My quilty corner of Nebraska

continued updating

2009-12-31T01:09:00.010-06:00

We adopted Allie this last fall, she is a 7 year old yorkie with a huge attitude. Shes a very sweet dog, and we are her 3rd owner. She may be the smallest but has the biggest personallity. At some time in her life she was trained. She can sit on her hantches, and stand up, roll over and lay down. I tell her lets up your sweater on and she come running and puts her head threw, she loves her sweathers and coats. Yorkies have very thin human like hair, they need to be bathed just like you wash your hair at least once a week, or it gets oily jsut like human hair. So she has to wear her sweaters out in the cold. Her first owners thought she was getting mean cause she curls her lip, but Yorkies all do that when they get excited to see you. The last people that had her just couldnt take care of her anymore so ask us knowing we could give her what she needs. She has taken totally to Jessica.

Little Vegas was the next to come to our house, she is a retired breeder, she has had a long road for her 7 years. As a puppy she was bought as a breeder and was not interacted with very much.
The people decided they didnt want to breed the dogs anymore and our breeder got her back with some others about the same time we got Sugar from her. She was scared of everyone. Our breeder had her for the last 3 years and she has become more social but still has a little fear of people in general. We had told our breeder that is now getting away from breeding that if she decited to find her a new home we would be interested. When we first got her (about 1 month now) she was so fearful. But shes really warming up to us an will stand on her back feet waving her feet up and down for attention. She used to just shake when I held her so I gave her time and room to feel at home and now shes doing just fine. Here she wont have to worry and will have a nice retirement.
We wont be getting any more dogs for a long while the doggy motel is full. Thank goodness they are small.

All the dogs get along pretty well they are finding their way into our pack. They even sleep with the cats at times.

I did do some sewing this last year, I finished Jessicas quilt(above) before she went off to college. I also finished 3 other quilts before christmas last year that I gave to the 4 kids that I was babysitting for. They werent going to have much of a christmas so I figured it would be a good thing for them.

Jessica made the quilt (below) for the 4 years old girl that I didnt have time to get done. All the ones I did were all hand quilted taking so much more time than what I expected. We were just finishing up the last stitches the day before christmas. She designed it and machine quilted it in like 4 days.

I finished an other quilt but didnt get a picture of it before giving to the kids mom.
I think I finished an other top also at the beginning of this year. The 3d nine patch that I had been working on for ever. Then one day Buddy our eat-o-matic, got ahold of it and chewed up one side of it that im yet to repair.

We worked on the house a bit more over that last year but still dont have the bedroom totally done. At least we have the sheet rock up and its close to being painted. Sean just has been so busy with work he hasnt had time or energy to work on it.
well I think im almost caught up to the present now, there may have been other things but I cant think of them right now. I did get more fabric here and there but not much till this summer, Ill write about that later.
so till next time....

where did the time go??

2009-12-27T20:16:00.011-06:00

Wow where did the time go, its been over a year since last here. We have been busy, I guess I'll try to bring this up today with what has been going on...

Jessica made it thru her senior year, graduated in May. She got her DL in December before christmas. And my worries started. Jessica went to Mississippi on a mission trip this during the summer to help people in a very small town that has a lot of poverty. It was a real eye opener for her, she had never seen such poor living conditions for people. I was very proud of her for giving of her self like that. This fall she went off to college in Hastings. That too was also a eye opener for her. Lots of challanges and temptations. But she so far is do pretty well. Having room mates was one challange she had to get used to. On the downside she hit a deer just after Halloween and crunched her car, she was fine, just a bit rattled. I got the 1am phone call from her, I hate that. So now we are in the empty nest syndrome now, its just different in the house with out Jessica but we are getting used to it.

Samantha I still in Omaha doing pretty well. Keeping very busy all the time. She on the side belongs to a circus troupe that does all kinds of different things, she has learned Poi http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fire_dancing and is starting to contact juggling, and does things with the ring (big round metal ring in the air), Its intesting, she has no fear it seems. She is also still in school and working. Dont know where she finds all the time. So we joke she ran-away from home and joined the circus.

We rescued an American Eskimo dog in may, he was running on the road far from anywhere, a car almost hit him and Sean stopped to get him. Took lots of patients to get him to come up to Sean, We figure he was about 7 months old when we found him. He was so dirty and full of ticks. He had stickers all the way down in his skin. Smelled really bad, so we think he had been out for a while. He has a problem with eatting to much so I have to regulate his food all the time. He is somewhat of a fat boy now. But so loving and loves to hug. We are trying to get him trained, hes like having a 2 year old all the time, and is very smart. Being bored is a big problem, then he starts chewing, nothing on my desk is safe with im, nor are my quilt pieces. He has decided that anything he sees me playing with he wants to play with. But hes a good dog for the most part, will be great when he grows out of the puppy stage which is at about 2 years.

September 08 I got a call from the breeder that we got taffy and sugar from asking me if I would take a pup she got back from some people that couldnt keep her. So I went to see her, what a sweet cute dog, her old people took her to the vet and found out she has a heart mummer she was only 5 months old, then I found out she is the younger sister of sugar and Samanthas Beebee. What a sweet dog, just loves everyone. The heart mummer will probably never be a problem at all since she was born with it. The people just freaked out for nothing. She doesnt like to be away from me at all and will cry till she sees me if im out of sight. She is also a bit hyperactive with an hyperactive system so shes not very heavy at all, and eats like crazy. But she does fine and is a very happy little dog. Its good none of our little dogs are over more that 5 lbs. If we put them all togeather wouldnt even have a large dog. Buddy its the largest dog we have now at about 25-30 lbs.

Just not to long after getting saving Buddy, we lost Millie, she had almost died in December 08 from a massive infection in her girl parts, she had all that removed and was on her way to recovery, but she really had a hard time of it during recovery, when the fatty tumor started growing and broke open and wouldnt heal, She went into surgery again to have it removed and didnt make it thru. She was 9 1/2 when she passed. We all miss her she was a big part of the family for so long. We found she had cancer, probably the shock of the other surgery started it growing. She had started loosing weight so we knew something wasnt good. She will always be in our memories.

This last year was not a good year for us for our old animals, we lost our cat Cowie suddenly, stomach cancer, and we lost Popcorn our oldest cat of old age. She was about 16.

I had H1N1 in may and all the cats came down sick with upper respitory. I spent every hour treating them and all survived it, but jsut after that Popcorn started not being able to eat.

I had found out that cats can get H1N1 from people. so it was very sad to loose Cowie and Popcorn, makes a hole in the house where they used to be. Cowie was Seans favorite cat so it was a great lose to him.

Threw all of this I did sew quite a bit and I will put up pix of the quilts I did get done, but for now Im going to close for now and come back later and continue on with our last year update.

The last of August, where did the summer go?

2008-08-30T17:22:00.002-05:00

Well its almost the end of summer, where did it go? Jessica went on her Europian discovery with People to people in July, she went to Italy, Austria, Switzerland, and France. 20 days of constant travel and sight seeing, also learning the history of many of the towns and citys she was in.

She started with People to People back in November of last year, She went to quite a few classes during the time from November to June. She passed the course in June and became a student Ambassador for the United States in June. They

Flew in to Roma on the 5th of July and spent about 6-7 days in Italy. Traveling up to the eastern part of Austria, visting citys along the way.

The spent about 7 days in Austria give or take a few days. The went to a castle, visited small towns and large citys. They went to Vienna and a salt mine on the Austria, Germany border.

She with her blond hair and blue eyes really blended right in with the people there. They spent 3 days with a host family in Switzerland. Her family was in Bern. She had alot of fun with them and they were excited to have her being she was the first kid they had hosted. They took really good care of her and she got to experence the every day life in the family there. Her Host brother took her to a birthday party that one of his friends was having when she first got there, him being 19 she got to meet kids her own age. She spent alot of time with the host family extended family also. She was the only one in her deligation that was in a city for the host family stay, she really enjoyed the whole time there.

From there they did more in Austria and Switzerland then they were off to France, the shortest time was spent in France, there departure was from Paris, so they had afew days to enjoy the sights of Paris and all the shops of course.

They spent a total of 20 days in Europe. Jessica was ready to come home and sleep in her own bed after being way that long. Im very proud of here of being able to join and go on such a wonderful trip. She got 30 credits to her high school credits form the trip.

She will beable to go again this next summer with the people to people, this time she will be able to choose where she wants to go. It was such a learning experence for her and all the young boys and girls the are excepted into the program.

She got home and days after getting home she had a week of camp to go to then she got home from that and went to her sisters house in Omaha for almost 3 weeks. Now she is back in school and winding down after a very busy full summer.

I havent been doing any sewing the last month, we have been busy trying to get the bedroom done. we have the drywall up and we are getting the mud and tape on next we are starting to see the light of day. It seems other things need our attention that pulls us way from the room.

Oh well it will get done one of these days LOL.

The other thing that happened the stopped my sewin was Taffy ate my glasses and I cant see up close to sew. I havent been able to replace them yet that is next on the adjenda.

I have also been doing the nasty job of deep cleaning the house. I really hate that, windows, curtains, and all that nasty stuff.

Our garden was a total bust! I have never seen so many grasshoppers in my life. They eat my hole garden by the end of july, not leaving nothing for me. I guess Nebraska and Kansas has had a real problem this year. Now I can understand how the settlers of old felt when the swarms of grasshoppers took all there crops. Oh well there always next year......

We have been picking the wild plums this year, they are quite good. If I had the energy Id make some wild plum jelly, thats if I had the energy! Days seem to go so fast anymore seems hard to get any thing done.

Well thats me up todate with what has been happening in the last few months....

I will post up more of the Europe pictures that Jessica took, she took like 2000 pictures so its going threw and picking some of the better ones.

Enjoy your days............

Aunt Bee's flowers

2008-07-22T21:04:00.002-05:00

An appliqued Hybiscus for Aunt Bee, her theme is flowers. On the black background all the flowers that have been for her really stand out. She is going to have a very dynamic quilt when its all done. Im not really good I dont think at doing flowers, probably one of my hardest thing to make a pattern for. But I enjoyed the challange.

Country Cousin....

2008-06-16T16:56:00.002-05:00

Country Cousin cat is the newest block for Cinder from quiltchat for the appy swap. She is the type of cat that loves to sit on a pillow and be very prissy.

Having lots of cats, I do have a few cats like this even one that is a boy priss that loves his sleeping spots and doesnt like to be interupted at all.

I love how cats can curl up and take cat naps sitting up like they do.

With this block done I will only have 3 more blocks to do and all my 11 blocks to the ladys will be done. Its be alot of fun. It has challanged my comfort zone in appliquing.

Victorian Shoes

2008-06-15T13:25:00.002-05:00

This blocks is for Lorraine in Austraila that is in the appy swap, her theme is shoes. The buttons on the shoes are vintage glass buttons, thought it would add to the look of the boots.

Ive enjoyed doing this swaps, puts a challange to my appy ablitys.

Moving on to May.....

2008-06-05T22:36:00.007-05:00

At the end of April beginning of May we bought a car, her name is Little Duck, because she is small and is the puddle jumper. she gets about 40 or better mpg. we have cut our gas bill way down, and now I dont feel so bad if we do go for a ride.

We had a little visitor it know as the humming bird moth. Very neat insects.

My iris bloomed this year, I missed having them last year for what ever reason the purple ones didnt bloom.

Also got my garden planted with corn,watermelon, canalope,tomatoes,onions, 2 kinds of squash and this year we planted potatoes, could be interesting if we get any. We also planted sugar snap peas and red leaf lettuce and strawberrys. Every thing is coming along just fine.

These last pictures are of the part we have finished in the bedroom, tis getting closer and closer now.

Well until next time.....

Whats been up with us ?

2008-06-05T21:45:00.009-05:00

We will start back in april on things Ive missed putting up pictures for.

Jessica went to her Jr/Sr prom in april, behind her is the fruit tree in bloom.

A turkey very confused about having 70 degree weather one day and snow the next. We didnt loose our fruit this time thank goodness. And the snow left pretty fast.

Jessica finished her quilt she was making in school, I think she did a good job on it. She also made a very large pillow in the same colors and design.

We started doing some serious figuring about getting the suppies to start remodeling the bedroom, we finally have all the slat and plaster down. Its been alot of dirty work, but that part is done. We have decited to remove the old floor and put in a new hardwood floor. The old one has to much damage due to age and termites. We had thougth we were going to put down carpet but with animals its not pratical to have any carpet for them to mess up. We found a very pretty cherry wood color designed hardwood. Already pre stained and finished.

Jessica had an electronic baby she had to care for just before the end of school, had it over night and yes it cries, you have to turn a key in its back till it tells you can let go. It does work, she doesnt want to have children till shes out of school and ready for them. This is the second time she has had one of these babys home, they are loud and crabby!

Some where in all that in april we went fishing, the day was very windy with white caps on the lake and nice size waves that made the boat ride interesting at best. We found an area that wasnt as windy deeper in the flooded trees ( Harlen county dam was low no is filling up so there are lots of trees and weeds under water now)

Jessica caught 2 large cat fish and I caught 1. Hers were the largest of the day.

We have gone fishing afew times but havent really caught anything to speak of. The gas prices are killing us taking the boat out so we have found a few places to fish in ponds that we can walk into.

We have spent days it seems ordering and shopping for stuff to do the bedroom. I never thought id be so tired shopping but wow that was not fun.

At the end of april we went for a ride to Red Cloud my old home town, we had heard word that one of the streams there was stocked with trout back in march. The creek really had nothing in it and very little water by the time we got there. But we went by this old victorian farm house in the creek area, which I just fell in love with. Pictured below....

isnt it just beautiful, oh k its old and needs a painting but look at style of the house and all the ornate wood design, I bet its just beautiful inside with the wood. Its just sitting there rotting away now. Nobody is living in it and the owner live on the other side of the state, I think that is so sad.

Well on to may......

Beth's theme block Dragonflies

2008-05-15T00:18:00.002-05:00

I finished Beths block tonight for the Appy swap. I used yoyos for the flowers covering them with a shiny silvery shimmer material , buttons for the center of the flowers. The wings of the dragons are also a shimmer material.

and the beloved Rickrack. This was sorta different to make but fun.

picture perfect

2008-04-03T11:49:00.002-05:00

We had this picture perfect early spring day last week. So we went out to the lake, it was just so beautiful, no wind, it was in the 60s. Just right. We have been hard at it taring down a porch on the house and this was a nice brake. We are suppost to have some more days of 70s and high 60s, its going to be hard to be inside.

I havent done anything quilty for a week, I need to get back to it. I have quite a bit of applique work to do for the swaps, I just need to take a brake my eyes were starting to really bother me with all the up close hand sewing ive been doing.

Every quilt needs an outhouse....

2008-03-19T01:59:00.002-05:00

This is the block for "T" that is one of the girls in the swap im in, her theme is photo album.
This is not an actual picture I have seen but a combo of a few pictures of my grandparents farm.
We had a Outhouse in the back side yard that would have looked out at the the south field. The windmill was in the back yard on the way out to the barn, we pumped water to a water trough for the cows in the pasture behind the house by the barn and chicken coop. and the Apple tree would have been one of many fruit trees to the north of the house.
Our outhouse was abit bigger , we had a 3 setter, up town! and at the back of the out house was the coal house. Finally we never had fence post that were the same, mostly they would be tree limbs cut to size.
I hope 'T' enjoys. it was fun to make.

My girls...

2008-03-10T13:19:00.002-05:00

Its not everyday I can get the 3 puppys all togeather for a picture, with my younger daughters help we got it done. Arnt they just adorable!

This and that....

2008-03-08T19:27:00.005-06:00

As you can see Taffy has grown alot, she is about the size she will be now and next she will be dumping her coat, all the baby fuzz will be gone in the next few months and she will get her adult coat. Her face is starting to get darker little by little, some darker longer fur is starting on her back, we arnt sure what her final color will be, cream or orange sable, Im thinking cream sable.
She is one of the sweetest dogs ive ever had, she loves to cuddle, and is like a teddy bear. She is also sassy when she doesnt want to be held but wont bite. She is learning all the bad habits from Foxy and Sugar fast. She doesnt like to jump up tho, quite strange she wont jump up on the couch or my lap. We just love her alot!

I've started a new sewn by hand project. I got the pattern from a CD I found on Ebay that is full of Vintage quilt patterns from the Kansas City Star and other places. There are over 600 patterns on this CD. They would put a quilt pattern for its readers each week from about 20's to the 50's. They were full size patterns to make a template from. These fans are only 6 inches so the block is a 12" block. I so love the old vintage fabric to work with and just love the patterns and colors. I've been collecting late 1800 to 1940s fabrics.

This is a pix of the snow we had when we thougth winter was over last year, April 7th we had about 3 inches of snow and it killed all the new blossoms on the fruit trees. Im crossing my finger that this doesnt happen again!

Alien bugs in Nebraska....

2008-02-21T02:57:00.003-06:00

Say hi to Mr.H.S.Doodlebug
Hes the newest addition to Leona's collection of alien bugs. Don't worry hes harmless. Eats very little and he makes little noise.

This is the latest block done for the swap im in with the 12 ladys I chat with at quiltchat.com.
This is a doodle I used to do while bored in school. He and all his friends were all over my book covers and my friends book covers. it was fun bring this little doodle to life persay on fabric. This has been fun doing!

Opportunity knocks?

2008-02-15T19:12:00.001-06:00

Tagged by Swooze...

2008-02-13T23:28:00.002-06:00

Ive been Tagged by swooze when I wasnt looking lol~

Here are the 7 things about me...
1)When I was little, like 4 or 5 years old, I really didnt like to have my hair washed,My grandma would tell the story to all that would listen about me running out of the house butt naked and running down the farm road.

2)Sometimes I enjoy the company of animals more than I do other people.

3)I have found that there is something about me from when I was a teenager, people trust me, will tell me things they dont even tell their family members. Or will ask me question of what they should do. This was handed down from my grandmother to me,and I spent many years helping older people day to day. Ive always felt like the unofficial dear abby. Now my youngest daughter has it handed down to her. It can be a blessing or a curse.

4)Im truely a Virgo from the get go...I need my quiet time, my space, my order.

5) I love to cook strange foods and experimenting foods. There is not many things I wont try eating.Ive eatten Rattlesnake twice and loved it, eat most every thing from the ocean. where I draw the line is BUGS. I have gotten my daughters to eat most all foods and they will even go where I wont.

6)I love Chocolate! Dark is better than milk.
and finally #7
7) I have a large purple haired (favorite color) Troll baby sitting on my computer desk watching over me. I found her/him at a yard sale this last summer. I used to have a collection of Trolls and so did my daughters but all of them are gone now.
The Trolls was on of my favorite things when they came out in the 70s.

At this time I really dont have 7 people that I can tag but when I do I will finish the tag.

Mommy's little girl....

2008-01-27T16:18:00.000-06:00

Taffy Tug n Pull.
Born Oct 21 2007, she is quite the little personallity. She is very smart and remembers when told something pretty much the first time of being corrected. Most times she sleeps by my head at night on the pillow. She loves all her toys even the broken and chewed up ones.
She got her long name from in the first week she was with us she grabbed Sugars tail and started pulling her but she was so small she really had to tug to move Sugar.. Pommys have such bright eyes and there is such soul behind them. They really have the heart and soul of there ansesters of long ago. The Spitz dogs and Icelandic dogs are their heritage. They still have the heavy under coat of the sled dogs and are prefectly happy to be out in the snow. Our big boy Bear Bear loves to sit out in the snow or play in the snow. One of the big things I love about the Pom is there is very little grooming with them. They groom them selves like cats keeping their faces clean and the fur is very easy to maintain. We brush the puppys to keep them knowing what a brush is so when they do throw there coats at 6 months its not hard for them to get brushed. After they get in there adult coats they just need the occational brush. They do have very strong wills, and have to be reminded all the time who is the alpha dog (us). Even the puppys have to be shown who is boss. I growl at our puppys if they get snippy and there not behaving. Poms are not for everyone for sure, but its very rewarding the love they show us being one of their pack members.
I dont feel we own our animals like you own a car or a house, but our animals are part of the family, with the dogs we are part of the pack and with the cats we are part of there pride. Even some of the dogs are part of the cats pride its funny to see the cats curl up with the dogs.
There is a harmony in our madness here. Even Falcor is considered part of this pack/pride.

quit that smoking quilt top.

2008-01-26T01:35:00.000-06:00

Well this is what ive been keeping my fingers busy with. I started right around the mid part of November, at the same time of quiting smoking. I have sewn this totally by hand, It has been quilt the experance, ive never done so much hand sewing in my life. But its good way to keep my fingers active so I dont eat so much. I have quit smoking but the craving is still there 24/7. Its more mental need than physical need. I wish there was a magical pill or something to take me back to when I was smoking my first cig and not let me do it. I think quiting has been one of the hardest things ive had to do for my self ever. I hope everyone in quilt chat understands I really still have a hard time sitting and just chatting, I really have to keep my hands busy all the time.

Anyway I have sashing to do on 2 sides and this will be done. I havent deciteded yet if this will be the back to an other hand sewn top or if this will be the top and Ill start a new top.
All the colored fabric is real 1900's to 1930's fabric. The muslin is new. and its 100% hand sewn.
I want to enter into the fair this summer here.

I have started the next eather top or other side to this top or bottom how ever it turns out to be.
The other will have real fabric from the 1900's to 1930's also. I have also gotten patterns from that time period that were from the Kansas City Star. One of the blocks is a baby fan applique that I will be using and the other block will be 4 patches in a design called the Carrie Nation Quilt. Which I will totally hand sew also. After thats done I will decide if the two tops will go to geather as top and bottom or rather 2 tops to seperate quilts.

Puppys....and more puppys

2008-01-08T21:47:00.000-06:00

Samantha's new puppy with Lacy above.

Puppys...Puppys and more puppys....

Sugar is looking at Taffy. The other puppy is Samantha's new puppy, she is not named, we just picked her up on 01.07.08, she is next generation sugar's sister. She is also a Pom.

Samantha will come and pick her up maybe the end of this week. SO we are trying not to get attached. Its kinda hard tho when she does the snuggle up thing when sleeping. Right now in the house you have to watch where your walking cause every where is puppy crossing.

Happy New Year

2007-12-31T17:25:00.000-06:00

I wanted to wish everyone a Happy New year. One that is happy and healthy.

We had a very nice christmas in Mn, with Seans family. It snowed all day christmas day and was just so nice to watch the snow falling and and all the fun with the family. My older daughter was with us which made very nice, was the first christmas for a few years we were all togeather for the whole holiday. I spent alot of relaxing and ate to much for sure. The time always goes way to fast!

Puppy was a hit with everyone, she was totally spoiled over the 3 days there. We named her Taffy. Jessica wants her full name to be Amazing Laughy Taffy but im not sure about that.

We had snow here while we were gone and again the day after we got back so we still have quite a bit of snow on the ground. Its all so pretty.
Ill have some pix up in the next few days....

Have a very Happy New Year and be safe.

New Puppy 12/07

2007-12-14T23:50:00.001-06:00

This is my Xmas present, Her name is eather Taffy or Toffee I havent made up my mind. She is a Pom and just a bundle of joy.

My Mysi's block Navajo Sandpainting

2007-12-14T23:29:00.000-06:00

This is the block for Mysi, her theme is an Indian theme. This is Mother earth and Father Sky, as a sandpainting. The Navaho used this sandpainting in ceramonies to bring wellness to there tribes.

Maudie-mae's block

2007-10-27T18:49:00.001-05:00

Finally finished Maudie-Mae's block for the appy swap im in with the some of the girls from Quiltchat. Maudie's theme is anything school related. I came up with the idea thinking about my grandma and her teaching in a one room school house. One of the most important things to her was reading. Her thoughts were if you couldn't read you couldnt do anything else in life.

The little girl has no face because she is not representing one child but all the children of the world that sit down with their very first book to read. This was a fun block to do and even tho it gave me fits along the way I enjoyed doing it.

Been a while......

2007-10-24T00:48:00.001-05:00

Well its been a while, how time flies. Almost the end of October and ive only made what one post on here, guess im slacking. I dont know if my days are getting shorter but it sure does seem like it. Seems the more I want to get done the less I do.
Ive been working on the fabric in the pix above. Its real vintage 30s fabric, some I had picked up at the yards sale marathon late last month and some I bought off ebay to add to what I had. The muslin is not vintage, but im using natural to make it fit a bit better. Im hand sewing the whole thing. Much a challange for me, being ive never hand sewn a quilt before. When I was young I hand sewed alot of things so that came easy to me. Ive gotten over 300 pattern squares sewn on to a piece of muslin. then im sewing them into strips, putting them on the diagnal to make a patchwork quilt. These are all 2 inch blocks and im makeing a 1/8 inch seam. Some of the fabric is older than the 30s even back to the early 1900's, some is shirt material scraps.I would like to have this done by next spring or summer to put it in the county fair. I plan on making the back not just plain muslin but use whatever I have left in the prints to make a design on the back. Im not sure how big this is going to be im kinda playing it by ear. The binding will be made of smaller 30s fab I have that is only 1 1/4 inch big. Yes you may think im nuts, I guess I am, but I want to try and beable to say I did it.

I think hand making a quilt means so much more in making it. Yea everyone can machine sew, but to sit down and hand needle the whole thing some how means so much more. And why vintage fabric like this? It brings back memories of my grandmother and the fabrics I saw around the house she had all the time. During the early days on the farm for my grandparents it wasnt easy. They scrimped and saved, put there blood sweat and tears into the farm, at the end of the 40s they sold that farm and move to an other farm about 10 miles away and started that land, Like starting all over.
My grandparents saved everything like most familys that went threw the depression.

I can remember feedsacks being used as dish towels and for our clothes. Being on the farm we were far from in fashion ever. I wore dresses over pants in the winter and dresses in the summer. There was a value of things back then, you didnt just run to the store and buy new stuff all the time. We made things last, reusing things over and over. There is such a contrast of how I was brought up and how my daughters are brought up. We live in such a disposable age. Shoot there is even disposable cars now. When I was little on the farm I learned a value and how to be humble. Something ive tired to teach my daughters but wiht there friends and pressure its hard for them to understand this. At Christmas what I would get from family and santa claus
I appreciated so much, there was not alot of things and I took care of everything I I would get. I still have my kids books and one of my first teddy bears and one of my dolls. My grandmother sent me a trunk full of stuff from when I was little she had saved it all for me, It was wonderful getting it.

My Grandma was a very special lady, I know most will say that about there grandmas but she was I think over and above most.
She was from a large family like most familys back then, she was sent to live with her uncle and his family at a young age, some of her family was moving to California to look for better prospects I think. She helped take care of her uncles kids and the neighbors kids also. She did this becasue she had to, even years later when telling me about this it kinda brought a sadness to her, I think she had dreams she was never able to realize. Grandma had a huge heart and a kindness unlike anyone ive ever know. She passed down to me a morality in life to live by and gentleness and kindness. She would never say a word bad about anyone. She always would try to find the good in that person.

Now this lady I speak of was not my real grandma she was my step for my real grandma passed while haveing my father. My real grandma and her were teaching in a one room school house on the south side of Red Cloud when my real grandma was pregnent. So she new my grandfather during this time and the familys all knew each other. A few years after my real grandma passed my grandfather trying to raise a baby and run a farm (this would have been at the start of the 30s)Found he need a mother for the boy (my father) so my step grandma and my grandfather were married. The school district decited they needed to have teachers that were acredited teaching in the schools and they were building a more centralized school that they built in Red cloud and one in Guiderock. So she became a full time farmers wife, with all the things that went with that.

When my grandfathers family moved from WI to MO then to NE it was in a covered wagon, in 1872. They lived in that covered wagon while they built the house, and they lived off the land, shooting game and farming. There was horrific storm, blizzards and drought.While alot of other familys moved away they stayed and toughed it out. Im proud to know my family stayed in the Republican Valley and made a name and life for them selves.

My grandparents spent the 30s and most of the 40s south of town, and in 1949 the year my aunt was born, them moved to north of Cowles Nebraska, on to land my grandmothers family had, the moved the house from Cowles out to the farm and that is the farm and house I know and lived in for 11 years. My grandma raised me from 6 months to 11 years as her own, I knew her as mom. I miss my grandma alot, she passed in 2003 and as an adult Ididnt get to spend the time with her that I wanted to.
But the time I did spend with her was very special. She was in her 90s when she passed of poor health and in lots of pain which shouldnt have been for such a wonderful woman. I feel everyday there is something big missing from my life.That nothing will ever fill.

There has been so many times I wanted to pick up the phone and call her about good things in my life or when Im just down about something. Then I feel that pang in my heart knowing she will never know.

I feel my life is richer having had the family I had when I was little, to have been taught the things like manners and morals and values like I was makes me feel like that has made me a better person in this world. Having been brought up in a simpler life makes me appriciate things more I believe. Im able to be alone in my thougths.
Im able to live in a place where there not alot of people and be happy.
I treasure the thoughts of my grandma and being brought up the way I was. This is the time of year that brings all the feelings and emotions of life on the farm back to me for my favorite time of year is Fall. THe harvest, the cool air, the smells of baking, and the warmth of the house. I had a wonderful childhood and its wonderful to beable to look back on it and feel warm about the memories.

marathon of yard sales last weekend

2007-10-06T17:00:00.000-05:00

Last weekend we went on a marathon of yardsales, estate sales, and antiques shops.

Nebraska held there Junk Jaunt, for 3 days for 250 miles in middle Nebraska many many people were getting rid of there stuff and junk and treasures to all that would buy.

This picture is of the Middle Loop river, the day was cold and rainy but us diehards were still out looking for that deal around the corner.

Along with many others on this quest we started filling up our truck from the start. We decited since it was a bit of a drive to go home every night we camped out at Victoria Springs state camp ground. Very nice place with tall trees and lots of shelter from the wind, thank goodness. Saturday nigth we had a storm blow threw with 70mph winds and it hadnt been for the trees we would have been blown way. There was even at threat of a tornado.... what adventures right?

We were looking for stuff to hold us over the winter to sell on ebay, and of course I aways quest the fabric, patterns, books and all that good stuff. We did get alot of good deals, but alot of the stuff for sale was high in price ( guess they loved there stuff). If they thought it might be old they put a fancy price tag on it and ask for an arm and leg for it no matter what condition it was.

Sean has such the luck, he had people giving him stuff every where he went. He found a trolling motor for 5 dollers in great condition, and old electric grill cooker vintage about 1950 ive never seen one like it,and all kinds of that boring man stuff. It was alot of fun but by sunday I was tired and cold, and wanted to go home. Id say we went to at least 200-300 sales over the course of the weekend and we miss quite a few.

I saw old quilts, old sewing machines of every shape and size, thousands of kitchen utensils from way in the past, pickle crocks were very common at alot of the sales. I talked one lady into keeping her mothers quilt that she wanted to sell. Saw a queen size 30s quilt in all triangles for sale all hand pieced.

I did pick up some 1930s fabric and some other vintage fabric along the way even a cutter quilt. And lots of newer fabric from ladys that were cleaning out there sewing rooms. Also added to my bits and pieces of fabric I seem to have quite the collection of now.

Ive had requests to show off my finds so I'm putting up pix of my sewing room, alot of what ive gotten over the summer is all ready sorted and put away, the last two weekends of yard sales I havent gotten sorted yet so my sewing room is a mess.

In these pictures are some of what I got this last weekend like I said I havent gotten it sorted.

The next pictures are my stash................

These 2 pictures are the inside of my sewing machine table, above is current fabric Im using or have been using and hasnt made it back up stairs. Below is manufactures samples. Things can get out of hand really fast seems I just cleaned up my sewing room and sewing table not to long ago. I really need to spend a day and do it again.

So anyway we had lots of fun, met alot of neat people and saw lots of animals. But im glad its over for an other year.

Well of to do something constructive.......

Sunflowers and late summer

2007-09-21T21:04:00.000-05:00

Don't seeing a sunflower just make you smile, I know it does me. So here is 2 smiles....

I guess it has been a while since writting last here. What have I been doing?

Well we went last week end on a garage sale thing in Kansas, we probably hit about 30 in the weekend, its hard to hit and run to get full advantage of time we have. Hit and run garage sales is walk up all serious, with a purpose in mind. Say hi to the seller of the yard sale but don't get into long drawn out converstions with said person. People in the central plains can really talk.

Anyway scan the tables, shelves and ground for things that pop out, IE: fabric, sewing machines, for Sean its men toys, fishing poles, and all the manly stuff. Once its been decited there is no of the above things then scan for ebay items that will keep me retired. Once it has been decited that there is only stuff you dont want, you move on to the next one rinse and repeat.

Well this last weekend didnt really go that way, the serious with a purpose kinda went out the window. First we get started late on Friday, so we only had a few hours to get to alot of them.

We were kinda dragging abit I suppose. We had nice weather for it, In the 80s with a breeze.

We did hit quite a few in little time but as time went on our purpose started degratting.

Puppys and owners started getting in our way, side tracking us, you might say. "oh what a cute dog what kind is it?" 20 min later we are still taking to said pet owner.

I did find a large box of flannel and Sean found fishing stuff, and we added to the pile of ebayables. A little less then 45.00 later and as the sun was going west we hit the last few that were open and called it a day.

We had many many more to hit the next day, this yard sale extravaganza went from Colorado to Missouri along road 86, that is like 400 miles, no way no how would we do all that so we decited just to do Norton and the next biggest town west. And we would do a few that were a short distance east.

So we get up Saturday with this purpose in mind, get to as many as we can before looseing light.

Oh yea it was cold and windy and over cast not a good way to start out. The first sale we hit started us on that slow slippery slide down hill. with good intent we went in looked around then our first mistake we started talking to the said seller. One thing went into an other and 45 min later we had seen all the horses,cows,llama,cats,dogs and goats they had. Almost forgetting what we were even doing there. And of course they had little Pommys so we had to see them.

We finally get back on the road, get to a few more sales freezing our butts off, scanning and running back to the shelter of the truck. We hit most of the yardsales in Norton by lunch and headed east.

The sun was starting to shine a bit and it was warming up. We hadnt found anything ot any importance to that point. We we found the first one east about 6 miles out of norton and they had a lot of stuff, and in this huge pile out in front of it all was the FREE pile.

This seller was tired of all this by then and just wanted to get rid of it Im thinking. We found alot of good stuff in this Free pile. That was one of the better sales to that point. I did also get a nice photo printer by hp for 5 dollers, she said It had no paper work or drivers. We get home and find all that in a free box we had pick up there also. Very nice printer.

We were on a roll, next sale my eyes focus in on 3 big bags.....fabric! Dont want to look like im running up to them, so looking around walking fast bingo cotton fabric ! and 2 PVC frames for embroidry or quilting. All of it for like 2 dollers. Feel great im ready for the next one.

The big bingo of the day was an estate sale in an old barn type building, boxes and boxes of stuff to look threw. Pattens, books, and fabric, the full worth of someones sewing room. So I picked out a few vintage old mag and books.

I hummed and howed about the fabric with the seller finally she said take it all for 10.00.

OH MY GOD!! Yardage upon yardage. Thought I died and gone to heaven. Or at least maybe she knew it had been my birthday and she wanted me to have a good weekend. We also found some more things to add to the pile for Ebay.

We were doing pretty good but it was taking way to long at each sale, talking and admiring animals or searching boxes to long. By the time we got to the next big town it was time for most of the sales to end there. I did pick up alot more fabric for like 2 dollers tho and a few more ebayable things. I saw like 3 Treadles, and a few random other machines from the 70s.

Next weekend is the JUNK JAUNT in Nebraska, starts at Kearney and loops up north and back down to Grand Island. I look forward to doing this, probably will be the last of the yard sales till next spring now. So the junk jaunt will be the last hoora for this year. Im sure there will be a few estate sales and there are auction all the time. But auctions can be tricky here, there are the professional ones that the prices are really high to start then there are the estate auctions that you can get boxes for pennies on a doller.

I have been doing some sewing, first ive been hand quilting the lizard quilt, and ive been putting togeather a cover for the couch, which is random large and small blocks in blues and greys. and when im tired of doing that I have been working on a baby quilt for a friend. I havent worked anymore on the nine patch, I pick up that again once I get one of these others done.

Oh and the other thing ive been doing is house cleaning uggg.

They came out and put the new electrical service to the pole an a new box. With that the electrician came out put a new line from the box to the house. Next they will run a new line down to a new entry into the house to the box inside. I feel we are coming up in the world. I can run the air conditioner and the dryere at the same time now! There is so much more electric to up date before I can get insurance on the house. But we are getting there.

Tomarrow the 21st is Eager Beaver Days in Beaver City, a town event every fall. Parade and all. Crafts will be sold in the town hall and im not sure what else there will be. There will be at least one garage sale we will hit.

Today we went to one in town picked up a few thing but it wasnt anything fantastic to write home about.

We that is pretty much the whole story of what ive been doing, short of the really boring stuff.

Elsie's Block

2007-09-10T00:18:00.000-05:00

This is what ive been working on the last week, its for ElsieD from QuiltChat, for the appy block trade we are in with 10 other girls. Her theme is Around the pond.

Click on the pix to inlarge it.

2007-09-02T14:27:00.000-05:00

Happy Labor day weekend, we went to a cookout yesterday. Had a really nice time. I cant believer Aug. is over and done with, where did it go, time seems to be rushing by. I saw in walmart they already have the christmas stuff up for sale, I sware it gets earlyer every year.
pretty soon they will just leave it all up for the next year.

The pix above is the start of my 3-D quilt. Its going pretty good just havent had alot of time to work on it. I felt like doing some appliqueing so I put it aside and worked on cat appy. I should never try to do anything when im tired and when its late. I took alook at it the next day after working on it and gesh i have some unsewing to do. Im pleased with how the ninepatch is coming out and its going to be huge. The pix above shows on half of one row, and there are 4 more rows to go plus the sash that goes around the out side. Its all done on point except the ninepatch blocks them selves. SO im really brushing up on my point sewing.

This week I recieved the appy swap package from one of the quilt chat girls im doing it with.
I have started her block, theme is around the pond. So im doing a swan with lilly pads and an abstract wave with some special fab I found that looks like the top of a pond looking down in to it. I have it layed out and I will start sewing it today. I will put up pix when i get done with hers and ill take a pix of hers also and put it up here to. Elsie did a real nice job on her block to start her theme out.

I havent been taking to many pix as of late, seems ever time there is a pix event im with out my camera. I need to get back into taking the camera with me more. Posting up on ebay has been keeping me busy and Jessica being back in school keeps me also busy to.

Well I guess ill get to sewing while I have a chance......

One of those weekends.......

2007-08-19T22:34:00.000-05:00

Ok ive had one of those sewing couple days that I could just scream! Ive been working on the round the world and everything that could go wrong has gone wrong.
first didnt make enought blocks for the size I wanted. Then got it 3/4 the way done and put on the last section and stood back and looked the last quarter is all wrong.
So I unsewed more than what I sewed. and Im still unsewing 18 rows worth. There are some times I think I should not sew, it would be better in the long run.

I cant believe its been almost 9 days since my last post, how time flashes by. Jessica started school this last week, And so it begins the school routine. She has 2 years to go, I can do this. She spent the weekend babysitting 4 kids from age 9 months to 9 years old. She had her hands full for sure.

Its just been to warm to do much outside, picked tomatoes yesterday and there are so many more to go, guess ill be sick of tomatoes before the season is over. We had days of 104 last week that was not to much fun, were down to in the 90s now it almost feels cool comparied. Im thinking soon it has to start cooling down and we should be getting some rain again before long. The corn field out around the area looks good, big ears and there starteding to dry up. Im sure harvest is just around the corner for the farmers.

I guess this coming week we will be back working in the bedroom, I know Ive said this before but we really need to get back in there and finish before it gets cold.
well thats all for now, I know not to exciting.....

Old buildings,sewing and freeezing for winter.

2007-08-11T22:25:00.000-05:00

Above are 2 pix of the old part of Omaha that I took when we went to see my daughter Samantha a few weeks ago. Such a contrast from the old to the new in the background.
Below is a pix of my property from a few years ago. It looks still pretty much the same as then tho. Our property is sorta a wedge to the north (top of the pix) is a line of trees that is 3 trees deep all the way to the back of the corral. and on the south side (bottom side of pix) is a broken line of trees all the way up the driveway. north is a pasture and south is a wheat flield or milo flield depending on the year.

Ok what did I get done this week, My daughter came to see us on tuesday, her new boyfriend flew here and they stayed until thursday. It was nice to meet him, he seems to be a really nice guy. We went fishing on Wednesday in the heat (97 degrees) and didnt catch a thing, think the fish are much smarter than us. Then Sam and her bf camped out at the state park where we had gone fishing. A nice quiet get way for them after all the busyness of there lives in Omaha. Her boyfriend is studing to become a commersial pilot.

I worked on the ninepatch, got all the ninepatch blocks made and started putting the 3-d part of it on the blocks. It is slow going, never was really to good at sewing on point. So this is going to give me lots of pratice. Also worked in my sewing room to get things more organized. Today I got the kitty cat quilt ready to quilt.

Today also cooked and froze all the beets I had pulled, about 15 quarts of them.
Froze some squash also. My tomatoes are starting to all get red alittle at atime and there are lots to go yet. Cherry tomatoes (my favorite) are starting to turn and there are alot set.

Tomarrow I will try to get some of the machine quilting down on the kitty quilt hopefully. and who knows what elce.

The 3-D quilt in progress, Raccoons and dinner

2007-08-02T19:12:00.000-05:00

Before I get started, I hope everyone that might be in Minn,MN were not close to the bridge when it went down. I hope all is well and my deepest sympathy goes out to those that had family members lost on the bridge disaster. Sean's realitives are all ok and werent at the bridge at all, thank goodness.

Well, ive gotten all the pieces out and started sewing the blocks, my travacy with cutting 100 pieces wrong and running out of fabric because of it, is behind me. I was not able to get the same fabric that I started with so I had an other fabric that I had yardage of that I will use also. So 2 rows of the 5 rows will be of the original fabric and the other 3 rows will be the new color. There isn't much difference other than on is solid and the other is a bit marbled but there that same shade and color. I have changed what fabs im using in the ninesquares, Im going to use all calicos. Im excite about how its going to look now.

I have started up a picture album threw Flickr.com. SO I will be uploading alot of pictures there for everyone to have fun looking at. Right now there is only a few there, but in time I will have lots lots more. If you look to the side bar over here
------> you will see the link to it.

We went to Omaha yesterday 8/1 to get my younger daughter Jessica to bring her home from her sisters house, shes been spending a month there before school started. We went down to the old town part of the city where they have converted the old buildings into all kinds of store and eateries. Samantha took us to the antique stores and we walked around the park that runs threw the area. It was pretty hot and humid and we had a bit of rain so the weather was not really on our side to be out side. She really wanted to show me the fresh water jellyfish in the water there. It was very hard to see them let alone get a pix of. The biggest one was about 1/2 inch across.

There was some really interesting things in the antique stores that I would have loved to had but maybe an other time. A beautiful trendle sewing machine in a beautiful cabnet was one of thte things that caught my attention, but I wasnt were up to carrying it back to the car ( about 4 blocks away).

We decided to go to eat at a little place a bit out side of main part of omaha, Its all the Alpine Inn. Well it was a very special neat place not because of there food ( all they serve is chicken) but the attraction they have out side the windows where you eat. Many many raccoons and cats all in the same area eatting the left over of the people that eat there. We were sitting no less than a foot from some of these raccoon on the other side of the glass window. It was one of the neatest thing ive ever seen. The man that owns the inn has been feeding the raccoons and stray cats for 30 years and the person that they bought it from had been doing it be for that. There was mommy raccoons with there babes and mommy cats with there babies also. It really didnt matter if the food was good or not I really didnt even notice it if was or not Iwas so busy watching the raccoons up close and almost personal. They have a large shell shaped watering thing for them and the raccoons not haveing saliva glands would go over and wash there hands and drink the water with the cats and kittens. The raccoons use there paws just like little hands in the same manner as a monkey would. There hands are very soft looking and infact look very much like a monkeys hands other than there thumbs are different. Raccoons sleep off the ground at night in the trees and many of these raccoons went up the trees around and took short naps. They are not scared of the humans around just on the other side of the windows, they look in quite often as they eat as if we were part of there group. At one point with babies and mommys there was about 20 raccoons we could count but im sure there was more than that. Each mommy had at least 2 babes, one had three.

The next pix is of the cats after we got finished eatting and going back to the car. Some were friendly but most were wild Sean is petting one of the was that was really friendly.

Anyway this was the neatest eating experience ive had in a long time. Below are pix of some of the cats and raccoons while eating.

We had alot of fun watching the raccoons interact with each other. Its a must see if your ever in Omaha Nebraska.

A memorial for a sweet puppy

2007-07-29T22:08:00.001-05:00

Teddy or Teddy bear as we fondly called him was born in 2004, his mom and dad were Maltese and Pomeranian, he had 2 siblings in the litter. Teddy was a very happy little dog, always looking at us with a smile on his face and a wage of his tail. Teddy got along with all the other animals and had a very mellow nature. My older daughter just fell in love with im from the start.So we kept him for her, she had to go to school and move out and was not able to take her so he just became one of the clan. He was a bit the chicken tho not wanting to do alot of the things the other dogs did. He would stay close to home when the other dogs were out adventuring. He would love to sit with us when we would have our bonfires inthe back yard, and hes was the one that stuck close to us when we fired off the fireworks like he wanted join in on the fun, not scared by the loud fire crackers. When ever we were out side doing something he would always be there to help, including trying to catch grasshoppers with me. We had some pet names for him, Sean called him Rubbler lips becasue of the shiny black look of his lips and I nick named him Theodore Dumdum, a silly fond name for him for his silly things he would do. Teddy always tried to show that he was top dog over the others but we all knew where he stood in the pack. The other dogs would just let him think that he was. He was a very funny little dog, and a joy to have around.

With heavy hearts we layed Teddy to rest yesterday July 28, 2007 after being hit by a truck. He was for the first time in a very long time tagging along with the other dogs out by the road.The other dogs are car smart but he wasnt to much, I don't know what possessed him to follow them, but he did. The man did not see him and by the time he did it was to late. He didnt suffer at all which was a blessing I guess.

Little Teddy will be missed very much by all of us even the other dogs. He touched all of our hearts from the start. May he rest in peace and god bless his little soul.

What to do on a hot Saturday afternoon

2007-07-22T01:54:00.000-05:00

Well it was just one answer to that, cut out a quilt. Yes I got 200 parallograms cut and started cutting the strips for the ninepatch.The quilt above is not by me but its what this pile of fabric will look like when I get done I hope. Only the burgandy takes the place of the green. My problems now is going out side my comfort range in colors matching. I'm already seeing im trying to do everything in burgandy shades and that isnt what I wanted so ive got to search my fabs for colors that go with it but that dont really have to blend totally. Im hoping this will be for the new bedroom when its done, the colors will be copper, burgandy, and brown. It took me most of the late afternoon and night to get those cut out.

Also what I did today was work on my around the world, Ive got all the blocks cut into strips for the other 3/4 of the quilt. Now I need to sew them and then pick them apart and sew them togeather. Really dont have alot to do for this one it just sitting down and doing it.

Anyway I guess for all the fabs ive been buying (but got some really great deals) I really need to sit my self down and do alot of sewing. (looks around at the other things that need to get down)
SO much to do and so little time it seems. What did I ever do when I was working, I cant imagine how I got anything done.
Oh well Im off to bed.......

Bigger than life Skeeters!!!

2007-07-20T22:53:00.001-05:00

ok every time in the last week every time I go outside this is what attacks us, a skeeter larger than life. A few of these could carry a small dog away im sure. I thought I saw a swarm of them carrying away a cow earlyer today. LOL. No really this things hurt when the bite and when there flying around your ear it sounds like a whole swarm of the small ones. They are very very agressive! I'm thinking the Alasken skeeters have nothing on these. See that thing that its pointing at the dime well that is what bites you.And yea they bite right threw your clothes like there not there. I had this one in the house last night, it was hard no to squish him before taking his picture. I ask nicely please pose for me but nothing doing he just wanted to suck my blood. Yes that leg is his. I have never seen a skeeter this big before, and oh yea they bite all day and hang out in my garden. We havent been able to find out exactly what brand they are but we have done our own research and we are thinking it is the largest North american skeeter there is and only comes out here when there is a wet year. And yea we have had a very wet year. Want a better look at him click on the pix and get a close up.

Cats,Dogs, Jellybeans and deals.

2007-07-19T21:27:00.001-05:00

Ok you will probably think im crazy after this post but this is a small introduction to some of my animals I daily take care of, Below is Falcor and our newest puppy Sugar. All our animals have to know each other and have to know it ok to be friends. Falcor has no fear of the animals we have intro'ed to him as you will see. Foxy loves Falcor well until he bite foxy on the tongue.
Sugar being only 8 weeks old when we got her, has made friends with all the cats and Falcor.
The dogs sleep with the cats and vise versa. I think sometimes the dogs think there cats.

This is Falcor and Red, Falcor is warming him self on Red, Red just layed there not having a problem with a lizard laying on him. Red when he was born I had to give mouth to nose resussatation to, it took him along time to breath. From this hes a bit slow, hes scared of strangers all the time and it has taken along time to get his trust, hes suspious of every thing. He will disappear in the house and we cant find him unless he wants us to. But he is a very gentle cat and loves to take care of the younger cats, licking and cleaning them.

Each one of our cats has a special story to go along with them. And each one is very special. We have one cat that we promised a little boy we would keep her for him, he was moving and wanted to make sure his cat was safe. He was never able to get her back but we still have her and we will have her till she passes.

When Im feeling low or feeling bad at least one of our many animals will see that and jump on my lap and try to make me feel better. When im hurting, a cat purring on my lap can be very relaxing and it makes it better some how. These are just 3 of our 10 special cats that live with us in the house. We have 5 boys that live out side, they just couldnt get along all togeather in the house and are much happyer out ruling there roost. Plus there great mousers.

Tigger and Little girl have some wild cat in them Tigger has a very short tail and we belive he has bobcat in him, Little girl we are not sure she does look like a bobcat in the winter with her full winter coat. Below Lacy she doesnt really even know she is a cat, shes alot of fries short of a happy meal. Her mommy is Little girl up above and she is not a very good mother. She didnt take care of lacy when she was first born and when I found the kittens they were cold. I warmed all 6 kittens and saved 4 of the six. Lacy was one of the worse, she was very small and had lots of trouble for the first 4 months, we almsot lost her a few times. And from that she is a bit retared. And she has may genic problems, her nose is not big enought so she has problems smelling and breathing, she is very skinny all the time also. She is a cat that can never go out ever, she has no fear of anything at all. She goes into any open door including the refrig.

One of our little girls Foxy, she is a daddys little girl mostly. Shes a very calm quiet dog. Very loveable, she would just love to sit in your lap and cuddle.

All of this fab came from goodwill in one big bag, there is some yardage and at least half a yard and its all in good condition and the best part it was only 4.00 for the whole bag.

We are always looking for a good deal I think. Yesterday and a few days before that I found a few really good deals. The hoop was 50cents at goodwill and the fab fq were 1.00 a piece at a new place I found that was not a quilt shop but a store private owned what had a little of everything, the place has been in busness since the 60s and walmart didnt put them out. There is tables and tables full of fabs that are quilt quality fabs. We had gone to a quilt shop just up the road from this store and they didnt have but about maybe at most 100 different fabs if that.The lady at the counter told me that they were already getting more busy with fabric from walmart starting to cut down on how much fabs they carry. Walmarts loss there gain I feel.

We go to the one goodwill and its has some really nice clean stuff, better than most Ive seen. They always have alot of fabric and crafty things in big bags for like 3-4 dollers.

I think the hoop was a huge find and its in new condition. I do love finds like this specally when I need them.

Well off to do something .........write more later........

Turkeys,turkeys and more turkeys

2007-07-15T16:17:00.000-05:00

If you click on the picture, and look really close there are 3 of 10 baby turkeys that live im my yard. In the evening they roost in the trees out front of the house. The other pix is the mommy turkey. They are really easy to spook so I couldnt be very close to them.

Veggies,Trolls,Grasshoppers and Dragons

2007-07-13T21:31:00.000-05:00

Hi everyone, well this week has been busy, I did get my stuff ready for the appy swap and troll is ready to travel around the world. Lets see I cleaned my sewing room, changed some things how I had storage. I worked in the garden some, here are some of the fruits of my labor. The middle of the sweetcorn was blown down in one of our thunderstorms we have had, so it doesnt look good for that part of it, I tryed to stand it back up but it just falls back over. A funny thing is going on with the corn anyway, its tasseling out with any ears on the stock, I thought you had to have silk on the ears to catch the pollen. Pretty soon ill have tomatoes,I cant wate. The watermelon has jsut started putting fruit on and I have gerkin size cucumbers. If I had a crock id pickle some of those but I dont so Ill let them grow to full size.

We mowed yesterday just intime for an other storm so since the day before the 4th we have had 5 " and 2/10. For July that is suppost to be the dryest month its off to a bang. One of the fields a bout a mile from us was just distroyed by hail with the last big one we had a few days ago. We had some of that hail but nothing like they did just a mile away.

I went to find fabric pens yesterday, and ended up in a town that was haveing sidewalk sales so I found some good buys at the quiltshop there, a book called Great American quilts 1994, there are some beautiful quilts in this book with patterns. I got a few FQ for 1.00 each also. In an other place I found a neat ruler, is a wedge ruler for making cheverons and spectrum quilts. I had been eyeing it for a while i t went from 26.95 to 10.00 great buy! I did get my fabric pens to but there wasnt much of a choice.

With my Troll for the swap, Ive made siggy blocks, ive appliqued runes stones on to the block and beaded the symbol on the stones. Each stone symbol has a meaning which I thought was kinda neat. I picked ones that I thought was more for the group of the swap. I wish I could go all the places my troll will be going... lots of states and off to Canada and then to Australia. That would be so much fun to follow him all those places. And hes going to meet some really great people along the way. Any way the swap is going to be alot of fun to do. One of the girls at Quiltchat.com is trying to get me to join a few of the other swaps that are going to be coming up, I wish I was going to have the time to do that, but wiht remodeling and the other quilts Im having to get done its not a good idea to start anymore.

Im still taking care of my daughters Bearded dragon, wow he can eat, he chomps down grasshoppers like there candy, he also likes the sweet snap peas. Hes like a little kid and a candy shop with watermelon, he cant have much but he sits there sucking on it. You should see me out catching grasshoppers and yes they do bite. I take out a small aquarium and catch about 20 of them at a time I guess they dont mind to much becasue there still mating in the tank. I think these grasshoppers carry their eggs on there backs. its like a bright red round things. I guess ive never payed to much attention to them other then cursing them out when they eat my garden.

We are so thankful we have the A/C now the house is staying real nice even when its humid and hot out. Day seem to go so fast now days, I cant believe its almost half way threw July already.

We have to get the bedroom done before it turns cold and it may take us that long. We have the siding off out side on the norht side of the house with just tar paper covering the wood. Once we get the bedroom done then we need to start on the bathroom and im sure that is going to run into winter. The electrician will have to come out agian and rewire these room and the electric company is going to come out and give us a better service than what we have now. We are converting over to all electric and we have a generator we are going to tie into the system for when we loose power. Right now with the old wireing its hard to get a insurance company to insure us so Ill be glad to have that done.

Well im going to go do something ... not sure what it was now lol. i'll Write again sooon....

holiday and family

2007-07-05T22:59:00.000-05:00

Its been a few days since last posting, hope everyone had a fun and safe 4th. My oldest daughter come for over night, it was nice to see her even tho her visits are so short. With working and all her reptiles and other animals, ie her rats and dwarf hampsters. She has hairless rats that are really on the cute side, Ive never been one to like to hold a rat ( would rather hold any other of the mammals ) but hers are really kinda neat to hold. She has assorted frogs and turtles, snakes and lizards. Also the 2 cats and birds I cant for get to mention. Its sorta like walking into a small zoo in her house. Samantha was the one that got Jessica into having her bearded dragon, which im taking care of for the next month. So im going to be catching grasshoppers and turning music on for Falcor, and hand feeding him this goo stuff that he loves. Jessica will be staying with Sam for the next month in the big city, she looks forward to this, going shopping and all those things that she misses living out in the country.

We shot off fireworks last night (the 4th) and had a great time, today we went out on one of the lakes with the boat, It was a bit warm but not to bad with the breeze on the water. We fished but didnt catch any keepers, it was just a nice layed back day out there.

We got our A/C on for the holiday !! They arnt totally done but at least we have it cooler in the house seeing the temps are suppost to be right at 100 degress this weekend.

I didnt get anything quilty done today or yesterday, just no time. I did pick up some crates things that stack for putting my fabs in, Im going to change how I have them so I dont have to dig threw drawers all the time. I probably keep my yardages in the drawers still tho.

I have no new pix to add, I forgot to take my camera with me today.... so didnt get the great shots of the little fish we did catch.

I did update Samantha's pix on the side here on her request.

Well im hoping to get something done tomarrow but I do have to clean house again from the guys being in and out of the house the last week. And of course I need catch grasshoppers and turn music on for Falcor. and oh yea stand the sweet corn back up after the storm the other night bent it over.

Out door life in summer....

2007-07-01T17:51:00.000-05:00

Well this week I didnt get anything quilty done. We went Wed. to get the boat from Kansas City, that ended up to be a very long trip. It was poring rain the whole time there and for 100 miles west of the city. The boat is a Starcraft 1995 and the motor is a 1994. We got a really good deal for it or we wouldnt have driven 400 miles to pick it up. On Saturday we took it out to the lake to see how it ran (only ran it with the muffs on the motor out of water). We had a pretty good time, it was over cast and a bit cool when we got out there, we took advantage of that and tested alot of the things on the boat. We had a little trouble at one point but it jsut needed new spark plugs, and the motor once we changed them seemed to run fine. We need to work on the trim motor we couldnt get it to trim. So now we know for the next time what we need for out on the lake like suntan lotion or keep covered up like I did. Jessica and Sean both got toasted.

I went to a flea market type thing and found a ton load of fabric from one woman that had just gotten it from an auction, there is alots of vintage fabs and 99.% was really nice clean cotton. There is alot of bits and piecies but thats ok for scrapy quilts,There is even a panel of Charley brown. Be nice for a center for a quilt for the babys at the hospital project. Think I only spent 11.00 for a big box full. Also found some old quilt magazines that have alot of the patterns right in them and also the appy patterns to. Seems like alot of the magazines today have more advertizing in them then patterns, or you have to send away for them and pay. The older magazines have alot of really neat ideas. I left some laying on the bed and sugar the puppy started chewing on them, Bad Bad puppy!

We have had a repreave from the heat for the last week its been so nice specially at night. Im hoping the heat doesnt come into bad before the air is done. Samantha my oldest daughter will be coming for the 4th, and we will be firing off the fireworks we got from SD while up there.

I have also been working in the garden seems the weeds are growing faster than the plants I planted. I had my first stuff out of the garden swiss chard and I pulled an onion today, its still kinda small or a large scallion. I have set now the squashs, tomatoes, and the carrots are growing unlike last year they never did anything. Jessicas snap peas are blooming and I saw that one of the first watermelons I planted is blooming. I sit back looking at the garden and feel such accomplishment from it. After living in Az for 21 years, where you have to plant gardens in the winter and some times it gets to warm before everything is fully done, also the sand is so bad to grow in you have to do so much to the ground before growing anthing. Little by little im going to start planting some flowers in the garden more, there is enought room for a flower garden with the vegetables, and maybe some herbs.

Im so enjoying living in Nebaska again, being able to do the things here that you cant in Az because you die from the heat. And seeing all the wild life and flowers that grow wild here is so special I think. Its so nice to enjoy the small things in life, and feel content while doing it.

Sitting back and listening to the sounds of the country and haveing fresh air and a cool breeze in the evening is all well worth it. It so brings back the feelings of being a child on my grandparents farm, a much easyer slower way of life. Adventuring for hours, watching the bird or just laying in the grass watching the clouds putting names to shapes. My child hood was very special I think living 10 miles out of town and most time only have me to play with. Looking for lizards or frogs and even a snake everyonce in a while. Even as a child I was very close to nature and what was around me, Id go into the creek and pick wild violets for Grandma or just adventure up the road letting my imagination run wild. Id hang out in the crab apple tree and get a belly ache from eating so many, or go eat tomatoes or carrots right out of the garden. As a child I would never spend all day watching tv inside we barly had the tv on. It was only for special nights or sunday night to watch disney. I could watch cartoons some but I wasnt glued to the TV for hours, I was out side all the time in the spring and summer, away from the house for hours. Id swim in the cow tank when I got hot, or for special times my grandparents would take me to the public pool in town. We would always go to town on saturday night, Id go to a movie and they would talk with there friends that gathered on main street. We would also sell the eggs for the week to the market, my grandma made everything pretty much so we didnt shop in the market to much. Going to the big city once a month was a big event in my life, we'd get dressed up and go to Hastings, Grandma could get some sewing materials or what ever she need from Ben franklin, and Grandpa would get stuff for his tractors or what ever was needed. I spent hours with my grandpa at the grainerys in the summer, and id go out and help bring drinks to the combiners while they harvested. When I got older they would put me in the back of the grain truck and Id help push the grain around. I have so many special memories from living on the farm, I guess I was very luck to have such a wonderful child hood as I did. I so miss the child like feeling I had while living with my grandparents.

I just wish my daughters could have experenced the farm life and country life at a earlyer age.

Both like the city and city things. They both get bored out here finding nothing to do.

Well I think I'll go figure out where im going to put all this fabric I just got, I really need to do some thing quilty..........

News about Mr.Owl photo

2007-06-28T18:29:00.000-05:00

Remember the picture I posted up here in June of Mr.Owl, well I had submitted it to www.pictures.com and I recieved a letter today from them, that they have picked my photo to put in there book of photos. They call it Endless Journeys. I thought it was so neat to get the pix but to have it put in a book that is so exciting.

A few interesting pix

2007-06-27T10:55:00.000-05:00

I forgot to put a shot of Jessica at her prom. I rag set her hair the old fashion way, with rag wraps.

It took hours to put roll it and then to unroll it and put her hair up. I think she looked just so pretty with her this way with the dress.The guy she with is Tony a really good friend. I think they make a nice couple. We dried the flowers they were just so pretty.

The next pix up is falcor doing a balancing act on the side of his tank, when the top is off Jessica cant keep him in his tank he likes to explore her room, brave lizard i'd say.

And the next pix up is well, I guess I dont have to say much, this snake was in the middle of the road sunning him self, we wanted to move him so Sean got his attention and I came up from behind and gently tailed him and moved him to the side of the road, he was really grumpy!

We have been seeing alot of this kind of snake, the bull snake. And yellow bellyed racers.

Sean wants to see a rattlesnake but so far we have only seen one and it was dead on the road.

Im sure one of these days we will see one sunning or well I hope its not out in the yard or close to us.

new quilty fabs

2007-06-26T23:26:00.000-05:00

We have been working on 2 small camper trailers, getting them ready to sell. The one was not bad just needed some cleaning, but the other is needing TLC. We dont use them so we decited to get sell them and get a boat we hope.

We went to McCook today for other things and we stopped in at one of the quilting shopes while waiting for an other place to get back from lunch.

As you can see by the pix a few things had to come home with me. I really need to find a better way to keep my fabs, I have them in tomany different places and have to dig threw to see what I have. Im hoping to find and old wardrobe with shelves that I could put it all in.

Nebraska is having their quilt shop hop in July, there will be 13 shops to go to and they will give out a pattern for a block at each store that put togeather will make a Chirstmas quilt.

I found the mini iron at walmart a few night ago on discount, Clover brand is like 60.00 and this one was 19.00, I really dont care if its not a name brand like clover just as long as it works. This was a great find for me.

We are an other day closer to having air conditioning, I cant wait! Next week we are suppost to have days of 100 so we cant get it soon enought. After we get the air in and cool the house we have to start working on the bedroom again, its been sitting for the last month and half cause we needed to work outside and get the garden in then it got to hot to work on it. So it will be back to dust and wall rebuilding. Im hoping we have this done before it gets to be fall. Then we have to work the room that will be the bathroom. And of course still have to have time for quilting to.

SO many things so little time.............

The farmers here are harvesting the wheat and its looking really good for them, the prices is way up and the fields are full. The damage that kansas had to their wheat really made it better for the Nebraska farmers, It sad for the farmers down there tho.

I ate the first thing out of my garden tonight, swiss chard cooked with portabella mushrooms ( wish i could grow the mushrooms), anyway it was really good can make a meal of just that.

Guess that is it for now ...until the next time

My troll for the swap

2007-06-23T23:19:00.001-05:00

Baby birds are here

2007-06-23T15:43:00.000-05:00

Lets see what have I been doing the last few days besides being just plain out hot. I have been working on my block for the appy swap, finished a block for a love quilt. Worked in the garden, have tomatoes set right now that made me happy. Every thing is growing good even the weeds.

The air conditioning guys were here thursday and friday, Im thinking its going to be a long prossess to get the duct work up to the second floor and into the rooms, the down stairs wasnt to much of a problem so far. They started knocking a hole in the wall going up the stairs to remove a set of boards 5 1/2 inches deep from one of the stud areas they need to feed the duct work up. Made me a little nervious to see a big hole going in the wall being its slat and plaster still. We arnt going to update the walls in the stair well for a while its pretty much last on the list.
Oh well we will see what happens. The big thing is we will have air conditioning and heating this winter. The big ugly older than me space propane space heaters can be taken out leaving me with more space in the front room to move the furniture around. And I wont have to worry about them blowing out and having propane in the air.

It seems the heat has moved in to stay, we have been really lucky up to this point that we havent had the high heat like we had last summer. But the humdity has been up there so its not really very nice.

We went to a Goodwill that just opened not to far from us, about 45 min from here, and wow there was bags and bags of fabric and a huge table of yardage. I got some Moda brand fabric which was a huge find, and a big bag of lace, glitz, and misc stuff. Lots and lots of fabric.
So now I have to be good and not spend anymore on fabs for a while.
Remember those eggs in one of my post before, these are the babys that have hatched. I still don't know which baby is not the same as all the others. The tiny one in the middle of the pix below had just hatched yesterday. So much more tiny than the others. Its being so hot the babys were venting to cool down. Its such a wonderious thing.

Well im off to sew for awhile maybe I'll get the troll done tonight, and I can put of pix of it.

Sugar giving a hint

2007-06-19T11:40:00.000-05:00

This is Little Sugar trying to give me a hint, This is the indoor water bowl, when its empty she barks at me from inside the bowl (not really a bowl but a tub). She is so smart, she makes me laugh. Shes not much a puppy anymore but she is chewing everything in sight. My pillow, stuffed animals have the Mark Of Sugar. Well im off to do something quilty.......

after the yard sale marathon

2007-06-17T20:52:00.000-05:00

We servived the yard sale marathon, barely. Friday and Saturday we went on a 5 county wide yard sale hunt that the citys were all putting on here in Nebraska. I raked in lots of fabric, kitchen items, Sean got a computer that has not hardly been used and all it needs is a hard drive, and I got this wonderful old sewing machine with table for 10.00, with the book and all the attachements ever made I think even the huge button holer..

I was worried that it may not work or it would have to go to a shop. But after oiling all the places it describes to and adjusting the tensions, and getting it treaded right, It sews like a dream. All I could say was wow. It is a straight stitch only machine but I think I found my new quilting machine. In testing it I folded up some fabric so it was really thick and it sewed threw it like a dream. Id say this machine sews better than my brother im on now. My brother does do all the neat stitches and all but I think this newhome is a lot stronger. Plus I love the 1960s cabinet it was in. Im so happy about finding it. I'll test it out for quilting on a little piece I have later but im confident it will do the job. I can turn the fabric so smoothly and it has a bit more sewing room.

Any way im glad the sales are over and I really dont want to see an other yard sale for a while. We probably hit over 100 sales in the 2 days. It was fun and I met some interesting people along the way. And it was a good cheep weekend. But wow am I worn out from getting in and out of the care over and over.

Days of rain......

2007-06-14T12:52:00.000-05:00

Well we had quite a bit of rain yesterday, and its still cloudy and a threat of more rain today.

I'm sure the farmers that are planting the december corn right now are not so happy, but for those that had there corn in are happy. The water stores are looking pretty full and the Republican river is running real full from all the rain they have had up stream. Nebraska has been in drought for about 12 years now to some degree. Most of the farmers around here havent seen this much rain for alot of years.

I was out walking and found the nest totally by accident, the strange things there are the little blue eggs and then there is one larger egg that looks totally different, Ive heard of birds leaving a egg for other birds to care for. I feel sorry for the little mommy bird that has the little blue eggs, Im sure the visitor is going to bigger than her and her babys.

The white material you see is from my big dog millie when she tore up a pillow I left on the porch. There was fiber stuffing all over the yard, the birds use everything they can find.

I love finds of nature like this, I watch as a baby magpie grew up back behind the garden and the baby has flown the coop now as you might say. This is one of the reasons I love living out here in the country away from traffic and people in general.

I did a little hand sewing yesterday, working on pattern I saw in one of the magazines and just loved it, I know I know, I have so many other things to be working on....I felt like doing something new for a bit. Plus the pratice on my hand stitching, I admit im a bit rusty. I started relying on the sewing machine for everything it seems. Its kinda soothing to hand sew till I make a mistake or the thread gets a tangled. All the time im sewing im thinking about what background fabs to use for the swap, I thought I had it all worked out what I wanted to do then, being female, I changed my mind. Its really not the size in question its the colors maybe Ill mix it up with some dark and some light. Light backgrounds seem to end up in the washer so much more. Its nice we have 12 people for the swap now, that will make for a really nice quilt in the end.

Well I guess I had better get something done today, being cool and all. Ive so had the lazy humdrums....

To hot to do anything

2007-06-12T16:54:00.001-05:00

The last few days have been really warm and humid. We have had storms to the west of us and south and north, but we have not had a drop of rain. Ive worked in the garden, doing week control. Most of the seeds I planted have sprouted and are doing pretty good. I just dont want to see any hail please. The sweet corn is up about 4 inches or more, looks like its almost 100% popage on them. Ok it just started raining all the sudden really hard and the wind blowing like crazy just now. It didnt last long tho maybe 2 min.

I was out walking last evening and found we have a full family of owls. I saw 4 last night but there may be more. Today we were coming home from town and there was a little Pairie dog running up the road way from us, Im not sure where he is from tho. Maybe the pasture across the road from us. Any way he kept running up the road, I dont think they could get lost I hope.

Our jack russell just got back from his afternoon run, and of course he found a fresh cow pie to roll in, uck! and of course he hates water. Its not even funny when he goes to jump up on you and hes all green from rolling.

I havent sewn a thing in a few days, it just been to warm to even move to much in the house.
I've joined an online applique' swap with 9 other ladys from the quilters chat I chat in. I think its going to be alot of fun. My theme is anything fantisy, like unicorns and dragons and so on.
It will be a challange for sure. So I have put togeather a pattern for my block "a Troll" now I just need to decide what background to use and what to send on when we get started. Im somewhat trying to think out side the box for this. I think I have figured out somewhat, what ill do for the others in the swap that know what theme they are wanting.

We heard from the heating and cooling guy about putting in the air and heat unit, hes ordering it ! So its jsut a matter of time now. It cant be to soon for me, Hot flashes and summer heat dont work for me. We are having to do this in stages becasue he is really really busy right now, so the electric will be updated some time later before winter. The current service will run the air cool but not the heating in the winter. The working on the bedroom will continue after the air is in, its just to hot to work in the dust and plaster. As long as we have it done by winter Im not worried. These old house are hard to get all the duct work to all the rooms, we need to figure out how were going to get it up stairs to Jessicas room and the spare room. The other room up there isnt finished more storage than anything kind of room but it could be made into a nice room also.
We will need to get the walls in there insulated being there is very little in that room, but it all takes time. We have had a mouse visiting the bedroom everynight now for the last few nights.Hes pretty wise the cats cant seem to catch him. I dont like having mice in the house being they chew on everything, wood and wires and whatever they find to use as bedding.

Well I guess I'll get something done now that is cooling off a bit down to 84 in the house now.

Oh yea I found some really cute watermellon fabric today would make a cute table runner for summer. Or maybe pot holders.
Any way off I go.......

whoot?

2007-06-08T14:46:00.000-05:00

This little guy was watching me pull weeds in the garden today. He was making very strange sound and I had no clue what it was. Then all the sudden he moved and I caught sight of him. The owl sat long enought for me to get the camera and take a few pictures. Then off he went.

Cat up a tree

2007-06-06T14:53:00.000-05:00

If you click on the pix you will get a bigger view.

Yesterday we hear the dogs barking like crazy, which usally doesnt happen until night when the wild critters come out, So Jessica runs out to investigate, I hear her laughing like crazy and go see whats up.

Its Butterscotch up a tree, now a tcat up a trees really isnt funny but seeing this cat up a small tree when he weights over 20lbs and the dogs sitting below mocking him was funny. You have to understand Butterscotch tho, he doesnt know hes that big I dont believe. Hes a "I dont care cat" when it comes to the dogs, the dogs try to get him to do the chase thing and Butterscotch just ignores them.

What I think happened was he was feeling frisky and climbed the tree and got stuck and of course one of the dogs saw this and wanted to join in on the action and tease the cat. Now that Butterscotch was up this tree that really was not a good climbing for cat of his size,he realizes this and gets scared. He was some what stuck between the 2 branches. So then he starts crying for help to get down. and all this time the wind is blowing a bit and the tree is swaying.
Finally with lots of talking to him, and him doing alot of crying, he finally trys to turn around, I really didnt think he was going to beable to do it. It was funny just watching him try to turn his big body in this very small space. At one point he was partally upside down on his back turning around but he did it but then was scared to come the rest of the way down for it was a straight down for him. His crying even got more expressive at this point, and Id sware he was telling me NO. He finally got low enought that I could reach up and grab his front paws and sorta pull him down to me. He was a very thankfull cat at the point. And as for the dogs they didnt get what they wanted and went on to doing other dog things. Hopefully next time Butterbutt as we nick name him will pick a better more fitting tree to climb.

More trip continued.......

2007-06-02T01:54:00.000-05:00

On the second full day at the Black hills we went into the Black hills national park and took the Wildlife drive. That was the best and most relaxing part of the trip. We spent most of the day driving threw that part of the national part, we stopped and saw the wolf people with the 2 wolfs, very impressive, its a must see. They are part of an organization that works on preserving the artic wolf and timber wolf. We sat and talke to the owner for along time, the wolfs really dont like new people coming in and were a bit nervious at start but settled down after we sat down. They raised the two wolves from pups and have a pix record of them growing up, that was a lot of fun.

As we went threw the park we saw buffalo, pronghorn deer, and praire dog. Of course the p.dogs were my favorites. We had beautiful weather for the ride the whole day. We stoped at stream and a small lake to walk around and stretch. It was just so relaxing of a day. On our way back to the campsite we stopped at a yard sale, yep cant pass them by. We also stopped and got some fire wood from where the forestry had cleared out dead wood and piled it up, we got some strange looks but I figured it was helping them get rid of unwanted wood.They have had a few nasty fires there and you can still see the after math of the fires years later. There was alot of new baby trees only about 3 foot tall but the forest is making a come back.

We had a nice camp fire and nice cooked meal and turn in for the night, it was much warmer that night and was going to be a warmer day for our drive home.

On our way home we went threw part of the badlands, it was very green, greener than I had remembered it, we saw a few animals but not like when we went threw the black hill park.

It was such a lovly few days but it was nice to get home to my own bed, sleeping on the ground is for the younger people for sure.

We have had over 2 inches of rain since we have been home so for the last 2 weeks we have had like 4 1/2 inches of rain. Its time to mow again and very thing here is so very green. The garden is sprouted up like crazy and the corn is like 2 inches tall already. The weather has been a bit chilly here also which is nice because I know it going to get hot before we know it.

I am glad to be back to sew also, Im working on a cat quilt, and the around the world quilt for the couch.

We are needing to get working back on the bedroom again, we were sidetracked with the outside work that stilll so much needs to be done. Im sure it will still be there when we get around to cutting the trees and such.

Well I will write more later ...........I have many pix to add from the trip but I will wate to get the film devoloped to add those pix.

trip continued.......

2007-05-31T19:55:00.000-05:00

After we finished Bear Country, we went to The Reptile Gardens. That was alot of fun, they have many many snakes and reptiles that you will never see in any other zoos or inclosures. My favorite tho was the Praire Dogs. They communitcate by doing sitting up and letting off a bark and sitting down, they look like there doing The Wave, I could sit and watch them for hours. We saw the bird show and snake show while there. This is a must see adventure if you ever get the chance. Jessicas favorite was the bearded dragons and the other lizards and skinks they have. Im thinking the giant tortuse was also a hilight to her. Pix above bear baby and bobcat from the Bear Country and Jessica with the big tortuse (he was over 100 years old) at the Reptile gardens.
From there we went driving threw the small towns and the hills by Mt Rushmore. We found over looks that had the most beautiful views and we saw many streams and small critters along the way. We got back around to Mt Rushmore at about sunset but it was getting rather chilly so we didnt spend alot of time walking around there. We went back to the campsite and cooked dinner and toasted marshmellows, then it was pretty much time to sleep. We had such a full day we were all tired.

Continued...........

After the holiday back from trip

2007-05-31T19:24:00.000-05:00

We left on early friday,the weather was suppost to be pretty good for the weekend in Rapid City SD. We got up there mid after noon and the wind was blowing like crazy, the KOA that we had reserved to stay at we found was in the middle of town and minimal trees around. We decited to stick with it and found a nice spot with trees. It ended up not to be to bad there but except for the traffic noise you could hear. We were gone most of the time from the campground so it worked out ok. Now the wind was an other story, we looked like key stone cops putting up the tents and so on. We found a really good resturant out side of town up twards Sturgis, the food was really good so was the service. It was nice to have a good meal after the long day of traveling and setting up.

The first day we went to a number of places, First I had to stop at the quilt shop I had seen the night before, The Quilt Connection, very nice well stocked store. I picked up a number of FQ's and a few books. Then we were off to Bear country, you drive threw part of it and then get out and walk. Many many animals to be seen, the wolf were hard to get a pix of, but the bears were right there to say hi. My favorite part was seeing the babys in the walk around area, most of the animals were out but a few were sleeping like the mountain lions. There were some newly born fox and bears, the river otters were so much fun to watch. Alot of my pix were taken the old fashion way with film, so when I get them developed I will be adding more pix.
The above pix are Jessica and Sean in front of the otter inclosure, me and Jessica in front of Mt Rushmore, and a Grizzley bear at bear country.

Continued on ........

After the rain

2007-05-23T15:23:00.000-05:00

Sorry havent written in a few days, we have been busy with outside thing, mowing the 4 of 5 acres is very time consuming. We are starting to get a handle on it tho. We need to get back to the bedroom rentivations soon, the heating and cooling guy still hasnt come by yet.. I know hes really busy this time of year and they lost one of there plumbers so that doesnt help. I'm really hoping to get the air conditioning in before it decides to get hot. It will be totally nasty to have to work in there in the heat. Its hard to focus on one thing right now being the out doors need attention also. We have alot of the tree damage cleaned up but there is more to go yet, plus the dead trees that have been here since we move in still need to be addressed. SO many things SO little time.

We had a really bad thunderstorm last night with hail and wind, most of the hail was pea size but then we had some golf ball size ones to. It rained so hard in such a short time, and for a while we had rain going horizontal with the ground. A few countys away down in Kansas they had a tornado, that got me nervous to say the least. I had some damage in the garden of some of the plants I put in hopefully not enought that they wont come back. In less than a few hours we had 2 1/2 inches of rain. We had rivers running in the yard and lots of standing water, thank goodness it was gone this morning mostly.We didnt have to go anywhere today so we dont know how the roads are, a mess im guessing.

Jessica is out of school and has been helping do some of the yard work thank goodness, I came down with the stomach flu the day before yesterday and was down most of the day and yesterday I wasnt worth a darn. Im doing pretty good today compaired, my stomich is not hurting like it was yesterday. I dont know what caused it or where it came from but I know it wasnt from bad food no stomach cramping so that was I guess a goood thing.

Jessica has quite afew things lined up this summer to keep her self busy, shes going to a few camps and to her sisters house in omaha for a month. The critter in the above pictures is Falcor the bearded dragon. Jessica (not pictured her friend is the lizard perch)has raised Flacor from a very small baby, He is just over a year now and growing bigger ever day. He can consume over 30 crickets a day and lots of super worms, also green leaf lettuce and fruits. He expecally likes strawberrys. In the summer we catch grasshoppers for him, there is a down fall to that tho we need to take the back legs off the grasshoppers before he eats them. Its been interesting having him around, beardies are very mellow most of the time but do take alot of time and care to keep them. Its interesting keeping him at 80 to 90 degrees all year round, the winter was a challange expecally when we lost our power. They are native to Australia and are related to the flair dragon. When he gets mad or upset or is sunning he will turn really dark, the underside around his neck he can flair out turn black and he'll open his mouth and look mean. He is a cross with a german giant so he will be on the large side, right now hes 20 inchs long. Hes colors are lemon and orange, hes getting a neckless of orange scales under his chin and hes lips are getting orange. around his eyes there is a sun burst pattern of yellow.

The pattern down his back is very pronounced with some purples and reds. In the pix above he is very pale becasue hes calm and not sunning. To me he looks like what the mythical dragon may have looked like minus the wings. on his shoulders he has an area on both sides that are fat pockets but maybe that is where the wings were attached at one time? He has scales and spiney simi sharp scales all around him, I can imagine they were sharp at one time and alot bigger. He is true cold blooded and he will pancake his body as you see in the pix above to soak in the heat of your body.

I havent quilted in like 3 days, I do have it sitting right infront of me staring at me saying sew me, sew me. I'll probably sew some today after getting some other things done. We are taking Jessica for a short or long weekend trip, I will write more about that after it happens for its a suprize for her and she may read this. I hope the weather is good tho, seems we are going to have maybe 20% chance of rain. Last year at this time we were already hot, on the holiday we had 100 degrees and it was so hot it seemed. I moved from AZ to get away from that kind of weather, hopefully we wont have that just yet here this year.

Well need to get some things done, I'll be back to write soon............

new ideas for a quilt

2007-05-18T00:40:00.000-05:00

The couch cover I had started, I found I wasnt going to have enought fabric so I'll just make a small lap quilt from it. Now I have decited on using this fabric, I have much more of it and I'm liking the colors better for the room its going in that is all browns in the wood and the wood paneling on the walls.

Yesterday I really over did it, finished putting all the rest of the garden in, and made lasagna, cleaned the floors in the house, and went shopping. Today im really feeling it! Im taking it easy today totally.

We got gas yesterday, I almost cryed ! We filled 3-5 gallon cans for the mower and yard stuff and filled the truck, guess how much .....$110.00.

I was just sick, Couldnt belive it! Why is this, in a weeks time its gone up like almost 30 cents a gallon. It seems to me everytime summer and traveling comes around the gas prices go up. Is this so they can make alot of money for them selves. I know its not the gas pump owners that is making the money its the oil and refinerys owners. I thought price goes up with suppy and demand.... what is happening here, dont we have the same amount of oil being had. I understand there is only one company that owns the gas and supplys to all the companys no matter what there names is. What happened to not having a monopoly in this country? Where is this going to stop? /putting soap box away.

We didnt even get the yard quite finished mowing and its time to start all over again, we had 2 days of rain 1/2 inch one day and 4/10 of an inch the other, just enought to really get the grass and weeds growing....

My comment to comments.........

Ive had a few comments for my blog saying its boring, I know its no going to be interesting to all that read and Im sorry about that but this is my blog for fun and to keep family and friends up todate and share pictures with what we are doing out here in the middle of know where.

Well im going to sew for a while and relax.......write more later maybe

worked in garden

2007-05-16T21:37:00.000-05:00

Worked on the garden today for a while, got the corn,swiss chard, carrots, beets planted. As soon as I had those planted it started raining, great bonus! I didnt get any sewing done today, had to do some cleaning of the house. Younger daughters last day of school is tomarrow so she is having a friend over for the night...2 silly teenagers in the house.

I have 3 yellow Iris that have bloomed, not as pretty as the purple but its nice to see them anyway. Im going to plant some more flowers, hope they do better this year than what I planted last year. The marigolds did well around the garden ( used to keep the rabbits out) but the carnations never came up, guess it was just to hot for them. Its a whole lot different planting things in dirt than in sand. For one the sand is so much easyer to dig in than the dirt that turns to cement it seems. But the sand drains so fast that you have to water more. Any way im going to try some straw flowers and maybe the carnations again. I'll get live plants of marigolds for the garden again. I have yet to plant the watermelon, tomatoes, squash, cucumbers and snap peas.

We havent worked on the house inside since it has been warmer outside except to close up the one wall where we took out the window and we had to put up new walls for the out side of the studs and new felt paper over it, we are remodeling the bedroom, we had to take the walls down to bare studs and fix a lot of termite damage. The walls had no insulation in them and the room got very cold in the winter being on the north wall. The footer board 2x6 that sits on the cement blocks of the foundation was termite eatten and pretty well gone, we had some one come in and jack the house up and fix the foot board and the kick board. We have a little less than half of the room down to studs, plaster and slat board is not fun to work with at all. We are hoping the heating and cooling guy will get here and put in the air conditioner unit soon before we need to work on the room again. Right now we need to get a handle on the outdoors, grass and trees and weeds. We had about 1/2 an inch the other night and im not sure what we had tonight. With all the rain we are having a lot of weeds and the prairie grass grows like crazy. Naturally we have 2 kinds of grass the prairie grass that is tall normally and the buffalo grass that stays short to the ground, we like the buffalo grass it really doesnt need to be mowed. But the prairie grass does or it goes to seed and the seeds stick to every thing like socks, pants, dogs hair. But if you keep it mowed its not to bad as grass and it fills in real nice.

Well going to run for now will write more soon.........

working outside

2007-05-16T02:16:00.000-05:00

On 5/14 we worked on the garden some more it was a bit warm, as we were working on it this storm started building to the east of us. It only took a matter of min to get really huge. It never did hit us, it was moving north and east. about an hour after taking this picture I could hear thunder coming from the storm. As you can see we can see for ever on a clear day. The colors here are so vivid all the time, there is very little polutions in the air. We had 1/2 inch of rain that night just enought to take the dust out of the air and make everything so green and bright.
I had 2 yellow iris come out today 5/15. The purple are much prettyer but any flowers are nice to see.
Just one more day and we will have the fence up and will be ready to plant. The fence is used as much to keep the wild animals out but to keep our dogs out also. My large dog millie loves cucumbers and will grab them at any chance she has. It was ok last year we had plenty of cucumbers to feed an army. and tomatos wow we had so many I got a rash from eatting so many. But I love being able to just walk out to the garden, pick a tomato and eat it right there.
I planted snap peas last year and the grasshoppers loved them the best we really didnt get any, same with the carrots.

I worked on a quilt that is going to go on the couch as a cover, after getting part of it done ive decited im not going to have enought fabric to do the whole thing so im going make a lap quilt from this one and start a different one for the couch with fabric that I have lots of. Its going to be many trips around the world.

As we were getting finished with doing the fence, I was listening to the song birds at sunset, they sounded so pretty, living in AZ I had forgot what it was like to have so many birds singing in the evening.
Well im off to bed ...........more later ..........

Mothers day

2007-05-13T21:07:00.000-05:00

It was a warm day here today, we worked on getting the garden in and got about half way done. We enlarged the garden from last year and moved areas that its to be in. The area last year was in front of the chicken coop but so many weeds grew there I couldnt keep up with them and the grasshoppers were thick. In moving it we hope we wont have the weeds and as many grasshoppers to deal with. The folks that owned the farm way back before 1900 had a clothes line up in this area, im not needing to use it now so we removed the pole that was like 10 feet in the ground (no tornado would have even moved it). The soil is pretty rich no matter where you dig so we should have a pretty good garden even in this area.

Im working on a new quilt to put on the couch as a cover, I decided on an around the world pattern done with scrappy sorta look. I'll be able to use alot of my smaller pieces of fabric this way. I had gotten alot of sample fabrics that will work just right.

My daughter is making dinner for me tonight, spag/w meat balls. Its nice not haveing to cook for one night.

I'll write more later im going to sew for a while.........

getting started first blog

2007-05-12T01:31:00.000-05:00

Hi, I live in Nebraska, out in the middle of now where, most people would just die living out here. The nice thing about being out here is the quiet, the dark nights, and the peacefulness of having no traffic, no people. Of course we have 4 legged kind of neighbors, the wild life is rich, we see turkeys,deer, many rabbits,many many birds, skunk, possums, badger, and lots more on a normal day. So now your thinking that could get very boring after time, Naaa, we keep busy with the house that is 77 years old and the 5 acres of land around us. Its so beautiful after a spring rain, everything is bright green, the flowers are just coming out. I have purple Iris just in bloom now that are just so beautiful. The trees are putting on there leaves, its such a renewal after a long cold winter. We are working on getting the trees cleaned up after the terrible Ice storm we had this winter twice. The grass is already a foot high from all the rains we have had, we are finally out of the drought hopefully.
The first week here 2 years ago we saw our first tornado that as about 20 miles from the house. We had just jumped into the truck to go to Mccook shopping and on the way we heard tornado warnings for the area we were driving thru. Ekkk. there is was a small tornado just to the north of us maybe half a mile. I got so excited, got out the camera and started shooting. The tornado never did touch the ground but It was so cool to watch from our safe vantage point. It finally ended up roping out and being pulled up into the cloud.
We haven’t seen one since, but we have had some mighty powerfull storms. A year ago March we had lightning hit the house, well the lightning rod that is. Yes all along the top of the house there is lightning rods that if your house get hit they will hit the rods and direct the energy to the ground. We had a direct hit which every thing that was on and running and not on a surge protector got fried. Microwave, electronic stove, and a power supply on a computer, tons of light bulbs. The sound was horiffic, it sat me right up in bed. All our buildings have rods on them. Oh yes the other buildings… the barn, grain building, wash house, chicken coop, and tool building.
The barn is straight, you must be saying shouldnt they be straight, well not all barns expecally the older ones stay that way they start leaning eather to the south or to the north becasue we have some high winds that come thru here. We have lots of trees for wind brakes so in the house we can’t tell really when the wind is blowing hard. There is a long line of evergreens on the north side that are used for snow and wind brakes. If we didnt have that we would have snow drifts up on the north side of the house really bad. As it is the November before last we had a 9 foot drift on the north side of the house from the Thanksgiving blizzard. This winter we didnt have a blizzard but we did have 2 ice storms that were really bad. There was as much as an inch of ice on everything. The temp stayed right at 32 degrees so we had little snow with the first storm 4 days before Christmas, but the second storm that was jsut before New years we had both snow and ice. Driving is almost impossible, we slid into a few ditches due to the ice on the gravel. A good wind can almost push you over when your on the ice.
We went and picked up my baby pom puppy during the ice storm it was a very long drive under those conditions. Every things was coated so even walking was a challange. But even with the bad weather I wouldn’t trade in living anywhere elce.
I have live alot of other places and no place matches or has the peacefulness that living here has. The last place I lived was Yuma AZ, had both of my daughters there and came to hate it. It was so dry and hot in the summer, the winters were nice but we had to work all winter so mostly you see the nice weather from indoors. That is one place I’d never tell anyone to live. We had days in the summer of 120 to 130, man nor beast can deal with that heat. We have had some hot days in Nebraska but they don’t last for months on end like they do in AZ. I guess there are some that like it and some that just live there for what ever reason im not sure.
So anyway now we are mowing and cleaning up the front yard, also getting ready to plant a garden. Last summer we had our first garden here, I had tons of vegetables to eat, tomatoes out the ears, squash and cucumbers. I had some compatition from the grasshoppers, they ate there fair share but we also fed the grasshoppers to my daughters bearded dragon, he got really fat and sassy from them. Its amazing you know how hard it is to catch a grasshopper well he has no problem, lightning fast! We dont use any chemicals on the garden so we can feed the bugs to him saves on buying crickets by the thousands.
With all this one of my main passions is quilting so there will be alot here having to do with that besides my maybe daily or weekly blogs on what were up to here in our corner of Nebraska.
I will post more later its getting late.........