Beatrice

On the fourth of July we invited friends over for a cookout and fireworks. One set of friends, Robin and Ron, brought us an unexpected present....a baby racoon that had fallen out of her nest and was less than a week old. We kept her through the night and the next day took her to Jim's dad. He's raised several racoons, although Beatrice is the youngest by far. I am happy to say that Beatrice is now almost 2 months old and doing fantastic! Here are some pics of the night we got her.

Now here she is a little over a month later! Our big girl is doing great :) Thanks Dad!!!

Mother's Day Quilt

On a roll today, so thought I would get some pics of the small mother's day quilt up that I made. It's just a small wall hanging (24x24). I did the quilting with my embroidery unit. I really liked the effects, but my centering was off. Oh well, it's all learning right? Mom loved it anyway!

Here's a close up of the embroidery/quilting (it's Quilt Feathers by Anita Good-designs).

Update on Life...yet again :)

Ok, I realize I must get better than one post every 5 months, LOL. I've been traveling pretty much non-stop since January. After my trip last week, I believe the majority of my traveling for Lilly is finished, at least for now. I even finished Kiki's quilt last week. Now I just need to post some pics of it. Feels good to have it done. Getting ready to start a new embroidery project and have lots of quilts to work on. Just a matter of finding the time for sewing.

The weather has been cooperating this weekend. Jim and I got the entire front flower bed mulched and a new butterfly bush planted. The garden is mostly finished, although I just got my cucumber and spaghetti squash seeds from Henry Fields so need to get those in the ground this weekend too. Everything went in really really late this year because of the rain, but we'll see how we do. I really enjoy the gardening, very peaceful and relaxing.

So here's a full shot of Kiki's quilt hanging in my room. I sure do miss her, more than I ever thought I could. Funny how the little monsters in our lives that we cuss daily when they're with us end up leaving such a hole when they are gone. Jim teases me and says we have Kiki "reincarnated" in Max (aka Maxine) the little cat living in the barn (one of Julie's rescues). She is very much like Kiki.....who knows? :)

Background fabric picked out!

Had a really nice day today! Putzed around the house this morning (still didn't clean :) and then Jim and I went into town. We buzzed past a few buildings to look at and then he dropped me off at the quilt store and went onto his hobby store. I found what I think will be the perfect backing for Kiki's quilt. Here it is!

Here's a close up :)

Now I need to go get organized for tomorrow.....

Kiki's Remembrance Quilt

As some of you know, we lost our oldest cat Kiki in October to cancer. She was a bitchy girl, but the house sure is quiet without her. I miss her very much, but decided to make a remembrance quilt for her. It's just a wall hanging that I can hang in my room, but the process has been good. Lots of memories :)

Here's a pic of the entire quilt top. It's pieced, but now I need to find the backing and binding fabric and quilt it.

The image above her head here is my attempt at embroidering a pecan pie. One of our most memorable times with her was one Thanksgiving when I made a pecan pie for my mom (who loves them) and Kiki jumped up onto the table and landed right in the middle of mom's pie! Mom, who really doesn't like cats at all, picked her up and tossed her right off the table! And Mom, doesn't really touch cats, LOL.

Just another pose :)

I found these little angel alphabet letters and embroidered them above the first row. Kiki was NOT an angel, but she sure is missed :)

This is my favorite picture ever of Kiki. All of these photos were taken by April Tchiguka of Dreadhead Artist Creations. Check out her website at www.dreadheadartist.com She does beautiful work and captured some of the most amazing pics of all my babies.

Time for an Update

OMG, it's been forever since I've been on here. No use trying to bring everyone up to speed right now, we'll just start fresh :)

It is bitter cold right now in Indiana. It was negative 20 degrees yesterday morning (no, not windchill...really negative 20 on the thermometer)! Poor horses had ice on their eyelashes and whiskers. Ick. Today we broke zero but the wind that is whipping around is just biting!

I am still traveling alot for my job. A little over 8 months until my 2 year non-compete is up :) Yippeeee!

Got my garden catalogs a few days ago. I am definitely planting this year. I really missed it last year and have decided work is not going to keep me from doing it this year.

I've been doing a bunch of quilting/embroidery this winter and absolutely LOVE it! I need to post some pics of what I've done so far. Lots of beginner mistakes, but I'm learning, LOL.

Need more coffee first though!!!!!

More Christmas Pics....

Thought you all might enjoy some more pics from Christmas :)



Is it time for breakfast yet????

Mmmmmm, mmmmmm good!!!!

Simon is such a big help wrapping!



Where's my Apple???





All tuckered out and ready for a Christmas nap!


After playing in the rain, Kasey thinks Bubba Jr. needs a bath.



Bubba likes to help wrap presents.









The girls sharing breakfast (Princess is on the left, Tongo is on the right). The girls have been together all of Tongo's life...I suspect Princess will join our family when we get the barn built too! They are good buddies, always grazing together.




Waiting patiently...NOT!

Bubba Jr. does NOT appreciate the Santa hat.

Christmas in the Country!

Gosh, I can't believe it's been 5 months since I've updated this. Let me see if I can catch you up.

The summer of gardening went great. I learned quickly that you don't need 18 tomato plants for a family of two :) I learned that broccoli must be planted way earlier than June if you want to harvest it, that not all snakes are bad (just scary!), that cantaloupe like my soil, one eggplant versus six will do just fine, banana peppers don't taste like banana peppers that you get on a sandwich at Subway unless you pickle them (nope, didn't do that), and that changing jobs at the end of the growing season is not a great way to harvest/clean up the garden!

That said, it has been an absolutely insane fall leading into an equally crazy winter. We've enjoyed a great Christmas holiday and had the chance to visit with family and friends before we set off into the craziness of January.

We have an addition to the Thompson family as of Christmas morning...

Some of you may recognize "Tongo" from pictures this summer. She's been living next door with our neighbors and I fell head over heels for her. Jim (aka Santa) surprised me on Christmas day. I think surprised would be an understatement considering we had JUST had the conversation that I couldn't really think about purchasing her until our other house in Fishers had sold and until we could build our barn. Lucky for us we have such fantastic neighbors...we love them dearly, they've become family as far as we're concerned. Anyway, they're going to let us keep Tongo over there until we can build the barn. So, it should be a fantastic spring and summer. I'm so looking forward to working with her. Jim is shuddering and making sure our major medical and my life insurance is paid up! So, stay tuned for more pics over the next few months.

I am traveling most of January, so it will be light then, but hopefully by February things will settle down again. Until then...Happy New Year all. Here's a video Jim took of Christmas in the country, 2007.

Wishing you and yours the very best in 2008.

Garden Friends

Bubba Jr

Eddie

Eddie & Tongo

Kiki (well, not exactly a garden "friend")

ACORN SQUASH FLOWER AND BLOSSOM

Thought you might enjoy these pics of flowers from the garden! Who knew that vegetables could be so pretty???

CUCUMBER FLOWERS

Check out the little bug inside this squash blossom!

I'm not sure what these are...but aren't they beautiful??? I thought they were a weed originally!

Happy Fourth of July!

Hope that today finds everyone happy, healthy, and appreciative of all that we have in life! The garden is starting to thrive (FINALLY!) after a really nice rain last weekend, and for that I am VERY thankful :) I think some of the blooms are just as beautiful as the fruit/veggies that come after them. I've been taking a lot of pictures today...here are a few that I hope you enjoy!

Full Garden View - Here's a look at the whole thing from a distance. Yesterday was the day of weeding...I had neglected it for over a week and I'm amazed at how fast the weeds multiply when I have to sit and wait patiently for everything else to grow.

Dad's canteloupe are just starting to flower!

The cucumbers are flowering nicely, although they are not really excited about growing up their trellis like the ad implied they would be! I'm learning that I still obviously have a lot to learn about gardening. Here's a pic of my first little cucumber.

The watermelons, spaghetti squash, and acorn squash are going to town! Their vines are growing so quick and so long, pretty soon they're going to cross over into the horse pasture next door! Next year I need to do a better job of placement for the melons and squash.

Watermelon

Acorn Squash

Peppers - Well, the bell peppers have not started growing yet, but the banana peppers are really coming along nicely. I picked one the other day and tried to eat it (looked ready to me!) but it really didn't have a flavor yet. Pam said to wait until they get nice and yellow first, so I've been restraining myself from picking the others ;)

And last but not least, the tomatoes finally are all growing! In fact, they're kind of out of control! I had to prune a few of them down because they were sprouting shoots all over the place and I couldn't walk between the rows. I wouldn't get the little red tomato ladders again. I don't think the red color was all that helpful (Pam's didn't have red ladders and are doing better than mine!). Also, I think I will adopt Pam's "fence them in" method and surround them with a circle of fence and a stake to grow on so they don't get so out of control.

Adventures in Gardening Continued...

Well, it's been an interesting few weeks of gardening. Let's just say, I was very tempted to take pictures of my neighbor Pam's garden and post them in place of mine :) Hers is beautiful and thriving, mine is struggling a bit...Francis says I'm trying too hard and he may be right. So, I've backed off of all my "fussing" for the last week, and low and behold...my tomato plants have little baby tomatoes coming in, I have a banana pepper growing...go figure! Here are some updated pics from last night:

The radishes are growing nicely. Jim said that they don't taste any different than the ones from Kroger's...but Francis and Pam thought they tasted great!

Here are some pics of the tomatoes. I'm so excited to see how they develop. The big question has been: to prune or not to prune? I keep reading that pruning the suckers off helps them grow stronger better tomatoes, but Pam doesn't do anything to hers. And, well...if you look at hers and then look at mine so far, let's just say I'm going with her method this year :)

The pole beans are doing well (I think!). One of the sprouts (??) has taken off so much I had to add the second tier to the pole bean cage.

Apparently, either watermelon's are really easy to grow....or that's going to be my specialty and next year I'll just have a melon garden!

And last but not least, one of my banana peppers is growing. My peppers and eggplants are a very sad story so far. They were doing beautifully in May (remember the pic with the little flowers blooming after the rain?). Well, then my eggplants were attacked by flea beetles (weevils??). I decided to go the "natural" route, despite advice from my savvy neighbors to the contrary (suggested sprinkling Sevin on them). But oh no...I knew better. So I went out and bought some spray called VeggiePharm (all natural insecticidal soap made from garlic, peppermint and something else). Well, I sprayed the heck out of those poor eggplants and peppers. 2 days later, everything was shriveling, dying, AND I still had the damn weevils on there punching holes in the leaves. So Pam was kind enough to come over and take a look and once again, gently suggested sprinking Sevin. She thinks I probably burned the plants with the stupid all natural stuff, but was sweet enough to say she thought they would recover. Well, it's been a long recovery process and they still look rather pathetic. A few days after I sprinkled the Sevin (which, OF COURSE killed the stupid bugs!), I stopped by a little garden store and was telling the lady about my poor plants. She told me that peppers like to "hold hands" and that mine were probably planted too far apart and that's why they weren't recovering well. She must have spotted the SUCKER sign on my forehead...because I bought 5 more pepper plants and six eggplants and gave my poor bedraggled peppers and eggplants they're new friends that night. I can't say they're looking any better though :)

And last but certainly not least...my favorite garden companion....Tonga (white face) and her buddy Princess. Cody wasn't feeling photogenic :)