Summer..

I hope you all had a wonderful 4th it was very quiet here just husband and I we are trying so hard to stay healthy but it is getting the best of him. We need to get out a bit more.

Husband made me this little house for my porch so sweet.

I went to the farm stand early for some local strawberries. There is nothing like local strawberries. The ones shipped in the grocery store taste like the box they came in. I made strawberry ice cream just waiting for it to harden.

I for some reason wanted pie. So I made a pie now it takes us a long time to eat a pie but I don't care I love pie!!! I tried a new crust recipe I found on a blog. Nope! back to King Arthur Flour's recipe.

Our house guest is leaving tomorrow. She is very sweet and well behaved. . She likes to lay on the footstool while I am working on my rug. We are walking 3 miles every morning and about 1/2 after dinner she loves it!

We gave her her dinner but she could not pull herself from our big window in the kitchen that looks down into our yard. And this was why! That deer did not care one bit about that dog growling at her from the open window. Husband went out because we thought something may be wrong with her but when he got with in 5 feet of her she jumped up and left she was fine. I do not want her here she can go through a garden in a night. 

I worked hard in my gardens this spring and they are starting to show my hard work. My hollyhocks are just wonderful.

I have a whole row of fairy roses and they are in good form they will bloom until we have a hard frost.

I have had such a hard time growing zucchinis, this year I put them in a pot and voila I am going to have zucchinis! That is just one plant!

I had an old farm tool that the handles rotted off. Husband replace them and oh do I love it! I put it under the trees where it is hard to grown anything.

I am on the border of my large rug. I am not sure if I have enough wool so I am backing into it. I put an extra row of background around and then two rows of black. now I am filling in the plaid from the bottom up evenly all the way around.

I want to finish this rug but I will be sad not to work on it anymore.

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We had several days of rain which we badly needed and then the weather has been warm but not to bad. We could use some more rain.

I loved all the comments on my rug thank you for helping my ego to grown lol

Have a wonderful week!

Much Needed Rain

I got this rug outside to take a picture. I love the scrappy background it makes it look old to me.

A little bit closer. I thought I was going to run out of background. I used everything I had that would work and I was worried..

But out of a bag that was tucked away I found this chunk of wool.

perfect! Now for the border. I have really enjoyed working on this rug and have a much smaller one for next one.

I prefer larger rugs and have the perfect place for this one between the dinning room and living room.

We are in dire need of rain. On my walk the farmer at the end of the dirt road his big field for his cows is all dry and burned. So sad.

But we have been watering so my gardens look pretty good this is an old fashion rose bush and smells heavenly.

My lavender is the best it's been in years this is just one of my patches. It is my favorite.

These are beach roses. I took some from a house my parents owned years ago it is invasive but husband keeps it in line and it smells lovely too. When the breeze blows the porch is the most fragrant  place in the world to be.

Not to be left out we will have peas for the 4th of July.

And my tomatoes are coming along great!

I made a lavender wand with some of my lavender today 

You can use it in your wool or linens and it is wonderful on your pillow at night. 

This is the view from our porch it is a very washed out picture because of the sun but as you can see all the underbrush has been cut thanks to husband, but the best part of that is at night the fireflies come out!

It is so magical to sit on the dark porch and see hundreds of fire flies blinking all over the yard and in the trees. I am brought back to my childhood I use to catch them in a jar. I tried taking a video last night but it just didn't work.

To pass some of the time we have been playing cards on the porch. The horrid humid heat broke on Wed night this past week, we were 7 days in it. I hate that weather but it has been nice since.It is raining a bit right now but hopefully we get more. We hear thunder bouncing off the mountains so hopefully that means more to come.

And we have a house guest for the week. Meet Kora

she is our daughter's dog and this is her first time being away from them since the whole covid thing and I do mean the first time. She was so home sick yesterday. We walked and tried to keep her busy.

Today she has settled in and feels at home here. They are camping and Sweet B has asked for lots of pictures. She is their little pound puppy and she is very sweet.

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Not much going on, my knee is better but my foot is taking it's time healing. I have no plans for this week and really I am happy to be at home with all the vacationers here. Better safe than sorry.

Have a wonderful week.

THE HEAT IS ON!

We are in dire need of rain. But we have been watering daily to keep things alive as we are hot! This stretch into the coming week is the longest stretch in years! I do not like heat at all!!!

This rose bush makes the whole yard smell so wonderful! And my lavender is coming any day now. My two favorite smells in the world.

Because my knee was still not back to full normal I took my kayak and met my friend at her house and we had a paddle around her lake. Social distancing of course.

It was beautiful, the humid air had not come in yet and there was a lovely breeze coming off the water.  Of course my knee is better but the top of my foot hurts. No swelling, no redness just hurts! This getting old thing is not for me. I have not walked my 3 miles in almost 2 weeks. 

We got the house decorated for the fourth. She is looking pretty good and that porch is coming in handy with all the hot weather.

Sat we met up with my daughter, sweet B and my son in law for a pre-father's day picnic breakfast. I brought fruit salad and she brought goodies from the bakery. We had mimosas and explored a little park near her. You can walk right down to the dam.

And this poor rusty thing is the dam control. Sweet B loved it and it was nice to visit and be outside. We are finding we enjoy this more and more as we not going to restaurants or visiting each others houses. Plus we are exploring our own backyard.

I am not sure what this flower is it was on the path but it was heavenly smelling I thought a berry but not sure. 

***

I took Deanne's 10 minute challenge, you agree to hook at least 10 minutes a day for 50 days from now to Sept 1 she is doing a drawing at the end. Just a great way to keep hooking through the summer. I am still working on the background of that large rug I will get some pictures this week to show.We broke down and put our window air conditioner in the living room so we can watch tv without melting. I sneak in to hook now and then so I don't fall behind on the challenge . I know I am always complaining about the weather but we were having such lovely days hard to see this humid weather I feel like a sloth.

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I saw this on facebook and I want to make one. I have some of those tins but I am sure in my travels I will find more and be able to make it at some point. 

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Have a wonderful week everyone!

Into The Mountains

 

My very close friend and I met again this week for some social distance hiking. I have shown this hike before. It is easy with a good payoff at the end and on top of that it has lots of lady slippers along the trail this time of year!

We are watching a series on Acorn tv right now. It is about women ranchers. And she says "you know when I go to the city with all those people I feel lonely. But when the city people come here with this beautiful sky and land they feel lonely. They are crazy!" I guess it is all in prospective. I know I feel more comfortable in the quiet of the woods or on a old dirt road than when I get in the city. That is why I love to walk or hike. But of course I tripped on Tue before my hike and hyper extended my knee. It was bothering me a bit but after my walk yesterday yikes. So I am icing and taking Motrin and hope it calms down before this Tue for our next adventure. Plus I have walked so much in the past few weeks it feels weird not walking those 3 miles everyday. 

Some of my rug hooking friends keep in touch on messenger. We chat off and on most days, I love it there are 5 of us on it and it makes me not miss them so much. But the topic of beet greens came up yummmm

So I stopped at my local farm stand and yikes I do not mind paying a little more for local but not sure how much I will stop at his stand this year. (plus we have a garden when it gets going)

I took some of the beets off and roasted them. Husband was convinced he did not like beets. Since we were having grilled chicken on a salad I convinced him to put one beet on his salad.

"HMMM not bad at all pass the beets!"

The only reference to beets he had was pickled and he is not a pickle anything eater.

Today off to the mountains we went to meet up with my daughter, son in law, and Sweet B. We went to a little town that has the best main street! The reason for that was during the shut down I ordered from a little books store there to have it shipped to Sweet B. Well of course she already had one of the two things I shipped so we were returning one today and getting to spoil her a bit since things are opening. Most everyone was in Masks and hand sanitizer on the way in. So we really did feel safe about it. This town has the longest candy counter in the world and Sweet B had never been there. Heaven! Just a great day!

Look at that Sweet B all put out she has to have her picture taken. 

I love her to bits anyway lol.

I picked up this book to thumb through at a second hand store. Even though I said needle felting was not for me.

And I am making great progress on my rug. I am really enjoying this rug and will be sad when it is finished but I have one lined up for when it is. 

***

I went back to work this week kicking and screaming. I have been so happy at home. But back I went it was three shortened days for a total of 18 hours. People are slow to come back to shop, we did have some sales but we spent a lot of time cleaning and redoing the window. 

It was dusty from being closed up for 2 months. 

***

Have a wonderful week and if you are a PBS watcher Granchester is coming back on tonight!

Bad News

 

Another week has come and gone. They go so fast!

Last Tue I met up with my best friend for the first time since early Feb. and we walked a lot while really social distancing.(Hard not to hug her) It did my soul so good to see her. We walked by two lakes..

And found a sweet little cottage with wonderful gardens..

And we sat in the park with Archie and talked and caught up on everything!

***

I hauled out my yard sale frame I bought many years ago. 

I did not really know how to use it. It has little nail heads on the rollers that have tension but the sides I did  not know what to do..

I got lots of ideas on line but then it came to me it has holes on the sides so you can lace or sew it to the frame. I am way to lazy for that business.

So husband took a purtain frame I bought at the same sale that I never use, and took the holders off with the gripper strips and put them on this frame. Voila! it works perfectly! I need new gripper strips but that will be another time.

I have been hooking most nights so I am making great progress on my rug.

As you can see there is a weird squirrel on the top. I have tried to fix it but not sure what to do. And the little circle with a leaf hmmm not sure what that is either. 

I do not know if you can see the acorn I added where there was a weird little thing. 

My BIG project is digging out existing rock gardens and redoing the soil and plantings. There is a lot of sweat in this project as everything has to be done by hand. I planted these probably 30 years ago and I did not know what the heck I was doing but now I hopefully do.

I am transplanting what was there to other places and taking from a garden I want to clean out for good. I do not want to buy more plants the price of plants have really gone up. I bought for our little veggie garden was a bit shocked.

I love when something comes together. I paid a fair amount for the cement crow but because I never had the right place for him he has been living in our bookcase. I found this bottom a long time ago at the dump but never had anything to put on it Voila again! I will put it in my new replanted garden. I just need to find a way to paint the bottom black without it peeling. 

We still go from hot to chilly weather but we have had some really good porch time. We waited all winter for this porch time.

And I made a blueberry pie with the last of the blueberries we picked last year. So good if I do say so myself.

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So the bad news is I have been called back to work. Only for about 18 hours a week but I have enjoyed being home so much. I do not have a hard job but it can be stressful. Maybe I need to rethink things but I need the health insurance they offer so not much I can do I guess.

Have a wonderful week.