Shock and Awe

Harvest time is here again, the time of year when I rush out the cornfield with a machete to harvest corn for decorative shocks before the renter comes with his huge and much more effective machines.

Unfortunately Alfie had his own idea of what shocks meant. 
I stumbled across the (not so) Urban Hennery while hunting up information on raising your own chickens (my two hens have started laying teensy little eggs!)  Laura had a neat challenge going: Dark Days.  The goal is to fix at least one meal from 90% local ingredients per week.  I'm lucky enough to live near Sugar Creek Farm, a large Mennonite population, and a lovely grandmother who taught me how to put up corn and tomatos this past summer, which means lots of locally grown food is available.  We also harvested and pickled bucketloads of BEETS which I have no love of.  I decided to participate and see if the Dark Days participants can inspire beet tolerance even in this most prejudiced of persons.

Pssst

You should head on over to the newly unveiled Spellbinders website http://www.spellbinderspaperarts.com   It's really great, very pretty and most importantly-much, much easier to use.  Check out the Inspiration Alley to see large images of projects or check out the new Blog for neat techniques and giveaways!

Mooooooo

At long last!  I downloaded my camera and snuck a few moments to scrap the new stars of The Dairy Barn B&B (aka my residence)  Meet Thumper and Bumper, two new steers destined to be fabulous grass fed steaks.  A bit unsentimental of a view perhaps, but I am very fond of ribeye and I'm trying to be a stronger locavore.   They are very sweet calves.  They like their ears and chins scratched just like big dogs :-)

Thumper and Bumper were actually being raised in secret by one of my uncle's friends.  We've been talking in code about them for about 6 months before we suprised Grandpa Don with them.  The lack of shocked reaction was kinda dissapointing, but that's a stoic old farmer for you.  Don't let him fool you, he's just goofy over those two cows.  Probably likes them even more since he doesn't have to get up at 4 am to milk them.

See Alfie. See Alfie the cow dog "gaurd" the strange new additions to the farmyard.

PS- Isn't that paper pretty?  I just discovered Webster's Pages, I'm completely in love with them.  It's Anna Griffin meets Basic Grey and them made 10 times more wonderful.  Go check out their sample pages here - http://websterspages.ning.com/  I promise you'll be inspired!