So Much To Do

We are having a blast being tourists in our temporary home.  Here are some we enjoyed earlier this summer:

Superior Lighthouse

By the shores of Gitche Gumee, By the Shining Big Sea Water...


 

 Countless Lakes

Farms Galore

2014 Wisconsin Sheep and Wool Festival

From Cozy Cairn Cottage, baa baa for now!

Audrey

Where do your dreams take you?

 I dreamt that I was in a tornado and got swept away to a distant land.  My Mom and Dad where there with me, thank goodness, and we saw lots of strange sights:


There were large bodies of water.



I walked miles of shorelines.

Saw strange sights like an abandoned goose egg.

More sights like ornate churches.




Mom kept disappearing into things called quilt shops.  Lucky for me she kept reappearing.

  

blech!  I gotta quite eating the cat's food.

How to Entertain Your Cat

Cat TV

 

The Nature Channel on Cat TV

 

Notice the snow caves they are making to keep them out of the wind.

Doesn't this fellow look like he's commuting to work?

Meadow Lark with Horned Lark in background

Junco

Sparrows

Killdeer

 

Flicker

Mourning Dove

White-Crowned Sparrow

Brewer's Blackbirds

What a time we had a Prairie Cairn Cottage yesterday!  May 1st and we had yet another snow storm dumping an additional 15"!  This storm didn't have the winds with it so not near the drifting problems we've had with the other two storms.  I noticed that in the bare spots of the back yard the Horned Larks were coming in droves to shelter themselves and find food.  As the day progressed more species arrived.  I haven't seen this variety of birds in a very long while so Tabby and I had a great time watching them and picking out the new arrivals.  I even went out and spread some bird seed on the ground for the seed eaters. 

I am ready for spring to arrive though.  The seasons seem to be mixed up this year on the prairie.  We had a very dry winter so the moisture in these last 3 storms have been very, very welcome.  Soon the color will burst forth on the prairie and we should have a spectacular wildflower season.

Thanks for visiting the Cottage today. 

Audrey

Uh Spring?

The Cottage is being slammed by the big storm pushing through the US today.  The poor dear chicks are snowed in again and I've had to dig them out 3 times thus far.  I will do it one more time before night fall.  You can see a large drift in the corner of their enclosure. 

We've gotten over a foot of snow and with our ever present prairie winds the snow tends to drift.  The drift off the patio is now over 5 foot high.  Lucky for me I had planned a couple of snow days and don't have to try to go out in this in the cairn mobile.  I just have to go out and shovel and shovel...well you know the drill.

The funny thing about the wind, it piles the snow up 5' in places but scours it bare in others.  This is  the rest of the back yard at the Cottage:

At least I'm not trudging through 5' of snow to get to the coop.  I just have to walk to the back fence then come back up to the coop so I can shovel to get the enclosure open...then dig them out...when I'm done I get to shovel to get the enclosure closed back up.  Not to mention having to shovel a path for Little Black Brindle to use the loo.  Whew!  Quite the work out today!

Between shoveling, I've been enjoying my snow day at the Cottage.  A little sewing, a little knitting, a lot of blog hopping, some texts with family...

I certainly could use the finished version of this knitting project.  It will soon turn into Fear of Commitment Cowl found here.  I got tired of only knitting dish cloths and am pushing myself to try different projects.  The yarn is Lion Brand Hometown and is deliciously soft.  It should feel good against my neck next fall and winter.  Big size 13 needles and only 35 stitches per row should have this done in no time. 

Last but not least, I am very pleased to announce the soon completion of my muumuu!  I only need to hand stitch the yoke facing and the hem band (pinned for the picture).

Remember, this is the first piece of clothing I have sewn since Home Ec.  For my first attempt in decades, I am rather pleased.  It's too large and I will be making the next one a size (or two?) smaller.  It will be only for around the Cottage, so no matter.  I've been dreaming of sewing my own clothes for some time and feel this is a step in that direction.   

 

I know you won't be driving up the Lane to Prairie Cairn Cottage today (you'd get stuck in the snow silly) but I'm ever so glad you popped in to see us.  

a Little Taste of Summer

I am sitting here at the Cottage waiting for a Peach Pie to bake.  The smell is divine!  The peaches came from a farm stand last fall and if I remember, they were some Palisade Peaches, a much prized Colorado delicacy.  We are having a potluck at church tonight  and this is the dish I'll bring so I'll have to wait to get a taste.  Pure torture!

To help pass the seemingly endless winter on the Prairie I have pulled out my trusty Elna sewing machine and have been working of various projects.  I had friends over a few weeks ago and we made pillow cases.  If you haven't made any you should, they were super easy and fun.  I made these for my Ever So Handy Husband and he was thrilled!  I'm making another set soon just for me. 

The sunsets and sunrises still thrill me no end out here on the Prairie.  This sunset was taken just the other day and the following morning the sunrise was just as spectacular!

 

On Monday, we celebrated Little Black Brindles' one year anniversary of coming to live at Prairie Cairn Cottage.  He may be the "rescue" dog but he truly came to rescue me.  I look back at how despondent I was over losing our little Wheaten Cairn and I realize how much my new little Cairn has helped me these past 365 days.  Good Boy!  Smart Boy!  Brave Boy!

Tabby has taken to sleeping in the sun coming in the patio doors in the Morning Room.  I swear he is 6 feet long when he stretches out.  You KNOW a cat is relaxed when he exposes his belly while sleeping.  He makes me laugh when he sleeps this way!

And lest you think the chicks have flown the coop, here is a recent shot of them practicing being free range birds.  My Ever So Handy Husband has not been able to finish the coop he started late last fall, which is just as well since we decided it was way too small anyway.  So the poor dear birds are still in their temporary, just for the summer coop!  I've been a bit worried about them and have done a lot of internet searching about winter care.  One person wrote in and asked if she needed to put in some supplemental heat in her coop and two people from Alaska both wrote her back and said they don't have any type of heat in their coop and they get very, very cold there.  That made me feel a bit better but when I went out to open their coop for the day and the thermometer said it was minus 15 degrees I was a bit apprehensive until they strolled out as if it were a nice day in July!  It was just as the Alaska chicken keepers said, they don't need extra heat as long as they get acclimated to the cold, remember they are wearing down coats!

 

Such are the mid winter days at Prairie Cairn Cottage.  A little sewing, a little baking, a lot of warming ourselves in the sun coming in the cottage windows.  Thank you for visiting with us today and come back soon!

 

Audrey

 

 

  

You say your commute to work is rough?

Living in the country and working in the city requires a rather lengthy commute.  We did, however, think we'd leave the headaches of the drive we used to endure behind.  But we have found it's the same type of problems no matter where you are driving. 

There, of course, is the traffic jam...

And the bull that comes with it...



There is always someone racing around because you weren't going fast enough...

Don't forget to look out for that eye in the sky...

The impatient drivers are a real headache...

Despite such problems, I wouldn't trade living at Prairie Cairn Cottage.  Thanks for visiting with us today.  I hope your commute home is pleasant.

Audrey

Wild things

When it's flowering it's hard to call the thistle a weed.  The flower is so striking.  I always find it amusing that the thistle is the flower of Scotland.  It's supposed to represent the beauty but thorny nature of Scotland under the British rule. 

The little bunnies are white tailed jack rabbits.  I caught them out in the front of Prairie Cairn Cottage last night.  I thought we had jack rabbits and cotton tails but after a quick internet search I discovered these are actually white tailed jacks.  No matter, at this age they remain cute.  Once they get full grown, well, that's a different story, I'm afraid they might abscond with Little Black Brindle.  But for now they are welcome.

After reading a magazine article on making your own extracts I thought I would try my hand at it.  This morning I made up some lemon extract and vanilla extract.  Earlier in the month I made up some raspberry extract and some mint extract.  It's pretty darn easy if I do say so, we'll just have to post back how they work in baked goods.

The basic recipe is 1/4 cup berries or mint leaves, 3 to 4 vanilla beans halved then split length wise or the zest from two lemons (you could also use oranges or grapefruits if that suits your fancy) which ever you want to make.  To each of these you cover with 1 cup of alcohol.  I used vodka in the raspberries, lemons and mint and some whiskey in the vanilla.  The recipe I got for the vanilla called for vodka, bourbon or brandy.  Shake the mixtures daily for 3 to 4 weeks.  If it is strong enough for your tastes then you drain the berries and mint but you can just leave the vanilla and lemon zest in the jars.  If you'd like a stronger extract for the raspberry and mint, you'd strain it and then add some fresh berries or mint and repeat the procedure.  If you run low on the vanilla or lemon extract you can just add additional alcohol and let it sit for several weeks.  It's supposed to take a long time for them to lose their flavoring.   

The Mexican vanilla you can buy uses bourbon so I went to the store to buy some.  The clerk at the liquor store told me that bourbon is actually bourbon whiskey.  It can only be called bourbon if it was distilled in Kentucky.  I had some pretty good  Canadian whiskey at home so thought I'd go ahead and use that.  If it doesn't make good extract we will just use it as vanilla infused whiskey.  Who knows, maybe we could come up with a new cocktail!

Wouldn't a gift basket of these in a smaller 2 oz size make a great hostess gift for the upcoming holidays?  Or perhaps you have a baker in your gift exchange.  Either way, try your hand at home crafted extracts. 

Still at Prairie Cairn Cottage North

Little Black Brindle and I were supposed to head back to Prairie Cairn Cottage last Friday but as frequently happens in business, schedules got changed which pushed our trip back by a week.  Darn, I'm forced to endure more of my working vacation!  Lucky for me, our chick caretakers agreed to another week of duties. 

In between working, we've been able to play tourist.  We've been shopping (and buying) in downtown Williston, toured the historic fur trading post financed by John Jacob Astor, walked across the Fairview Lift Bridge and the only tunnel in North Dakota, drove through parts of Theodore Roosevelt National Park and the Little Missouri National Grasslands.  Tomorrow or Thursday I hope to catch a bit of the county fair and see some of the exhibits.

There are a lot of things to see and do in this part of the country.  I hope I'll be able to squeeze a few more sight seeing trips in before we head back to the original Prairie Cairn Cottage. 

Fire Season

No, this is not a picture of a cloudy day, nor is it the typical mid-western haze.  This is the result of a forest fire many miles to the north and west of Prairie Cairn Cottage.  Yes, this is smoke brought in by the ever present winds on the prairie.  It smells just like a camp fire when you go outside. 

The fires in the West are heart breaking but not unexpected.  It was a mild winter followed by a bone dry spring.  One of my great fears is a grass fire on the prairie.  It almost happened the weekend before last.  A careless driver is suspected of throwing a lit cigarette out of the window on the interstate.  It burned 60 acres of prairie and came within just a couple of miles from Prairie Cairn Cottage.  Too close for comfort in my book.

One good thing that comes from fires is the beautiful sunsets they create through all the smoke.

I am praying for rain (but no lightening) in all of the fire prone states and for the safety of not only the people who live in the fire paths but the brave men and women who volunteer to fight these fires.  We do live in a country that abounds with quiet, unsung heroes don't you think?