Oh, what a difference a day makes. We had crystal blue skies yesterday and it was still pretty hot at 84° but we didn’t get storms like we did on Saturday. When I took my morning walkabout, I had to stop and pick up a lot of limbs that fell along the hedgerow. The bigger of the two pollinator gardens is chock full of daisies and summer grasses now. The smaller garden just has a few sparse patches of daisies and the rest is field grass. They aren’t fifteen feet apart, but they’re completely different. The only think I can think of is the smaller on is on a bit of a west facing slope so maybe it doesn’t keep as much moisture. I can always mow it down and start one in a different spot next year.
It was a crazy day from start to finish yesterday. I slept in the camper Friday night. Mr. FixIt doesn’t like to sleep in the camper unless we’re like…you know…camping. But he always comes out for a little snuggle time and to watch a funny video. Sometimes he’ll come out in the morning and I fix him tea or breakfast, or both. Yesterday morning he was up cooking the chicken and noodles he took with him to the company picnic so I hopped up to come in the house to join him.
I slept like a stone. Even though I’ve all but stopped wearing earplugs to bed, I wore them out at the farm because the cardinal in the flowering quince right outside the bedroom window thinks she needs to start singing the song of her people at around 4:00 in the morning. That’s a big nope. And, even with the earplugs in place, I kept hearing something out of place. Not enough to actually wake me up to investigate. Just enough to think…”Huh. I wonder what that is?”
A look down inside an old Poplar Tree stump. My PopPop planted this tree when I was almost a teenager. It got really big, really fast and when my elderly aunt lived here alone, she didn’t like the way it twisted and turned in the windstorms so she asked my uncle to cut it down. This is all that’s left and there is a young berry vine growing in it. I suppose a bird “planted” the seed and off it went!
The pattern is called “Disappearing Pinwheel” and the quilting pattern is called “Baptist Fan.”
After sleeping on it, I finally figured out which way was up on the quilt so I sewed the label on it yesterday morning and I was done! Then I couldn’t stop looking at it and taking pictures of it. I finally took it outside and hung it across the clothes line on the front porch. I’m kinda proud of myself that I started AND finished a project! It only took eight months!!!
I woke up yesterday morning, prepared to work on the quilt while I waited for the guy to come hook up the fiber optic phone line. It was about 7:30. I was enjoying the birds singing all around the house when suddenly…I remembered something vitally important. My sewing needles were in my knitting bag…in the truck…at home. Oy! I looked at the time and thought I’d wait a bit before I called Mr. FixIt to see if he might run them out to me.
My grandma had a million sayings. She had a saying for everything. Some were old timey Appalachian sayings handed down through the generations. Other’s were colloquial…a turn of phrase she’d heard from a neighbor or someone at church. Then there were things she just made up. I never knew which was which and have often been taken aback when I’ve heard others say something I was sure was a Grandma-ism.
When I think of Memorial Day, the two prominent images it brings to mind is a huge tree at the cemetery where my dad’s people are buried…and this photo of my Uncle Sonny. I remember all the military members of my family but we didn’t just decorate those graves. We decorated and remembered everyone we’ve lost over the years.
May leaves us all too soon, doesn’t it? I know it’s supposed to be the kickoff to a wonderful summer, but in and of itself…May is just about perfect. When I woke up yesterday, I put the kettle on and took my mushroom coffee out to inspect the pollinator gardens. I’m sad to say, there weren’t nearly as many bees as there were last year. I don’t know if whoever had bees have stopped or what. I’ll keep watching for them. And when I mow, if I see one I wait till it moves on so I don’t run over it.
Well, one must always be prepared for any eventuality. When I arrived at the campground on Wednesday, there was only one campsite open so I took it. The next morning we moved because the sycamore was shedding all over us. We managed to snag a prime river site and according to the computer it was first come, first served till Monday night. I paid for three nights so I ran it by the camp host, just to be sure. She looked at the same thing I was looking at and it said, “FF”…first come, first served. She said it was fine to move and we settled in for two more nights.
