Sunshine

We woke to a beautiful day here in Montana, sunshine and blue skies!  Still had to just take our morning stroll down the driveway, it is much too muddy anywhere else to walk. 

Michael spent the day outside working on the little skidsteer and I quilted all day.  I tried a dragonfly pantograph on my little quilt I made yesterday and while I like the way it turned out, pantographs are a pain!  Too much walking round and round the machine.  Think I will stick to freehand from the front of the machine!

Our dinner with Denny & Ellen and Steve and Jeane was great.  We haven’t seen Denny and Ellen in a long time and it was so good to visit with them. 

I clicked on the computer yesterday afternoon, checked Facebook and read the saddest news.  While we don’t personally know Mike and Pat McFall, we know who they are and read their blog.  As well, Gina and Rollie who camped with us this past winter have been staying in the same park with Mike and Pat, visiting with them, helping them move into the McFall’s new home and just having a great time it sounds like.  The McFall’s lost a son to leukemia two years ago and received the sad news that their oldest son died in his sleep Tuesday night at the young age of 55.  Our hearts go out to these people, to have lost one son is a tragedy, to lose two is unbearable. 

Party and Quilting

OK, where is the sunshine?  Woke to snow this morning and again it has rained and snowed all day.  The forecast is for sun tomorrow????

Just a short walk today down to the road from the house.  Emmi looked like a little dirt ball when we got back.  This afternoon she went outside and played in the mud earning herself a bath.

I spent the day getting ready for our little gathering tonight.  Denny and Ellen are back in the neighborhood and are coming to dinner with Jeane and Steve.  Peg and John were to have joined us but their poor little schnauzer Banjo is very sick again. 

Simple food tonight, burgers on the grill, baked beans, roasted potatoes and strawberries with homemade shortcake.  My mouth is watering just thinking about it!

Look what I did this afternoon: 

It is a very simple little quilt, the pattern is called “Just Can’t Cut It” from the company All Washed Up.  The photo doesn’t do it justice, when I have more time tomorrow I am going to try again, the fluorescent lights put too much of a glare on the fabric. 

Off to finish dinner preparations. 

We Are Molding

It was raining during the night and it has rained/snowed/sleeted all day long.  The temps are warmer than they have been but it is still awfully wet around here.  I could use some Arizona sunshine about now.

I guess I should stop complaining, I sure am getting a lot of quilting projects and work done—can’t get outside to do yard work, might as well quilt.  I finished my Aunt’s little yellow log cabin quilt today and it turned out well.

Michael worked on Steve’s project all day and Emmi and I held down the fort inside.  I’m working on some ideas to expand my quilting business and spoke with the nicest woman in California today that sells quilting patterns.  She ships the patterns to me, doesn’t take credit cards—when I get the patterns, send her a check!  One of her patterns is consistently in the top ten selling quilt patterns in the country so it isn’t as if she is not busy!  I am excited, once I get the patterns then I will order fabric—it will be like Christmas around here!

Emmi and I took a quick walk this afternoon and saw Mr. Skunk—we have been seeing and smelling him around, wish he would find a new home—he will find a new home if I ever catch him at just the right time!  On our morning walk these greater sage grouse were hanging around again, tormenting Emmi.

A Little of This and That

Took a walk, talked on the telephone, made lunch, researched free quilt patterns on the internet, mixed bread dough and got a quilt partially loaded onto the frame before Kathy came for her computer lesson just after lunch. 

Last fall I helped Kathy and Jim purchase their first ever computer and gave them a couple of beginner lessons.  Well, Kathy has progressed from that beginning and just needed some help with downloading photographs and sorting them.  Took us most of the afternoon cause there was a large amount of chat and gossip thrown in!

Sarge, Mike’s high school buddy showed up about the same time Kathy did and he and Mike spent the afternoon chatting and gossiping—yes, I heard you gossiping!

Michael has worn Wrangler blue jeans all his life.  We purchased two new pair on our last trip to Billings and were in sticker shock when we found out the jeans now cost $30/pair.  While in Costco that same day he noticed the Kirkland brand of jeans cost only $12.99 and decided to try a pair.  I haven’t stopped laughing yet and he wore the jeans yesterday!  Of course the jeans were baggy in the thigh, that’s how they are made and by the end of the day, the rear of the jeans was about to drag the ground.  I think he might have thrown them in the trash last night!

Emmi kept surprising this grouse on our walk—sending it up a tree each time.

And Emmi didn’t spot this deer but the deer was sure keeping a watch on that little black dog running around.

Happy Mother’s Day

Today was one of those homesick days, I wished very much to be in Arkansas with my family.  I spoke with my Mom early this morning and wished her a happy Mother’s Day.  She is the best of Mom’s—she taught me to take up for myself, that I was just as important as the next person.  She taught me manners, how to cook and how to sew.  She taught me that family, friends and community were important.  She taught me the value of hard work but she also taught us (unlike my Dad who thought work was play) how to play—she loves to travel and has instilled in me that love of “go”, too.  Happy Mother’s Day, Mom, I hope it was an enjoyable one!  My niece Niki and her husband Eric hosted the family gathering for lunch after church.

It rained during the night and melted a lot of our snow but left us with mud, mud and more mud.  Walking was slow this morning as we slogged thru the mud!

Nat came for lunch, steaks on the grill for the guys, some of Shirley and George’s salmon for me.  I fixed garlic mashed potatoes and veggies with ice cream for dessert.  Nat and Michael spent a long time after lunch talking about old times.

I finished turning back the pieces on the Mexican Star wall hanging and topstitching the edges, giving it a curved pieced look.  I am so happy with the way the little quilt has come together, now for quilting it! 

Michael worked on Steve’s truck all day and Emmi spent the day in and out of trouble.  I potted the flowers and herbs I bought in Billings a while back—put the pots on a rolling cart and sat the cart in front of the glass patio doors today.  While I was downstairs quilting this afternoon Miss Emmi decided to go digging in the dirt.  I think that brat better get locked in the quilting room with me from now on!

As the crow flies, these mountains are over 40 miles from our home.  Aren’t zoom lenses great??  And my point and shoot Canon PowerShot SX10IS only has a 20X zoom.

Garage Sales

When we took off this morning, Michael remarked that only in Montana would people drive 140 miles round trip to go to a garage sale.  But it wasn’t just any garage sale, it was a city wide one in Harlowton.  Plus the sun was shining and it was a good day for a drive.  I bought a whole sack full of good paperback books for the whopping sum of $1.25 and got 4 newer DVD’s for the huge sum of $10!!  Michael found a fluorescent light and a roll of baling wire so we both went home happy!

We made a quick stop at Jeane and Steve’s to pick up parts for the “project” and visited a few minutes before heading on home.

Michael decided to replenish our wood pile as it was about 18 degrees here this morning and I have been puttering—did return Nancy’s plant heating pads and visited with Geoff for a little while.  Lucky Nancy has been in Hawaii this past week!

We are off to Big Timber again in a little while to have dinner with Claire & Robyn and Boo and Terry who just got back from their winter location. 

Scenes of the Crazy Mountains on the way home from Harlowton.

Blog Catch Up

Yesterday we got our copy of the Rural Montana magazine published by the electric cooperatives in Montana.  One of the blogs we follow, Montana Girl, has some of the greatest bird photos featured in the magazine.  Scroll down in her blog to the entry from May 5 where she talks about the honor. 

Yes, Judy, we do try to grow a garden.  Very little can be put into the ground before Memorial Day weekend, maybe some lettuce and radishes, and we usually have frost sometime in September, sometimes in August.  I have all my seedlings started downstairs in the basement.

And those birds on the feeder photo yesterday are rosy red finches, not redpolls.

Here are a couple of photos of the flatbed Lonn and Michael built last week.

They do good work don’t they??

And the final blog catch up item, a reader comment noted the link to the bag pictured in the blog yesterday would not open.  I tried opening the pattern from the actual blog and it will not work.  I have notified the blog owner, we will see what happens. 

I’ve spent the day cleaning house, bathing Emmi and cooking.  We have friends coming early this evening for a wine and cheese party.  We had beautiful, glorious sunshine today, a little cool, but sunshine!