It is gorgeous

The decals arrived yesterday




With the tractor ride this Saturday...tractor joe wanted the decals on right away.









We have never done decals before. So we followed the directions and misted water on them... like it said. We ran into problems with bubbles. Tractor joe ended up using a pin to make small holes to squeeze out the water. One side took about an hour.









But... when you stand back it looks FANTASTIC!




If you stand next to it with your nose up against it, like we were, you can see every flaw.




The pictures don't show anything but good stuff!!!









So we left the misting of water out when we did the other side.

We love our work on this side!!! It all went on so smooth!!

....and this is the side that tractor joe will see the most when he is getting on or off the tractor.

....so it had to be the best!

I kept saying "OMG!!....it's like a miracle"

We sat in the back to admire our work. I took this picture to show Cornelius how his geraniums are doing.

I am taking care of them! I wonder if he will call when he sees this????

I wonder what the next tractor will be....I am partial to orange ones.....but that is way down the road.

little quilts, not quite done

My BOO quilt..........he is still coming together...
he's so ugly he's cute. I was going for a zombie kinda look.
I'll have to make more of these....it was fun putting his face together.
. ....and some of the small quilts are ready to be quilted.
I have been stacking them up thinking I would do them all at once.....


I love making these letters....go get inspired at
http://quiltville.com/tonya/alphabet1.shtml/

Only a couple more days until my class starts....I'll be geocaching on the way home from that....at least that is my plan.

very quick....just pictures

I sewed, mowed and ripped

I never did get the word stamping done yesterday. I was distracted by about 8 different things.

One of those distractions were a couple turkey buzzards sitting up on the silo.
I wondered how close I could get to them. They watched me walk to the shed. I had the phone camera out in front of me. They were still specks of black (on the camera) as I looked out one of the windows at them.

I took one step at a time to get closer. Sure enough one took off.....
It circled around the silo....
I could see their red heads....
I took a few more slow steps.... That was close enough, the second one took off. My encyclopedia says they often vomit if disturbed....
I don't think either of these did that.....


Since they never came back, they must have been resting.
We are in the clear for any dead animals lying around waiting to be turkey buzzard lunch.

What I did sew yesterday was taken apart last night. It didn't speak to me.... at least nothing happy, more like a low moan of agony....
The taken apart pieces are already re sewn and I now have one top ready for quilting.
I am in the middle of the second one....
...but I need to finish mowing this afternoon........I ran out of gas about 4 feet from making it into the shed and then we had a quick rain shower pass by.

rearranged

New day, new arrangement.......
I vacuumed around this stuff, but picked up everything else laying on the floor. ...I like this.......I will leave it while I go stamp "and wants us to be happy".........and stamp some question marks on the bottom right hand piece of fabric..... here I go.......

letters and stamping

I had declared July to be "scrapbook month" and I have done a lot of pages, but ideas for small quilts were rattling around in my brain and needed to come out....the following pics are what is laying on the livingroom floor righ now.
Most of the things aren't sewn together yet....I'm collecting pieces to add here and there...not sure what they will turn out like.... That's what can take me forever and a day to figure out....
Karen's stamps came in handy for some coffee cups. They looked so 30's-ish when I finished them.....I didn't think they went with my coffee word...so they will be in a different mini quilt....I'm not sure about the border.....
I may end up setting it in the drawer until some plan emerges out of my brain. First I will stare at it for a few days.
Hopefully it won't be on the floor to much longer.

The exact quote from Benjamin Franklin is:

Beer is proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy.

I still need to stamp the last part of the quote. You get the idea though. I've been making two of everything too. So actually that is 6 mini quilts in the making. I guess that is not so bad.
Except they are all over the livingroom and to top things off.....

Crispy is going out for football this year. He came home yesterday with his gear....and plopped it right in the middle of the floor...and there it still sits.....I think I will go declutter and then get back to thinking about what to do next with the quilts.

"i wireless" guy

Crispy agreed to help out in the parade. He would be the "i wireless" guy.





First you must strap your shoes to the inside feet of









"i wireless" guy........




This goes well so on to the next step.....






...Putting on the rocket pack.....he looks like he is ready for take off and will fly over the parade....

...but, no,,,thats not what happens






The gizmo will only inflate the "i wireless" guy.....








Everything is looking good.




The inflation goes well......




he gets all big and tall ....ready to go









BUT WAIT...........




he can't walk....


His feet are still strapped together!!





A knife or scissors is needed to cut apart the plastic strap holding the feet together....




....................................Poor "i wireless" guy even looks like he's saying,...........................

...................................."Help! my feet are strapped together".......................................













In the end it all goes well.



"i wireless" is able to walk the route



delighting the crowds.

"burn it" "no, I love it"

I bought this rickety old table at an auction several years ago. I would either fix it up nice or use it as a picnic table.
Since what I really needed was a table outside, that is what it became....and for 10 bucks, I thought that was a really good deal.
Tractor joe said it was junk........sigh........so he never participated in the rehabilitation of this sweet thing.....

...which is why every few years I needed to find power tools, nails, screws and a hammer to make it sturdy again.



I had painted it white a few years back. The paint is cracking just perfectly.
The legs were splitting so I nailed them back together.
The top was coming off the base last year. You had to be careful when moving it.
This week I reattached all of them......made it as level as possible. Tacked down a table protector thing, looked like batting........and I don't know where it came from, but I had it..........and then an outdoor tablecloth on top of that.

I love my picnic table and it should last for several more years.
Throwing it away is not and option yet!!!

more storms

We had strong winds and rain last night.
I slept through it all. When I went outside this morning I discovered a fallen tree.

I called tractor joe to tell him about it.
My first thought was....well good, more fire wood for the fire pit.
His first thought was....crap, more work work work.

Someday we might actually have the same first thought, if we do I will be sure to blog about it.

the boy quilt

The baby quilt is done! I put the binding on this morning.

I really enjoy making letters and I am so happy to have found

a place to use some of my random squares.

It measures 42 x 54.5 inches.



Ooops.......I just remembered....I need to sew the quilt label on the back of it. I am pretty sure I know where I left that.
It won't be long and Carter will have his quilt!!!

the canopy

Sunday morning............. I was just plain tired....the skies darkened and sure enough.........here came the rain.


Nothing heavy, but enough to make everything wet....


At least we were done eating breakfast, almost........


Jane cooked the last of the eggs in her raincoat and I held the umbrella over her head.




We gathered in the canopy


The dogs get to snuggle and stay warm


We play games.....






Like....


lets pick a random letter and name cities starting with that letter..... That was fun.
I do love the canopy. It is big enough for us to all sit out of the rain.

My whole tent would fit into it.

Then when it rained the tent would stay dry for the most part.

We wouldn't have to lay so many towels around to catch all the rain water seeping in.

A person wouldn't feel the..



drip





drip





drip



on their head as they lay there trying to fall asleep........



at least we didn't get enough water in the tent to make our air mattresses float.

anyway......

........ I took pictures in the canopy too..........

I must have been slightly weak and unsteady

Some were kinda blurry

In the end the sun came out enough to dry things out enough for a quick pack up and GO..........

does a couple hours of packing qualify as quick?

I am off to do some binding for Carter's quilt.....I am saying this so that there is something quilt related in this post.

the iowa great lakes

*torrential rains

*BIG bugs

*the kettlehole and ticks



We drove through rain to get to the campground. It was dry and even some sun when we set up our tents. All was well. My oldest, the big guy, crispy and me. Others would be joining us. It was the best 'tent set up session" we have ever had....everything went so well and fast this year.

We put on the radio and listened to weather warnings. I was told to relax by crispy. Everything would be fine.

My Mom arrived. She checks into a motel room.

No one had to tell her to relax, she knew her bed would be dry when she got back to her room.

The storm scooted to the south of us and we ended up with just some sprinkles. I made a temporary rain shelter for us from one of my tarps.

The big canopy was on its way with my sisters. They were to arrive after supper sometime. We went and bought chicken from the grocery store for supper. I don't like to suffer to much while camping.

We continued to listen to the radio...........more storms were coming.

Dang it.

Mom left for the motel about 8:30. They were reporting grapefruit size hail just to the west of us.

OMG !!
The rain started about 9:00 pm........and it rained

and rained

and rained.

no hail, no strong winds....just rain rain rain.

my sisters ended up stopping and staying in the motel with my Mom.

We were mentioned on the weather channel.....I had tractor joe and gwen watching to find out when the rain would stop. It seemed to last forever.

My sisters ended up staying with my mom in the motel.

We made it through the night. I LOVE this camp stove. I can get up a make coffee all by myself and enjoy it all by myself........

I have to be by myself 'cause no one gets up when I do.

I sit and drink coffee and read. While going through the Okoboji tourist book, I found out Big Bugs was on display just up the road from us.... it was free and open to the public...that's right up our alley....

David Rogers made all the bugs and this was its first time in Iowa. We saw 7 different bugs all made out from different kinds of wood.....

There was a dragonfly, praying mantis, grasshopper, assassin bug, spider, ladybug beetle and ants.



And then we went to the kettlehole. It was an earthcache. We estimated the distance across, I went down into it to get an elevation reading on the GPS to see how deep it was....plus take a picture like this one.....

I still need to work on getting this one logged. This kettlehole was formed about 12,000 years ago when a HUGE chunk of a receding glacier broke off and slowly melted here. It is one of the biggest.

The ticks were so bad here. I removed almost a dozen of them back at the camp.

It was awful, just awful.....but I get to log a cache so that makes it all better and this is really interesting to see.

quilt wallpaper

This is part of one of the first quilts I made. It's hanging on the wall in the entryway. It is special because I actually hand quilted it.

I am using this as the wall paper in the phone. It is what I see when I open it up.

I am also checking here to see if this will post while I am away.

going camping

I am getting ready to go camping.....part of that routine involves drinking coffee, watching the weather channel and playing with my cell phone.....the immediate forecast doesn't look good. I hope we can at least set up the tents between the rain and thunderstorms.

The shed....

I was able to get 4 windows for the shed last week. This project is only a year old, so that's not to bad. It still needs 4 more, but at least when you arrive in our driveway you now see windows in the shed.

Plus I got a new cell phone with a camera, it is so cool!! I went out to take pictures as tractor Joe was putting in the windows....and I wanted to take pictures of other interesting things......I had to use my new "toy"....

"So you're not here to help with the windows??" he says as he washes off the stickers.

"No, I just want to take some pictures"...........and I continued to wonder around with the phone held up in front of me...........hmmm??? what else shall I take a picture of??

The Oliver dash!.... that needs a picture..... all shiney and new looking.

What else?

Oh yah, the sign I gave tractor Joe for his birthday!

"Are you about done?", he asks me.

"Yah, I am going back to the house now." I am walking away and he says....

"Just as well, you aren't doing anything constructive anyway.'

....sigh.........he just doesn't understand......

blogging can be hard work.

little quilt

My caching cousins....cachehappy-cashpoor are moving.

AGAIN!!!

They started out in Missouri,

then moved south and then west.

Always further away.

On the bright side we have been to visit them a lot........

Seeing places we might not have ever seen in.......

Kansas,

Texas,

New Mexico,

Arizona.....

we never made it to California and now they are leaving..... BUT... their new home will be in Arizona....right smack in the middle of San Diego and Phoenix.

We may get a California cache yet AND...........( I can only hope)........a cache in Mexico.

Then I will have ALL of North America.

I love GEOCACHING!!

Ya know what? I am excited for them......even if their teenage daughter isn't speaking to them right now.

Gwen likes penguins. So this is all part of the mini quilt I made her.

The birds are out of a book called...

All Creatures Great and Small

Animal Stitchings by Natalie Bird

I had to name this............

I forgot Chinle!!!!

But as I recall, they would like to forget Chinle too.....all though not all bad...... the sight seeing stuff was great!!

Someday this too will be in the mail.

Buddy Holly

Finally!!....... we have gone by the memorial for years, but never stopped to do this cache. It requires a picture and a small hike along the fence line to the plane crash site. These glasses are at the road....so you know you are at the right place.

Cornelius was more than happy to do this with me. He was the photographer....instead of being in front of the camera scowling...he hates to be in pictures.

Here's the link to the cache web page...
http://www.geocaching.com/seek/cache_details.aspx?guid=654c666a-5840-4078-94f8-6f482432bbfb
I don't think you have to log in to read the entries for finds, just to get the actual coordinates. I used only one of pictures there.
I better thank Cachehappy-cashpoor. As I was trying to do the log, I couldn't remember how to add the photo, so I called him....
simple---log it, then it gives you the option to add an image....and I did.