Quilting and Spring Flowers

A dreary depressing day in Montana—cool, windy, spitting rain all day, just yuck.  And now the weather gurus are forecasting a winter storm warning—hasn’t anyone told them it is spring???

I made a batch of Gina’s taco soup since it felt like winter around here and a loaf of homemade bread to go with it for lunch. 

Almost finished Shirley’s quilt before we decided to go to town to get some filters for various vehicles around here—Michael is on an oil changing kick.

We drove out to Denny and Ellen’s new place where they are building a house just missing them but getting to chat with Larry and Mark for a while.  Emmi was very put out cause I wouldn’t let her out of the jeep—Mark has a McNab cow dog, Oso, that is a little rambunctious and Larry has a Dalmatian named Johnny.—thought it best that the little one of the bunch remain in the jeep. 

Stopped by Kelly and Bonnie’s new venture—the local greenhouse and left a few dollars bringing home some spring in the form of petunias and various other flowers.  Got some herbs, too.  I have planted petunia seeds for the first time ever, we will see it they survive.  I also planted various herbs but it will be a long time before they are ready to use!

She was not fond of her Carhart coat this morning.

Thanks Al for the Picasa hint about the graduated tint!

And that’s it for another day in Montana.

Another Warm Day

We took a walk this morning, I was able to hobble along at a slow pace by wearing a much thinner sock on the sore foot and the usual on the other foot.  My toes and foot are swollen and turning a lovely shade of black!  I’ve been quilting at the longarm in flip flops. 

It was such a nice day I decided to plant some things in the garden—lettuce, spinach, carrots, and radishes.  Robyn and Claire dropped by this afternoon and brought us some strawberry plants—I sure hope they thrive, Robyn said they get enough strawberries each year to make lots of jam—wouldn’t that be wonderful!  Michael went over across the pasture and dug up some wild raspberries from the edges of the creek which we also planted.  And, the best thing—I ordered a garden tiller today, a Mantis!  We had a Mantis tiller many years ago but lost it in our barn fire in 2000.  Up until the last couple of years I haven’t planted a vegetable garden—just seems like the thing to do lately. 

Got started on Shirley’s quilt today, too.  I absolutely love my IPod and the books I downloaded for free from the library—it makes quilting go a lot faster! 

Michael delivered the mini-excavator, lots of pipe and other stuff out to Jill’s today but the “Call Before You Dig” guys had not marked the power lines yet so he couldn’t get started.  Oh, well!

Here is a photo of one of the metal work projects Michael just completed for friends Geoff and Nancy-- a wood rack.

This past winter while in Arizona I finally taught myself how to use Picasa and I love it!  I had always used a program I purchased many years ago—Microsoft Picture It and while it worked well there are things I just like better about Picasa.  The above photo was very crooked when viewed on the computer—Picasa straightened those horses right up!

Homemade pizza for supper tonight, delicious!  A good day in Montana.

Butterflies and Ouch

Today was the warmest day we’ve had since arriving home from Arizona, I think it was about 60 degrees—felt great!  We have been taking nice long walks in the morning since the snow has melted off our paths—today Emmi spied what we call “chickens” (really they are grouse) and went into the stare off stance-- Isn’t she just the cutest thing??  And most spoiled!!

Coming around the corner of the fireplace this morning my toes connected with the rock hearth—OUCH!  I heard an audible “crack” and danced a little gig muttering under my breath!  The toes on my left foot are swollen and turning purple, I wouldn’t be surprised if I didn’t break one or more! 

Michael drove up to Robyn and Claire’s to retrieve the ramps for the dump trailer which we left at their place last fall.  He spent the rest of the day getting ready to start installation of Jill’s sprinkler system tomorrow and working on Geoff’s projects.  Michael is feeling so much better these days and I for one am so, so glad!

OK, Jeane, does it look like a butterfly??

During the quilt retreat we all joked a lot about who invented this quilting idea—you cut up perfectly good fabric then sew it back together again—sometimes using strange gadgets and shapes.  And don’t get us started on poorly written patterns!  Well, I want to know what sadistic person invented “flying geese”???  I have to make 56 tiny flying geese for this table topper I’m making and they ain’t easy!!! 

My sweet Aunt Valeta is having surgery tomorrow.  When we were all kids none of us could say Valeta and called her Aunt BeeBee—so, Aunt BeeBee may things go well for you tomorrow, we will be thinking of you.

A Job and An Iron

Our granddaughter Katie graduated from college with a teaching degree last December and has been unable to find a teaching job until now.  She got the great news that a small rural school here in Montana wants to hire her! She and her husband Michael are very excited!

Many years ago my Mom bought for me a Rowenta iron—expensive but well worth it at the time—heavy and produced lots of steam.  A couple years ago that Rowenta died and even my handy dandy husband couldn’t fix it.  After reading all the negative reviews of the newer Rowenta irons I elected not to get another one and instead have been dealing with a series of cheap Sunbeam irons from Costco.  Judy from Patchwork Times a few months back purchased a Digital Velocity iron and is very satisfied with the iron. 

So, when we got home from Arizona, I ordered a Digital Velocity iron.  There is a link to the iron above.  So far, so good!

Michael was over at his son’s this morning and ran into our UPS man, who stated he was really tired of winter.  According to his records since our first snowstorm in October there have been over 172 days where the low temperatures were under 40 degrees.  That’s close to six months of winter and I don’t think we are finished yet!

This is Mr. Red, one of our two resident pasture ornaments—they stand up in the pasture and eat—that’s their only job!  This morning we noticed Red with his ears all perked up looking toward the east, taking a few steps, stopping and looking again.  There was a herd of deer just over the fence on the neighbor’s property and I guess Mr. Red thought he should chase them away. 

Another cool, windy day.

Early Rising

It’s amazing what you can accomplish in a day when getting up before 5:30am!!  And why were we up before 5:30—who knows.  Here in Montana it is starting to be daylight by then and our bedroom has lots of windows—I’ve always had a hard time sleeping past day break, Michael even more so.

By 9am I had the sheets on the bed changed, three loads of laundry done, folded and put away, the house vacuumed and dusted and packages readied for mailing when we left for Billings.  Michael arrived back home just in time for lunch—leftovers.

Then it was off to Billings again—this time to look at another vehicle in immaculate condition, only driven by a little old lady—you get the picture.  Needless to say, we didn’t come home with a new to us rig, what are these people thinking? 

Tomorrow I plan on quilting and NOT going to Billings. 

Partly sunny and very breezy today!

A Beautiful Day

It was such a beautiful day, we decided to take the little sports car and make a trip to Billings.  A few weeks ago we took Michael’s new laptop (Christmas present) back to Best Buy—the wireless card had died, the computer had been repaired and was ready for pickup so off we went.

We ran a couple other errands and were back home before 4pm.  I got a spurt of energy and planted some seeds in trays under the grow light.  Michael started the excavator and “tilled” my garden with it.  The soil is a tad too wet for much gardening but maybe now that we stirred the dirt the sun will dry it out. 

And we took Miss Emmi on one last walk for the day—deer everywhere, green grass sprouting and the trees are even starting to bud out a little—maybe spring will get here one day!

 

Michael was a patient husband (maybe he is taking lessons from Rick???)—he sat in the car with Emmi while I went in two quilt shops today!!!  Seriously, he is always very patient with me when I want to shop—he usually keeps some sudoku puzzles in the rigs for times like those!

Spring Quilt Retreat

Well, the 2011 Spring Quilt Retreat is history.  I arrived back home just a little after 4pm this afternoon.  As you can see from the slide show, we quilters accomplished a lot!  Not only did we get a lot of quilting projects finished we went to a Mardi Gras festival complete with an imported King Cake.  We were entertained by an expert banjo player who just happens to be married to the chef!  Plenty of wine was consumed and plenty of laughs were heard.  Last night we traveled to Mexico and enjoyed chef Terry’s fabulous homemade tamales and other assorted Mexican dishes—complete with my famous buttermilk margaritas. 

Medicine Flower Lodge is a perfect place to hold a quilt retreat.  The meeting room is spacious and holds all our tables, sewing machines, cutting stations, ironing stations and us.  Our accommodations are great and the food is outstanding. 

We woke to snow on our first morning and had to slog over to the meeting room—the deer weren’t too concerned about our presence.  The weather the entire time was typical spring in Montana—snow, wind and cold.  But it didn’t matter cause we were only interested in one thing—sewing! 

The economy benefited from this quilt retreat also—all 12 of us donated money to the quilt shops in Absarokee and Bear Creek.  As if we didn’t have enough projects! 

This group of women is the best—we all get along so well, teasing, laughing and supporting each other.  Several of the women have been quilting forever and are our expert resources. 

Michael and Emmi were extremely glad to see me when Shirley brought me home—Emmi “talked and talked” voicing her pleasure in seeing me.  It is good to be home and life is good!

PS:  Thanks Rick for the tip for loading a slide show into the blog—it worked like a charm!