Busy July

Most of the photos in today's post are from the first of July but I'm getting around to sharing them now.

The lilies are the shining star of the early July flowerbeds. They're so pretty! 

The purple cone flowers were just starting to bloom the first of July. They are very invasive and threaten to take over my flowerbeds.

I clip off the seed heads every year. Last summer I took the seeds and walked along the south edge of a hay field that is located along the road. I threw a handful of seeds in the road frontage all the way west to the line fence with our neighbors.

Purple cone flowers don't bloom the first year they're planted from seed, they just grow. I'll find out in 2022 if my experiment was successful.

Little wireman is almost overgrown with this ground cover. I'll make sure he doesn't get completely buried. He's been decorating my flowerbed since 1999! He was made in art class by a son, I put him in the flowerbed for his high school graduation open house back in '99. He never made it back into the house.

I haven't had my own garden for several years. Our local son has a garden and I've been helping with his this year. I ran out of green beans last winter so I've planted plenty. They had tiny flowers the first of July, we're getting plenty to eat and put in the freezer. Yes, I freeze my green beans, I hate the canned ones.

The grass needs mowing and the garden needs to be weeded but we had too much rain the end of June. I feel guilty for saying that when the western US states need rain so badly. I just couldn't get yard mowed with it raining every day and I don't like to mud around in the garden.

Twenty plus years ago I planted two different varieties of blackberry bushes in a corner where the west barn intersects with the west shed. I made sure I planted thornless plants. They're loaded with immature berries, I should have plenty for the freezer.

Of course I had to use up last years frozen berries so I baked a blackberry cobbler, it was delicious!

I love summer, so many beautiful flowers and the bounty of all the fresh vegetables and fruits, it's wonderful!

Linking to To Do Tuesday, Midweek Makers, Wednesday Wait Loss, Stitch, Sew & Show, , Needle & Thread Thursday

Cherry Wreath, Pastor's Attic Quilt

Another applique block completed, block 19, Cherry Wreath from the Pastor's Attic Quilt. Look closely, did you count them? There are 42, yes you read right, 42 cherries in this block!

This block is lighter colored than I intended but that's OK.

Here are the last five blocks. The top three are all rather light, but they're not going to be next to each other in the final layout. I jumped around appliqueing these blocks. Normally I start with the first block and do each block in consecutive order, but not the last month. I just did whatever block I had prepped. The bottom 2 blocks will be next to each other.

And a picture of the fifteen blocks completed to date. I'm over halfway finished with the center blocks! Like I've said before, this won't be the exact layout of the blocks.

This is all I have quilty to show you this week. The rest of my time this week has been spent finishing up the canning and I've also fall cleaned the house! 

I haven't posted about the garden or farm lately, so here is an update.

The garden is basically finished for this year. There are a few sweet pepper plants still growing, that aren't pictured. The butternut squashes are still growing at the west end where the field radishes have gone to seed. 

In the field on the side of the garden, you can the newly sprouted alfalfa. She's coming along good, lush and green. Hopefully the roots will grow deep enough this fall to prevent heaving during the winter freeze.

The hayfield has grown. We will be cutting this hay soon for a 5th cutting. It will be big baled.

You can see corn in the background. It is still slightly green and it will be several weeks to a month before it has dried enough to be harvested.

We are planning on starting soybean harvest Monday afternoon. You can't run beans in the morning, too much moisture. They need sunshine to evaporate the dew. I'm always surprised how fast the beans turn brown and loose their leaves. They were still green a month ago.

Here is a close up of the beans. I didn't pull any of the pods to see how many beans are in them. They should be full, we sure had plenty of rain in August.

We filled silo the middle of September. The chopper cuts the stalks and just leaves the root stems. Here is a post dated October 6, 2014.  I wrote about filling silo on my WordPress blog.

The rest of the corn will be shelled. The combine will pull the ears off the stalks, shells the corn, then spits the stalks and corncobs out the back.

You all have a good week and I hope you get plenty of quilty time.

Linking up to - Kathy's Slow Sunday Stitching, Quilting is More Fun than Housework, Em's Scrapbag, Love Laugh Quilt, Quilt Story, Esther's Wednesday WOW!, Sew Fresh Quilts, My Quilt Infatuation, A Quilting Reader's Garden, Crazy Mom Quilts, Confessions of a Fabric Addict, Show Off Saturday

Pillowcases & Applique

Last week, if I had any down time during the day, I ran to my sewing machine and worked on the pillowcases. They're finished, all 15 of them. The fabrics include everything from Dr. Suess to breast cancer awareness fabrics. (I hope I never need to give those to someone!) I couldn't get all 15 on the clothesline at once but I am pleased they are completed. I do need to make one more set of cases, a king sized pair. I'll get to those in September.

In the evenings I worked on my applique blocks for the Pastor's Attic Quilt. I just realized, each block has a name (duh!).

I didn't have time to do a lot of prepping so I marked several blocks that I could do back-basting applique. I'm working on block 12 (because 11 has a LOT of pieces!) named Oak Leaves & Acorns. This week I should get 4 red oak leaves appliqued. 

A couple weeks ago the weather forecast was for rain. I had tilled some empty spaces in my garden then planted field radishes. We got rain; we've received a LOT of rain and the field radishes are up and growing.

The farmer has plowed the wheat field and we hope to sow it to alfalfa. Normally we seed our alfalfa by the middle of August, but this year is proving to be a challenging growing season for faming.

One of the perks of having grandparents who farm is riding in the tractor with grandpa. What is even better is when you are the only local grandchild old enough to ride in the tractor; you don't have to take turns!

And at the end of the day, you can say, it's been a good day, good job done.

I'm linking to - Kathy's Slow Sunday Stitching, Quilting is More Fun than Housework, Em's Scrapbag, Quilt Story, Esther's Wednesday WOW!, Sew Fresh Quilts, Crazy Mom Quilts, Show Off Saturday.

Pastor's Attic Applique Block

I've completed block 10 of the Pastor's Attic Quilt! I'm always amazed that adding just a little bit of black brightens up a quilt block.

Here is the layout for the first two rows I've completed so far. Sorry the right side is darker. 

I've rearranged some of the blocks in the layout. The top left block will be turned so the vase will be the outside point, but I turned it this way for now so it would be easier for you to see. There are more blocks with vases to applique with a straight set. I think I'll put one of them on point and switch out the top right block. The other corners have flowers with vases, that corner should too. 

The blocks look much more vibrant in real life. I'm excited all over again about this project. I had been wondering if I should just stop with the blocks I've completed but no, I'm going to keep going.

When I started appliqueing these blocks last winter, I had marked the first 10 blocks with the light box. Now I need to prep the next 15 blocks. This may take awhile!

I mentioned last post that I had prepped a sewing project. Pillowcases make such wonderful gifts and they're a lot faster than quilts too.

I made this pillowcase for me. The pillowcase body has tiny little snaps and the header is buttons. I made 2 of these; the other one will be gifted to a quilty friend.

Because the Farmer is a big basketball fan, I made his pillowcase with basketball fabric.

I normally assembly line sew pillowcases, but I made these special for us to use right away.

There are a lot more pillowcases to be sewn. These are the perfect summer sewing project, I can easily pick up and sew for whatever time is available, then they patiently wait until I'm able to get back to them. Sometimes it is several days between sewing sessions. 

Around the farm and garden . . .

We didn't receive much rain in July and August didn't have any rain for the first 12 days. In anticipation of the rain, I tilled the empty spaces in the garden and sowed field radishes. They will pop up and suppress the weeds. I try to keep the garden as weed free as possible, it saves more work in the long run.

The tomato plants are going crazy. There are a lot of green tomatoes so I should have plenty for canning when they ripen. 

The green beans are blooming again so there will be more beans later in the week.

We baled this alfalfa field 3 weeks ago. Fourth cutting will happen in maybe two weeks.

This heifer saw me taking pictures of the garden and came to see if I had a snack for her.

My chicks are checking out the nesting boxes even though they won't be laying eggs for several months.

When the chicks were smaller, I had this feeder sitting on the floor of their pen. They crawled into it to eat. Now they are much taller and can easily reach the feed while they stand on the floor, but they still like to crawl in the feeder to eat.

I snapped this photo of the young barn swallows perching on the electric wire that stretches from the west barn to a heifer shed. Sometimes the wire is completely full of birds. 

The lily hostas are in full bloom. They smell so good. They blend well with the pink impatience.

We don't have the creepy-crawlers around here like Glenda has at her home but these garden spiders are everywhere this time of year.

This spider's body is about 1" in length. I don't mind them; they catch insects.

I'm linking up to Kathy's Slow Sunday Stitching, Quilting is More Fun than Housework, Em's Scrapbag, Love Laugh Quilt, Quilt Story, Esther's Wednesday WOW!, Sew Fresh Quilts,  My Quilt Infatuation, Confessions of a Fabric Addict, Show Off Saturday.

2 Finishes, Embroidery & Applique

The little Houses Wallhanging is finished and is hanging on the wall! She measures 22" square and was a perfect small summer project.

This was a kit from Rachel's of Greenfield. The instructions were very well written and easy to understand. 

A view of my hand-quilting on the backside of the wall quilt. I normally don't add a sleeve to the back of my wallhangings, but I did this project.

Last winter I had pieced a Snowflake Zippy-Strippy quilt and gave it to DIL 1. I started another Zippy-Strippy in June and finished her up in July. This quilt is for DIL 2. She likes red so I choose a jelly-roll from the In Stitches collection designed by Robin Kingsley for Maywood Studio.

I changed up the pattern so she would be longer and not as wide. She finishes at 59" x 84"

She was quilted on my sewing machine. I'm getting more accurate following the marked curves. It helps a lot to slow down the stitching speed. I still did straight line quilting in the center. I have a curvy line stitch on my sewing machine and I had intended to elongate the stitch and use that for quilting. Unfortunately, that stitch did not allow me to elongate so I just went with straight stitching.

Do some of these fabrics look familiar? I'm using fabrics from the same collection to applique the Pastor's Attic blocks.

I've prepped the next block in the Pastor's Attic quilt. The thin stems are supposed to be embroidered using 1 strand in the chain stitch. I decided to go with an outline stitch.

I also decided to not use fabric stems for the other stems. The flower stems are a double row of 3 strand chain stitch. The more narrow stems are a single row of 3 strand chain stitch. I'm liking they way they look. 

There is a vase at the bottom of this block with an inset center. I was supposed to applique 1/8th" strips on the red fabric then reverse applique the vase on top. I went with outline stitch embroidery. 

I do slow stitching every evening, not just on Sundays.

This is the end of the quilt section so you can quit reading if that is all you want to read about.

My garden is doing well. The broccoli plants have been pulled and fed to the heifers. The garlic and the shallots have been pulled and are curing before being stored away. I picked 2/3-rds of a 5 gallon pail of green beans Friday, the freezing process has started. The new potatoes are delicious and cabbage tastes so much better when it comes straight from the garden.

The above photo was taken on Saturday, July 9th. We harvested the wheat the following Monday. The rest of the week was about getting the straw baled. We did it! 

In farming there are really just 2 seasons. Winter and preparing for winter.

My flowering sunflowers have started flowering. Wouldn't a whole field of these be beautiful? 

The last of the barn swallows have flown away. These 3 little fledglings were brave enough to make the plunge soon after this picture was taken.

I planted a couple dark purple phlox plants around 25 years ago or so. They crossed with some white phlox and have hybridized themselves into these lovely white flowers with a touch of lavender. I'm so enjoying my summer flowers.

My meat chickens are now residing in the chest freezer. These new chicks will grow up to become laying hens. There are two kinds of chicks; the yellow chicks are Golden Comets and the black/brown/beige ones are Auracanas. The Auracanas lay eggs with blue or green shells. The egg inside tastes the same as the brown shelled eggs.

I'm linking up to - Kathy's Slow Sunday Stitching, Quilting is More Fun than Housework, Em's Scrapbag, Super Mom-No Cape, Love Laugh Quilt, Quilt Story, Esther's Wednesday WOW!, Sew Fresh Quilts, My Quilt Infatuation, Confessions of a Fabric Addict, A Quilting Reader's Garden, Crazy Mom Quilts.

Around the Farm & the Garden

I used to post more of what was going around the farm and in my garden when I started blogging 2 years ago. But farming is basically the same every year, even though every year bring different challenges. I think all of my posts on Blogger have been about quilts so now it is time to talk about something different.

All the fields on our farm are on a rotation. The field on the south side of my garden was planted to wheat last fall. It has just started to head out. 

Do you see the yellow things on the individual soon to be wheat kernals? That is the flower. You can smell the pollinating wheat, it is a sweet scent.

Here is this year's garden. On the east (left) end are flowering sunflowers, sweet peppers, 2 rows of broccoli, 2 rows of potatoes, the amaryllis bulbs, garlic, onions.

I like to have flowering sunflowers on the east side. There were a lot of plants that came up volunteer, I had dug them out and replanted them in a row. I covered several of the plants with these row covers the farmer made me but there weren't enough for the whole row. Something has eaten the leaves on the uncovered plants. The stems are starting to leaf out again, I don't know if they'll recover or not.

Last week I had planted several rows of green beans and they are starting to pop up through the soil. On the right side of the beans are the tomato plants.

Monday's job was to mulch the garden. The tomatoes have been mulched with ground corncobs. They have a nice aroma. After we harvest corn in the fall, we take the corn to the mill. They run the corn through the dryer the lower the moisture content to keep the corn from spoiling. That is what the cobs smelled like, the smell of the drying corn. It smells wonderful to me.

I used sawdust on the rest of the garden because that is what is available. It is a dusty and dirty job but I'd rather work hard mulching the garden a day or two and than pull weeds! 

In the evening I sprinkled blood meal beside the beans and other plants. That will keep the rabbits and other critters from munching on the plants. When the beans plants are taller, I'll mulch them too.

Last years garden didn't do very well, June was too wet and rainy. I never did get all of the garden planted. Hopefully 2016 will be a better growing season, for the garden and the farm.

Not everyone enjoys growing a garden but I do, and I hope to keep on as long as I am physically able. 

We enjoy blackberries and there is nothing better than blackberry cobbler in the winter. The plants are planted in the corner of where the west barn intersects the west heifer shed. That way they are fairly close to be picked, but out of the way so they can sprawl all over. I keep them mulched with chicken litter.

We had 3 extremely busy days a couple of weeks ago and had all the hay big baled and wrapped by the custom baler/wrapper crew. 

After baling, it was time for one of the fields to be plowed under. In the crop rotation, you follow alfalfa with corn. Alfalfa enriches the soil with nitrogen which corn loves. This is late planted corn and will be chopped for corn silage this fall.

The big hayfield on the west side of the garden has started growing again. We'll be making the next cutting of hay later in June. This field is getting older, not yielding as well, and will probably be plowed down in 2018.


Here are some random photos from around the house and farm.

Heifers grazing in the pasture on the south side of the house. We have fawn and white cattle called Guernseys. Not many dairy farm raise them anymore.

This stump is what is left from the old maple tree that broke off from The Storm of 2014. The center was hollow so I dug out some of the rotted wood, mixed it with potting soil and planted the geraniums and vine in the center of the stump, just for something different.

The peonies are starting to open. I love their scent. I have several colors, light pink, dark pink, dark magenta and white ones. 

Behind this light pink peony is false Indigo, at least I think that is the name. It was planted so long ago, I don't remember what is it. Love the pretty lavender-blue flowers. 

There are several bleeding hearts blooming, this one is behind some hostas.

I think clothing and towels dried in the clothesline in the summer smell so fresh.

I have this weed growing in my yard with purple flowers called spurge (?). It just spreads and I can't get rid of it! I've even resorted to using a yard fertilizer with a weed killer in that is supposed to kill the spurge. It hasn't done a thing. I just try to keep it out of the flowerbeds now.

I plant my own planters. This fall I'll bring these geraniums inside the house and over-winter them.

My laying hens are slowing down on their egg production. I'll get new chicks to raise for laying hens after the broilers are processed.

The broilers grow very fast. Right now they are 4 weeks old. It is hard to imagine, but they'll be ready to butcher in another 4 - 5 weeks. 

The barn swallows are building their nests. This nest doesn't have eggs in it yet. The nest is made from mud and is adhered to a barn beam.

Several Sundays ago, we had a swarm of bees in our lilac bush. We called our neighbor who has an apiary. He came and collected them or whatever the correct word was. 

I know this post has gotten lengthy but I do so enjoy springtime and the return of flowers and the color green. 

I hope you have a great day!

Link up to My Quilt Infatuation, Bits & Bobs