March news in February!

| February 15, 2011

I hope you’ll take a few minutes to visit our blog during March. We will have some fun things to share. If you get the newsletter, “the latest” you’ll know about them on March 1 when we send out the news. If not, you’ll have to keep checking back as things will appear periodically. Well, we want you to keep checking back even if you subscribe to the newsletter! :)

If you haven’t subscribed, or if you did and your name didn’t appear on the list, please sign up. It’s right on the left of this post and you only need to put in your name and email. Don’t forget you get the “Lets Be Friends” pattern free for signing up! I’ll send the back newsletters as well because there are links in it to things you won’t want to miss.

Not only will there be a giveaway beginning March 1, but you won’t want to miss the new movie/video, “Spirit of the West”. It’s not the same short video made to highlight the quilt with the same name; however, it does have great music (as the director knows how to pick the perfect audio to enhance the videos).

This Spirit of the West does include some quilt images, but it’s so much more than just about quilts. If you love history, particularly history of the west, you will enjoy this movie. Even if you don’t love history, you will enjoy the work gone into making this beautiful video.

The premier date isn’t an arbitrary date, it coincides with something within the video.  On the right side of this blog is the movie trailer…it’s just a snippet to encourage you to watch the full presentation March 6…right here! Of course, if you subscribe to the newsletter there will be a link to see it on March 1!

Category: General, Giveaway, Newsletter, Videos | No Comments »
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I must be a Griswold…

| August 20, 2010

Did you ever watch the Griswold Christmas or Griswold Family Vacation? The movie hasn’t yet been made for Griswold Family Ranching, but it could very easily star my family. My daughter coined the phrase yesterday after we spent hours trying to catch two young calves with freedom on their minds.

It is best to keep new calves to the property pinned up for a few days before they are allowed to roam the pastures because they need time to acclimate to their new surroundings. That makes sense, so we let the grass grow in the 8,000 sq. ft. garden and filled the trough with plenty of cool water. The temperature was over 102 yesterday when they arrived and we lost a few pounds of perspiration just opening gates and getting them from the trailer into the garden holding area, but they were safe.

Hmmm…in retrospect, I don’t think I should have referred to it as a “holding area”, because within twenty minutes one of them had jumped the fence and was looking for “Momma”. It certainly is a trying time for a calf to be separated from Momma and be dropped into a new area, so we were ready to give lots of TLC, but they weren’t quite on the same wavelength. I wanted to give them a little time to adjust to the garden and the temp to drop below 100, but NO, they didn’t want to wait!

The other one was looking for a spot to escape, but she stayed inside, and we were off trying to corral the jumper.

Hubby got into the pick up and I was on foot. Imagine this young calf (about 6 months old) frantically trying to find Momma in a huge field. Now imagine this…two old fogies trying to catch the calf in a huge field. It was not a pretty sight!

After multiple efforts, we decided to wait for backups to arrive. While waiting, one of the grandchildren decided he could offer them food and they would follow him. Not so! The jumper proved she is ready to set the world record and bolted over the fence onto the road. After driving up and down the road looking for her for quite a while, I glanced into the pasture across the road and sure enough, she had jumped that fence and was in the field with someone else’s cows. What a mess!

In all this confusion, the second cow jumped a fence to get out of the garden and she was running the fence line to find her partner in crime! Naturally, we then set out to get her back inside the garden. To make a long story short…she jumped the fence onto the road. Back into the cars and trucks. Four of us trying to get the vehicles positioned to capture her, but she then jumped a different fence onto another area of the neighbor’s pasture.

Today is a new day. They are both together in the neighbor’s gigantic pasture and the Griswold Ranchers will try again.

The neighbor was so great. He got quite a few of his cows (huge herd) to go into a pen and those two rascals of ours went with them. Then it was just a matter of opening and closing gates to direct them into the back of our trailer.

We fixed up every fence we could think of in their line of sight. Bought sweet feed and put it around in different areas of the garden (to keep them interested). I gave them some feed while they were still in the trailer and I don’t think they knew what it was…they sniffed, but didn’t eat for a while. This stuff smells really good! Molasses and corn and whatever else is in it must taste great.

We’ve crossed our fingers and hope they like us and the donkeys enough to hang around! Stay tuned for Griswold’s Ranching II!

Category: General | No Comments »
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Meet some of my puppets…

| February 6, 2010

I thought I’d introduce you to a few of my puppets. I really enjoy writing puppet scripts, which of course, means I must make puppets to go along with them. This is “Deplorabull” and his friend, “Imaheffer”. They were the first two puppets I made, and were in my first script. The scripts are humorous, uplifting and based on Scripture.

Deplorabull was about to be put out to “pasture” because it was his last rodeo and he was depressed. His friend Imaheffer was there to cheer him on and between the two of them, and a few other friends, they explained that with God you are “Unstoppable”. It happened to be the theme for that year’s LTC.

They also appear in other scripts with additional farm animals to make learning about values, parables, and Scripture fun, funny, and entertaining.

Next, is “Sycamore” he is obviously a tree, but a tree with good roots. The flowers are, “Lifeless”, “Wilted”, and “Droopy” and they represent the parable of seeds being scattered on rocky, poor soil. In this script they are “nourished” in a fun and exciting way to show children the value of reading the Bible.


In the play “Seeds”, the three scarecrows and the crow are in a “deep” conversation and the crow calls them a bunch of dummies on wooden crosses, but the “dummies” get the last laugh!

I use the scripts to help children learn how to behave in church, lessons from the Bible, what goes on in the morning services, the importance of regular attendance and how God is important in their lives. Children (and parents) are very receptive to the characters and scripts; they hardly know they are being taught!

Category: Current projects, General | 2 Comments »
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