Weasels attack ...

Very, very sad day. Two days ago we had over forty pheasants in the coop, and today we have none. NONE. We have always had raccoon problems on this farm; the chickens will be merrily rambling about and then one day I will notice a pile of feathers and the next day another pile of feathers, so B sets traps, catches the 'coon, and the chickens are safe for another bit of time.

But, weasels??? Evidently weasels are great to have around, they eat rats and mice and other annoying things. Until the rats and mice are all gone; then they will raid poultry barns. And kill everything off in one night.

So, the good news is we have no more rats or mice. The bad news is we have no more pheasants.

Vacation Bible School ...

I am in charge of the music for Vacation Bible School, which started yesterday. I was excited about being asked to help; I have been out of work for a year and starting to feel kind of ... worthless, so being needed is definitely a boost to my self-esteem.

I am good at organizing things, making lists and planning schedules, but not so good at leading the participants. Well, I am actually GREAT at leading as long as my followers follow, BUT as soon as someone departs from my plan, then I just do not know how to get back on track. So, I was really looking forward to working with the other volunteers, watching and learning how they handle the variances of a group of kids.

And, it has been fun! I have learned it is okay to change the plan mid-stream (which I knew already, of course, but, changing the plan is never IN the plan!), and I have learned that we do not all need to do everything. By that I mean that while I am teaching the songs to the kids, the woman in charge of outdoor activities can be outside setting things up, and someone else can be organizing supplies for the art project, etc. So, we don't need to come really early and stay late to prepare, which is nice.

I have become more involved in the art projects, which I also enjoy. Yesterday we planted seeds (turnips, of all things! Turnip seeds were the only seeds left at the store Sunday night!!) and today we made God's eyes. Tomorrow we will be face painting, and Thursday ... I don't think we've planned that far ahead yet!

I am spending time in pursuit of a new job, but it is nice to be useful now, as well. God bless the volunteers!! :)

A new chicken ...

One baby chick hatched today! This is from a batch of only ten eggs, hopefully more will hatch today or tomorrow. Since we no longer have a rooster (it attacked my two-year-old granddaughter, so that rooster was Sunday dinner), all of the eggs may not be fertile. (We gathered eggs for five days after the rooster was dispatched.) I candled them after a week and they seemed to be developing, but I never checked them after that, so we will have to wait and see. The one hatched chick is really cute!

I do have another incubator set up with eighteen eggs that should be fertile; they came from my son, who does have a rooster, and they are only two days old. So, in three weeks I will be waiting for them to hatch!

My hatching record is not good so far; out of close to 300 pheasant eggs, I successfully hatched out only about fifty, in three separate batches. Supposedly chickens are easier to hatch (pheasants need high humidity as well as the correct temperature), so I certainly hope I hatch more than my current 10%!!

Wow, I just went outside to get the dogs in, and it is HOT. According to the thermometer, it is 92 degrees IN THE SHADE. HOT!!

Grandmother duties ...

Baby Bradley has arrived, cute as ever! He just keeps growing, he is bigger every time I see him!

Grandma (that's me!) was asked to babysit on Monday while the kids go canoeing. Of course I said yes, I will LOVE to. Then I canceled a meeting I had on Monday and rescheduled it for Wednesday.

My question is this: why, when I am unemployed and my days are filled with empty hours, is it on the day I actually have something planned that I have the opportunity to see my grandchild??? Much as I love my children and grandchildren (and I do, I love them all very, very much), sometimes it seems as if there is no ME anymore, just wife, mother, grandmother ...

Ah, well ... the days may be long but the years are short. Bring on the babies! :)

Bradley ...

My son and his wife are coming home today for a visit, bringing my six-month-old grandson with them! He is so sweet, so happy - I can't wait to see him!

Today will be spent cleaning the house (I tend to put that off until company is coming), airing out the upstairs guest rooms and putting fresh sheets on the beds. AND, setting up the Pack'N'Play for Bradley!

Maybe I will squeeze in a little time to add more squares to my jeans quilt. One must take time to relax, right ??!

Pictures for previous post ...

As a new blogger, I didn't know how to put pictures where I wanted them, to I only added two to my original post. (I am a blogger! My kids would be impressed!!)

Now that I have learned how to move pictures around, I am going to add some now.


This is the sofa quilt (60 * 72) I made for my older daughter for Christmas. Because it is made of flannel, I needed a simple design. It is machine quilted with snowmen in the smaller rectangles, and snowflakes scattered everywhere else. It is a very snuggly, warm quilt.








I have one son-in-law who loves all things with dragons, so I designed this quilt just for him. It is really NOT pink, the coloring in the photo is off for some reason. It has a 5" black border all the way around, which really frames it well. It is machine quilted with swirls, kind of like dragon's fire-breath. He really liked it - he told my daughter that his quilt was way cooler than Ann's (the receiver of the flannel quilt), and he was really glad his mother-in-law supported his dragon habit!

I Am, I Said ...

I have been unemployed for over a year now. Last summer was GREAT, kind of like my college days (many years ago), with the summers off. I completed a hand-quilted quilt I had started in January (the green/brown quilt on the right). And in three months I made a hand-quilted, full-size quilt (with chickens on the back, shown above turned over to the right side) for my middle son. In three months!! Life was good.

Last fall was GREAT; I have five kids, all married, so that makes a houseful for Thanksgiving and Christmas. It was nice to have time to focus on them without work interfering. I was hoping to make a sofa quilt for each couple for Christmas, but I only finished two. (I also made a wedding quilt and several baby quilts, all machine-quilted.)

After Christmas, my first grandson was born. (One of the afore-mentioned baby quilts was for him - incorporating Sunbonnet Sam as a fisherman. I used this block in the quilt I made for his father when he graduated from high school. Both quilts were extremely fun to make!)

And now, it is summer again... I am working on a jeans quilt, using up a box of worn out blue jeans my daughter gave me. It is pretty neat, I found the idea on line. When I figure out how to post links, I will do that.

And when that quilt is finished, I want to make a petroglyph quilt! We went to Las Vegas for my niece's wedding this spring, and toured around Arizona and Nevada a bit - Grand Canyon, Zion National Park, Red Rock Canyon, AWESOME places!! One of them (Red Rock, I think) had petroglyphs, and I think they would be really cool in a reverse applique quilt. Since a petroglyph is made by carving into the rock, the upper layer of rock is removed; in reverse applique, the upper layer of fabric is removed, revealing the bottom layer. Get it??

Well, that gets me caught up, I guess. Happy quilting!