Summer in March

Seems our March has had some summer temps already...up into the 80F...But am so enjoying it. The tulips have finally begun to bloom as are the redbud trees. Dogwoods haven't started yet. Most of our fruit trees except for the European plums have bloomed out and set some fruit. We lost a little of the blooms during those few cold mornings but looks like we won't really hurt. 
I met my sister and brother in law for my birthday. We met in Hot Springs and ate at Hibachi's grill. I love Asian food especially seafood. 

So enjoy her company. Then Sonny was ordained as a deacon in our church. All our kids except the youngest son came (he was off-shore at work) and most of our grandkids came. 

Sonny has really made a large step in his Christian walk this past year. I'm so proud of him. 
Sonny's youngest sister came as well. 

They are standing next to my new tulip magnolia tree that Jason and Jackie got me for my birthday. You can see the stone plums in the back are almost finished blooming and the pink blooms to the right of Sonny is one of our peach trees still in bloom.
Our tulips have begun to bloom.

Our redbud rees are in full bloom as well.

The wild thrilliums are in bloom.

And the tiger lilies have sprung up.

We are looking at the baby hawks hatching soon.

Hope to get some photos of them this year. The nest keeps expanding each year and is getting huge. 

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On crafty note. I finished a couple of hooked chair pads a set of 4 flower coasters and a set of 2 heart coasters. No photos taken yet. I also finished grouting the mosaic deer head and just have to clean it up. I also decoupaged the deacon certificate Sonny got. Photos will come on all these later. 

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as always.....

March 11

Today is one of my daughter-in-love's birthday. Tomorrow is mine. We have tried to celebrate together but she is always too busy. She does "junk shows" and redoes old furniture and things into works of arts and it always seems she is busy with one of the junk fairs during this time of year. 
So I'm showing some photos I've taken lately.

Our spirea bushes have been so lovely but now are rather ratty looking. This photo was taken over a week ago. Many of our fruit trees have been in bloom and now of course we are due some cold cold weather...WINTER IS BACK!!!

I got this shot of one of the pear blooms. I'm really hoping the weather man is wrong as most of the time they miss the forecast so

I can hope and pray anyway.

Our ponds and water iris area. The ivy has really taken over. We have it planted everywhere the grass won't grow. Thinking of trying to grow it on the tree stump we had cut since I plan to turn that area in to the new gnome home garden.

We did finally get all the limbs and logs removed and seems the hawks are ok as well.

Sonny has been fishing lately. These are from 2 different days. He mainly likes to crappie fish. They taste so good fresh from the lake but up in the summer they aren't as good. Spring fish are the best. Summers he will go catfishing. But catfish last longer in the freezer. Crappie only last a couple of months. They are a very lean fish with very little fat. 

Our 2 little yard dogs. Since our house dog died, we have opted to not have any in the house anymore. I miss one though. But these love to be loved on and are such good little dogs. The smaller one is Fred and he got beaten up the other day by a much much larger dog. I was missing him and had Sonny go see if he was locked up in the shop. Well Sonny saved him just in time. 

And as always...

Some time past

Well didn't realize how much time had past since I last blogged. So guess it is time for something new. 

Been a busy time around here. We had a big tree cut down in front of our house. We would normally do something like this ourselves but it was too close to the house and powerlines so was best to have it done properly.

We worried that it would run off the hawks that are nesting in the tree beside it. You can barely see the nest in the above photo. Here is a better close up.

The main part of the tree that fell hit the nesting tree and just knew it had run the family off. but noticed they were back. We cleaned up up most of the stuff left and today this is what we have left to clean up. Sonny has to split the logs before we can load them in the back of the ATV. Just too heavy otherwise. 

But really glad to have the tree down. We worried with spring storms coming that we would have a major problem with it. 

In the meantime, I've been working on several projects. Another rug finished and some coasters I hooked.

I have another round chair pad on my hooking frame. It is an autumn themed one. Then have a Halloween themed round chair pad to work on next. 

I also ventured into doing mosaic. Sonny has been doing European mounted heads for years now. So I talked him into doing one in mosiac. Here is the first one. I still have to grout it. 

I love how they look. I plan to do the next one in mirror shards. 

And as always...

heart swap and books

I have been so busy lately. I had a love 3 day visit with my sister and she caught the bug going around lately. But we had a good time. I set her up with wool and her rug backing to begin a rug. The moon was full while she was here and she took this photo of the moon shot towards the back of our house. She stayed in our She-shed apartment and really enjoyed it.

Also we had a huge bag of greeting cards she had saved over the years and so we used them to make little notepad books. I took 10 to church to give to youngest children's Sunday school class and then she took home about 10-15 and still I have bunches.

I have picked out my favorites and showing more of a closeup of these.

I already have these designated to friends. But they are so much fun to make. Now I'm planning on making some paper lunch sack books. I bought a sizzix die that is called a stitchlet and it punches tiny holes for stitching through. I'm going to try to use it for the binding on the papersack books. 

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I am going to start making the church bulletin each week and found out my Printshop does not work with my version on windows. I really almost hate microsoft since they have gone more into making money than helping people out. I refuse to pay them for their documents program so mainly use open office or Libre now. So looks like I will be purchasing a new printshop program to fit windows 11. 

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I have been doing a heart swap with a yahoo group for years. It seems we are all getting old and have so much in our personal lives going on now that I feel this may be the last one we do. We had 4 to sign up but one backed out so I made 2 swaps ...one in the UK and one in New Zealand. They both together cost almost $45 for postage. But I enjoy it so may continue with just these 2 ladies until we all decide to call it quits. I received both my swaps and am overwhelmed in the work they do...such lovely things.This one is from the UK.

And this one is from New Zealand. She used her wet felted wool on the back and love how she incorporated other fibers in it.

I have hearts hung from windows and door knobs all over my house. Just love them. 

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And as always....

several things

I forgot to post a photo of January super moon..so doing that now. We are in the February full moon now and has ice rings around it. Hope to get photo tonight. 

I finished another spring rug. This one is named Spring Green Rabbit Fling. 

My sister is coming today for a visit. She is staying 2 nights. We have some rug hooking planned along with making some small books from old greeting cards using my Sizzix cutter. I bought a small booklet die to use. I'm looking at buying a new die this next payday. A friend in England showed it to me and it cuts several woolie worms at a time for my rug hooking..will check it out and see if I really want it. 

Sonny finally finished his new floor lamp. Our oldest son gave him 2 different kinds of deer antlers. We don't have these kinds of deer in our area and so can't tell you what they are but think he did a terrific job.

He put a big bulb in it so it really lights up the room. I took the old antique lamp he had before. He used my other floor lamp for the parts to make this lamp. I put a new led bulb in the antique one and also new larger shade so it gives more light to stitch buy. 

Well sister is almost here so have to run. 
As always....

So many things have happened

January has started out with a bang. First we were robbed on January2. We knew who it was as it was the same ones who have robbed us 3 other times, but we could never prove it. This time they broke the door jams on the shop and then stole a bunch of tools, a tv and a computer we had in the she-shed apartment and the game camera we had outside to catch them. They broke it off the tree.

When the deputy came out, they told us they could search their place without a search warrant because they were on probation and convicted felons..so they raided them that night and recovered everything. They even found the game camera with the flash card still inside. So we got a good shot of the robber. 

Besides arresting him, they arrested the woman who was a convicted felon and had the key to their gun case. Another man fled and hid in the woods and they caught him the next day holed up in a shed on their property. They are looking for a 4th man. It seems they have been robbing people and then putting the things on the swap-shop groups on Facebook. The sheriff's department keeps an eye on those groups. They also found out that they were trying to sell our metal flat trailers on the swap-shop so we are now in the process of fixing the locks on our gates with tamper proof covers as you can see from the photo the bolt cutters he has...But right all 3 are in jail but for how long.

We have also installed 2 Lorex Security systems with 4 cameras on the shop and 4 cameras on our house.

But after getting the computer back and turning it on, I discovered they had taken my username and password out and put theirs in and I could not do anything to change it back. It looks like they messed it up bad. So I took it to Best Buy to the geeks squad and they had to wipe it clean and reinstall windows 10 to get it to work. I now have to put in my corel and photoshop software. Such a pain it has been.

We also had to got into the Verizon store and get a modem to hook up the security systems to view from our phones. 

During all this, I did manage to finish a rug. It is a Spring-Easter rug I call...."One little grey hare". 

I also drew up 4 more rugs to hook. So I will be busy until gardening time.
Speaking of gardens, my first crocus bloomed today.

And the lions mane fungus has really gotten big this winter. Much bigger than it has ever grown. We really need to cut down that tree and if we do, then I will make the stump into another gnome home.

And as always...