Tag: Garden

Back in Iowa for a while

When we got home, we had a fabulous Easter dinner with most of the kids and grandkids. This time we had butterflied leg of lamb, and it was lovely. Because Kevin cooked it in the sous vide, it left the oven free for roasted carrots. It takes a LOT of carrots for 13 people! We also had green beans with bacon and onions cooked in the Instant Pot. It took two Instant Pots to cook the four pounds of fresh beans, and it took Kevin and I both working about 45 minutes to snap them all. Memories of my grandmothers house came back when we would snap a lot of beans on a regular basis during summer. My grandmother did all kinds of canning out of her 1 acre garden. She basically provided vegetables for her, my grandfather, my mom, my sister and me all year.

As I noted last time, the cats were very busy exploring. I tried to put the first load in the dryer, and I was treated by this! Good thing she has bright eyes, because she was really hard to see until I called.

But it is a box!

Luna is also a bother downstairs isn the sewing area. She only occasionally will sit with me upstairs, but as soon as I go downstairs she is fully involved! She sits on the quilt while I try to quilt, tries to climb on my lap while I am doing anything, and she is fascinating by seeing the thread  moving from the thread stand to the machine. As soon as I took this picture, I moved her away. Cats and thread are a dangerous combination!

“I love thread Mom”

We are also keeping the Amazon delivery drivers busy. Our English friends Tony and Anne showed us pictures from their game camera when we were in Quartzsite. I bought one myself, and set it up at night in the living room to make sure I had the settings right. I didn’t, but the picture below is pretty cute anyway. I have since set the camera for videos and corrected the AM/PM issue.

Spooky kitties

One of the things I am working on this year is a Block of the Month from Kona Fabrics. It includes a Zoom class with a quilt shop about 45 miles away. She includes all kinds of methods to do the class which is interesting. I pushed my technique in April, and I am not thrilled with the result. I didn’t dislike it enough to take it apart though!

April

The may version was much easier, and I only had one spot I should have re-done. You can see if you notice it. I am just not too picky anymore.

May

I finished the quilting for the partner of one of my son’s. She is a Broadway theater fan, and I was pleased to find the feature fabric.

Sam’s quilt

I quilted it with golden yellow thread (hello Tony Awards!) in a random meander with loops and stars.

Golden yellow meander

I used the same color in the binding. I really like doing machine binding this way. I serge the edges first for a nice firm edge, cut binding at 2.25”, sew on front, press well, turn over the edge holding the fold with clips, then sew the binding from the front with a decorative stitch. This time the stitch was a 3 step zigzag, but I have used a number of other stitches in the past.

Machine binding

Iowa had had a terribly dry winter, but we finally got a bunch of rain. The flowers are all considerably delayed, but they are finally coming out. My pink and white bleeding hearts are doing well. Ignore the massive infestation of weed! My local grandchildren are coming over tomorrow to week for me.

Pink and white bleeding hearts

And in a statement of really good news, I got another radioablation on my back that has really helped in the almost two weeks since I got it. I am also keeping up my pain meds – gabapentin and cyclobenzaprine plus lidocaine patches occasionally. I still have problems with any walking over a block or so, but I have no real pain when I am not moving. This is a huge improvement over how I felt before the procedure.

I am now working on quilting some other tops that I have been ignoring for far too long. I am also taking a sampler class offered virtually and sponsored by the Arizona Quilt Guild. The guild is well worth the $15 a year in dues!

Springtime in Utah

We got home on Monday afternoon. I tried to time it so we wouldn’t hit bad traffic, but I obviously didn’t delay long enough. Bumper to bumper doesn’t really bother me (I just zen out), but it is tedious. We ate a huge lunch of chicken fried steak at Bella’s in Wells, NV again for lunch, so we just did some snacking for dinner. Unpacking isn’t as hard now. I have decided to just leave the trailer refrigerator turned on and keep all the basics there. Butter, maple syrup, ketchup, mustard, pickles, etc are just going to stay stocked and not move to and from the house each trip. We just moved our clothes and toiletries. Of course we also had to start laundry right away. My Samsung washer and dryer at home are better than anything found in a campground laundromat.

On Wednesday I went back to my family practitioner for a re-check of my right knee. The Celebrex just wasn’t beating the pain. I got a steroid injection, and two days later I am much improved! I am hopeful of more walking and biking in the next few weeks. Kevin and I are a matched set. His left knee is the problem and my bad knee is my right. We have to get better before the family trip to Black Hills in a couple of weeks.

I took a fun sewing class last night at a local quilt shop. It was on making bowls from laundry line, the cotton or cotton/poly stuff. I have made the, before, but I really wanted to know how to make some that had smoother starts and finishes. I made one for Kevin to use in the trailer to keep next to the bed. I used blue variegated thread to spice up the stitching plus some lovely strips of a blue batik. I also made a smaller one which will be used for something eventually.

I like the strips of color. The bottom is about 7.5″ so a good sized bowl.

I have also made these as trivets I use in the trailer. The sloppy ending on these was what made me want to take a class. The new bowls aren’t perfect, but they are much better than the trivet made before class! See the fuzz at about 7:00 o’clock? These are also about 7″.

This just came out of the washing machine.

We finally turned on the sprinklers for the lawn and garden yesterday for the first time this year. I don’t believe in spoiling my plants with lots of water; I want them to work for it! The flowers are doing beautifully.

Front garden has iris, roses, and a service berry tree I try to keep pruned to a shrub (I need to take it back more soon).

The back garden is mostly xeriscape plants.

See where something has been bedding down in the middle? We have a neighborhood cat I have seen on my security cameras wandering around at night. Since we don’t have rabbits, I figure the cat is doing the damage.

This evening we are having friends over for dinner. I am making layered green chili chicken enchiladas (using my new oven), pinto beans with chipotle peppers (Instant Pot), and I made a flan (also with the oven). The flan is definitely an experiment I haven’t ever done before. We will see how it works. It looks good, but I haven’t cut into it to see. The friends are bring a salad, and I have two bottles of Sangria to go along with the meal.

Edit to add that the flan was a success! I will definitely be making it again.