July 09 quilt reteat

Material Magic, New Hampton Iowa, held their quilt retreat at the Dairy Barn Bed and Breakfast. The 3 days seemed to fly past yet many of the quilters completed their projects. Table runners, quilts and purses were on the agenda this year.

Some of the photos (45) I took are in the album. I had a quick lesson on loading photos in an album that I could attach to my blog. Hope it all works right.

Cold July 09

Out side my front door... flowers and weeds. Don is Mr Chemical Man and got out his sprayer and took care of the weeds in the rocks and between the cracks in the patio. Donya and Don went berserk at the Mennonite green house this spring, and we have lots of flowers across the front of the patio and in containers everywhere. Alfie has been ever so good as to not dig them up. If we were having normal hot July weather, I'm sure the story would be much different.

This is a record setting cold July for Iowa. The high was only 61 degrees a few days ago. The flowers are huddled up trying to keep warm.

I am preparing for another quilt retreat, getting menus made and food prepared as much ahead of time as is possible. Discovered I had forgotten to buy a couple items when Don and I went to town yesterday. It is a pity that we drove 50 miles to the store and forgot 2 important parts of our meals. grrrrrr This retreat starts Thursday and ends Sunday afternoon.

Summer on the farm

After healing from the terrible antler scruffing a deer gave our baby Linden tree,(Don announced he did not think our Linden tree was going to make it, due to all the bark being 'eaten' off by some animal) it survived and was loaded with the sweetest smelling flowers this summer.
I did not have time to make tea with the blossoms this time, but look forward to leisurely cups of tea next season. Woo Hoo! I no longer have to make hay. I guess that is one thing good about getting old.

Fred collects Alles Chalmers tractors, and likes to play with them in his 'big sand box'. He was cutting and baling our water way grasses, and several farm folks with small bits of hay and grass ground asked him to cut and bale their hay. Large operators want no part of dinking around with small patches of ground, so Fred has found a nitch to play around with his old equipment.

He feeds some of his hay to these guys. Perhaps they will be big enough for the freezer late this fall. He feeds some of the hay to our (his) 4 horses. But he seems to have a little left to bargain with. It is a nice hobby and would be better if he did not have hay fever.

During our farming years I really hated hay making for the herd of Brown Swiss Dairy Cows. It seemed a lightening and thunderstorm would come up as we had all the wagons loaded with baled hay. No way could we leave them out in the yard to get rained on. Many times I would be on the wagon, throwing those bales into the conveyer with lightening much closer then I had ever wanted to see it. Yep, I am ever so glad those days are behind me, and I survived.