A Busy Monday

We started our day with a walk up into the hayfields.  It is hunting season here and all the deer we were seeing have gone into hiding, I sincerely believe the animals know when someone is out to get them! 

Our weather is deteriorating—cool, cloudy and windy all day with some rain this afternoon that may turn to snow overnight.  My heart goes out to those people on the east coast!  Way too early for weather like that!

I spent the day cleaning, cooking and doing laundry—I am exhausted!  But my house is sparkly clean and we have Pioneer Woman  corn chowder and a triple batch of spaghetti sauce for eating.  Oh, and a batch of homemade granola. 

Michael went up the Boulder this morning to start getting the fireplace ready for the insert he has built. 

And that’s about it for our day—hopefully I am headed to the quilting studio tomorrow.  I have some customer quilts to do and we leave here in less than two months—better get cracking.

Happy Halloween! 

I guess it was mighty windy this past weekend while I was away, most of our leaves are now gone. 

I’m Home

Whew, quilt retreats are a lot of work.  Shirley and I arrived back on the East Boulder about 3pm.  We had an incredible time and accomplished lots but it wasn’t all work and no play.  Jeane and Barb disappeared for a long time Friday afternoon and the rest of us had our suspicions and we were right.  Barb and Jeane planned a 60’s party for us—they toured the Red Lodge, MT thrift stores acquiring their attire—tight sweaters, sneakers, bobbie socks and scarves.  

We were all gifted with our own 60’s style eye glasses and scarves.  Even our cook, Terry got into the act making her own poodle skirt!   Barb and her husband Dale own a turntable and a huge number of records so we even had the music!!!!

We had so much fun and as usual the food Terry prepared was outstanding!  We even had root beer floats for dessert!!

Here are some of the quilts that were crafted this weekend.

We eleven women just had the best of times—good friends, lots of sewing with great food and wine thrown in—what could be better!! 

Blog Posting Problems

Can’t figure out whether it is the slow satellite internet connection we have here or a Live Writer problem but I am having way too much trouble posting a blog.  It is cutting into my quilting time so with that said, no more blogs until I get home to high speed!!  Have a great weekend!

Fall Quilt Retreat Day 1

Shirley and I left home at the very early hour of 7:15am but it was OK, we were on a mission—our fall quilt retreat.  Stopped for coffee in Big Timber and headed to Absarokee, Montana home of the Cloud Nine Quilt Shop.  Shirley needed flannel fabric for a quilt and I needed not a thing but a smaller than usual amount of fabric jumped in my bag before I could get out of there!

Off to our usual restaurant, Cafe Regis, for breakfast/brunch.  I had some wonderful cornmeal pancakes and bacon.  A delicious meal! 

Off to the Washoe Quilt Shop before heading to Medicine Flower Lodge and unloading.  Can you believe it takes just two people all this stuff for four days of quilting???

Some of us had projects almost completed and thus were able to hang finished projects on the wall by late afternoon: Mary and her cute little winter quilt.  The pumpkin table runner is the one I started before leaving home and the other beautiful white pinwheel one belongs to Bette.  My photographs here in this fluorescent lighted room do not show the true colors. We all have our stations set up, some of us are a little more neat than others, this is Gay’s little spot!! and some of us are a little more frustrated than others:

Jeane is deciding never again to make a quilt with that many tiny pieces!

Dinner provided by the resort was spectacular as usual and we enjoyed some great wines brought by all.  Donna served us all chocolate wine before dinner—now I could make a dessert out of that stuff!

Off to quilt, back tomorrow!

I’m Ready

Dang it was cold this morning!  15 degrees, I guess summer is really over for sure!  And it never got very warm all day even in the sun, I guess it is time for colder weather??

Spent the day getting ready for quilt retreat starting tomorrow.  I made a big pot of beef stew for lunch so Michael could have leftovers while I am gone.  When we were in Carter, MT after coming home from Canada I purchased fabric for making a flannel quilt.  Because I changed the color scheme of the quilt from that shown on the pattern I had a hard time getting the pieces cut.  Should have cut the pieces right after buying the fabric!!!  Gathered all the rest of my stuff and now it looks as if I am moving to Red Lodge—takes a lot of stuff for quilting four days!

Tonight we drove over to Lonn and LoraLee’s to say goodbye to Laci.  She leaves to head back to Italy on Friday—she has one more year of service in Italy and isn’t anxious to go back!  Both those granddaughters really love home!  LoraLee made a delicious supper—ribs, twice baked potatoes, salad, and pound cake with fresh raspberries.

LoraLee has a new puppy, a yorkie/poo.  Buddy is a cute, tiny little thing and gave Emmi a run tonight.  Emmi is now totally sacked out in Michael’s lap, too tired to go.

Michael finished his stoves today and also has the engine ready to pull out of the Ford pickup, YIKES!!!  Here is the stove he built for us:

And here is a different view of our mountains—the Crazy Mountains to the north.

Cold Day

We woke to sunshiny skies with a beautiful, crisp white blanket of snow on the mountains around us.  It was brisk all day today.

After our walk Michael spent the day working on his stove project and I spent the day sewing.  Finished a customer quilt and started packing items for my quilt retreat coming up this weekend. 

We had eaten so much beef  and other meats the last week or so that yesterday and today we ate vegetarian!  Can you believe Michael has had no meat for two days???  I’ve come up with some creative recipes in my notebook—I’m sure most of you cooks have a book like mine, I rip a recipe out of a magazine or newspaper and stuff it into this notebook.  I have the best of intentions—every winter I am going to scan into the computer all those recipes—hasn’t happened yet!  Anyway, I remembered a couple of recipes using eggs.  Last night I fixed a dinner frittata—a dish featuring eggs, potatoes, onions and bell peppers. 

Today for lunch I used the following recipe and it was delicious!

Chilaquiles Casserole submitted to Park Electric Magazine by Carol Beadle

8 large eggs

1 – 8oz can creamed corn

1 – 4.5oz can diced green chilies

2 cups cottage cheese

1 cup milk

¾ tsp salt

½ tsp pepper

1/8 tsp ground red pepper

6 – 6inch corn tortillas cut into strips

4 oz shredded Cheddar cheese

4 oz Mozzarella cheese shredded

Combine first eight ingredients. Stir in tortilla strips and cheese. Pour mixture into lightly greased 9”x13” baking dish. Cover and chill eight hours. Uncover and bake at 325 degrees for 50-55 minutes or until set. Let stand 15 minutes before serving. Cut into squares and serve with fresh salsa.  I made half the recipe and it worked well.

We got an email from Rollie and Gina today—remember they purchased our other jeep from us—it had a soft top and zipper windows.  Well, Rollie sent us a photo of the new look—hard top and roll up windows.  I am sure they will enjoy it so much more.  Soft top jeeps at highway speeds are incredibly noisy!

I loved how the sun seem to be highlighting the golden aspen trees in these two photos.

 

Indian Summer Is Over

The weather man was right at least for today, Indian summer is over.  We woke to cool temps and by mid-afternoon it was right around 40 degrees and raining—it is still raining. 

I played in the quilting studio all morning working on the little fall table runner.  This afternoon late I loaded a customer quilt onto the longarm.  I really like my new sewing machine especially for appliqué—when you lift your foot from the pedal the pressure foot raises just the tiniest bit making it easy to pivot the fabric and line up the stitches better—worked like a charm today!

After lunch we made a run into town—I needed to mail a birthday present to one little great niece and some Halloween goodies to other folks in her family.  We ran a couple more errands, grabbed a few groceries and headed back up the Boulder.  I sure hope that honey crisp apple tree we planted last year bears fruit—geez that variety of apples is expensive!

Here is a photo of Jeane’s ABC quilts she has made: It was fun to write my ABC’s over and over with the longarm—cute quilts.

They Are Gone And A Party

John and Brenda headed down the driveway around 8am this morning heading for somewhere in Utah—it was going to be a long day for them.  We so enjoyed their company the last two days and the opportunity to show them where we hang out.

I decided to work on a little quilting project of my own today—a fall table runner using the Superior Thread’s product Texture Magic.  The TM is a thin, rayon feeling fabric—draw the shape on the TM, in this case pumpkins then sew the TM to the fabric using the lines you have drawn.  Next step is to hold a steam iron over the TM and watch the “magic” occur—it starts to shrink up giving your fabric this cool, wrinkled/poufy look.  When I finish the table runner, I will post some photos.

Lonn, LoraLee, Laci and Nat came for dinner tonight.  Laci is our granddaughter serving in Italy with the USAF.  She is home on leave and departs back to Italy on Friday.  We had her favorite Grandma meal—beef tenderloin roasted on the grill, garlic mashed potatoes, and salad with poppy seed dressing.  LoraLee brought dessert—Michael’s favorite, cherry cheesecake pie.  I think we are going to eat vegetarian for the rest of the week!!! 

If you can believe the weather forecaster our wonderful Indian summer is drawing to a close this week.

Playing Tourist

John and Brenda did such a good job showing us their country in September we wanted to reciprocate just a little.  John is a little worried about any white stuff that might be falling out of the sky so is anxious to be heading way farther south of the Medicine Line—we had to play tourist quickly! 

We took them to see our usual tourist attraction, Natural Bridge State Park.  Of course the waterfall is not as spectacular in the fall as it was in the spring when Rollie and Gina were here but it is still beautiful.

 

  Then it was off to Big Timber to deliver Jeane’s latest quilt, John and Brenda enjoyed seeing Jeane and Steve’s cool house.  Back to Big Timber for some awesome hamburgers at the Thirsty Turtle.  Just a little shopping and we were heading home to liberate Mack and Meg.  We spent the rest of the afternoon visiting and chatting.  

We enjoyed a delicious dinner of steaks on the grill, baked potatoes and green beans.  And spent some more time visiting, telling stories.  We hate to see them go but having struggled through nasty weather with a RV—we will send them off tomorrow morning with “see you down the road” and “travel safe.” 

We Have Company

Emmi has company and so do we—Mack and Meg arrived today with their people, John and Brenda all the way from Alberta country.  And the two horses, quite the menagerie they are traveling with!  We were all set up and ready, Michael used some of our fencing panels and created a horse corral down here in the yard so our horses wouldn’t bug the visitors as horses are prone to do. 

We got their truck and living quarters horse trailer all set up and got busy catching up since we had last seen these guys in late September.  I had instructed Brenda that she wasn’t to even think about cooking while she was here.  She is an excellent hostess and fed us so well while we were in Alberta. 

Tonight we had grilled pork tenderloin, roasted potatoes with garlic and rosemary, and a salad.  For dessert we had the choice of pumpkin bars or cherry cheesecake.  And then more conversation.

We had some help eating the cherry cheesecake—you know we live out in the middle of nowhere, 22 miles from literally anything and it is dark, really dark.  Brenda goes to the door to see what the dogs are barking at, looks down looking for dogs and sees feet, looks up and is staring into the face of a guy, and oh my gosh, there is another guy.  She lets out a startled shriek and comes into the kitchen, “Janna, there’s someone at your door.”  Well, I was just as startled cause we hadn’t noticed any car lights.  It was Jeff (whose parents own our former ranch) and his friend Ken.  Jeff is going to college in Bozeman and comes over here often now on the weekends.  They were having water problems at the house and needed Mike’s expertise.   I sent them back down the hill with some cherry pie—college kids need to eat!

It is great to have our Canadian friends visiting! 

Smoke coming out the chimney, our aspens are at their golden peak.

And the chokecherry are at their red peak.

What Happened To My Day?

It’s almost 6pm and unless I think really hard, I’m not sure what I did today!  I do remember cooking lunch for Michael and Nat.  And I tried out a new recipe on them—apple crepes and it was a success! 

Finished cleaning my house, even laundered some rugs—now isn’t that exciting???  But the exciting part--I was able to get downstairs and quilt a little.  Finished Jeane’s second alphabet quilt, that is until I started to take it off the frame and saw all the loopies on the back of the quilt—the last three rows of tension were off, GRRRR!  So, when I finish writing this blog I will enjoy doing some ripping!  Dang it, I was all excited to be finished!

Michael cut and hauled firewood this morning and this afternoon he got a wild hair and cleaned his shop!  Now he really won’t be able to find anything!

Oh, and poor Emmi got a bath—she really doesn’t mind baths too much.  She smells much better!

A quilting friend in South Dakota posted on her Facebook account about her friend who is in the hospital and not expected to live.  JoAnn and her friends are trying to place a great Dane, two yellow labs and several cats.  One of my quilting friends here may be interested in the dogs.  Such kind and caring people!

My niece and her husband have for the last year been jumping through all the hoops to become foster parents.  They have two children of their own but also felt the need to share their love with unfortunate children.  They received their first two babies this week, yes babies, as in not a year old, either of them.  When I spoke with my sweet niece this afternoon and asked her how she was, Niki replied, “exhausted!”  I can only imagine!  But a more perfect place could not have been chosen in which to place these babies.  Niki and her husband as well as their two children will take good care of these little ones. 

The Parts Pile Is Growing

Michael felt in the mood to tackle working on the 2004 Ford today, right after our walk he started removing more parts and hoses.  Late this afternoon here is what my poor truck looks like: Radiator is out, fan is out, there sure is a big hole where all that used to be and lots and lots of parts on the floor in the shop.  Can he remember how to put it all back together???  And if he doesn’t have the right tool, he builds one: Pretty handy guy I’m married to!  You might ask why he is going to all this trouble, why not take it to a repair facility.  This particular repair job would cost us over $6000, Michael is capable of doing the repairs and we would rather put our money somewhere else.  There is also the issue of we originally paid a small fortune for this truck, it only has 143000 miles on a diesel engine which should last 500,000 miles.  We aren’t too interested in putting any more money into this truck—the injectors which Michael thinks are causing the problem cost $300 each so we will have to replace some of the eight injectors, maybe all of them.  American made—pretty sorry state of affairs if you ask us!

While Michael was being the family mechanic I cleaned and cooked.  I made six dozen oatmeal/chocolate chip/pecan cookies plus tacos for lunch.  I’m freezing some of the cookies for sending to Laci in Italy and giving some to Nat—they are his favorite! 

I’m liking my new Dyson vacuum cleaner with the exception of the hose and attachments.  The hose sucks itself back into the machine all the time—I feel as if I am constantly wrestling a snake!  Hopefully the hose will lose some of its “spring” with use!

Michael called to me from the bedroom this morning, Emmi was up on the bed growling—here is what she saw on the deck railing.

And we saw this big guy on our walk this morning

Hired Hand

While Michael walked Emmi this morning I made a flying trip into town to deliver some fabric samples to Barb and to pick up a quilt from Jane for quilting. 

Homemade spaghetti for lunch then it was off to the West Boulder.

Michael needed a hand today with some grass seeding on the road project he has worked on this summer and fall.  He was going to operate the excavator while I ran the grass seeder—thus I was the hired hand today, forgot to ask him what he pays!!!

It was simply a beautiful day to be outside! 

I climbed the hill using my little hand held grass spreader and Michael puttered along moving rocks, grading, etc.  Once we got to the top, I headed back down with Emmi spreading more grass seed as I went.  When I ran out of seed, Emmi and I sat down on a rock to wait for Michael and the bag of grass seed.

While sitting I heard this strange noise, thought it was a squirrel but the sound kept getting closer and closer.  Out of the corner of my eye I saw movement-- There were four turkeys within 20 feet of me!

The land on which we were working sits right on the West Boulder River.  See what a nice day it was to be outside!!

Monday Comings and Goings

It really rained hard last night after we came home from the party and right when we went to bed it started snowing huge snowflakes—nothing accumulated but it was appropriate—17 years ago on our wedding day we had eight inches of snow. 

Today the sun was shining and we had a cold wind—Emmi didn’t mind staying outside most of the day.  Michael did some work on his stoves then went up to Geoff and Nancy’s to start a project.

I did the usual Monday chores—laundry, etc.  Homemade pizza for lunch then it was time to play.  I tried to remember some of what I learned this weekend and was partially successful-- Isn’t it cool what my new sewing machine will do??  I also did a little quilting on the last of Jeane’s quilts.  Got a box in the mail today from my Aunt Margaret and Marti with a couple quilts. 

And that’s all our comings and goings for the day.  Nat came up for an early supper, he is trying to refinance his house in town and needed some advice—banks have to be some of the biggest crooks in existence!  YIKES!

Can you see the paw print—Mr. Bear was around last night, out by the motorhome, down the driveway, it was easy to see where he had been due to the rain and mud.