Assorted Idaho Photos

I was just up in Southeastern Idaho visiting family. This is my sister Wendy. We always have a great time visiting.

One of the places we went was to the Chesterfield townsite. It was an old Mormon settlement. There are quite a few preserved buildings there.

This is the grain elevator at Swan Lake, right by my sister's house. We always make trips to the little general store there for drinks (sodas) and treats.

The Bear River valley where the Bear River Massacre took place. My sister Janet and neice, Karliegh, live right at the bend in the river there. Notice all the snowcapped mountains.

My nephew, Daniel. He was being helpful, up on the roof, getting the cooler ready for summer.

My mom and brother in law, Ron.

My neice, Keegan, talked my brother in law into buying her a new fancy saddle with a gel seat. This is her new prize. It had to come into the house instead of going in to the tack shed.

A sod home at the Chesterfield township.

Some horse running by us in a field.

My neice, Keegan, the one who got the new saddle.

Ron on his tractor. I thought my friend Dave might like to see his tractor since he is into tractors.

My sister's brand new fancy dancy chicken coop! My brother in law says he is going to use it for his man cave instead of letting the chicken's have it.

The tack shed.

Dogs of Idaho and one from Utah

I love dogs! And so does the rest of my family. Here are the 4 legged family members in Idaho. First is Beau the wonder dog. He is really smart and adorably cute. He is part Corgi and part heeler. I loves to with you in the car. If he isn't invited to come, he will sneak in the car and hide until you are well down the road and can't take him back. Then he will present himself. He is a really fun dog. Here he is with my nephew, Daniel.

Then there is Baxter the Chocolate Lab. He orignially belonged to another nephew who lives in Boise. They didn't think he ws happy living in the city and so gave hm to my sister and her family. He is about 100lbs of solid muscle. He can run for miles. He is very fit. He ADORES water. Whenever he sees it, he just throws himself in it and rolls around on his back. He liked me a lot. Here he is ready to drive the van.

This is my mom's new pug, Zack. He is really a cutie and has a very sweet and loving personality. He has only been in the family about 2 or 3 weeks and is fitting in great.

Here is Baxter with his head on my knee, looking at me adoringly.

This is my friend, Dana's dog, Lucy. Is she not an adorable little Yorkie? She is a Utah Dog.

I saw this cutie at a barrel racing event we were at. She is part Shih Tzu and part pomerian.

Here is my big boy, Baxter.

This is my neice, Keegan's dog, Chiara. She was taking a nap on Keegan's boots. She is part of a lot of breeds. Part Heeler, part Catahoula hound, part hanging tree heeler (or something like that). She is only 4 months old and still a little unsure of herself. They think she will get to be close to as tall as Baxter, but maybe not as thick.

Bird Watching in Idaho

My sister, Wendy, has always been a huge animal lover. When we were growing up, she had an aviary filled with exotic pigeons, parrots, a raccoon etc. She has passed this love of animals to her daughter, Keegan. Among the animals they enjoy are different types of birds. Keegan has 2 Emu's that she raised from hatchlings just a year ago. She has decided she wants to get rid of them now. So while I was there, we stopped at the home of a gentelman who also raises exotic and domestic birds. My neice wanted him to know her Emu's were available.
I took some photos there. Here was a handsome peacock, posing for me on top of his home.


These two fellas were displaying for each other. Trying to see who the girls would like best.

These next two are some type of pheasant.

And then there was this lovely turkey, who just made you think of Thanksgiving.



In addtion, my sister and neice stock bird feeders and feed the wild birds. They have some amazingly beautiful birds visiting. This is an Indigo Bunting. I have never seen one before. They were very brightly colored.

And this guy is my favorite! A Scarlet Headed Tanager. Isn't he just gorgeous?

This is an Oriole.

More Indigo Buntings.








Then we have the proud rooster shepherding the "girls".

Here he is strutting his stuff.

So, I am a little nervous of birds that I think might bite or peck me. I really wasn't fond of these enormous emus. They are only a year old! I can't think of why one would want one.

Here I am being brave, holding out some dandelion for this one to eat out of my hand.

Those are some major bird feet.

This is how an Emu sits. I was on a horse.

Tunisian Crochet

While I was on vacation I met up with my friend, Dana, who taught me a new style of crochet, Tunisian. There are quite a lot of stitches and so far I have only learned one, but this is my first little project I finished while I was away. It looks quite abit different from regular crochet and can tend to roll a bit, but I think it turned out kind of fun. I have some patterns that I want to try after a bit.

Garden Flowers

Beautiful flowers from my garden!

Therapeutic Cleaning

A lot of you have been to my home and know that it is a very small condo, about 950 square feet to be exact. And I have lived in this little space for 23 years. You accumulate things over time. I don't know if I accumulate more things than other people. Maybe.
So that front room of mine houses an awful lot of stuff. If I lived in a bigger space, I don't think it would be a big a deal. But I go through and purge stuff pretty regularly. It's interesting to me, how something I think I should keep at one point in time, I am fine with getting rid of at a later date.
So we went on a home tour recently. Of course, all of these homes were very clean and nicely done. It made me feel even more cluttered. I had been having thoughts for a while that I wanted to clean out the area where my washer and dryer are. I had dumped things on top of them and never seemed to get back to really do anything with them.
So today, even though I didn't really have much sleep, I decided to tackle it.
So one of the first things I did was break my really nice white Williams and Sonoma bowl. I really liked it and was upset that I broke it. But it was really big and now I don't have to figure out where I am going to store it. (It is also the third thing I have broken in the last 4 days. I hope I'm done.)
I got rid of:

• a cute retro juicer that looks like a black and white puppy with a sombrero.
• A really nice large glass Christmas platter. I just couldn't keep storing something that I only used once or twice a year.
• a bunch of bug spray that I haven't used.
• carpet cleaning solution. I haven't had carpet in a year.
• a fondue set. I think I have two others somewhere else.
• a plastic tub.

I moved and reorganized:

• several empty plant pots and saucers.
• a really nice set of colored drawing pencils.
• my art supplies
• 2 big plastic bowls that won't fit anywhere else.
• the attachments to my vacuum cleaner that I don't use very often.
• my grain mill, waffle maker, crepe maker, mandolin, spice grinder, spare place mats, ice cream maker.
• A bunch of legal size envelopes.
• some treat boxes and bags to put goodies in for gifts.

So it looks nice now. I washed off my washer and dryer. I have basket on top of my washer with all my washing and ironing supplies. It looks so much nicer to me.

So where do the rest of you keep all this stuff? I still need to work on the rest of the room and it will never look like those homes we toured, I just don't have anyplace to put it really away.

One small step for sanity.

Memorial Day 2010

Penny's Husband

My Dad.