Honk! Honk! Rush Hour In The Country

     I was coming home from the store this week. It was late afternoon/early evening. Normal rush hour time, but I was the only one on the road until . . .

     . . . 23 Canadian geese came crossing the road from the field on the left to the pond on the right of those trees.

 I tried to rush them but they were about to take flight. Beautiful wing spread!

     Four to six pairs of the geese come to the neighbor's pond every year to breed and raise their chicks. It's not unusual to see 40 - 50 geese living around the pond during the summer. It's always sad when they leave for the winter, but ALWAYS exciting to see them return in the spring. I wish we had a pond near our house so we could coax some to come live with us.

     As much as I have missed living in the city for the past 23 years, these are the things I would have missed if I hadn't moved to the country.

A Progress Report

     Yea! Emily's wedding quilt top is put together, minus a couple of borders. I want one of the borders to be purple to bring out the purple in the blocks, which I love. As usual I've had the material for a long time and won't be able to find the exact one, but I'll find something close. Something purple with white batik-ish leaves. I think a one inch purple border then one or two wider borders of fall fabrics. There's so many different fabrics in this that it won't matter if I can't find anything that exactly matches.

     Now it can join the other 4 quilt tops on the back of the door of my sewing room. My sister, Kathi, calls it a studio. Her studio is really nice. She knows what a studio is. Okay, it's a studio. 

Here are it's new friends. It won't be lonely. New friends will come, too.

Do you ever just get down on your knees and thank God that you know me and have access to my dementia?

     Recently while watching an episode of Seinfeld, I heard this quote by George: "Do you ever just get down on your knees and thank God that you know me and have access to my dementia?" I couldn't help but think of my husband, David. He has had some crazy inventions or ways of solving problems. Usually the solving just creates more problems. For example:

     One Sunday morning many years ago my husband asked me to get his blue dress shirt for him to wear to church. I looked in the closet. Nope. I looked in the clothes hamped. Nope. I checked the clothes that needed mending. Nope. I looked in the washer, the drier, the dresser, Nope, nope, nope. After looking everwhere I could think of, I told him I couldn't find it. He said, "Did you look in the filing cabinet under "S" ? This has to be the weirdest thing he has ever said to me. But, sure enough there it was. WHO files their shirt? I have never figured out that one.

     When we moved to the farm I wanted to have a clothes line. I had a drier, but you know how nice it is to get in a bed with freshly cleaned sheets that have hung out on the line. And David decided he was going to wear overalls all the time. They take forever to get dry in a drier. I aksed him one day to put up a clothes line for me. He thought for a minute and said, "Barbed wire would make a good clothes line. You won't need to use clothes pins." ARE YOU KIDDING? He was serious. I informed him that his clothes would have rusty holes in them if he used barbed wire. Some of his ideas make me chuckle; he has to be kidding, right?

     When David and I started dating, he had in his apartment a globe on a tall stick/post type stand. He read everything in sight and always wanted to know where the places were that he was reading about. This globe was so top heavy, it was always falling over. When we got married and bought our first house, he cut the stand in half and screwed it to the ceiling of our den. I came home from work that day and there it was, hanging like it was in outter space.

     When we moved to our next house, the globe came with us. If I remember correctly, it stayed in the closet of our office bedroom. Maybe he couldn't figure out where he could hang it in a rented house.

     When we moved to the farm, it followed us once again all the way to Missouri. This time any remnant of the stand was gone. It was now screwed to the handle of David's filing cabinet, where it remains to this day. The ever evolving revolving planet Earth.


From David's apartment to 214th Str, to Ladeene Avenue, to MO farmhouse.

     One time David had a broken bone in his foot and was put in one of those air filled walking boots. We were no longer milking cows, but we did have beef cattle and a few pigs and there were still plenty of chores. He HAD to be up and around. He thought if he could invent a crutch that could be strapped to his leg with a seat on the top, he could keep his weight off his foot and still get around to do outside chores. So he cut a crutch in half and screwed on some straps which could be buckled around his leg. We still had Emily's old pink bike in the workshop. David removed the pink banana seat and attached it to the top of the crutch. The Butt Crutch was born!


The maiden voyage



So far, so good.



Okay, that's gotta hurt!

     We had a lot of apples one fall. We don't spray our trees so the bugs really get to the fruit and most of the apples aren't fit to eat in hand. David hated the thought of wasting all those apples and tried to figure out a way to make a cider press. He took 2 five gallon buckets, one with holes drilled in it, and one without the holes. He thought and thought about what he could use to create pressure to crush the apples. "Ah Ha! The tire jack used on the tractor. A piece of chain and a block of wood and ... What else can I use to wedge the jack in to crank up the pressure? I know! The door jam between the kitchen and the dining room!" He was so pleased with himself. I was NOT happy!!! Especially one day when I came home and noticed a crack from the corner of the doorway to the ceiling. THAT made steam blast out of my ears. WHAT???? Maggie happened to be in the room and noticed the horror on my face. She said, "Yeah, I know. Dad said not to tell you." He told her the width of the crack told him when he had enough pressure. I've tried to find a picture of the "cider press" in action, but I can't find any. I can't believe I let this go by without taking any pictures. If they turn up I'll post some.

As you can see the crack is still there.

     Emily said she would help me take off the wallpaper and paint the kitchen this summer. I suppose I ought to finally repair it. It's almost a shame. I think it would be a good reminder to keep him from "inventing."


     Last summer there was the mulching of the garden experiment. You'll never guess, so I'll tell you: Mulching with carpet. Yes, carpet. Pulled out of a duplex and a church.  Synthetic carpet used as mulch. We're talking about a lot of carpet. We carpeted about 2/3 of our garden, which is about 15 fifty foot rows. Not a good plan as it turned out. We got a dozen tomatoes the whole summer. Maggie has blogged about it here and here. It's just too much for me to relive. It will be a booger to remove. Then what do you do with it? I'm sure when that happens it will be on the 6 o'clock news. Stay tuned.


This doesn't seem so bad, but carpet doesn't make
a good mulch. It became a solid mass of overgrown
mess, not to mention a haven for snake breeding, I'm sure.

     I predict more dementia, uh, inventions in the future, but these have been some of the biggies in our 32 1/2 years together. Not always fun, but never dull. I'm sure there will be a sequal.

Carry On!

     Yesterday I got back to work on a quilt project that was started 4 1/2 years ago: Emily's wedding quilt. They were married in October 2007 on the most colorful Fall afternoon. The quilt was a good idea that went horribly wrong.

  

     I chose many different cotton prints in fall prints and colors sewn in 4 patch designs, separated by 4" ivory blocks. To prepare the ivory blocks, I ironed them to freezer paper to help stabilize the fabric making signing easier for the wedding guests. A blue disappearing ink pen was used to put a 1/4" frame around the block so the signatures wouldn't be lost in the seam allowances. I chose red, green, orange, and brown permanent pen/markers for the guests to sign the blocks.

     Each signature block was sewn to a 4 patch block. Rumor has it that blue ink becomes permanent when ironed, so before pressing them, I put all the blocks in a fine net zippered bag and put them in the washing machine so the blue ink would rinse away. When I took them out out of the washer I couldn't believe the mess the markers had left! The markers said "permanent". Doesn't that mean permanent?  The signatures bled all over the place.

          

In the pictures above, the signatures have already been written over with the

fine fabric pens. Looks a little better.

     The markers even bled on the 4 patches. It didn't help that some of the red fabrics bled too. I was heart sick! **

      My quilt guild ladies suggested to use one of those color catcher sheets in the washing machine. I tried it but it didn't completely remove the damage. I just had to put the project aside.   

     I eventually found the correct pens and Maggie helped me write over the original signatures. Looked pretty good. The original signatures made a nice halo around the new ones. Sarcasm! This really was not a good look, but I had invested time and energy and a little $$ into the project and still wanted something to help Emily & Jim remember their wedding day. I'm not sure this was it, but I am carrying on anyway, 4 1/2 years later.

 

     So yesterday was the day to get it out and watch it become something resembling lovely. I spread the signature blocks out on the bed. I moved them here and there and added in some blank blocks. Rearranging and pinning several times, I finally had something I liked, except . . .

     . . . I am short 3 blank ivory blocks. And there is NO more. Not a scrap, not a thread. I don't remember where I bought this fabric - maybe WalMart? It's kind of a nothing fabric so if I don't find it, 3 different blocks on the lower side corner will not be noticed. If you've seen this fabric, let me know; ivory with white printed outlines.  I have the blocks sewn into strips and will be getting the strips together to form the quilt top. Hopefully it won't take another 4 1/2 years.

       Well, I've spent another day on the computer and haven't accomplished much except to whine and point out the flaws.  Speaking of whine . . . Wine? 

XOXOX

 **Heart sick like the bridesmaid dress I was pressing late one night. I burned the bodice back piece!!! The fabric melted and burned a nice little iron plate shape. Too late in the night to scream with all the family sleeping. I just went in the bedroom and flopped on the edge of our waterbed, making waves for poor David. Surf's up!  I wanted to run outside and scream in the street, but didn't want to be arrested. The next day I had to removed the neck facing, zipper, waist and side seams. I got enough material to recut and put it all back together. Gee!! That was 25 years ago and I'm still not over it. Do you supposed I need a life?

Good To Know I'm Not (Yet) An Old Dog

I learned a new trick this summer.

I have been growing my own herbs for years: basil, rosemary, Italian parsley, oregano, fennel, lavender, sage.

  This is the right side of our porch.  Left to right: oregano, sweet basil, opal basil, rosemary (2). Behind the oregano is a scraggly bronze fennel. The oregano and fennel were transplanted this spring from the old overgrown herb garden.

 

This is the left side of our porch. There's sage in there somewhere and a rogue plant from the melon family. The rest is junk. I've got some stray sunflowers I may transplant.

I especially love basil and rosemary. I live in zone 6 so some of my herbs won't live through winter. I've had no luck bringing them inside. This past winter was very mild so I thought I'd try putting buckets over my two rosemary plants. They continued to grow, slightly, but were very robust by the time the danger of frost was past. I bought 3 more plants so I could share the harvest with my daughters.                                                                                                                                                                   

I was in a pasta making mood a couple of weeks ago so I went out to harvest some herbs. When I'm cooking I pick the herbs and put them in a glass of water to keep them fresh until I'm ready to use them. I didn't use all the rosemary so some was left in the glass. In just a couple of days it started rooting! I've had basil do that, but hadn't seen rosemary do that before. Well, now I'm pretty excited. I love this new trick. I can make more plants. Better yet, I can try to keep some rooting all winter and have plants to put outside next spring. Line up little jars of water in the window sill. That's the new plan, anyway.


Here's another new trick I learned: Rosemary Cornbread. I was in a hurry to get some cornbread in the oven so I used a mix. My daughter suggested adding some rosemary needles/leaves to the batter. Oh My! It was SO good. Add a little butter... When I came to, this is what I found:

I'm not sure where it went.