Manny helps in the greenhouse

My youngest daughter has two cats that live with me at the farm.  One of them is Manny, a cat from the Human Society that came to live here shortly before she graduated from college.  She  saw his picture on their website and sent Mom and I to rescue him.  He is a Maine Coon, a wonderful, big cat.  This summer he has gotten used to being outside during the day and loves to be wherever there is something going on at the farm. 

I have been getting the greenhouse ready for winter plants and doing some sowing of seeds and Manny followed me out there one evening and was busy snooping around.  All of a sudden he was on the potting counter and then on top of the door eying the exposed rafters. 

I quickly grabbed a picture to send to Caitlin, glad that I happened to have my phone handy.  I worried that he wouldn't be able to get down and didn't want him to fall or jump but he was able to jump back to the potting counter without incident.  What a cat.

Manny helps with the cricut

Manny checking out the action

I have a project that I have been working on.  My niece is graduating this month and she and her mom, my sister, have been making party plans.  They have decided to have cupcakes instead of a decorated sheet cake and we have been looking at the cute cupcake wrappers.

My daughter has a cricut, so we had been thinking that we could make our own wrappers in colors that would coordinate with the party theme colors.  A while back she ordered a cartridge for the cricut and when she was home at Easter she cut out a sample.  My thoughts were that she would be home to cut the wrappers or at least get everything set up so that after the first ones were cut I could finish the rest of them. 

That was not to be.  My daughter lives on the other side of the state and the cricut machine and the party are on my side of the state.  There is something to be said about moving out of your comfort zone and learning something new.  I now know how to use the cricut.  I can change the cutting blade and I downloaded computer software and now can run the cricut from my PC instead of fighting with the itty-bitty print on those flexible keyboards that come with the cartridges.  

150 cupcake wrappers later I feel like a pro.  I used the new software to 'weld' together the letters of  my niece's name and 2014 to make little bits from the paper scraps that can be scattered across the burlap table runner that my sister has planned should she choose to use them.   

My other crafty project for her party was to make tissue paper pompoms to suspend from her ceiling.  I followed a tutorial from Pinterest and they couldn't be easier.  The party is tomorrow and I will try to get some pictures of the finished products.  

some pictures to share

We have harvested most of the garden.  We still have a few potatoes to dig and the kale is still doing well but everything else is pretty much done and in the house.  This year we are going to try some long term storage in an unheated room in the basement that we have always called the fruit room.  Before moving the garden produce to the fruit room I gathered some of it together to take a few pictures.  I wanted a picture to add to the new food blog.

I piled the produce on the table and Caitlin 'styled' it to look artsy and took a few pictures.  This is the one that I put on the sidebar of the food blog:

And here are the rest:

Some of the jars that I canned

a closeup of some of the ornamental gourds

acorn and butternut squash red and white potatoes, kohlrabi

pie pumpkins, gourds, kale and sweet potatoes

apples held by chef and paste tomatoes on white pedistal

And finally Manny in the piles of vegetables:

Isn't he handsome?