A Change of Plans

Well, yesterday we did not go to the cabin as we had talked about.  Our friend Bob changed his day to make another trip to Knik Glacier.  We figured the cabin can wait, and decided to go to Knik Glacier instead.   By the looks of things, it looked like it would be a very nice day of it, despite what the forecast said about rain.

We had a good sized group, but more than half of the people that were with us, we didn't know.  They were relatives and friends of Bob's.  But they were all nice people.  We also had another family that we invited to tag along with us because this was their first time out to Knik Glacier and they were afraid of getting lost.  So we had a pretty good-sized group, however, the more people you got, the more stops you can expect to have.  First of all,

Lei Loni's rig started making this horrible awful squealing noise.   They guessed (and hoped) that it was the brakes rather than the bearings.  It turned out to be just some plastic piece that was rubbing on something.  Okay, got that problem taken care of.

THEN:

This big fallen-over tree was blocking our path.  No one had a chain saw, but Jason and Bob both had a small hatchet.  After some time hacking away at that, they were able to move it out of our way.

What else could go wrong, I wonder?  

How about Larry's wheel going up in flames?

Yes, his wheel actually caught on fire!  Luckily we were close enough to water for him to kick some water on it and put it out.  But it required another medical exam of another 4-wheeler, which involved cooling off the tire, taking the tire off, cleaning it out, and reassembling it.  (They figured maybe some dirt somehow got in there and caused some heated friction, but I silently wonder if Larry was "riding the brakes" without realizing it cuz later Chuck had to tell him that his brake light was on while we were riding - yes, he had his foot on the brake.)

Yes, riding with a larger group might mean more stops, but somehow the setbacks don't seem so bad when you're with the right people.  All of these stops gave us opportunities to chat, laugh, make jokes, and fellowship.  Here the kids are enjoying splashing around in the water while they wait for Larry's tire to get fixed.

Here is another setback, but this kind is normal and expected:

It was a body of water that we had to cross and no one knew how deep it was.

So we sat there and contemplated.

Finally, someone went out and walked into it:

Then Bob tested it out:

And then we were cautiously on our way:

We ran into those questionable bodies of water quite often, and every time we go there it's different because the depth of the water depends on how much snow has melted off the mountains, and also the tide.  

Then of course there's the other kinds of stops that you would expect when you got kids with ya:  "I gotta go potty!"

I didn't get any pictures of that, but you get the idea.  Even I had to go have some private time with some bushes at one point.  Sorry, no picture.  That would be "TMI".

At last we finally made our destination.  And it was worth it.

This time we didn't stay there very long cuz it too so long to get there.  And we still had to get all the way back.  It was a long day, but really fun.  And boy, we were DIRTY!  It was a really really really dusty dusty ride, and we were all COATED with dust by the time we got back.  A lot of the times we couldn't even see anything.  But I'd rather have it dry and dusty than cold and wet.  

And the nice thing was that there wasn't a single mosquito!!

And the Harvest Begins!

This is what I picked this morning.  A cucumber, some broccoli shoots, and my first official basket of peas.  Now that my peas are coming in, I'm thinking I better pick a day every week and pluck off whatever looks ready.  I have a feeling my future batches will be somewhat larger than this first batch.  And I am so glad to say that, so far, we haven't had any moose eating the fruits of my labor.

(cross fingers)

My greenhouse is really looking like a mess:

I need to do a much better job at staking my tomato plants.  Next year I hope to be better equipped for that.  This being my first year growing them, I didn't know exactly what to expect.  And they are all falling all over each other and too crowded.  Plus, I had no idea that a zucchini plant would take up so much room!    Next year I'll know to space things apart more.  Hm.....I may need 2nd greenhouse......

As you can see in the far back right corner, the corn in that Smart Pot isn't doing too well.  I'm thinking about chucking the whole thing in the weed pile.  The ones in the bed are doing better, but they are being crowded out by the tomatoes, so I don't know if I can expect any corn out of them.
The ones in the outside bed seem to be doing good, but are slower at growing, so I don't know if they will have enough summer time to develop anything edible.  Here is a picture of my corn "forest".

If I was a little ant, I would love to live in here.  It like a park in there!

My cauliflower, I'm sad to say, I had to chuck it.  I waited too long to harvest it and the florets were separating and turning brown.  It didn't look like anything I would wanna eat.  Another lesson learned for next year.

I interrupt this blog post as I was suddenly aware of a disturbing fluttering noise behind me.  This just in:

Yes, folks, it's true.  I bird just flew into my house!

It fluttered frantically trying to get back outside.  Does it take long for a bird to figure out that it cannot fly through glass?

Bossy tries to coax the bird in the right direction, but that didn't work to the bird's advantage.

The more we tried to help the poor fellow, the more frantic it became, so we walked away from it so it would calm down.

Eventually, he found his way out.  

Poor fella.  He's probably right now sitting around a campfire telling all of his friends the spooky story about flying into a house that was haunted by a cat.

Getting back to the humdrumness of my humdrum life, here is the latest on my quilt:

I started sewing the corner pieces on. 

So far I got 30 of them done.  But they're really not done, per se, cuz I have to sew corner pieces on all four corners.  I'm just doing the medium squares first.  And then of course they have to be trimmed and ironed.  And this is only the "dark stack".  I have to repeat the whole process with a "light stack".

Since the pieces are coming together randomly, I can't help opening them up every time, just to see the color combo.  Some of them I'm not too thrilled about, but most of the time I think they look pretty nice together.  I think this quilt will turn out fairly nice.  And that keeps me going.

So that's all for now.  I think we might go to the cabin tomorrow, so then I'll be able to post an update on my blueberries.  I know, you're hanging on the edge of your seat cuz the suspense is killing you.

And Bossy agrees.  Can't you just see it in her eyes?

"ho hum (yawn)"

Time Out for Visitors

In my last post I talked about getting ready for my next quilting project.  I went out and bought some more assorted fabrics to cut up.  The quilt shop near my house didn't have everything I was looking for, so I ended up going to JoAnn's to find the rest.  I hated to do that because I wasn't sure if the quality of the fabric would be the same.  I can tell a difference, but for this particular quilt, I'm not going to make too big a fuss over it, especially since it's not going to be given away to anybody else.

So I got my cutting tools out and got busy.  It took several days to get them all cut out.

Then I sorted them to get them mixed up cuz I didn't want two of the same to be too close together.

And now they are all nicely stacked up and ready for sewing.

But, even a humdrum life like mine needs to be put aside once in a while and I had to put all my quilting stuff away temporarily.  We were treated to a visit from our daughter and her husband and I was finally able to give them the quilt that I made for them.

Stephanie and Isaac

A visit from them now also includes a visit from my "grandson".  He is quite the handful!

Since he is a registered purebred Golden Retriever, they had to give him a very dignified name.  May I introduce to you "Sir Poop(sy) Charles Barkley Doggins".

Or "Charlie" for short.

He should be proud to carry a name like "Sir Poop", don't you think?

Believe me, the name fits.  But we call him "Charlie", you know, for people who wouldn't understand.

Anyhoo, after they left, I knew I couldn't get my quilting out just yet because we were expecting another visitor.   

For the time being, the closest we can get to having the human kind of grand baby is to borrow one.  You have met Dominic before in a previous post.  This is the 4th time we've kept him now for a 3-4 day stint.  We've had him when he was 7 weeks, 4 months, 6 months, and now he's almost 8 months old.  This time his "parents" went on a camping/fishing trip in Kenai, and we have already agreed to take him again in August so they can make another medical trip to Seattle.

He is such a sweet little guy and so fun to play with, now that he's a little older.  He's at the stage where he is grabbing everything, and just starting to crawl.  So, in some ways he's harder to watch, but in other ways easier.  Harder to watch because I have to keep a closer eye on him, but easier because he can now sit up by himself.

I was able to set him down on my lawn while I watered my veggies.  Last time I had him he couldn't quite sit up yet, so I had to do all my watering while hoisting 20 pounds on one hip.  Not good for my lower back......

But he is also teething, which makes him kinda crabby at times, thus very very very clingy.  I started calling him "Velcro" or "Cling-on" cuz he clung to me almost constantly.  I couldn't put him down for very long, but he did a lot better outside, I suppose because he had so much more to look at, plus he was watching me walking back and forth with my watering can.

The worst part about keeping him was that he's a very poor sleeper, both at night and during the day, so he always seemed tired and rubbed his eyes a lot because he had a hard time getting adequate sleep. His "mom" says part of it is meth withdrawals, but teething makes it a lot worse.  So he was more clingy when he didn't get enough sleep, but there was a big difference when he did get enough sleep, cuz then he would let me put him down for longer periods of time, -- as long as I stayed within his eyesight.

Here I took him outside to enjoy a relaxing cup of joe with me.

Our two cats kept their distance most of the time, but towards the end of the week, they began to emerge.

Kiska was a little bit nervous around him, but eventually she let him touch her.

Bossy, also eventually let him touch her, but I know she was quite content to see him leave.

"I want my house back"

We watched him from Monday night to Friday night.  Boy, did I sleep good on Friday night!  And it felt so good to sleep in on Saturday morning!

So now that my break from my humdrum life is over, I can get back to it and get my quilting stuff out again.

So get ready to read some really boring humdrum posts about my quilting project in the near future.

My Next Quilt Project

Well, I'm almost done with this moose quilt.

All I have to do is finish sewing the binding on, and I'm already more than half way around the whole thing.  And that I can do while relaxing with a movie!  :-)

 Since I was close to getting this one done, I started planning my next project.

We desperately need a new quilt for our bed.  My mom made us a really beautiful quilt, but I don't like having that one on my bed all the time because of our cats.  So I only take that one out during Christmas time and enjoy it as much as I can before I put it back, hopefully before the cats do something to it.  We all have something that's "too precious to enjoy", and that quilt is one of those. Anyhoo, the one we have on there right now is so old, and we bought it cheap from somewhere (probably Walmart), and it's coming apart at the seams.  So I decided it's time to make one for our bed.  I looked through all of my quilt magazines and books and picked a few out that I liked, but decided that since it's for OUR (mine and Chuck's) bed, I thought I'd ask Chuck if he would have any input on the matter.  Of course he wanted nothing to do with it, but I asked him to just skim through my magazines anyway, just to see if anything popped out at him.  After he pointed at the first one he liked, I almost regretted my decision to get his input cuz he picked one that I thought was kinda ugly.  I told him to set that one aside and keep looking.  Thankfully, he found another one that he liked and told me to choose which of the two I wanted to make.  It was an easy choice.

This is the pattern that was chosen.   (Sorry I forgot to turn the picture right side up).

The description says that the pattern was inspired by an antique "scrappy quilt" (totally made out of scraps), which was right up my alley cuz I was hoping to use up some of my scraps.

Problem:  The end quilt size is 71x83, which will NOT adequately cover my bed.  I like my quilts to be big enough to cover the top of the box spring.  For our Queen size bed, this means I need it to be King size.  So I had to do some math.

I will end up adding four columns and two rows, a total of 28 extra blocks, in order for it to be big enough.  So then I had to calculate how much more fabric I needed.  It was a lot of math, but I actually happen to like figuring out math problems (I know I'm weird).

After reading the fabric requirements, I decided I wanted to do lights and darks, and try to create a good contrast between the two because the contrast in the colors is what Chuck was attracted to.  I decided to go with reds, blues, and browns/tans, all in "manly" tones (no brights or pastels).

So I went to my stash to see what I had.  I was excited because it was my first opportunity to dig through my ORGANIZED stash and find what I wanted right away.

And I got busy cutting.

I guess my stash isn't very large yet cuz I already cut out everything I could find that has the right tones, but that's okay cuz what I needed to know is what I still need to buy.   And now I know what I need to buy, and by using my scraps first, I will save the cost of 3-1/2 yards.  Woo-HOO!

Yay, a trip to the quilt store!  

The thing with this pattern is that the squares are odd sizes.  6-7/8",  3", and 2-5/8".

So it's not like I can buy a stack of "Layer Cakes" or "Charm Packs" and call it good. As far as I know, you can't buy any precut squares in these sizes. These odd sizes are gonna require cutting.  Lots and lots of cutting.  I need 196 large squares, 392 medium squares, and 392 small squares, all three sets divided by half in dark prints and light prints, then subdivided into the three colors.  It's tedious work, but once I get into the rhythm of measuring and cutting, it's actually kinda fun.  Just put the polka music on and I'm good to go.

So, now you know what I'm busy with, and why I'm probably not blogging as much.

On a side note, I found these zukes in my greenhouse!

I'm supposed to pick them when they are 6-8" long, but I think I waited too long on these.  They kinda caught me by surprise.  Once they start growing, they grow really fast, so they have to be checked every day or so to make sure they don't get too big.  But I think they will still be quite tasty.  I'm trying to decide if I wanna saute them with tomatoes, or make bread out of them.  Or, if they freeze well, maybe I could start preserving them as I pick them.  But I'll probably find a way to eat these just because I want to experience the satisfaction of eating my own produce.  Yum.  And since zucchini is on the GMO food list, it's nice to grow my own, knowing that I'm not poisoning myself.