more baby quilt tops

Things have been wet around here and seems it won't let up. The vines and trees just hang with so much moisture. 

We have begun to get our plums picked. We have to pick every day and get them a little unripe and ripen them on the counter as the squirrels have been awful this year. I think Sonny gets out every day and kills at least 2 per day. I did cook down some of the plums and de-seeded the pulp to put up into jam..or I may make fruit leather too. But I just put it all down in the freezer for later. 

I have managed to get a few photos when the sun has shown up.

This is our front right side of the house with the gazebo over the firepit. I love how green everything is and the clematis is in full bloom on the trellis. 

The spider wort has begun to bloom. I love this wild flower so much so try to keep it around in the yard.

I have a real love for wildflowers and have a few different kinds in my yard. Sometimes it looks like my yard is infested with weeds.

Sonny hates it and mows every time he thinks it needs it.

I have a couple of old washing machine tubs ...you know the insides of the old metal washers..I usually plant them with the faux sweet potatoes as they look so wild and lovely sprawled across the yard. But this year I planted cantaloupes...they really aren't doing that well with all the rain we have had but hopefully they will pull out of their slump.

My old comode planters may have to be redone. One is completely cracked and falling apart so think it is time to be removed. I keep creeping jenny and a hairy looking succulent in them along with my wheel barrow. I'll try to get photos of them to post later. 

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On a crafty note....I finished 2 sets of Curious George linework embroidery and have one sewn into a baby quilt top and the other is half sewn. I also am working on the sunflower quilt top for the daughter in law. Lately I've been more focused on reading. The wet dampness makes me ache so haven't had much energy to do much else. 

But here are 4 more of the quilt tops I finished.

This one is redwork kitty twins.

Another sunbonnet sue

Precious moments Noah's ark

Precious moments angels

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VBS is coming up soon for our church. We usually average around 90 children every night. We serve them supper as well. I've not helped out much due to my bum hip and back but I talked to our preacher's wife and she will put me to work in something I can do sitting down. I have a couple of friends around my age that do this each year so will have someone to fellowship with as well. Sonny has always gone up and helped in the kitchen a few days each year so it will be nice for us both to be there together. 

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Keep me in your prayers as I have cataract surgery this coming Tuesday. I'm hoping it will help me be able to drive again. I've not trusted myself with my eyesight the way it has been so we will see.

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And as always....

baby quilts and yard shots

I've been busy lately working on putting together some baby quilt tops from redwork blocks I've worked on over the years. I've just mainly stored the sets of blocks into themes as I've finished them and decided that I needed to go ahead and set them into a top. This way I will have some finished tops to grab when I need a baby gift and put together with batting and backing and then tie. Quick and easy. As I finish each set, I've folded them and store in gallon ziplocks and all into a bin. I plan to show photos of all I've managed to finish and will post a few here each time I post. So here are my first few. 

This one is a duckling and I used a plaid seersucker I had in my stash. I used this same fabric in the next one that is a sunbonnet sue standing on hills.

I will show a few each time I post so this is all for today.

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A few shots around our place....

We have had so much rain that the toadstools have popped up. These were so strange looking. This was the largest and is large as a salad plate and flat. It looks like a purple ring around the edge.

We have a catalpa tree that I bought for Sonny for a father's day present years ago. It has gotten huge and sadly no worms. Sonny loves to catfish using the worms but we have only had the worms the trees are known for 2 years. This tree leans terribly but is gorgeous. It is in full bloom and the blooms look almost like a cross between an orchid and a trumpet. They smell heavenly and draw tiny white butterflies. 

The blooms look like snow and that is what draws the butterflies.

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More photos coming later.

And as always.....

more flowers

My other clematis have been blooming. I only have one that hasn't bloomed and not sure it is even alive anymore.

The rain doesn't seem to have affected them as much.

This is my oldest clematis and is an heirloom called a Jackmani

The blooms on it are smaller and only has 4 to 5 petals instead of the 6. I really like it the best. It is a deep purple ...almost blue purple.

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We cut down an old tree a couple of years ago. It had gotten rotten on the inside and was leaning towards the house. We knew it was rotten when a mushroom grew from it's side. When we cut it, we left a tall stump thinking to eventually make it into a gnome house. A wild trumpet vine has grown up on it as well. But surprisingly the mushroom continues to pop out in spring after much rain. I did research it and it is a lions mane mushroom and is edible though we are too chicken to try it. 

It is really big...about 15inches long and about 8 inches wide.

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I went out this morning to check on our baby hawk. With the storms we have had, I'm not sure it is still alive or there. The nest looks pretty worn. I could not see the baby but will try again another time. 

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My usual internet finds of terrific photos.

I love sunset and sunrise photos and also love the old water windmills. They are becoming fewer as people now go to electric well pumps. I have noticed now that people are using the old blades from these windmills for decorating. 

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As usual....

Iris bloom & baby hawk

Well our iris didn't bloom as well as they normally do since we have had so much rain. But I did manage to get out and photo some and also spent time marking those to keep and those to get rid of. We plan to dig the entire bed and downsize it to 3 rows instead of 5. We will also shorten the rows as well as remove the entire small bed by our sidewalk. We only had one to bloom in that bed and it was never a pretty bed anyway. 

Anyway here are some photos of the best we had to bloom this year. 

Strangely our water iris (Siberian) that we dug growing wild have bloomed well this year. 

Our fruit trees are loaded this year. Our blueberry bushes have a lot of fruit but we had to cut back our oldest bushes severely so the crop over all won't be as good as normal.

Our clematis have been blooming as well even though we cut some of the vines way back last year.

I finally got around to taking photos of the hawk nest. It is hard to zoom in so close so wasn't sure what I was getting until I looked at the photos on my computer. From what I can tell, we have only one baby this year. I plan to get out today and take another as by this time the fuzz should be going away and feathers appearing. They grow so fast and soon mama hawk will be booting her baby out of the nest. 

Sadly this may be the last year to photograph the hawks. We plan to cut this tree. It is a sweetgum tree and is directly over our sidewalk in the front of the house. At our age, the sweetgum balls are really a hazard for walking. We can't afford a fall. Hopefully they hawk will find another tree nearby to nest in next year. 

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This is our yard dog Lulu. She is about 13 years old now. It is hard to catch a photo of Fred as he is always out and about. He is also 13. 

Our yard-house dog is Kinzey and she is a year and 7 months old and we are beginning to train her for a service dog. We have kept her in a large wire crate at nights in the house and last night decided to leave her out for a change. Well if we barely moved in the bed, she was there checking on us and finally I crated her again around midnight as she was keeping us away. I have just purchased a service dog harness and her lessons begin today.

We keep her in a pen in the backyard and she is so active running constantly that as you can see there is no grass any longer. Her play toys have to be tough enough to endure her heavy handling and strong teeth. So she has mainly buckets. She throws them up in the air and just loves making noise with them. We will try her again every night for awhile out of her crate until we can get her used to sleeping outside it for good. 

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Sonny got to visit with the new great grandson the other day. I had made plans with one of the daughter-in-loves to go shopping and he wanted to visit with the oldest son which we rarely see so he got a double blessing. 

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Another love of mine is old churches. We have so many in our area but this photo I found online. Love the lighting in this one.

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And as always

quick post

As usual I'm running out of data so this will have to be quick.

Our church has been doing some overhauls lately. We got new carpet and also a new piano. Our old upright had gotten to the point of having to be retuned every week and was costing us as much as having a payment on a new piano. We got a good deal for a baby grand and with a fund raiser or 2 have been able to afford it.

We have a nice band-choir. I really don't know what to call them as we do mainly gospel but we do have a drummer, piano, several guitars and lots of singers. But we really have more fun in singing and worshiping each week. We can feel the Spirit move each week.

Our main piano player had major surgery lately so we have had a couple of stand-ins but thankfully she is back with us now. 

I really haven't taken any new photos lately and still looking for our baby hawks. The iris are winding down and with all the rain we have been having, they look awful. We plan to downsize that bed to 3 rows instead of 5 this summer. And also take out our smaller bed completely. We are getting too old to work ourselves to death on flowers any longer. 

On a crafting note. I have finished several redwork baby quilt tops and only need to get backing and then bind and tie them. I hope to get enough to donate to Children's Hospital soon. 

And as usual...I have to share some photos I love that I've found recently.

And as usual...

Full moon

Last Friday was a full moon. I wasn't able to get out and take a photo as it was cloudy and rainy but got one the next night.

I had a hard time taking the photo as it was where I had to try to focus without leaning on a tree. I shake too much unless I lean on a tree or something, but I finally managed to get this photo. I took this next one and thought at first when I previewed the photo that I had broken my camera. I didn't realize at the time I was shooting through the foliage on the sweetgum tree. So have a good laugh.

My iris have begun to bloom. I have to remember not to take our Kinzey dog out when I work in the bed as she plows through it like a bull dozer. Since we plan to dig the entire bed up after blooming this year, I'm marking the ugly white ones and some of the multiples of purples as they seem to multiply much faster than my special ones. We plan to downsize the bed into 4 rows instead of 5. It will make it more manageable. 

These last 2 photos are some of my special iris I plan to keep but will divide to have more blooming in a couple of years. 

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This is a short post. Have a bunch to do. 

And as always....

The Glory of God!!!