Quilting Along the Ley Lines

Lollipop Quilt and Rogue Cows

2012-01-30T20:22:00.002-06:00

About a year ago, my sister-in-law brought me some quilt tops that a co-worker's father had made before he died. She asked me to quilt them and I am ashamed to say that I never got around to it. I wrote about it in a post, last year. The quilt tops are just amazing. Pictures of the tops before they were quilted are at the link, just posted, and I also wrote about it with some "before" photos a few posts back.

I finally got around to putting one up on the quilting machine a few days ago and finished up quilting it, today. I used a very light polyester batting and wasn't sure I was going to like it but I think it works. I am not usually fond of "flat" solids but think it turned out beautifully. I may have to rethink my fabric prejudices:

I threw in a few Victorian Feathers among the meandering. I didn't think they would show up but in the right light, they do:

Solids used to be very popular when quilting began regaining popularity around the time of the United States bicentennial but I personally don't think hand quilting usually sets them off to their best advantage. Machine quilting, however, really gives them depth and texture.

I think the quilter had a fantastic sense of color:

It reminds me of a big, traditional lollipop:

This was not a fancy quilting pattern but I'm really fond of how a meander gives texture to pretty piecing/colors. I used a slightly looser meander and lighter colored thread in the bright blocks to help them pop a bit. I'm well aware that I am not particularly talented at longarming and trying to do the type of fancy quilting that makes the quilting be the center of attention makes me feel really anxious.

Plus, this was a quilt top that deserves to show off the workmanship of the quilter who pieced it. He did an incredible job.

At Mr. Wonderful's suggestion, I stayed with a solid colored binding (I'd been toying with a stripped one matching the colors in the blocks). I went with red because I had enough of it and because I thought it would hide stitches better than some other colors. I didn't take any pictures but am really happy with how the red pops against the black, framing the other blocks. I am still in the process of stitching it on by machine and plan to give it back to my sister-in-law to stitch it down on the front, by hand. I still haven't finished my daughters' quilts and it would just be wrong to push them back in line.

My beloved birdcam (not the trail cam) finally bit the dust and after trying everything I could think of to fix it, I gave up and started cruising Amazon to see if I could find a replacement. Mr. Wonderful suggested I call Wingscapes, the maker, and ask them if they knew how to fix it. I called on Sunday and left a voice mail with Melissa. Who knew this company actually had a named person answering the phone!! I left a message explaining the situation. I didn't expect much help since it was no longer under warranty but thought maybe it was a common problem that had an easy fix. While I was out in the studio, today, she called back and told Mr. Wonderful that they were sending me a brand new birdcam!! I was so excited and impressed! So, henceforth, I shall tell everyone and their brother what a great company they are. If you have a chance to get something from Wingscapes, you really should do it.

Yesterday, I went out to the property to check the trail cam and while there, I kept seeing HUGE deer tracks everywhere. I wondered to myself if the big bucks had come back and deduced that perhaps the mud had somehow made the tracks look bigger than they were. And then, I saw this:

Yes. It is a cow patty. And I don't HAVE cows!

Once I decided there had been cows trespassing, I kept a look out and, sure enough, saw where they had wandered all through the wooded area and muddied up the pond. Once I realized it was cows, it is hard to imagine that I had been convincing myself that it was big deer. Deer that size aren't deer. They are moose or elk. Or have been exposed to large doses of radiation.

The trail cam was still strapped to the tree but there were broken branches all around it and it was pointed in a different direction than how I'd left it. Upon checking the videos, I saw where up to seven full grown cows (not heifers) tried to eat the camera. They left the evidence on the video. Two of them grabbed the strap and yanked on it for several minutes. Fortunately, it doesn't look like they damaged it.

I don't know what was going on with those cows but on several of the videos, they were running this way and that. Perhaps they got into loco weed. It was like seeing heavyset pixies spinning and dancing in the moonlight. I can't imagine why they would have been in the area where I put the trail cam because it was on the trunk of a cedar in the densest part of the wooded area where there wasn't anything to graze on. I put it there, hoping to get some videos of bobcats. But no. I got psychotic, rogue cows. And you know what else? They apparently don't sleep at night, either. Some of the most enthusiastic camera attacks took place in the dark.

I don't know where the cows are, now. I didn't see them while I was out there and I looked. Our property is right on the Chisholm Trail so maybe they hit the road. More likely, someone came and got them.

Happy Quilting, Penny, Evelyn and Pearl

Armadilloes and Cattle Prods

2012-01-28T22:27:00.000-06:00

I just got back from spending a day or so with my best friend, Mimi, at her ranch up on the grasslands in Northern Oklahoma. Her place is about 100 miles north of us and about 50 miles east. Roughly.
The Double M is Mimi's brand.

Mimi lives north of Kaw Lake and in addition to her own property, she leases large (at least by city standards) pieces of property to run her cattle. I understand that in that part of the country, you need about 8 acres to support one cow.

She's got a couple of bulls. Look at that single tree off in the distance:

I don't know if she actually names them. I didn't ask.

What a different land than around my neighborhood:

Up in the grasslands, they have limestone and, obviously, not too many trees except near creeks and lakes. It is much dryer than in the Oklahoma City area. We have more trees, the rock tends to be sandstone, and it is relatively lush in comparison:

I love Mimi's ranch truck. I am seriously in love with that truck. I made Mr. Wonderful look at pictures of the truck until his eyes glazed over. This is a photo of it after Mimi dropped off a big bale of hay:

The spikes on the back are what they use to pick up those big round bales of hay.

Right now, calving season has started. Mimi puts the bulls out with the cows in April, which means that babies start arriving in January. Last year, with the hard winter we had, she lost quite a few babies that were born in a blizzard. This year, the temperature has been wonderful which makes it easier on the mamas, babies, and bovine midwives.

On Thursday, we went out in the afternoon to check for new babies and to doctor three cows that were ailing. Mimi's dog, Jack, hopped on back and came along with us:

Jack is a complete lover.

We drove down to Mimi's south pasture (about 600 or so acres) and she drove the cows into the chute. I helped. My part involved tazing them if they tried to back up. Once in the chute, Mimi gave them shots while I battled with the guilt associated with tazing cows. I am not sure, but I THINK that is a cattle prod. Mimi told me to be careful and not shock myself because I wouldn't like it. She clearly spoke from experience.

After doctoring the cows, we went to look for baby cows. Mamas will sometimes hide their babies out on the range and finding them is like looking for a needle in a haystack. Mimi spotted one pretty quickly and once she pointed it out to me, I could see it. I suspect practice helps in that sort of thing. To be honest, from a distance, it looked like a cow patty.

She was relieved to see it move because sometimes they are dead. This one was just fine. Here's the little boy calf, to give you an idea of what the land looked like where we found him:

As soon as Mimi spotted him, she jumped out of the truck and ear tagged him with number four (he was her fourth baby calf, this year):

Mimi is not afraid to use her teeth when needed. I do not actually think she is afraid of anything.

While she was piercing his ear, I was keeping an eye on his mama who was coming over at a trot to see what the Sam Hill was going on. Mimi didn't seem concerned (she is, after all, fearless), but I was prepared to scream a warning, if needed. I also knew where they keep the tazer.

After feeding the cows, we drove to the back of the pasture, just to look around. The back of the pasture backs up to a large lake and there are trees and a creek.

As we were driving back over the field, Jack leaped off the truck and took off after an armadillo!
My back east friends may not know what an armadillo is. It is a varmint about the size of a loaf of bread:

Mimi and I couldn't believe it - we saw 7 or 8 armadillos racing through the field. It was wild!

The following two photos weren't taken from a long way off. I walked right up to the armadillo. They are incredibly stupid. I guess they think that armor thing will keep them safe.

The tail (he'd gone into a burrow but left his back end out - idiot):

The ears (he was in a ditch and I guess he thought I couldn't see him - idiot):

I would not look at the next few photos if you are squeamish (this is a warning to one of my daughters). Jack caught a couple of the armadillos and killed them.

Okay, you can look now.

Actually, the armadillo in the previous few pictures, after being mauled, managed to get away from Jack and race back down a burrow! Jack went after it, to no avail:

About that time, I saw Mimi looking down the armadillo hole and she had some pliers in her hand. She was considering grabbing the armadillo's tail to drag it out.

Mimi had the pliers because, she said, she didn't feel like it was a good idea to stick your hand into an armadillo burrow and grab its tail (with your hand).

Okay, so I will be honest with you. Even with pliers, I didn't think it would be a good idea to stick your hand inside an armadillo hole and grab an armadillo tail. But I will be BRUTALLY honest and admit I didn't tell her that because I thought it would be abundantly cool to see her drag an armadillo out of its hole. Yes, I admit it. I am an Okie.

But at any rate, the armadillo got away while her frontal lobes kicked in and kept her from doing something that, while really cool, was also probably really dumb. I say that but in my heart of hearts, I am not sure an armadillo would have done much and it sure would have been cool to see, regardless.

My blood was up!

After seeing the armadillos, we drove over to see a horse herd that runs wild. Aren't they beautiful? They just came racing over a hill right towards us:

I thought I counted 22.

The black specks in the distance are cows:

They got closer and closer:

This is when I got back into the truck:

But they were all neighborly and polite while they milled around. They were smarting off to each other and apparently working out some sort of herd pecking order, but as long as we stayed out of their business (and out of their way) things went well:

At a certain point, for reasons of its own, the herd continued its race towards the south:

And then they all just disappeared out on the range:

We drove back to the ranch house and worked on one of her chutes that she uses to doctor cows. Here is her front yard:

Here's the backyard:

Here is where she keeps some of her hay:

Mimi has lots of barn kitties:

She is the workinest woman!

I seriously love this truck:

I love my own little house on the prairie but I have to tell you, it was hard to leave Mimi's home on the range!
Yeah, yeah, that last was pretty lame. But true.

Happy Quilting, Penny, Evelyn and Pearl

Glowing Health and the Blessings of a Simple Life

2012-01-19T19:23:00.000-06:00

The weather continues to be magnificent and has given us opportunities to get outdoors to prune trees and putter. I've also been able to get out to our property to check the trail cam and just overall enjoy the outdoors. For the past two years during this period, we've been socked with ice and snow. That isn't unusual in this part of the country but it isn't something that always happens. The bright blue days and high sixties is also within the norm and it is sooooo good to be back home where it is a possibility.

The girls continue to heal up from their various ailments. Pearly is holding her own on the optic nerve inflammation and it's so good to see her eyes sparkle, again. She was showing a little redness a couple of days ago and we put her back on the drops which seemed to do the trick.

Evelyn still has a slight touch of an ear infection (we visited the vet for yet another recheck, this morning) but she appears to be almost completely healed and doesn't have to go back. She'll remain on antibiotics for another 4 days and I'll keep cleaning her ears and putting ear drops in for another week.

Although I just said it has been balmy weather, I'll now contradict myself and mention that we had a cold snap just a couple of days ago. I've been making a point of being more active and get out in more inclement weather, recently. During the cold snap, I went out to our property in the bitter cold with high winds to swap memory cards on the trail cam we have set up out there.

In case you are wondering why I've been trying to push myself physically, lately, it is because I feel absolutely wonderful. I've enjoyed good health most of my life and am so happy to be feeling that way, again. Seems like the past couple of years it has been one thing after another, between poison ivy, bad headaches and the uveitis. I never did feel completely well after that awful bout of poison ivy a couple of years ago. I've been trying to act as if I am healthy and it seems to be working. I even got a touch of poison ivy on my leg and, wonder of wonders, it is actually healing up without having to go to the doctor to get prednisone or a steroid shot. That's new.

At any rate, I went out to the property a few days ago. Our property is 54 acres and is a roughly rectangular shape. It is just over a third of a mile long, running east to west, and about a quarter mile deep, running north to south. The wooded area where I like to set up the trail cam is near the middle of the property and I have to hike about a quarter mile from the road to get to it. I pass the ponds on the way. Here's the main one:

The wooded area is about 550 feet wide and 700 feet long, with the longer distance running north to south. Down the center, running north to south, is a dry creek bed that runs wild with water when the rains hit. On either side of the creek bed are deciduous trees and an abundance of fallen timber that has never been cleared over the years.

I keep expecting large branches to fall on my head because there are some large dead trees with big branches that look ready to fall off.

If you look close at the next photo, you'll see the owl I scared up when I got there - It could be the Barn Owl that likes to roost in the wooded area during the day, or it could be a Great Horned - I'm leaning in that direction:

Native Cedars line up along the outside of the area of deciduous trees, providing a very significant wind break so that when you are within the confines of the wooded area, the air is still and not nearly as cold as out in the fields. Once I make to that area, I find myself pulling off my gloves and can loosen up my parka and still be comfortable.

What all that amounts to is that the area is a hot bed for wildlife because it has water, evergreens and deciduous trees as well as brush, fallen logs and adjacent grasslands. And even when the wooded area creek bed is dry, there is a nearby pond and second creek only a few hundred feet away. Moreover, it is partially surrounded by wheatfields that have replaced land that, back in the day, contained creeks and trees that protected and supported native fauna. Because of that, our wooded area is an oasis for much of the wildlife of the region. Moreover, the creek bed that runs through the property continues on the lands north, where it is wooded and left unimproved, and south, towards the river. That creekbed serves as a wildlife highway for critters.

As is my custom, after swapping out the memory cards, I spent a little time silently being still in the wooded area. Sometimes a deer, coyote or owl comes by, but usually, all the woodland critters are on to me and lay low. I saw the owl but nothing else, last time. But I did stop to say hello to the cows that are in the pasture just to the south:

The white rascal standing behind the other cows apparently had love on his mind:

As near as I could tell, none of his cow friends were interested.

When I got home and was turning into the driveway, a hawk flew ahead of me and landed in the tree between the house and the barn. I believe it is a Red Shouldered Hawk and took a few photos:

I think it is a beautiful thing:

Just lovely. Makes you feel privileged to have seen it.

When I got inside, I checked the memory card and, sure enough, it had a number of videos of bobcats playing over a period of just over a couple of hours. They played like big kitty cats. Here is a Youtube of about ten videos that I combined: Playing Bobcats

I don't know what it is but, lately, seems like everytime I go outside, I see wildlife that I never used to see. I saw a coyote in the pasture, yesterday, and today a half grown coyote pup crossed the road in front of me while I was driving home from the tree farm. I also saw one of the foxes in the pasture a couple of nights ago.

I set up the pasture trail cam so that it would show the girls while they barked at the foxes/coyotes. Here's another Youtube that I put together with the videos that turned up: Fox and the Hounds

I've been working on a quilt for my sister-in-law that I meant to finish, last year:

There are a few things I do well but longarming is not my strong suit. To put it mildly. I've been struggling to not make a complete mess of it. I made a bit of progress, today, but didn't have a lot of time to devote to it, between taking Evelyn to the vet, running errands and studying for an activity I'm doing this weekend.

When I was in Law School, I competed on the Jessup International Law moot court team. The way the competition works is that each law school team in a given region is given a fictional factual scenario involving two fictional countries who are having international disputes. Usually, the competition fact pattern involves a humanitarian aspect and a business/trade aspect. The court case is treated as if it is being tried at the Hague and the law used is International Law. Public International Law deals with basic things like human rights and the law of war. Private International Law deals with trade issues, often involving treaties, the laws of the respective countries, and conventions.

International Law is very different from the law we are used to in the United States and, speaking as a citizen, having that background helps me, a little bit, to understand international events and why countries handle things the way they do. My professor coach, a peace corp alum and old hippie, summed it up a bit like this: "In international law, there is no police force. Even the Security Council of the United Nations isn't generally a player in disputes because the major counties have veto power and will exercise the veto in the best interests of their country. If countries can't agree on how to solve a problem, war is always an option. You can't just take another country to court to get satisfaction or call 911. It is a jungle out there - survival of the fittest."

After graduating, I used to act as a practice coach to help the teams prepare but had to give it up when we moved to Virginia. Now that we're back home, I'm helping out, again, and the practice round is this weekend. It is a lot of reading but I'm looking forward to it. And on that note, I need to get back to it.

Happy Quilting, Penny, Evelyn and Pearl

Eye Exams and Keeping Out the Foxes

2012-01-09T21:57:00.000-06:00

Yesterday, I set up the pasture cam right outside the backyard fence and caught one of the foxes (I often see two). In the one, above, the fox is looking out in the direction of the barn. You can see the lights on the right that are the windows to our breakfast area:

That's Pearly at the back fence barking at Mr. Fox:

He doesn't look too concerned. I think foxes understand how fences work.

I set the trail cam on the video setting, today, so maybe I will get a video of the dogs fussing at the fox, tonight. I've not seen any coyotes up this close.

Pearly went to the eye specialist, today, who said that her left eye still has a "spot" but she is looking much better and her right eye looks healthy. She has to stay on drops another 5-6 days but is off the prednisone, antibiotics and dilating drops. She says she may simply have come off the medication, too soon, during the first go round, causing the relapse at Christmas. She said that she'll always be prone to relapses but that doesn't mean her eyes will be affected, next time. Good to hear!

In the following photo, she is squinting but I think that is because her eyes have been dilated and that makes her eyes very sensitive to light. I think dilating drops are satanic - I just hated them when I had to take them early in the course of treating my own eyes:

I also went to the eye doctor and got a clean bill of health. Finally! He seemed to think I could also have had Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever based on the symptoms, even though the labwork came back negative.

The following is Pearly out in the studio under my Barbie Doll worktable (note the pink paint). Like Evelyn, she is a good quilting buddy but Pearly is more prone to getting right under my feet. And not taking any hints to move.

I went to Oklahoma Quiltworks AND the Savage Quilter, today, looking for some neutral fabric to finish up the border on my 911 paper pieced stars quilt. Looking forward to going to the Oklahoma City Winter Quilt show, later this week.

Time to go to bed. Pearly takes it upon herself to round us up once she's ready. She'll go lay down in the dark on the bed, then practically crawl up in our laps until we capitulate. She gets a treat just before she goes to bed and that may be part of why she is so insistent that we start shutting things down.

Happy Quilting, Penny, Evelyn and Pearl

Wintertime and the Weather is Wonderful

2012-01-08T09:08:00.000-06:00

In Oklahoma, the turning of the year can take place in the midst of a devastating ice storm or, as we've had this year, sunny, balmy weather in the 60's and even 70's.

Blue skies, day in and day out, with enough sunlight at dusk and dawn to make it seem like the days aren't quite as short as they really are. With cloud cover, it seems like the morning doesn't arrive until nearly 8:00 in the morning - and a dreary morning at that. But with bright sunshine, the dawn is like a child's laughter, waking you with a smile and bones that feel just a bit younger than you have a right to expect.

December and January are dry seasons in Oklahoma but, fortunately, we had enough rain in the fall to make up for much of the severe drought the state experienced in 2010/2011. I heard on the gardening channel, yesterday, that a healthy, established tree can survive about three consecutive years of drought and we haven't had that. God willing, we won't. I love the Oklahoma climate that can have a day or two of rain in the rainy season with about 5 days of sunny weather. The mid-level soil is retaining enough moisture that, with any luck (i.e., average rainfall), the farmers and ranchers will have better results, this year. We don't have much of a reserve but the farm ponds have filled, at least. Here is ours:

Besides the main pond, above, we have a runoff pond that tends to stay full, too. Not the prettiest things but they stayed full during the drought.

I go back to the eye doctor, tomorrow, and hope to get a full release. Until the past few days, I've remained on steroid drops and that means I can't wear my contacts. I get good acuity from my glasses at mid and far ranges but the distance to the computer screen and keyboard just happens to fall into an area prone to glare, making it frustrating to type. I am sure that has contributed to my lack of posting. But the plus side is that it has encouraged me to get out and about, more, and heaven knows my spirit and butt benefits from moving.

Pearly had a severe relapse with her eyes over Christmas and ended up back on prednisone, two types of eye drops and antibiotics. She also goes back to the specialist, tomorrow, and we hope she'll pronounce her well. She looks good:

Relapses are sometimes part of the insidious nature of Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever but we yet don't know how frequent or severe they will be. She seemed to have faster results from the medication, this time, but we can tell she is still dragging and not "quite" herself. We think the medication, itself, may be the underlying cause of her malaise.

Evelyn has been fighting a severe ear infection and a suspected thyroid deficiency so has also been in and out of the vet's office. We changed the antibiotics she's on and they sent off samples to see why the last (powerful) antibiotic she was on didn't help. I do believe her coat is showing significant signs of improvement since she went on the thyroid medication. Her front half is gorgeous but her hips and tail have lacked an abundance of guard hairs and the undercoat is matty and stiff. In the past week or so, I've noticed the back hair is filling in, her tail hair is longer, and the coat, overall, is getting back the typical Samoyed silver glisten (like the way snow sparkles in the sun). It also feels significantly softer.

She is blowing out her coat in patches and hasn't done that in awhile. Her muzzle and topknot are blowing out hair like a doll loses stuffing. And her upper thighs are doing the same thing - which is a relief because that is the area where she tends to hang onto hair and get mats. Interestingly, since she went on the thyroid medication, she has gained a pound and a half. Go figure. We suspect she may have been benefiting from the treats Pearly has been getting to entice her to endure all her medical treatment.

The kids stayed in NYC for Christmas but we skyped Christmas morning so I could watch them open their presents. It was Grandson's first Christmas and while I didn't get to hold him, this was the next best thing. Check out this adorable photo taken by my son of Charlie watching Grandma on the monitor!

It was hard to not be there with them, but I was touched at how considerate and attentive my son was in making sure I could see what was going on. Without a word, he would adjust the monitor, turn it to make sure I could see the action and, just overall, make me feel part of the morning. He's a good father and son.

I've been doing quite a bit of tromping around out on our property and getting some fun wildlife photos on the trail cams I have set up out there and in the pasture, out back. The cams can be set for photo shots or video. I tend to get fox and coyote in the home pasture, but the bobcats, raccoon, deer, possum and armadillos show up on the property. Here are some of my trophies:

Here is a coyote that was not taken by a trail cam. I startled when I was crossing a field:

Bobcat:

Coyote:

Grizzled old buck:

Bobcat:

Me:

I've also got quite a few videos. Our three legged coyote comes by regularly and I've learned the Fox swings by right after dark. If I hide in the barn, I can see him through the window. In one video, an owl swooped down and knocked the fox over! The fox looked freaked out.

Here are some recent trail cam video links:
Fox and Coyote in the Pasture
Red Fox in the Pasture
Bobcat on the property

We will be coming up on mating season for a lot of the wild critters in the next few months and I'm anticipating getting baby pictures by late spring - pretty excited about that. I heard a Great Horned Owl sending out a mating call, yesterday. They nest very early.

I've made a lot of progress on my 911 quilt. It will end up being a queen size with 16 twelve inch blocks (finished) on point. Yesterday, I finished up the sashing. Next step is the border and I am still pondering how I want to do it. My inclination is to make hourglass blocks using the colorful fabrics I used in the stars. I don't have enough matching neutrals but I might be able to scrap in some that are close that I have on hand. That would be my preference. Here are some recent photos - some are the backside:

These are from Carol Doak's Stars book:

The black block is my favorite:

I am still pondering what I want to do for a border and plan to get on that later, today.
I spent a good part of yesterday working out in the barn and when I came outside, Mr. Wonderful was up in a tree trimming branches. High up. I debated chewing him out for doing something so foolish as to climb a tree without someone available to call an ambulance but decided to just keep my mouth shut, pick up fallen branches and keep the phone handy. I used to think that pointing out that I was worried would convey to him that I loved him. I have decided that what that mainly conveys is a perceived lack of faith and, further, fosters a grumpy wave of irritation. And it is not like anything I say is going to cause him to be more cautious, headstrong man that he is. With age comes wisdom, I suppose. Or perhaps I am just conserving my strength for a battle I can win and is worth fighting.

I heard a lot about how often he used to climb trees as a lad. I managed to avoid pointing out that he climbed trees FORTY FIVE YEARS AGO. I expect that he will be hobbling around today and tomorrow, wondering why in the world he feels so sore. But he is a grownup and can make his own decisions about how to abuse himself.

The good news is that he returned to earth in one piece and the tree looks tons better. But even so, that is is one ugly tree:

And that is the AFTER picture!! You will have to trust me when I tell you that it looks a lot better.

I'm participating in the wildbird survey and need to go check the birdcam before I send in my results. I make my own suet and they seem to like it. I also moved the pasture trail cam to behind the barn and haven't yet checked it, today, so I'm off to do that, right now.

I hope all of you had a lovely Christmas and that 2012 is kind.

Happy Quilting, Penny, Evelyn and Pearl

We Can See!

2011-11-27T23:23:00.001-06:00

Pearl looks to be well on her way to a full recovery from Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever and is back to her sweet, affectionate, peanut catching self. I am also making progress although am still on prednisone, have ballooned up and can't wear my contacts, yet. But with my glasses, I can see pretty well.

Because I couldn't drive, I left the trail cam on out at our property and didn't check on it until a couple of days ago. It was left unattended for a couple of weeks and there were over 600 photos on it when I retrieved it. I didn't get any good shots of bobcats (although I saw some in the shadows), but I must have found an area where the deer go through because there were lots of photos of them. I also caught many photos of foxes, coyotes, an armadillo, a squirrel, rabbits, an owl, tons of raccoons, and possum (one night, one wandered back and forth in front of the camera for hours - that was a couple hundred photos, right there).

Isn't she a sweet thing? She kept trying to figure out the camera.

An armadillo is at the bottom of the following photo. He wandered around and tried to dig a hole right in front of the camera but it was too blurry to be of much use in sharing:

This stinker came by a few times, day and night:

My kids all came for Thanksgiving and were here a few days, which thrilled me beyond my ability to express. Charlie is getting so big and he is SUCH a good little boy.

He was a sight for sore eyes.

I hope all of my blogger friends had a wonderful Thanksgiving holiday.

Happy Quilting, Penny, Evelyn and Pearl

Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever - not the fun you'd expect

2011-11-22T19:31:00.001-06:00

It has been a very long time since I blogged and several people have sent me personal notes to make sure nothing is wrong. I really appreciate that - so thoughtful. As it turns out, we actually HAVE had some relatively serious health problems which is why I haven't posted. Blessedly, things are getting better and full recoveries are expected. And when I mention health problems, I mean Pearlie and me.

Mr. Wonderful has been working and carting us, nearly daily, to various doctors, picking up prescriptions, making sure we're fed, making sure we get our medicine, and just generally pulling quadruple duty on just about everything. He has been a complete saint.

Primarily due to the prednisone, he is completely getting on my nerves. He's bossy and I don't even like his eyebrows, these days.

Life is not fair.

Okay, so it all started in early October when we took the girls to a new veterinarian. Nice man and they really liked him. We liked him. He switched them from Frontline (flea and tick, topical) to a once a month pill that just kept them from getting fleas. Okay. So I worried a little bit about that but it is fall and the girls don't really get out in the woods in the football field that is our backyard.

So about that same time, the drought FINALLY broke and we started getting the fall rains. Thank you, GOD! But because the grass was so sparse from no rain, we ended up with places in the yard that had mud. No problem, there are old bales of hay in the pasture and Mr. Wonderful spread some along the trails to keep the girls from tracking mud into the house. Pearlie was right there with him, looking up at his side, with a big grin on her face.

Pearlie is very helpful.

While they were fixing up the yard, I was doing some deep cleaning in the house. I brushed down all the baseboards and shampooed the carpets.

A few days later, on October 11, my face took on a rash and then both eyes ballooned shut like I'd been in a fight. Horrible. I've learned my lesson and promptly went to the doctor. They gave me a steroid shot. It wasn't poison ivy - didn't feel like that and it really didn't itch, either. They didn't know what it was. Still don't.

So the swelling goes down over the next few days and other than the emotional anguish at the loss of my youthful good looks (my eyes appeared to be swimming in the ocean of loose skin that had stretched out), I felt fine.

I took a picture but am not posting it. You can thank me.

So on the 25th, Pearl starts squinting. First her left eye, then, in a day or so, her right. By Friday afternoon (the 28th), the whites of her eyes went blood red and she was utterly miserable - poor darling would sit with her eyes pressed shut, clearly in pain.

Note the runny nose in the photo, above.

We took her straight to the doctor on Saturday morning.

The doctor looked at her but didn't do a thorough exam. No staining the eye looking for ulcers. He didn't even shine a light in her eyes. He asked a few questions about what she has been doing, and said he thought she probably just got hay in her eyes and irritated them. He told us to rinse them out.

Okay.

On Monday, she was still just miserable. Clearly in pain. I took her back and tried to make the doctor understand something was WRONG. He didn't even examine her, closely. He walked through the waiting room (where we were waiting), wandered back to the back and came out with some ointment to put in her eyes twice a day. He speculated that perhaps when I was doing the heavy cleaning, I might have disturbed old mouse droppings that irritated both our eyes.

EEwwwww.

Two days later, Pearlie was REALLY sick. We took her back (this was Wednesday). At this point, he decided that she either got bit by a spider, or perhaps hit her head and got cellulitis. By this time, Mr. Wonderful and I are looking at each other and not making eye contact with him while he prattled on. He told us a war story about a horse that had a scratched cornea that, when they touched it, ruptured and dissolved right out the front of the eye.   Fascinating story but not really what we wanted to hear.   Still no thorough eye exam. No lab work. But he did prescribe some antibiotics and told us to increase the eye ointment to three times a day.

She got worse. We were beside ourselves by Friday morning and Mr. Wonderful called a second vet.   Surprisingly, she picked up the phone, herself. She was on large animal rotation that day and out in the field so she couldn't see Pearlie in her office. No problem, sez she. Pearl needed to be seen and she promised to come by the house and do a house call when she finished her rounds that evening.

We nearly dropped our teeth.

At about 6:30, after having already put in a nearly 12 hour day, the lady vet showed up at the house and checked out Pearlie. She spent over two hours looking her over with poor miserable Pearlie standing on the kitchen counter.   We were so impressed.

When she finished, she still didn't know what what was causing the problem but she knew she didn't have a cornea ulcer although her corneas were very swollen and horribly red. We weren't in her office so she couldn't take a lab sample but she wanted us to see a veterinarian ophthalmologist on Monday, at the latest. She gave us contact information to a specialist and left us with her number if Pearl got worse. She said to take her to the hospital if she didn't get better over the weekend. And she put her on prednisone, steroid eyedrops, a second eye ointment and told us to continue the antibiotics and ointment. Pearlie was out of her mind with pain, especially with the nearly hourly need to put in drops or ointment. She didn't understand we were trying to help her and it was heartbreaking to see her go from being completely trusting to slinking away when we called her.

On Saturday, Pearl's eyes popped open and she went bug eyed. She was in a lot of pain:

On Sunday, we could tell she couldn't see. Our champion peanut catcher couldn't even find them on the floor. And she was still in a lot of pain. We called the specialist. She and her husband met us at her clinic after church.

We were scared to death.

Evelyn, by the way, was not particularly concerned:

By that time, Pearlie had just had all she could take on being fussed with. We were both impressed at how patient the specialist was with her. She is a very low key individual who oozed professionalism and kindness.   She had to use all her equipment and the light had to be just killing Pearl's sore eyes. Pearl was like a worm in hot ashes. We felt like we were torturing her.

Once she finished the examination, the specialist stood up (from sitting on the floor with Pearl) and set aside the tools she's been using.   Okay, she sez - Optic Neuritis - inflamed optic nerves. She believed Pearl had a systemic problem or it wouldn't have gotten back there - the optic nerves weren't going to be inflamed by hay (she was much more tactful than that). She put her on a different antibiotic, tossed out some of the drops and one of the ointments, and arranged for her to come back in the morning for a follow-up and to do the bloodwork. We were worried she'd end up blind (or dead) but she said, firmly, "No, she will make a full recovery."

What a relief. I know people with blind dogs and I know they do much better than people do, but no one wants that. And for people who have followed this blog for a few years, we lost Jezebel nearly three years ago to the day but the grief is still there. We got Pearlie after losing Jezebel. Just a little bit too close to the bone.

So we brought her back the next morning (Monday, November 14th) for labwork and a follow-up. She was doing a little better. We made arrangements to come back the following Monday for a second follow-up.

I woke up the next morning with the headache from hell. I felt like my eyes were going to explode out of my head. I get migraines but this didn't feel like one. It was directly behind my eyes. After a couple of hours, it went away and I chalked it up to a sinus headache although it didn't act like one.

The next day, I got a bad aura over my right eye. I thought I was getting a migraine even though I haven't gotten an aura in years and never get one in that location. To my surprise, it went away after about thirty minutes and didn't leave a headache or any of the other side effects that go with a migraine.

On Thursday morning, November 17th, that right eye went to hell.  Just like that. Light was intensely painful, everything swirled and a dark shadow covered the eye so I couldn't see. Scared me spitless.
Mr. Wonderful, who was in the middle of an important project that had people waiting for his input, dropped everything and got me right to the eye specialist. The doctor diagnosed it as Anterior Uveitis (inflammation of the uvea - the front part of the eye). The retina and optic nerve weren't involved beyond just being part of the eye. That made me less freaked.   He put me on steroid drops and we set up a follow-up for the next week. Of course with Pearlie having eye problems, we all wondered if there was a connection. They drew 13 vials of blood to check me for everything from HIV to TB to Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever, auto immune diseases, you name it.

By that evening, I couldn't see much of anything. Everything was like a dense fog. I later learned (from the vet) that this was from all the dead cells floating in my eye catching the light like headlights in fog. I literally couldn't see more than about four inches in front of me - like having my head wrapped in mist.   Horrible.

On Saturday, my other eye did the same thing as the right. It was excruciating and the fog just got worse, if that is possible. MY specialist met us in his office on Saturday (after his racket ball game)and was unhappy that not only had the first eye gotten worse, the second was also bad. He put me on prednisone and increased the steroid drops.

For about a week, I couldn't see anything. I don't mean I just had blurry vision - I mean I was just this side of blind. All I could see were vague shapes. Between that and the prednisone and my eyes hurting like you wouldn't believe, I have been a joy to be around.

Pearlie went back to her specialist on Monday the 14th. She was starting to feel much better and the prednisone was making her ravenous. I was afraid Evelyn might start looking like beefsteak to her. Moreover, she was drinking several gallons of water a day and started having accidents. It really upset her because she just doesn't have accidents. Since I couldn't see, Mr. Wonderful was the one pressed into service (with prednisone laced Penny insisting that he missed a spot. I was sure of it).

The lab hadn't run the test for Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever for Pearl so we re-sent a sample. Everything else had come back negative. Pearl's vision was coming back and we set up another follow-up for December 5th.

As for me, I went to the doctor later that day and all my test results were negative (including Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever). My eyes weren't much better. He said they were, slightly, but you couldn't tell it by me. I was starting to get a little depressed about it.

He had me come back on Wednesday, November 16th, and although he felt things were better, I was still all but blind. I could see about two feet in front of me but it was blurry and foggy.

That same day we found out what was going on with Pearl - sure enough, she had Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever. Although my tests for Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever came back negative, they often have false negatives in the early stages. But we don't know and I never had a fever.

On Monday, November 21 (yesterday) I went back to the doctor and both of us agreed that my eyes were better. We started cutting back on the prednisone (Mr. Wonderful may end up surviving after all) as well as the dilating drops and steroid drops. That has helped, tremendously, in clearing up my vision and I believe if I had to, I could actually drive. It would hurt (I am still very sensitive to the sun) and it is still foggy, but I could do it in an emergency.

By now, Pearl is so good at getting her ointment that she will present herself, sweetly, to have stuff put in her eyes without fighting. Then she gets a cookie... I honestly think she has gained about 7 pounds in two weeks and she was only 63 pounds when it started out. We are both so relieved that she has stopped fighting us and is now acting as though she is a member of the team instead of being waterboarded. About the time she is due a "treatment," she comes to get Mr. Wonderful. So it is all coming around to where we want it to be.

Oh! And I meant to say my latest passion (besides the darkest sunglasses I can find) are my new trail cams. Before my eyesight went hinky, I was checking them everyday and having a blast doing it. They have ultra red flashes and I set one up out on our property and the first two days we got deer, bobcat, raccoons, possums, rabbits and coyotes.

The cams also have a video feature which I've been running out in the pasture in the back. I've gotten quite a few coyotes and a fox. One of the coyotes has only three feet. Three Foot and His Friend

Next up, I plan to set it up behind the barn because I saw Bob White Quail out there this afternoon.

But right now, even as I am typing, Grandson Charlie is on his first plane ride and he is bringing his mama, my son and one of my daughters to spend Thanksgiving with Grandma! And my other daughter and her sweet husband will be here in the morning.

So all is well - or getting there. I have much to be thankful for and hope you all have a lovely holiday.

Happy Quilting, Penny, Evelyn and Pearl

Paper Pieced Blocks and Steers Wearing Hats

2011-10-04T15:22:00.004-05:00

Notwithstanding that I have a zillion other quilting projects that need to be finished, I have been happily working on my 9-11 blocks, instead. At my last posting, I had completed four or five but I have twelve, at this point. Here are the last eight:

I was looking for some color when I did this one and think I may have walked off the plank:

This is one of my favorites:

This one, not so much. It has more pieces of fabric meeting in the middle than ought to be legal. I do not believe a large caliber bullet could pierce it at the center:

I had to squash it down with a vengeance to get it to lay flat for the photo.

The following has some of my favorite colors but it didn't really come out the way it looked in my head so I am a little unhappy with it. Sometimes these things surprise me in a good way, but this one surprised me in that it is a little boring:

I had a wild hair to incorporate a batik to soften the bright orange and it is okay, but clashes a bit, seems to me. One it is quilted, it should smooth out the tones:

I used this one to put together a tutorial for my quilting buddy, Thearica (not yet posted). It is a really simple pattern and a good one to learn to paper piece. Thearica already knows how to paper piece but if I were teaching a class, this is a pattern I might use.

I am not sure I would use the yellow and green, again. But I like it okay.

I have been so busy I've been meeting myself coming and going. I took lots of photos, have lots of things going on, and no time at the moment to ramble on about it. Husband has been out of town for a couple of days and this is probably a good time to go chill out in the studio.

Happy Quilting, Penny, Evelyn and Pearl

Displaying the Colors

2011-09-12T11:27:00.001-05:00

The ten year anniversary of September 11th has come and gone. Each year, during the year, the memories fade to the background and I begin to believe that day is turning into just another event in my past and in the past of America. Invariably, however, the mere sight of an image from that horrible morning or even an event that memorializes it with a simple bowed head brings a lump to my throat and it is like it all happened just hours before.

This seems appropriate. The younger ones who didn't experience 911 will see it as a distant memory and that is to be expected. I watch films of the aftermath of Pearl Harbor with interest and compassion but I don't experience the event as our people did at that time. I am not the crucible of those memories. 911 is the bubbling, molten metal of my generation and, God willing, will never be displaced by another national event of similar horror.

For the past couple of weeks, I've been doing some substitute teaching for an elementary school art class. OMG, they are cute as bugs and busy as hummingbirds.

Several asked me if I am a witch. They assure me this is a good thing and I am bemused that Harry Potter has so changed our cultural image of witches.

I took that as a great compliment, considering.

A little second grader asked me if I lived on a farm. After a clarifying question or two, it turned out that she wondered because of my accent - I have a very heavy Texas twang that stops people in their tracks if they aren't used to it. She and I agreed that living on a farm would be wonderful.

A third child asked me if I lived in the forest because I just looked like the kind of person who would live in the woods. No, it was not because of my hair or my voice or clothes. He didn't know why someone like me should live in the forest but it just seemed like I should.

Hmmm.

Mr. Wonderful (who has an engineer's odd brain), was perplexed at this comment because this is ranch and wheat farm country so obviously I don't live in the forest.

Sigh.

I am just going to chalk it up to a child's perception that someone "like me" should live in the woods and not think about it much beyond that.

That kid had my number.

At any rate, on Friday morning they had their weekly assembly and the topic of the week was remembering 9-11. I've been so busy trying to stay awake/upright as a result of the fatigue associated with teaching all day that I hadn't been thinking much about the coming memorials.

Unexpectedly, the assembly brought me to my knees, emotionally. Seeing those earnest, innocent faces - few were even born ten years ago - reading poems and essays they'd written took me back to watching the Pentagon burn, and further, to my own childhood. Quite a few of them have parents who served, or continue to serve, in the military and they were proud of their parents and confident that America is a wonderful place to live. It reminded me that although events like 9-11 change the psyche of individuals and the culture of a nation, the children are still children and the horrors of the past are more like stories than trauma. Thank god. If we adults do our jobs right, we teach them what they need to know but don't burden them with the emotional tolls of the ages.

Over the years, I've spent 9-11 in a variety of ways. In the early years, I sat glued to the television watching the images and stories of that day, reliving my own pain and determined to learn and remember the people who lost their lives that day. As the years passed, I began spending more time in quiet contemplation, considering the loss of those lives and the grief of the families and loved ones who are surely still suffering. Spiritually, I have been wearing black in mourning on this anniversary and this seems right, to me.

But like all mourning, there comes a time when you stop wearing black and clothe yourself in colors, answering the call that life sends out to all of us. This year, we decided to turn off the television and go to a small town rodeo where the America looks and feels much like it did in my youth. I took a lot of photos and apologize that most aren't very good because of lack of light and sufficient skill behind the camera:

It made me feel young again.

We saw kids in cowboy hats:

Pink is big:

Kids without cowboy hats:

But hat or no, the kids had fun:

Cowgirls with cell phones:

I think the cellphone gal is adorable. What a sweet face!

Cowgirls without cellphones:

Powerful horses:

Fearless cowboys:

And cowgirls:

Babies on horseback:

This little cowpoke worked the whole rodeo rounding up stray livestock:

Babies on foot:

Sheep:

Babies on sheep (for awhile):

Stadium lights and flags:

Good friends on horseback:

Good friends afoot (this guy lost his hat and his cow - and his buddy thought that was a hoot):

What would we do without good friends to laugh at us and hand us our hat when we land on our butt?

Lassos:

It was grand. I had on my favorite cowboy boots and trudging through the sand was a workout. I would have much preferred to have a horse. The estrogen and testosterone literally oozing off the young cowboys and cowgirls made me laugh.

I find that it is just as much fun to watch their sweet silliness as it was to personally drown in the hormones. I think that is one of the most delightful surprises of getting older.

And I started a new Quilt in honor of 9-11 and, without thinking about it, was drawn to colors:

I think it is just time.

Happy Quilting, Penny, Evelyn and Pearl

Songs of the Fathers

2011-08-30T23:37:00.001-05:00

Back when I was working as a Guardian ad litem, I regularly dealt with divorced parents or parents who had never wed in the first place. More often than not, the children ended up living with the mother but that was primarily the decision of the parents more than the court. Even in custody cases where the courts ruled in favor of the mother, it was usually because the mother had been the primary caregiver, by the choice of the parents, long before the case ever ended up in court. Courts hate to rock the boat.

In my opinion, some of the the most painful custody cases involved parents who were both strongly engaged with their children, often sharing physical custody until one or the other married and moved away. The friendliest, most respectful ex partners had their hearts shredded under those circumstances, and the one moving away was typically outwardly defensive while inwardly burning from guilt.

Usually, the mother was the parent who had married/remarried and was moving away, leaving a father who had done everything "right" in terms of fatherhood, but was still losing his children and his dreams of a long term relationship with them. They thought of all the ballgames and scout meetings and holidays they'd miss. All the dance recitals, all the parent teacher conferences, all the lost opportunities to teach their children their individual family traditions and values. All the casual times with their child they wouldn't have. They'd torture themselves with images of their beloved child turning to his or her stepdad, instead, or, even worse, just being left with no father to guide them, at all. If they'd done something selfish or cruel that ended the marriage, they thought of the price they (and their child) was paying and what a fool they'd been They'd think of relocating to the mother's new area to stay close to their children but that would feel so weird and bizarre. And if they had built a different life, perhaps had a wife, good job, or other children in the original location, moving simply wasn't an option.

My heart broke for these fathers.

My own parents divorced when I was two months old. They lived in Houston, Texas, and my mother moved back to her parents 90 miles away. For a number of years, my father religiously came to see us every weekend. He never skipped a child support payment despite being hard pressed to afford that check. He tried his level best to be at least as involved in our lives as fathers were in those days. He was one of the "good" ones.

There was some tension with my parents on his proper role. Mom believed he should take the kids and entertain us for the weekend. Be a PuttPutt dad. She was convinced that he came, not to see his kids, but because he still carried a torch for her. In contrast, he believed just being around as often as possible was the healthier route.

I agree with my father. But I think my mom was right - he was still in love with her.

Never having lived with a father, I took it in stride and didn't feel deprived. Not really.

Maybe some.

Maybe a lot, depending on what was going on at the time.

Mostly I tried not to think about it.

When I was three years old, my mother moved two states away, effectively ending my father's weekly visits. Back in those days, a single father had few legal rights and he didn't protest. He remarried within a year and they spent their honeymoon visiting us in Alabama.

My mother was bemused.

We moved back to Texas after a year and my father, despite his marital obligations, did his best to regularly visit us and stay a part of our lives. I adored my father but months would go by and I wouldn't even think of him. He was not a part of my day to day mundane life. Instead, he was an event, like the coming of Santa Claus or the Easter Bunny.

I took him for granted which, I suppose, is better than fixating on the loss.

My mother remarried when I was four, then divorced within a year. From time to time, my father would visit and because I was a child, I didn't even consider how difficult that must have been for him and how he had to juggle his obligations to do it. As an adult, I look back and am humbled at the effort he continued to make to be a part of my life. To be my dad.

When I was eleven, we moved to Oklahoma. It was not until I was a young adult, in a moment of weakness, that my father bitterly told me that he first learned we were moving from a casual friend who mentioned it, assuming that my father must have already known. Even as a young adult and parent, I wasn't really able to comprehend the level of horror and heartbreak he must have felt. In essence, the people he loved the most were being taken from him and he not only had no say in the matter, he was considered to be so inconsequential that he wasn't consulted.

Children are remarkably resilient and able to adapt to situations that strike their parents as fundamentally wrong. But it doesn't mean the parents don't suffer simply because their children are oblivious to their pain.
Over the years, I visited my father a couple of times a year. Sometimes once a year. We fell into a life where this was normal and I believe my father eventually moved on to be more emotionally invested in his wife, new son and stepchildren. For the most part, I didn't mind but my mother said of all the kids, I was the one who missed him the most and wanted him in my life.

My mother was right.

But all that being said, notwithstanding the problems, my father was an enormous influence on my life, my heart and my soul. Despite the difference in time and space, I "got" my father. I understood how he went from "A" to "B." I never had a clue how my Mother made decisions but my father's were crystal clear. It was like our brain waves were on the same channel. I understood, without effort, his values, his dreams, his disappointments, his triumphs and his joys. Like all adults, he went through evolutions of how he viewed life and for some reason, no matter the stage, it made sense to me even when I wasn't at the same place in his life. I am not sure he ever knew that but I hope he did.

My father always sang to us and until recently, I never heard a more beautiful voice. He would sing songs along with the radio. He'd sing, "My Darling Clementine," "Patches," and "The Green Beret." I told him, once, that he should have been a professor singer and he seemed taken aback but pleased.

He taught me to bait a hook and shoot a rifle. He told me about wildlife. He told me tales that haunted him from his time in the Korean War. He was simply the best at telling ghost stories. When he drank he got maudlin but for the most part, he was about looking at the good in things and doing the best you can, no matter what. In his younger years he was a hunter but as he aged, the idea of killing became abhorrent - for him, anyway. He became a conservationist. He loved his cat. He was good friends with his bookie. He kept a running list of things he wanted to ask God about when he got the chance.

My father gave me hope that with age comes wisdom. I watched him evolve and it seemed "right" to me. He never became hardened and set in his ways. On the contrary - as he aged he grew supple in his spirituality, more focused on the essence of what he believed god to be, and grew in kindness and tolerance. He was never "churchy," rather, he was a man on a spiritual journey and enjoying all the things he learned along the way. I never saw his deepening spirituality as being hypocritical. To me, it seemed as if his steps were being guided by something bigger than he was and, in small part, provided for my benefit. I watched him face adversity with dignity and with growing spiritual strength and faith as he aged, faced financial ruin, interpersonal tragedy, and loss of his health. My father demonstrated to me the ability to experience life with a sense of profound gratitude and an ability to seize upon the small things to bring joy.

My father demonstrated, to me, the secret of happiness.

I wish I'd had the wisdom or foresight to tell him what he gift he'd given but I didn't. His death came before I expected it and I was so comfortable with his relationship with his god that I didn't think it was any of my business to ask him for an introduction.

Sometimes, when I think of my dad, I think he was born under an unfortunate star. He always said he hoped he left the world a better place by virtue of being in it. I think he did.

So when I was a guardian ad litem dealing with a distraught young father, I used to tell them that although my father was not around all the time when I was growing up, I KNEW he was my father and I was connected to him as any daughter would be. I knew so much would depend on how hard they tried to remain a part of their child's life but it seemed to offer them some comfort. And it was honest. It was simplistic, but honest. There was no way I could tell them how complicated it all was. All I could give them was the bottom line.

My father used to sing to the kids. He had a pleasant voice and I don't think of my father without thinking of him singing a song, usually with a beer in his hand, generally after drinking too much. To this day, nothing makes me feel more safe, than that memory. And I think that is what fathers are for. In that, he succeeded. And that is no small thing.

It is a delight, to me, to listen to my own son singing to Grandson Charlie.

I thought my father had a lovely voice but I KNOW my son's songs are from the angels. When I hear my son sing to Charlie, I am taken back to my own father. I think how he lives on in my heart, and am so grateful that my son, while he has had his share of heartache, was not born under an unlucky star.

Happy Quilting, Penny, Evelyn and Pearl

Wild Kingdom

2011-08-23T11:35:00.001-05:00

Had a great walk out on our property, west of us. We have 53 acres, half of which is now being farmed but the other half has a couple of small ponds on it and is left wild. Everytime I go out and scout around, I see something that delights me.

When I crested the hill by the pond, about ten GIANT bullfrogs leaped into the water:

I kid you not, they had to be 10 - 14 inches in length with heads the size of softballs.

I found a couple of empty turtle shells:

And one full one:

Bunch of flowers:

Love our dynamic Oklahoma sky:

Dead stuff:

At least a zillion grasshoppers, most of whom appeared to be making out with their sweethearts:

These rascals snuck up on me while I was listening to try to locate a woodpecker I heard pecking. I felt something looking at me, turned, and there they were.

Funny, before we moved to Virginia, I thought the deer in Oklahoma were tiny in comparison. I guess it is because I didn't live on this side of town where there are larger grazing areas. The west side of town in closer to the plains/ranchland and I grew up in the CrossTimbers - primarily scrub oaks on the East side. These boys are every bit as big as what I saw back east - maybe bigger.

Someday, maybe I will be able to take Grandson out to explore - hope so!

Too much to do, today, to blog further.

Happy Quilting, Penny, Evelyn and Pearl

The Crone at the Airport

2011-08-19T09:44:00.000-05:00

It has been awhile since I posted. I finished quilting Katie and Chris' wedding quilt but it still needs a binding:

I'm pleased with it:

I've had a busy August and just got back from a lovely visit with some of my kids (and Charlie!). While I got a ton of excellent photos of the Grandson, in deference to my kids' wishes, I am not planning to post them, here. I have some on my Facebook page and friends on FB can see them.

Had a great time! I flew in on a Friday and spent the afternoon with one of my daughters and Charlie. We took a walk along the West side of Manhattan towards Downtown and back. It was so beautiful. New York has lovely parks and tries to create green areas for its residents. Big cities are not my cup of tea but I confess a certain fondness and deep respect for the gritty Big Apple.

Martin, the Granddog:

On Saturday, we drove about an hour or so north of the City to Storm King, a large park with outdoor sculptures that was soul soothing and peaceful. I don't do well to be away from grass and sky for any length of time and this outing was a sheer delight:

People who aren't from the area see New York City as all tall buildings but it has gorgeous countryside a stone's throw away.

I especially loved the rock wall that meandered around the park at Storm King:

As I oohed and ahhed over the flowers and hills and trees, I think it hit me for the first time that not everyone is hard wired to have such a visceral reaction to Nature. I mean, I know that plenty of people are less moved by bugs and blossoms than others but I always thought it was more a matter of degree or preference. After seeing my daughter's eyes glaze over at my enthusiastic comments and observations, it finally dawned on me that she simply wasn't experiencing the same things I was. Huh. Who knew??? (probably everybody but me :) ).

I think back to the days before I began quilting and think it is like that. I'd see a piece of fabric and would think, "blue material," or "cute dress." At a certain point, as my brain opened up to it, my depth of response deepened and that "blue material" triggered a completely different response. I would see so many details that I would really see it for what it is - the many colors involved to make up the main focus; the weight of the fabric; the types of stitches; textures, blah, blah, blah. Before, my brain registered the barest bit of information needed to identify it. Over time, not only did I recognize "blue material," I began to experience pure pleasure as my brain lit up to process different kinds of information.

Same with nature, I suppose. When I was younger, even though I have always loved the outdoors, I would look at something and think, "tree," or perhaps, "pretty tree." For many people, that's it. Identify it and move on. Maybe it is the result of growing up roaming the countryside or just being inclined that way but I no longer just see "tree." I see: Narrow trunk with dark, deep bark where insects hide out. Oak shaped leaves that look a little distressed near the top so it is probably late summer. The grass beneath the tree is lush so the roots are probably deep. I wonder when a given tree - if deciduous - will start to drop its leaves and how that will affect the wildlife currently depending on it in its present stage. I notice the dirt and if it is reddish or black, foamy or clay based. You get the picture.

I'm not saying I am Mother Nature or anything like that but being out in the country deluges my brain with all types of sensory information that - I dunno - perhaps just releases endorphins or something to make me happy. It might explain why I love the Prairie - it is simply teeming with life, close up where you can see it and think about it. That makes me happy but it isn't for everyone.

Duh.

For that matter, I find as I get older, my brain is changing to where I spend much more time thinking about most things at a deeper level than I did when I was younger and so busy. By that, I simply mean that I think more in terms of, "how does this work?" or "how is this tree differ from that tree?" rather than like in my earlier years where I mainly used the part of my brain that identified objects or concepts that were in my environment or useful to me. I asked plenty of "why" questions when I was younger, don't get me wrong - but anymore, it feels less like an alien gathering information to make sense of my surroundings, and more like stepping into a tree or a bug or a flower and pondering what it is like to experience life from that perspective. If that makes any sense. I suppose it is just a feeling of being connected to nature beyond a fleeting sense of "Oh, that's pretty," or limited to the extent I need to survive or what is otherwise useful.

Perhaps in my next life I will come back as a bug and this is just preparation. :)

I got home early Tuesday morning. I was supposed to get back Monday night but weather wrecked havoc at the airport. For several hours, there was standing room only. I noticed an elderly, troll like old battle ax with tight narrow lips and helmet hair sitting in a prime seat. She was adjacent to three empty seats that had a wheelchair and cane in front of them. After observing for about thirty minutes that no one was sitting in them, I walked over and asked her if all the seats were taken.

"YES," she snapped, with a voice like a whip.

A real sweet personality, let me tell ya.

I didn't argue.

Selfish Old Goat.

I continued to watch and after a bit, a large, happy faced woman in a canary yellow outfit started coming over to see her every few minutes, cheerfully trying to make conversation while the old woman just glowered at her. After about an hour of standing there, it was abundantly clear that no one was sitting in those seats so being a bit contrary, I walked over and stood in front of them, two seats down from the old geezette with my back to her. I was thinking that the rude and uncivilized young people we see in the flash mobs have NOTHING on her. Eventually, I just gave up and sat down on the floor - in front of the wheelchair.

The old woman was waiting on a flight to Louisville and people started lining up to board. The Canary Lady came back and I started to scramble to my feet to get out of her way, apologizing for being in front of the wheelchair.

"Oh no, no," sez the lemon. "First come, first serve - why don't you sit down in the seat. I am so sorry we blocked you."

The battle Ax looked properly embarrassed but I didn't say anything. Part of it was good manners and part of it was that she was kind of scary looking.

I sat down in the chair right next to her. It was sort of like being sent to the Principal's office while you're still feeling defiant.

At that point, her flight was delayed by weather so there we sat for the next couple of hours, side by side.

The yellow lady darted by from time to time making cheery conversation. When she'd leave, the old woman tended to roll her eyes at her behind her back. At one point, she gave a long sigh and I glanced over at her. She looked so weary - and how could she not be? She had to be 85 if she was a day and airports are hard on anyone.

"Going home?" I asked her.

Long pause.

Then the old woman raised her head and looked at me, shrugged her shoulders and said, bitterly, "I'm going back to an Assisted Living Center." Then she looked away but not before I saw angry eyes fill with tears.

"Awww," sez I.

After a moment I asked, gently, "Are you from New York?"

Another long pause.

"Sixty years," she finally answered, just as gently. Then she turned to look at me. "I raised my family here - four children. Well, actually, with the costs of private schools, we moved to the suburbs for a lot of it. But sixty years. And I loved every second of it. I miss it so much..."

And then she told me that none of her children stayed in New York. I could see she was sad about that and even though I didn't mention it, I understood since my own kids also left home. I remarked that usually children who do that are successful adults and she agreed. One child is in Washington State, another in Florida, a third in new Jersey and, of course, a daughter in Louisville near her Assisted Living Center.

We chatted for a bit and she explained that she'd come to visit relatives and the lady in yellow was her paid companion. We talked about air travel, and things she'd done when she was young, and the weather and raising kids. I could see she was very weary so I backed out of the conversation when I could to let her rest. Eventually, she boarded the plane but after about thirty minutes, they took everyone off due to more delays. She sat in her wheelchair next to me looking so old, tired and sad. Maybe a little mean.

I imagine I didn't see her at her best and hope she isn't always like this. Still, she became part of my memory of a lovely trip and I'm glad I got a chance to talk to her. More importantly, I appreciated her sharing her passion for NYC - it made me think of how much my daughter loves it. Even though I miss my girl, isn't it a lovely thing that she can live where her heart is?

Happy Quilting, Penny, Evelyn and Pearl

Girls in the Palace

2011-08-04T12:55:00.003-05:00

Some years ago, there was a wave of ad campaigns pitting this or that commercial product with the message of, "Buy me because you are so special you deserve the best." Loriel may be the most famous but someone must have done some research that said this was a winning notion and quite a few companies made this same sort of pitch to prospective consumers. It worked. You can still google "because you deserve it" and find out that apparently, we all deserve a variety of beauty products, jewelry, solid steel mouse pads, swimming pools (this is a common theme, nation wide), home cleaning services, vacations, spa treatments, blah, blah, blah.

I absolutely hated those ad campaigns. HATED them. A commercial would come on the television and I would positively sneer.

Clearly I had issues. As far as I was concerned, it was a crass appeal to selfishness and vanity and I was embarrassed for women who immediately globbed on to this blatant manipulation of their basest impulses.

Oh, we can all be little princesses!

Yeech. I didn't want to be a princess. I wanted to be like those women in the thirties who were strong, independent, incredibly sexy and, well, WOMEN. I saw those commercials as encouraging women to take our birthright of strength, wisdom and courage and exchange it for a pink, rhinestone tiera.

Not opinionated, am I?

My mother once happily announced that she was moving to a luxury retirement community, "Because I deserve to be pampered." My snotty comment that perhaps Mother Teresa deserved to be pampered but for some reason didn't feel the need made for a chilly week or two.

I was a real snot, sometimes. Still can be but I'm better.

Right about the same time as that ad campaign took root, there became popular the mantra that "you can't take care of other people if you don't take care of yourself." I found that a bit more palatable as far as it goes but, just as companies no doubt predicted, the notion was promptly seized upon by people looking for an excuse to dump the kids for the weekend, go party, kick up their heels and run away from their responsibilities - now, guilt free. Mind you, I don't think eveyone did that but I think the general notion was twisted to the point where many women would fall back on that mantra every time they wanted to do something that was going to put someone else out. And that self centered, escapist attitude is a big part of our culture, these days.

Where I am going with that is that over time, I think I may "get" what might have really been going on in the original research that ended up being corrupted by mass marketing. I think most women need (not deserve) a way to regularly recharge their batteries, nourish their souls and put on their battle gear to take on life. I don't think that is an entitlement issue the way it ended up being advertised and which offended me to the soul. It has nothing to do with our "worth" or what we "deserve." I think it is simply the way we are hardwired. And I think a "need" has a much greater claim to being a higher priority than something we merely "deserve" which flounders around with some sort of vague entitlement notion and doesn't answer the question of "why" we deserve anything. By changing the emphasis, I give no ground. In my opinion, making provisions to nurture your spirit is an essential mental and physical health issue. People like me, who didn't always make provisions for that grounding make life harder on themselves and others than it needs to be.

It seems to me that most women regularly need a little space and a little time to look inward, reflect, contemplate and create. Makeup, jewelry and the like are nice but not the kind of things needed to nourish our souls and bring balance. The traditional way is through prayer and worship. Prayer is still considered such a sacred thing that no one is going to interrupt someone communing with her god. But you can do it in other ways - Yoga, a good run, art, music, baking (if you like that sort of thing), crafts, gardening - anything that sets you free, for just a little bit of time, from the worries of life to tend to the state of your heart and soul.

I don't see anything wrong with a weekend with the girls for a break.  In fact, I think it positively contributes to our need to commune with our sisters. And I don't see anything wrong with reading, surfing the net and watching television - all of which are pure forms of escapism. However, I think a lot of people have confused taking a break from life (escapism) with taking time to look inward.  These are two completely separate things.   If you are like me (I adore reading), you are probably spending more time escaping your soul than you are nurturing it.

In my opinion, escapism, overdone, hampers more than helps us achieve balance.   In fact, I think a woman who consistently throws herself into escapism instead of tending to her soul is running away from answers and health rather than towards them. When life gets out of control, grim and hectic, sometimes just two or three days (or a lunch break) dedicated to genuine soul searching makes everything fall into place.

Neglecting our soul is a lot like being married to someone we work to avoid. That isn't a happy marriage on either front.

My Wonderful has been in South America all week (don't even ask) and I've gotten a ton of stitching done. I've been working on Katie's wedding quilt and had it all set up on the longarm but the phone doesn't reach out there too well. While husband was traveling and could be expected to call, I stayed in the house and finished up Windy's quilt top. I am making her a traditional looking picket fence quilt and she helped me pick out colors and style, which I really appreciated. She wanted something light and airy and I got the feeling she was looking for a traditional, thirties colors type of quilt. I finished the top two days ago.

Evelyn is under the quilt top:

The fabrics are not traditional feedsack but I had some Moda strips that were pastel and had a soft, romantic feel to them:

Evelyn has music in her soul:

I am excited to see how it will look once it is quilted.

Yesterday, I knew I wouldn't be getting any phone calls from the Mister for several hours so I worked out in the barn on Katie's quilt.

I was making great progress when the machine head slipped and I sewed myself. I felt the needle go through my fingernail through my finger although it didn't really hurt because it happened so fast. When I dared look at it, thread was going through my finger. Top thread on top (variegated) and bobbin thread coming out the bottom (blue). I got most of the thread out and am going to get a tetanus booster this afternoon. It isn't bothering me except the bandage makes it hard to type. Fortunately, it is on my left hand and I am right handed. With any luck, I will be able to finish quilting Kate's quilt, tomorrow.

It has been incredibly hot and I haven't left the property since dropping off Mr. Wonderful at the airport last Saturday. The quiet around the house is soothing and I've enjoyed getting so much quilting done. I've been doing a little cooking, a little house cleaning, sitting out on the patio in the early morning, watering the trees, clipping the errant weeds with hedge clippers (it is so dry, nothing but weeds grow), and rescuing toads from the hell hounds.

Early this morning, we had clouds that made the sunlight at dawn filter through in amazing colors and patterns. I noticed the sun is already moving back towards the south as it rises on the eastern horizon. I enjoyed looking out over the land at the birds and a few horses you can see if you squint. Although I've done nothing to "deserve it," as I sat there in my red cushioned patio chair with my cup of coffee (the one that says, World's Best Grandma that my kids gave me when they told me Charlie was on the way) and a fluffy white dog on either side of me, I felt like a queen.

Not a princess - a queen. And you don't want a pink rhinestone tiera for that.

Happy Quilting, Penny, Evelyn and Pearl

Marland Mansion

2011-07-29T15:46:00.010-05:00

On Monday, I spent the day with my best friend touring the Marland Mansion, in Ponca City. She lives closer and has been there a few times but this was my first visit.

I was very impressed.

E.W. Marland, born in 1874, was a lawyer and an oilman who made and lost a number of fortunes throughout his life. At one point, he owned ten percent of all the known oil in the world and his personal wealth was estimated at $85,000,000.

Marland and his first wife didn't have children and, so the story goes, they convinced his wife's poverty stricken sister from back east to allow two of her children, a boy and a girl, to live with them. After a few years, when the girl, Lydie, was sixteen, they adopted them, legally. Lydie spent a few years in boarding schools, back east, before returning to Oklahoma.
Here is a painting of her that isn't very good due to the low light:

Hmm. Just based on the painting, she appears to be a little tart. :)

She was a superb rider and enjoyed fox hunts and the social life that came with being a Prairie Princess. Her aunt was in ill health and Lydie played the roll of hostess for a number of years before her aunt passed away when Lydie was twenty-six years old. Marland and Lydie promptly had the adoption annulled and married when she was twenty-eight. Marland was fifty-four.

It was quite the scandal.

The Marland Mansion cost $5.5 million dollars to build and furnish and has 55 rooms, including ten bedrooms, twelve bathrooms and three kitchens. It had a boathouse and still has an underground tunnel connecting the artist studio (the mansion is filled with carvings and paintings and the artisans lived in the studio during construction). Hidden inside a large fireplace was a door to where they played high stakes poker and stored the booze that had been outlawed by prohibition. An Olympic sized swimming pool was adjacent to the house in a T shape so laps could be done in both directions.
Here are some photos:

The ceilings were amazing, throughout:

Loved this red couch:

The gargoyles were adorable and the outside of the mansion was covered with little carvings here and there.

Originally, there were five ponds on the property. The pond is gone but this is the remains of the boathouse:

Another painted ceiling:

Tiled ceiling:

The main kitchen (the stove is a Vulcan):

The grounds are lovely and used for weddings:

Love the chicken. I am a chicken fiend:

This ceiling contained gold gild. It cost $80,000.00 in a single room:

Marland's office was built to look like the Oval Office. Can't fault the man for being ambitious:

Marland allowed his employees to use the pool and, by all accounts, treated his workers quite well, providing health and dental insurance, recreational opportunities, "saving" salaries, etc. Workers were allowed into certain parts of the house adjacent to the pool. During the time the mansion was being constructed, the nation was in the midst of the Roaring Twenties and, apparently, money flowed like water.

Construction on the mansion began in 1925. Marland's first wife died in 1926 and it was completed in 1928 (the year Lydie and Marland wed). Although the first wife was still alive (although quite ill) when the original plans were drawn, they already had Lydie's bedroom directly adjoining Marland's with a doorway between them.

Hmmm.

Lydie's room (note the door on the far right leading to her "dad's" room:

Marland's room:

Marland's bathroom was a trip:

Loved the shelf on the medicine chest:

His shower was quite modern - it had fourteen sprays. He also had an early style sauna. Wish I'd thought to get a photo.

I absolutely loved the windows:

Marland lost most of his fortune within months of the wedding. First, he was voted out of his company (similar to a hostile takeover). Although he lost much of his fortune when he lost his company, he held on to his stock. Then came the crash of 1929. At that point, he couldn't catch a break.

The Marlands actually only lived there about 18 months before having to move due to the high maintenance and utility costs. For many years, they kept ownership of the mansion and opened it for special events but lived in one of the cottages on the property.

Following the loss of his last fortune, Marland entered politics and lived in Washington, DC for a time. He was elected governor of Oklahoma in 1934 and served one term. It was during the Great Depression and Oklahoma, at the time, was drowning in debt.  Marland wanted to pass grand New Deal type laws to assist poor people through public funding and ran into a great deal of opposition because there wasn't money in the public till.

He wasn't re-elected.

The Marlands returned to Ponca City in 1939 and continued to live in the small cottage on the grounds.

In 1941, although they kept the small cottage, they sold the mansion, proper, to the Carmelite Fathers for $66,000.   No, this is not a typo.

Mr. Marland died of a heart ailment six months later, at age 67.   Lydie was 41.

Lydie lived in the cottage until 1953. During that time, she engaged in some unfortunate romantic entanglements (one with a meter reader who managed to cheat her out of about $5,000.00) and then, without warning, took off to parts unknown. Historians have since tracked her whereabouts during her exile to DC, New York and Chicago.   Before leaving, she paid a local farmer to destroy a statute of herself made when she was in her twenties. The farmer couldn't bring himself to completely destroy it and, instead, took the pieces and buried them on his farm. For years, the fate of the missing statute was a mystery.   Lydie was fifty-three when she slipped out of Ponca City, taking her Studebaker and various art works that she later sold to support herself.

In 1975, at age 75, Lydie returned, broke and disheveled. She has been described as being a "bag lady" who had fallen on hard times, was besotted with cheap wine and had only one black tooth remaining in her head (bottom front). She moved back into the cottage and lived in the living room. Reportedly, she refused to enter the bedroom except to use the adjacent restroom.   Notwithstanding her bag lady lifestyle and appearance, letters written at the time show that she was fully capable of coherent thought and quite literate. She died in 1987 when she was 87 years old. Elderly locals still recall that she was often seen wandering around Ponca City in rags.

She was not right.

The family of the farmer who had been paid to destroy her statute returned the hidden pieces to the museum after Lydie's death and it was reconstructed. If you look closely at her statute, you can see the repairs but the museum has it displayed in an area with soft light so the flaws aren't noticeable.

The statute has Lydie wearing the same dress that she wore in the painting posted, earlier.

It was a fascinating place and these photos don't do it justice. There were so many carvings and paintings, inside and out, that didn't show up well in photos so I only posted a few. Taking the tour (included in the cost of admission) was a great idea.

On the quilting front, the backing I intended to use on my younger daughter's wedding quilt was an inch too small so I ordered more from Back Sides Fabrics. I think it will look nice and plan to start working on that in the next few days.

I didn't expect it to arrive so soon so started on my other daughter's picket fence quilt. Some years ago I'd ordered some Moda scrap bags from Hancocks of Paducah I'd been looking around to try to find suitable fabric for daughter's quilt and ran across where I'd had these stashed and was delighted to find a good use for them.

Hope she doesn't mind that it is "girly."

The scrap bags from Hancocks have the remnants of bolts where the fabrics have had strips cut from them. Most of them are easily 2.5 inches wide - not all but most. Some are wider. If you don't mind trimming, they are pretty inexpensive way to get a wide variety of a particular fabric line:

My nest fillers:

I know it is kind of ridiculous, but I could look at wads of fabric for hours:

This too:

I've thought about trying to sell of a line of greeting cards with the girls and quilts on them aimed at pet owners. Just not sure how to get started.

Evelyn is a sweetie:

Happy Quilting, Penny, Evelyn and Pearl

Summer As It Should Be

2011-07-23T21:17:00.004-05:00

The East Coast has joined the heat wave rave we've been experiencing in Oklahoma for the last two months. In June we had these kinds of highs (followed by number of days):

90 - 2
92 - 1
94 - 7
95 - 2
96 - 3
97 - 2
98 - 1
99 - 1
100 - 4
101 - 3
102 - 3
104 - 1

Seven of the last eight days in June had highs of 100 degrees or more.

In July (so far), here are our official highs:

98 - 1
99 - 3
100 - 7
101 - 2
102 - 2
103 - 2
104 - 2
105 - 1
107 - 1
These are the official temperatures at the airport but we're west of there and frequently have highs 2 - 4 degrees higher. We have highs in the 100's forecast for the next ten days. Unless we get lucky or a Hurricane hits Texas, we're not looking for measurable rain until mid September.

I'm not complaining.

Compared to the humid east, we're in heaven. Back in Virginia, it was so humid that I hated to leave the house when the temperature approached 90 degrees. It was sticky, wet, nasty and hideous to breathe that swamp air. Here? We are deliciously cool inside our single level brick house, big overhangs, no south facing windows, few west facing windows, and low humidity.

Even with this heat, our electric bill, here, is less than it was to cool our three story home back in Virginia. Back east, most of our cooled air went to the basement but here, it pools throughout the living areas. Mr. Wonderful nearly freezes under the ceiling fans in our bedroom and I sometimes find sleeveless blouses are too chilly.

I regularly go outside during the heat of the day to read on the front porch, enjoying listening to the cicadas sing.

Nasty looking things, cicadas are:

Apparently tasty, too.

When I go outside to read, Evelyn stays inside but keeps her head resting on the window sill to make sure I stay in sight. She is a mama's baby.

The heat is strong and you can't stay out in it long without needing hydration. Still, I find myself stepping outside just to lift my face to the sun for a kiss. I never tan deeply but am as tan as I've been in twenty years. I don't have bikini lines (heaven forbid) but the tops of my feet have white sandal stripes and my arms are light brown as opposed to looking like a toad's belly.

The girls don't want to go outside in the heat of the day because they just aren't dressed for this heat, humidity or no. We've altered our morning ritual of sitting on the west facing patio for our morning coffee because at that time of day, the house bricks have absorbed so much heat from the previous evening that the radiant heat feels like an oven. Instead, we take lawn chairs to the back yard by the honeysuckle where the energy from the rising sun is blocked by the thicket next door.

We catch the cool morning breezes before the day begins to catch fire. The girls chase toads, sniff all manner of growing things and enjoy being young dogs with no responsibilities other than to chase dragon flies, surreptitiously dig holes in the soft dirt under the leaky water faucet, and escape the attacks of dive bombing hummingbirds.

Normally, this is the time of year where things slow down. We run errands and do yard work in the early morning or early evening. Mowing the lawn has slowed to a trickle because, with the heat and drought, the grass isn't growing. Where we water the trees, I clip the grass with scissors so that the weed eater doesn't strip the bark.

Nights on the back patio run late because outdoor chores are put off until the temperature dips back down into the high 90's. By the time the sun sets and it starts to get comfortable enough to sit outside with a glass of wine or Mr. Wonderful's home brewed beer (which is excellent), it is frequently close to 8:30 or 9:00. The girls dart around toad hunting like a dark side Easter egg hunt. Unlike earlier in the season where we are rescuing toads right and left because they won't leave a particular one alone, there are now so many that they race from one to the other, barely giving one a nudge before spotting another and racing across the lawn in pursuit of bigger and better things.

Sane people give up gardening this time of year but I planted a number of wildflowers in the front bed as well as some zinnias in the planter alongside our independent minded moss roses.

I'm having a heck of a time making sure they get the right amount of water. I drowned a couple of Cone Flowers but the others seem to be holding their own.

We've been battling bagworms and three of our six baby Caddo Maples are suffering in a bad way. We sprayed them and manually removed the worms but in this heat and drought, aren't sure they'll make it.

The one we were so worried about early in the season is now one of the healthiest and we hope these three sick ones will also survive and eventually thrive.

As hot as it has been, I've still managed to finally finish the wedding quilt top for my younger daughter and her husband. Here are a few photos.

The completed top:

It is a true scrap quilt made of lots of small pieces of assorted blues. I am completely intimidated by the size and am not sure how in the world I am going to manage to get this big thing bound. It takes me forever to bind even a baby quilt.

On Thursday, my friend Kim (the one who lost her young son to brain cancer in 2009) celebrated his life on the second anniversary of his death. As she did on the first anniversary, she invited friends and family out to the ball park Caleb loved so well (it has been named in his honor). I headed that way Thursday afternoon to celebrate with her.

On my way to the celebration, I drove to Fort Cobb lake, a reservoir which is about an hour or so west of my house. I'd never been there and wanted to see what I've been missing. I drove the backroads, all of which were in good repair. The drive took me through rolling farmland and about thirty minutes west of here, you can see a large wind farm with its big wind mills churning. Near Binger (the home of Johnny Bench), the land turned steeply hilly with terrific views towards the northeast. The little town was a typical old style burg and I wondered, as I always do in such places, what it was about that little place that would inspire someone to go on to become famous. I wondered if Johnny walked down that little downtown street, and mused that it might not have looked much different in his day than it does in mine.

Annual rainfall drops off sharply in western Oklahoma as compared to the rest of the state. The farm lands in that area have large irrigation systems set up, unlike further east, including the Oklahoma City area. Accordingly, the crops were looking fairly robust as compared to further east where they rely on Mother Nature to send water - and she hasn't, recently. When I finally left the state highways for the smaller farm roads working my way to the Reservoir, the houses went from well tended farms to smaller lots with what amounted to shacks on them. That far out, a lot of people with a high tolerance for trash in their yard and few neighbors to complain, are apt to "let things go."

Fort Cobb turned out to be a typical west Oklahoma reservoir with reddish water, a dam, twisty scrub Oaks, dragonflies, loud buzzing insects, water fowl, boats and multigenerational families cooling off in the wading areas.

Although my car outdoor temperature read 109 degrees, it was comfortable near the lake with the breeze flowing off. The park looked to be well maintained for the most part, although I was surprised the trees weren't being more closely pruned. It could be that they were saving money, or it could be that they were deliberately being left in their wild state. The campgrounds were dusty, the camp pits often filled with broken beer bottles and remnants of campers that had been there, before. Overall, it was quite clean with lots of bathrooms and nice cabins for people don't want to camp out. They also had a fee area that looked very nice but I didn't drive in to take a closer look since I only had a few minutes. I stopped at several places along the shore to take pictures.

I saw an enormous Blue Heron wading in the shallows but by the time I'd stopped the car and had my camera out, it flew away. The water was very low, although not as low as I would have expected, given the severe drought. I saw a native American couple who looked to be in their thirties on the shoreline. The woman wore white shorts and had long, beautiful hair past her hip. I admit I was taken aback to see her wade out into the red water up to her shoulders in those white shorts with her hair floating out behind her, but I could certainly understand wanting to get cooled off. I saw a large family out romping in the waves with grandma, a bunch of kids and a medium sized dog who was having as much fun as any of them. I stopped to chat with Grandpa, who had taken a break to grab a cold one and he said they were all having a great time. Made me smile to watch them for a few minutes.

Just before I left, I happened upon a doe with three spotted fawns.

One of the fawns, in particular showed little fear and was as interested in me as I was in him.

Oklahoma has many lakes but most of them aren't beautiful in the same way you expect in the east or the mountains. You don't go to look at them, you go to get in them.   Young people and families need a place to go to beat the summer heat and lakes are traditional weekend and vacation spots. Between fishing, jet skiing, skiing, swimming and just plain hanging out, a lot of families spend nearly every summer weekend at the lake. It has never been my cup of tea but for many, it is a tradition that has been handed down from their parents and grandparents who grew up before air conditioners were commonplace. Of course most of Oklahoma's western lakes are man-made so you can only go back so many generations before a luscious lake used to be just a reedy stream.

I arrived at the celebration of Caleb's life just as it was getting started.   The family provided home made ice cream, hotdogs, cookies, chips, a water slide and ballgames for anyone who wanted to participate. It is such a lovely, upbeat tradition, adding happy memories to the horrible ones associated with his death. Some of Caleb's school chums, now long, lanky and entering their teens, attended. There were many hugs, grins and laughter. I saw no tears, just some sad eyes behind sweet smiles when I expressed my condolences. Caleb's brothers were there, as well as many cousins, including tots who have arrived since Caleb passed. I am blessed to know people that emotionally healthy and well grounded.

Summer time. All these things are what summer means to me.

Happy Quilting, Penny, Evelyn and Pearl

Farmer's Market and Bagworms

2011-07-10T00:00:00.003-05:00

I grew up in a suburb of Oklahoma City. We were in a nearby township some distance to the east from town. It took about 25 minutes to get to a grocery store and when they put in a Braums (a locally owned ice cream store that served hamburgers) down the road from us, I thought I'd died and gone to Heaven. We were too far out for many of my classmates to visit (I went to a private Catholic High School) and I was excited when I got old enough to get a driver's license because I could suddenly spend time with people my own age, get a job, have freedom. Of course, less than a year after I got my driver's license I was married and expecting my first child so that "freedom" was short lived.

Below: My birdcam is all better, now!:

I raised my family in Bethany, a western suburb of Oklahoma City. It was a town built around the local Nazarene University that had a small city hall and its own post office. It was butted up directly to Oklahoma City with no obvious break in appearance, density and services so the only difference, to my mind, was that you had to drive more carefully in Bethany because the cops needed the revenue to pay their salary. My kids, like most of the kids in Bethany, didn't go to Bethany school. Instead, they attended a large public school district that covered several suburbs on the western side of Oklahoma City. Although Bethany had its own Main Street, by the time we lived there is was not much more than an Oklahoma City appendage. I would tell people I lived in Oklahoma City and it never struck me as less than accurate because for all intents and purposes, that is where I lived and what I considered to be my home town.

When we lived in Virginia, we were adjacent to Quantico, the Marine Corps base south of Washington DC. Quantico is an old, stand alone small town but so affiliated with the Marine Corps that we didn't go there even though we could have thrown a rock and hit it.

So where all that is leading to is that, other than as a very small child, I never lived in a small town.
Husband, on the other hand, lived in Mustang, Oklahoma, from the time he was about four until he left home to go to college. Mustang is an agricultural community just distant enough from Oklahoma City that although some people made the commute, it was much more affiliated with the town on the western end of the county called El Reno (the county seat) and Yukon, a robust small town with a picturesque downtown straddling the Mother Road, Highway 66. Mustang once had a thriving downtown but between Highway 66 (and later, Interstate 40) diverting travelers, and a tornado that took out much of the city in the last century, it never really developed a strong business section. Regardless, it had excellent schools and a strong community spirit held together by a number of families that settled in the area before the 1900's whose ancestors remain there, today. The FFA is strong in the area and the town puts on rodeos for the young people and annually have "Western Days" which amounts to a summer festival. During that time, they line the streets with American flags, sell fireworks and watermelon and just overall, do the small town thing.

We live on five acres just outside the Mustang city limits but I have adopted the terminology and attitude of the locals in that I now consider going to Oklahoma City, proper, as "going to the City" and I have shifted my sense of home from Oklahoma City to Mustang. I hadn't expected that when we moved here. In the far off distance, I can see the Oklahoma skyline with its brand new skyscraper that is being built, notwithstanding the economic downturn in the country. You can see downtown but there are vast areas of unpopulated areas between us and the City. I grocery shop in Mustang, go to the local butcher shop, get my hair cut there, get pedicures, frequent local restaurants, see local doctors and vets in town, and just overall try to patronize local business folk and tradesmen.

It feels good.

Today, I went to the local Farmer's Market that is run by the Kiwanis's. They have a community Garden and sell their wares every Saturday morning during the growing season.
They set up tables under the shade trees and generally sell out fairly quickly because people come early before the sun gets too scorching. Today, they had baby turkeys for sale but I didn't get any.

If the girls didn't eat them, the coyotes would.

It has been a tough, dry summer but the eggplant, peppers, onions and squash are doing well. The tomatoes were sold out by the time we got there, which is a shame because our own tomatoes are having a bad year.

The garden is right in the middle of town:

You can see how dry its been.

It doesn't help our tomato crop that Evelyn keeps digging them up to try to find toads.

Right next to the community garden is the Mustang Historical Society.

Mr. Wonderful's sister and brother-in-law are active with the society and when we stopped at the Farmer's Market, we saw them in the parking lot. We'd never visited the Historical Society but went inside, today. It was amazing. I was so impressed with the manner in which it was set up and the abundance of displays. Brother-in-law knows I love quilts and he showed me several rooms set up with quilts in them. They were just wonderful. Many were original feedsack quilts, including a lovely Double Wedding Quilt using pastel muslins and feedsack material. There were quite a few tied quilts that appeared to be quite old. A well maintained Friendship Quilt made with feedsacks and in the Dresden Plate pattern was dated 1941 (wish I'd gotten a photo - what was I thinking?). It had a number of names embroidered on it that correspond to about a dozen foundation city mothers.

The quilt I found most interesting was a tied Star Quilt made of the barest of scraps of feedsack material.

It was not in good shape or particularly well made. The stitches were rough on the binding and I could see places where it was faded from exposure to the sun. The quilter had machine pieced the back with large pieces of fabric. She'd cobbled together whatever scraps she had available to create the star pattern on the top with no apparent concern for coordinating color. I mean, seriously - a red plaid patch??? That cracked me up. This quilt was made for use, not to show off!

Still, the top, overall, appeared to be well made.

The interesting part of the quilt, to me, was that when I examined the back, I could see through the pale pieces that she had used part of an old quilt in lieu of batting. Sure enough, beneath the backing you could see several bright, sharp Dresden Plate blocks. The fabric in the blocks looked to have been of a similar vintage as the top and I found that intriguing.

Back home on the ranchette, we are battling Bagworms. Those monsters have all but defoliated three of my six baby Caddo Maples and I am mad as heck about it.

Mr. Wonderful sprayed them as soon as we spotted the bagworms and we spent most of yesterday morning up on ladders picking off bagworms to try to save them.

We also found a locust (cicada) shell.

They are all over and have been singing every evening which means it is truly summer.

I've made quite a bit of progress on Kate and Chris' wedding quilt.

I'd hoped to get the top done this weekend but we spent so much time at the Historical Society, followed by lunch with my sister-in-law, that I didn't get much done, today. But with any luck, I'll finish the top, this week.

Happy Quilting, Penny, Evelyn and Pearl

Children's Tales

2011-07-02T10:54:00.000-05:00

Out of respect for their privacy, I don't talk much about my kids on this blog. They haven't asked me to do that but it is always on my mind when I post. I wasn't even sure if I should put photos or mention Charlie and have kept photos and videos at a minimum. When it comes to Charlie, there are some freaky people out there (of course, I don't mean YOU!), and my kids and their spouses have responsible jobs and probably wouldn't appreciate me going into too much depth about their lives.

That being said, I don't think it does any damage to share photos of the progress on the wedding quilt I am trying to finish up for my youngest girl, Kate. She and her husband have been more than gracious about the, ahem, four year delay in completion. And counting.

Kate and her Sweetie were a long term couple when she told me in December 2006 that they'd set a wedding day the following March. As in 4 months, later. Gulp. It was very exciting and I immediately launched into a blue wedding quilt made of pineapple blocks (one of my favorites). I managed to get enough blocks stitched to get the top about half done when life really took off. My son and HIS long term Sweetie decided to get married in August (five months after Kate's wedding), and sadly, Mom was diagnosed with ovarian cancer. She passed away on Mother's Day Eve. Between one thing and another, I never got back to Kate and Chris' quilt beyond a few feeble attempts that never gained traction.

While I quilt, I think. Today, I thought about my three children (they are always near the top of the list).

I was blessed with fine, healthy children with good heads and loving hearts. Not one of them ever gave me trouble or broke my heart.

Bill, the oldest, was always a rock. Next to no outbursts or tantrums. He was generally calm, a tad stubborn, smart, multi-talented, frequently impatient and patient (depending on the mood), capable and confident. He has never suffered fools easily. I don't think there was ever anything that he did that he didn't do well. And I mean, really well. An auditory learner, you could talk to him even as a child and he would understand the nuances of what you were saying and accept hard facts he didn't want to face. And even as a teen, he would look you in the eye, admit when he made a mistake and be able to discuss difficult topics, rationally and with amazing insight. In dramatic contrast to my angst ridden, worry about minutia mindset, Bill could have been the poster child for "never let them see you sweat." Utterly unflappable and while the rest of us might be running around flapping our arms like scared chickens, he'd just set an eye on you and bring the panic in a room to an instant halt.

He can be intense.

Bill is moody, ranging from happily affectionate (in rare moments, downright giddy) to unyieldingly distant. With few understated words he can express the deepest love or the coldest disdain. He chooses his friends (and wife) wisely and keeps them close to his heart. He is like an old dock on still water that gently rocks and creaks but is amazingly solid under your feet even though on water. A dock and a man like that feel as if they've been there long before you were, and will remain stalwart and unchanged long after you are gone.

Bill was a philosophy major that went on to become a lawyer, surprising me because he is a deep thinker and artist. I was not surprised that he went to law school because the intellectual aspects would appeal to him. However, I rather expected him to drift towards the arts, music and/or writing, perhaps a college professor.

He has been a class act from birth. Well, except the time the fish weren't biting and he got so jealous when Windy, my second child, finally landed one that he told her, "Congratulations, you just killed the last fish in this lake and now there won't ever be any more baby fish." (To this day, I can still hear Windy wailing in grief and guilt.)

Windy was, and is, passionate, emotional, loving, hard working, creative, and has more confidence in her little finger than I have in my whole body. She wears her heart on her sleeve and not infrequently can cry, laugh, rage and hug, simultaneously. She has gorgeous blue eyes and porcelain skin that give her away so she has no place to hide strong feelings. And all her feelings are strong. When she was a child and a young girl, I was so keyed into her, emotionally, that the onslaught of extreme emotion she would emote would frequently hit me like a shock wave and just about fry my own circuits. And like a summer storm, the riot of feelings would dissipate and off she'd go to happily climb another mountain, leaving me reeling.

As a child, NOTHING stopped her.   I don't mean she was manic - I mean she was focused and determined.   She was the child who would try out for cheerleader or student counsel officer or something like that and just put herself out there.

It used to make me absolutely crazy.  I would no more have done that and risked rejection or disappointment than I would stand on the corner and preach that the end of the world is coming next weekend. But Windy just hurled herself into life. She'd try, sometimes she'd succeed, sometimes she'd fail. If the latter, she'd pick herself off, dust herself off, and hurl herself back at life without even taking time to lick her wounds. And nearly every time, she would succeed the second time if she didn't the first. But as her mother, I wanted to stop her. I admit it. I wanted to tell her to be content with her friends and her life and the little joys that come from being with people you love and not risk getting hurt because getting hurt hurt so bad. It hurt ME so bad to see her struggle because she swam in waters that would have terrified me.

Windy wasn't afraid to take risks (and I'm talking healthy risks) and I am just not like that.

While she was a kid, I watched with wringing hands as she would get battered by swimming in the rapids of life instead of the kiddie pond.  When she became a young woman and the stakes were so much higher, I was just wild that she would get hurt. Normally, I am not in favor of prescription meds or excessive alcohol but, in hindsight, it might have made life easier on the family if I had imbibed.

Unlike her brother (or her sister) she didn't know how to protect her heart. Or so it seemed to me. One of my biggest fears was that she would abruptly reach a point where she lost her nerve and faith in herself, attributes that are such a wonderful part of who she is. We've all seen that so many times, and her openness and willingness to take risks was something I couldn't control and couldn't stop. It was like helplessly watching your child play in traffic.

She was so cute, open, generous and just so damned endearing and excited about life. I wanted to wrap her up in emotional cotton and keep her safe but she wouldn't let me. When she was little, I wanted to pound kids that were mean to her (I didn't but admit I lay awake at night and fantasized about it).   I was in a rage when her art teacher said something disparaging about one of her drawings (she was just a little thing and the drawing was actually quite good).  I was utterly unnerved when she fled to Boston for law school (over my strong objections) and I honestly don't think I was able to sleep all night for two solid years from angst.

As the years passed and she came into her own, her passion transformed into courage as wisdom became part of who she is. Her dry wit sharpened, she learned to constructively direct her fiery nature, and her generous spirit remained intact.   She is such an incredible woman and sometimes I wonder if she even understands how much she astounds me. I mean, I think she can do anything and she hasn't compromised a single bit of who she really is.

And just so you know, I am learning to deal with my worry. In fact, I have encouraged my fearless daughter to ditch the whole law thing and teach dance.

Then there is Kate, the loving little sneak with the merry heart and dancing eyes. She was a bright eyed scatterbrain as a kid, but Bill always insisted she was the smartest one in the family and if he says so, it is likely to be true. Certainly her many achievements would support that, though she's got competition from her siblings (all three are lawyers). She once abandoned her truck that broke down on the way to highschool in the middle of a residential street. She didn't call to tell us she'd left the truck until she got out of her next class (she didn't want to miss class or be late). Sigh. And yes, it was towed.

Another time, she stuck a fork in a light socket to see what would happen (Brother Bill informed her, "Congratulations, you have broken the house and now it will catch fire and kill us all while we sleep."). As I told her, later - "You had a good idea something would happen or you wouldn't have done it!" Another time, she wanted to watch feathers fly out of her pillow when she stabbed it with a fork (I don't know what it is with her and forks). The mutilated pillow was on her waterbed at the time and there were predictable side effects.

I understood Kate. She was a bit fey when she was tiny and reported seeing all kinds of shadows and spirits; routinely had dreams that came true; and strong intuition. I'd been the same way and often thought the gods knew what they were doing when they set her in a family that accepted that.

Kate's emotions are open but contained and she is easy to be around because she can deliver bad news with a sad smile, and good news with a grin.    Kate was, overall, easy going, affectionate and relaxing to be around. She was born understanding how people work and is both descerning and forgiving.   Kate in a bad mood is almost amusing - like a dog wearing a Halloween costume. Her teachers and adults loved her because she was calm, funny, polite and reasonable.

When Kate is hurt, she will sometimes tell you, sometimes not. There is a tendency to accept on faith that everything is okay simply because she is not the type to punish someone who annoys her or hurts her feelings. I wonder how many times I've said or done something insensitive that wounded her but didn't realize it because she didn't say. She is full of grace with a poise and dignity that will wear well over the years.

Kate met her husband-to-be while still in her teens and paired off early as did I (they'd been together about 8 years by the time they wed).  Like me, she tends to have a comfort level with a few close friends and family, and be content with those emotional connections.  She is completely loyal and supportive of the ones she loves.

The youngest, she was spoiled silly and got away with things her siblings wouldn't have been able to sneak past us. And of course, the fact is, we didn't watch her as closely because by the time she came along, we'd figured out that kids don't break. Plus, she generally showed good judgment. Besides, her older brother and sister would have let us know if she was getting in too deep.  Bill might have set her straight, perhaps without mentioning it to us. Windy? Windy might have told on her (Windy was such a tattle tale that she once informed us that Bill had threated to tell on HER about something, effectively busting herself).  Kate being Kate, sometimes took advantage of our cluenessness but never took it too far. She seemed born with barriers that kept her from behaving outrageously.  I used to remark that she still has the first nickle she was ever given but was happy to allow others to spend their money to pay her way. She used to swindle Windy shamelessly and Windy would let it slide (with periodic complaints). But that was then. As an adult, Kate is hardworking, talented, conscientious and dedicated to doing anything she does well.   She is brilliant, witty, loyal and as loving (and loved) as an adult as she was as a child.

Did I mention I am blessed?

Back to the Wedding Quilt. I used my favorite pattern from McCalls Magazine (February 2006) to make six more pineapple quilt blocks in the past few days.

Each block begins as a simple four patch:

You add a lighter border (1.5 inch strips) and trim them just enough for a seam allowance:

Add colors to match the four patch colors - again, 1.5 inch strips:

This pattern is so easy it is embarassing:

Trim 'em up:

You continue in this pattern (light, then trim, matching colors, then trim) and with each round, the pattern becomes more and more dynamic:

They start positively spinning:

The last step before squaring them is to add corners (using 6 inch half square triangles) that match the colors and trim the edges:

The blocks - all six of them - came out PERFECT:

These blocks haven't even been squared up:

Okay, so here comes a problem. The first blocks I made so MANY years ago, didn't come out perfect. I mean, it was back in the days of assuming following directions and straight seams were optional. I hacked them up, cobbled them together, ran big seams and little seams and it is amazing they look as good as they do.

It can be a curse to improve your stitching skills.

But what to do with these six PERFECT blocks that are too big to fit with the rest of the quilt top?

My first thought was to just hack down the new blocks to fit the old, no matter how crappy that looked or how unholy the whole procedure would be. But I just can't do it. I CAN'T. I think I will just have to view this as a design challenge.

I'll let you know what I come up with.

Happy Quilting, Penny, Evelyn and Pearl

Central Oklahoma Quilt Show and Toads

2011-06-26T22:11:00.001-05:00

I've been amazingly (for me) productive on some of my quilting projects, lately. As I've posted, a number of times in a number of places, I'd rather poke myself in the eye with a needle rather than use it to do handwork. Because of that, I get to the point of handstitching down the binding on a quilt and tend to just...stop.

Recently, I've been working on a quilt I'm giving as a gift. I didn't start it until last week. It is small, about the size of a baby quilt.

I quilted it a couple of days ago and yesterday, I actually cut out the binding, machined stitched it to the quilt and handstitched it down. ALL IN ONE DAY. I couldn't believe it. I amazed myself. I felt like doing a victory lap but it was still 95 degrees outside at nearly 10:00 AT NIGHT and I didn't want to drop dead of a heart attack before I got that sucker in the mail. After it arrives at its destination, I'll post some better photos. For now, here's a toad:

I went to the Central Oklahoma Quilt Show, this week (this is not me):

There were so many fabulous quilts. It was an excellent show and I am mad at myself for not making an effort to create a quilt to exhibit. That would have been fun. I've also lollygagged around so much that I probably won't have time to make one for the State Fair, either. I'm including a few photos.

This photo does not do this quilt justice. It won Best Use of Fabric. I think it's called Shades of the Orient:

I'm not a big fan of strip quilts but this was one of my favorite in the whole show:

If you zoom in, above, you can see that the flowers are all appliqued. Gives me vertigo to even consider it.

An innovative and dramatic use of log cabin blocks with a great job of quilting to pull it together:

I hate that I didn't get the name of this quilt but it was a beauty:

Who doesn't love batiks? Closeup:

The former First Lady of Oklahoma, Donna Nigh, gave her award for this applique quilt:

This quilt was beautifully appliqued and quilted:

Spiked stars - what a gorgeous piece of work:

Gorgeous Piece of Work: If I ever do a self portrait, I will keep that title in mind. :)

Best in Show and it deserved it:

This was painted as well as pieced and quilted. The photo doesn't show how three dimensional it looked. Just lovely:

Lot's of embroidery on this one:

A very traditional Dresden Plate:

Beautiful colors reminiscent of the thirties with scalloped edges:

Another paperpieced batik:

Loved this appliqued quilt. I wish I had it for my breakfast area:

And no, I am not going to make one. I don't do applique.

A pretty Hawaiian Quilt:

Very traditional solid colored fabric Feathered Stars. Solid colors sometimes look so bold as to be hamfisted but by feathering the stars, she made it look dainty. Beautifully quilted, too:

This is a miniature, maybe a 15 inches long? - just gorgeous:

Closeup of some YoYo's:

Little works of art:

This beauty made me tired just looking at it. The longer I look at it, the more I realize just how much is going on in there. This quilter was a master. She's perfected so many different techniques. It was incredibly intricate and gorgeous:

By my art quilt hero, Charlotte Hickman:

And these next two are by Lola Jenkins - she is a fabulous artist. I saw her standing near some quilts wearing a very fine hat but didn't take a picture of her:

I love this pattern:

Another art quilt that caught my eye:

I want this quilt to give to my Grandson, Charlie:

Maybe I will just make him one, myself.

This was a beauty, too:

It is toad season and the girls are driving us mad being constantly on the hunt.

We've begun taking a bucket out on the patio at night to rescue the ones they capture. We're using a bucket because when we put them over the fence, the little monsters come right back into the waiting jaws of death and destruction. I put grass in the bottom of the bucket to make them feel at home but that isn't enough to make them content. They sometimes still manage to leap out. I felt terrible a couple of nights ago because I set the bucket on the table and a toad leaped 18 inches to the top, over the edge and landed all the way on the concrete patio floor, landing with a clunk. It seemed to be okay but Mr. Morbid kept saying things like, "They are built like a water balloon so it probably has internal injuries and will die."

I didn't need to hear that.

My next quilting project, besides working on bindings, will probably be my younger daughter's wedding quilt. She was married over four years ago and it is about time I got back to it. It has pineapple blocks, one of my favorite blocks. After that, I have a stained glass quilt project coming up and also an art quilt I need to make for one of my online groups.

Happy Quilting, Penny, Evelyn and Pearl the toad tosser

Crayon Quilt and Fabric Foil

2011-06-17T19:54:00.001-05:00

I've been finishing up a quilt for the world's most beautiful baby, my grandson, Charlie. Charlie is only four months old but is showing every indication of having the potential of being the first perfect toddler in the history of man.

As soon as I returned home after Charlie was born, I started on a Crayon Quilt. I used my existing stash for all but the backing:

I was going to use some of my stash for the backing but when I saw this fabric, I had to have it:

Here is the border:

This is before I've stitched on the border:

It is simply quilted - just a large meander for the most part:

I've machine stitched down the binding but haven't handstitched it down, yet:

I've also been working on a project for one of my online groups where we exchange handmade gifts using materials or a theme selected by the members on a rotating basis. This time, we are supposed to use fabric foil to make something. I have no idea what I am doing with this project and am sort of floundering. I decorated a yard of fabric, thinking I could use it to prepare a gift. Here are some photos of that attempt.

The following is a photo of several fabric foil pieces, the bottle of adhesion, a sponge and some leaves I used as stamps:

These leaves came off one of the Post Oaks in the front yard:

I globbed on adhesion (glue) to the backs and used them as a stamp:

I decided that I didn't use enough glue on several of the leaves. Here is a photo of the glue while it is air drying:

I covered everything with freezer paper to keep it from getting too messy. This glue was stickier than you'd think.

This is the end result of my first effort:

The way you apply the foil is to first let the glue air dry about 2.5 hours. At that point, you cover the dried glue with a foil sheet, colored side up. Then, with an iron on the cotton setting, you use the edge and press it away from your body for several strokes. After a few seconds to let it "catch," you peel off the foil and some of it remains on the fabric:

There are several colors on each leaf because I used multiple colors on each one:

Close-ups:

I thought it was pretty, but I am not sure how I would be able to use this for this project:

As a second attempt at this project, I made a muted colored nine patch (12 inch finished block) and instead of using leaves, I used a quilting stencil and some stamps. It didn't turn out like I wanted. The frustrating part of that was that part of the block looked great but the rest looked yucky.

So after that, for a third effort, I stamped a bunch of separate pieces with a flower stamp and used different colors of foil. By doing that, I was able to pick and choose which ones I wanted to use in my project. I cut them out in smaller blocks to combine, later, but still am not sure what I am going to do with it. I'll let you know...

Happy Quilting, Penny, Evelyn and Pearl

Quilting Funk and Berry Bag

2011-06-13T10:59:00.001-05:00

For quite some time I've really been in a quilting funk and haven't been inspired about creating something with fabric. Part of that may be due to the time of the year when it is hot and I like to be outside. Additionally, I've been preoccupied with learning to use my new camera, plus we've had a lot of work being done around the house that's kept me busy.

That being said, however, in the past couple of weeks I've visited several quilt shops seeking inspiration. I finished up my son and daughter-in-law's wedding quilt (four years late); starting binding a lap quilt I made back in Virginia; ordered some materials for a group project that is due on the 15th (and clearly will be late); finished the top of my latest quilt for Grandson Charlie; and ordered some backing fabric for it. I also stitched up a little strawberry shaped bag. The bag was a Fig Tree Threads Pattern:

I've never been one to use patterns that much (they call for more discipline than I have, generally) but whenever I break down and use one, I'm usually happy with the results. Go figure - some of us are bound and determined to make life hard on ourselves, I guess. Some of us go further and make life hard on others while we're at it.

I decided to use a red fabric for the berry and quilted it using a spray on adhesive to help hold it, together. I really hate pinning things to quilt and prefer the spray when I can get away with it.

I quilted in a simple grid with white muslin for the backing. Using the template from the pattern on freezer paper, I cut out the front and back of the berry body. So far, so good:

After stitching the body, right sides together and leaving open the top, I cut pie shaped points on the edges of the quilted "berry."

The lining was from the same template, only stitched deeper so it would fit inside (that's it underneath the "berry"). I also left open an additional four inch gap to turn it, later:

After that, I used templates to make leaves. I stitched them, right sides together, leaving open the top to turn:

Per directions, I turned them and overlapped them on the top of the berry:

I've had this green fabric with the lady bugs for a long time and was glad to use it for this.

I doubled up on the amount of fabric the pattern called for so the strap would be thicker:

Here is a closeup of the leaves pinned to the body:

I discovered that pinning the leaves horizontally didn't work so well because when I tried to stitch it to the lining, the pins kept catching. I ended up having to frog stitch and redo it. The second time, I put the pins in vertically so they wouldn't catch. I also basted the top to keep the leaves flat. Here is a photo that also includes the strap (in this photo, the pins are still horizontal - I guess this was taken at the first try):

The strap is shorter than the pattern called for, just because. I took the length in the pattern simply as a "suggestion." I do that, alot.

The next step was to slide the "berry" (right sides out) into the lining. The right sides of the "berry" and the lining were facing:

You then just stitch around the top edge to catch the leaves and the straps. Here is a closeup:

It is a little tricky because the layers of the straps, seams and leaves are on the underside where you can't see them but not really hard if you're careful. And if you mess up, it's easy enough to frog stitch and redo. Once you stitch around the top, you turn it inside out through the gap left in the lining. You then stitch the gap closed. This is a photo showing turning it inside out, in progress:

TA DA!!

Where I messed up was that I should have used a lining that didn't clash with the leaves. I'd never made a purse with a lining so didn't realize that the inside would poke up, a little, over the seam. Didn't even occur to me. Were I to do it, again, I'd have used matching green fabric so it wouldn't be obvious.

I gifted Evelyn with the purse but she wasn't at all pleased about the "honor:"

Pearl took it a little better:

Here are a few photos of the bag:

See? Green or red would have been a much better color for the lining:

Live and learn.

Happy Quilting, Penny, Evelyn and Pearl

Summertime in the Country

2011-06-06T12:08:00.000-05:00

It is not officially summer but it feels like it. Oklahoma has been in such a drought that it sometimes has a dusty smell to the air more akin to August than May. Things still look lush but we are entering the dry season with little to spare in terms of refilling the water tables.

We've been overrun with turtles that are spilling out of the ground everytime we get a sprinkle of rain. The turtles tend to wander across the northern and western edges of the yard and you can sometimes see them through my sewing room window. We moved the tomato plants to that area and the soil is wetter due to the drip irrigation system rigged up by Mr. Wonderful.

The girls have taken to peering out my sewing room window to try to spot them.

If successful, they race to the door demanding to be let out. Here is a photo of Evelyn all het up over a turtle on the other side of the fence:

We've rescued one turtle after another but the girls don't seem to hold it against us. They just go look for a toad or something equally interesting. Sometimes a bug.

I should have realized this as a kid but just figured out that a good way to find a turtle is to check along a fence line or other barrier that they can't easily get through. I also never realized just what masters of camouflage turtles can be. And fast? I think all the fables I heard as a child misled me. In my mind, turtles are slow and plod along. In reality, some of them book.

We've had a crew out for the last week and a half replacing the roof on the barn.

The workers scare me to death because they are so fearless.

It is a really big job. I didn't know how big it was until I realized a crew of 5 - 6 guys were going to be working on the barn for over a week.

Here are some photos of the upstairs interior. We just use it for storage:

The guys are having to replace much of the framing because leaks for twenty years have rotted much of it. The barn's builder had kids that played tennis so they put in a small court, upstairs. The decking in many places is rotted so we don't go bouncing around upstairs chasing after tennis balls. Well, actually, even if it wasn't we still wouldn't be chasing tennis balls up there. Without the roof off, it is also pretty dark, upstairs (we need to replace the lights). The new roof will have a ridge vent that I hope will also let more natural light in.

Yesterday, we spent the afternoon at a friend's nearby 400 acre ranch. They raise goats, donkeys, chickens and various other critters:

Two brand new kids (baby goats) were missing and they speculated the coyotes got them. They keep the "attack burros" nearby to run off the coyotes but that doesn't always work.

Cushie:

The horse's name is Paleface:

Cushie is a darling but isn't much help against the coyotes, apparently.

The requisite spraying of OFF (this is not my leg):

I finally finished the wedding quilt for my son and his wife. Ahem. They were married nearly four years ago:

I began this quilt in early 2007, roughly about the time I learned my mother was dying from ovarian cancer. I knew I would be taking off work to care for her and figured I'd have enough time to finish it before the wedding in August. It didn't turn out that way. Mom passed away on Mother's Day Eve, that year, and I only completed the top in time for the wedding. Between healing up, emotionally, from losing mom; the heavy workload to catch up on after I went back to work, fulltime; grieving when I lost my dog, Jezebel (yes, that sounds silly, I know, especially when you consider I lost mom the year before); packing to move back home; followed by settling back to the good life in Oklahoma... etc., etc., I didn't finish it for four years.

But it's done now and for my next act, I should probably finish my younger daughter's wedding quilt. She's been married longer than her brother...

I go down, everyday, to the neighbor's house to see if they have any new calves. The last one came two weeks ago but as of yesterday, they were still expecting three more. I haven't checked on them, today but plan to walk down there this afternoon.

The next door neighbors just brought in a new roan filly. I can't say as she is the prettiest thing I've ever seen, but she ranks right up there with the most affectionate. I can't walk by their house without her coming over to get a scratch.

I've not been blogging too much, these days because, not only do I have little to write about, my days have been happily filled with living the good, slow, summer life.

Happy Quilting, Penny, Evelyn and Pearl

Springtime and Babies

2011-05-22T16:19:00.003-05:00

Mr. Wonderful has been back in DC for most of the month (coming home on the weekends, sometimes for less than 18 hours) and that means I've been extra busy with chores. He has another week to go and after that, things should get back to normal. The first week he was gone the dogs were most unhappy. It has gotten easier since then. I made the unfortunate comment that I was beginning to feel single and for some reason, that didn't sit well with the Mister.

Springtime has been a delight, as always, although it's been so dry that I was beginning to get concerned about how the hoofed animals were going to find grass due to the drought. We have some beautiful horses across the street that were in a pasture with no shade and no grass. Moreover, they were tearing up the fence along the street attempting to reach grass.
Isn't she a beauty?

You can see how the pasture she's in is stripped bare and she is on the verge of yanking down that flimsy fence to reach more food:

She was trying to climb the fence:

There were four horses in her pasture. The beautiful black mare, a palomino, a dark brown gelding and this pretty chestnut paint:

She's a pretty thing:

The dark brown paint gelding is my favorite:

Next door to us is Mr. Horse (whose real name, I believe, is Buck). He is a character. He knows how to get out of his fence, sometimes, and will show up in our yard where he wants to play chase but will run back to his house if he can get you to follow him. He plays with Evelyn up and down the fence and will whiney and run alongside his fence when trucks pulling livestock drive by his house. He probably should have a friend in the pasture to keep him company. They usually run cattle but this year it has been so dry that at least three neighbors who usually do that have skipped it rather than pay for hay.

Here's the dark brown paint gelding and his friend, the pretty chestnut paint. Neither is as flashy as the black mare but I like a horse with a little more umph in his body like the gelding has. He is a complete sweetheart, though they are all friendly.

Two doors down our neighbor has five cows and three heifers. They are Red Angus. Two of the cows have new babies and the other three are due at any moment:

I love her pasture:

Old Rex, age 32 if you can believe that, lives with the cows and they consider him part of the herd:

This beauty is one of the heifers and has a twin:

Here's her twin! Not sure where those horns came from but there must have been a strange bull behind the woodpile that wasn't Red Angus:

Yes, cows can have horns.

Here is the palomino in the stripped pasture:

Pearlie:

The chestnut paint and the gelding are good friends and like to stay near each other:

Happily, the neighbors spoke the lady who owns the property about the lack of grazing and since then, she's moved them next door to another pasture that has plenty of hay.

Evelyn is quite the toad and turtle catcher. This one wasn't hurt. I took it away from her right away. She didn't appreciate it but I'm sure the turtle did. Well, he probably cussed both of us out in turtle talk but I can take it.

Spring is in the air for the bugs, too:

I don't have a photo but the bluebirds have nested in one of my bluebird boxes and laid five perfect eggs. We were walking by the birdbox to check out our sick Caddo Maple and mama bird flew out and nearly took off Mr. Wonderful's hat. It was a hoot (he laughed, too). I've learned to slow down and let her get out of the box before I cross in front of her in order to avoid a collision.

And speaking of my Caddo Maples, the one out in the pasture was looking pretty sick. Mr. Wonderful pronounced it terminal, probably from lack of water, and we got into a heated discussion about it. He kept saying (and saying) it was dead and that I needed to face that cold hard truth. I kept telling him I didn't want to hear about it and wasn't willing to give up on the thing. It didn't cost anything to try to save it and it was good exercise. If it was dead, he could say I told you so but in the meantime, I didn't want to hear any gloom and doom. We reached a compromise that I didn't care if he said "it sure doesn't look too good" but I didn't want to hear anymore comments about it being dead. I heard about two thousand variations of "It sure doesn't look too good," often tacked onto the tail end of a sentence so that it went something like, "This tree is dead, oh wait, it ISN'T DEAD but BUT IT SURE DOESN'T LOOK TOO GOOD," or "This tree is dead, oh wait, it ISN'T DEAD but is sure has a lot of dead leaves on it like it is dying." Or, "This tree is dead, oh wait, it ISN'T DEAD but it looks just like every tree I ever had that was dead." Or, "This tree is dead, oh wait, it ISN'T DEAD but most rational people would think so from the looks of it..."

Hrmph.

I lost track of how many buckets of water I carted back there. Mr. Wonderful finally picked up a soaker hose to save me a few steps. Then we started worrying that we'd given it too much water since Caddos don't like to be fussed over (although since Mr. Wonderful kept insisting it was dead, already, I personally think he didn't need to even speak up). I accused him of hedging his death bets so that NOW he could claim I'd drowned it if it died. At any rate, I quit giving it so much water.

Last week, I took in some leaves and a bunch of photos to the county extension to see if they could give me some advice. The diagnosed it with Southwest Disease (sun scald from having the bark exposed during the winter). They theorize that it isn't diseased and lack of water had nothing to do with it. It was just weakened from the injury and prone to wind damage and bug attacks. They said it would lose a growing season, most likely, but should be okay and start looking fine by the end of June. And to quit watering it.

I was very happy to hear that. Of course, now Mr. Wonderful and I don't have anything to talk about other than the fact that, "Huh. It SURE LOOKS DEAD." At this point, however, I really don't care what he says about it.

The humingbirds are swarming the feeders I've set out on the patio:

They sure fight all the time.

We are finally getting into a more typical spring weather pattern. Last week we got an inch and a half of rain and three days ago we got over four inches. Here are some photos of a thunderhead that blew up to the east of us, last night:

This monster popped up in about 20 minutes from just about nothing. We didn't get any rain from it because it was east of us and heading in that direction. But it was gorgeous to watch form.

As the sun set, you could see massive lightning all through it:

Several times a day I head down to check on my cow friends to see if they've had another calf but so far, nuthin.'

I keep thinking that the storms we have blowing through will tip the scale in favor of labor but to be honest, those cows are so huge that I don't think they can hold back much longer, regardless:

My birdcam died and I haven't been doing much quilting. Grandson rolled over for the first time and my son sent a video of the second time he managed which thrilled me to death.

Off to check on my cow friends.

Happy Quilting, Penny, Evelyn and Pearl

The Feminine Mystique - Squandered

2011-05-05T15:48:00.002-05:00

From time to time, I am reminded of how blind I can be. By that, I mean that, although I look at things around me, chances are I actually interpret what I see by what I'm told I'm looking at. In other words, I see what I expect to see. Tell me a pretty story, or an ugly one, about something I can see with my own eyes and have experienced in my own life and I'll still often substitute what I see for the tale I'm told.

I might as well be controversial, today.

We live in a time when people compete with themselves and others to come up with abstract, psychological theories for what amounts to predictable, mundane human behavior.

I think this comes from watching too much daytime television.

"He wouldn't settle down because he feared commitment," for example. Frankly, given the widespread prevalence of this mental state, it is probably better explained not by some psychological problem, but by the fact that he likely jumped into a convenient, comfortable, short-term emotional and sexual "relationship" because it was easy. He jumped out of it just as abruptly because he never had to commit, long-term, in the first place - it was primarily about euphoria that he could indulge in without worrying about the long term. Frankly, he has a smorgasbord of delectable options available to him at any given moment with ladies who (initially) aren't as likely to criticize him when he drinks too much or leaves his dirty underwear on the bathroom floor.  Or the den. Or the car. His "fear of commitment" probably isn't a psychological flaw, although if you are the one left out in the cold, attributing his behavior to a personality flaw instead of facing the truth about a situation is tempting. But let's be candid - Instead of attributing his lack of commitment to a fear of commitment, the real question might be, "Why would someone expect a long term commitment from a man who only agreed to a short term one?"

Been there, done that. It is a type of insanity.

These days, many women insist they aren't looking for a serious, long-term relationship. They either do this sincerely, or because to do so would end the relationship before it started.  If they fall in love or otherwise change their minds (or were lying in the first place), they are left with the task of convincing Romeo to change the whole terms of the relationship - generally just about the time the euphoria that led him into it in the first place is fading.

Good luck with that.

Unless he is a traditional fellow, marriage, these days, it no longer something that makes a lot of sense to many men - at least at an early age. Modern women (and I count my generation as part of this) have managed to create an atmosphere where a young woman who wants to lay the foundation for a long-term, traditional relationship is deemed embarrassingly needy if it gets out what she is up to. Unless she is a goddess, marries young or lives in a small town, she risks being put on a shelf if she starts having such expectations/hopes too openly.

And most men, let's face it, who are dating a woman who claims she doesn't want anything long-term are still waiting for the other shoe to drop. And if she decides long-term is the direction she wants to go but he hasn't indicated he feels the same, she will often still pretend nothing has changed for fear he will drop her.

Sad.

I'm not saying that all women are out for marriage. But the fact is, many, from the beginning, are confident that if they change their mind and want more, later, they'll be better able to convert a short term relationship to a long term one since they'll already have their foot in the door. The illogic of this escapes many and often amounts to wishful thinking. Moreover, it breeds dishonesty, distrust, unequal power in a relationship and broken hearts. Face it, relationships built on a lie are hard to maintain, much less change significantly. It can be done but it isn't easy and the odds are against it.

Frequently, the guys who "fear commitment" finally decide as they approach their mid thirties that they are ready for traditional marriage.  All too often instead of the woman they are dating, they opt to marry a younger woman who hasn't had her heart stomped on for the past ten years.  It's crazy but common and there are reasons for it beyond the shallow.

Most don't marry her just because she is young and pretty. If that were the case, they'd have married women their own age ten years ago.   They marry her because they don't have the energy to keep chasing after women and they want someone with a heart that isn't covered with callouses, who is honest about what she wants.  And let's be frank - a younger woman is generally far more pliable and willing to put up with his nonsense, plus be more dependent on him financially and otherwise.  Anyone who thinks most men interested in marriage don't want a wife (as opposed to a girlfriend) who has certain traditional qualities is ignoring the fact that marriage, itself, is a traditional institution.   I don't think this applies so much when two people grow up together, but when a man marries a younger woman (at least a man prior to the age of incontinence) he's generally looking for someone who thinks he hung the moon.

But why don't so many men who abruptly decide they want to marry just stay with the woman they're with? I think that is the trap many women fall into when they assume they can always renegotiate. I think many modern women have accepted the script that what you do is go for the short term, shop around to find someone you like, go monogamous without committing (a kind of trial marriage, frequently including living together) and then marriage or long-term commitment is the next logical step.

Er, no.  It doesn't always work that way. It doesn't even usually work out this way.

Most men aren't interested in emotional drama and it is easier to get a fresh start with a fresh thrill, than to sort out and renegotiate a relationship in which they've both been telling each other lies about what they want out of life. Moreover, unless they are madly, passionately in love, renegotiating at that point results in simply settling for the same person who has been nagging them to pick up their socks.  Don't kid yourself - men want/need to be respected by their wife. It is part of their DNA.   As the country song goes, the grown woman they've been dating for any length of time knows he was raised on a farm and generally isn't shy about reminding him.

I've been told that a woman's power is in her sexuality and that we women lose that power as we age. We allegedly become invisible. I know there is some truth to that but as I reach a certain age, I think, more and more, that "story" was written by someone on the young side of the change. As I get older, I find that as my waist line widens, an emotional fog is lifting. Where once I worried about reaching the age where I looked like a Granny (a fate I secretly considered worse than death), I now look at young women and actually feel sorry for them, in a way. So many are a mass of insecurities, rushing about trying to meet the expectations and conflicting needs of their husband/boyfriend/child/friends/employers/parents/society. Emotionally, they are on a hormonal roller coaster. Many are exhausted. Cultural expectations of female beauty have them stressing over an extra half pound.

They've been born in an age, goddess help them, where they are constantly competing with other women for male attention with male fantasy setting the standard. Being in a committed relationship doesn't change that, all that much. They might as well be living in a harem. A woman's sexuality is power? I think perhaps not. Not anymore. In many ways, it is a trap. They get attention, yes, until the next best thing comes along. It is a game most can't win unless you throw love into the mix. But many consider love optional. And for many, relationships as recreation is the only game in town.

I recall a conversation I had with my grandmother (I called her Mimmom) back in the dark ages when I was in my early twenties. She was a stupendously vain woman, born in 1914, who always dressed to the nines and felt it was her obligation as a woman to have every man in the room panting at her feet. Amazingly, even in her seventies when she was toothless; skinny as a stick; had boney, knobby arthritic knees and fingers; and was lacking a breast she usually managed to pull this off. I recall that even though she made the most of "woman power," she told me that she was disgusted at how society had come to demand that, to be valued by men, young women had to be slim and beautiful.

My grandmother said that when she was a girl, there were always the pretty ones, of course - the belles of the ball - but no one expected everyone to be like that. It was perfectly fine to be thick waisted, heavy hipped, flat chested, slightly pudgy (pleasingly plump) and have a less than perfect nose or teeth. The notion was that if you were in the normal range of size (due to lifestyle and cultural differences, obesity was relatively uncommon in the young and not really considered a figure flaw so much as a character flaw), a good personality was what made the difference in finding a long term relationship. It helped to have a pretty face. Figure flaws were normal - they weren't considered flaws, at all. In terms of how her society viewed a particular woman's figure/looks she was distressed at the modern change. As she said, "When I was young it didn't matter - it was just how we were made."

Mimmom, the queen bee, would have been eaten alive if she had been raised in this age.

Perhaps.

She told me that in her day, women were taught to fix their hair and nails, and choose clothing and makeup that enhanced their own particular face and figure. I recall once that the subject of breast augmentation arose and she was disgusted at the thought. "I would just wear a padded bra!" she insisted, "The only person who would see my breasts [breast, singular, in her case] would be my husband, anyway."

I recall thinking that this seemed a little naive. Perhaps her husband might stray to a woman with a finer chest. Looking back, I realize that she'd managed to reach her mid seventies without feeling the need to worry about that sort of thing. She wasn't raised in a world where dieting and obsession with food choices were front row center - day in and day out. In fact, dieting or eating were never even on the radar in my house growing up (she raised me, so I know).

Mimmom didn't come to adulthood in a world where she was privy to constant critiques by men (and women) of the bodies of women - is she too fat, her butt too flat, her waist too thick, her thighs too heavy? Such conversations, in her day, would have been considered coarse and shallow. Had she been subjected to them, day in and day out, as modern women are, she might have started to worry about her flat behind and skinny legs (she had the ugliest legs I ever saw, btw). I suspect she would have felt diminished as a result and all that sultry self confidence and raw sexual aura she oozed would have vanished. How sad to think that, but for the times, she'd have considered herself to be a boney old stick instead of a powerful, sexy woman.

What a crime to give others that kind of power over us. How it diminishes us as women. We are living in an age where women have more financial and political power, are better educated, have more choices than ever and yet, we are judged more by our appearances than ever. By men and women, alike.

My grandmother lived in a different world. Think about how so many women, these days, worry themselves sick that their significant other might abandon them for someone more attractive. There is something horribly wrong with the direction things have gone.

The thing is, physical beauty fades. Mimmom's generation wisely recognized that healthy women are simply built differently, depending on the individual. They didn't tie their innate worthiness to their body shape. What mattered was character and personality, in the long run. The current emphasis on an ideal of physical beauty - and the constant competition between women for the attention of men who treat them like the dessert buffet at the Chinese restaurant - is just such a shame.

I once had a conversation with a man who said that as a young man he used to get Playboy magazines.

My style of Playboy Bunny:

He said that for years, each month the centerfold was built like a real woman - and they were all different. At a certain point, abruptly, all the centerfolds started looking the same. Same measurements, shapes of breasts, etc. According to him, it got boring in short order.  Other than the complexion, it was the same girl, month after month. He'd been much more interested in real, pretty women than in mass market produced, airbrushed dolls but realized that the Playboy centerfold model had become what men expected as a female ideal and the magazine was going to cater to that.

Back to my grandmother. As I said, she was vain. She slathered on the face cream as she aged and if you looked at her ears, you could see that she'd had a facelift. Or two. So I don't want to overstate the case to make it sound as if women of her generation weren't prone to their own vanities and insecurities.   But the thing is, what worried her was aging.  Her generation believed youth - no matter the shape short of the grotesque - equaled beauty.

I find it rather sad that what we do to our women, these days, is perhaps even worse. The notion that a young, healthy woman would, even should, go to the extremes we see, these days, would astonish my grandmother. To Mimmom, healthy youthfulness, no matter the body type, was beautiful. She was right.   Telling a healthy young woman that her body isn't good enough, IMO, is no better than telling a little girl she is ugly.  It's mean and whoever would suggest such a thing is blind.

As a side note, I 've had, ahem, spirited discussions with one of my girls about obesity. She, bless her, passionately defends the beauty of any woman's body and I love her for being that way. Where she and I differ is that I view obesity/anorexia as an unhealthy medical condition that could kill the woman and will likely significantly impact her quality of life. While the woman's soul may be beautiful, I am hard pressed to find an unhealthy body to be a beautiful thing. And yet, to show just how contradictory I am being, my beautiful Great Grandmother (Mimmom's mother) weighed over 300 pounds most of her adult life and had gorgeous hair, gorgeous eyes, and centerfold worthy legs. Adding to how contradictory I am being, the woman had three husbands and lived to her nineties.

More controversy:

IMO, the value placed upon the appearance of our bodies has been part of the price we women have paid for being willing to lower the bar on what we expect from relationships.

I'm not calling for a return to abstinence but anyone who thinks that women, as a group, can be free and relatively indiscriminate with their charms and not end up being diminished, as a group, isn't seeing. By allowing sex to be such a common activity involving people we don't love and who don't love us, who don't feel an obligation beyond politeness to cherish and be loyal to us, we've contributed to allowing society to define us by our bodies. We contributed to turning personal relationships into recreation (some would go so far as turning it into sport). WE have entrusted an essential part of who we are to people who, frankly, don't appreciate it (or us). We might as well be a bottle of ketchup that can be grabbed off the shelf at the local Wal-Mart. We all love ketchup on our fries - it is delicious - but it is easy to replace and the generic is just about as good as the Heinz. And cheaper.

We deserve better. And by that, I mean we too often settle for men who don't appreciate that when they hold us in their arms, they hold more than just our bodies.

But here's another thing. Being a good person is not the same thing as being physically beautiful. And for that matter, being physically beautiful is not the same thing as being sexually attractive. A lined, elderly face, a mother scarred by stretch marks, a wounded veteran in a wheelchair, the posture of a devout in prayer, the energy rippling from a bulldog when his owner returns home, a plain woman in the eyes of her beloved - all these are beautiful.

In contrast, my grandmother, who was not physically beautiful as we expect, today, was incredibly sexually attractive. Even I could see it as a young girl. And she knew enough about human nature - and men - to not allow her imperfect body to be the focus of attention and detract from her... power. When they talk about the power of female sexuality, she had it in spades. Of course, she was raised in a generation of men who were held in check by self confident women who expected more from their men than dinner and a movie.

I need chocolate.

Happy Quilting, Penny, Evelyn and Pearl

Yeah, Baby!!

2011-04-26T13:26:00.003-05:00

Just got back from the Big Apple where I spent Easter with Charlie and my kids.

I have never left home for more than three days without becoming miserably homesick. This time? I had to drag myself out the door to leave. Good thing the plane was late.

I'll just post some pictures - still unpacking, doing laundry and mentally catching up.

I suspect this facial expression is one he won't lose as he grows up:

Charlie adores his Daddy:

One of my favorite photos:

He's a happy baby.

It is a show stopping treat to listen to Bill sing to his son. His voice is like honey poured over flame.

Charlie and his Aunt Kate:

That face!

Martin, Charlie and his dad, Bill:

He loves his bath. Here is one taken while his Mom bathed him:

Easter outfit:

It was wonderful to see all the kids while I was there but most of the photos are of Charlie.

I hated leaving Charlie but his parents and aunties are taking loving care of him.

Charlie with his thrilled Grandma:

Happy Quilting, Penny, Evelyn and Pearl