ho hum . . .

I have blog apathy right now.

I don't know why.

I've been doing lots and lots of cool things. Todd purchased tickets to Riverdance, the farewell tour, for me for Mother's Day and we went Tuesday night. It was awesome.

I thank everyone who voted for my quilt in last week's Quilting Gallery sponsored contest. I won! I got a $30 gift certificate which I quickly spent on Christmas fabric. :)

We've been walking most mornings, and it's like my own private good morning concert of birdsong, in surround sound. Plus the honeysuckle are in full bloom, along with the hedgerow, and it smells heavenly. (And I am *sucking wind* by the time we start up that hill, so I'm inhaling that fragrance deeply. So deeply I'm still catching the scent four, five hours later!)

The critters continue to come up Acorn Hill and to the corn in droves, making me laugh at their antics. There were deer and a raccoon up here this evening. A deer would get to close to the coon and he'd run the deer off. Silly things!

I was able to spend quite a bit of time with my darling grandson this past weekend. My heart just swells with love for that precious boy!

Finally I got the right ruler I need to the hexagon quilt a long. Monday will be a quilt-till-you-wilt day.

Work is work. TGTF.

A new whole foods type grocery opened in Huntsville this week. It's called Earth Fare. I plan on visiting it on Saturday morning.

All of the Movie Galleries in our area (in all areas, I guess) are going out of business. Their last rental day is Saturday, and then they're selling all of their stock. Just sayin'.

I started a new online Bible study this week. It's deep and intense and I'm excited about it.

I've even been taking lots of lots of pictures.

I am just tired. And I needed to note this for posterity.

Fin.

:)

*sigh*

I really miss my camera!

As I pulled into the camp ground tonight, Todd warned me that if I didn't want to hear the raccoons squabbling tonight, I'd better get some corn/seed out before dark! They have been incorrigible the past few nights, chatting *so* loudly they woke us up! They are incredibly obnoxious when they find there's no filled birdfeeders for them to ransack. So I dropped off my stuff (and opened up windows to 'unstuff' the RV) and headed out to spread corn, birdseed, and peanut butter!! The peanut butter is my favorite. We mix cheap, creamy peanut butter with corn meal, pecan meal, and oat flour. Then we spread it on the tree bark. The woodpeckers, nut hatches and (my favorites) the wrens, love it! But the raccoons do, too . . . they lick it completely off the bark! I wish we had an infrared camera so I could watch them!

I noted that the doves moved in as soon as I'd finished setting out feed. I think they were watching me from the tree limbs.

The raccoons tend to move in just after dark, but the deer have already made it up ... at least a group of three have. We saw a group of three this morning, too. It may be the same three. We've been hearing whip-poor-wills the past couple of evenings, too. They definitely tell on themselves (in that there's no mistaking what kind of bird they are). I've heard them, but never seen them, so I looked them up in the bird book. Very nondescript! And nocturnal, to boot.

The (gray) squirrels are just a chattering away up in the trees. Fussing at something or another. I did see the big fox squirrel as I pulled up. He flew away when he caught sight of me!

Todd & I have both, finally, seen chipmunks up here! We'd seen them in the lower part of the camp, but never up here at the RV site. Yay, they made it!!

We've got a work day up here this weekend, but I think the weather is going to do us in. One of the things we've got to do is prepare the permanent site for the RV. The new site isn't far, but it is out of the designated camping area, which is nice. I enjoy the campers, but our big, white monstrosity out in the middle of their tents (and at best, a pop-up camper) kind of takes away from the primitive feel for them!

The utilities came today and dropped off line to hook up the new site. Also some early work day volunteers came up and mowed and trimmed around the pond. It looked very nice as I came home!

This is my 397th post. Wow.

Bon nuit!

:)

happy saint patrick's day!

Erin go braugh! Which is the anglicized way of saying "Éirinn go brách" or "Ireland Forever"! Of course, if my Scot ancestors had any clue I was even thinking such things and wearing green today, it wouldn't be pretty! But St. Patrick was an honorable man, and I don't mind remembering his accomplishments on this day!

Let me preface this post by saying I had all my pictures on my memory stick, but when I loaded it into the computer, for some reason the directory I'd copied them onto isn't visible here. Pooh. And time to back up and punt . . .

This morning we had an incident with some tree-huggers. Pesky things. Why won't they leave us alone????? LOL! Before anyone gets upset, I'm talking about raccoons! They've been hijacking our bird feeders and suet cages for a couple of weeks now. Some mornings we'll get up and find the bird feeders are off the hanger (no matter how securely my hubby tries to tie it up there). And we lost several suet cages to them. This morning we opened up the shade to find one lone coon still hugging the tree, pawing into the suet cage. He wasn't deterred by our window-knocking, either!

Not long after he climbed down and loped away, the deer wandered in. We have a couple of different groups that come up and feed on our Acorn Hill. In the last week or so there have been times when we had more than twenty deer! It's incredible to be able to sit at the kitchen table and just watch deer for an hour or so, 20-40 feet away. I love it!

Yesterday was a busy mail day! I received this in the mail from Julie, over at "Me & My Quilts ~ Exploring the Possibilities". I had been the lucky winner in her '600 Post Giveaway'! Yay for me! I can't wait to sit down with this and explore my inner creative child! I didn't even know I *had* one! LOL! :)

I also forgot to mention that I'd received this in the mail, too! It's a quilt kit from Downy. Mine didn't look exactly like this (I got one with Noah's Ark themed fabric), but this gives you the general idea. They send you the fabric to piece a complete top and the backing--you provide the batting--for you to sew, wash, and send back to them.

The Quilts for Kids mission is to Transform discontinued, unwanted and other fabrics into patchwork quilts that comfort children with life-threatening illnesses and children of abuse. You can read more about them here or sign up to receive a kit here.

And time for giveaway teaser number two . . .

I mentioned yesterday that I often saw several areas of commonality in the quilting community; tea drinking was one of those areas! So I thought I'd share a box of one of my favorite Bigelow teas, Pomegranate Pizzazz! You can sip it while you peruse a copy of the current issues of Tea Time and Celebrate Spring magazines! Tea Time is one of my all time favorite magazines; I have every issue ever published! And Celebrate is the newest in the Hoffman Media collection; always lots of fun ideas for entertaining in the current season!

So, add that sweet little combo to yesterday's Heart for a Hero . . . and then remember I've got one more day to add a teaser!

Whoohoo!

:)

on frozen ponds . . .

It's a bit chilly here in the deep south. It was twelve degrees when I got in my car to go to work this morning. Not quite the temps Alabamians are used to! It's been several (five, to be exact) days since the temperatures ventured above freezing. I had to laugh when the weatherman reported this morning that we would be experiencing 'bitter cold' temperatures by the end of the week. Buddy, we're there!

Driving down from Acorn Hill over the last few days, we've noticed that slowly, but surely, the ponds are freezing over! It's been an interesting progression to watch. Neither of them are ready for ice skating, by any means, but another week of these temps and they most likely will be! Thinking of frozen ponds and ice skating brings with it a wave of childhood nostalgia. I have fond memories of trekking through Severndale (our community) to Oakhill Elementary School (up hill, both ways), to the pond behind the school. We'd skate and play for hours and hours. When there was snow on the ground we'd take our sleds and go down the hill from the road to the school. What fun! When the sun started to set we'd head for home, shivering and worn, but happy and rosey-cheeked, too. Hot chocolate was always ready for us, and the smells of a home-cooked meal promised our bellies would be warm and full in no time.

I remember one particular trip to the Oakhill pond (which was probably more like a big swamp) during Christmas vacation. I'd gotten a really cool pair of boots that were Eskimo-ish and fur lined. I believe that may have been one of my favorite gifts under the tree that year. Anyway, a group of us trekked up to the pond, me wearing my new boots. It was cold, and I think I remember there being snow on the ground, but evidently it hadn't been cold long enough; there were some thin spots on the ice, and it didn't take long for me to find one! The water wasn't deep, so it wasn't like I fell in and got sucked under the ice or anything dramatic; I merely stepped *through* the ice and down into about twelve inches of water and muck. Cold, cold, COLD! That was my first thought. Pull foot up! That was my second thought. Unfortunately, when I did, the boot stayed down below, caught in the muck. I was so heartbroken! I remember getting down on my knees and fishing around in that cold water until I found the boot and pulled it back through the hole I'd made. I remembering walking back home (maybe about a mile) with one boot off, totally dejected. But thinking back on it makes me smile. I cleaned the boot as best as I could, but it was never quite the same. It didn't stop me from wearing them, but they were certainly no longer my prize.

Isn't it funny how a simply thing like driving past a pond that's icing over can bring back such a vivid childhood memory? I haven't thought of that boot/ice incident in years and years. But it's a part of who I am.

To everything there is a season and a time to every purpose under the heavens.

I'm looking forward to Saturday and the opportunity to 'test the ice' on frozen ponds . . .

:)