A Drive Up The Boulder

Another beautiful fall day—just gorgeous, warm and sunny.  We took a long walk then I started cooking—I made six dozen cookies, some for Nat and some to freeze.  Nat came for lunch and I made a homemade chicken pot pie that was to die for—very good, Michael was impressed!

Took Marti’s Thimbleberry Safe Haven quilt off the frame--

and loaded one for Aunt Margaret.  But, I kept looking out the door at the gorgeous sunshine knowing winter is just around the corner.  About 3pm we decided to take a drive up the Boulder.  Perfect day for it, I packed a little picnic snack, we loaded Emmi into the Jeep and we were off.  It is just after 7pm and we are just getting home.  The Boulder road becomes gravel/rock/pothole after pothole just a few miles above us so the driving is slow going but the scenery makes up for it.  I was hoping to see an elk, or a bear, or a moose but all we saw were deer and wild turkeys. 

Up the Boulder

A sacked out Emmi

Life is good, my dear husband is feeling so much better and I am so thankful that is so. 

One Long Day

This was our view traveling to Billings this morning, sunrise over the Yellowstone valley. 

We left the house at the awful hour of 6am, dropped Emmi at Nat’s and arrived at St. Vincent’s Hospital 15 minutes early for our 8:30 appointment and proceeded to wait almost a hour to be called.  After the CT scan we ran a couple of errands and then it was to Dr. Stockdale’s office who was very prompt today.  CT scan of Michael’s kidneys was normal, yea hoo!!!! 

One more stop at the internist office for a quick follow up, then Wal-Mart and Nat’s to pick up Emmi.  We sat and visited with Nat for a while before heading up the Boulder.  Just out of Big Timber I hear this vehicle rev up behind us and I see out of the corner of my eye some crazy old @#$#@ on a motorcycle right beside us—it was only Sarge out for a evening ride—we pulled over and chatted beside the road.  He has moved back to Big Timber—we enjoy seeing him around more.

Michael is so much better—it is such a good feeling to see him without pain and feeling as if he is on the mend.  Thank you all again for your thoughts and prayers.

Our view on the way home, sunset over the Boulder valley. 

Quilting

Finished that Thimbleberry quilt for Marti today—hip, hip hooray!!  Took me most of the day in between coming upstairs to switch clothes from washer to dryer.  One of these days I am going to count how many times in a day I go up and down the stairs—a lot!

In spite of my discouraging him, Michael decided to use the chain saw today and cut some smaller aspen trees.  He also used the skidsteer to pick up the wood and haul it—he put the wood downstairs so I can use it in the downstairs stove.  Tonight he says he is more tired than he should be for so little work but only a little sore.

It was 20 degrees this morning and my deck planters are done—frost on the pumpkin, everywhere.

I made a wonderful beef stew for lunch and tonight we are snacking on homemade bread—no wonder we can’t lose any weight!

See the marks on these aspen trees??  Those are the marks made by the bear Michael and Emmi surprised last Thursday evening.  And we have discovered the situation could have gotten really bad—the bear was dining on a deer carcass underneath some heavy undergrowth.  Most bears don’t like to have their meals disturbed!!

Tomorrow we are off to Billings, more tests and doctor appointments for Michael.  Should be nice weather and we can take the little car.

Blue Monday

This is what our weather looked like all day, a little rain, a little cloud, a little blue sky.  Not much rain, could have used some more.

Had so much to do staring me in the face this morning and just couldn’t seem to get going.  I love this time of year when it is dark later into the morning—I come awake when dawn hits so this time of year I get to sleep in! 

We took a quick walk as it was raining then I finished unloading the motorhome—didn’t take me as long as I thought it would.  Hopefully I found everything that might freeze—many years ago when we still had a Jayco 5th wheel, Michael and Jazz had driven to Tucson by themselves while I left on a business trip.  When I got to Tucson and the rig, I kept telling Michael I smelled something rotten—looked and looked—couldn’t find anything.  I left on another business trip, same thing when I got back—there was something rotten in that rig!  Finally found a box of what used to be potatoes—oh, my—I threw the plastic box and all in the dumpster!  UGH!  So, I try now to be really, really careful about making sure anything that might freeze is out of our rig. 

Made us a quick lunch—I brought home some of the shredded beef we had cooked at the quilt show—made bar-b-que beef sandwiches, roasted potatoes and salad.  And Rollie—I opened my jar of pickles—those pickles are so good, it is like eating candy out of the jar! 

After lunch I headed to the quilting studio.  I managed to get one row completed before I just couldn’t go any more.  All morning I had thought I was getting a sore throat and after lunch my tummy was not right—so I did something uncharacteristic  for me—I went to bed in the middle of the afternoon—slept almost 3 hours and woke feeling much better.  I can’t afford to get sick, my husband needs me!

Michael made popcorn for dinner, we have a fire in the fireplace, Emmi is asleep on the ottoman by my feet—life is good.

Last Day

We are home and grateful to be home!  Both of us slept like logs last night—the trains must have taken a rest on Saturday night!  The quilt show didn’t open until 10am this morning so I had time to blog read and enjoy my coffee. 

We weren’t as busy serving food today as yesterday it seemed but the guild did take in a nice sum of money selling concessions.  The guild uses the money for charitable projects all year such as Quilts of Valor or quilts gifted to the police department and women’s shelter in Livingston.

Everyone was anxious to get into the show this morning to see who won the prizes.  I was proud of myself—I picked a few of the winners as my choices—the show isn’t judged, the prizes are awarded by popular vote from everyone attending. 

Remember this quilt—it won first place in its category as well as Best of Show.  It was my favorite and come to find out, I know the quilter—she is Char Devine Edwards wife of Larry Edwards who owns the Grand restaurant in Big Timber.  

This quilt belonging to Dawna who helped in the kitchen won second place in its category—another of my favorites.

This is another lone star that I liked, this quilt won first place in its category.

And then my friend from Big Timber—we ride to guild meetings together—won two ribbons for her two little less than 2 feet square miniature quilts—the size of the tiny pieces is miniscule—mind boggling!  Each little piece is less than half an inch!

And, I had a surprise this afternoon—a couple walked up to purchase food and said, “we read your blog.”  It was Carol and her husband—they recently purchased a motorhome and are starting to get into the traveling mode—Carol is also a quilter.  Carol—leave me a comment sometime so I can reconnect with your blog. 

The show closed at 3pm and we began cleaning up the kitchen, another crew began taking down the quilts and frames—within less than 2 hours a 200+ quilt show was history.  Michael had the Jeep hooked to the motorhome and after hauling all my gear over to the rig, we left for good ole home.

The Show Begins

The Peace By Piece Quilt Guild’s bi-annual quilt show kicked off this morning at 8am.  Emmi and I were out in the dark this morning before I headed over to the kitchen.  By 4pm when we closed the kitchen doors, I was again totally beat.

There are so many absolutely gorgeous quilts it was hard to vote, very hard!  This one was my all out favorite:

Look at the detail the quilter stitched into every inch of this quilt and it wasn’t on a longarm—she does all her quilting on a sewing machine!!

This was my next most favorite—the colors are my colors.  The quilting on this quilt was just gorgeous. Tomorrow I want to wander among the quilts before I get so exhausted I am seeing double!  Every time I walk through the quilts I see something new.  And the vendors have all sorts of wonderful, wonderful stuff.  Paulette from Sweet P Quilting and Creations does a lot of work with wool, wool such as men’s suits she has purchased at garage sales—she then felts the wool and hand dyes it turning out these gorgeous pieces of fabric for use in her wool stitchery pieces.  Paulette inspired me and I purchased two kits today to make what I think these wool stitchers refer to as pennies.  It looks like great stuff to do while Michael is driving us down the highway in the motorhome.

This quilt was so whimsical and had a tremendous amount of detail.

Here is a photo of some of my great cooking crew—those girls worked hard today and I appreciated their help so much—one more day of serving food—should be a lighter day today.

Michael and Emmi spent the day taking walks, napping and doing sudoku. 

First Day

Whew—I have a new found respect for caterers and restaurant workers.  I am exhausted!  Standing on your feet on concrete floors for seven hours straight is dang hard work!

But, we have all the meat cooked ready to warm and serve tomorrow—on the menu for the Peace By Piece Quilt Guild quilt show is barbeque beef on bun, taco salad, hotdogs and homemade pies.  The coffee urns are loaded and ready to plug in bright and early tomorrow morning—coffee with big, huge, gooey homemade cinnamon rolls, I can’t wait! 

The quilts are all hung, over 200 of them and I am in awe—I will take lots of photos tomorrow—the quilts are spectacular. 

Michael spent the day in the motorhome resting.  He did install another towel bar in the potty room—the coach only had one towel bar outside the shower.  And he joined a Country Coach internet forum and researched our roof leak around the air conditioner and tried the fix most people on the forum used.  He also found that almost all Country Coach motorhomes have entry door problems—the doors don’t seal while traveling down the road and are incredibly noisy—he found an easy fix for that and is going to try it.  You would think that a coach whose basic model retailed for over $300,000 brand new would have doors that fit—sure glad we didn’t buy a new one!!

We are off to have dinner with Gwen and Arch tonight at the Rib and Chop, hope I can stay awake!

Some photos of our spot at the Livingston fairgrounds. 

Octagon log barn at the fairgrounds.