Fresh Air and Fresh Findings

Ahhh, fresh air at last. It’s either been too cold or too rainy to spend much time outdoors, but finally we had a break and I have been out playing with the dogs with my new ball gun that shoots a tennis ball clear across the yard for the dogs to chase.  They do love the game. I think Molly would play it forever. Belle gets tired and starts to cheat and run a little bit toward the ball and then run back with Molly to get the treat.  I’ve got your number, Belle. But she always gets a treat, too, because she is so cute.  Today we are getting  rain and snow again.   If nothing else, the weather sure changes around here.

We are on the right side of winter now.  When I go outside I can smell Spring coming.  And around the garden, the flowers are awakening.

The Hellebore is ready to bloom.

Daffodils are pushing their heads above the soil.  In a month or so the garden will be a mass of yellow blooms.

This time of year the birds even sound differently. Soon we will have to watch for the Sandhill Cranes coming back north. They always fly above our house every year.  I don’t know how we got so blessed.  You have to be outside at the right time to hear them. Their call is like if you take your tongue and flutter it against the roof of your mouth.  They fly in large groups and sometimes there are more than one group.   They are heading to Camp Atterbury, an army base near us, where they will stay for a time at a lake there.   David worked at Camp Atterbury for several years and I use to take the kids swimming at the pool there every Summer.  There is an outlook you can climb and see Canadian geese in the water below. Geese don’t migrate like I remember them doing when I was a girl. Now they stick around all Winter.  I taught the boys to drive on the roads at Camp Atterbury because there wasn’t much traffic there at the time. Still scared me out of my wits!    Camp Atterbury was once a prisoner of war camp for German soldiers during WWll.  The old barracks were still there when we first moved here over forty years ago, but through the years and the wars in the Middle East, the camp has been restored to its former glory with new barracks and roads and fences.   Sometimes we can hear the soldiers as they train firing their weapons and once in a while huge planes fly over  practicing touching down and taking off at our local airport.

While searching for material for my Bullseye quilts, which I’ve become obsessed with, I discovered a quilt I had started years ago.  The pattern was in this magazine dated 2005, so that is probably when I started it.

I had it all cut out.  It was funny because I had been thinking about this particular quilt a while back wondering what had happened to it. I also wondered why I had not come across it last Summer when I was going through all my fabric boxes.  But it was a nice surprise, almost like Christmas and I have cut out a few more blocks for it to add some of my newer fabrics into the mix and I am having so much fun sewing it together.

I  am never happier than when my cutting table looks like this.

And I am so happy to have several projects going at a time.  If I get bored with one, I can lay it aside and work on another.    I have so many projects I want to make.

I’m going to have to hurry up because outside days are coming.

I completed this little quilt and am ready to quilt it.

Another one of Kathleen Tracy’s patterns.  Love her little quilts.

This brings me to the show on tv, Hoarders.  David said one time I was getting ready to look like a hoarder with all the fabric piled on my cutting table, but what he doesn’t understand is, this is how I work.  I get a lot of fabric out, go through it and get what I need, and then I finally put it all away. Now my table is organized again.   I watch the Hoarders only to make me want to keep from being a hoarder. I watched one particular show one evening, and I had just cleaned out my refrigerator, but after that show, I wanted to clean out my refrigerator again!   I don’t like to shop, so I don’t think I would ever get as bad as some of the hoarders do.  Most shop all the time and bring things home and toss them on the pile.  I only buy something I really need or know I will use a lot.   Of course, that’s what some of the hoarders say, too!

Being in my nice, warm sewing shop with my trusty dogs beside me on a cold, rainy day, sewing on a quilt, is the best thing I could be doing. Oh, I could be doing housework, the laundry, cooking etc., but No.

Molly has to be in her cage or I would get nothing done because she thinks anytime I am around I should be ready to play.

I’ve been reading the dictionary lately, I know, I’m weird and have decided to add a little something to my blogs.   I am going to have a different word and its meaning on each one for while   It will broaden our vocabulary and make us all a little smarter. Ha.  Of course, if you already know the word, you will be one step ahead of some of us. So this day’s word is…

Contumacious-adj. stubbornly perverse or rebellious.  Willfully disobedient.   The contumacious boy was sent to reform school.

Hope none of you are contumacious. Bye.

 

 

 

2 thoughts on “Fresh Air and Fresh Findings

  1. Arkansas Patti

    Had to laugh at your dog faking the fetch. Callie will fetch anything but once it is in her mouth, the game for her becomes “keep away.”
    Love the sound of the Sandhill Cranes as they fly. They fly so high so to hear them , they must really be loud

    Reply
    1. Snickelfritz Post author

      I am a bit hard of hearing, but I still can hear them. They sometimes fly in circles above our house for hours. Don’t know if they are looking at our swimming pool as a place to set down or not.

      Reply

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