The Mud Season

As my blog friend, Deanna says we have a season between Winter and Spring--mud season.   The nice weather has caused the snow to leave quickly and the water to build up.   The ditches are full of water and the creeks are running.

The water started running over our main road out in three places.

It's much better today, but we are left with big ruts in the road that will need some fixing.  I met the mail carrier at the highway today to mail books to Desarae and Terry.  I needed to get some bills in the mail too.

She refuses to drive on our road and I don't blame her.  I don't like driving on it either.

DH is checking out the water flow and damages.  Road construction was his first job off the farm when he was young.  He knows alot about road building and maintenance.  This part of the road is not county maintained, but is part of an organized township--not a township we live in.  It will be interesting what happens and how quickly it gets fixed.  So far it is solid enough to drive on very slowly.

Sunday I went to town for a birthday dinner and a baby shower.  I used an alternate road that added 6 miles to the trip.  DH called me on my way home and told me to use our road.  The water had started running over the alternate road more deeply than ours.  It has been raining all day, so it's not going to get a lot better soon.

It's just part of the "mud season".  I'm thankful for a dry house! 

The geese continue to fly every day.  The sky is full of different groups and lots of honking.

 

This is a corn field east of our house down by the mailbox.  Clouds of geese fly over and some stop to eat and rest.  At night if you step outside the night is filled with the voice of thousands of geese.  I'm not sure if they are planning their trip for the next day or discussing territory boundaries.  There are the dark colored Canadian geese and the white Snow geese. This morning on the way to the highway there were alot more Snow geese.

What do you do when it's wet and cold out?  I'm stitching Raggedy Annie redwork blocks.  I may need to bake something to take off the damp chill in the house.  Rocco and Peanut are snuggled up for nap time.   Snoozing with someone is always more cozy.  I hope you are having a good day!

Book Winners

I can't believe how quickly the week went.  I didn't even take time to post.  Here are the winners of the books.  Please send me your addresses.  Happy reading!!

The Quilter's Apprentice     Marie

Rainwater    Terry

Girl in Translation    Deserae

Thank you to everyone who stopped and commented.  I'm sorry I didn't get back to all of you.  My blog anniversary is coming up the end of the month too.  I plan on having an anniversary giveaway too.

We have been getting ready for calving--lots of fixing and running around for supplies.  The temperatures have been warm and the snow is leaving quickly.  There was water running over our road in 3 places yesterday.  We are hoping it doesn't do major damage as this is happening all over and won't get fixed right away.  We didn't get our mail.  I'm sure the mail carrier turned around when she saw all that water running over the road.

The main sound of spring this week has been "honking" --geese that is.  We saw thousands yesterday on our way to Pierre--snows and canadian.  I was wishing for my camera.

I'm stalled on the quilting for now.  I did get the Raggedy Annie blocks traced so I can do the redwork in spare minutes. 

Lots of muddy feet and paws to clean up after this week.  lol 

I Love To Read Give Away

THIS GIVE AWAY IS CLOSED.  Winners will be announced tomorrow, Saturday 3/19

Reading is one of  my favorite things to do.  I also like to listen to audio books when I sew.  I have good memories of my daughters reading to me in the car.  The long trip to town every morning was made much more enjoyable with books.  The girls both became very good readers.  I switched to audio books when my readers graduated.  I have been doing some reading to rest my arm from stitching.  These are quick and fun reading books.

This first book was sent to me from Linda.  She told me to pass it on and I am.  Many of you may have already read some of Jennifer Chiaverini's books.  This was my first one and I really enjoyed it.  I need to get some more Elm Creek books.  Thank you Linda for sharing!!

I liked Girl in Translation by Jean Kwok.   I was hoping this girl would make the right decisions.  I'm not a book critic.  I choose a book and read it for the pure joy of reading.  It was a good read.

The last book in the give away is Rainwater by Sandra Brown.    I think this is the best Sandra Brown book I've read.  I really liked the ending.  : )

If you like to read, please leave a comment telling me which book you would like to read.  I will draw 3 readers on Friday, March 18th.  

Pinwheel Sampler Quilt Finished

The Pinwheel Sampler Quilt is complete!  It is the largest quilt I have completed.  Thank you to Rachel at PS I Quilt for having the quilt along.  I had alot of fun making the blocks each week.  It took me awhile to get them together, border them and free motion quilt.   Puss is wondering what DH and Michelle are doing.  We took the photo here, because the light was the best.  Sorry for the mess, but we are a family of pet lovers and snugglers.  There are lots of bones, toys, pillows and blankets all over the living room most of the time.

I used off white, pink and brown thread to quilt loop de loops in the blocks and borders on my Bernina.  The thread is from Connecting Threads.  I didn't have any trouble with tension or thread breaking.  The only time I had skipped stitches was when I went too fast on the loops.  Slow is better with the Bernina. 

I took my time quilting because of some arm pain I've been having.  I really think I do a better job with more breaks tho.  If I do too much at once I get in a hurry and don't do as well.  Quilting an hour at a time was a good pace.

I love the backing fabric. I'm very pleased with the finished product.  I'm doing a little happy dance.  lol

Michelle was home for a couple days on her Spring Break.  She spent a lot of time doing home work, but we enjoyed having her presence in the house.  Why is it that food is a mother's way of showing love?  We had fried chicken, homemade buns, yellow cupcakes with fudge frosting and creamy chicken and wild rice soup.  I sent soup, buns and cupcakes home with her.  She is looking forward to graduation May 7th.  She just finished up a rotation in ICU.  She will make a very caring, competent nurse, I think. 

We enjoyed watching the local girls BB team play at the State Tournament.  They achieved a 3rd place finish.  There were some really close games--exciting.  SD PBS broadcasted the games and we were able to watch on the internet.  DH's great niece also played on a AA team that finished 7th.  The AA games were on the PBS tv channel we get.  It brought back good memories of our girls and their teams.

The weather is going to be warm this week here.  I'm feeling pretty ashamed of myself for whining the winter away.  So many people in Japan, New Zealand and Australia have suffered so much from Mother Nature.  I need to count my blessings more.  I pray for all these hurting people. 

I mentioned a book give away, so come back--that will be the next post.  Thank you for all your encouragement for my quilting and concern about my arm.  It is feeling some better. 

Slow But Sure

There is not much going on here.  I'm still working on free motion quilting the pinwheel quilt.  I'm doing loops.  I decided this quilt isn't for a quilt show and the quilt police aren't going to arrest me, so just "getter done".  I just need to enjoy the process and the practice.  I'm using off white thread, although I think I'll use pink in the pink border and brown in the outer border.

I'm taking my time, because of my arm.  I don't want to over do.  I really think all the pain I had over the week-end was from this storm that we are having now.  It has snowed about 4 inches so far and the wind is suppose to come up tonight.  I decided I just can't post another snow picture today.  It has steadily been coming down since after lunch. 

I read a couple books over the week-end.  How about a book giveaway next time?  

Market Day

The trucks came this morning and loaded up the calves and hauled them to the sale barn.  After a week of moving snow, worrying, feeding, worrying, sorting and worrying--DH will have to worry about something else.  I shouldn't say that, but I just can't convince him that worrying doesn't help.  Praying helps!

Good by, babies................The cycle will begin again at the end of the month. 

It's Done!

February Hearts is completed and it's still February.  The snowmen wall hanging is coming down and the hearts will hang for a while.  I really like how the embroidery added to the blocks and border.  I'm still working on getting the blue marker out.  It keeps coming back after it dries..  I'll keep dabbing at it.   lol

This is the back--to show the quilting and hanger.  I really got a nice "do" on the mitered corners this time.    I took my time and marked my corners 3/8" inch back.  It seemed to work better to give myself more space than 1/4 " like I usually do.  I read that somewhere and if I could remember I would totally thank them and give them credit for it.

Just straight line quilting, since the fabric is busy and the embroidery adds extra interest.  I like how it turned out.  I used a piece of left over poly batting, so it's puffier than some of my wall hangings.  I'm still liking it. 

I remembered this little tip from "somewhere" (sorry and thank you).  I used a 3" square folded in half and a permanent marker to make a quick and easy little label.  I never label my wall hangings, but I liked this quick tip.  I will probably label more in the future.  I just put February Hearts, my name and 02/2011 on it.  I had a lot of fun making this and my thanks to Robyn for having this quilt along on her blog.

Even the pets are getting cabin fever!  Doesn't Puss look grumpy.  She very seldom ventures outside, but I think she could use a breath of fresh air.   She is our prima donna.  It was hard for her to give up her only child status.  She was not happy to have a dog in "her house", but then he had a "cat child".  It has been a slow adjustment for her.  Her favorite spot is DH's lap and when Rocco claims it--not a happy cat.  She will lower her standards and claim my lap part of the time.  The rest of the time she leaves the room and goes under our bed.  Lucky for Rocco he prefers my lap most of the time.  Peanut is happy to cuddle in her cat bed on the window seat or on the bed in Jen's old room.  They seem to have their own pecking order and no casualties so far. 

I'm going to do some rearranging, so I can begin the "big quilting project" next.  Wish me luck!  Have a great week.