A Place Called Home

When Brent and I were home in Spooner, Wi about a week ago, we spent some time at our land with a few contractors going over our house plans. We are ready to break ground as soon as the weather breaks. I am soooo excited for this to happen I can hardly stand it!!!!!

Here is a view of where our house is going to be built. Our house will have a walk-out basement so our house will be built into this hill.

This will be the front yard and the view from the covered porch. Those are farmers fields in the distance between the trees....beautiful in the summer!!!

This will be the view from our bedroom...I am going to enjoy all that sunshine!!!

And this is the view from the walk-out basement and also the back yard. I can just visualize my garden back here...can't wait!!!! We have 40 acres of land here with lots of walking trails in the woods and a small apple orchard in the field, God has truly blessed us!!!!

We already have our kitchen designed and the cabinet maker hired. We ordered our appliances last week but put them on hold to arrive in July when the cabinet maker will be installing the cabinets. The appliances are stainless and our cabinets are going to be cherry.....I can't wait to see our gorgeous kitchen finished!!!!

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Today I am going to try to finish up some cleaning I started yesterday and then head to my sewing room and get some dolls finished up. I am going to Spooner next week to spend time with family and friends and also work at The Red Door Antique Mall. Rox, my girlfriend who also has a booth in the mall said I have sold some things and have some empty spots....music to my ears so I better get sewing so I can fill them up.

I have also been on the treadmill trying to get ready for the 5K my daughter signed me up for on May 1st. Its coming along pretty good. On am usually on the treadmill for 20 minutes and am up to a 3 minute run....pretty good considering I couldn't even run 1 minute when I started. And then after the treadmill, I do a exercise video called Turbo Jam for 20 minutes. It a slow process but I am sticking to it and will hope for the best :)

Hope everyone has a great day everyone and God Bless...Rhonda

Bunnies For Sale

BUNNIES FOR SALE....$30.00 each plus $7 shipping

Our vacation was over on Monday and now it is back to work for both of us. My husband has been hard at it out at the cranberry marsh and I have been sewing up a storm at home.

I am offering up for sale on my blog my black bunnies. If you are interested....please email me at goingretta@hotmail.com or leave me a comment and let me know and we can go from there.

These black bunny door dolls turned out so adorable. This is my own pattern and I am so pleased with how they turned out. One of the bunnies is holding a black bird....all ready for spring. And the other is holding a garland of Easter eggs. I put wire in their ears so you can bend their ears to suit your fancy. She is also wearing a pair of bloomers under her dress which you can kinda see in the picture.

The bunnies measures 24" tall...widest part of her body is 8" wide

These eggs have hand stitched flowers on them in green and cream.

A close up of her cute little face.

All dressed up and ready for Spring!!!!

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If you are interested in any of my work....please feel free to email me and I can give you measurements and prices.

On to the rest of what I have been working on

Here is a Raggedy Annie door doll with a large heart...pattern from Tennessee Ridge Primitives

Raggedy Annie with a bunny....pattern from Tennessee Ridge Primitives

These little gals are so adorable. This pattern is from Prims by Kim. They are just the right size to hang off a cupboard or use her as a tuck away.

This little gal has coffee stained cheese cloth around the top of her dress...I love this look!!!!

I painted one black for a different look, she is so sweet!!!!

A bunny with a Heirloom Weavers blanket....love it!!!!

Another bunny....pattern from Tennessee Ridge Primitives

I have made these little ornies before and LOVED them so decided to make more for Country Freckles.

I tried my hand at making an elephant....something different, another Heirloom Weavers blanket.

And last but not least....one of my wax dipped bunnies all ready for Easter.

Well...that's about it for now. We are still working hard on getting our house plans finalized, it is pretty exciting and I can't wait to break ground!!!! I will keep you all informed on our building journey....the good the bad and the ugly :)

God Bless You All....Rhonda

A Well Deserved 2 Weeks Vacation

The Life Of A Cranberry Grower

Brent has 2 weeks vacation coming and because he is a cranberry grower and spring, summer and fall are the busy times for cranberry growers he has to take his vacation in the winter when things slow down a bit. He decided he would take his vacation the first 2 weeks in February.....let the fun begin.

We spent the first week of vacation in Spooner, WI (our home town) taking the first steps toward building our new home. We are planning on breaking ground as soon as the weather breaks so we want to be ready!!!! I am sooooo excited for us to have our OWN home again. I miss having our own little sanctuary this side of Heaven. We spent a lot of our week contacting and dropping off house plans to prospective contractors. It is coming along and we expect to make some final decisions soon.

The Cranberry Harvest

This post is to be a tribute to my husbands hard work. He started building this 90 acre marsh a year and a half ago. They have 45 acres of vines in and planted right now and 45 acres ready to plant this spring. It has been a LONG HARD process. I am VERY proud of him, he is a very hard workin talented man and I am so blessed to be his wife!!!!

The Cranberries have been beat off the vines by what is called a beater and they are now floating. They are then gathered up by the float boards and loaded into semi truck trailers and shipped to Ocean Spray.

Cranberries being taken off the beds.

These berries are being shipped out to the fresh fruit plant.

The fresh fruit is loaded into the creates and are ready to shipping.

We took some time to do a photo shoot. Here is my daughter Kara, grandson Noah and August.

Grandpa Brent and Noah.

Myself (Granny) and Noah.

This is a picture last winter of the work in progress. These are cranberry beds being formed.

Here is my hard workin husband digging in his tool box.

Here is the reservoir he dug...amazing!!!!!

frozen reservoir

All the big equipment they use to do the excavating to make the cranberry marsh.

Here is Brent tending to 1 of his 12 newly planted cranberry beds. All the beds are 3.75 acres in size and amount to 45 acres of vines in the ground right now. But as I mention, he has 45 acres of vines to plant this spring. He will have a total of 24 beds that are 3.75 acre in size like this to take care of...WOOOO makes me tired just thinking about it!!!

New plantings. We spent a lot of time watering and babysitting these very tender vines until they took root.

This is a cool picture of Brent out in a cranberry bed checking everything over. It looks like he is in the desert.

Here he is setting his sprinkler heads. As you can see the beds are HUGE!!!

The sprinklers are up and running.

This bed is all planted and being watered. The watering is endless it seems until they take root.

A close up of the freshly planted cranberry vines.

1 of the 12 beds newly planted. It takes 3 to 5 years to get a crop of cranberries off a new bed.

I thought this was a cool site...the rain cloud in the back ground.

As you can see, there is a lot of hard work that has went into making this cranberry marsh. When he started, it was nothing but a very large corn field. He had to dig the reservoirs and all the ditches. Construct and level all the beds readying them for planting.

When I go out there, my head spins!!!! It is so overwhelming to me but he knows exactly what is going on and how to keep things running smooth. My pictures can not even begin to capture the massiveness of this project!!!!!

So we are now into the 2nd week of his vacation. We decided not to take a trip anywhere because we are building our house this spring and want to save our money for that. We are heading back to Spooner tomorrow to do some more leg work on the house project plus spend time with our family. All and all it has been a relaxing vacation for him. But it is back to work on Monday. And also back to work for me, I have not been able to get much sewing done so I guess you can say I have been on vacation too.

God Bless, Rhonda

AND THE WINNER IS..........

My husband drew the winning name this morning and THE WINNER IS: Andy from http://andysprimhome.blogspot.com/

Congratulations Andy!!!! Please email me at goingretta@hotmail.com with your name and address and I will get her mailed out to you ASAP :)

Thank you to all who entered!!!! We are so blessed to have this precious gift of family and friends. With them to share our lives with, we are ALL WINNERS that's for sure!!!!! It was a joy for me to read how you all enjoy this awesome gift God has given to us.

Blessings to you all and thank you again for entering my Giveaway :) I wish you all could have been winners!!!!!

God Bless, Rhonda