Last Week in Photos

Nathan has been out of town for two weeks and it's been tough without him. One attempt at cooking without him around proved to be disastrous. I was pan frying pork chops when a small grease fire erupted and without thinking I tried to toss the pan onto a different burner. In the process a wave of hot grease washed across the top of my hand. The pain was intense but in the end I just burned the tip of my index finger. I've kept some over the counter burn creme on it but I'm afraid that scarring is inevitable. It hurts to take notes in class as I write with my right hand and holding the pen is difficult. So now I have a blue finger



On the upside, after months of waiting for curtains I had ordered for the living room then finding out that my order was canceled and the fabric no longer exists, I managed to find a new fabric that works. I was a little worried about buying fabric online but this was a great experience. I admit I did not sew the hem but rather used "no-sew", a brand of double sided fabric tape that glues hems together. It worked great and now I have fabulous new curtains that match my living room. Thanks to my sisters and mom for helping me out!


The palm tree in the corner is for a luau party a neighbor and I are hosting next month.


a close up of this wonderful taffeta fabric




Another good thing from last week is that I finally have roses in my house again! They are growing like gangbusters out front. I've decided to leave them behind when we move and purchase a more pot friendly rose that we can move around with us from a wonderful website my mother-in-law showed me called Jackson Perkins. Here is the link... http://www.jacksonandperkins.com
Meanwhile I've got blooms to tend to right outside my front door which makes me so happy!







And finally one of our dogs Nacona.. enjoying a nap :) What a goof!

The Garden Rundown

After FINALLY getting a house here Nathan and I had our work cut out for us. The sidewalk leading up to our door was lined with overgrown holly bushes as well as another very large holly bush next to the front door. I hate holly bushes and their sharp edges. They had to die. I was happy to discover several rose bushes buried underneath the horrid bushes trying to survive. I also discovered an interesting looking plant that I decided to pot and see what bloomed.

The rose bushes thrived all summer, they were happy to be free of the holly horror. We have since acquired several other plants from neighbors moving, a hibiscus and three miniature rose bushes which I planted between the large rose bushes. The mystery plant I discovered and potted turned out to be orange Gerber Daisies.



One plant in particular bares a special meaning for Nathan and I. When Nathan's mother was married she received a cutting from her mother's Angelwing Begonia. That was over 30 years ago. The Begonia's are beautiful and hardy and after our wedding Nathan's mother gave us our own cutting. It has been a special addition to our tiny house.


It blooms the prettiest little pink flowers




Last year we had some problems with rose disease and Nathan thought perhaps cutting them all down would solve the issue. I was horrified when I came home to this...




My roses were all but gone!

At this time it was still getting down to the low 30's at night and I was sure they wouldn't survive, Nathan even seemed a little concerned.

Spring is finally here and I'm happy to report that my beloved rose bushes that Nathan hacked away in March have made an impressive comeback.



A bloom already!


Our front entrance.. complete with attack dogs waiting at the door

A typical weekend at mom and dad Hoyt's

We spent this weekend with Nathan's folks in Baton Rouge. It is about 3.5 hours from our place, so it isn't too bad of a drive. Nathan drives down every six weeks or so to trim our horse's feet as well as those of his parents' two horses. This time I decided to join him. There is always work to be done and Nathan enjoys the opportunity to help his dad with whatever project he is up to that weekend, and he's ALWAYS up to something. BTW, for those of you who don't know, both of Nathan's parents are veterinarians. Nathan's father is an instructor at LSU's vet school. Through his connections at work, he has created a side enterprise to keep us all supplied with beef. While working, he occasionally comes across a calf that costs more to fix than the calf is worth, unless the owner "happens" to be able to do their own vet work. Phil (Nathan's dad) acquires these sorry souls for free or very cheap and packs them back to his place. He then patches them back together, gives them an appropriate moniker (Pegleg, Wobble Butt, Butterball, Squeaky, Parrot-mouth, etc) and fattens them up for his freezer. The process of feeding a calf is an exact science/art I may never understand, but the results are fabulous. Nathan's folks have essentially created their own mini-feedlot by providing a refuge of hope and solace for the deformed, crippled and blind. As the flow of cattle that satisfy Phil's exacting specifications are quite erratic, he will sometimes have one calf and other times two or three. To accommodate these fluxes of production, they have two 6 foot long chest freezers to house their "graduates".

This weekend we were able to help out with the newest acquired calf. Phil got this one for real cheap because she is blind in both eyes and unable to tolerate a true feedlot environment. He snatched her up and brought her home with the plan of calming her down by making her into a "bucket baby", meaning a cow that feeds right out of the bucket from your hands. Unfortunately, she did not read the "calm down" chapter of the "How to be a Cow" book and is agitated by anything that she hears, feels, sees(faintly) or smells. Due to this, she psychotically paces whenever she is riled up and burns off all the fat Phil is trying to get her to create. If he doesn't figure out how to calm her down, he is afraid she will taste like jackrabbit. So, they decided to buddy her up with the other calf they have. To accomplish this, we had to orchestrate the movement of her and her pen from one pasture to the other. It was decided to transport her via the horse trailer because herding a blind calf is misery incarnate. Phil and Nathan slowly downsized her pen until she was right behind the trailer opening, forcing her to go inside.






It was almost a train-wreck. Nathan commented that if she had got out, we would have had to shoot her to catch her. He didn't seem to be kidding. After she was loaded into the trailer we got to work relocating her pen.





We herded the other Angus calf into the new pen to be her new buddy and hopefully calm her down a bit.





When the trailer door was opened, she was out like a shot into the new pen. She was pretty nervous, but having a buddy around eventually calmed her down.



Another exciting weekend at Nathan's folks. I was happy to help and I got to hop on the back of the tracker to ride back to the barn, which is always a treat.



Most of this was written by Katy, meaning myself, however for those of you who know Nathan well you can see he has "sprinkled" his irreverant humor throughout. Hope you enjoyed this blog

The recent wedding and merging of two houses has benefited Nathan and I. We now have Sarah's old living room set and the two lawn chairs have officially been removed to the garage. Other new additions include two batiks painted by my talented mother while she was an art student. She gave them to me about 2 years ago and I've finally gotten around to having the fabric stretched onto boards and properly framed. They are hanging in our bedroom and match perfectly. Thank you so much mom.

Vega is enjoying the old couch before it gets hauled away




Here is our old living room





The new living room









Mom's Batiks