Our beloved Joel

It's been a strange 10 days since I posted last. My beloved brother-in-law, Joel (Jay's younger brother) passed away from liver disease. He's known for about 5 years that he needed a liver transplant and the day just didn't arrive fast enough and we lost him. He was the kindest soul...always smiling...trying to make us laugh. Joel loved his wife Tracey dearly and he was a "champion" to our two daughters. He was always telling them that if they had trouble with a boyfriend to call Uncle Joel...and that he'd "straighten him out"..LOL! He delivered ice sculptures for us. He used to talk about our "family" business...that I sold the ice, Jay carved it and he delivered it...a three-legged stool. What are we ever going to do without him? He had all but retired from his driving chores, but he was still hard at work making all of us laugh. It's hard to believe that such a joyful force has gone out of the world.

I'm posting a couple of pictures of him... One with his wife Tracey (with the long hair), my sister Nancy....and Joel in his favorite chicken hat! It sums him up in one photograph...loving, laughing and wearing a chicken hat. That was Joel!! The other picture shows Joel with his arms around Tracey and I. It occurred to me as I was looking for a photo of him for the newspaper that I don't have a single picture of him by himself. He always had his arm around someone. That was Joel too.....

We will miss him dearly.

Joel Maclaskey - 1960-2007

Jay Wins Gold!!

Jay won his fourth gold medal in three years this week!! He entered an American Culinary Federation competition (with only about one week's notice) and created a custom ice sculpture as his entry. It's a dragon wrapped around a sword. These competitions always make me nervous . The judges are some of the top chefs in the world and they can be VERY critical. Jay takes it all in stride... He's very humble and quiet and he listens to what they have to say. He's so accomplished though...I think it's fairly easy for him to take the minimal criticizm that they have for him.

Anyway...Tuesday was a great day. We got up VERY early to drive into Houston for the competition and by 9 am it was all over. Jay won first place in his category and best in show against all the other competitors... For that he won a gold medal and the top prize money. It's fun to watch him. I've talked so much about my little horse this week, I thought maybe you'd all like to see the winning ice sculpture and Jay receiving his medal. I'm so proud of him.

Gidget Goes Shopping

Gidget is here!

I bought a tiny little horse online...sight unseen, two months ago. She was too little to leave her Mom and so...today, she finally arrived here at the ranch by horse transport...all the way from Arizona. I knew she was tiny, but I swear...when she stepped out of that trailer, it was just breathtaking. She's only 17" tall...and will probably only ever get to be about 22" tall at the most. She's not a dwarf, she's just tiny!! She's perfectly formed...without the twisted little legs that so many dwarf miniature horses have. The first picture shows my sister Nancy, my niece Shyann with Gidget...and Scooter...one of my English Springer Spaniels giving the little horse a lick on the head. The second photo shows Shyann and Gidget close up. Hahaha...it makes me laugh to look at them! Nancy's only about 5'2", but the horse is only as high as her knees!!

I have some Sebastopol geese that are only three months old and the geese are bigger than her!! Even our English Springer Spaniel dogs are bigger than she is.

I couldn't sleep last night because I was so excited about her arrival (like Christmas for this 56-year-old) and tonight I feel like I won't be able to sleep again. I have 8 little horses (besides Gidget) and two full grown horses...but tonight I feel like I finally got that pony that I always wanted as a little girl. Can't begin to explain what I'm feeling, but suffice it to say that if I could...I'd bring her in the house tonight...maybe let her sleep in the bed...LOL!

New Babies

I haven't exactly gotten the hang of posting on this blog, so somehow I have ended up with a second entry today instead of just one. I'll figure it out eventually!!

We have new babies here at the ranch and I couldn't resist posting a couple of photographs! Our new miniature donkeys...Glory and her little boy Kioti (I'm just not thrilled with the spelling of Quixote but I like the way it sounds...so...some creative spelling on my part). I've always heard about how gentle and loving the "long ears" are, but I never would have believed how wonderful they really are!! One their first night here I dragged a chair into their little temporary pen and the baby came and laid his head in my lap and Glory hooked her neck over my shoulder...rugging her face against the side of my face. Incredible. I have been spoiling them with little treats and I've learned that they just LOVE green grapes!! If you go out they always greet you with that "tin man" hee haw sound and if you have grapes they'll literally try to pick your pockets. They are more wonderful than I can even describe. I have lots of loving little miniature horses too, but none of them are as sweet and gentle as the donkeys. Bliss....

I went out this morning and found Jay working on his new freezer all alone! He had already set up 8 of the huge 14' panels and had already started on the roof! We're ice sculptors by trade (have I already told you that?) and we host an event here at the ranch every year called "The Ice Cutter's Christmas". We have always had ice sculptures out on display through the woods, but in the Texas warmth, they only last for one night. People come and ride the jingle bell hayride around to see the sculptures and all the Christmas light displays and we have storytellers and ice sculpting demonstrations...lots of food and everyone takes the little tour through my quilt studio. We lived in New Jersey for several years and held the event there and the sculptures often stayed up for days...even three weeks one year!! One year Country Living Magazine came and did a feature story about the ice and the last year Charles Osgood did a story about it on CBS Sunday Morning....it was incredible! We've been back in Texas for 14 years, but 5 years ago we just decided to go ahead and carve the ice and hold the event...even though it would only last for one night.

This past summer I found a huge freezer on Ebay and bought it for Jay...and we travelled to Florida to pick it up (and spent a wonderful week at Disneyworld along the way)! We looked like the Beverly Hillbillies coming home with two huge trailers loaded to the max with freezer panels and refrigeration, but we got it here!! We finally have all of the electricity upgraded and the freezer is going up!! Hopefully this Christmas he can carve some extreme sculptures in his 40' X 20" freezer (ultimately it will be twice that size!) and the people here can see what he can REALLY do! I found him today...soaked through his clothes from exertion...putting up panels almost twice his size...but he's getting it done!

Happy Days

Well...it's rained in our little part of Texas every day for the past 40 days, but we're not complaining. It's generally just a short thunderstorm, lots of water and then cooler temperatures! I can't remember a July when we had 70 degree temperatures day after day...it's been wonderful and the herbs and flowers are singing and dancing!

On the evenings when it's been clear, we've had the most spectacular sunsets. I thought you might like the sunset (and the moonrise in the next picture) last night. Just a few minutes later, the moon suddenly appeared out from behind the clouds. It was just magical. Excuse the photograph taken through the 20-foot poles that were just put up for our new outdoor kitchen (only ONE of the big projects that we seem to have going on...all at the same time!).

Well..it's been months since I added anything to my blog. It's time to get started.



For anyone who doesn't know me, it's hard to know where to begin!! I've been reading Melody Johnson's blog (my absolute favorite quilt artist) and I've gotten to know her so well as I've read her archived entries...and learned so much about quilting and dyeing!! I don't have much to teach, but this blog is meant only to record the events in our lives because I sometimes don't even believe myself the things that happen to us!!



We've had an eventful and exciting couple of months...moving ahead in just about every area. It's hard to believe that some many "dreams" are coming true all at the same time. We continue to work night and day on this little ranch of ours, and the ice sculpting business is going gangbusters!! We've almost doubled our sales of last year which is WONDERFUL, but it doesn't leave much time for all the other things that we want to do! We bought two huge freezers over the past summer that we are trying desperately to get up and running. The freezers require three-phase electricity and that's proving to be incredibly expensive...maybe as much as $12,000 to install. After that we'll have to face the costs to set up the freezer and get it running. It's our hope that this holiday season, we'll be able to have a huge freezer full of incredible ice sculpture displays for the "Ice Cutter's Christmas". It's a big hurdle, but I think we'll get it done.



I have always wanted some Sebastopol geese. They're unbelievably hard to find, but a month ago I actually found a farm in Oregon that was willing to sell four goslings to me! They arrived two weeks ago...tiny day-old babies...who traveled over 2,000 miles to get here. Now...just two weeks after their arrival, they are at least 8 times that size. It's hard to believe they're the same birds!! If you've never seen Sebastopol geese, you just HAVE to google them and see some photos. Nancy (my sister) says they look like they have wedding dresses on. They're elegant and stately, with super curly feathers. They were in the house for the first few days...staying warm under the lights and then they moved outside to the little "chicken tractor" cage that Jay built for them. Now we can move them around the yard and they can have fresh grass every day. They seem very happy. We're working on ideas for a permanent home for them and (in keeping with the Silver Star Ranch theme), we're thinking that the idea of "brides" won't work very well and so we're thinking that maybe they look a bit like saloon girls...dancing girls! Jay's going to build a coop for them that looks like a little old west saloon and we'll put up a sign that says "live performances daily". With the addition of our four geese, I realized that the number of animals on our little farm has just topped 40!! No wonder I'm so tired after feeding every day!! I have 9 horses (7 of them miniature), 10 English Springer dogs, two little sheep (I guess that would make them lambs), two adult miniature goats and one little month-old kid, at least 7 chickens, two rabbits...and then.....we found one more that we just couldn't resist. Last week the semi-annual "Tradin' Days" took place in Conroe. Jay has always teased me about needing a 12-step program for farm animal addiction has finally admitted that he loves them all just as much as I do! He wanted to go to Tradin' Days with me (which is not exactly a first...but VERY unexpected!!). We no sooner parked the truck than I saw a HUGE steer with a saddle on his back! I looked at Jay and said "He's going home with us" and he laughed out loud..."I don't THINK so!!". We went to see him and realized that they were offering rides on him for $5.00 and photos on his back for $1.00 and people were standing in line to ride! He's a long-horned Hereford and he's amazingly gentle. She had a sign up that announced that he was for sale too...!! We pet him for a while and felt badly for him. He's a beautiful, serene, elegant animal...who was standing there tolerating all the attention and giving rides to all takers. We left him reluctantly and went to see all the animals...bought a few chickens (and I talked Jay OUT of buying a pot-bellied pig) and then went back by the steer. There were two couples there...both obviously deliberating about buying him. One old man turned to his wife and told her to go home to get the horse trailer (to take the steer home) and then stepped over to this steer to pet him and this animal...who had been unbelievably tolerant of all of those people sidestepped!! He so obviously didn't like that man...!! All of a sudden, Jay walked over to the steer's owner and said "I'd like to buy him" and we did!! Now he has a home here on the ranch. His name is Pecos Bill and he seems VERY happy! He's so gentle that he's in the pasture with all my little horses!! I have a feeling that he'll be ridden every once in a while again...during the Fire and Ice Cook-off and maybe when we have other special events here, but mostly he's going to live a life of leisure.



So much else is happening..but this post is getting long. More tomorrow.

I have one other little quilt "in the works"...and I thought I'd include it here today too. It's just a top now, but it'll soon be quilted. If you're interested in "tops" only (if you just love to stitch like I do), please let me what colors and design you're interested in and I'll try to make it for you!

I'm doing something that I thought I would never do!! I'm blogging online. I have lots of loosely-kept journals of my own, but I've never thought my life/work was interesting enough that anyone else would want to read about it, but apparently I was wrong! ;-)

I've been creating and selling miniature quilt blocks on Ebay for the past 5 years. I tend to be "talkative" (I'm being gentle to myself here..) and I have shared a lot of my life in my postings. As a result, I have literally made friends all over the world. If I don't list any blocks for a week or so, the emails start to come in...worried inquiries. It's the most wonderful feeling. I live on a little ranch in Texas..in a log cabin that my husband built for us. I'm surrounded by my beloved English Springer Spaniel dogs, 9 horses (7 of them miniature)...at least 7 cats, two goats, one rabbit and countless chickens, turkeys and ducks. My husband says that I need to find a "twelve step" program for folks addicted to farm animals. (Hello...my name is Carol and I am an addict...). My life seems very normal to me, but I have gotten the most wonderful letters from women who live in very different circumstances who want to know more about life here and about my work. I am starting this journal for all of you.

When I first started listing on Ebay, I made finished miniature quilts, but they often sold for so little that I just couldn't afford to continue. It occurred to me that there might be people out there who would love to make miniature quilts but don't have the time to do the complex part of the piecing and so I began to offer the blocks and the bids started pouring in! Over the years I have had many people (especially all of you crazy doll collectors!!!) ask for finished miniature quilts so I thought that maybe I could take photographs of them as I finish them and offer them here for a fixed price that will at least cover the cost of the fabric and a bit of the time that I put into them. I am self-employed otherwise and (thankfully!) that makes a living for us, and so making the little quilts is something I do mostly for the joy of it.

So, dear friends...I begin a journal here for all of you to see. I have just finished a little quilt top and I'll include a photograph of it in today's post. As you can see, it's not finished, but when it is, I'll put a price on it and post it again and if you think you'd like to own it...let me know!