Mundane Monday

 On Friday J. tilled up two strips in the lower garden. 

He would have liked to go over it for a finer tilth, but the ground is still a bit damp.

I took his camera outside to record the process, then wandered around the windblown row of sunflowers, billowing cosmos and tilting zinnias.

Butterflies aren't troubled by weeds in the flower garden.

The day was overcast and butterflies drifted through the quiet air, hovering in groups, flitting on.

Many of the butterflies had a faded tattered appearance--rather in keeping with the melancholy skies and the battered flowers on which they perched.

Jim found this swallowtail clinging to the side of a tractor he is in the process of refurbishing.  He thought it looked like a new sort of 'decal.'

Late on Sunday afternoon I was sewing in the basement room which I claim as mine--the space for my books, fabric, and such.

The door into the back hall was open, as was the outer door that leads up the basement stairs to the back yard.

Jim had earlier been sweeping up leaves and debris that had blown into the steps.

It was, of course, the cats who alerted me to an intruder in the hallway.

Turning from sewing machine to cutting table I noted Edward and Nellie hovering over a dark object.

My neighbor Gracie was here, and M. and G. had just come in, our house being the turn-around point in their evening walk.

We all converged on the strange beetle which was trundling along the floor.

In spite of its size, the creature was not aggressive. 

G. quickly fetched a standard spool of thread to use as a size comparison for the beetle.

I also brought in one of my quilt rulers and gently prodded the beetle in line.

That was when I noticed that cat hairs were caught in its front set of legs and clinging to its face!

I didn't want to risk pulling any bits of feet from the beetle, but tried to whisk off some of the hair.

When we had all admired the creature, I lifted it on a sheet of paper, transferred it to a plastic tray and carried it outside where I tipped it into the thick tangled growth that has come up in the area where 

daffodils are planted.

A Google search seems to confirm that this is an Eastern Hercules beetle.

My grand daughter K. who knows about such things, says this is the female.

Reading on through the article here : 

http://www.fcps.edu/islandcreekes/ecology/eastern_hercules_beetle.htm

I wonder if the beetle in pupae stage overwintered in a chunk of firewood which I keep stacked in the back hallway.She may also have been turned up in J.'s recent ditching to lay the new electrical cable. The last few feet of that process disturbed some fine roots which stretch from the box elder tree.

Where ever she came from, Lady Hercules was quite a diversion!

Morning was quiet and overcast when I pulled back the curtains at 6:15 today.

I wasn't feeling quite ready to pitch into the day but the cats were clamoring for their breakfast.

I dished out dollops of canned food, measured coffee and water into the coffee maker and stood leaning against the sink, gazing out at the scattering of leaves which have begun to fall from the box elder tree.

Daybreak is no longer noisy with bird song. 

The dew-soaked grass is cold against my sandaled feet if I step off the porch or carport. 

The sun eventually climbed out of the mist and banks of cloud.

I laundered sheets and towels, pegged them on the clothesline.

J. suggested we drive to Wal Mart to pick up broccoli and cabbage plants.

G. needed to go along and our combined errands stretched over several hours.

In late afternoon  J. and I set the plants into the newly turned earth of the lower garden.

He went out to pick grapes, bringing in two baskets full of the sweet smelling fruit.

{What am I to do with all those grapes?]

I made supper.

I watered plants on the porch.

I cleaned the hummingbird feeder and filled it with fresh sugar syrup.

I replied to the comments on my last blog post!

The day has spun out in small tasks, none of them very important or noteworthy.

I think we sometimes need these quiet times when the hours settle around us and few demands are made.

By tomorrow the pace will pick up again--those grapes mustn't go to waste!

Rainy Weather Quilts/Quilts for Cats

Having already grizzled and grumbled about nearly incessant rain over the past month, I will refrain from carrying on about it again.

Rather, I'll show you what I've been creating while holed up in my cozy basement room.

While I didn't feel energetic enough to tackle complicated quilt block patterns, I challenged myself to see what I could make using some of my rather extensive fabric stash.

If the above fabric looks familiar--it is. Its a good thing that I'm still liking those Moda lines, Wuthering Heights and Double Chocolat--would you believe there are still some remnants lurking in my cupboard?

This is an alternate light and dark setting of 36 [ 9 inch] Log Cabin blocks, with sashing and cornerstones.

The quilt finished at 68 x 68.

It is shown here prior to machine quilting.

Raisin, Jim's elderly cat, sniffs the quilt, just returned from an area quilter.

If I had unlimited funds dedicated to quilting, I would send my quilt tops either to Wyoming Quilts [where I worked prior to retirement and moving] or to Knox Hill Quilts in my hometown of Orwell, Vermont.

My attempts at machine quilting anything other than baby quilt size have not pleased me--my piecing skills are precise and the quilts deserve a decent finish.

This one was quilted locally.

The woman who quilted this has reopened the shop her mother closed a year or more ago.

She offers only one stitching pattern--a 'wishbone' motif.

Batting is a mid-weight poly and the backing choices are white or 'natural' muslin.

She uses a mid-arm industrial Singer machine.

Interestingly, the machine is fixed and the rolled quilt is placed on a simple rack which is pushed along to change the sewing area.

The fee for quilting this piece was $24.00 and included the batting and 

[as they call it in Kentucky] the 'lining.'

In Wyoming I had my 'everyday' quilts finished with an all-over stipple stitch.

It was the most economical choice, but definitely pricier than this--and I supplied the backing.

I'm happy to find this as my 'new stipple' option for quilts which will see a life of wash and wear.

Log Cabin blocks are straight cutting, straight stitching--there is no trimming, no fitting of bitty pieces.

There are endless possibilities for setting the blocks and using various colors.

This is a Star setting and the light sides of the blocks are a mix of off-white 'tone-on-tone' fabrics.  The darker sides are dusty pastels.

I've delivered this quilt to a lady who offers a few more quilting options--which will cost me a bit more, but still very reasonable.

This quilt also has 36 -12" blocks, but wider borders bring it up to 94 x 94.

Almost a decade ago I made a classic Flying Geese quilt, setting the small patches in rows divided by lengthwise strips of printed fabric.

I was apparently on a roll of cutting leftover fabric into 'geese' for I discovered I had a supply of them tucked away in a plastic bin.

Browsing a quilt magazine I saw this setting which utilized 4 'geese' and 4 plain rectangles for each 12" block.

I remembered [in the middle of a restless night] that I had YARDS of the rosy brown fabric and devised this setting to create a quilt 85 x 95.

It has a cream muslin backing and cost $41.00 for the quilting.

I have to state that I was initially reluctant to leave my quilts with this quilter--when I noticed an ashtray next to her sewing machine.

We aren't smokers and find the scent of cigarettes in a room or on clothing, upholstery, etc offensive.

I concede anyone's right to smoke, but feel it is unprofessional to subject a client's work to the smell.

At least in this weather the quilter was working with windows open.  I hung the quilts on the clothesline for about 2 hours prior to bringing them downstairs to apply bindings.

Detail of Flying Geese in the quilt border.

Detail of 'wishbone' quilting pattern.

 Oh yes--the cat part of the project!

Cats like to sleep on beds--with or without their favorite humans in place.

Constantly laundering queen and king-sized quilts that have collected cat hair, muddy paw prints or [dare I say] the odd hairball hawked up at midnight, is a chore.

I wanted several simple quilts which can be layered on top of the quilted spreads or more elaborate quilts to keep them clean.

Edward kept me company this morning as I machine stitched the binding.

I pulled the ironing board and a chair close to my sewing table to support the quilt as I  laboriously chugged  around securing the binding. [I only hand finish binding on small or special quilts!]

Edward leaped to the ironing board and burrowed under the folds of the quilt.

He stayed there peacefully even as I maneuvered the quilt around.

The cats on the new quilt are [clockwise] Willow, Teasel and Nellie.

Willow.

Nellie, inside from prowling in wet grass, blissfully drying off on the new quilt.

Teasel, my beloved.

No photo of the 4th quilt which I left with the local quilter.

G. has laid claim to it.

I have the binding prepared for it and laid aside.

This weekend I will make another binding and finish the small Log Cabin quilt--it will be a nice size to spread on the back of the loveseat--or to take into a chair come winter--a homey quilt, a purring cat, a mug of tea and a good book--what could be more soothing?

Photos With a Few Words

We have at last experienced two whole nights and two days when it DID NOT RAIN!

The long spell of rain, humidity and heat broke on Monday evening.

Prior to that, nightly torrents of rain accompanied by rumblings of thunder have disturbed our sleep.

The air has been so heavy with moisture that it seemed one could reach up and squeeze it out

--like wringing a sponge!

Mornings brought little relief from the sense of heaviness--swirls of mist rising from the creek, trees and garden plants bowed with the weight of too much rain.

My brain has felt befogged and slow; threads of thought have appeared only to skitter away when I tried to pin them down with words.

Squelching about in my boots I discovered that the 'garden spiders' as they are locally called, have made their webs this year in the nandina bushes which march along the east and south sides of the house. I haven't pruned them this summer and the dense growth appeals to argiope aurantia.

I am not an insect lover, but these large handsome spiders intrigue me.

Their webs have a characteristic 'zig-zag' stitch down the center. Often the spiders rip apart a portion of the web and rework it overnight.

This is the first year I have planted cleome, growing both a white and a rose variety from seed.

Note the whiskery bits.

Both butterflies and hummingbirds find the pink flowers attractive.

Willis the cat is partial to this hump of grey rock on the front lawn. 

He sprawls there with the pink blossoms a fitting background for his grey tweed suit.

Butterflies on zinnias.

A zinnia unfurls on a misty morning.

The sunflowers with bronzed petals are my favorites.

When I went outside two weeks ago to find the sunflowers flattened, stalks bent, I thought of cutting them down to clean up the area.  I was deterred by yet more rain.

The sunflowers, valiant things that they are, have bloomed from their horizontal positions.

The tumble of sunflowers, cosmos and zinnias against the welcome 

blue skies of Wednesday morning.

I have pulled up yards and yards of naturalized morning glory in our previous three summers. 

There is always more of it.

The persistent vines clamber up the sunflower stalks and the blue blossoms peek out.

There is also a very invasive plant--visible in left center of the photo--it puts down roots where ever the stems touch soil.  It is a nuisance plant [I don't know its name] in spite of the tiny bright blue flowers.

My father planted morning glories near the side porch of his Vermont home for many years. 

He put up strings for them to climb, fussed over them, fumed when at nearly summer's end they had gone up the supports and turned back down again without blossoming. 

Perhaps these find the Kentucky climate more conducive to bloom.

I have to admire their 'heavenly blue' even as I scold over their persistence in appearing where they aren't wanted!

I spent a long morning yanking weeds from the lower perennial strip--the area so laboriously cleared at the end of June. It is mostly grass that invades, along with a wiry stemmed plant of the legume family.

Stems are lank and watery, the ground revealed when a handful is pulled away is soggy.

After several hours I was hot, sweaty, muddy-kneed, and impressed that I am fighting a weary battle this season against weeds and wet weather.

Nellie loves to burrow beneath the plants and spring out at the butterflies which I disturb with my flailing about.

The sunflowers still upright are way taller than I am--although they were labeled as 'dwarf.'

These are from saved seed, the originals were planted in 2010.

J. has been mystified all summer by the power to the garage cutting out at intervals.

He and Matt have fiddled with breakers, jiggled things trying to find a bad connection.

Tired of the outages and not finding the source of the trouble--most likely an underground 'short' in the line--J. consulted with old Mr. Rogers the last owner of the place as to where he had strung the power line.

Haskell Rogers at 97 is still very much in his right mind. With his directions as to the location of the original wiring, J. has disconnected it and laid a new 220 cable that leads out of the basement and across the yard to the garage--new breakers have been installed.

The new cable is buried along the inner edge of my herb garden, beside the concrete block retaining wall.

J. was able to carefully lay the cable with the minimum of disturbance to the lavender and woolly thyme along the wall.

J. rented a 'Ditch Witch' to get the trench deep enough for the electrical cable.

The cats were, of course, fascinated at the fresh earth turned up by this process.

The trench made a perfect 'hide' for mock battles, the moist dirt was a cool place to rest after exertions and also needed to be used as a temporary cat latrine!

I close this rambling post--the recollections of a scattery week--with this spill of cosmos.

These are also from saved seed.

They don't seem to mind their weedy space or the fact that they have been flattened by wind, rain and toppling sunflowers!

As Seasons Come and Go

The pattern of our days hasn't changed greatly since my last post.

It is too warm and humid [85 F] this week, and I wonder if the rather cool, wet July has let us in for unusual heat in August--as if the expected patterns of weather have been reversed.

The zinnia row is spotty this year--and I miss the solid bank of bright color which enlivened the gardens of the past three years. 

Lank grass has moved into the flower strips so laboriously weeded at the end of June--and the ground has often been too wet to work.

Disheartened with the garden upkeep I've turned to a marathon of quilt making.

I've pieced three in the past month, setting myself a challenge of working from my extensive 'stash' of fabric.

The three completed tops please me.

The 4th one, nearly done, is less color-coordinated as I found I didn't have enough of certain fabrics to create the color progression I tentatively planned. 

These are very simple quilts--slice and stitch the fabric--no marking or trimming and fussing to fit various components together.

I have been hauling out armloads of fabric, finding a few treasures that had gotten 'lost' in the tippling piles.

A good sorting is in order!

My boy cats are intrigued by butterflies and are too clever at leaping into the air and bringing down a fragile creature with a swipe of the paw.

Finding the butterflies, frayed of wings and near death on the doormat or front steps, I tell myself that perhaps it is only those that are exhausted and near death that are vulnerable to the cats.

The dooryard birds have finished raising their families, so we are no longer rushing to rescue fledglings and hauling the cats indoors to save the birds.

Our sweet corn has done well in spite of needing to be propped up twice after summer storms swept through and flattened it.

We spent a hot and sticky day last week freezing some of the harvest.

The large black and yellow spiders who make beautifully intricate webs are not in residence near the front steps this August.

They were partial to the huge over-grown clump of sedum which I removed from that area.

[It had flowers of a nasty bubble gum pink and sprawled very untidily.]

I spotted this egg sack just around the corner where the front porch roof meets the side of the house.

Daylilies have made a brave showing in spite of being battered with frequent rain.

Mine are only common [inexpensive] varieties, welcomed for their hardiness and color.

We've had another morning visit from the wild turkeys!

These were pecking about near my clothesline where the mowed area of the dooryard meets the rougher area of the back meadow.

Nellie and Bobby having a tussle on the lawn.

I snapped a succession of photos--all flailing, pouncing welters of tails and paws.

The hummingbirds are still with us.  I think  their nest is hidden in the branches of the maple beyond the carport. They whizz about when I sit with my coffee on the front porch, indulging in an interaction that doesn't look entirely amiable.

Both are on the right side of the feeder in this photo, blurs of movement.

Mornings have been damp and misty.

Cut grass clumps on my boots as I go about the morning routine of dealing with cat litter boxes or taking out coffee grounds and eggshells.

On several recent day

s we have found tins pulled from the trash bin in the garage and strewn in the driveway.

J. reports that some creature, a raccoon, perhaps, has flung the dishes belonging to the barn cats and knocked over the container of kibble kept on the shelf.

Possums have begun raiding the melon patch.

J. caught one--a youngster--in the Hav-a Hart trap on Sunday night, loaded it into the back of the truck next morning and carried it off to an area a goodly distance from houses and gardens.

Pebbles the Horse climbed over her pasture fence on Sunday night and again on Monday night.

When I got up on Tuesday morning she was strolling past the garden fence and out toward the old pear tree.

By the time J. dressed and put on his shoes, she had marched across the road.

She comes meekly enough to J.'s whistle and follows him back to her enclosure--where the electric fence has been amped up.

She is dreadfully greedy and obviously feels dumpish and unwell for at least 24 hours after each episode of gorging on green grass.

She is taking her detested 'pill' in an ear of corn, having resisted J.'s attempts to hide it in apples, carrots, grain or peanut butter--all things she has regarded as 'treats' in the past. 

The elderberry bushes have grown heavy-headed, leaning into each other to create an arch.

J. continues doggedly to mow the grass between rains.

Last year at this time we were dragging out hoses every night to water the gardens, in the midst of  a prolonged drought.

This summer we squelch about, clambering over cucumber and melon vines which have gone rampant.

Each year brings something different in the way of gardening challenges and successes--we work at the garden, try to make changes in what is planted and when--we can never second guess the variables of weather and seasons.

To quit gardening is unthinkable!

J. roared through one of the lower veg strips yesterday, scattering rinds of over-grown squash and cucumbers that had lurked in semi-rotten squalor beneath tangled vines. The mower bucked and stalled in places where the vegetation was heavy and wet.

If we are to have a 'fall garden' the strip needs to be tilled and prepared for replanting--very soon.

Showers overnight and in the early morning mean that the tractor and tiller would compact the soil.

The perennial strip in the foreground is ragged with spent flowers--only some of which I've cut back.

A few sunflowers survived the blow-down last month.

They are meant to be a dwarf variety, but the ones still upright tower over my head!

Beyond our boundary fence the neighbor 'bush-hogged' part of his pasture--the rest has gone wild with a vigorous stalk-y weed for which I have no name.