A Wonderful Day

OK, who turned off the sunshine—another cool, gray breezy day both here and in Billings.  Yes, we went back to Billings again today—that’s three trips this week of 200 miles roundtrip! 

Took off for Billings in the little convertible (top up), dropping Emmi off to babysit poor Granddad Nat who now has two black eyes thanks to his surgery yesterday.

The Billings Preservation Society held a fundraiser today by offering tours of several historical homes on Clark Avenue in Billings.  Michael’s Dad Nat and his twin Bo were born in a house on Clark Avenue then moved to this area at the age of three.  We knew the address of the house in which the twins were born and had hoped it would be one of the tour homes but it was not to be.  I wanted to go up to the door, knock and say “can we come in and tour your house??”  This is the house where Nat was born.

The homes we toured were beautiful, restored but retaining many original features such as steep, steep stairs to the poor maid’s quarters in the attic!  The old wood floors were left original in almost all the houses we toured—the kitchens and bathrooms were almost all remodeled although we did come across one set of blue sink and toilet and one very green sink. 

It was just a great day—lots of people out, we missed one house on the eight house tour as every time we approached it there were at least 30 people waiting in line to enter.  Clark Avenue is lined with beautiful old homes and stately trees—not many leaves out in Billings either!

Michael picked up some sprinkler system supplies at Home Depot and I exchanged my IPod charger at Best Buy—the one Michael purchased with the IPod had stopped working and Best Buy honored the warranty—impressive!

Back in Big Timber we picked up a pizza to go at the American Legion and had dinner with Nat—now we are home with our feet up. 

Friday The 13th

I drove my father-in-law’s truck to Billings this morning very carefully as it was Friday the 13th after all!  Nat had an appointment for 2 MOHS procedures at Billings Clinic.  We arrived right on time, they called us back to an exam room right on time and we were walking out at 2pm—how’s that for service.  And, Billings Clinic raised itself a couple notches in my eyes—they have good WiFi!!!  My little IPod Touch worked well!

While Nat was suffering I ran some errands picking up a few things we forgot the other day such as dog food. 

Michael and Emmi were waiting at Nat’s when we drove up, we visited for a while then headed up the Boulder.  It was Christmas when we got home:  had blueberry bushes from Gurney’s, the new garden tiller, quilts for longarming from Aunt Margaret and Marti in Arkansas, paper piecing quilting books and a new cookbook!  FUN!

Another beautiful day in Montana—70 degrees in Billings today!

Spring Cleaning

We are drying out around here—the sunshine is helping a lot.  We all took a walk this morning then Michael headed off to Jill and Terry’s—he is installing a sprinkler system for them.

I got started on some major spring cleaning—washing rugs, dusting ceiling fans.  I even cleaned out the fireplace and vowed not to have another fire this spring—yah, right!

Even the longarm got a touch of spring cleaning today—blowing out all the dust and oiling all the parts.  I have a customer quilt that needs loading!

I remembered a post Rick did about backing up your blog and I had purchased an external hard drive the other day.  Something was amiss with Blogger Dashboard today and still is tonight.  I could search Rick’s blog but then it would give me an error message when I tried to click on the link to the back-up post.  I persevered—when the search engine brought up all the related posts I noticed the one I wanted was posted on June 5—so I just looked until I found June 5—take that Blogger!!  But ran into more error messages when trying to even access Blogger Dashboard so backing up will have to wait for another day.  I did backup all my photographs, though! 

We have green grass and blue sky but still have snow on the mountains and snowdrifts in the coulees. 

Miss Emmi crossing the cattle guard. 

PS:  Funny I should write about backing up your blog and Blogger Dashboard goes down, can’t post this blog and Wednesday’s blog disappeared.  All is well in blogland now.

Sunshine Is A Wonderful Thing

After 5 inches of rain a day of sunshine is a special blessing and the weather forecasters are predicting about a week of this strange golden globe in the sky!  It was so nice and warm today, no wind, just sunshine.

We took off for Billings early this morning hitting the Laurel Wal Mart at the perfect time—9am—nobody in the store and there were checkers!  Next stop was a much needed haircut for me then lunch at Famous Dave’s. 

Costco wasn’t too, too busy, either and we got our usual brake the bank shopping cart full of fresh produce, meat and other assorted necessities.  No impulse shopping today, dang it!  Saw some beautiful dishes by Mikasa—the dishes probably won’t be there the next time, but I resisted!

A routine medical test for me then we were off for home.  Our days in Billings lately are not near as long—we are getting up earlier and making that Wal Mart grocery stop before we are so tired in the afternoon after all the other stuff.  We were home by 4pm.

Both of us had a spurt of energy after unloading and putting away all our purchases.  Michael washed the big dually pickup and I started cleaning out the flower beds almost getting the front one finished.

It was such a beautiful afternoon we decided to have our happy hour on the deck—been a long time since we could do that!

Last night Michael noticed this grouse sitting in our tree outside the dining room windows—not the same psychotic one—just one happy to be eating something it was finding in this spruce tree.

Attacked By A Psychotic Chicken

Literally!  We took Emmi for a walk in the rain/snow this morning, halfway down the driveway I saw her take off toward something on the ground.  I quickly realized it was a grouse which was doing a dance with Emmi.  I was able to call Emmi back with the grouse chasing Emmi.  The grouse charged me when I bent to pick up Emmi so she wouldn’t hurt the bird.  I shooed at the bird and so did Michael—as we walked away she charged us again and I’m not talking from 5 feet away, she is right on my heels and pecking at me.  I kicked at her, she retreated but the minute we turned our backs to walk away, she charged again and pecked me in the back of the leg—I had on thick jeans so it didn’t hurt but now I’m getting a bit agitated—go away bird—I can’t put Emmi down, I was afraid she would kill the bird.  We try again—here the grouse comes, I gave her a sideways kick of my foot and she finally decided maybe flying up into the nearest bush was the best thing to do!!!!  Jeez, Emmi will have nightmares and I may too! 

The rain finally stopped about a hour ago and we have had FIVE and a quarter inches of rain in about 36 hours!  Early this morning the rain mixed with enough snow to turn the ground white and the foothills all around us are white.

We went out about 5pm for a drive to see if anything was flooding.  The rivers are a little high and very muddy.  The smaller creeks are roaring.  While out we spotted this herd of elk on Lionhead Ranch:

“1- put my name on that so I can have it when your gone (:
2- I'd like a full size quilt made from that material. (;
3- I am your favorite niece. (:”

The above is a comment my sweet niece Niki left on the blog last night—OK, Niki, the little quilt top is finished—do you still like it??  She states, “I am your favorite niece,”—she is my ONLY niece—adored and spoiled! 

As I write this I think I see a speck of sunshine shining through the clouds, YEA!

Flying Geese and Rain

Rain, rain, rain—at supper time we had over two inches in the rain gauge—at least it isn’t white!  It was raining during the night and has not stopped all day.

Michael spent his time working on a couple small motorhome repair projects and I did the laundry.  Hamburgers on the grill for lunch—while I was outside getting dripped on, I was debating the smartness of my decision to grill burgers in a pouring rain!

I did finish Shirley’s little triangle quilt as I call it and began work on a project I started at the quilt retreat—those dang flying geese-- The little pinkish triangles are flying geese—do you see any resemblance to a goose???  The flying geese make one of the borders on this little table topper The photos don’t do the colors justice and the little piece gets another border made from Moda charm squares—don’t you just love Moda fabric?? 

Emmi girl has discovered balls—green tennis balls and this afternoon a soccer ball that she rolled around and literally fussed at because she couldn’t get the soccer ball in her mouth.  She would dig at the soccer ball and make this really high pitched whining/barking noise.  Michael gave her the soccer ball and I almost made the two of them go outside in the rain to play with it she was so noisy!

Another dreary day in Montana.

Happy Mother’s Day

Happy Mother’s Day dear Mom!

My Mom married my Dad when she was seventeen and became a Mom a year later to me—she grew up fast!  She has worked hard all her life at home and at jobs outside the home.  Mom raised three great kids (I’m not prejudiced am I??) and was a great wife to my Dad.  She was the disciplinarian in the family and when I read of kids whose parents criticize teachers for disciplining their children I think, “those kids need my mother for a few weeks.”  We rarely misbehaved in school because we knew we would get in more trouble at home than we got at school!

Mom is a wonderful seamstress and made many of our clothes as we were growing up; she still sews for her little great-granddaughters. 

Mom taught us the importance of faith in God, she taught us good southern manners and she taught us to take up for ourselves, to be assertive.  She expected us to help out around the house much to our dismay!  And, she taught me to cook. 

She has always loved me even though she might not have thought my actions at the time were so great during my adult life.

My Mom is the best and I love her dearly—happy Mother’s Day Mom!