A Quilting Frenzy!

Made super progress on Marti’s quilt today—I am grinning from ear to ear tonight—it is looking great Marti!  I am at the halfway point and couldn’t be more pleased!

Leftovers for lunch cause I was a quilting away and didn’t have time to cook a bunch.  I did make cornbread using my friend Cheryl’s recipe substituting almond flour/meal for the regular flour—by george the muffins were good!  A little greasy—I’m sure almond flour has lots of oil so next time I may reduce the amount of additional oil added. 

Michael worked hard today, he fixed the metal roof on the horse shelter and cut up several loads of firewood.  He also got the kitchen fan working in the motorhome. 

Remember a few days ago I talked about him working on the hydronic heating system in our Country Coach motorhome?  A pump died last winter and we had not replaced it—a new one Michael found on the internet was $200.  A couple days ago he ran across the exact pump on eBay, today at just after 4pm the auction was ending for this particular pump.  Well, shortly after lunch we lost our internet and long distance phone service.  Once the phone service came back Michael found out that a major fiber-optic cable had been cut here in Montana—but still no internet and it was getting close to 4pm and the end of the auction.  So, Mike called LoraLee, had her sign into his eBay account and make his bid—he won the pump auction for $50!!!!

In September of 2000 our log barn burned to the ground.  It was not a typical barn for housing animals, we stored “stuff” in the bottom half of the structure and upstairs was a 2 bedroom apartment.  Lonn, LoraLee and the girls lived in the apartment for a short while and at the time of the fire Nat was staying in the apartment—his wife and Michael’s Mom had just died the previous June. 

Nat woke from an after lunch nap to smoke and flames everywhere and barely got out.  Our volunteer fire department could do little else but watch it burn after they arrived. 

See the little red guy in the back with the yarn beard—that was all that was left of our Christmas ornaments after the fire.  A long time ago Nat built these wooden crates for storing things away from mice.  All our Christmas ornaments and the ornaments I had inherited from Michael’s Mom were stored in those wooden boxes in the barn.  Some of Joy’s ornaments dated back to her childhood and certainly to Michael’s childhood.  My own ornaments had been collected through all my adult years.   I was heartbroken and Christmas decorating has never been the same.  The little yarn Santa was made by Michael’s Grandmother when he was a little boy and I was overjoyed when I found it stored in a drawer in our house!

Now, for the really cool part of the barn fire story.  The next day we were digging around in the debris and ashes to see if we could salvage anything when I noticed something white and shiny.  Yes, all six of these little porcelain angels were in the Christmas ornament boxes and all six survived the fire.  The angel holding the music score in the right front is missing her left wing—the only causality.  The angels were Joy’s when she was a child.  How cool is that??!!! 

Miss Emmi decided today those Santa’s and snowmen must be for her to play with—she was soundly scolded, we will see if it helps!  The Santa with the flag I purchased the Christmas following September 11.  The white bearded Santa plays Deck The Halls and scared our previous schnauzer, Jazz, to death.  The others I’ve just collected post fire. 

Having that fire has given Michael and I both a new respect for fires.  You say to your husband, “honey, I smell something funny, something burning,” and he would say, “I don’t smell anything.”  Not any more, when one of us says something smells like it is burning we both start looking and quickly. 

Just a little family history today.  And hooray the internet is back and I can post this blog—isn’t it crazy how much we depend on the internet these days!