Rain

Thank You Lord for the 2.5" of rain this week.  My flowers are having a renewal and blooming like crazy.

I thought i had lost my butterfly bush over the winter but look it is blooming and coming back, now to get some cool dry temps to get that blasted grass out of the beds.

 Oh look I have Smurfs in the yard after all that rain.

Goodwill Outlet Store

One of the ladies in my Fiber Follies group told us about this Goodwill Outlet Store just about 20 minutes from my house, so today I ventured over there.  I felt like  I needed a shower when I left however I did find some stuff but I wont go back.  They have big bins like trash bins with stuff just thrown in.  I did not want to touch anything but there was one with some furniture in it. I like lots of little tables in my house to stack books and yarn on and got 2 but they need sanded and re-stained and one little piece glued back on.  I also found a rocker that needs to be painted, but those will be winter projects and all 3 pieces for $15.

4 Years and I Still Look For You

This is Little Bit. He was my feral tom who was fierce.  He beat up anything that entered his yard. There were months that would go by and I would not see him but then he would show up again.  Towards the end he got so thin and his coat looked so bad.  I think the heat got to him and his age.  He is the dad to my two inside and my feral girl is his last child.  I hope you know how much I loved you and worried over you.  I know you are with the rest of the cats, just remember Garfield is always in charge. 

Has it Been Six Years Already?

I lost my tom 6 years ago today.  It does not seem like it has been that long.  My youngest and Harry were the best of friends.  They played a lot and I know she still goes looking for him.  He had diabetes and it got the best of him. He was the sweetest boy and boy was he ever vocal. I got him from a friend at work whose son was allergic.  So I had him for 11 years but forever in my heart.

Yarn Bombing

I certainly hope the FBI or SS does not come visit me if they see the word bombing.  Why do they have to use the word bomb with yarn?

Anyhoo, the Fiber Follies group at the Irish Center is going to venture out and yarn bomb Browne's Irish Market who were the victims of a hate crime earlier in the year.  We are making buildings and houses and a church in a row to make a street.  Our purpose is to show some support from one Irish business to another.  We will be hanging shamrocks and hearts from the tree and wrapping the pole out front.

This will be a big undertaking and we have about 11 interested in putting this together.  So I will keep updated with our progress.  We do hope to get some media attention and who knows what we may work on after this.  Expected installation date is March 1 2019. 

D27

D27 has been getting the heck out of Dodge, they think due to the wildfires.  She needs to come home and not leave the country.  She must be tired after her long flight.

D27 is on the move! She flew 312.8 miles SE between August 8th and August 12th, moving with some urgency (Brett's words) from Magiss to Buckingham Lake.
Broken down by day, her journey looks like this:
8/8/2018 | 114.7 miles | 14 hours and 58 minutes
8/9/2018 | 71.6 miles | 3 hours
8/10/2018 | 4.3 miles | N/A
8/11/2018 | 89.2 miles | 6 hours
8/12/2018 | 33 miles | 6 hours

She traveled for a total of roughly 30 hours, giving her an average speed of a little over 10 miles per hour. Her average speed per day was about 7 miles per hour on August 8, 23 miles per hour on August 9, about 15 miles per hour on August 11, and 5.5 miles per hour on August 10. Her longest day was August 8. She started flying at 8:27AM CT and didn't stop until sometime shortly before 11:25PM CT. That's a long day! Note that the days (as defined by daylight length) are still pretty long at this latitude. True night doesn't start until 11:36PM and lasts for just three hours and ten minutes.
So what was going on? As we mentioned in our last post, she may have been fleeing fire and smoke from fires in California, British Columbia, and western Ontario. Air quality alerts were issued for the areas she traveled through on August 8 and 9, and her flights on August 8 and August 9 indicate (as Brett put it) some urgency. I haven't yet been able to get archived satellite maps of the area for those two days, but NASA has a fire and smoke section that is both fascinating and disturbing. Check it out here: https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/fires/main/index.html
. As always, thanks to Brett and the staff of Eagle Valley for sharing their maps and data with us. You can follow the travels of all the eagles we've tracked on our interactive map at: https://www.raptorresource.org/learning-tools/eagle-map/
. Stay safe, D27 - and please check in soon!

Mrs Wilson's Knitting Circle

Yesterday's lecture was about the hand made items and souvenirs.  Souvenirs were mass produced for the Americans to send home to commemorate the War.  There is some beautiful hand work on many of these items.

 The blue item actually opened up to hold your hankies.  The item on the upper right is one of a very few items from Russia  The other two items are embroidered hankies.

 This was part of a tea set cross stitched on linen.  The picture below were the coasters and napkins to complete the set.

 This was my favorite piece.  Someone took a black and white photo and embroidered some color onto it.

It's a Boy or Girl

We found out this morning April the giraffe is pregnant again and Tajari will be a big brother next year.  So just like the eagle eggs we watch every Spring, we are on baby giraffe watch again only it will be a long watch.

On a sad note I had to give away most of my plants.  My youngest likes to eat them and get sick, so when I looked up plants that will make a cat sick, well all but my violets, christmas cactus and orchid had to go.  I was just gonna pitch them and keep my yuge aloe vera on the deck til winter, but my sweet niece posted on the HOA facebook page and the girls next door took them all.  So they are close by and they will have a good home. For now the house has empty spots that I need to fill.  But my babies hopefully will not be sick so much. 

Fabric is the new Coffee

Have you bought fabric lately, well we are getting short changed.  Remember when they made coffee and sugar smaller but still charged the  same price?  Also ice cream?  Fabric is now on the bandwagon.  I went in search of some simple cotton shirts and cotton dresses to wear to church.  They pretty don't exist unless you want to pay $60 at Kohl's.  Don't think so.  I decided to get my patterns out and make myself some clothes.  I started looking at cotton fabric, really $10/yard and it is no longer 44/45" wide.  When I got out my tape measure it was 40".  So if the pattern says I need 2 yards for 44/45" how do I figure what I need for 40"?  The patterns have not caught up to the shortage of fabric width.  I always but a little more than I need because of shrinkage, but now how do you know how much to get?  At $10/yard now you are paying quite a bit for a shirt if you need buttons or zippers and other things then the price becomes as much in the store.  I also want a short sleeve not those cap sleeves they put on shirts now, one that comes to within a couple of the crease in my elbow. 
What happened to clothes, why can't I find a reasonably priced decent shirt or dress. I don't want clingy, see through with my shoulders showing or most of my upper arm.  I feel like my dad who wishes we had some of the things back when I was much younger.
So for now I bought fabric on sale with coupons and am making a muslim pattern to see how much I really need and how it fits.  Oh yea when did darts come back?  I hate darts.

Off to go something that does not require me to do anything but sew straight seams and hem things.

 

Step Outside The Box

I am painting my dining room sage green with the chair rail in a rich vanilla bean ice cream color.  I have been searching for fabric for the curtains for several months now. I found some I like but it was $40 yard and needing 5 yards I was not going to pay that much for it, so back to searching again.  My niece and I were in Kohl's the other day and while she was trying on clothes I went looking.  Something led me to the tablecloths.  Well there it was in  the clearance area no less.  I took a picture and texted her and we both agreed it was the perfect fabric.  (I am going back to see if there are 2 more as I am painting my living a teal color and they will go perfect in there as well.)  All I had to do was put a deep hem in the top to go over the curtain rod.  Yes they are a bit long, but who cares, so altogether it cost me about $20 for my curtains, much better than $200 plus sewing them.  And they are very wash and wear.  The top of the wall will be sage green also, just painting the layers one at a time.

Making the House Ready for the Lord

I recently discovered a new blog: Ms. Sam Wears Dresses.  She posted this and I thought it was perfect.

Making the House Ready for the Lord

by Mary Oliver

Dear Lord, I have swept and I have washed but
still nothing is shining as it should be
for you. Under the sink, for example, is an
uproar of mice- it is the season of their
many children. What shall I do? And under the eaves
and through the walls the squirrels
have gnawed their ragged entrances- but it is the season
when they need shelter, so what shall I do? And
the racoon limps into the kitchen and opens the cupboard
while the dog snores, the cat hugs the pillow;
what shall I do? Beautiful is the new snow falling
in the yard and the fox who is staring boldly
up the path, to the door. And still I believe you will
come, Lord; you will, when I speak to the fox,
the sparrow, the lost dog, the shivering sea-goose, know
that really I am speaking to you whenever I say,
as I do all morning and afternoon: Come in,  Come in.

National Eagle Day

It is National Eagle Day and if you watch the Decorah Nest they are having a fundraiser for RRP who allows us to view the nest and the miracles of nature.

Observed each year on June 20th is National American Eagle Day.  This day is set aside to honor our national symbol, raise awareness for protecting the Bald Eagle, assist in the recovery of their natural environments and take part in educational outreach.
The Bald Eagle is both the national bird and the national animal of the United States of America and appears on its Seal.
In the latter 20th century, the Bald Eagle was on the brink of extinction in the continental United States.  Eventually, populations recovered and on July 12, 1995, the species was removed from the U.S. Federal Government’s List of Endangered Species and transferred to the List of Threatened Species. On June 2007, it was withdrawn from the List of Endangered and Threatened Wildlife in the Lower 48 States.
The Bald Eagle’s range includes most of Canada, Alaska, all of the contiguous United States and northern Mexico.  They can be found near large bodies of open water where there is an abundant food supply and old-growth trees for nesting.

Opportunistic feeders, Bald Eagles survive mainly on fish, swooping down and snatching them from the water.  Their nests are the largest nests of any North American bird and the largest tree nests ever recorded for any animal species. The largest recorded eagle’s nest was found in St. Petersburg, Florida.  It measured 9.5 feet in diameter and 20 feet deep.  It weighed in at nearly 3 tons.
The name “Bald Eagle” derives from an older meaning of “white headed” as the bird is actually not bald.  The adult eagle is mainly brown with a white head and tail.

We miss you Dad

Love

Defeating Dementia

I don't generally tell people about books I read because reading a book is like buying a purse, you need to read what you want and make up your own mind if it is good or not.  However there is a book out called Defeating Dementia by Richard Furman.  I could not put it down.  While there are a few medical terms, I could still understand what was said.
My father is 94 and has dementia, so cruel that his mind is all jumbled up and most days not there.  He is also very hard of hearing even with the hearing aids and so conversations are very difficult for him.  Half the time he answers what he thinks is said and then he gets a confused look and says I did not answer your question did I?  We laugh about it and move on.
The purpose of the book is that you can do a lot to stop yourself from getting dementia by exercising and diet.  Gee seems we have heard that before exercise and diet are good for you.  I dont excercise, I tell myself I live in a 2 story house with a basement and run up and down the stairs all day and I do yardwork during spring, summer and fall.  I don't need to exercise but I am wrong, I don't get an aerobic or cardio workout by taking a load of laundry up the stairs. 
Food means i can't eat much I love such as cheese, butter, sour cream, ice cream, pork chops, hamburgers, muffins, pancakes, syrup, jelly, you get the point.  Fish, chicken and fruits and vegetables are the diet.  The statistics in the book and reading of how the placque is formed to increase the chances of dementia is enough to make me realize I need to do some changes.  After watching my father I really don't want to ever get there, that is not living.  My dad gets so frustrated cos he can't do much these days, it is just awful and cruel.
If you want to read I suggest to do so but follow through.  I see too many of the elders in church getting dementia and it makes me want to go home and hide out so I never have to deal with it again.  Plus I don't want my niece to have to deal with me like that. 
I know no one is guaranteed not to get something but I am gonna take the chance that I can do some things to try my best to prevent it.