Black Days

Why is it that "new and improved" so seldom is? Improved, that is.

The Bag Lady uses the Picasa program to save her pictures and video clips, and they recently came out with the newest version. The Bag Lady thought she would download this newer version because it was supposed to be better. New tools for editing pictures, even a program to make movies!!

She is not impressed and wishes now that she hadn't changed. You would think that at her advanced age, she would know better. She has had this kind of thing happen to her several times in the past, but must be a slow learner.

She would switch back, except she's afraid she will lose all the photos and video clips that she took whilst using the new program. What is so wrong with the new program, you ask? Well, for one thing, she can't see her video clips in the thumbnail mode. All of them appear black. In the older version of the program, she could see the first frame of the clip, which helped identify which clip was which. With the "improved" program, all she sees are little blacked out frames. In order to find a particular video, she has to watch them all, then mark down which number is assigned to the video clip she wants. It is so FREAKIN' annoying! What f**king genius came up with this?

And the new editing tools? Useless. If you want to 'smudge' or blur part of a photo, you are supposed to click on it. When you do, the program picks another portion of the picture to insert there!! Suddenly, you'll have someone's foot on top of their face!

The Bag Lady is not impressed.

New and improved? Not in the Bag Lady's books.

Babbling Bag Lady

The Bag Lady had a busy day yesterday. She and the Rancher moved their cows from one pasture to another, a mile away. This involved gathering them all into the corral, then loading them into the stock trailer to drive them to the other field.

If there wasn't a busy highway between the two fields, they would chance a cattle drive. As it is, though, it's easier to make a few trips with the stock trailer.

The Bag Lady now needs to turn her attention to getting ready for Thanksgiving. She is going to make dinner for some of the family, so needs to do some preparation for that. A little house cleaning is in order, and she needs to decide the menu. Turkey and stuffing, of course, and potatoes, carrots and turnips from the garden. Pumpkin pie and apple pie for dessert. Some cranberry sauce, and some kind of salad, with homemade buns to round out the meal.

Sheesh, now the Bag Lady has made herself hungry!

Skull Cramp

The Bag Lady asks to be excused today.

Her dog ate her homework blog post.


(How could she say that about such a cute, innocent-looking pup?)



She is suffering from 'blank brain', most probably due to her headache.

She leaves you with something weird to ponder.....



Any guesses as to what that is?

Autumn Bounty

The Bag Lady had to take some time off from her kitchen duties the other day in order to stack some straw that a neighbour was kind enough to deliver. The Bag Lady's straw-stacking skills are sadly lacking, but she managed to get most of the straw unloaded before the bale fork BROKE! The neighbour rigged it up with a chain in order for the remainder of the straw to be removed from his truck, and the Cow Whisperer welded it back together the next day when he came home from work. Then he finished stacking the straw, bless his tired heart!


On Saturday, the Bag Lady went on a rare foray into town to a pie-making party. (Scenery along the way - click on any photo to enlarge):




Friends of hers have a little apple tree in their yard that produces an amazing amount of apples!

This little tree:

Produced three bags like this (not including the apples that were damaged or fell off the tree):

We processed them:



Put them into pie shells:




Assembly-line style:



And froze them:



For a sum total of 42 pies; 8 of which the Bag Lady brought home to her freezer. There were enough apples left over to make a huge apple crisp, and still have some for jelly or apple sauce, or just eating.

Then the Bag Lady returned to her own kitchen to deal with more tomatoes and peppers. And last night had a typical North American supper of fried chicken, mashed potatoes, coleslaw and apple pie with cheese for dessert.

Sunrise, Sunset

Some days, the Bag Lady wishes she could paint pictures. She is deeply envious of people who have artistic talent. Unfortunately, she has none.

However; that doesn't stop her from appreciating good scenery. And attempting to photograph it. When she says attempting, she means it. Here are some examples of the sunrises and sunsets she has witnessed over the past few years that moved her, or struck her in such a way that she felt compelled to take a picture.

This is a winter sunrise:


This was taken in the autumn, last year:


As was this one:


Here is an early spring sunrise:


And one taken fairly recently - the mist gives it a surreal quality:


Here's one of the sun peeking above the clouds:


This is a reflected sunset:


As is this:


Here is one where the Bag Lady was playing around with the settings on her camera:


And these were taken yesterday morning:

(love the misty look!)


And this......oops. How did that get in there?


(The Bag Lady as Yente, the matchmaker, in "Fiddler on the Roof")

Have a great weekend!

Like a Squirrel....

As many of you know by now, the Bag Lady does quite a lot of home canning. She loves to preserve as much of her garden produce as possible. She is always extremely careful about keeping her kitchen clean, and doing a proper job of canning. She follows all the directions and rules of home canning because she is very aware of the many ways things can go wrong.

She has her "Food Sanitation and Hygiene" certificate from the Alberta government, and follows all the rules and guidelines that she learned in that course. She sells some of her home canning at craft sales, and would be mortified if anyone ever got sick from something she had prepared.

She estimates she is now at the half-way point as far as her tomatoes are concerned. She actually cut down on the amount of canning that she usually does. She didn't plant any cucumbers or beets so she wouldn't be tempted to make any pickles. There are still quite a number of jars in her pantry from last year. But she will probably make at least one batch of pickled hot peppers, just because she has so many peppers!

Here is a photo of the canning she has done so far this summer (minus a few jars that she has already given away or that have already been consumed!):



Half-way. The end is in sight. Then she will have to find something else to do..........

Calf Update

Well now. It's the first of October, so the Bag Lady thought she should probably do a bit of an update about the calves. For those of you who weren't around back in the spring, this might be a little boring, but the Bag Lady thought some of you might be interested in seeing how well your namesakes are doing!





Amazing, isn't it?