my Mary Jane experience~

Yesterday, my involvement in Mary Jane’s Farm Fair was wonderful, for many different reasons.

Having an opportunity to meet Mary Jane was a hi-light ~ bare feet and all .  I walked up to her and said, with my hand held out for a handshake, “I would love to meet you!”  She grabbed me for a great big farmgirl hug, and proceeded to make me feel like she also would love to meet me.

She’s a sweet, beautiful lady and I mentioned in my last post that I have loved everything I’ve seen that she has had a hand in.  My favorite magazine is hers {thx. Mom for the gift-subscription}.  Printed on recycled paper, just the ‘feel’ of it makes me smile.  If you haven’t seen it, I highly encourage you to check it out.  Every page is thoughtful and beautiful.

I have a lot of pictures to share.  It’s hard to describe the beauty of the area.  The backdrop was Mary Jane’s Barron’s Historic Flour Mill in Oakesdale, Washington.

This was behind me…

and this was in front.

A view inside a tent that was set up…

…total Mary Jane style.

Here is Mary Jane’s teardrop trailer ~ the perfect addition to begin your own glamping {glamour camping} adventure.

shots from my booth

There were a lot of great vendors although I would have enjoyed even more of the home-spun, earthy, vintage feel woven throughout the choice of vendors.

There were also many other great attractions to enjoy.

We enjoyed live animals, including horse rides…

and wonderful entertainment all day long.

darling girls enjoying their fresh-squeezed lemonade

One of the things I enjoyed so much about the day was that it was noticeably a family event.

I was so impressed with these beautiful, RED wheat grinders.  {when I unload my vehicle I’ll find the address to link to these}

and I bartered some charms for several of these gorgeous hand made bars of soap.

I hope these pictures show what a wonderful day this was – such a great family-friendly way to celebrate the 4th of July.

What they don’t show is how much work is involved.  I can’t even begin to describe with my own words how exhausting this job is.  I always feel that I give the same response {sorry for this} to my friends/family when they ask, “How did you do?????” {each time they ask with such great enthusiasm}  My answer generally is…it was a great day – I loved being here – the people were wonderful – the event was beautifully organized – but….my sales were a little disappointing.  The bottom line is that when you have a cottage industry it’s nearly impossible to get paid for the time that’s involved.  Yesterday began @ 5am – we did set-up, sales and tear-down in the same day – I was quite blessed to have my niece, Lindsey, there to help me.  Because I live about 2½ hours away from the event I pulled in @ home @ about 11:30 last night.  I was so tired I couldn’t even talk – I went straight to bed.  Luckily, on my drive home I had sunflower seeds, black licorice & coffee working their magic to keep me awake.

Oh, can I add here that it was a 95°.

Crazy as it sounds…I love what I do!

Buggy, Barter and Boogy!

I’m so excited to head out to the Palouse to set up a booth with other vendors at the Mary Janes Farm Fair.

I love everything that I’ve seen Mary Jane do and I’m excited to be a part of something that she has attached her name to.  I just figured that there was no way that I could go wrong.

I designed this charm to take along.  The backside is a snippet of map from the Palouse. 

Hopefully it will be seen and loved.

An apron for the cowgirl in you…

Here is an apron for the serious cowgirl!

It’s been made with a shirt that belonged to an old cowboy!

I’ve layered it with a vintage dresser scarf that has a fun crocheted edge, to give it the look of a slip,

and I have given myself an A+ for creativity on this one.

Sometimes when I’m working on things like this that, honestly, could go either way, but are full of fun and creativity, I chuckle to myself {a lot}, but Mr T hears those chuckles and that makes him chuckle too!

just imagine…

√…

Sweet and Natural!

Strawberries are one of my favorite foods!

They are sweet.

The only payment made on these has been that of time.

They are economical.

There have been no pesticides or chemicals used on them.

They are natural.

They are pure…

It was fun to learn the the outfit my cousins are wearing in the picture from my last post, was made by my Grandma.

One must always have one’s boots on and be ready to go.

                                                                                                                                ~Michel de Montaigne

This  piece, with original collage work ,has been topped with a 3″ by 5″ bevel glass (w/the top corners cut off) then encased with a soldered edge.  It’s hanging in a genuine stirrup that I think may still have a tad bit of manure still on it.   {oops!}

Future sugar snap peas!

I have used this completely adorable picture of my cousins in the collage work shown @ the top.  I wanted to show you a close-up of it here.

They haven’t ‘flown the coop’ yet.

In fact, I still can’t seem to convince them to go outside during the day.

When I went to check on the chickens tonight, it was fun to see 4 of them about 4 feet up on one of the roosts.  It looks like they are already working on a pecking order.  As they do this they will be fighting for the highest spot on the roost, which is 3-tiered.

Chickens do not sleep on the floor at night but instead on a roost or platform where they can huddle together at night.  When in the wild, they will choose a tree branch which is what we see the wild turkeys do.  It’s nice to see the babes are growing up and doing what they are suppose to do.  I’ll have to watch them so I don’t find one day that they have ‘flown the coop’! 

Yesterday I mentioned that we were having a centennial celebration in our community.  I wrote a post about it here, if you are interested.

Centennial Celebration

Our community schoolhouse is celebrating 100 years today.

My great great grandparents moved to this area and homesteaded in 1896 so this schoolhouse has been a part of my family history for all of it’s 100 years.

I’m excited to celebrate today with my family and my community…

Another walk…

Down Memory Lane…

Since I have made this journey back to my homeland (This is the best link I could find – I didn’t write much about this journey on my own blog), it’s been fun to visit the places of my youth.  And, actually, I’m not just visiting them, they are becoming a part of me…again.

When my dad finished Bible school, this was the first church he pastored, it’s located on the grounds of Fruitland Bible Camp, and it’s the church where my mom’s whole family attended as they were growing up.  We lived on the campground as well.

Family Camp is going on right now so Mr T & I visited last night.  There are a lot of fun memories wrapped up in this place for me…good memories.

This is where our house use to be....where the white fence is.

The above mentioned church is also the one that Mr T & I are currently pastoring, but in a different location.

Barn wood racks~

I made these racks for my last show and sold them for $35.

As I finished them up I packed them away and I neglected to do a post on them so today I took pictures of the ones that I have left.

The frames were made from re-reclaimed barn wood.  My friend/neighbor makes garden gates from old barn wood (w/our tough winter we had a few barns in our community collapse).  I took his leftovers and made these frames (w/the help of my friend, Diane).

Each frame includes  a piece of original collage art that has been topped with a 2″x8″ bevel glass and then enclosed with a soldered frame.

~.Θ.~

It was fun to see one of my aprons in this post yesterday.   Joy bought two aprons from me @ the Farm Chicks show.  Sweet, sweet gal.  I have been looking for my post where I originally wrote about it but when I couldn’t find it, it dawned on me that I never wrote one because I didn’t finish the apron.  This was one of the items that I put finishing touches on the night before the show.

It’s always good to be home….

I’ve been MIA, A being key here – yesterday alone I put 540 miles on my car.

I had to assess my chickens first this morning.

All eleven are still there. 

I opened their little hatch door last week but they will not go outside on their own.  I tried to push them out today but they would only scatter.  I called them a ‘bunch of chickens’ and left them alone.

I picked a handful of strawberries for a smoothie.

 

The honeybees that were in our orchard last month are now on the raspberries…working their magic. 

May and June.  Soft syllables, gentle names for the two best months in the garden year: cool, misty mornings gently burned away with a warming spring sun, followed by breezy afternoons and chilly nights.  …it’s time for work to begin.                     - Peter Loewer

I officially kicked the kittens outside, food, water and even their litter box.  They seem to only be capable of naughtiness!

That black one is so hard to photograph – he’s so black!