Autumn with its golden sunlight,  beautiful colors on the trees, crisp mornings and nights and harvest from the trees and the gardens.

Zinnias are starting to protest the change in temperature. The goats are getting their thick winter fur.

 I'm closing up the windows of the chicken houses and giving them fresh bedding.

Firewood is again on the wood cart and Lily has taken up her position on the pillow beside the wood stove.

Soccer is in full swing and I am so happy to be cheering loud for my girls. Keeping them stocked up on bandages and ankle braces.

I love this time of year. ..besides the rain. 😉

Handmade for Christmas

 I thought handmade for Christmas was pretty much over for me giving to my kids except for quilts etc because the youngest is 14. I couldnt come up with anything to make. This year was a surprise and I enjoyed it! I did make the quilt above and gave it to my son, but it was still a fun quilt to make and he seems to like it. I designed a fox apron for my 22 year old daughter Aliss. It was fun to do. It will be getting a tweaking of an apron pocket and longer straps. I think I have made children sized things for too long and gave her short waist straps.

On Christmas morning my family opened paint smocks, quilt, French Press Cozie and a fox apron. It was wonderful to see them opening things that I dreamed up and crafted from flat pieces of fabric into things they will love.

Next was designing patchwork French Press Coffee cozies. So many choices to put together. I gave one of these to my 25 year old daughter Tessa and sold a few at a Christmas Bazaar.

I came up with a few new designs for lissilulu this year too. The Mercy Bear above was crafted out of a love for a dear friends one year old daughters 1st birthday. Her name is Mercy. She isnt a teddy so I named her after Mercy. <3 p="">I made and sold quite a few Mercy Bears and loved each of them.

Giddy-Up pillows headed out the door to other homes, along with Essential Oil Cases, quilts and a Mermaid tail snugglie that was plain ole amazing to have made. Sometimes our creations arent what we dreamed up and sometimes they exceed our dreams...this was one of the latter.

 I hope you had someone to share Christmas with and are safe and loved as we start this new year.

A year?

Last post I was saying goodbye to our sweet dog Skipper. I kept meaning to journal and turn around and it's nearly been a year.

Time surely does fly my friends...I hope you are still here. ;) I bought a new phone that can log in here without issues and can take great photos without the hassle of tons of editing.

So much has happened on Freckled Farm this year and with lissilulu picking back up.

I designed a new bear who is named after a sweet little girl in my life : Mercy Bear.
Also a mermaid snugglie blanket, french press cozies and essential oil cases.

I'm so thankful for a creative outlet that also earns extra income for my family. The look on people's faces when they get their order is worth the time it takes to make it.

Thank you for following lissilulu on instagram and on Facebook.

Can't wait to come back to what I love. So here goes!

goodbye sweet Skipper

Skipper came into our lives in late March of 2014. Sophie had been bugging and bugging me for months to let her get her own dog. Mostly she wanted a smallish girl dog.
She had saved up her money until she has around $70. It was almost her birthday so I gave in and we decided to visits PAWS.

She walked through all of the area where dogs came once a week for adoption day. Then the volunteer brought her to a cage of a Jack Russell. I immediately thought oh no, we don't want him.

The little guy sat right up and looked right into our hearts with those sweet brown eyes. Sophie decided that even though he is a boy that she would take him for a walk and see how he behaved. He was a sweetheart. The volunteer said that he had been raised by an elderly person who gave him up because he didn't get enough attention. He was 9 years old. That means we don't know how much longer he has.

Sophie chose Skipper for her own.

It was so weird driving home with this little dog in the back seat that felt like a stranger.

When we got home our yellow lab Daisy and Yorkiepoo Lily didnt know what to think. He felt like someone else's dog visiting for a long time. I don't remember when he started feeling like family, but he sure did become our family.

(1st day in his new home with his momma)

Almost two years passed by so quickly. I don't know when I forgot to remember that he wouldn't be with us a long time because of his age. He just became a part of our every day. His bark would greet us at the door when we came home. Actually, we could hear it from the second we opened our car door out in the driveway and could see him bouncing up again and again in the glass door.

He followed me from room to room. No matter if he just settled in and I got up already to check something in the kitchen, he was there. The time went too quickly with this sweet live-wired dog.

My heart broke in a way that hasn't happened with past loved animals when we took him to be put to sleep. All I can reason is that the other loved ones were ready and Skipper wasn't. Even though his legs didn't want to work anymore, his mind was fully alert. He was really one in a million boy.

I still expect to see him running alongside me in the grass as the edge of the road as I walk...or peeking around the door-frame from the dining room into the kitchen when I am cooking...I especially still miss his barking...for everything. Even make a small movement toward the pocket doors to go outside and he was ready.

Forever in our hearts Good Boy. We love you Skipper,

farm sparkles

i couldnt pass up taking my camera with me during morning chores to capture some of the sparkle. it was like being in a big glitter ball. my favorite place was the pasture (of course!) though...the grasses looked like waves in the ocean with white caps on them and the sun shown amber through them.
beautiful.

love the sound of crunching under my boots and seeing my breath in the air. dont love so much the breaking off of an ice layer in the chickens bucket and bringing in the rabbits water bottles to thaw every morning...but I can live with it. especially since i only have morning chores one week out of the month. so nice to have daughters home in the morning and i am loving it. i will have many years ahead of me that i do morning chores every day when the rest of my babies grow up and fly the nest.

hope you are enjoying this Christmas season.

on again ... off again

Phew the weather has been insane this November so far. Sunny days, cold nights, sideways rain...

Kinda hard to plan ahead to do outdoor things around this farm. 

So far I have: 

• harvested, separated and planted garlic
• shoveled yucky, nasty chicken poop
• cleaned nesting boxes and refilled with shavings--fluffed those nests real good!
• harvested Sugar Pumpkins
• harvested what I think are Long Pie Pumpkins
• harvested and saved seed from 2 kinds of Pole Beans, both heirloom varieties
• harvested and saved seed from peas, beautiful purple bloom heirloom variety

there isn't enough time in the day I tell ya!

I bartered a t-shirt quilt for some firewood. It was an interesting process. :) 

I hope the recipient loves it! His mom seems to.

In the near future I need to:
finish apples for sauce and freezing chunks for pies and knobby cakes this winter
make a pattern for an essential oil zip case
get the front hall closet painted! procrastination is horrible or maybe I have too many projects going?

I seem to have this on and off switch that comes and goes with the gray skies. I am hoping that getting my B vitamins going again helps with that. Seems to already. I look forward to getting some of my Pinterest projects going for Christmas presents.