Mrs. Browndirt goes camping and geocaching.....

When I mentioned that I was going camping, a comment came in from Brown Dirt Cottage....

she said she could start a fire with one match and no paper.

I thought,

It sure would be nice to have her along to start the campfires.

Then I thought some more....

She could go with!

I could make a Mrs. Browndirt, she could do everything we did.

Mrs. Browndirt arrived safe and sound at the campground with us. She sat nice and still on the trip over. She didn't even get into the graham crackers and leave crumbs all over.

Mrs. Browndirt wasn't able to start the fire like she said, 

BUT 

I got all kinds of encouragement while I started the fire. I used paper. Mrs. Browndirt said that was okay, I still only used one match like she does. 

Always the prankster, she played with the flashlight. When it got dark, she stuck it under her chin and tried to scare us. 

Time to go geocaching!! It was me, my sister Jane, and Mrs. Browndirt.

First up was a cache inside a library.....

We needed to search the card catalog for John Sculley. This was the wrong drawer. It was the next drawer we tried. We found what we needed and went searching for the book.

Mrs. Browndirt helps sign the logbook...

There were kids playing video games at the library. 

A bunch of them kept staring at us.

Watching us.

What the heck?

Was it because we actually used the old card catalog to find a book? 

I can't imagine what else would cause anyone to take a second look at us. I thought the three of us blended right in at the library. Good geocacher use stealth. Doesn't do anything to call attention to themselves. I think we were okay.

The next cache was in a small wooded area, in the middle of no where. There was no clear path to it. We had to fight our way through the trees to find it. It is called bushwhacking. The next problem was getting the lock open. It took a couple attempts before we got it right.

I opened the door...

and looked inside.

I screamed my fool head off and slammed the door!

Jane's eyes bugged out, "whaat?"

Then I started laughing and couldn't stop.

Jane wanted to know if there was a mirror in there?

NO! Go look!

Jane refused to look, 

and Mrs Browndirt just sat there with that amused look of hers, wondering what all the fuss was about.

I finally calmed down enough to re-open the door. Jane came over slowly to see what made me scream so much.

It was just a fake chicken with real feathers and beady little eyes watching for anyone who might open the door. The cache was in the drawer. We did a few more caches that were pretty tame, then headed back to the campground.

After a few hours of geocaching, Mrs. Browndirt needed to lay back and relax. 

We had lots of fun while camping. Our only complaint was how HOT and miserable we were every afternoon. 

The body for Mrs. Browndirt came from (HERE)

I'm back.....

Camping was hot. We sat there wishing for rain and wind, and we hate rain and wind while we are camping. We thought winter was the best season. We laughed at ourselves....we are never happy....

My sister and I stopped in an antique store. I found this old postcard, it seemed so fitting, that I had to buy it. 

This is also an experiment. I was playing with my camera, it will convert pictures to super small and I had to see how they would look here on the blog. 

I think it works rather well. I need to go convert pictures I will blog about next.

schoolhouse blocks

Yesterday, I finished 9 school house blocks to enter in this month's block lotto.

I thought I was done sewing for the week. I was getting ready to go camping and was busy gathering and packing. 

Except, this morning I started thinking....I had extra roof pieces and a pile of scraps sitting there staring at me.

And I wondered, 

what would multi-colored scrappy houses look like?

So, instead of packing, I was sewing.

Now I know what different colors look like.....

And what they look like mixed in with my incorrect red ones.

I like it.

Now I better go work on packing and finish sweeping the kitchen floor. I walked away from that when the fabric called. 

I will put these in a drawer, and cover up any other fabric scraps. 

That way any calls from fabric will be muffled and I won't hear it.

block lotto and the boomerang

I finally took out all the plaid blocks I won at block lotto. I laid them out this morning. This isn't all of them, but a good number of them. I never marked them with names. 

I am thinking that I will add narrow sashing and white corner stones,

and the setting triangles will be white and some dark.

Picture snow topped mountains.

Or maybe not, it is all just rolling around in my head yet. 

Yesterday, I hung up my super secret project to take pictures of it. While I was out there Crispy came along with his brand new boomerang. He was throwing it around, trying to get the hang of it.

I did duck for cover at one point.

He was rather close to me. I could hear it cut through the wind.

Then I heard him say, "oh God"

and his foot steps were running towards ME.

It was coming back, with me as it's target.

I covered my head and closed my eyes waiting for impact!

I escaped being hit. When I felt safe to look, it had landed several feet away from me.

All was well. Crispy adjusted his throws and continued to practice. 

Next thing I know, Crispy is out walking in the corn field. 

This corn belongs to Farmer T. Our acreage is surrounded on three sides by his farm ground. The fourth side is the edge of town. It is a good combination of town/country.

Anyway, the boomerang landed in the corn but he couldn't find it. Years ago he lost a boomerang to the corn field. We never found that one back. He wasn't losing this one. 

I went out to help look.

 So did the cat and dog. But all they did was fight and chase each other. They were really no help.

It took a good 20 minutes of walking up and down the rows.

We had to change our search tactics. We started looking at the corn and not the ground.

That worked. There it was, hanging on a baby corn plant.

Back to throwing.

More block lotto stuff.....

The June block is a SCHOOL HOUSE block. So cute.

I made two, but they are wrong.

The chimney reds are the same color as the roof. They should be the same red that is used on the door side. Plus they could use more contrast with the reds. So I pulled out some more reds and laid them out. I leave for camping this week, but I am hoping to dive into these and sew a bunch of blocks. 

star blocks....

Here are the star blocks for Block Lotto. I was going to make more, but the FQ I had bought, had a flaw right in the middle of it. GRRRR....

It will work fine for something else, but not these.

the last few weeks.....

I won block lotto!

 I may write the name of the person who made them, on them,

 so I stuffed them back into the envelopes for now. They are the hot cross plaid blocks.

 (this block and I kept mine to mix in)

Both Jacob (owner of the zombie quilt) and Crispy were in the high school spring play, Leaving Iowa. 

It was so fun to watch, I went both nights.

Synopsis.......

The spark behind Leaving Iowa comes from being children of parents from the now dubbed "greatest generation." The story is a toast to their idealism and character and a little roast of their undying dedication to the classic family road trip. More specifically, it is the story of Don Browning, a middle-aged writer, who returns home and decides to finally take his father's ashes to his childhood home, as requested. But when Don discovers Grandma's house is now a grocery store, he begins traveling across Iowa searching for a proper resting place for his father. This father-and-son road trip shifts smoothly from the present to Don's memories of the annual, torturous vacations of his childhood. Don's existential journey leads him to reconcile his past and present at the center of the United States. His Dad wanted to go there, but the rest of the family voted no....so he never got there. Don finally gets his Dad there.

Leaving Iowa is a postcard to anyone who has ever found himself or herself driving alone on a road, revisiting fond memories of his or her youth.

Jacob was the grown-up Don.
Crispy was Grandpa and the character of Bob, the hog farmer at the center of the United States,
somewhere in Kansas. 

On the way to graduation, my Mom was saying,

"I've never been to House on the Rock."  (roadsideamerica)
She has been by it many, many times but never stopped.

She is the female version of Don's father in the play. We took many road trips and stopped at ALL the historical markers. There was something to be learned everywhere.

I told her to stop there next weekend. She will be going right by it again....
this could be her chance to finally get there
or we might have to go there someday ...just to leave some ashes.

Crispy is officially done with high school!

I went fishing, caught nothing. 

Well, wait, I did catch a tiny crappie.

But it fell off the hook before I could get it in. Haven't had time to go again.

Last night was a partial eclipse....

A friend brought over his welding masks.

We could see the moon over the sun with these.

Tried taking a picture through the mask.

 It just looks like a hot green sun.....

I did get a quilt to the quilter...I can't talk about it yet.

Super secret.

I also have 8 star blocks made for this month at (block lotto)

Just need to get their picture taken!

Maybe I should go work on that.

history, weather, birds...

We were up in Alexandria, Minnesota for a wedding last weekend. On the way home we were driving on two lane highways. Went through several towns.
We stopped in Madelia. On the building was this painting.....

Something happened here, didn't know what.....so I went over to investigate.

Who were these guys and who are they shooting at???

I knew about Jesse James and the Younger brothers, but never really paid attention to what happened after Northfield.
(Every year they celebrate and re-enact the attempted bank robbery....The defeat of Jesse James!)

Madelia also has a yearly celebration....Capturing the Younger Brothers.
So I learned some history.
I called one of my sisters. I asked her what happened to Jesse James after Northfield.
She didn't know. So I had to investigate further when I got home.
I found out the gang had split up, so Jesse James wasn't here.

We are in a wet and stormy weather pattern.....

I was out taking pictures of the storm clouds rolling in. The town siren went off while I was out there.
Crap.
I had been playing with the camera. It was set for black&white for this one.
Better go in.
I took my camera, checkbook, computer, and the latest quilt I am working on down to the basement. Tractor joe never did come down. He gave me the all clear....
"The birds are back at the feeder, it must be safe now!"
So I hauled everything back up stairs. We ended up with about an inch of rain with this storm.

The birds are back.....

I spent a huge amount of time just bird watching yesterday.
I figured out what I was going to sew, but never did get any sewing done.
Hopefully next time there will be fabric involved in the post.