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The Bear Family?

Last night we saw this bear on on way home and then while Mark was returning calls in the barn he saw a cub down by the water.  So we think this one is the mother.  Earlier this summer we saw a bigger and more brown bear who we think is a male.  But what do we know.  I'm hoping none of these bears becomes a problem in town since that usually means their death.  We leave nothing out and Sadie barks at every little noise just to let animals know she is here.  We're lucky we see any wildlife. 

09 Raffle Quilt

Once again I volunteered to design the raffle quilt for my quilt group. I'm not sure what made my hand go up. I really didn't want the stress but then I realized that I didn't want to be excluded. And really it's so nice to be able to design a quilt and have other people make it. In theory that is. I actually ended up remaking lots of the blocks. The dilema for me is that I am coming up with a total blank for what to do next. I'm haveing designers block and the pressure is on. Someone suggested doing the same one over but in different colorways but that seems like cheating and not a lot of fun. Well as they say, "back to the drawing board".

Yet Another UFO

Here is another UFO on it's way to being finished. It's amazing what you can find when you start cleaning. Of course this should have been done for Valentines day, probably many years ago, but here it is now and if I'm lucky I'll get to quilting it before next Valentines. I used some handkerchiefs, an old doily and some lace hearts in this along with the squares of the fabric. This was some sort of panel so it was very quick to put together.

More Orphan Blocks

This is a combination of the purple squares that I have no idea what I was planning to do with, crazy pieced blocks, and some curved piecing.  All the colors went together and then I found the butterflies and they seemed perfect for filling up some of that green.  What am I going to do with all these wall hangings?

Orphan Blocks

 

I've been cleaning out my studio.  We are having a yard sale at my quilt group next month so I was sorting out stuff to sell.  I came across all my orphan blocks and put them in color piles.  Yikes!  These I bagged to sell but then they started to talk to me and before I knew it I started to play with them and in the course of as many days I made 4 little quilts and am working on a 5th.  Oh just shoot me right now.  They will be good practice for the Tin Lizziek I keep telling myself.

Mystery quilt

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This was supposed to be a mystery quilt that I was designing for the guild.  It begins with a nine patch and then you cut it in half and then into triangles and and add a focus fabric.  It was fun to do even though we decided to make table runners instead.  I end up with a lot of extra quilts just figuring out what to do for programs.  But right now I need a lot to practice on with my Tin Lizzie. 

Eggs and Entertainment

 

These are our five Cayuga ducks.  We got a pair last year just by a fluke and then we incubated some of their eggs and lo and behold we had duckings.  The original pair are both gone, probably to a bobcat or raccoon but so far these guys are staying safe.  We put them in at night and the dogs protect them during the day.  We get an average of 3 eggs a day but not always in their pen.  Lots of days it's an Easter egg hunt.  They dump them everywhere, including in their water dish, the pond, the irrigation ditch and the driveway.  I think the pond must be full of them.  It looks they are all females but Mark is sure one or two are males.  They all look identical so unless the males develop a lot later these are girls.  They stay busy all day long, waddling around looking for bugs, swimming or napping and are pure entertainment to watch.

Route 66quilt in process

 

This is a work in progress that I'm making for my son in law.  He brews beer and wants to call a future business Mother Road Brewing.  The letters will be outlined so they'll show.  Hopefully I'll finish this by his birthday and it will garner me some beer.

Journal Quilt

This month and for a year I will be making journal quilts. My theme will be about time, something of which I always run out and am anxious to get more of. Each month there will be some sort of concept or idea or something to try. This month it was recycling. so everything I used in this little quilt, only 12" square, was recycled. The background was a Liz Claiborn shirt, sorry Liz, the binding is from a really crummy bunch of lone star pieces I bought in Santa Fe, there is a fork I found at a dump site, and can lids ditto, buttons from an old mattress, needles from a yard sale, an old linen calendar, pottery shards, and my grandmothers rick rack. I'm calling it "You can't recycle time". I like the way it turned out and am excited to do more of them. I have a box I'm putting future scraps in that relate and I'd like to use. I have a shirt label that says AM/PM, so a future journal quilt will be about that. I also am writing about each piece in a paper journal. So far I've gathered all sorts of quotes about time as well as all those thing we say like, I'm running out of time, time out, time waits for no man etc. There are a lot of them. This should be fun!

This was the scene at the cabin in Marble. The river is icing over and creating pools. In front of the house it was 4 feet down when we arrived and then after two 13 degree days it rose to 1 foot down. That makes it a lot easier to get water since we have to get it from the river when we go up in winter. As usual we snow shoed in dragging a toboggan full of food etc. Mostly we sat around the wood stove but I did cook a goose which smelled wonderful but had very little meat on it. It was very peaceful to do nothing but gaze at the snow for a few days. Any longer and I'd go stir crazy.

Coyote

I've been working on this Coyote. As per usual some of my kids have cruised through my sewing room and added or deleted parts of him so he is not 100% my creation. The pieces have just been cut out and then laid on a piece of background fabric. I'm not sure how I'm going to finally sew him. so far I've put a little glue under most pieces so I can move the piece. I'm wondering if he could be sewn down on the Lizzie so that the quilting and sewing are done at the same time.

The Fabulous Tin Lizzie

Okay so I admit that being gone over 6 months is just too long for a lame excuse, but I have one anyway. for some unknown reason I couldn't get on m site to change it. Why? what is it about these computers that make me feel so stupid and unable. Really we need machines that build our self esteem not make feel so out of it. But while I was away some exciting events have occurred. I got a Tin Lizzie mid arm quilting machine! I am in the process of learning to quilt on it. It's harder than I ever figured. There must be tricks that I don't know about. There is something about learning a new skill that is very stimulating. I don't think it applies to computers with me but to actually start finishing some of my many UFO's is beyond wonderful.

Making the Best of It

We now have no wood floor and are down to the subfloor with bits of tar paper stuck to it and our shoes, but thank goodness the fans are gone. So we are slowly moving back in some furniture so that we can sit and eat and be a bit comfortable. The refrigerator is in the garage but full and working. Unfortunately the stove and dishwasher are also in the garage and not working, but we have a sink and a barbeque with a burner on it. My washer has been put on the back porch and hooked to a hose so that's good as long as I don't need hot water. The next miraculous event is that the hot water which had quit working started again all on it's own. My kind of fixit. So now we wait for the contractor and the insurance guy to wrangle over how much it will actually cost as opposed to how much the insurance guy wishes it would cost. We've been assured that it will all work out in the end. In the meantime the insurance should be paying us for some kind of housing, and that includes all our animals, but that is going through chanels as well. We actually don't mind camping here but if we did it would be tough luck for us I guess. As far as the insurance knows we still have no hot water. He says he admires our fortitude. Anyway we're looking at 8 weeks untill we are back to normal. Life sure does throw stuff at you.

Disaster!

On Wednesday a day my husband went to a convention in Las Vegas and I was enjoying a nice home alone time I left the house for all of 2 hours and came back to a flood. The entire downstairs was an inch deep and water was pouring from the ceiling of the office. Drywall, or maybe better said wet wall, and insulation had fallen from the ceiling. Panic! Finally i found some valves and turned them off. The pipes to the solar panels had burst. We spent 2 hours getting the water out. My floors had nver looked so clean. But now service master is here and fans and humidifiers are going non stop. They are taking drywall out and are planning on removing the wood floor. Talk about a forced remodel! So this is it for the time being at my house. The dogs and cats are puzzled a bit like their owners, wondering where their home is now.

Treasures and Trash

This is one of the many junk sites I go to when I'm looking for stuff to make collages with. I call these my shopping sites. When this area was less settled people would go out this road and just dump their garbage. Sometimes they still do but new garbage to me is just garbage. Old garbage somehow is treasure. This stuff just seems to be melting into the earth. Look how it's almost the same color. I can also find old pot sherds in the same area and pieces of arrowheads. For this you need a really sharp eye because those things really are the same color. People have dumped stuff here for a long time.

More Snow

We couldn't even dig our way into the yurt. This year we put supports in so it doesn't cave in. Last year the whole thing got torqued and the dome cracked. I'm hoping mice aren't living out the winter in it. The barn looks good. Last year the elk hung out in the horse stalls and all the panels turned into spaghetti. This year the horse stalls are behind all that snow and I couldn't get in. I moved the panels out further so I hope they survived.

We just couldn't get enough of winter here. So we headed on up to Colorado to our little place. Here are pictures of the barn the yurt and the house. Up here we are truly off the grid. The walk in is probably 1/8 mile. We walked in on ski tracks only falling off once in awhile. We pulled the toboggan and wore packs to carry all our stuff. The dogs had it easy. Ginger leads no matter if the trail is packed or not. She is a golden retriever mix and a little lame. And Sadie the dog equipped for snow, a great Pyrenees / Anatolian mountain Sheppard mix, follows behind letting us break trail for her. No dummy she. The house was like an ice box and it took the entire day and some of the next day to get it comfortable. We carry water up from the river in a bucket. Mark lost one, it went sailing on down and no one was willing to retrieve it. The water is far down we need a rope to lower the bucket. We end up with electricity since the batteries are full and we have solar panels setup but heat is the wood stove and water is from the river. Once at the house we retrieved our snow shoes and then we could go anywhere. It's like magic. Instead of just looking at the snowy forest you can actually get in it and go anywhere on top of the snow. In some spots you can cross the river on snow bridges. There had been some melting so you scurry on across. Even Ginger looks a little aprehensive. A little like walking on water. Now it's back to spring which I'm not complaining about. I just have a little dread because on it's heels comes the roaring hot summer, too soon and too long.

Snow in Sedona

This was the scene at our house early yesterday morning. It never lasts long here but it is so beautiful while its here. The pond was red and every single branch was loaded with snow. I had a meeting to go to in town and it is just a little higher up than us so they had more snow. People were out with their snow shovels happy to put that garage ornament to use and get a little exercise. By afternoon it was all gone here and we are left with serious mud. I spent time in the horses pens moving mud to get drainage going. The horses were let out. They all look a little mud colored themselves.

Prickly Heart

In spite of my run in with these prickly pears I have been seeing a lot of heart shaped pads lately. So in honor of St Valentine I offer this heart.

Cactus Pants

Today I put on my cactus pants. Let me explain. Several months ago I was riding with friends leading the way as usual. I was headed up a very steep hill covered with pinon, juniper, cactus, various other prickly plants, and large volcanic boulders. Why? I'm not sure, but we were very bored with our regular routes. Anyway I was leaning downhill off over the side of my horse to avoid a low tree branch and, you guessed it, just fell off into a very large prickly pear. I was covered in thorns! My friend had to pull as many as she could, they were in my back where I couldn't see them and then I had to get back on my horse and ride home. It was one of the most uncomfortable rides I've ever been on. The long and short of it is that these pants are still prickly after several washings. I've always wondered what that would be like to fall full body into a cactus and now I know. But to fall off just by leaning over is just a little embarassing!