I saw a BUCK in our coulee!!! And here are the pictures!!

Yesterday, I was on the phone with a potential customer when our signal went in and out.  I walked to the front doors to get better reception and to my shock, there, about 20 yards in front of the house in our coulee (it's what they call natural land draws here), was this beautiful buck!!!  We've spotted lots of deer tracks, but we have only witnessed the deer on a few occasions on our land.  But this was the first time I've seen a buck on our land! Scott unfortunately was at work, but I snapped the first few pictures from our front window and the last ones are when I was outside.  I literally got off the phone, (mind you I was in a pink t-shirt!!) and ran outside to get his picture.  As soon as he spotted me, he took off in the other direction.  I guess I really don't blame you... having some crazed person in a not-so-camouflaged pink shirt running at you with an unknown object pointed directly at you, I think I'd run away too!!

Well here you go!  Like I mentioned, the first 2 pictures are from inside the house.  The others from outside. And I have to say, I think the last picture is my favorite!! 

If you click on the first picture you can scroll through them all.  Enjoy!!

Our FIRST Wyoming Thanksgiving!

Hi everyone!  Well today is a new day and a start to a new week, specifically Thanksgiving week.  This will be our first Thanksgiving in Wyoming!!  And boy do we have so much to be thankful for! 

First some updates from the last week or so.  We are very warm and cozy here!  It finally warmed up a bit here and was in the 30s and 40s over the weekend.  Saturday we didn’t even start our wood stove up till about 4pm!!  And the only reason we did that was because we wanted to cook dinner and heat water up to wash some dishes.  We somehow managed to misplace our temperature gauge (or maybe I can blame this one on the cats!! Haha), so I don’t know exactly what the temperature was inside, but I’d guess about mid 60s which was very comfortable for us!  The insulation is doing so well!!  We couldn’t be more pleased with the investment we made in it. 

Last week was Scott’s first of work!  He really enjoys it.  He works in the parts department at our local John Deere dealership.  He said most of his day is stocking the shelves with new products, filling orders for farmers and for their mechanics/repair guys too. They also worked on inventory and sending out parts as well.  The best part to me is that when he comes home from work he isn’t exhausted tired like he was working concrete.  Before, he would come home, have just enough energy to eat dinner, then he’d go straight to bed.  That’s why I got in a funky routine of staying up so late because he’d be asleep really early (like 6pm sometimes!).  I guess that’s one thing I’m thankful for this week – Scott having a job that he enjoys and that isn’t so taxing on his body. 

And his work place has been so nice to him.  The store manager came in and told him one day that he needed to wear a John Deere hat to work (he was wearing a DeKalb (not sure if that’s the correct spelling) hat that my dad gave him).  So they told him to go pick out any hat from the store!!  Then, as they were doing inventory, they had left over 2013 John Deere collectible ornaments left and they also gave him one of those.  Also, I guess with employment, each year each of the employees gets a $200 allowance for purchasing company clothing that they where to work.  They said their budget allows for Scott to get $200 for 2014 and come January he’ll get another $200 allowance!  They sell anything from polo shirts, button down shirts, fleece jackets, durable vests, and even coats too.  And they are allowed to wear jeans and work boots to work too.  Scott’s been wearing jeans and he’s taken over my Danner work boots! (Yes! I have huge feet and he and I are the same size… I have to say it’s been nice because we can share shoes most of the time!)

Last week was a major change of pace for me!  It was the first week in a year that Scott was away working and not at home with me!  It was a nice change of pace though because I feel like I get way more accomplished on my own time.  When he’s here (and we aren’t building on the house), it’s easier just to relax, to hang out together, and lately that means curling up on the couch with a nice fire going watching Little House on the Prairie! But now I’m in a new routine.  In an effort to keep our house clean and organized (more so than I did in OH!!), I vacuum every other day, and on the off days I do the dishes (a chore all in itself!!).  Then each day I straighten up, and keep things pretty well organized. 

I’m also thrilled to have more time to sew!!  Last week I listed 3 new horsemanship shirts and a new vest.  One of the horsemanship shirts sold yesterday (yeah!!) and I’m working on some beautiful custom pieces over the next couple of months. 

If any of you follow the blog and want to see my latest creations, please check out my Pinterest board at this link

Or my KLS Designs photo albums here.  The photo album puts the latest pictures at the very bottom, so if you use Pinterest, that’s the best way to look as the most recent creations are at the top.

Also, another update for you –last week/weekend we received the new ‘topper’ for our wood stove.  It honestly looks like something from a UFO but it works wonders!!  Basically it’s a series of partial tubes, one smaller one inside a larger one.  This prevents too much air flow into the pipe which is the main cause of why we were smoked out a few times.  It works so well, that even today, when it’s quite windy out, I had no issues at all lighting the fire.

On Sunday we went into Cody to run some errands and we drove the Bronco!! If you didn’t read about it before, our neighbor boy sold his ’92 Ford Bronco to us.  Our main purpose is to have a backup vehicle with 4 wheel drive for Scott to drive to work.  We now have 3 vehicles  - the Chevy Impala, the Bronco, and Scott’s ’66 Ford Truck.  However I can’t drive his Ford truck – there are some ‘quirks’ to it and I’d just rather have Scott drive it.  So having the Bronco is also a backup for me so I have something to drive to town or to the mailbox. (Our mailbox is 2 miles from the house.  I may walk it come spring time, but right now I’d rather drive!)  Well, anyhow, it drove great for us!  But it’s got a rather large gas tank on it, which is good and bad, but boy was it expensive to fill up!! Gas here, yesterday, was $2.96/gallon when paying cash.

With it being Thanksgiving week I’d like to share some things that I’m especially thankful for!  This is our first Thanksgiving here in Wyoming and although we will miss our typical OH family Thanksgivings, we are excited to start new traditions here!  We have been invited to our neighbors for Thanksgiving!!  And I’d like to say that no matter where we’ve lived we’ve been so thankful for neighbors – and I have to say quite lucky because we’ve always had the best!!  Back in OH as I was growing up we had the best neighbors you could ask for – Ted and Mary Hickman!!!  Then when I lived with Scott, on either side of us we have wonderful neighbors – the Willis’s and the Reeds!! Now out here in WY, even though neighbors are scattered further apart, we still have so many we are thankful for – Gordy and Lori, Fred and Lisa, Joe and Helen, and Rich, Jackie, and Brian. 

We have something else we are particularly thankful for right now.  In a month or so, I’ll elaborate more, but it’s VERY exciting news.  I just don’t want to get ahead of myself yet, but I promise I’ll share with you all very soon!

I want to wish you all a Happy Thanksgiving!!  We wish we could see our friends and family back in Ohio, but know that we will be spending it with our new family in Wyoming and we couldn’t be more thankful this year!

House Update - How it's holding up to the cold!

We are in full blown winter here in Clark, Wyoming!  It’s crazy because last week it was in the 50s and 60s here and now with this cold front, we have had a low of -18 and no higher than 9 degrees!  I admit, I didn’t know what we were getting into, winter wise, when we moved out here, but this huge drop in temperatures is not what I expected! 

But I want to give you all an update on inside temperatures and how our insulation is holding up.  Like I said above, the temperatures this week have ranged from -18 to 9 degrees but mostly closer to 0 for a high on a few days.  We do have some snow, but it’s just a slight coverage, nothing much really. 

Our house has done really well for us!  The lowest it has gotten overnight when the wood stove isn’t being used is 55 degrees.  Yeah, we wake up, all cozy and cuddly under the covers and I admit, 55 is chilly!  But if that’s the low, that’s doable!  During the day we have had to use the wood stove anywhere from 2 to 3 times using no more than 1 full pack of 6 wood bricks plus our kindling.  In the mornings, it takes just 10 min or less and we are warmed up to 60 degrees.  Now it takes about 30 minutes to an hour for the whole house to be warmed up.  Last night we were in shorts and t-shirts in here while in our bare feet because it was 77 degrees!!

We are very comfortable and have no worries!  I don’t remember if I wrote this before, but we cut up a bunch of our wood pallets to use at kindling. The pallets were free and we wanted to be sure we had something to get us started!  We also have a bunch of left over 1x4’s (16’ long) that if we have to, we will use those to keep us warm too.  And, we still have the bracing on the walls from when we first put the walls up.  Again, if we have to, we’ll use those to burn too!  Sometimes you do what you have to do.

The last 2 days, while it has been the coldest, we ventured out to stock up on essentials.  We got a Costco membership (the greatest place on Earth as Nate would say!!) and stocked up on things like bottled water, paper towels, toilet paper, some food for Scott to pack in his lunch, 2 large cast iron skillets, 2 small cast iron skillets that came with cookie mixes….. and more!  Then yesterday we had to go to Cody to get the title transferred over on the Bronco so we went to Walmart and stocked up on cat supplies – 3 tubs of kitty litter, 4 bags of cat food, lots of cat treats and even some catnip!  Plus since I didn’t get a lot of canned goods at Costco, I got a bunch of canned chili, some fruit and vegetables, plus what I really wanted was a box of powdered milk!  That may sound weird, but powdered milk works great for baking, things like pancakes.  Well milk (and eggs as I have found out the last few days) freezes all too well in these cold temperatures so I needed an alternative.  For the eggs, we’re going to freeze bottles of water then bring in the small cooler inside to keep the eggs cold. 

The good thing about the cold weather is all the rest of my food stays perfectly cold (and frozen) just outside the door in the cooler!!  That means fewer trips to the neighbors to use their refrigerator.

We’ve had several phone calls and texts this week of our friends and family checking on us to be sure we’re ok!  I guess the news showed that Billings was something crazy like -28 degrees!!!  I think it’s because of the dry air, but even if it was that cold here, it really didn’t feel like it.  It wasn’t difficult to breather out in the cold and I hate to admit this, but even when Scott and I ventured out, neither of us wore a winter coat!!  He wore a flannel shirt with a fleece lined vest over top while I wore a sweatshirt with a light jacket and a fuzzy lined bomber hat and gloves.  Neither of us have been good at wearing winter coats, but I guess we’ll have to start!!

Even with everything, we have so much to be thankful for!  Just past our house (2 properties past us) there are 3 campers and lots of vehicles, plus now an outhouse.  They have no electricity at all and we don’t even think they have a generator!  I don’t know how they are doing it but it appears they are trying to live in their campers even in this cold!!  It just makes me so thankful that we are not in the cargo trailer right now!  That first month that we lived in the cargo trailer, there was a few days where we had snow and it was really cold (I think in early May).  I remember that it got down in the 20s and we had absolutely no heat source then!!  I’m just so thankful to be in our house, I’m thankful for our wood stove, and I’m so thankful for our wonderful neighbors who have been looking out for us too!  Our neighbor boy Brian even brought us some wood that he cut up because he and his family wanted to be sure we were plenty warm!

On a completely different subject, Scott’s big day, his first day of work, is now Monday (instead of Friday). They just called and said his boss isn’t working on Friday after all so he won’t go in till Monday (no problem!).  We are both getting excited for him to start work! He’s getting excited to start earning a paycheck again and getting the opportunity to work in a new industry (agriculture and tractor/parts sales).  I, on the other hand, and looking forward to getting him out of the house!!!  Yes, I have very much enjoyed our time together, day in and day out, but I have to admit, I get a lot more work done when he’s not here!! 

I hope you all stay warm this week!!  Have a great weekend!

Baby it's cold outside!

Baby it’s cold outside!!  Just last week we had the most perfect fall days, and as of this morning it feels like winter already!!  This morning we woke up and it was 55 degrees in the house (just a little chilly!) but that didn’t compare to the 14 degrees it was outside, plus the windchill!!  And when we woke up this morning, there was a little snow on the ground!  Our first snow of the season!

There are no complaints here! I actually love this time of the year, the beautiful snow, cuddling up in bed every night, and knowing that Christmas is right around the corner.  The best part! We still don’t have any ‘normal’ kitchen appliances (just a propane camp cook stove) but with the cold weather, now we don’t need to worry about a refrigerator!! See, there is always a silver lining!!

Yesterday, in preparations for this cold snap, we did a lot of preparing!  We had lots of wood pallets and we were running low on kindling.  Scott cut up the wood pallets and brought all the pieces into the house.  While he was doing that, I was working inside – vacuuming, using up all our water to fill up our ‘faucet bucket’, wash all our dishes, fill up the toilet tank and clean the toilet, and even clean a little too.  Since we knew it was going to get cold, we wanted to have all our buckets full, so yesterday afternoon we filled them all up!  Scott even found a few extra buckets so now we have 10 total to fill with water. 

I’m perfectly happy not having full electric, not having running water and not having a kitchen, but honestly I’m not exactly looking forward to filling up the water buckets this winter… it’s going to be cold!!  But we’ll be so thankful someday soon when we finally have running water.

You may be wondering why we don’t have running water yet or electricity – well it’s because of several things.  Basically it comes down to money….  We spent everything we had on getting under roof.  Now we could easily go into debt to get the things we need, but the whole point of us moving out here was to not have a mortgage and not owe any money for anything  (still working on this as we have a few bills to pay on, but we have made big progress toward this goal!!).  Because of this, we don’t want to go further into debt for our water and electric.  But no need to worry about us! We have so much to be thankful for – the little bit of electricity we do have, a nice warm wood stove to keep us cozy all winter, and each other!! 

We also haven’t sold our house yet in OH.  There has been an increase of interest lately, but no more offers.  This is something we are really praying about as it would be a really wonderful blessing to have our OH house sell.  Right now we are just waiting on that right person to come along and fall in love with it just as we have!

I hope you all have a warmer week than we are having!!  But I’ll keep you posted on how much wood we use, how often we need to us out wood stove, and how cold it gets inside and outside.  So far our insulation is really helping!!

Scott got a job and now works for _______!!!

For the last month he's been looking up places to work, newspaper ads, online ads, etc.  There were 2 that interested him.  The first is with Georgia Pacific in Lovell (an hour and 15 min drive, one way in good weather!).  He had an interview with them and they have some really crazy hours - 12 hr days, one week of days, one week of nights, working 7 days a week and then every so often there is a full week off.  To say that he wasn't thrilled about this is an understatement!  Luckily they chose not to hire him for this position.

Shortly after he applied at GP he also applied at Park County Implement in Powell, WY which is our closest town to us at about a 30 min drive.  I helped with his resume and cover letter, we submitted them, but never heard back.  The same day he had his GP interview, I told him to stop in, introduce himself, and just ask to follow up on his application.  They then gave him a paper application to fill out.  After his GP interview, we stopped back at Park County Implement for him to turn in his application.  I was sitting in the car waiting on him and an hour later he comes out!! They gave him an impromptu interview!!  The Store Manager and the Parts Manager interviewed him. 

Scott said they told him in the interview that he would get a second interview! 2 days later they called and had him scheduled for his second interview the very next day (Thursday).  I went along with him but had him drop me off next door at a store (kind of like a mini Walmart store - they had a little of everything but not much of anything).  About 45 min later he comes in and won't give me direct eye contact and his cheeks are red.... I'm thinking the worst that he doesn't want to tell me in public that they didn't want to hire him.  But he says, Let's walk around, I've never been in here before.  So we start walking and I'm trying to figure out how it went while he's stonewalling me!! 

Finally we get to the kitchen appliances area and he wants to look at coffee makers.  He finds one he likes all while I'm thinking, we don't have the money for it!!  But he finally looks at me and says, 'I'll need this for my new JOB!!!'

I let out a scream of joy and couldn't stop hugging him!!

Here are the 2 best parts of this job.  First, in our area (very rural, country farm area), I told him not to wear typical business attire - no Dockers, no Tie, no dress shoes.  Instead I had him wear a nice plaid button down shirt, tucked into khaki colored jeans, a brown belt and his pair of brown cowboy boots.

The next best part is that the Park County Implement store is actually a John Deere dealer!!! Yes, I can't believe I'm admitting it, but Scott works for a John Deere dealer!!  If you don't know me that well, you should know that I come from a farming family - strictly a Case IH or red tractor family.  In his interview, they asked him why he would want to work for John Deere.  His response was something along the lines of, '(chuckle) Well, my father-in-law is a farmer and is only a Case IH/red tractor guy. Let's just say it would be interesting to tell him I work for John Deere!!'  And both of the guys interviewing him started to laugh!! 

We are still waiting to hear his start date, but they said it should be in the next week or so.  He has to fill out his pre-employment paperwork and get his John Deere work shirts.  But I'm so excited for him and so very proud of him!!!  I have been telling him for years all he needed to do is meet face-to-face with the hiring manager and they'd like him. 

And for any of you wondering, I have called my dad and have broke the news to him!  I can tell he's really excited for Scott too (no that's not sarcasm) but to be sure dad's friends could joke about it, I had to call Ron Fritz and tell him too:)  Ron is a good friend of my dads and he is a John Deere man.  Now he and his other John Deere friend George can poke fun with my dad about it!!

I just can't explain to you all just how proud I am of Scott!!!