Local Bug Zapper

I guess this is a harmless spider. I have seen several of them in the years we have lived here but the web this one built was something. I wish I could take a photo when there was some dew so you could see it. 

But notice the zig zag at the bottom. Awesome! I wanted to put my hand up there to show you how big it is but.......I was too chicken to do it. 

You can see the web a bit more here. 

Wooden Birds

Hubby and I were out riding yesterday and saw this. It was on a busy narrow road and we held up traffic while I was taking the photo. I had to be quick as there was no place to pull over because of a steep drop off and the pond was fenced off so I had to take the photo through the fence.

What a pretty spot these people have, lots of trees and ducks and geese in their yard. Not sure if you can see the ducks sitting at the bottom of the tree in the first photo. I didn't see them till my hubby pointed them out to me. Here is a close up of the tree so you can see the carving on the side of the tree as well.

ZOOM ZOOM

Hubby and I took the afternoon and went to a grand opening for a new home improvement store here. Menards. I don't know if you all have them around where you are but wow what a nice store. Huge but nice. For the grand opening they had Paul Menard, the owners nephew, Paul drives the # 27 car for NASCAR and Matt Crafton who drives the #88 truck in the NASCAR series.

Hubby and I really like NASCAR and it was a real treat for us to be able to see the vehicles and the drivers.
Matt Crafton is on the right and Paul Menard is on the left. I didn't get an autograph because there was a long line but hubby and I did enjoy the store and will be going back to purchase a few things we need for the house.

Hail

It was a record 92 degrees here yesterday. Today is 48 with a stiff North wind. This was in between. With some strong storms hail ranged in size from quarter to golf ball with 70 to 80 mph winds.

Fabric Shopping

Yesterday I met Amy for a bit of fabric shopping at my favorite quilt shop in the area. It is a bit of a hike but I do love Sarah's as I had blogged about her store before.

I got caught in a bit of a traffic jam while leaving home. I had to stop so they could get this big thing up the road. It is the bottom of a windmill and it was headed for Illinois. They were going the long way around because they were headed north. I couldn't believe how big it was.

So then on to some fun. Amy and I had a great time, we actually went to two shops. The first one carries the Amy Bradley Designs and have a lot of her quilts in their shop as well. Amy is a local designer and is friends with the shop owner. You can see Amy Bradley's site here. She has some really cute patterns. Amy has one of a quilt lady and it reminds me of Madame Samm when I see it.

Then we went onto Sarah's and tried to see everything that Sarah has in the store, I really don't think that is possible but we gave it a good try. Amy got some nice fabrics and here are the ones that I got one yard cuts of each.....click on over to Amy's site and see her things. Oh and the cute little lady frog I found in the first shop we went into. She was so cute I just could not resist buying her. Every rose garden needs a frog. I am going to keep her around so you will see more of her. Any suggestions for a name for Miss Frog?

At Last Thou Art Come,

At Last Thou art come, little Saviour,

And Thine angels fill midnight with song,

Thou art come to us, gentle Creator,

Whom Thy creatures have sighed for so long.

Nativity at my Church, 2010

Thou hast brought with Thee plentiful pardon,

And our souls overflow with delight,

Our hearts are half broken dear Jesus,

With the joy of this wonderful night.

(unknown)

Posted?

OK, this land is posted but......? The little stream there and then it is a very steep hill. I don't think I would worry about trespassing.

Just some scenery from the area where I grew up. I have a few more photos to post at a later date and I didn't get to take all the photos I wanted to time went by all too fast. Hopefully, I will be able to fly out but we are expecting a big storm with a lot of wind so we shall see.

My View Of The World Today

I look out the window today and this is what I see...........yuck! It is pretty but it makes travel difficult. Will have to shovel the walk way for Mom.

Another Day Trip!

Tuesday hubby and I took another day trip. This time we went south. We had never been down in that direction and thought it would be a nice little trip. He took me to two different quilt shops down there. We would have gone to another one but there was some construction and NO detour signs set up so we said forget that one. Maybe another time we will get to that one.

I just love this T-shirt we saw in the first store which is called Hen and Feathers. Nice little shop. I got a Fandango layer cake to go with some yardage of the same line that I had gotten at Sarah's a while back. We had a great time and got lost(sort of) on another detour on our way back. You know how those detours are on those country roads, they take you like 40 miles out of the way and then send you another 50 miles to get back to the road you were on to begin with. Hubby said forget that and went straight. We finally got home safe and sound but very late. Also saw a sign for a bank called the Tightwad Bank in one of those little blink and you'll miss it towns. Too funny! Hubby didn't want to turn around just to snap a photo because it was getting so late.

Well blogger is still taking a long time to load photos and then I couldn't move them where I wanted them so sorry if this looks a bit bunched up.

Walked In or....dumped?

A week or so ago I had the back door open to the porch, I heard a noise and looked down. My goodness there was a cat. I thought where did he (she) come from? We don't know if someone dumped it or it wandered in. It looked to be in good health but when it meowed it was like the cat had laryngitis or something. It hung around the porch trying to meow. So my hubby finally took it out to the barn to see if we had any cat food left over from when we fed the coons last year, they were eating all the cubes we give to the cows and that was the only way to catch the coons. Anyway, there was some cat food left so he fed the cat and gave it some water and left it in the barn. The cat now resides in the barn, sleeping on top of the hay bales and meows to greet you when you walk in the barn, happy as can be.

Weekend Photo

This is the end of a nice day, warm and a bit windy.

I Love This Store!

Sarah's

Yesterday(Tuesday) hubby said let's get out of here for a while. I think we were both in desperate need of a day out. So we went to one of our favorite places, Lawrence. It is about 64 miles one way. There are 3 places we love to visit there. The first one being Sarah's  It is the nicest fabric shop that I have been in and the biggest. I always have trouble deciding what I want to get.By the way, this is only half of the front part of the store. I usually restrict myself to 5 or 6 one yard cuts of the fabric I like the most. Here is what I got, I have been buying some different fabrics at her shop for several months now. I am saving up for something special . These will blend in beautifully with what I have already.

 

Then we like to go to this place called the Bargain Barn. Mostly tools, fishing stuff all that sort of things. They do buy outs I think but they always have something there. Last time I got some bubble mailing envelopes for my Bees Knees project, they were only 49 cents each. This time I got some garden gloves for $1.49 but they are just like the gloves I have for free motion quilting. Only the ones I have cost me like $8.00

On to the thrift store. They opened up a nice big thrift store over there. I got some sheets for the backs of quilts the last time I was over there and this time I got some more. The bottom one is flannel and will go on that blue coin quilt I just made, it is going north so it will need the extra warmth up there. The yellow one in the middle is a twin size and it had not even been washed. Those two were $2.99 each and the top one with the butterflies was $1.99. It was worth the trip over there for just the sheets. 

We had a good day and really needed the break.  I see everyone says they take a mini vacation well I guess we had a micro-mini vacation since we were only gone for the day. Oh and hubby wanted to go to Cabala's ( which I posted about once here )so we went over there too. Sometimes I guess we all just need to get away for awhile. Today is back to the old grind but we feel a bit more relaxed about it. I think I will need another micro-mini vacation soon.....like before Sarah sells out of that one fabric I had to leave there, LOL.

Evening Sky

After the Storm

After 5 straight days of temperatures over 100, more like 106 with the heat index running about 110 to 115. It finally broke last night. We had a cool front come through and got some much needed rain. We had a lot of thunder and lightening as well. The town west of us had winds of 93 mph. They called it a micro-burst.Quite a bit of damage with trees down etc. We did not get that wind but we did get this beautiful sky. This is facing west north west and just after the sun took a hike over the hill.

The Moon

Then when my husband was leaving for work he said look at that moon. This was taken just a little south of the other photo, facing a bit more true west.

I have not been progressing too much on my Use It Up. I have been trying to get my things ready for my month in the Bees Knees. My printer died on me just when I needed it. So I got a new one and all it wanted to do was eat my paper so I took it back and got a different one. Happy to say this one works better! It is such an ordeal when anything like that happens because it is a 30 mile trek to the store,(one way) and in all the heat we have had lately it wasn't pleasant. But at least I am all set now and can get my packets together. Have a nice weekend everyone!

Pretty but.....

UGH! This is what we woke up to this morning. The weather man didn't tell us we were going to get this much, now they say Monday we will get a significant amount of snow fall. Where is Spring?

The 'Big' Storm

Here is a picture of what my hubby had to drive through this morning, or I should say back through. It did fill back in a little bit after he left. You can see his tracks.The wind blew all night and all day today. Temps are bitter, -1* tonight. Needless to say, he is out on the tractor trying to push it some other place. We ended up with about a foot of snow from that storm. Stay warm every one.

Another Circle

I tried another circle. After making several of the Drunkard's Path blocks I thought I would try this. I don't quite have it down pat yet but I am working on it. I like the way this one came out. I don't seem to be able to keep a consistent seam allowance when "rounding" the curve but they have all come out OK. I have to trim my block to 6 inches from a 6 1/2 template. They seem to be a bit wavy at the edges but they are cut on the bias and I think I stretch them a bit too much but I am getting better at it.

Also a look at today's weather. I know a lot of people in different parts of the country have gotten a lot more snow than this but it is still coming down and the winds are expected to read the 40 mph stage later tonight with more snow. Looks like a good time to prefect those circles.

Two Sides To Every Story!

This was last night:

West Side

East Side

From The Lens of The Camera

My husband saw this beautiful sunset the other night and urged me to take some photos of it. It wasn't quite this colorful when just looking at it but the camera captured colors my eyes couldn't see. Just thought you might enjoy some of God's handiwork.

Local Scenery

Since we don't take a vacation I thought I would share some local scenery with you. This is a Church that was 100 years old this past May.
It burned down about 30 years ago. They were going to do some restoration work on it and rebuild it. You can see it has a new steeple and some new window frames. They have since started to tear it down and after this past week all that is left is the tower standing there. It did have a beautiful round Rosette window in the front of it. It is situated on the Oregon Trail.

Another Church dedicated in 1882 and was used a few years ago

in a movie, only I forgot what movie it was in. This Church is sort of unique because of the cemetery that is surrounding it.

This fence is also close by, sort of reminds me of the ones in Ireland. In 1867 a law abolishing the open range provided for the payment of 40 cents per rod(16 1/2 feet) to landowners to build and maintain a 4 1/2 foot stone fence. Stone is very plentiful here.

This is a huge well dug by hand by about 40 men over the winter and the spring of 1914. It was dug for the city for a water supply. It is said to be the second largest hand dug well in the world.

You can see that the well is good sized. It is 29' wide and 38' deep. That is a lot of digging with just shovels and picks. I am glad our water is more easily attained today.

Another Toad and Coffee Grounds!

Every morning I go out to the veggie garden to check my squash plant for those pesky squash bugs. They are so hard to get rid of and it takes an every day check to stay ahead of them. This morning I went out there and started checking the plant over and I saw this rather large toad. We do seem to have a lot of them this year. I wish he would get the squash bugs, they are probably too nasty for him too.

Hubby and I had to go into the city last night to do some things and I thought since it was so hot an Iced Mocha would be good. I need the decaff so off to Starbucks we went. We don't go in there too often but as you walk in they had a big bucket filled with bags of used coffee grounds and a sign that read. 'Good For Your Garden'. Hubby loves free stuff so we took them. Besides I knew that coffee grounds were good for the soil and ours could use some help. My green peppers are not doing too well and someone told me they need the nitrogen. We took what they had. I put some grounds around my pepper plants this morning as it was trying to rain. I really should start a compost pile.

This is a lily I have that looks more like a Bird of Paradise when it is flowering and the leaves look more like an Iris . The flowers leave a big seed pod and look like a berry. I thought they were unusual when I first saw them and just had to have it. Maybe some of you have heard of them before or even have one.


Happy Gardening!