Snowy 2nd Last Day

Tomorrow is the last day we are open for 2008! Boy did this year fly by!

It's the day of the crazy snow storm the weather people have been warning us about and it is blowing fiercely and snowing so hard my foot prints to the barn fill up in about 5 mins. I did have one brave soul come for a quick shop, thanks Sari!

I've been hiding in the house doing some of the painting jobs that I've been avoiding since we moved here 2 years ago. The house is slowly becoming more homey and colourful the way we like it. There still are a million jobs to do for it to become the way we envision it. The list is long, very long and the winter free time is short, not to mention all the things we want to do to the barn.

So when I closed up tonight (bad me, I closed 25 mins early since the wind kept blowing the door open and there wasn't a car on the road in the past hour!) I took the camera outside to get some shots of the snow and lights.

Facebook Galloping Goat Group

For all of you that are facebook fans, we started a group for the Galloping Goat Gallery a while back that is open to members. Click on this "Galloping Goat Facebook Group" and it will take you there.

Also for those of you that are new to reading blogs, we, the writers of the blogs, love to receive comments from you! You can leave comments by clicking below the text on the word comment and send us a note. It's a fun way let me know someone out there is reading all my blathering!!! LOL

Here's a few pics I took this morning after the bus picked up the kids.

This picture is from the backyard of our house looking back at the horses in the field.

This concrete heron is right outside the door of the barn in the riverside garden. I did manage to lift him and put him into the barn so he'll be able to be seen easier than if we get a dumping of snow and he gets buried! Poor bird!

End of Season Sale

Well it's November and the chill is in the air and there was actually snow falling for most of the morning today. It's hard not not to get a bit excited when those first flakes start flying, it always gets my kids jumping out of bed and running to the window to see.

I managed to get the outside of the barn decked out in lights and greenery on the last warm day we will probably see until April. It looks so cheerful and festive with it all lite up in the evening.

Since there are only 6 weeks left until we close (last day open is Saturday December 20th) for the winter we are having a BIG SALE! This is mostly due to the fact that there is so much cool stuff I want to buy for the spring season that I need to make room for it!
I've run around the store and marked down a bunch of things with coloured dots and big price cuts but this is surprisingly time consuming, soooo... I've decided to make it easier and set up sales this way;

25% off all flags, (the big ones & the smaller garden ones) windsocks and garden stakes.
20% off all Christmas and seasonal items
15% off all regular priced items
10% off all artist's works & consigned items.
Plus all the items that I've already marked down so literally everything in the barn is on sale!!! And, yes, that includes those crazy yoga frogs.

Also good news the little furnace we installed this past spring is working great so it's warm and cozy in the barn. All those chilly drafts are being kept at bay so I can happily knit with warm fingers while I'm in the store!

Let the season of giving begin!!

Scarecrow Success

Thank you to everyone that came out to the Scarecrow Festival. It was a great success for the Regent Theatre and raised even more money than last year.

The children had a lot of fun playing on the hay bale that was dropped in our yard. Who knew that leaping off and climbing back on a round hay bale would be so much fun. Of course burying each other in straw was also on the top of the list of good times too.

We built about 32 scarecrows and ran out of clothes twice that had us running to Picton to beg for more pants and then more shirts. Also I should say thanks to my husband in the panic who donated a number of pants he found buried in the closet that he no longer fits into. Thanks also to Rick Clarke who gave up all those great straw hats that were hiding in his barn until I discovered them.

Also all these photos were taken by Susan Hodge, she makes the beautiful lily of the valley jewellery, photocards and even the tie dye that we have in the barn. Thanks for the great photos Susan!

Of course a big big thank you to the Regent fundraising crew of ladies, it wouldn't run without all the help off all the volunteers behind the scenes and under the straw hats!!!

Hope everyone had a fabulous turkey day!!!
Cheers!

Scarecrow Festival Tomorrow!!!! (Oct 11th)

The weather is gorgeous this Thanksgiving weekend, warm and sunny and perfect for building scarecrows!!! Now I know why we Canadians have an earlier Thanksgiving weekend compared to our neighbours to the south, it's because it is soooo beautiful with all the trees in their spectacular autumn colours (see photos from last year). Who doesn't want to just drive around and drink in all that beauty? So it's the perfect time for a long weekend to enjoy the last of the nice weather, eat a turkey and spend time with the family before the grey days of winter set in. So while your driving around oohing and ahhing at the gorgeous views come and build a scarecrow for charity at our place. It is also the last weekend for ice cream at the Black River Cheese Factory so don't miss out!!!

Glass Jewellery Workshop - Saturday October 25th

Hello all,

Well with it getting so close to Christmas and the gift giving season, Margaret, our glass jewellery artist has put together 3 workshops running during one day, Saturday October 25th.

She has also set up price breaks so if you want to make 5 pairs of earrings or 4 pendant and earring sets it will cost a little less than if you only made one.

So here is how the pricing is going to work out.

To make -One pendant $32
- Two pendants $30 ea.
- Three pendants $27 ea.
- Four pendants $25 ea.
- Five pendants $20 ea.

To make -One pendant +earring set $47
- Two sets $44 ea.
- Three sets $40 ea.
- Four sets $37 ea.
- Five sets $32 ea.

To make - One pair of earrings $20
- Two pair $19 ea.
- Three pair $18 ea.
- Four pair $17 ea.
- Five pair $14 ea.

For any more than five of one item the individual price stays at the lowest price for that piece.

Hopefully that makes a reasonable amount of sense. We are trying to make it easier for people that have been wanting to come and make presents for people and this jewellery would make great gifts!

There will be three workshops during the day;
#1/ 10 am to 12 pm
#2/ 12:30 pm - 2:30 pm
#3/ 3 pm to 5 pm.

You should be able to create at least 5 or more pieces if you have a good idea of what you want (as in what you are going to make, pendant or earrings, and know what colours you want to use.) in the 2 hour class.

Now this is a very popular class and we have limited room upstairs in the barn so call and register as soon as possible.

Call me, Lesley, at 476-9696 to register or drop by the store, we are open Thursday thru Sunday.

Well it was fun day for these ladies and apparently it was mother daughter day with this group. We set this class up in the green room upstairs which made for some cosy quarters but it was definitely too chilly to do this outside!
Fall is settling in quickly here.

Fused Glass Windows - September's Class

This is Nancy's window with all the pretty flowers and buzzing dragonfly. Cutting those wings looks tricky but it seems these ladies have figured it out.
Lynn found some tumbled blown glass that she had picked up ages ago and this added some great dimension to the shatter look of the pattern. This looks even better close up.
Jacyln's window has the cattails and dragonflys and she even put real pebbles in with the glass which really adds some neat texture. This is really beautiful and suits this old frame so well.











This is Colleen's second time making a window. All the tumbled glass and glass buttons surrounded by the textured and opalescent clear glass looks spectacular when the light goes through it.









Beth and Gupka (hope I spelled that right!) worked together on this one. Very pretty and fresh looking with the various tones of blue.

Hypertufa Workshop Fri. Sept. 26th

We are going to have another Hypertufa class before the weather gets too chilly and we are going to do it Friday September the 26th 6:30pm to 8:30pm.

For anyone that has taken the hypertufa class before you are welcome to come again and make something else at the cost for the materials. This will probably be $10 unless you are making something much bigger than a birdbath.

For first timers the class will be $25 and everyone needs to bring a form to build on. A form can be a peat pot or shallow plastic bowl for a birdbath or other plastic containers.

Call or email me if you are interested in registering for the Hypertufa class.
lesley@gallopinggoat.com

Fall Colours

The view on the Black River is always quite gorgeous but in the fall it really is spectacular. It doesn't seem possible some of the colours of the trees. They seem to glow and look more like an incredible painting than be real.

I was browsing through some old photos from the first fall that we were here and found this one and thought it was worth posting again here.

If you ever needed an excuse to come to the County I think this photo will give it to you. This photo was taken in October 2007 so in a few weeks this will be our view. The colours aren't quite here yet, but every day they change.

Scarecrow Festival October 11th!!

It is that time of year again for the Scarecrow Festival!! It is going to happen this year over the long weekend of Thanksgiving, Saturday October the 11th, which is when the Black River Cheese Factory sells the last of it's ice cream for the year. (The raindate will be the following day, Sunday the 12th).

From 10 am to 4 pm we will be offering all the materials to "Make Your Own Scarecrow" with a $20 donation going to the Regent Theatre in Picton. The Regent Theatre is run entirely by volunteers and is a hardworking organization that needs strong community support to keep running, so come out and support our heritage theatre.

We will also be having a BBQ with hotdogs and drinks available for sale along with facepainting by the Crafty Crone.

It will be a fun family day at the barn!

Milford Fair 2008

Well we did it! We had a entry for the Milford Fair parade and we had a booth at the Milford Fair. It was alot of fun and we met lots of new people and had lots of regular customers drop by. ( My sincere appologies to the ladies that went to the barn for their biscotti and found it missing and had to come all the way to the fair to get it! I forgot to leave some with Brianna, whoops!)

Lucky for us friends of our daughter Leah were raising goats for their 4H club so we asked them if they would come along and parade them at the fair. I quickly called the Crafty Crone (aka my mom) and requested 3 red goat coats to be made. She of course took it an extra step and made the red hats out of the scraps of material that were leftover from the coats. Tim made some Galloping Goat t-shirts for everyone to wear with our logo on it and had a large sign made for our little red wagon. Voila! It was a parade float or whatever you call it when a bunch of people and animals walk in a parade! Tim is already planning to improve our parade float for next year, though whether or not we can locate some goats to borrow again might be tricky.


Quinn, our son walking beside Tim decided there was no way he was wearing one of our hats, too cool for that. After all his friends were all going to be watching him... sigh. What happened to that little boy who dressed like Harry Potter for 2 months straight when he was 4 with the cape, glasses and wand everywhere we went? And I mean everywhere we went, on the subway and streetcars in Toronto where we were living, walking to school, walking down Queen street to visit Tim at work, well actually on Queen street he actually looked pretty normal in comparison to some of the characters you find there!!LOL Soon, I imagine, he won't want to be even seen with us, weird people that we are, and of course totally uncool.

Fused Glass Window Workshop

This was the class we all wanted it seemed and it was greatly enjoyed by those that attended that long awaited Saturday in August. Here are some pictures of what the students created in the day long workshop. Thanks to Wilma the artist and teacher that showed everyone all the tricks of creating these gorgeous pieces.

There will be more window workshops to come in the spring, the ones scheduled this fall are filled. If you want your name on the list call or email me so I can let you know right away what the next dates will be and you don't miss out!

Also anyone with wood framed old windows please contact us if you want to get rid of them, this seems to be the most difficult thing to find for these classes.

Dichroic Glass Pendant Class

Margaret Seaton is the artist that creates those beautiful iridescent glass pendants that we sell in the barn. She has come out and taught 2 evening classes where you can make your own pendant. These pictures are of the first classes pendants and in some cases earrings as well that were created.

We are setting up more class dates for October so call us or email if you are interested in attending these workshops. The cost is $32 and this gives you one pendant piece on a silk cord, other chains are available along with making matching earrings at an additional cost.