Sell by 04-30-93

I just did the math and realized had I waited a few more months to purge the kitchen,

these parsley flakes would have lived to celebrate their 25th anniversary. Oh, well.

Kipper's guess of 10/2/1992 came the closest. Thanks, everyone, for playing along.

Kipper, email me at the7msn at gmail dot com with your mailing address.

Dishcloths and scrubbies

I took a break from crocheting pillows and went back to dishcloths for awhile,

trying to decide on something fun to make next that wasn't a pillow.

But then I discovered scrubby yarn and got distracted.

Scrubby yarn is not for sissies, unless said sissy has better than 20/20 vision.

Lordy, this stuff can be hard to work with. 

I happened upon a tip sheet before starting my first scrubby, which suggested

pairing it with cotton yarn so that you could see the stitches. Totally works.

My first attempts have passed the get-the-dried-egg-off-the-dish test,

so I'll bundle a couple of these with a couple of almost-color-coordinated dishcloths

as the prize for the guess-the-expiration-date-on-the-parsley-flakes contest

announced yesterday. A run-on sentence with 15 hyphens. That may be a record for me. 

Submit your guess in the comments of yesterday's post by 7 mountain time tonight

if you want to play along.

As for the post-pillow, next big crochet project, there is a blanket in the works:

I'm using the same stitch that I use for the dishcloths and scrubbies, except on a much larger scale.

Video leftovers

Before we get to the leftovers, let's have our random drawing 

to see who wins a crocheted pillow cover. 

Whoo-hoo! Please email me at the7msn at gmail dot com so we can talk about colors.

Hank's homecoming

The big guy came home yesterday, and he seems totally back to his normal goofy self.

In honor of his homecoming and to thank you all for your unending support, let's have a giveaway.

Whomever comes the closest to guessing the amount of his vet bill gets to pay it. Kidding!

Leave a comment with your best guess. The one who comes closest wins a canvas print 

of the photo of your choice from this blog. One guess per person, please, and be sure to include 

your name if you sign in anonymously. The guessing game closes Friday at 5 p.m. Mountain time.

The winner will be announced Saturday morning.

Saturday encore ~ The chickens lose their porch privileges

Before we get to today's encore post, let's pick a winner in the Bainbridge Farm Goods white board giveaway. 

Congratulations, Winner! Contact me at the7msn at gmail dot come so you can claim your prize!

 ***

At this time last year, I was posting vermin stories left and right. This year? Not a single mouse or rat story to tell. 

JohnnyCashCat has made them all disappear. So for those of you who miss dead vermin stories, this encore is for you.

 ***

It was Tuesday morning around ten o'clock. As usual, I was in my office, working my way through all of the jobs 

due by the end of the day. There was a loud knock peck at the office door. It was Eugenia.

Eugenia: Look what I brought you, mom!

Me: Are you freakin' kidding me?? You know I'll have to stop what I'm doing, get the camera,

and take pictures for the folks at home. They will be totally grossed out, and it will be all your fault.

Eugenia: So be it. I'm tired of those damned donkeys getting all the attention.

Smooch: Mom, Eugenia is playing with a dead mouse.

Me: I'm well aware of that. Please stop pressing your nose against the glass. It's dirty enough.

Minnie saw how much fun Eugenia was having and wanted a piece of the action...literally.

So did Clara.

Me: Can't you girls find someplace else to play?

Eugenia: The expansion seam in the concrete makes a good goal line – helps us keep score.

Eugenia: Whoo-hoo! Another point for me!

Me: How can I get any work done with you two playing mouseball on the porch? 

Me: Take that thing into the outfield and don't come back.

Me: Your porch privileges are officially suspended.

Life's better at the barn

Life's definitely better at the barn, especially on windy spring days.
Rather than get sandblasted, the herd will huddle there for hours, 

and I will join them because it's my favorite place to be.

I wonder if they know how much they're loved?

Me: Don't you two be goin' all bad-ass on me now. 

 So much for those tender-moment photos.

 Sigh...I could look at Handsome Hank all day.

 

Yes, and you, too, Miss Lucy.

I've shown you this picture of Lucy with my favorite sign before.

The sign came from Bainbridge Farm Goods, purveyor of more adorable barn, 

farm, animal, and garden signs than you can imagine. The good folks there have come out with 

a new product and are sponsoring a giveaway for one of them, right here and right now!

Check out these white boards for your barn:

 

If your donkey, mule or horse (or child or grandchild) would like to have one of these hanging 

on the front of his or her stall (or bedroom), leave a comment on this post by 7 p.m. Mountain time on Friday. 

I'll do a random drawing and announce the winner Saturday morning.

Thank you, Bainbridge Farm Goods, for sponsoring this giveaway and providing me with a title for this post.

A giveaway to help you get ready for the new year

Because I was in a chocolate-induced stupor yesterday and never got around to preparing a post for today, 

and because I have two 2014 7MSN Ranch calendars left on my shelf, let's have a giveaway. 

Leave your answer to this question in the comments by 8 a.m. Mountain time Friday morning:

What did you eat for Christmas dinner?

Two winners will be selected at random, and I will mail you a calendar on Saturday.

p.s. I had pork tenderloin and roasted brussels sprouts and chocolate...too much chocolate.

Let's put words in their mouths

Lucy is half listening to what her brothers are saying behind her back but doesn't seem to care.

What are George and Alan saying? I stared at this picture last night for an hour and couldn't figure it out. Maybe you can. 

Bragging rights and a set of crocheted dish cloths goes to the commenter who submits the funniest conversation.

Contest closes at 7 pm Mountain time on Wednesday.

What makes us happy?

To enter the "All Eyes are On You" contest, I asked you to tell us something that made you happy last week. When I summarized your comments and plugged them into one of those tag cloud things, here's what popped up:

Generally speaking, we're a bunch of really happy animal- and family-loving souls who are smiling because it's spring and the weather's been great in almost every place except New Mexico. I truly loved reading your responses. Seems like we all find happiness in the little things, which really are the most important in the big picture.

Anyway, I plugged the number of entries into the all-powerful random number generator and here is the result:

Congratulations, happy 28th commenter Anne Boleyn!

I'm so envious that you were on Antiques Roadshow. Send me an email and we'll work out the details of your prize.

The "All Eyes are On You" Contest

1. Because Rosebud and Snapper were feeling excluded when Daffodil got her own post this week and I got to thinking that you all might be feeling excluded because I rarely reply to your individual comments, but I (and my parents) appreciate them more than you will ever know, and we even discuss them during our weekly phone call, and my mom keeps asking me who all these new readers are and I have to confess that I honestly don't know but they seem like such nice people.

2. Because I love stream-of-consciousness sentences.

3. Because it's almost spring, though you would never know it by the weather here yesterday when it snowed all damn day and the wind blew so hard that part of the freeway was closed because the blowing dust was too thick to drive through and when I learned about that, I e-mailed Justina so she wouldn't get stuck in traffic when she went home for lunch to feed the Boyz and Gracie because they would be so upset if she didn't show up to give them their hay and isn't it about time that we all got together for another donkey playdate?

4. Aren't you glad that I usually edit my thoughts when I write a post?

5. Because the new season of "Mad Men" starts on Sunday, March 25, which really makes me happy because Sundays haven't been the same since the second season of "Downton Abbey" ended and it's going to be something like nine more months until the third season starts and we get to meet Lady Mary's maternal grandmother Shirley MacLaine, who I don't think will stand a chance against Lady Violet because Maggie Smith is the best actress ever and the reason I want to be a Dowager Countess when I grow up, though I confess to never knowing what "dowager" meant until I googled it during season one.

6. Does it seem like I watch too much TV? I don't, really. But when I find a series I like, I get a little fixated.

7. Because Dave, husband of Peggy in Missouri who alerted me last July of a screaming deal on Groupon for a gallery-wrapped canvas print which subsequently became the prize in the "Getting to Know You" contest, alerted me to a screaming deal for another gallery-wrapped canvas print and it seemed only fitting to use it as the prize for this contest.

8. Because I ran out of stuff to blog about this week and I've been keeping this contest in my pocket to pull out for the next time I ran out of blog fodder.

So for all of those reasons, I am giving away a 16" x 20" gallery-wrapped photo canvas of the 7MSN image of your choice. Here's the deal:

Leave a comment on this post telling me and the other readers of this blog something that made you happy this week.

Lurkers, this is a another free pass to join the 7MSN community. I know you're out there. Don't be shy.

THE RULES

One entry per person. No entries after 7 pm Mountain time on Monday, March 12. Winner will be chosen at random and announced Tuesday morning. If you post your comment anonymously, please include your name or initials in the comment so I can identify you if you win.

THE PRIZE

A 16" x 20" gallery-wrapped canvas from CaféPress of your favorite photograph from this blog. If you don't have a favorite or have no inclination to go searching for one, which I totally understand, you can let me know your favorite 7MSN character and I will offer up several options from which to choose.

Good luck!

I couldn't have done it without you

Once I narrowed down a year's worth of photographs to 12, I was toast. There was no way I could pick one for the cover. That's where you came in. Thank you to everyone who weighed in. Your opinions matter here, and when you said things like:
...captures the essence of 7MSN
...imparts the sense of "seven miles south of nowhere"
...says it all without a face but rather the iconic image
...Hank IS the leader so he should 'lead' off the calendar
...it symbolizes the beauty of the choice you made many years ago...

Who could argue with all of that? Not me. So without further ado, here is the cover of the 2012 calendar:

And here is the link where you can purchase one. One calendar will cost you around $12.50 plus $4.00 shipping. Place your order between now and December 18 and you can save 15% by entering the code NINECAL at the checkout page.

But who cares about any of that? You all came back here today to see if you won one of these things.

There were 179 entries in the contest, and the all-powerful Random Integer Generator selected comment number 22 as the calendar winner.

And guess who commenter 22 is...

None other than Estella from Co., also known as Lucy's Before Mom!

I couldn't have rigged that if I tried.

Estella, a calendar will be working its way to you in the near future. You can skip right to January, February, September and November for close-ups of the best saddle donkey in the universe.

There will be a link at the bottom of this page through December if you'd like to preview or order the calendar.

The top 10 things I learned about you

Last Friday, I announced a little contest here. It was no big deal. I wasn't giving away a KitchenAid mixer, or a camera, or any one of a number of items I continue to try to win over on Pioneer Woman's blog. I was just giving away a canvas print of one of my photographs.
No. Big. Deal. The entry requirement was simple: tell me and the other readers of this blog something about yourself to help us get to know you.

Here is a list of the top 10 things I learned about you:

10. Y'all don't follow the rules. 99% of you wrote about me, then you mentioned something about yourselves. That was not part of the deal. I should disqualify each and every one of you. But I won't. Because you made me and my lurking parents very, very happy.

9. Invite the lurkers to say a few words and they do! I love my lurkers! I knew there were a few of you out there but, geez Louise, you are among the most regular readers of this blog! And I don't often use exclamation points! But, look! The lurkers have caused me to use six in just one paragraph!

8. The vast majority of you read this blog in the early morning, with a cup of coffee, and often in the company of kids, grandkids, or your own animals. The visual of all those eyes, sitting in front of all those computers, looking at pictures of my herd... I'm simply stunned. Please note that I'm not visualizing you in your pajamas. We don't know each other that well. Or maybe we do? I'll have to think about that.

7. Nobody from Rhode Island reads this blog...or will admit to it. What's up with that?

6. Some of you think I get up really early. I do get up early, but not that early. I'll let you in on a secret: I write each post in the evening, then schedule it to automatically appear at 4 a.m. Mountain time the next day. This habit started many moons ago when I found out that Pat from East Tennessee started her day by reading this blog at 6 a.m. Eastern time. I figured if Pat wanted to drink her coffee with the herd every morning, the least I could do was make sure there was a fresh post waiting for her when she woke up.

5. You still miss Deets and Lyle as much as I do.

4. A whole bunch of you have learned to love burros and donkeys because of this blog, and many of you want to some day rescue a burro or two for your own. My life is complete. Seriously.

3. If I know what's good for me, I will continue blogging forever. Which seems like a really long time. So I'd better not think of it in those terms. Let's just say that this blog will live to see another day because of you.

2. I wish I had the means to give every single one of you a prize to show you in some token way how much I value and appreciate your friendship.

1. My life was really good before I started blogging. You could even say it was picture-perfect.

But because of blogging and you, my life is even better. You fill the gap and complete the picture.

Now, let's see who the all-powerful Random Integer Generator selects as the winner of the getting-to-know-you contest.  Out of 218 entries, the number chosen is: 94.

Sandy said...

i am a 40+ stay at home mom from n.c. i read your blog everyday and live vicariously through you...my idol! no, really...you are a woman who wasn't afraid to follow her dream. i admire how you struck out on your own and acquired you own little nirvana. you know how to have fun and you know how to handle just about any emergency that comes along. your whole farmily is lucky to have you and so are we...(ok, is that enough sucking up to make me a winner? just kidding...we love you!)

7/29/11 9:53 AM

Sandy, e-mail me at the7msn at gmail dot com so we can work out the details.

The getting-to-know-you contest and giveaway

1. Because I never tell you enough how much I appreciate your comments.

2. Because the pasture is growing.

3. Because I haven't had a contest or giveaway here in who knows when.

4. Because the pasture is growing.

5. Because there are a whole bunch of new readers recently who I haven't met. Some of you leave comments and some of you don't (and that's totally cool and I get it and I appreciate you even though you choose to remain on the sidelines).

6. Because seven tenths of an inch of rain fell on the 7MSN this week.

7. Because the faithful readers of this blog are always looking out for me and sending me cool stuff. Like this jaw-dropping, freakin' amazing picture for which there is no background information, but that Sandra sent to me yesterday because she knew I had to see it. Holy moly, I wish I knew the story behind this.

8. Because it might rain again this weekend.

9. Because new reader Peggy directed me to a Groupon for a screaming deal on a gallery-wrapped photo canvas.

10. Because my hay supply might last a month or two longer because of this week's rain.

Yes, because of all of that, I am giving away a 16" x 20" gallery-wrapped photo canvas of the 7MSN image of your choice. Here's the deal:

TO ENTER

Leave a comment on this post telling me and the other readers of this blog something about yourself to help us get to know you.
For example:
– I read your blog in my pajamas while drinking a mug of herbal tea.
– I live in Estonia and don't understand a thing you say but George and Alan are cute.
– I am a vegetarian who happens to like pigs.
Lurkers, this is a free pass to join the 7MSN community. You know you want to. Come on. Don't be shy. We don't bite. Well, except for Clara. She can be a litte aggressive when she's hungry. But I promise to keep her away from you.

THE RULES

One entry per person. No entries after 7 pm Mountain time on Monday, August 1. Winner will be chosen at random and announced Tuesday morning. If you post your comment anonymously, please include your name or initials in the comment so I can identify you if you win.

THE PRIZE

A 16" x 20" gallery-wrapped canvas from CaféPress of your favorite photograph from this blog. If you don't have a favorite or have no inclination to go searching for one, which I totally understand, you can let me know your favorite 7MSN character and I will offer up several options from which to choose.

Good luck!

The longest hour ... and the winningest month

Hold me up, George. I'm so weak with hunger I'm about to pass out.

I know the clock says 4:00, but my stomach says it's 5:00.

Please, won't you feed us now? I'm begging you here.

I've never been so hungry in my whole life!

George: I can't HANDLE the stinkin' time change!

Me: Get over it. We've got an important announcement to make.




The winner of the 2011 George and Alan Calendar, as selected by Random Number Generator, is...

Congratulations, Cctxranch. Please email me your mailing address and a calendar will be on its way to you. And thanks, everybody, for playing along in the contest. The boys at the watering hole in August was the favorite picture of 19.2% of you, beating out the three amigos heading up the trail in April with 13.6%.

12 months with George and Alan

I was going to skip the whole burro calendar thing for 2011, but certain family members might disown me if they do not receive one in their Christmas stocking. (Hi, Mom and Dad!)   Last year, I had the calendars printed locally and fulfilled the orders myself. The price was right but the hassle factor was in the stratosphere, being that the post office is so far away and the one clerk and 20 people behind me in line cursed me every time I showed up. This year, I've taken the easy – but pricey – way out. If you really want to spend your hard-earned money on a George and Alan calendar, you can order one from Café Press here.  No pressure.  (I went this route for the 2009 calendar, and can vouch that the quality is excellent.) 

Here are the 12 photos that are included:

I'll keep a link to the Café Press site at the bottom of this page through the end of the year.

Meanwhile, let's have a contest and give one of these away.

TO ENTER

Just answer the following question in the Comments:
Which calendar picture is your favorite?

THE RULES

One entry per person. No entries after 7 pm Mountain time on Thursday.
Winner will be chosen at random and announced Friday morning. If you post your comment anonymously, please include your name or initials in the comment so I can identify you if you win.

THE PRIZE

A 2011 George and Alan Oversized Wall Calendar from Café Press

Good luck!

We have breakfast...and a winner

It was Sunday afternoon. I went outside to check on the chickens and found one of the girls sitting quietly in her nesting box. A quick toe check of the other girls helped me deduce that I might have Lorena to thank for Monday's breakfast.

I went back in the house to spy on her from the window, but that got old fast, and a watched hen never lays an egg anyway. So I headed out to the pasture with my camera to find the boys. Just as I spotted them, we all heard some serious squawking back at the house and headed that way.


When I opened the gate to the garden chicken yard, all three hens were walking around looking for bugs. I walked into the chicken tractor, hoping to find an egg in Lorena's nest. Alas, it was empty. But something caught my eye down on the ground.


And there is was, sitting next to the waterer. I scooped it up to admire it, then went to find Lorena.

Lori darlin', would you just look at this perfect egg? You are a star.

Clara was having none of it and strutted over to inspect the egg and bite my finger. She's the jealous type.


The official date and time of discovery is August 1 at 2:42 pm, which makes Gina the winner of the When will the chickens lay an egg contest. Her guess of August 1 at 10 am was the closest. Gina, e-mail me for the information to claim your $125 gift certificate at csn|stores.

The countdown begins

When will one of the chickens lay the inaugural 7MSN Ranch egg?

You don't have to guess which came first, the chicken or the egg –
(somebody just figured that out) (it was the chicken) –

You just have to guess which day and at what time I will find the first egg.
Guess correctly and you could win a $125 gift certificate to csn|stores, sponsor of this giveaway
and purveyor of the coolest muck boots I've seen in a long time.

Post processing: 1. Crop; 2. MCP's High Def Sharpening at 75% except on the striped cushion and gravel; 3. PW's Boost action at 42%; 4. PW's Quick Edge Burn at 35%; 5. Patch tool to remove sensor-dust specks in the sky.

Go here for all the details. The contest closes at 7 pm Mountain time tonight.