can music exist where there once was none?

I have this revolution occurring in my head recently. I guess the last 2 years or so, maybe a little longer. My husband and I have some pretty different opinions about music we listen to for enjoyment. So...I spent much of my teenage years following my fave bands and hanging out with that scene, and hooking up with friends on weekends to listen to their bands belt out tunes in funky music halls, basements, houses, and small retail establishments. Much of that fun ended when John and I realized we could not stand the others choice of recreational music. So stagnant we became. John has a fairly decent musical background, where mine is pretty much void of any personal musical expression. Anyway, my story is this...we have not listened to much music, until my daughter started listening to her own music. I mean I guess my kids have always known a few...Johny Cash, Crosby, Still, Nash and Young, Sting, The Who, Fleetwood Mac, etc. I am really rambling here. Anyhow, about 3 years ago Lexi started listening to a pretty nice group of country music tunes. I have previously shied away from that genre, but I listened and realized I liked most of it. So...that in itself opened the house to some new sounds. My whole life growing up I never learned to play an instrument..who knows why. My parents never shared any music of their own creation with us...I think at some point my sisters tried something. We always had this old guitar languishing somewhere in the house...oh how I longed to be able to pick it up and really know what to do with it. Many years ago, I finally decided it needed a face lift. So I sanded it down and stripped it of all its glossy sheen and hardware. I started painting it. I guess it never really looked the way I wanted it as I packed it away in the back of the garage years and years ago. My daughter, the country music fan, has been asking for years to take guitar lessons, so she finally found a teacher she likes. We bought her a guitar and she is knee deep in learning. So, this has renewed once again my interest in painting a fun guitar, with the hopes of someday figuring out how to plunk something out on it. So, I dug back into the dark recesses of our treasure trove of a garage and found the guitar...once again I have started over painting it. I think this is the 3rd or 4th time to have a go at this, since I was about 12 years old. Here are the paintings from this week. Maybe someday I will finish this guitar, reinstall the hardware...wonder where that is....and finally learn the skill of playing guitar. We shall see if this dream ever comes true.

Our cute miniature horses

In mid December we brought home 4 miniature horses, 2 young fillies, Daisy and Rose, and 2 geldings, Diablo and Patches, that are a couple years old. We had our work cut out for us as we were not quite ready as my husband was sick all Fall. So, in single digits we built their stalls, and now that spring is here we are building more fencing. They are getting quite used to us and continue to trust all of us more each day. Soon we will hopefully have great tales of carting for everyone. Here are a few horsie pics from this week. Enjoy!

Building Fences

We have been busy building fences for the miniature horses. We started with their dry lot and have moved on to pasture fencing. In 2 weekends we have put up 86 feet of fencing and a 4ft gate. The kids enjoyed the fire we had burning both weekends and provided musical entertainment for us. We are separating the pasture in half, so there will be 2 halves. We are only trying to fence the first half right now...keep something accomplishable in sight, then go for the next stage. The horses have loved their freedom so far, it will be nice when they have 100% use of the whole pasture. Freedom sure beats me taking them out to exercise daily on a lunge line. The fence is 48"tall, post and board, and in between we have strung wire fencing with the 2"x4" rectangular openings. With this fence we can accommodate all sorts of things. We will not have to worry about our dogs running to China when accompanying us to work with the horses, and we will be able to keep the turkeys in. Lexi will be getting 4 turkeys this spring. The sole purpose for the turkeys is food, but I think it may be fun to just have them for show as well. I think this stage of the fencing still needs 200 feet or so, and a couple of gates, so busy we will continue to be.

'Tis the Season for Sugarin'

I spent today with a friend of mine and her poultry flock making yummy Maple Syrup. She is a novice and still learning tricks, but it is a fairly simple, but time consuming activity. She has been collecting sap from her Black, Silver and Red Maple trees this week, 50 gallons of sap was collected from 5 trees. A fire was started and the boiling process began . She made her first small batch last weekend. I got a small taste and wow was it big on flavor. I may have to get my own taps, technically called spiles and give it a whirl. The whole process is so relaxing. She has a very simple set up that works very well, so I thought I would share before I go take a shower and wash off all this fantastic cold spring day warm fire smell.

Free Pieced Letters

I have been having a very scrappy time lately making all sorts of things out of the scrap bin. I love making these free pieced letters, they are so definitely my style. The organic feel they have to me as they are being created really appeals to that side of me who craves no rules. We had a couple birthday parties to go to and a friend who needed a couple gifts to make them smile...so these are a few of the things we have come up with lately.