Tree landed on House

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Diamond wall hanging

Made this wall hanging for a gal at work, she gave me some material so---it is made out of my scraps. I like it.

Autumn Eyes

Well it is finished putting the pieces on--now to quilt--oh DEAR!

Snow Moon

The full moon of February will hit its peak Tuesday night (Feb. 7) in what Algonquin Native American tribes have traditionally called the Snow Moon since heavy snowfalls typically occur in the northern regions this month.

Marvin

Miss you missy girl. We lost our wonderful Marvin who we had for 16 years. She was a great cat. I miss her greatly.

First snow

Oh yeah, our first snowfall, November 14th--and up to this date, November 28th we have gotten 45 inches of snow. Unreal.

New window

The kids came up in June, end of July and they helped us put in new windows in the house. Let me tell you what a difference the windows make in the house. Love them.

The patio window, Galen and I did in November, let me tell you this was heavy, but we did it.

May 2011

Here is the whole crew at my brother's celebration of life. Well almost everyone, we are missing Jesse, and Blake, one is napping the other one was being walked around in a stroller to keep him quiet.

whoops

Someone made a mistake, these are hamburger buns, not hot dog buns. Wonder how many went out of the factory before they caught it. To funny.

New Ride

We took the plunge--and we traded in the 2001 Ford Focus for this 2009 Dodge Journey. I really do like my new ride. It only had 15755 miles on it. Rides nice. It gets through the snow great. I am ready for a journey now.

Hankies

I bought these hankies when we were in Wyoming at a flea market. I was able to get a bag full of them for 10.00. Some of them were priced at 3.00 a piece, as I was picking out a few, the guy says, I will sell you the whole lot--of course, how could I refuse!
Went on-line, some of the designs that I have, they are selling for $10.00 or more a piece. SCORE! I guess I could try selling them on e-bay, I don't know if I want to deal with that or not.

But I am going to try and make another butterfly quilt out of these. Maybe if I have some left over, I can try selling them.

Busy Busy

Thumbs up! That is the new motto for 2011, at least for me!

Oh my, things have been crazy busy for us. I did my polar bear trip, Galen had a hunting trip for 2 weeks after that, then in October my brother, Mike passed away in California unexpectedly so we ended up down there for 2 weeks cleaning up his belongings and trying to take care of things on that end.
Galen and some of the hunters.

Then the first part of December we went down to see the kids in Wyoming, had a wonderful time. really needed that! It is amazing how they grow up and change so fast.

Then after we left them we went to Tacoma to see Roger Water's "The Wall" concert! Met up with some friends that we have not seen for years, hard to believe that 20 years had passed, that was a great time catching up with all of them.

Then of course, between the numbness of my brother being gone and trying to get through the holidays--and the next think you know it is coming up on February.

Polar Bear Tour

Wow, where has the summer gone? And Yes, this is a real bear, not in a zoo, but out in the wild.
I went on this amazing polar bear tour up in Kaktovick, Alaska. We visited with the Inupait Eskimo's which is located on the coast of the Arctic Ocean on Barter Island, the only village within the Arctic National Wildlife Refugee. We were 260 miles north of the Arctic Circle. The tour group that we went with was a company called Warbelow's.

The arctic ocean was cold! I couldn't do the polar dip, so I did the polar toe dip instead. The weather was around 37 to 40 degrees, but the wind was blowing at 25 to 37 mph, non-stop, and I mean non-stop.
Me, being silly on a swan statue in Fairbanks, before we left for the polar bear tour.

This was a great trip! I would go again, we seen 10 polar bears, and a bonus a huge brown bear also came out!

Fireweed is blooming

This plant is is called pushki or cow parsnips. You don't want to touch this plant on a sunny day, it

can cause a mild rash to blistering. It can even ruin the milk from cows if they eat it. So whatever you do, don't go grabbing it and putting your face into it to smell the flowers. You may look a little funny.

Like I mentioned in a previous post. The summer is coming to an end faster than one really wants it to end. As you can see, the Fireweed once again is coming into bloom. If you look closely, you see a bee and a moth on the fireweed.

Quilt and flowers

Man must BBQ! Here Galen is cooking a great steak dinner on the barbie. He cooks it in a hot cast iron pan...after he smokes it. It is so good, with caramelized onions that he also cooked in the cast iron pan.

Gosh, were has the time gone? Already it is past the 4th of July--and I am going what happen to the summer? But, I cannot complain, we had a wonderful spring. Warm and tons of sunshine. My plants did love it, but it seems like now we are back to the Juneau weather, which I hope doesn't last to long. My plants need a rain reprieve so they can continue to grow and not be eaten up by the slugs.

Here are some pictures of my hanging baskets. As you can see...it is pouring rain and low cloud cover.

The back of the quilt. Looks like I put all those squares together, but I didn't, bought the material that way, so I guess you can use it either side.

A Quilt that I finished, this is the front

Eagles

The eagles are back in full force since the salmon are starting to come in. It is just amazing watching them, fight and go after the salmon. I must have been down by the channel for over 2 hours watching them and taking pictures.

Can you say Silver

Kiwi Wine

How long does it take a person to peel 12 lbs. of kiwi's? A long time, but don't you think this will make a wonderful wine?

Busy Busy Busy

As I ponder and say, "Oh my goodness." Where does the time go? How can it just zip by, without any paying attention?
Our granddaughter, what a trooper. She is in the Casper Swim Club. They had a swim meet about a week or so ago. Kamee and her mom walked into the pool area, and all these trophies are lined up to give to the place holders. It is funny, I guess Kamee turns to her mom, and says, "Mom, I want one of those", Kristine says you have to swim really hard. AND look, who has a trophy and swam her little heart out. The smile says it all.Let's see, my boss was down from Anchorage, took her on a quick fast pace tour of things around Juneau. The Glacier, the Shrine, up by the flume trail. Here are some pic's out at the shrine that was taken with my phone and not my camera. The sad thing is, I had my camera with me. It was one of those great Juneau nights that don't happen to often, and between rain showers, we were able to walk to the falls without so much as a rain drop.

Drain-o bomb

Last weekend, someone, decided that they wanted to watch our mailbox get blown up. The cops called it a drain-o bomb, they mix drain-o with tin foil and the reaction makes things blow up. Well as you can see the damage it did to our mailbox.

So, thanks to whom ever set it off, we had to go and buy a new box. Just what we wanted to do.

Weekend of the 24th

We had a great weekend. Actually, I will say Saturday was the best. It was sunny and in the upper 50's, so of course, one had to be outside to play in the dirt. My friend gave me some plants that she had to separate since they were taking over the flower beds. So that was great. Did some planting of the potatoes, beets, cauliflower; my first year to try this and then of course brussel sprouts and my flower hanging baskets.

We had our first sighting of a humming bird on Saturday the 24th so that was great.

The bad news, the neighbors cat decided to go into my carrot raised garden bed and decided that he needed to take a crap in their. needless to say, he messed up all of my carrots and they were up about 1/4 inch or so...YES i was mad. So ended up putting wire across the bed in hopes to stop him from going in there. So of course I had to straighten things out and replant. I was not happy.

New quilt

If things work out, my brother will be getting married either this fall, or sometime soon. I have started making a quilt for him. I have the top done here, now I just have to figure out what to do with the back of it. The best part, is most of the material has been made from my scraps.

What a weekend!

How can one complain with the sunshine and the weather that we have been having? A person cannot stay inside at all when the weather is like this. Even if you just sit outside in a lawn chair--the summers are just to short and not much sunshine to be wasted inside.
It has been just wonderful. 25 to 26 degrees in the morning, but during the daytime, it has been up in the low 50's. Loving it! Hard to believe that 2 years ago we had so much snow that it took down our power lines on April 16th and even last year we had snow then.

We got a lot done this weekend, raked, burnt the leaves and dead tree twigs. Planted my carrots and onions. Turned the dirt over in the flower boxes, moved some blueberry bushes from the back of the yard to the side--hopefully they will all grow and I will have my own blueberry patch.

Mr. Squirrel in the forest, watching me rake and clean up the back yard.

Yep, that is me, playing in the dirt!

Me again, doing what I love to do, garden and being at home.

Have to keep the truck shiny and new looking!