My new Chainsaw Sculptures

For the past two years I have gone to the Loghoggers Chainsaw Sculpting Competition at the Titanic Museum. I am truly in awe at what the artists can do with a log and a chainsaw. The art that they create is nothing short of amazing! At the end of the day on Saturday and Sunday they auction off the pieces that were created that day. Me? I love a good auction. =)
I bought this Eagle last year and I absolutely LOVE it! It was made by Joe Hintz and is somewhere around 250 to 300 pounds of solid Black Walnut. It is one of the first things that you see when you enter our house and has gotten countless comments. Thanks Joe!
Me with Joe at this year's event. I talked to him and am hoping he will have time to work on the eagle a little more the next time he comes through Branson. He mentioned that he didn't get a chance to finish the piece to his liking and would be willing to work on it again. YAY! If you're reading this Joe, I'm holding you to it! =)
Another one of Joe's pieces...
...and another.
This year I decided to bid on a turtle. At the moment it is in the garage airing out. The wood and stain needs to wear off a tad before it can come into the house. Last year the eagle took a couple of months to air out but....it weighed too much for us to move it. This turtle was made by Steven Higgins.
This is Steve with his Fiance, Gabrielle. I believe they are getting married in five weeks....yay!
I tried winning these two turtles the previous day but I lost. BOO. Aren't his turtles great?
I almost bid on these owls last year...
...and this cute bear.

I added links to Joe's and Steve's websites so take a peek if you get a chance. I'm sure you will be impressed with the things that they create. Chainsaws people! They do this with chainsaws!!
I'm already looking forward to next year's competition.

I won 2 cheesecakes from Earth Cafe!!!!!

I am so incredibly thrilled!!! I entered a contest last week, trying to win a cheesecake from Earth Cafe. I was so excited when I read about these cakes. They look amazing! Healthy AND yummy, ya can't beat that! Of course, I did not win that contest. I looked at the possibility of ordering one but was a tad hesitant because of the shipping cost. The next day I saw another contest giving away TWO cheesecakes. I decided to enter and wait to see if I could possibly win this contest. If not I would place an order myself. Well.....I just found out that I won!!!!! Thanks so much Shoni!!!

Here is the wonderful announcement. Wahoooo, I can NOT wait! Now I need to choose 2 cheesecakes. Hmmmmmm

Vendor Fair prize

This year's vendor fair at the Chateau was filled with even more vendors than last year. If you have never gone to a vendor fair in Branson...it's like one-stop shopping. You can get everything that you need for your show there. There are people that sell things from air conditioning to graphic printing to food and more. We have even found a plumber for our home from this fair.

One of the other perks of the vendor fair is the fact that you can win prizes! YAY PRIZES! This is what I won last year. VERY COOL! We don't drink coffee so we use it for herbal teas and my brother's family used it for coffee when they visited.

This year I won this nifty wreath. As you can see, Kahlan is already having a blast with it.

Hope our luck holds out next year. =)

9/22/2010 Garden Update

This is actually from Adam's parent's garden. We still have cherry tomatoes growing but we haven't picked them in a few weeks. DOH! These are the sweet potatoes that they have growing in the front. We have never planted potatoes before but I think we'll try some next year. We will probably skip planting the cantaloupes and use that section for potatoes. It took me a little while to harvest a few sweet potatoes because I kept digging in the wrong spot. I was eaten alive by bugs in the process but.....so worth it!
I only picked a few of them to try them out. The smallest one in the picture is about the size of a golf ball.
This one was a bit funky looking. =)

9/1/2010 Garden Update: WATERMELONS!!!

It's watermelon time y'all !!!!!! THIS is why I love heirloom watermelons! Aren't the colors just fabulous?!?! Here are the last watermelons of the season. As per usual, these all went to our family. We had already passed out a few to our neighbors....these are the ones left after that.
Here is a picture of the Orangelo. It was so incredibly orange. VERY cool looking, however, I still like the taste of the yellow better. This year the yellow was much sweeter, in my opinion. The Crimson Sweets didn't do as well because the vines got attacked by beetles. Arggg. That's what we get for having an organic garden. Well, that and the fact that I was too lazy to go out there and treat them with organic bug killing techniques. We'll make sure to do that next year.

Yep, I'm sitting ON the watermelons. Not too comfortable. LOL

8/22/2010 Garden Update

I haven't been posting a lot of our tomato pictures this year because they look like the pictures that I posted last year. =) We are still harvesting a ton of our Sweet 100 cherry tomatoes and the yellow pear shaped ones. As you can see, the tallest plant is at least 10 feet tall. It would probably be taller if we had a way to support the top vines. I'm a whopping 5'3" so you can see how much taller it is than I am, even on my toes. I've been mainly making the raw tomato sauce and freezing it for later this year. We've brought several bags to the theatre to share with our family too.

8/19/2010 Garden Update

These are the watermelons that we picked today. Kahlan decided to sit amongst the yumminess. The longer one is called an Orangelo. I CAN NOT wait to cut that one open next week. I want to see exactly how orange a watermelon can get. =) The other stripey one is a Crimson Sweet and the other is a Missouri Yellow. We like to wait for a few days before we cut them. I'm not sure if it's true, but.....in my mind they seem to get a little sweeter when we do that.
Here I am trying to sneak under the netting that we put up.

Adam cutting open the 32.2 pound Missouri Yellow.
NOM!!!!

8/13/2010 Garden Update

We picked 3 more watermelons today. Adam carried the bigger ones. =) These ones are the Heirloom Missouri Yellow Flesh Watermelons. Hopefully they are as yummy as "the Bean".
This is the main section of our melons that are left to harvest. To the right was where the Golden ones were and to the right of those are the Ali Babas and the Orangelos. These are the Crimson Sweets and the Missouri Yellows.
This was the biggest of the day! The other ones were 22.2 lbs and 15.8 lbs. As per usual, as kitty must be in the picture. This time Chewie wanted camera time.
Kahlan having fun on her new toys.
This was the cutting of "the Bean" AKA the Jelly Belly Melon from a few days ago. It was yummy!!!!