Still Working away...almost finished!!

Can not believe it...almost finished...knitting..only one gift left to knit, Baking....just a couple more things to bake, got the plum jam made today. RH was away for the day so no interruptions so managed to accomplish a few things. Weather has been so nice lately, was above zero today and had really planned to get out and visit the animals but ran out of time. Now I hear the wind blowing again and they say more snow. Hope it does not amount to much, we have enough snow on the ground for Christmas. RH just got all the snow pushed away from in front of the feed bin the other day and the feed truck came today so that is done.
I have four big Christmas Cactus and they have been blooming like crazy, took all the dead flowers off of them yesterday and there are a lot of buds coming so hope they are out for Christmas. Well off to bed and hopefully finish up the knitting tomorrow. We do not have our tree up yet...we do not even have a tree yet. RH went down to the tree lot in town, he had bought a beautiful tree there last year and wanted to get the same type for this year......this year the tree was eighty dollars.......who would pay eighty dollars for a tree you only have up for a couple of days!!!!! Now I could see it if it had roots and could be planted!! Needless to say...we still do not have a tree.

Baking and knitting and Baking some more!!

It is thirty below at our place right now and will probably get colder as it gets dark...why are we living here in the winter!! Grey kitty says she is not coming out from under the afghan until spring, she is a house cat...what about the poor barn cats!!I should be knitting them hats as Little Grey froze one of her ears a bit last winter and they are in the barn with a stack of hay bales to snuggle in.
Just finished baking eight dozen chocolate chip cookies and have all the dishes washed up, did the gingersnaps a couple of days ago and yesterday did some chocolate noodle whatevers, tomorrow is the make jam day, all to go into Christmas bags for kids and grandkids and grandkids girl friends. Few more days of baking and will have that ready. There are twelve of them this year. I also do up little bags of goodies for all the nieces and nephews on my side of the family, twenty bags to do there. pretty well have the stuff ready to go into them, just have one more thing to put in, I take some paper sandwich bags and stamp llamas all over them and tie a ribbon around the top with their names on them, do not see them that often and by doing this I remember their names and they remember me...the "Llama Aunty". Am also trying to get some Christmas knitting finished.....might be some I.O.U's there. Still have to do up my Christmas letter.......think I will make it?? Is it better if I just ignore how many days I have left and just keep plugging away.....or should I get all organized and figure out how many days are left and figure out what I can do???...I think I will just live dangerously and wing it, leave the stress to the last day. Well off to knit......sure hope it warms up around here!!

Well have we got snow...and cold...and snow....can not keep the snowdrift shoveled off the front step, good thing the wind keeps the snow away from the door downstairs or we would be jumping off the back deck to get out of here. For the last two days we have had very...and I mean very high winds but was not bad as it was warmer but last night the temps went to twenty below and the wind is still blowing from the north...do not even want to know what the chill factor is. We did not get to either day of the Christmas market, have only seen one truck go by the last two days and it was yesterday someone got through to try to get a large bale of hay into their cattle up in the hills, watched them snaking in and out of pastures where wind had blown the snow off the ground to miss the big drifts on the road and then seen them get to the pasture but do not know if they found their cows to give them the hay. Now this morning a snowplow went through so roads will be open for a short while. RH moved animals around all day yesterday to try to get them all into barns or shelters, the shelters keep getting blown full of snow so he has to shovel them out, the llama females we have no trouble with them staying tucked in the barn but the two alpaca females just will not go into their shelters, which is usually o.k. but this year they forget they have baby Bella to take care of, so RH moved goats around and got them into the big barn where he can lock them in until the weather clears, Mummy alpaca is not a happy camper but Bella will be safe. And then because Mummy Alpaca is a fence jumper when we try to put her somewhere she does not want to be RH had to drag panels over to the paddock where she is to discourage her from jumping out where we do not want her as there are males on the other side of the fence. Yesterday he said the males outside had ice hanging off their eyes and mouths so he got them up and got the ice off their faces and got them eating and moving around. The male llamas are so hard to house as one will go into the barn and keep all the others out so we have high slab fences they can tuck behind to get out of the weather. Which could be another problem as the winds get so strong they blow sections of the slab fence down...so far no one has been hurt. What would we do with ourselves if we did not have all these animals to take care of. It is survival of the fittest I tell you!!

Storming and then Storming!!

Was supposed to be our last market of the year today and tomorrow but woke up to wild wind and blowing snow, could not even see the barn so no market today and it has stormed all day. The wind was coming from the northwest all day so the windfence was protecting the house a bit but now tonight it changed to straight north so no protection from the windfence, house is creaking and moaning. The snow was piled up on the front step halfway up the door and RH cleaned it off when he came back from the barn tonight, I had taken Maxx out to do his business and could hardly stand up in the wind. Now I just looked out the door and the step is covered again and snow half way up the door again, if we open the door it will all fall into the house.I do not think there will be any getting on the roads tomorrow either unless the wind quits during the night and we see someone cleaning the road early tomorrow morning...chances of that happening are nil. Roads have been closed all around us.
On the happy side I love the colors of the yarn I dyed the other day, not the best picture with the poor light in here but it is not bad, just does not show the shine of the yarn. The color of the yarn was just a bit darker than the cone sitting with the skeins. It is llama that a fellow had spun up at a mill from his llamas a few years ago and he donated it to the llama club for a fund raiser, I bought the two cones and have been dyeing it up and making scarves with it, it is very fine, makes beautiful lacy scarves. Will tuck it away until after Christmas. Well here is hoping this bad weather goes away in the next day, the wind is making me a little crazy I tell you, is supposed to turn really cold for next week.