun of it.  One year my older brother brought some tadpoles home from a scout camp and put them in the pond.  They multiplied very quickly.  On a summer night, our back yard would get quite noisy.  But the benefit was we never had to deal with mosquitos or other annoying summer bugs.  Behind our house was a huge open field.  We would spend our summer days out there hunting lizards and horny toads to bring home as pets.  Mom would never let us bring them in the house and always made us turn them loose in the yard.  We never had to worry much about snails and other bugs that would destroy our garden. 

I will end this blog post with telling you about my first pet ever.  He was a dog named Nosey.  We called him Nosey because he had a white spot on his nose.  We got him when we first moved from Colorado to Utah and it was before we were established enough to raise chickens.  I don’t have very many memories of Nosey as we didn’t have him for very long.  Nosey had a terrible habit of following the school bus to school.  I can remember many a time being at school to see a flock of kids around something only to find out it was my dog Nosey coming to be with us at school.  We would have to go into the office and call mom to come get him.  One day Nosey followed us to school and we never saw him again.  I’ve always wondered what happened to him.  He’s one of the very few and rare dogs that I’ve ever loved.  After that, we got the chickens and decided it wasn’t the best thing in the world to mix dogs and chickens as dogs have a tendency to chase chickens.  And a frightened chicken won’t lay eggs.  Instead we started having cats and I discovered that I liked cats much more than dogs.   We did have the mice and birds to fight with and like I said, there is no better mouse trap than a cat.  I remember our first cat was named “mama.”  

Tell about any pets you had as a child

I love cats, they are by far my favorite animal.  I have had many many cats over the years.  Too many to count actually.  I grew up out in Pine Canyon which is out by Tooele, Utah.  We lived practically out in the middle of nowhere.  We had an acre of yard and behind that was huge open fields.  Naturally we had mice around the yard.   There is no better mouse trap than a cat.  During the summer our cat ranks could get upwards of 10 or more.  Funny enough, we never had a mouse problem in the house.  I can remember going out into the garage and having five or six cats at a time all curled up in my lap.  I love to watch a cat stalk its prey.  I love how their ears flatten, their whiskers fan out, and their eyes get big.  I love to watch as they creep down low and wiggle their hind ends as the prepare for the pounce.  I find it hilarious to watch a cat play with its prey.  I love to watch as they chase off after invisible objects.  I love to hear a cats meow.  I love their warm soft bodies curled up next to you.  But my favorite thing about a cat is its purr.  There is nothing like a cats purr to calm you down when you are upset.  It's one of the most soothing sounds I've ever heard.  I love how aloof and independent they are.  The things that most people dislike about cats are the things I find most endearing about them.

Sunday afternoons mom would cook chicken.  We would take the bones, fat, and skin out to the cats as a snack.  Most of the litters and batches of cats we had would be patient enough to wait for us to set the treats down.   But there was this one batch of cats that went completely nuts, you had to be careful when you fed them.  They knew when Sunday came around.  They could also hear us approaching the back door.  You could literally see the door shake with their bodies slamming against it.  You had to be tricky and careful when you opened the door as those cats would climb your body to be the first to get to the yummy stuff.  If you timed it just right, you could open the door, throw out the treats, and slam the door quick and avoid becoming a climbing post.  After a few moments, it was safe to go out and watch the cats growl and fight over the food.  Highly entertaining to watch.  You'd think those cats were starved by the way they acted.  Truth be known, they were some of the best fed cats on the block.  Plenty of mice, birds, and gophers to catch and eat and we fed them cat food as well.

One year we had a batch of kittens that loved to eat grasshoppers.  We had them trained quite well to go on walks with us.  We would catch the grasshoppers, pull off the hoppers and give them to the cats to eat.  It was fun to go on those walks with a trail of five or six cats all waiting for their grasshopper treats.  We had one cat that would catch and eat gophers.  That was an impressive sight to behold.  I always thought it was fun to watch a cat sneak up on a bird and be able to catch it in mid take off.  Some people are horrified at the thought of cats doing what comes so naturally to them.  But out on our acre of yard, we had many different kinds of fruit trees and a garden.  Those silly Starling birds would eat all of our crops before we would ever get a chance to harvest.  It's frustrating to go out and pick cherries and have to throw the majority of them away because they've been pecked by birds.  The cats were so helpful to keep the bird population down and allow us to enjoy some of the fruit we had labored so hard to tend and grow.  There was one year we had a batch of cats that recognized the B.B. gun.  My older brother would go out into the yard to shoot down the birds and he would have a trail of cats hot on his heels, anxious to have a bird feast.

And the names we would give to the cats.  We weren't the kind of people to name our cats anything usual.  They were always given names that either fit their personality or that fit their colorings and markings.  We had a cat named punctuation mark, punky for short.  He was all white except for this one black spot on his head that looked like a punctuation mark.  We had a cat named French Fry.  She was an all black cat and I had wanted to name her Jasmine or something like that.  My brothers said that if I named her that, they would call her potato.  I said if they called her potato I would call her French Fry....the name stuck.  We had a cat named Pockets, because we had him neutered, my mom said his pockets had been picked.  I had a cat named Moo.  When he meowed he sounded like a cow.  A cat named three as I had bought her at 3:15 in the afternoon.  My parents until recently had a cat named Speed Bump.  She had a habit of lying in the middle of the floor like a speed bump.  Before we moved away from Pine Canyon we had a cat named, Squish you flat.  That cat liked to sleep on the top of the car tires.  My mom was always afraid that we would squish it flat.  My current cat is named Popcorn.  When she was a kitten, she was this fluffy white ball of fur, and I thought she looked like a big fluffy popcorn kernel.

Tell how you feel about water - playing in it, seeing it, using it. Tell about various bodies of water you have seen and an experience or feeling.

When I was a little girl, and like most little children are, I loved to play in water.  What kid doesn't, right?  This picture is of me playing in the irrigation ditch that ran out in front of our house.  I would have so much fun splashing around.  As a kid I loved to play in water, the only drawback is how cold I would get.  I've never liked being cold much.  And over the years my tolerance to playing in the water has changed.

I've not seen many oceans.  I've been to California and seen the oceans there, and of course I can go see the Great Salt Lake any time.

I loved to have dad give me drinks out of the hose.  Who wants to go inside when there's a hose handy, right?

As I've grown up water has lost a lot of interest for me.  I don't like being wet, because that means being cold.  We have a season pass to Raging Waters and I like going in the heat of the day when the water evaporates off quickly and you can stay warm.  I'm really not a fan of cold water.  I enjoy a nice hot shower. I don't even like drinking water but I force myself to do it.  If the water is nice and hot I'm all for it, I'm not a fan of cold water.  Unless it's drinking water and then I prefer it to be ice cold.  I'm silly that way.

Describe the perfect winter day. Tell about an activity you would do on that day.

There is no such thing as the perfect winter day, it does not exist.  I figured for this post I would get a bit creative on what I would consider the perfect winter day.  If I had the money and time, the perfect winter day would be spent basking in the Hawaiian sun or making a trip to Dubai to see my little brother.  Basically spending the entire winter some place bright, warm, happy, and beautiful would be the perfect winter.  And just what would I do on these perfect winter days.  Why I would hang out at the beaches and soak up the sunshine.  I would tour around and take in all of the wonderful sights to see.

But I'm going to now get very creative with my response.  The perfect winter day in my mind and imagination would mean that the temperatures never dropped below 80 degrees.  I'd like the upper 80's and low 90's but to be nice to everyone, I'll go with the lower 80's and upper 70's.  The trees would always stay green and never lose their leaves.  The flowers would always be in bloom.  There would never be a need for coats, jackets, scarves, gloves, or any of that kind of winter gear.  It would still snow but the difference is that this snow would be light and fluffy so not to weight down the trees.  And the big key is this snow would be warm and pleasant to be in, warm and pleasant enough to play in it with shorts, t-shirt, and bear feet.  It would never fall on the roads, sidewalks, or driveways. And they days would be as full as sunshine as a nice summer day. Why, you may ask, would I even want it to snow??  Well, first, I realize there are people who do actually like the white stuff and want to ski and play in it so I don't want to take that away from them.  And second, if snow was warm, I wouldn't mind it.  Now, if this could be my perfect winter day what would I do?  I would actually go out into it and play.  Do some sledding, build a snowman, have a snowball fight, and make snow angels.

Sadly enough my ideas for a perfect winter day are a bit far fetched.  Maybe one day I might be able to spend my winters someplace warm, but for now a winter day consists of a warm blanket, a roaring fire, and counting down the days for summer.

Describe the perfect summer day. What would you do on that day?

Those of you who know me well know that I LIVE for summer.  Besides mosquito's there isn't a single thing about summer that I don't just love.  I love the searing heat, the smell that summer brings; the smell of fresh cut grass, and the smell of the baking grasses from the sun, the smell of the flowers, and the earthy smell of a rainstorm.  I love the bright happy sun blazing down on us, the green trees, and beautiful flowers.  I love the sounds that summer bring; the bee's buzzing, birds singing in the branches, sprinklers watering lawns, the engine of a lawn mower, and the sounds of happy children playing out in the sun.  I love to walk bare foot and feel the grass on my feet, or run my bare feet through the sand, and the feel of the hot pavement.  I love being able to wear shorts and t-shirts and not have to bundle up and bring coats, jackets, boots, and gloves everywhere I go.  I love the summer picnics, Fourth of July parade and fireworks.  I love to see people out at the parks.  I love the trips up the canyons and into the mountains for picnics, hikes, and camping trips.  I love the feel of a summer rainstorm and the flash and crash of a good summer thunder storm.

If I could have my perfect summer day, the temperatures would be in the high 90's.  It would be a bright day without a cloud in the sky.  The blue sky stretching on forever with the bright sun blazing down from above.  I would start out my day by being able to sleep in, not all morning long, but at least a bit longer than I get to when school is in.  It would be a pleasant and leisure morning waiting and biding my time for the day to warm up.  We would pack a lunch and something for dinner and get it all loaded up in the car, ready for our short trip up the road to Farmington......where Lagoon is.  We would play at Lagoon-a-beach for several hours and have lunch.   After lunch we would hit the rest of the park, riding as many of the rides as possible, only stopping for a quick dinner.  After dinner it would be back to the rides to ride as many as possible before the park closes.  At the close of the day and as the park closes and we head back to the car I would want to be as worn out and "happy go pukey" as I possibly could be.  A short car ride home to my waiting and inviting comfy bed.  That would be my perfect summer day.