Long time no see

Yep I'm back again.  I've been busy just doing day to day things.  I've been selling things on Ebay and getting rid of other things just to get ready for the cabin adventure.  I've been sewing a lot and knitting a lot too.  Here are some pics:

Some socks for me.

Thought I better start making some socks as ours are getting rather hard to mend anymore what with all the holes :)  Next on the needles are some socks for hubby.  I also have on the needles a sweater for hubby and another one for myself.  Yes I multitask LOL.

Don't know if you can see this but I wanted to show you how to piece batting on something you are quilting.  You line up the pieces and sew them together.   

It's an excellent way to use up scrap batting for small wallhangings or table toppers.

This is the batting all sewed up and ready for my table topper.

And here's the top of the table topper.  I have since finished this.  Need to get a pic of the finished topper for you.  To make this topper you need 5" squares and 2 1/2" squares.  Place the smaller squares on opposite sides and sew from corner to corner (you can mark them on the back but I just winged it).  Cut off the excess triangles.  (Don't throw these triangles away.  I have an idea I'll share in a later post)  I squared them up to measure 5" and then tried out the placement on the table to see how they looked the best and then sew them together.  I used a 5" border. I used two packages of precuts for this and had plenty left over to make another one plus.  The squares I used weren't even from the same designer but I think they look great together.

On the home front, our chickens have started laying again.  Boy did we ever miss our home grown eggs.  We were getting them from an Amish farm but their eggs just didn't even compare to ours.  They keep their chickens penned up and ours have access to fresh grass - big taste difference!  We've been juicing and drinking our green juice every chance we get.  I give the pulp to the chickens.  They do not like carrots and their run is looking a little orange ;) but they do like the greens.  I even had some chard and parsley growing in the garden so pulled some chard leaves for the chickens and juiced some of them for us too.  I picked a little bit of the parsley (left some to grow) and dried it.  mmmm parsley potatoes mmmm.

I started some seeds and the plants are up and just waiting to get bigger and the weather to cooperate so I can plant them.  The weather today is pretty yucky.  It's turning colder and it's raining.  Last week we were over two inches above normal for the year.  Hope it keeps up and we have no drought this year.  I have to wait for a sunny day to hang my clothes out on the line so I did them yesterday since it was so beautiful out but the week before I had almost two weeks worth of laundry.  No fun doing that much laundry.  Took me all day.  

Cabin News-  We burned a lot of brush and small twigs.  We pulled up some rotten tree stumps but need to take our saw with us next time so we can cut some of them out.  The wet weather does help with this kind of job.  It would have been so much harder if the ground would have been really dry.

I guess that catches you up on my life, how's yours been?

What I did on my summer vacation...

We went to Pulaski and did a little sightseeing one day, bought some corn and tomatoes from the Amish and then came back home.

No we did more than that LOL.  One day I did six loads of laundry, canned spaghetti sauce, tomato juice and the next day did corn.  We ripped out the carpet in our bedroom and laid down laminate flooring which took two days.  And now we are sore, all over and tired.  I think I need a vacation from my vacation ;)  I did  laundry yesterday and it rained...thought it was going to just be cloudy.  Oh well it did dry and now it is rain water soft LOL.

We're still on vacation so we'll see what else we can do...and keep ourselves out of trouble we promise :)

What I did on my summer vacation...

We took some time off from work and went on a little mini vacation (just overnight) to Pulaski, TN.  It was nice.  We couldn't stay away too long from home because of the chickens and overnight was a good little getaway for us.  We went to our land so DH could shoot some rounds and then went to the Bluebird Cafe for some lunch.  We then went looking for the motel we had looked up on the internet.  It was on the other side of Pulaski.  It wasn't much just a bed and bath.  Although they did have a microwave and fridge.  The beds were hard as rocks but we were so tired (why is it that driving around makes you tired?) that we didn't mind.  They had Dish on the TV so we got to watch some things we don't get to normally.  Then we went looking for a restaurant and found a wonderful one!  It is called the Rusty Spur and the food was fresh and tasted wonderful.        I had the chicken salad and hubby had to get a complete dinner.  The salad was HUGE!  It had fresh mushrooms, black olives, cheese, onions, carrots along with mixed greens (not all iceberg lettuce like most places) and a big piece of grilled chicken.  We also had fried mushroom appetizer.  Those mushrooms were really big.  I think you could have made a meal out of them as well but we were hungry so we ate the whole thing :)  

We got a paper while we were out to look at our new town's happenings.  When we were out at our land we went exploring.  We found a gun store not too far and a lot of Amish with signs up selling produce and such.  We also stopped and looked a these little cabins and garages in Ethridge.  They were very reasonable and the guy was not pushy.  I hate pushy salesmen.  He even told us to look the buildings over and then check out other businesses that sell the same type of buildings.  He said his were really well  built and after looking them over we agree.

That night we had a real light show.  It rained, it thundered and it lightning'd.  (Is that a word? LOL).  They had extremely high winds and so we really didn't sleep too well.  The next morning we got up and went to the Bluebird Cafe again but this time for breakfast.  We had biscuits and gravy and hash browns.  It was good and filling too!  Then we went back towards Ethridge and stopped at several Amish places to get milk,  cabbages, beets and a few odds and ends.  We came home then.  The next day we still had off from work so we weeded the garden.  I picked blueberries (OK I have enough now you can stop producing LOL).  We cleaned up the chicken yard.  I did four loads of washing and hung them out and then did a load of dishes.  We decided we needed to go back to work to rest up ;)

And that's how I spent my summer vacation...That's my story and I'm sticking to it.

Baby Geese!

This is our chicken coop and run.  Isnt it cute?  I wanted red with white trim but my hubby doesnt like red so much so we got the grey instead.   Marriage is all about compromise isnt it?

My clothesline.  It was so windy that day that I went back out in 15 minutes and everything was dry.

Just had to post these pics of some baby geese not too far away from us.  This was taken a couple of weeks ago.  They sure have grown since then and almost as big as the mother.

Have more pics coming up!

Denise