Summer Days

 Peanut has been the only one working on the quilt this week.  What is it about fabric that seems to draw cats?  Peanut spends the hot days inside sleeping and then prowls the cool nights.  

The wild sweet clover is tall and thick this year.  The Rhino can hardly travel through it.  The sweet clover comes in two colors white and yellow.  I love the sweet smell.  We cut this and bale it for the cattle.

Actually the sweet clover is a weed.  Some people like it and some people don't.  It has a tendency to take over.  The bees love it.  Beekeepers ask landowners permission to set their hives close by.  They pay the owners in honey.  You have to be careful feeding it to cattle, because it can cause sickness if not cured and baled correctly. 

Purple prairie clover is a natural prairie grass.  It is not an aggressive grass.  It is high in protein.   Bees love it too.  It isn't as common to find it.  The Indians brewed tea from the leaves and also applied soaked leaves to wounds for healing.  It is sometimes called the thimble weed.

We took Baby to the south pasture close to home with the last of the cow/calf pairs.  These cows are old and will be sold this fall.  We have a feeder with pellets for the calves, so they get extra feeding.  The old cows don't have as much milk.  It was fun to see Baby run and jump with the other calves.  She seemed to settle in with everyone.  Guess who came home that night?  I had just mixed up the bottle of milk replacer and was headed out to see if she would come to my call.  Surprise, surprise--there was Baby.   She came home for supper.  lol  We have her back by the barn again and she can come and go if she wants.  She seems happy to be home. 

I'm off to town for parts, twine and groceries.

Staying Cool

I've been staying cool in the house in the afternoons.  I enjoyed blind stitching around all the petals as I listened to my audio book.  I used the thread I ordered from Connecting Threads.  It sews and looks very nice.

This afternoon I layed out the blocks.  I kept moving them around and around until I finally decided to just sew them together.  It's been so much fun to be making a quilt again.  I can tell the difference in my mood when I sew.  You would think DH would want me to sew all the time.  lol

 

  

DH has been "making hay while the sunshines".  The sun has definitely been shining.  It has been hot, hot, hot.  Tomorrow is suppose to be better.  It really cooled off tonight--must have been at least 75.  It's lovely to have an air-conditioned cab on your tractor, but break downs are not so much fun.  I nearly melted this morning helping DH fix.  I hate "fixing", especially with such a cheerful fixer.  I really needed to sew this afternoon.  lol

 

  

This is what we call a hay binder.  DH uses it to cut the alfalfa and  the tall grass down.  It puts it into windrows.  He usually lets the hay lay for 3 days to "cure" and then bales it into large bales.  The grass is extra tall this year because of all the rain we've had.  The high humidity has made it harder to get everything to work like it usually does.  The grass is tall and thick and wetter than ever.  

The alfalfa is in full bloom.  It is very pretty and smells sweet.  Cows love alfalfa bales in the winter.  We have two fields of alfalfa.   DH has cut and baled them once.  If we get some rain, it will grow up again and we can cut and bale a "second cutting".

 

The alfalfa has spread to the road ditches too. DH will cut and bale there too. 

 

The canary grass is shoulder high this year.   It grows wild with other native prairie grasses.  It's extra tall this year, so it's been a challenge to work with.  DH will spend tomorrow baling.  I have an appointment for a hair cut.  I need to stock up on groceries too.  We are going to be chopping the oats for silage next week.  I'll be taking lunches to the field for the crew.  The wheat is starting to ripen, so combining will be next.  It will be a busy time ahead.

 

 

Sunday Funny

It is so very, very hot and humid today.  It was 78 and 88 humidity at 7:30 this morning.  I'm planning on staying inside today.  Laundry, a movie, a nap and some sewing--not necessarily in that order.

Happy Again

 I worked on the June Bug Quilt with the Happy jelly roll.   I forgot how "linty" you get when sewing with jelly roll strips.   lol  I completed the 21 blocks that are made from 4 strips.  I have the  21 petal blocks all fused.  I just need to do a blind stitch around them.  It was so hot and humid out today we spent the afternoon inside.  I plugged in a small fan in the sewing room to circulate the air. 

I thought you might like to see how much Baby has grown.  She gets a bottle every morning and evening.   We  feed her pellets too.   She's three and  a half months old now.   We feel bad for her being all alone by the barn, so next week we are going to take her down to the south pasture.  There is a calf feeder there with pellets and DH thinks she will come when I call, so we can give her the bottles of milk. 

It is suppose to be very hot this week-end.  I'm not sure if we'll be boating or staying inside.  I'd be satisfied to stay home and sew in the AC.  Have a wonderful week-end!

June's Project

I thought you might be wondering what took up all our spare time in June.   This is the boat my DH bought last summer.  It really needed alot of work, but we used it a few times and put it away for the winter.  DH was determined to get it renovated before this summer, but there hasn't been much spare time with calving season and planting.  The upholstery on the seats was cracked and showing foam rubber.  The carpet on the floor was worn and covering a worn and rotting deck.

The seats on the front were both in bad shape and not safe for use.

 It didn't take long for DH to tear things apart and find that the damage was much worse than he initially thought.  When you buy a 20 year old boat and don't know how it was stored you might get a surprise.   Many times things are worse than they look on the surface.

 A new floor and support structure were badly needed.  Michelle came home 2 days and assisted in the hardest part of crawling around getting the foundation work done.

The steering column was suspended from a cable, so no wiring needed to be redone.  As you can see this mess has taken over the deck for the duration.  The deck is the right height to save a lot of climbing up and down.  I'm still encouraging DH to have a clean up day.  I've picked up and put away everything I can.

We had some of the seats reupholstered and have ordered a couple new ones. The new floor is complete and sound.  We painted it with a rubberized, textured coating that will keep the floor dry and protect the wood.  We replaced the sides and doors with new wood and coatings.

 DH decided not to replace the seats in the front of the boat at this time--maybe later.

We are so glad to have this project almost completed.  The newly ordered seats won't be here until August 5th.  We are hoping to enjoy a test drive this week-end.  Actually I'm so sick of this boat I don't care if I ride on it.  lol  And I'm hoping the deck mess gets cleaned up before the summer is over.  

My external hard drive was delivered today.  Thanks so much to everyone that gave me this advice.   I'm looking forward to taking many more pictures to share with you all.  I'm also looking forward to getting back to sewing--one of these days.!

Long Time No See

How can life get so busy?  I was so looking forward to having some time to catch up in the house and play a little.  June has been a busy month outside.  The boys have been waiting to return to the tall green grass and the company of the rest of the herd. 

 The veterinarian was out to check on their health and vaccinate them.  The cold winter can be hard on bulls and one of the guys was no longer fertile.  He got a ride to the sale barn.  The rest of the crew are enjoying the summer working in plush green pastures.

Dear friends, I started this post the beginning of July and here it is one third of the way into the month of July.  All work and no play makes for dull blogging.  I'm also having a problem with my computer and too many pictures and not enough memory.  How do you manage that?  Do I need a memory stick?  Would that help?  I could use some suggestions. 

I haven't been sewing or doing extra cleaning.  In any spare time I've been napping or reading.  The days fly by.  It has been hot and so humid here.  It feels like you are walking in a sauna most of the day.  I don't do well in high humidity--I feel like I'm melting.  lol   We usually don't have such high humidity in South Dakota.  We have been blessed with rain and things are so green.  Our wheat looks wonderful.   We have lots of hay to make.  I'm behind in the garden.  The weeds have gotten ahead of me.  I've been trying to catch up there the last couple mornings.  I didn't get much planted, but the tomatoes plants look great.

I haven't been reading blogs and I've missed doing that too.  I'm not sure how I had time for that last year.  I'm not sure if getting older makes time go faster or it's just that I must go so much slower.  I'm hoping some of you can give me advice about the pictures and storage space.  Thanks so much for checking on me.  I hope to start posting again soon.  Hugs to you all.

Gettin "Happy" in June

We have been busy as usual.  DH lined up a crew to work the cattle before they were moved to summer pastures.  All the cows and calves get vaccinated and wormed. 

BIL Ron and nephew John came to help out. 

 Nathan and Oliver, neighbor boys worked in the back.

It was a nice day and not too hot--that really helped.  After all the cattle were worked we moved them to their summer homes.  We have a few cows left to calve, but calving season is pretty much over.  Yeah!!

No, this isn't a lake.  It's the corn field.  We were only able to plant about half of it this year.  We hope to finish with the last field tomorrow.  It is also a wet field and this is way later than we usually get our corn in.   It's been hard to get the crops in with the rain and wet fields.  We hope to get enough planted to feed the cows through next winter.

I decided I really needed to get some fabric therapy.  I was getting pretty grouchy.  Just like lack of sunshine affects me, so does lack of color and creativity.   I haven't had the time to organize anything in the sewing bedroom---so I started a new project.  I'm using the Happy jelly roll I bought at the Quilter's Corner and the June Bug pattern I ordered from Connecting Threads.

I made a template from plastic and started tracing to make the fused applique blocks.

I cut out the centers, so just the edges will be fused down.  I'm going to blind stitch them by machine.  I saved all the centers.  They will be just right for leaves on something else.

I've worked on this a little here and there.  Just so fun to be working on something again.

I like the colors in the Happy line by Me and My Sister Designs.  I'm using a lot of the pink and purple, but some of all the other colors too.  It's been so much fun cutting and choosing the colors.  I've been smiling a lot more the last two days.  lol 

I've been thinking I might hand quilt this one.  I like the quilts I've seen that used perle cotton and big stitches.  I can see doing that around these appliqued pieces. 

The llamas are enjoying green pastures.  There were no little llamas born this year.  We were a little disappointed--maybe next year.

It has been in the 90's the last couple days.  It really helped to dry out the field we need to plant yet.  I spent this morning mowing the yard and weed eating before it got so hot.  My garden is finally tilled, but not planted.  It is getting kind of late, but I need to get to town and buy some tomato plants at least.

Where does the time go?  Every day flies by and there just seems to be more and more to do.