I STILL CAN'T UPLOAD PHOTOS ON MY BLOG

I tried to upload some photos on my blog this morning and I still get the same message. In the mean time I'll be bottling my wine today. And I just may drink the over flow.  I have 23 1 liter bottles and they told me to bring an extra one for the remainder.

 I've been cleaning calf pens and I need a shower.  JB

NO PHOTOS TONIGHT

I was prepared to upload an update photo of my Childhood Memories rug and some other photos I took today. It will have to wait.  Blogger told me that I've ran out of free space to upload my photos and that I needed to buy some more space and that it may take up to 24 hours before my account is activated again.  So no pictures tonight. Lets hope that I'll have some space tomorrow.  Has this ever happened to you?  JB

FEELING GOOD ABOUT A GREAT DAY

I deviated from my routine today. I didn't go to breakfast with my friends as usual on Sunday because I had too much work to do this morning and I would have been very late for breakfast. At our favorite restaurant, we get a free breakfast if we tell the waiter that it's our birthday before we order. We show our ID card and eat free. I missed my free breakfast at the restaurant  but I cooked  a nice omelette with bacon on the side and toast and coffee.

I had my oldest granddaughter Jordyn visiting today. It was her birthday today. She's a beautiful young lady who is doing very well in High School. So I didn't spent time on the computer reading blogs and comments. I enjoyed her visit and then I drove her and her boyfriend home. On my way back, I visited Value Village and bought a few odds and end, no pictures. There wasn't much that caught my eye today.

This is a Christmas photo of my oldest granddaughter taken December 2008 that I dug up from my photo library.

I managed to get a bit of hooking done and wish that I had the right colors so I could keep on hooking. I need to buy more wool and dyes to do April DeConick's color palettes. Then, I would really do more hooking.

I received a phone call from my oldest sister and we talked for about an hour or more. It was so nice  hearing her voice and catching up on the latest news.  So my day was relaxing and pleasant for a change.     Thanks for stopping by for a visit.  JB

A SPECIAL SATURDAY

This morning I got a phone call on my cell phone while working at the farm. It was my daughter Jackie.  She called to wish me Happy Birthday and told me that she was on her way to Gagetown to their annual Christmas in the Village craft fair with the kids.  I thanked her of course and my first question while holding a hay fork in my left hand was " What's going on? How come the kids are not in school and you're not at work? She answered, Mom, it's Saturday.

When I work seven days a week I loose track of time and and days. My birthday is just another day. I still have to do what I do everyday.

After I was done working at the farm, I came home  and showered and started to clean my kitchen because I had left it in a mess from all those wine bottles all over the sinks, dirty dishes on the counter, crumbs on the floor, etc. from the night before.  ( the secret to remove those wine labels is to soak them over night and it's easier to scrape off the labels and the glue.)
I was just finishing up and my daughter and three of her kids came to visit bearing a nice bottle of Apple Ice Wine made in Gagetown.  I made some tea and we played Snakes and Ladder with my little grand daughter. I was so lucky at every roll of the dices and finally won the game. My little granddaughter  had a look of disappointment on her face. I said," Thanks for the birthday gift of letting me win". She responded with a big smile," Oh Yeah."... It's all about perspective...

My granddaughter Mira is a fantastic talented and creative artist who has a great gift of turning anything she touches into something artistic. She knitted her own pair of wool gloves with yarn that she spun herself and she knitted those gloves without a pattern , mind you... She said that the thumbs were of different color because she ran out of yarn. She never ceases to amaze me.

Here is another shot with her gloves on.  I think that she did a fantastic job on those gloves. I can knit gloves but I need to follow a pattern.

Here the kids are running off  across the lawn to the barn to see the little calves before returning home.
I didn't get to hook but it was a great day because I got visitors.  Stay safe and cosy. JB

MY FOOTBALL PLAYER HEIFER CALF

Several friends has been asking for a picture of my latest calf. She wasn't cooperative and didn't want to stand up and she kept turning her head to the side but I managed to get a picture so you could see what I mean.  I apologize for the poor quality.

She was born on the 24th and is very big but doesn't want to drink her milk. She is fighting me all the time. This evening I had to enlist the help of my son to force feed her a bottle of milk with medicine so she doesn't get dehydrated. A straight tube is inserted down her throat and the liquid slowly goes into her stomach.   She has a black spot under each eyes just like a football player.  I took many pictures but this was the only one where the head is looking straight but is of poor quality.

This one as the same father but the black is encircling all around the eyes. She just didn't want to cooperate either because she was hungry and was very focused on wanting to be fed. I should have waited until they were fed to take the photos. She has this mean look in her eyes. She kept turning her head back and forth but at least I got two good shots of her black marking around her eyes. She was feeling better today and wanted more milk at breakfast  but I only gave her one bottle and I increased to one and a half bottle this evening and tomorrow she will be pleased to get her two bottles. When the calves sucks on something that is dirty they get sick because they don't have immunity when they are born.  With the proper care they quickly get better. This one only refused to eat yesterday and had scour. Today her scour was gone and she was very hungry.

                                                 I think that she looks cute on both sides. 

This is what I've been up to this afternoon.  Soaking the labels off my wine bottles. Not an easy job. They need soaking and I was trying to speed the process by scoring the labels with a sharp knife before soaking them.  My job is still not done but I'm in no hurry.  

This is one from of my previous batch of wine. See the cuts in the label.  

I'm hoping to have my new batch of wine bottled by next week. Stay safe and cosy everyone. Thanks for your faithfulness in following my blog.  JB

THEY WON'T LAST LONG

I was greeted by a new huge baby heifer calf this morning when I entered the barn. She was laying beside her mother. The mother is a black cow and the heifer calf is white and looks like a football player. She has a black marking under each eyes. I'll try to have a picture of her tomorrow if I can remember to bring my camera.

This afternoon I was looking for a peanut butter recipe from the Mennonite Girls Can Cook blog recipe files. Their recipes always looks so good. I made these Peanut Butter Oatmeal cookies. They were so good.

Here's a close up  of them. I rolled them in a ball and flattened them with a little pat from my hand. 

I filled the  cookie jar to overflowing. We ate those that didn't fit in the jar...

The recipe asked for 1 1/2  cups of trail mix. Since it was the only thing that I didn't had, I made my own trail mix with what I had on hand. I used some raisins, currents, orange flavored dried cranberries, chocolate chips, chopped pecans, chopped almonds, sunflower seeds and sesame seeds. My husband loves them.   A nice little snack with a cup of tea. They won't last long.  JB 

HAPPY THANKSGIVING TO OUR AMERICAN FRIENDS

Although our Thanksgiving Day has passed, I remain thankful for a lot of things.  First of all I wish  a HAPPY THANKSGIVING  to all our American friends on this very windy day.

Today I have several things to be thankful for. First, I'm thankful that I could take a break this afternoon to go shopping. I hadn't gone out with the car since Monday because the windshield wipers had just quit when I was driving in the snow.  I thought that it was a fuse and asked my husband to check it for me today. I backed the car outside for him  and I gave it another try just in case the wipers would work, and low and behold they worked.

 I can't figure out why they quit on me while I was driving. They were not stuck or anything. Maybe it was my guardian angel who just wanted me to go home instead of going to the Co-op  on my way back from my doctor appointment. It was Membership Appreciation Week and a huge sale for members and it was super busy. So I take it as a good omen.

I'm thankful that my wipers are working again, that I had no new born calf today.

I'm thankful that I found some cute decorations at Value village and luxurious bath mat, a extra wide size 18 Pendleton wool skirt.

I got this white luxurious  bath mat, a large 15 inch rabbit that had a price tag of $22.00 for $3.99, a small stoneware santa and snowman and a couple of small rabbits and a bat candy dish for Halloween and a size 18 wide Pendleton  wool skirt. I'm thankful that I found some awesome bargain on grocery at the Co-op today. 

There is a lot of wool in this very large skirt. it's in the washer awaiting to be washed.
Stay safe everyone and thanks for your visit.  JB

Christmas Food Court Flash Mob, Hallelujah Chorus - Must See!

IT'S COMING TO THE END

I'm so glad that it's nearing the end of calving for this month. I'm beginning to feel like a cow. We have two more to calve and I hope that I can take a break for a little while.

There was a big bull calf born yesterday morning and another big heifer calf born this morning. I was running out of room to put them as the nursery has only 10 pens and I had one pen with two occupancy,    ( a bull calf and a heifer calf). These tow in the pen together were born on Monday.

 The bull calf is on the left and the heifer is on the right. Now she has the pen to herself. She turned around and wanted her picture taken,

 I had to make a bed for the bull that was born yesterday morning by putting some barricade in a corner to keep him from wandering. I'm not showing the barricade here, only the bull calf.

 I used a small wagon and a sheet of plywood as a gate and lots of hay on the floor and he slept there most of the day.

Then the other one I had to put hay in the alleyway and keep her mother there with her until we had a place to put her.  The newborn was shivering so I put a calf jacket to keep her warm. In no time the mother had made a mess and more hay was needed to keep the calf clean.

The buyer came this afternoon and took three bull calves and again tomorrow another bull calf will go.  So I will have a vacancy, until the other cow calves.

Whenever we have a cow in the alleyway, she makes a terrible mess on the floor. Everything has been cleaned up and the babies all have been fed and put to in their own bed for the night, the rest of the big calves and the cows in the calving pens also were looked after.

Today has been overcast and gray but mild and it started to rain this afternoon and it's still raining. These are old pine trees in the lane where a pair of eagles lives by our farm.

Here is the lane that goes up to the main road.  In the summer there is a tunnel effect with all the tree branches on each side.  It looks very pretty.

Now the day is coming to the end and I realize that I am exactly where I should be at this particular moment in time because God called me to this place.   Stay safe everyone.  JB

SNOW GO AWAY...

I had to be on the road today and had to drive to town twice on slippery roads. I saw four tow trucks towing some crazy drivers who were sliding everywhere. I saw one accident and some cars swerving all over the place. There was some black ice in spot and the snow packed real fast and it made for slippery conditions.

My tires were OK but as I was on my way home I had planned to stop at the grocery store but my windshield wipers suddenly stopped working. I'm assuming that maybe it's just a burnt out fuse. So I had to drive home and hoped that I wouldn't have to stop because I couldn't clean my windshield.  I really don't care much for winter.  JB

THINKING GREEN, AS IN GREEN WOOL

Today I let the dust stay where it was in the house and only worked at the farm because I had to.  I just wanted to be lazy and do a bit of hooking. The sun was shining and so I settled down but just couldn't find the right color I wanted. I needed an just barely off white wool for my little cow so I boiled a few onion skins and made a weak solution and remembered that salt is supposed to be a mordant for vegetable base dye, so I added the salt and I wasn't pleased with the dirty looking white I got so I got a bit of dye solution and sprinkles a tiny bit here and there on the wool and then when it was what I thought it should be I added the vinegar and continued to simmer it and this is what I got.

The first photo was taken without a flash and it shows a bit darker color than the real color of the wool.

This second photo was taken with a flash and shows a bit lighter than  the color of the wool.


So my piece of wool is in between these two colors.

I didn't had time to dye another off white piece so I hooked with white. next time i'll use vinegar as mordant because I got better result last time. But I'm pleased how my little piece of wool turned out.

I hope that all my American  blogging friends had a HAPPY THANKSGIVING.    JB

GOT OUR FIRST SNOW TODAY AND IT'S SNOWING CALVES...

It started when I walked in the barn early this morning. There was a new born calf still wet and another cow laying down moaning continuously. I got the flash light as it was too dark to see well in that area and went to check how she was doing and there was a big water sac showing and her water still had not broken.
The men are never in a hurry when I think that the poor cow needs help. I called my son and he was just waking up and is a bit slow in the morning. My husband and my son finally arrived and pulled the huge bull calf out and are both struggling to lift the heavy slimy calf over the cow's body to have his head hanging downward to drain his lungs. The other calf was a big bull too and was shivering as the mother didn't seemed interested in drying him off. She just kept going around the calf.  Some are good mothers and others haven't got much motherly instinct. The men put the two cows out of the ay so I can tend to the calves. I have these calf jackets to keep the calf warm and I also use some blankets. They can get hypothermia and die if they get too cold.

We got our first fluffy snowfall today and everything looked so magical. I took a few photos for the blog. In the first one, the sky is overcast and shortly after in the other photo the sun was shining.

I fed all the animals in my care and worked until noon cleaning pens for the babies.

After lunch I went back to wash my bottles and I went in the back where the overflow of pregnant cows waiting to give birth and found another baby heifer calf being licked cleaned by two cows. Again I have to call my son to come and check which cow calved and have him bring the new born in.

My calf nursery is full and overflowing and I'm sure that there is probably another calf in the barn being born now. I hate to go out in the cold dark to go check.

It seems that I've been at the barn for most of the day today. We had the rest of the cull cattle picked up today and and the breeding technician was here to breed some cows that were in heat and my husband and the hired hand were doing some renovation with the conveyor grain feeder.

I had to drive to town to get another load of calf feed and just finished around 7:00 o'clock this evening.
I had a nice tender onion soup roast of beef in the oven and my husband just put a few potatoes in the microwave and I opened a can of corn and that was our supper.  So ends my day and tomorrow is another day.   JB

FIRST THING FIRST

I'm sorry for those I disappointed this evening by not having posted my regular blog earlier. I've been in the office  working on the computer for the farm business  and just finished now.

I didn't accomplished much today but I guess I must have made a great chili because my husband and the hired hand both had two big bowls each and I was told repeatedly how good it was. When I mentioned that I hadn't had time to blog and really had nothing to say, my husband say" Oh talk about your great chili. "

OK, chili it is. I never do something twice the same way because I use what I have on hand. This is what I put in my Chili this afternoon.

Julia's Friday night's chili

1 lb  lean hamburger
1 onion
3 stalks celery, chopped
1 onion, chopped
2  medium carrots, shredded
1 green pepper, chopped
1 large can red kidney beans
1 can tomato soup
1/2 jar Ragu Original ground beef Spaghetti sauce.
chili powder to taste
Freshly ground pepper
salt

Cook hamburger, add onion, celery, carrots, green pepper and saute until cook. I add just a wee bit of water to help cook the vegetables then add the kidney beans, tomato soup and spaghetti sauce,  salt and pepper, chili and I leave it on very low to  with the cover on to blend the flavor.  I use very little salt because there is always too much salt in the soup and sauce anyway. But it all depends on your taste. JB

ONE MORE THING OFF MY TO DO LIST

The North wind is cold today and the sky is overcast but at least it's not raining.  I dressed warmly and put on a hat and scarf as well and went outside to finish decorating my pine branches with Dollar Store plastic balls. I used some florist wires to attach the balls on the branches and the bows as well.  It needs more balls in the back but at least  the front  is decorated for now. I was thinking of putting some lights in it but I had enough of the cold for now.... I know... I'm a wimp when it comes to cold.

 That's it for my blog for today because I want some time to hook a bit this evening.  Have a great midweek everyone and thanks for stopping by.  JB

IT'S RAINING CALVES

My son told me this summer that we would have about 12 cows calving around my birthday.  I don't know if he thought that I would love to have that many calves to take care of all at once.  The due date is November 24th and all ready we had one born yesterday and two this morning, a week early. I had my hands full as we had to move a bunch of cattle for sale and the buyer also was buying the small bull calves. Needless to say the calves were born  in the back where the dry cows are and it was not the best place to be born. On a hunch, I sent my husband to check this morning and sure enough there were two little calves that had been born in the early morning.

I don't know how I do it but I can almost tell every time when there's a calf back there. It's like I have a sixth sense. I don't have photos of the new born as it gets pretty involved when I'm working and the last thing on my mind is taking photos.

Yesterday morning on my way back home after my chores I saw a small cow that looked like she was trapped in a narrow enclosure as the gate had moved against a field plow. As I moved closer I saw that she was not trapped because there was enough of an opening for her to go through but that she looked like she was looking for a place secluded to calve because her tail was up and I could tell that something was going to happen.  She didn't looked like she had a big belly though.   I told my son and asked him to check in on her after milking.  He said that she wasn't due yet but that he would look in on her after he finished milking.  By the time he was done, she had calved outside.

This is an earlier photo of some of the calves when they were small not very long ago and now they are weaned  and ready to move in one  the big pens to socialize with the bigger calves so I'll have to clean more pens for the new recruits. Notice the pails full of hay. Some kids were visiting the farm and filled the grain and water pail with hay, lol.
Thanks for visiting my blog and leaving comments.   JB

HERE'S WHAT YOU HAVE BEEN WAITING FOR.

Ok girls, you can look  now and laugh if you must, at my silly little snowmen parade . It's supposed to look like a snowmen winterland. I never got to decorate my pine branches outside because it was raining today... again.

Here is one of the Dollar Store small tree decorated with  the snowflakes and one still waiting.

    

Since our chimney liner was cracked in a chimney fire years ago we have stopped using our fireplace and I've placed a sofa in front of it. We want to replace it with a gas one that has a nice mantel some day and  and I would like to remove that ugly angel brick wall and replace it with a plain wall.

I've tied the fake evergreen garlands with florist wire around the shelf as base for the snowmen.

             Here are my snowmen on parade. All of them from Dollar Store or Value Village.                                                         

  

More snowmen occupying my entrance

                                              A big smile to welcome the guests to our house

                                                                More snowmen from Value Village

                                            Again a Value Village find. Snowman on skis

These snowmen will find a home on the large Christmas tree. All Dollar Store finds.

                  This door hanger snowman is greeting our guests at the closet door. 

Sorry for bad lighting. It was raining today. It says Stocking Feet. This was made in Shelburne Nova Scotia and was bought at Value Village

                             Another snowman door hanger. Dollar Store buy.

                            A small soap dish snowman for rear entrance bathroom.

I've been tired this week with not enough restful  sleep and I did some pretty crazy things. The first one is that  I got in the shower and started shampooing my hair and I noticed that I still had my glasses on.
Today I went to the pharmacy to pick up a prescription and was trying to use my debit card. Three times it informed that I had an invalid pin number. I started to believe that I was forgetting my pin number when I noticed that I was using another credit card of the same color. The pharmacist must I thought that I was an Alzheimer patient.  I got it, once I figured that I was using the wrong card. Now you have something to laugh at if you didn't laugh at my cheap snowmen.

Thanks for dropping in..  JB

GETTING INTO THE CHRISTMAS SPIRIT

Today, after my unexpected visitors left, I had to go down town to get a load of calf feed again and I stopped in the Dollar Store to pick up some cheap plastic Christmas balls to decorate my pine branches, outside in the front entrance. I wanted something that I don't have to worry will break.  I came home with other goodies but didn't take pictures yet. I was happy to find some small trees for my snowmen parade.

Last year I decorated a snowmen scene and I was looking for some small trees to add to the scene but the trees were more than I wanted to spend so I just brushed it aside. I saw what I wanted in The Country Sampler and they were $25 US for three small trees,  plus shipping, plus exchange on the dollar plus duty  and it would have been way too much for me. Then I saw some at Michael's and they too were more than I was prepared to pay. This year I got two at the Dollar Store.  I'm tying some tiny silver strings to glitzy snowflakes and putting them on the trees. I've no idea what it's all going to look like but I'm trying to be creative. I've never been big on decorating but I started last year to  decorate a bit more  and I've been looking for Christmas decorations that I think are cute at Value Village every time I go. Sometimes I don't find any things and other times I fine really cute things. When I have something ready I'll post some photos. Thanks for stopping by.  JB

MY PERFECT DAY

Yesterday as I was looking in a drawer for some document for health insurance, I came upon something I had written this past summer as I was reflecting on what a perfect day would look like for me at that time.  The lighting wasn't great this evening and the writing is in pencil and barely legible in the photo. Here is what I wrote.  ( I took the liberty to correct spelling errors)

My Perfect day:
I would wake up at 6:30 am. feeling well, alert,  well rested and refreshed, pain free.

I would have time to shower while the coffee perks. I would have time to brush my teeth and get dress and go downstairs to have my healthy breakfast, well balanced diet.

I would not have to rush because my cloths are laid out the night before.

I would know what I was going to tackle during the day.

I would have time for a quick reflection on scripture before starting my day and I would work on practicing "ONLY FOR TODAY":
I will not criticize, not complain, not procrastinate, not over eat, be thankful for what I have, will do my best, help someone I don't really like, will forgive past wrong, will love with all my heart.

I would go to work in a clean barn and get my work done as quickly as possible and have time to work in the yard, clean the car, care for my flowers, fix what need fixing outside the house so it looks clean and presentable.

I would have more time for my grand kids.

I would like time to exercise, work on my quilt and do some painting, work on a rug, work on a cross stitch, make new pillows for the chairs in the sunroom, work on my Christmas quilt, paint some ceramic nativities and  santas. This of course I could not do in a day but would like to do one or the other on some days.

For my future, I would want to not work so hard but still have nice gardens, a clean and well organized house and have my my family all happy.

Beauty feeds the soul. That's why God created beauty. Thank you God for beauty.
The best gift that stands the test of time is the gift of making time for oneself.   Julia

Yep, that's what I wrote. It was an exercise in what a perfect day would be for me at that time.  I was told to write down my feelings without stopping even though I felt like I had nothing to say and to never mind the grammar and spelling.

My perfect day today was finding a green wool skirt and jacket and a plaid wool skirt at the Value Village. All washed and dried ready to take apart. I also bought some other stuff but my battery is low so it will be shown at another time.  The green suit is a bit brighter than shown.
Thanks for visiting and leaving a comment.  Have a great week.  JB

WHAT I'VE BEEN UP TO

I didn't do a lot on my Childhood Memories Rug but I connected four winter scenes and started a summer scene.  So far the only wool that I've dyed especially for this rug is the light grayish pale blue for the snow.  The evergreen trees and the green in the big tree comes from the free green color wool palette that I got from April De Conick give away when she launched her new Red Jack web site.  
http://redjackrugs.com/

I see that there's a bit of tweaking to do on the snowman's arm but I think that I'll wait until later. I tried to make the snow a bit more pop-corny around the snowman by changing the direction that I pulled my loops. One of the newer technique that I tried for the first time. I'll have to dye some blue for the water though. 

When I was young we swam without bathing caps as we swam in the brook in the deep end that we called " La quarerieme"  in french, meaning  "The Fourth" which was one of the  fourth deepest swim hole in the brook. So when I hook the head it will be wet hair. lol...

Yesterday and today the St John River in front of our house has been very calm and you can see some clouds reflection the water. All the leaves are off the trees and every thing looks kind of drab except the sky and the water.  The stump that you see on the right bottom  of the photo is a tree that was uprooted in the high wind this week and it's floating on the river's edge.

This photo was taken directly in front of our house  looking toward the North. At a distance, the white thing you see is  a section of the Princess Margaret Bridge being repaired. It's covered with some protective canvases  as the men work to repair the damage from years of use.  Just beyond the bridge is Fredericton City Center. The sun was low in the sky when I took this photo. Notice the white stick attached to the tree. This was put there by our elderly neighbor several ago to measure the rising water each spring.  

We has a lot of wind this past week and a big branch broke off from one of the big pine tree in our lane and I decided that I would save the smaller pieces to put in my empty flower pots outside in the front.  Now I need to decorate them. I still have some fall decorations hanging between the screen door and some fall leaves in my big black milk can.  I'm noticing that our place is beginning to look run down. There's moss growing on the window sill and the cement is pitted badly and the house needs painting. I need a new door too etc, etc, etc. 

Notice the little pet door on the bottom right of the door. About 10  or 12 years ago, I went on vacation at my mother's place by myself for a week and while I was gone my husband got tired of opening the doors for the three cats and decided to install a pet door so he would not have to bother letting them in and out.  I was quite disappointed when I got back to discover what he had done.   Our cats were bringing, chipmunks, mice, moles, frogs, and anything they could bring in and let them loose in the house and they would chase them around and play with them. I taped the door shut and added another piece of white styrofoam  on the inside so the door couldn't be seen from the inside. 

I bought this brand new roll of 25 yards wide red waterproof ribbon for outdoors for $1.99 at Value Village this summer. I tried to make a multiple loop bow for the pine decorations  but found the ribbon a bit stiff to work with. I need to get some florist wire to make my bows. I'll give it another try later.

Thanks for stopping by and leaving a comment.  JB

WHEN THEY'RE GONE, THE'RE GONE UNTIL NEXT YEAR

This is the time of year when you can buy this imported Italian Specialty cake called Panettone.  It also mean that Christmas is not that far away. The shipment arrives in early November and when it's gone, it's gone until next year. Every year as soon as my daughter gives me the signal that they've arrived, I scoot to the Super Store down town and buy enough to make me it until Christmas.

  It's a cross between a sweet bread and a cake and almost feel like an angel food cake. It has raisin and sweet dried fruits. It's very rich so you don't need much to satisfy. It keeps for a long time but I put the extra in the freezer and take it out when I need some. It's very nice to serve in small pieces at a dinner party along with the sweets.

I have several recipes for Panettone and have made it myself in a large coffee can lined with greased papers but I just buy it when it's available since I really don't have extra time to be bothered.  However I would like to fine a couple of Panettone pans because  some day I would like to make my own.  My oldest daughter may be able to fine some for me as she goes to Italy quite often. I've never thought to ask her. 

This is the brand I like, Naviglio. I've tried another brand but did not liked it as much.

I had a half a slice for desert for supper and now I'm having a nice glass of red wine.

Thanks for stopping by and leaving a comment.  JB

IN FLANDERS FIELDS... LESS WE FORGET

I was looking for the world famous poem by Colonel John McCrae on the web, In Flanders Fields on this Remembrance day and was surprised to find two different written versions, both signed with John McCrae signature. Which one is the real one? The penmanship is different in both and the last word at the end of the first line are different also. One says  grow and the other says blow.  The one obtained from The McCrae Museum of the Guelph Museum says  blow and the one I got from Wikipedia says grow.

Thanks to Anonymous I got the photo to stay upright.  I learned a new trick today.

                                  This first copy of In Flanders Fields came from the McCrae Museum  and is the right caopy.

This second one was taken from Wikipedia and is not accurate, therefor a counterfeit copy.

It's a beautiful poem and worth preserving in it's original words. 

It makes one wonder about the accuracy our written history. Let us all remember our valiant soldiers who fought for our precious freedom. We will remember and we give thanks for all the sacrifices they endured and their families.   JB

CHRISTMAS CAN'T BE FAR AWAY

I 'm so glad that I don't have to complain about the rain anymore ... for a while anyway.  The wind is drying things up and the sun shone a little today although it was cold. More sun and clear sky for the next couple of days. Hooray!!!

I noticed that my Christmas Cactus plants were budding  by the window on the north side of the house. Christmas can't be far away.

Today I've worked on my Childhood Memories rug and added a tree to the design and I started to work on the summer scene  to take a break from  working on the snow. I may have an update tomorrow. I'm not rushing this project as it is tedious and the design just develops as I go because I can't visualize much at a time.  Thanks for stopping by for a visit. I always enjoy your comments even though it's only a few words. When we have so many blogs to follow it's difficult to find enough time to leave comments on every one.  JB