Favorite Nature Pictures

I have loved these two pictures for years.  I first found these on Webshots.  They were a one day free download to be used in their own screen saver program.  I had not found them that I could download them to my computer to be used as I wished until this evening.  This site, Hiren & Pankaj, has many, many pictures that I have really liked for a very long time and states that they are public domain.

 

Quaking Aspens,Mount Moran, Grand Tetons, Wyoming

 

Wildflowers, Grand Tetons, Wyoming

Finally - My first time!

People say you never forget your first time - first time for anything.  Well, I had my first time for a special event this morning.  I must admit that I am a little disappointed.  I thought it would be a much more grand event when it finally happened.  It was wet and slick.  I debated about doing it and decided to go for it.  After doing it, I feel a little foolish.  I did it - or should I say I did not do it.  I did not make it to town for church because I got stuck in the mud for my very first time.  I have lived on the farm for 5 years now.  Usually I just stay home but have decided this past year that I just need to do it in order to learn.  I will only try to drive the mud roads when I know Dad is home to rescue me if I need the help.

It has been a very hot and dry summer so far.  Finally, we got an inch of rain during the night.  I have driven before when we got that much but it must have come more slowly this time.  Because it was so dry and the rain came so nicely and it was still raining, the road was very slick.  I got out of the driveway and into the road and past the corner just fine.  Then I came to the corn field.  The road there was very slick and I began to slide around and came close to the north edge of the road but kept the van in the road and kept going.  I thought of turning around but was afraid to even try it so I kept going.  I made it to the hill and past the pasture gate by the Rogers' house.  OK so far.  But just past their house the road became even slicker and there was a little more of the hill and the van just stopped moving forward.  I could not go any more.  I backed up and tried again to go forward with little progress.  I kept trying until I made it far enough to turn into the driveway on the north side of the road into my cousin's old trailer house where nobody lives at this time.  I got the van turned sideways towards the driveway and got as far as the edge of the road where the grader leaves a bit of a ditch for water to run down the hill.  I could not get past that.  I tried and tried but was not going anywhere.  Seven minutes had elapsed since I left home and I was only 1/2 mile from home.  Stuck.  Time to call in reinforcements.

I planned ahead and took jeans and tennis shoes with me just in case I needed them.  I was wearing a white dress with sweater and heeled sandals.  I called Dad for help and began changing my clothes.  I pulled off my sandals, sweater then the dress.  I pulled on jeans and the sweater again hoping that nobody would come down the road while I was standing up and bent over with my rear sticking up by the window.  As I was putting on my socks and shoes, my cousin came down the road.  He tried to go around my but that put him at the edge of the south ditch and he got stuck.  He has 4-wheel drive and backed up and finally got around me and stopped.  I told him that Dad was on his way to help me.  Rescue arrived on the Polaris Ranger wearing shorts, slippers and a coat. Dad was going to pull the van off the road and further into the drive but decided to try to drive it himself first.  After a few attempts he got it out of the rut and into the driveway.  As he was doing this he kicked mud from the tires and splattered me with mud.  I gathered my purse and mug and we headed for home.  What a morning!  All this was before 9:30 a.m.  I put my sweater in the washer as soon as I got home and I am still rubbing dried mud specks from my scalp.

Later this afternoon, we went back and got the van.  The roads are dry and dust flew behind the van as Dad drove it home. 

I will try again to drive the mud roads.  I have to learn to do it or just stay home when it is muddy.  I need to learn when more rain faster means less muddy roads.  I need to learn when the road conditions prior to the rain makes the roads more muddy.  I need to learn to drive faster so the vehicle will not just stop because of slow speed as today.  Maybe driving faster will give me a more impressive experience getting stuck in the mud.  Maybe I will just stay home when it is muddy.

I am so grateful for the rain and the cooler day today.

Rose

Great Babies

My sisters have 13 grand children.  Cathy has 10 grandchildren plus 3 new babies on the way by the end of the year.  Karen has 3.  Since I am single and have no children of my own, I have always claimed my 19 nieces and nephews as my special babies.  Now they are all grown-ages 32-17.  8 of them are married.  Since I will never have grandchildren of my own, I claim my nieces and nephews children as my Great Babies since I am the great aunt.  I am fortunate to be able to take care of another one for the first year of his life and now to live across the road from two of these special kids. I wish I was able to live close to all of them and to spend more time with them.  Thank you my brothers & sisters for sharing your children with me and to Cathy and Karen for sharing your grand children with me as well.  I love you all!

Aunt Rose

(Back)Isaiah, Andrea, Gabrial, Andrea, Jeremiah, Ernie

(Front) Janessa, Joe, Kayden, Emelyn

Braedan, Macie and Layne

Megan, Alisha, and Valerie are expecting babies before the end of the year.  They are holding their 3 babies that were born in February 2011.

Murphy Quilt

Last August my sister's sister-in-law contacted me asking if I'd make a quilt for her.  She had 24 beautiful hand embroidered rose blocks that she had done and did not know what to do with them from there.  We agreed on price and terms.  She left it entirely up to me to design the quilt top, purchase fabric and supplies, machine quilt, and finish a queen size quilt from her blocks.  I have slowly worked on it and finally got it finished last week.  I ended up spending 8 hours sewing the quilt top, 3 hours making 2 throw pillows from the extra blocks and 2 pillow cases, 7 1/2 hours quilting, and 8 hours hand sewing the binding.  Over all, I really like how it all turned out.  I have called Mrs. M to let her know her quilt is completed.  I hope she will like it.  This is the first quilt I have been hired to make and am a little nervous about her reaction.

 

Rose



Leap Year

Happy Leap Year!  The day was more than half over when I realized what today was.  I had a computer crash almost two weeks ago and have been really working to get the computer restored.  I have completely formatted the hard drive, reinstalled the Windows 7 operating system, restored data files, pictures, accounting and some programs.  I now have a computer that works for the most part.  I'm still struggling with a few issues but it is so much better than I had originally thought it would be at this time.  I do not have all the games downloaded now that I had before the crash but that is a blessing in disguise.  I had been wasting a lot of mindless time there and now am sewing on a new quilt top.  I am still not getting the house cleaned but the desk is cleaned off and all that stuff is stuffed in a laundry basket for now.  Next-clean out the basket.  Thanks, Mom, for the cleaning tips.

Rose

Snow Day

This past weekend I had planned to take Mom and two of her sisters to Denver to see another Aunt of mine.  Mid week the weather forecast changed to a winter storm watch and we were expecting 8-14" of snow with 50 mph wind gusts.  We cancelled the trip in anticipation of the big storm.  Friday as we were to get the snow, we got this instead. Nothing. Just some drizzly rain. That's o.k. I have two days unexpectedly at home. So what is a girl to do? Clean house should have been at the top of the list but it was not.

Spending time at the sewing machine was my choice. But what to make? I went through my UFO (unfinished objects) tub and looked through patterns and my fabric stash. I had started a small quilt or wall hanging many years ago using two colors of green and making pinwheels. I had the half square blocks sewn so decided to put them together into a quilt top. I think I'll keep it and use it for a baby gift.

Then on Saturday we did get a couple inches of snow.  I wanted to sew some more.  I chose a pattern I wanted to try and decided to make one sample block to see how I really liked it.  The results-I made 21 of these blocks from my scraps.  I will need to make around 400 blocks to make a king sized quilt but I think this will be a good project to work on in between times of other projects.  A girl can't have too many projects going at one time, can she?  It would get boring if she only had one project at a time and finished it completely before starting another. At least that is my humble opinion. Here is a picture of the experiment results. 

I think I am beginning to like snow days or should I say I love "Sew Days". 

      Rose     

Piping

I have never used piping around a pillow or cushion before let alone make my own piping.  I did so tonight.  I am working on the Murphy quilt and made two throw pillows from the left over embroidered blocks.  I wanted to add some of the green that is used in the quilt in these pillows.  I bought the cording and cut my fabric strips.  I used the wonderful directions from Sew, Mama, Sew Blog.  It turned out nice.  I have a tendency to sew everything very tight and did that here also.  I would suggest next time that I give myself a little more room when sewing the piping and also sewing the piping onto the front of the pillow.  This would make sewing the pillow back on and getting a smoother look a little easier.  Over all I like the way they turned out.