Happy Mother’s Day

This is my dear Mom and me—she was traveling home to Arkansas today on Mother’s Day but I called and wished her a happy day.  She is the best of Mom’s and I love her dearly.

I never had children by choice—from a young age I decided I would not make a good Mom and had no desire to have children.  I’ve never regretted my decision.

With that said, I feel very fortunate to have “children” by default—Michael’s children.  Michael’s son Lonn and his wife LoraLee have always made me a part of their family, their children Katie and Laci call me Grandma and treat me as if I were their real grandmother.  I am truly blessed. 

So, happy Mother’s Day all you wonderful Mom’s, we hope it was a good day for you. 

Another One Of Those Hard Working Days

Emmi was asleep in our bed under her blanket when Mom and Chuck left just before 6am this morning.  When Emmi finally got up she wandered all over the house upstairs and downstairs looking for them—she was sad like me to see them go!

We took a walk then started on today’s project—the garden.  I ran the tiller for a while before giving out and turning it over to Michael.  We planted corn, potatoes, onions, peas and beans today—more to be planted tomorrow.  Michael finished building the gate for the garden, now we are basically critter proof until the raccoons start trying to climb the fence. 

After lunch while I was planting Michael finished removing the engine from the jeep we bought.  Now he has to find us a new engine and various other parts.

Tonight we went over to Lonn and LoraLee’s for dinner and to pick up our portion of the Bountiful Basket LoraLee and I are sharing.  Dinner was delicious—burgers on the grill, macaroni salad, potato salad, fruit salad with angel food cake and strawberries for dessert.  We had a great time visiting with them talking about future camping trips. 

A good day in Montana!

An Unexpected Quilting Job

Whew, I’m weary!!  We started the morning out with a walk—when we returned Mom joined me in the new garden site and began picking roots, sticks and rocks from the soil we hauled in.  I jumped in the skidsteer and hauled more soil to the site.

Then it was time to make lunch, leftover chicken, roasted potatoes and veggies, and pinto beans with cornbread—a southern meal in honor of Mom and Chuck’s visit!

Then Dava came—she had scheduled an appointment for learning how to use the longarm and had a log cabin quilt she had made for her graduating high school senior son, Jacob.  We were about 2 hours into the lesson, quilt was loaded and Dava looks at me and says, “how long would it take you to do this quilt?”  I replied, “about 2 hours.”  She thought for a minute and said, “would you do it if I stayed and helped you?”  OK, I have a boat load of customer quilts to do but this quilt was loaded and she was standing there.  Plus I have a soft spot for her son Jacob.  Off we went.  In just under 3 hours the quilt was in her hands and she was out the door.  I quilted a simple meander over the quilt and it was beautiful.  I could have finished in less than 3 hours but we were using minky fabric for the backing, variegated thread on the top—both of which can and did cause tension issues.  Dava was thrilled to say the least.

Then I had sort of a melt down!  Before I left for the Utah hiking trip, my Arkansas friend Marti called me to see if she could send more quilts.  I told her I was leaving but it was OK to send the quilts, Michael would be home.  Today I thought of those quilts, in my mind I could see the box sitting in the mud room when I returned from the hiking trip—while I was working with Dava I asked Mom to open the box as I hadn’t seen the quilts.  No box!!  Searched this house high and low, no box!!!  I am beginning to panic—I don’t do this with other people’s quilts.  I have a cabinet in the sewing room where customer quilts rest until I am ready to load the quilts onto the longarm.  Searched again, had Mom and Michael searching, no box.  I am feeling sick, really sick!!!  Aunt Margaret and Marti frequently tuck their quilts into a white plastic garbage bag before putting them into a box—could I have taken the bag out and then thought it was garbage????????  I am now sick, really sick. 

With a sinking heart I picked up the phone and called Marti—her words were music to my ears.  “No, Janna, I haven’t sent the quilts yet, I need to press the backing better.”  After talking to Marti for a while I went upstairs and fixed Chuck and me a tall margarita!!!!!  Senior moments and I don’t even consider myself a senior?????  YIKES!!!

Supper of chef salads then computer work—I am installing Microsoft Security Essentials and Malwarebytes on Mom’s computer—thank you very much Rick. 

Fed the birds, cleaned Emmi’s hotspots, now the blog, am I ready for bed—yes, double yes!!

Oh, do you see anything wrong in this photo:

that’s a chop saw, notice the cord??  OOPS!

Snow, Visitors And Sewing Machines

After our nice weather days we woke and found ourselves sitting in a cloud.  Before long it began to snow—which is OK this year, we need some moisture in a bad way!  Snow didn’t accumulate, it was too warm and by lunch time the snow/rain had stopped.

Mom and Chuck showed up just before lunch—their job over in Gardiner, MT didn’t work out.  The owner’s promises weren’t panning out and a portion of the hours promised Chuck were going to someone else.    So, they decided to go home to Arkansas—it is probably for the best.  The rest of the family will be glad to see them, especially Mom’s granddaughter, Niki!

Michael started removing parts from the longarm sewing machine this morning and just before lunch he headed down to the post office to retrieve the new part, YEA!   He repacked the gear box while we had the machine upside downand we re-timed it.  The process was much easier this time—we had re-timed it once before when replacing the hopping foot.  Got it all back together, loaded a practice piece and it sews beautifully—no more skipped stitches!!  My husband is a genius!

Look what Santa, aka the UPS man, brought me today:new cookware, stainless steel.  We’ve read so much bad stuff about “clad” cookware and decided to change out our clad cookware for some stainless steel from Costco.

The sun is shining as I write this but with a nasty wind blowing.  Michael and I are off to the high school annual pops concert while Mom and Chuck hold down the fort and babysit Ms Emmi.  Seems the concert would probably end way past their bedtime!  Probably past mine too!!

A Great Lunch and Some Tall Mountains

Michael needed to obtain some materials for the new fence he is building for Nancy and Geoff plus we needed some fencing stuff for our new garden spot.  Off we went after our morning walk. 

After visiting Bonnie and Kelli’s greenhouse, the feed store and the lumber store we headed out to the small community of Melville about 20 miles north of Big Timber.  Our destination was Bill’s Place--This little place has been here forever.  The couple which ran the café/store/post office decided to retire recently although the wife of the couple still runs the post office located in the same building.  A couple from Pennsylvania moved here and has opened a larger restaurant.  We had heard the food was good and the rumors were absolutely true!!  Had one of the best burgers we’ve had in a long time and we shared a delicious milkshake!!  YUM!  This is one of the post offices slated for closure much to the dismay of the residents who depend on this place!  The post master whom we know chatted with us as we ate and we enjoyed a rousing discussion regarding the faults of our government with the table next to us—yep, we live in a small community!

It was such a beautiful day to be out—the bank sign said it was 82 degrees this afternoon. 

Delivered the fencing supplies to Geoff and Nancy’s, visiting with them for a while and brought our skidsteer home.  We then started our garden project and at just after 8pm we came inside.  The new plot is looking good!  Fencing is up all around except for one end where the gates will be.  Good, rich dirt is hauled—now for the planting.  We found some onion sets and seed potatoes at the feed store today. 

Life is good here in Montana.

A Beautiful Day In Montana

In more ways than one!  We spent the day in Billings with Lonn, LoraLee and Katie.  It was a long, long day of hospitals, waiting, doctors and more waiting but enjoyable spending the time with family.  LoraLee got a great report today and for that we are extremely grateful!

Emmi spent the day with Nat and when we got back to his house around 8pm, I thought Emmi was going to have a stroke she was so excited to see us.  That little dog can dance on two legs longer than any other dog I’ve ever seen.  Of course she gets this excited too when we’ve only been gone 30 minutes!

This is a short blog tonight—I read Rick’s blog this morning!

Our Bones Ache

Oh, my, give us a gorgeous spring Montana day and we get so excited we go out and try to work ourselves to death!!!  Every muscle in my body is screaming and I’ve heard a lot of groaning over in Michael’s corner, too!

Our original garden plot gets a little too much afternoon shade to be very productive but it makes a wonderful spot for plants such as lettuce and radishes.  I love my little Mantis tiller we purchased last spring—used it to till the garden then planted lettuce, radishes, swiss chard, spinach and carrots.  Original garden spot

A couple years ago we built a new garden spot and planted three apple trees there.  The garden soil is poor but we’ve been adding compost and hoping for the best.  This is where I planted the strawberry plants our friend Claire brought me last spring.  I weeded those and the raspberry plants and tilled the rest of that garden.  We may or may not plant anything else in there this year.  The strawberry plants look great and I have blooms Claire—I am so excited!!!

We are building a new garden spot down by the creek—we are collecting garden spots like we collect cars and trucks! This new garden will have all day sun and maybe I can get things such as peas and beans to grow.  Sure hope so—I come from a long line of excellent gardeners—Mom and Dad had a huge garden every year which at the time I didn’t appreciate.  Mom worked outside the home and in the summer would leave things such as a bushel of corn or peas on the back steps for us to husk or shell.  My grandparents had a beautiful garden as does my sister and her husband.  I’ve got to get with the program!!!  My excuse has always been that I live in a climate which doesn’t lend itself well to gardening.  Then Robyn (Claire’s wife) tells me they ate potatoes, carrots and onions from their garden all winter!!!!!  They also get enough strawberries and raspberries to make lots of jam.  There went my excuse!  And by the way, Robyn and Claire’s home is at a higher altitude than ours!

In between all the gardening I did loads of laundry and talked to the longarm sewing machine people.  What Michael and I thought was the problem is probably not the problem.  They had some ideas and I did order a new part so we shall see.

Poor Michael dug many, many postholes today.  Half of these postholes he had to dig by hand due to the location or to rocks.  So, he is groaning, too.

But it feels good to get so much accomplished in a day, doesn’t it???

I love bloggers and people who read our blog.  We received a comment yesterday from BJ saying her husband thought he had the music to Make The World Go Away if we couldn’t find it.  Now how nice is that!!!