Virginia Visitors

 






Our niece Jennifer stopped for a lovely, but too short, visit from Virginia while she was back in our area to see her parents.

Her son, Dylan, will be starting kindergarten in the fall, but is already reading John Deere catalogs -- his favorite thing.












Dylan and his father, David

Gardens

Clematis climbing on the pergola





















View of the perennials

















Roses in front of the house along the road






















Water lily pond

Meeting Day

I only have one photo from the regular meeting of the Peeps (Art Quilt People) this month, but we saw the usual good work in progress.

 

In the perennial garden, Millie has decided to do her sunbathing on top of the pergola.













And in the back yard, Suki tried out both her favorite bench and her favorite locust tree.

Opening Camp

Our first trip to the Adirondacks in the spring involves opening and cleaning the cabin, and Monica came with me to help with the chores.

Justin came by too.  He got the canoe in the water and took his mother for a little ride.



Cleaning up

 

It seems the raccoon was back last night and my smelly dryer sheets didn't work as a deterent....  Aaarrrggghhh!

The mess wasn't quite as bad this time, but he managed to dig in just about every pot.

After repotting, I'm going to try pieces of Irish Spring soap around the flowers this time.

And in the meantime, Jason is cleaning up the last of the tree stumps that were left in the pasture from the take-down of some old trees and bushes.

Edging in the gardens

The beds in the perennial garden are looking very spiffy since Monica was here to help with the weeding and Jason was here to give everything a professional edging.

You'll see in one of the pictures below that even one of the kitties was relaxing and enjoying how nice everything looks.

Red and pinks

 

 The pinks and reds surround our house, from the Japanese maple tree in the front, to the pink shrubbery in the back yard, and lots of pink peonies in between.

 

 



Perennial Garden

It's springtime in the perennial gardens, and the flowers are off to a good start.

Flower Pots

I wish I had taken a "before" picture of our freshly filled  planters on and near the deck that looked so pretty.... !

This is the "morning after" scene.  Every planter had been dug into and many of the flowers were outside of their pots.

I think the culprit was a raccoon, and have since learned that raccoons may be drawn to the smell of  oyster shells in potting soil.


I'm replanting and  trying smelly dryer sheets wrapped around the inside of the pots --- We'll see....

Shirley's quilt

Our friend, Shirley, is home from spending the winter season in Florida and stopped by.

This lovely quilt is one she completed while she was away.

Tulips

Thanks for these tulips go to my friend from high school, Joan, who shares my Dutch heritage.  Our relatives immigrated from the same area of Holland.

She received some special bulbs from Hollarnd and gave me some of them for my front yard.

I enjoyed watching them develop and will look forward to them coming up again next season.

Visiting Deer

We regularly see several deer passing through the pasture near our house, usually in groups of at least 3 or 4 and usually near dusk.

This gal was by herself, though, and took her time exploring  the whole pasture.

She came close enough to the fence that I wondered if she was watching me watching her!

Stampede

A visit from Priscilla wouldn't seem complete unless we made time for a visit to the Longhorn Steakhouse. 

And, of course, the real reason for our visit isn't to have dinner, but to make sure we have their wonderful Chocolate Stampede -- delicious!

Peeps and Divas

The combined group of the Quilt Divas and Art Quilt People had their regular meeting at the Schweinfurth Art Center in Auburn.

One of the highlights of the meetings is the sharing of work done by the members.

Bev shared the two pieces on the wall.








Pat talked about her two pieces to the left of Bev's quilt.











These two quilts were done by Anne G.











Regina showed us these pieces that she developed using fabrics she made in Pat's Surface Design class.

Peeps Meeting

The Art Quilt People gathered for their regular monthly meeting.













Pat showed us her first test of working with some heavy canvas fabric that she soda soaked and screen printed with thickened dyes.

















Linda was traveling back to Ohio after the meeting, and Cosmo was patiently waiting for her in his bed.




















Linda developed this piece from a class she took from Joe Cunningham.


















Carol with a piece she made with surface design techniques.
















Prsicilla is visiting for a few days and joined us for the meeting.

We're looking at this wonderful quilt Jeanne is finishing for a wedding present.