Happy little things...

 

The scrappy string baby quilt is getting closer to being complete.   

I sewed the white border on to corral the organized chaos.

This afternoon I sewed more multi-colored strips together

 and cut them into 2.5" strips that I'll stitch

for a border around the white border.

Just a little more edgy chaos.

Why do I love this?

I don't know.

But I do.

A bit of egg-citement!

The pullet hens are laying!

The middle eggs are hen's eggs

and the circle of eggs are pullet eggs.

(designed by Hubby!)

My new homemade fall wreath
made of prairie grasses, milkweed, and sumac berries.

And one more little thing...
the last roses of summer.

Happy little things!

Doll quilt...

More scrappy quilty stuff.

A doll quilt....with legs.

The neighbor girls helped me choose the scraps 

for a doll quilt.

 

The girls made their own quilts.

They glued fabric scraps to card stock.

 

Finished trunk...

 

It is finished!

And I'm really happy about how it turned out.

I tried to keep the trunk "as-is" as much as possible, minus the stinky wall paper, so after sanding the interior, I applied a MinWax penetrating oil stain in "natural" that revives the wood and maintain its true color.  There are many knotholes which makes the wood inferior and is why I think these trunks were wallpapered.  As I took the trunk apart, I noticed there was tape across the seams and over the knotholes to smooth it over for wallpaper.  I like the character and imperfection of knotholes, but they are a little rough and rustic.  The musty-trunk smell is now gone, but it has acquired the smell of the stain which is fine with me.  

On the exterior of the trunk, I rubbed some natural stain over the wood and oiled the steel exterior and leather with Nor-V-Gen oil -- a boot oil we use on our boots.  It helped to shine up the metal and removed dirt and gunk that was there and it deepened the color of the leather.  There is a blue-gray tinge to the outer wood slats that I wanted to preserve and of course, all the bumps and dings and scratches remain  -- the trunk earned them.   I haven't decided what I will store in it yet, but I have moved it to the living room as a side table for the big leather chair.  I think it looks smart and brings a lot of character to the room.

Scrappy little beginning...

I have a new craze.  String quilting.  Bits and pieces of scrappy strips are called strings, and they are sewn down, one upon another, to a muslin square or paper square.  It's addicting!   Nothing has to be perfect with string quilting -- which is my kind of quilting from time to time.  I like that I'm using up a gob of scraps.  I was beginning to wonder if I'd live with a huge bag of scraps for my whole life and then pass it down to my children who would think I was some kind of hoarder-packrat person.  But no!  My scrap collection is going to good use instead. Repurposed, so to speak. Some of the scrippy-scraps are from past baby quilts, dresses, totes, bibs, shirts and who-knows-what.  So there are memories built into each quilt. 

I promised myself I could start my day with an hour of sewing and then I would go on with the  *work* part of my day.  Most of the time, I put my sewing very last after all the work-y tasks are done. It was such a treat to put sewing first today!  String quilting is so addicting that  I went over my alloted time by fifteen minutes because I just HAD to finish the block I was working on.  (naughty me)  I got three squares done in my hour and just made one more this afternoon so I'd have a complete square (made of 4 squares).  Fun!  This quilt is going to be my own. Yes, my own baby quilt for the crib that is in my sewing room where my sweet grandbabies sleep when they stay with us.  I'm so excited to have my very own baby quilt once again.  ~smile~

If you want to watch a really good video on how to make string quilts, click HERE.  And be prepared to want to do nothing else for hours on end! 

Generations of sheep herders...

 

 

The first photo is of Grandpa, Hubby, NumberOneSon, and Lil Boy Blue -- four generations of sheep herders.  Kinda cool, I think.  Great Grandpa was a sheep herder before all of these fellas.  That's all they had back then -- sheep and maybe a milk cow and a couple horses.  The ranch in its Sheep Hayday ran 1400 head of ewes.  It required people to stay with the sheep all the time and herd them, take them to water, move them to good pasture for feed, and watch for predators.  Grandpa remembers the days of sheep wagons and taking supplies to the herders every few weeks. 

Wyoming Sheep Wagon

The open prairie is really most suited for sheep.  But Grandpa decided there was a place for cattle too, so against his father's wishes, he bought a few Hereford cows and the cows have made their home here alongside the sheep.  When I came to the ranch, there were about 100 head of cows and 900 head of ewes.  Now we have 250 ewes and 400 cows.

Yesterday we worked the ewe lambs.  We sorted them for replacement ewes, and out of our 170 head of ewe lambs, we picked 50 head that will be incorporated into our sheep herd.  The rest of the ewe lambs will be sold at a Special Ewe Lamb Sale next week.  It was fun picking and choosing the best of the crop and giving them a yellow ear button to identify their age.  Each year the ewe lambs get a different colored ear button so we know how old or young the ewes are and what year they were born.  It's all written down in the little red book.

I'm hoping we might be able to keep the 50 head of ewe lambs around the house for a week or so and let them graze down the grass and weeds that grow around the buildings and low spots.  It would be fun to herd them and watch them all day long as they graze close to home.  It's a little tricky having them close to yards and gardens and trees though.  The dogs would love to keep an eye on a little flock of ewes. 

Hatch Chiles...

 

 

(an un-posed food shot, snapped by my daughter while I was eating)

I ordered a 20 pound box of Hatch Chiles as an add-on to my Bountiful Basket this time.  I honestly didn't need or want a BB, but I DID want the Hatch Chiles.  The girls shared with me so we all ended up with a nice amount of frozen chiles, but before we roasted them over the grill and froze all of them, I just had to give Chiles Relleno a try.  I had never made it, but with a little guidance from Kim and the internet, I found a good Authentic Chiles Relleno recipe, and the VERY best Roasted Salsa.  Yum-O!

We invited the kids over for supper and ate chiles relleno until we were stuffed.  We had a few left over so I've been reheating them on a rack over a baking sheet in the oven and they taste just as fresh as they do hot out of the skillet!  We will definitely do this again.  I found a really great YouTube video of a Mexican grandma and her granddaughter who cook together.  The granddaughter translates and keeps the video bouncing along while Grandma cooks.  I think they are just the most fun Mexican Cooking Videos because they are real people in a real kitchen cooking food made from simple ingredients, and Grandma sure does know her stuff!  Check them out here!

What I love about the salsa recipe is the deep roasted flavor that comes from broiling the tomatoes, onions, peppers, and garlic in the oven for a few minutes and then blitzing it in the blender.  Oh goodness, it's one of the best salsas I've ever had.  And of course, you could make it as mild or as hot as you like.  I had the salsa on my chiles and my burger.  So good!  I hope you try it while the chiles are still out there!

Flower art...

(we gathered)

(we arranged)

(we played)

(we created)

(we had fun)

The Littles were with me this afternoon while Mommy took the new baby for a check-up.  I was inspired by Maya's Botanical Meditation, and invited the children to walk in the gardens and fields to gather flowers and leaves and grasses to create our own flower art.  The girls were thrilled to create their masterpieces and then have them photographed to be saved for a time when the blooms and leaves are no more.

......................................................

Like the musician, the painter, the poet, and the rest, the true lover of flowers is born, not made. And he is born to happiness in this vale of tears, to a certain amount of the purest joy that earth can give  her children, joy that is tranquil, innocent, uplifting, unfailing.

~Celia Thaxter (1835 - 1894)

Source: An Island Garden, 1894

A new baby!

 

A new baby has arrived! 

 She's the 4th child of NumberOneSon and JLo.  

The sibs have been with us today,

and I'm supposing the family will be united 

tomorrow evening sometime.  

Amelia Rose was born today, 8 lb. 11 oz. 

We're so happy and so blessed.

  This is our 8th grandbaby.  

Thank you, God for such wonderful gifts!

Yellow & Black Argiope...

 (belly side)

(back side)

The neighbor grandkids were here today.  We spent a lot of time outdoors and discovered this beautiful spider, the Yellow & Black Argiope.  It was not bothered by us at all.  We watched and fiddled around it and examined its web, and it just stayed put, happily lounging in it's web-hammock.

Peach is a real nature-lover and she insisted that we get the insect field guide out and read about the spider, which we did.  I love it that she is so into nature.  I always enjoyed learning about nature with my own kids and now it's fun to share it with the grandies.  

The yellow-and-black argiope is a garden-type spider that likes to make its home in low shrubs or flower gardens.  They are fairly big -- about 3/4" to 1 1/8" long.  This one must be the largest size.  It seemed huge to us.  It can be found throughout the USA and southern Canada, but is not common in the Rocky Mountains.  The web is a vertical orb that radiates out from the center.  The book says that the male argiope builds a web in the outlying part of the female's web, making a white zigag band vertically across the middle.  The female  attaches her spherical , brown egg sac to the side of the web and then dies, knowing that her babies will hatch in the egg sack in fall and be dispersed in the spring.  Peach thought immediately of the book, Charlotte's Web when she heard that part.  Isn't it wonderful when sweet stories are so easily related to the world of nature?  

We found other spider webs on the ground in the grass.  We actually see them all over the pastures especially in the morning light or when there's a heavy dew.  It's called a Grass Spider and it makes a thick sheet-like web that has a tunnel in it.  The spider is very fast and races out of the tunnel when it detects an insect in the web.  I remember years ago when our kids would find grasshoppers and other bugs and put them onto these spider webs to watch the spider come up.  

Are you seeing any interesting fall phenomenon outdoors?  We've also been noticing the birds, particularly blackbirds, flocking into great, big flocks and flying through the air like fast-moving storm clouds.  Quite impressive!