Under the Needle: January

I know most folks don't love the month of January, but I'm in the minority. It may have something to do with where we live. We have sunshine over 300 days out of the year. Brilliant, clear blue skies are the norm here in our corner of the world, year-round. It was 12 degrees when I took this shot.

So even though we get below zero temps, snow, and have bitter cold winters some years, I don't have the excuse that the gloomy weather drives me into the sewing room. If I waited for inclement weather to sew, I'd never be in there. If anything, I would want to escape the heat of the summer, but since we moved to the mountains, even that hasn't been an issue.

I kicked off January by finishing up this Book Nook Quilt that now lives in Oklahoma.

I focused on my Balsam Gnome Quilt this month and made all the blocks. And then, since I figured I'd need 2 of these, I went ahead and cut and pieced all the blocks for the 2nd one and stitched them both into tops.

Our granddaughter helped pull fabrics for a pink quilt she requested a few months ago and I started cutting pieces. Next time she's here, I'll let her lay them out, but I thought it'd be easier if I went ahead and made all the flying geese first. I'm just getting started.

I'm using this Carrie Nelson pattern, but plan on making it a tad larger.

And then I went off the rails and started a completely new project. (Shaking head). After a conversation with my DIL that led to her asking if I had any flannel quilts up for adoption, I had to start one. I pulled a FQB from my stash and started cutting.

 I was able to make 80 blocks from the 20 fat quarters.

I also bound this Into the Woods Quilt so that's my 2nd finish for the year

 Just yesterday, I just started stitching the binding on this quilt in the evenings 

So the first month of the year allowed me to soak up the sun, spend some time working in the snow with DH, AND make some progress on projects. January was a good month. Wishing ya'll sunshine-y skies!

The Orchard Project

 When we were looking for property a few years ago, one of the things on the list we looked for was something that included an orchard. We didn't want anything big - just something small. This place didn't have one, but there were a few fields down by the old homestead that was a perfect spot. It was kind of terraced and it looked like something had been planned there at some point.

DH bought a load of pipe last fall and cut it for an orchard fence and our son came over last week for a few days and they got it pounded it into the ground

We've visited with friends about fruit trees and learned of a nursery about 90 minutes away, tucked into the mountains, close to a little mining ghost town community called White Oaks and we made an appointment to visit there last Saturday.

We were there for 6 1/2 hours. LOL. Jaimee, the owner was absolutely lovely and SO interesting. She and her scientist husband live on the property completely off-grid.

Off grid facilities

She bought the raw property 25 years ago and has built a thriving business. She has crawled all over these mountains searching out historic orchards and gathering stories, photos, and root stock and growing fruit trees with history.

These heirloom trees are proven and hardy and have thrived for a hundred years + in our challenging environment, often on abandoned homesteads, without care.

Jaimee also hosts a farmers market on Saturdays - March through November and I'm looking forward to visiting then.

DH and I spoke maybe 10 minutes of those 6 1/2 hours and at the end of the day we felt like we'd completed a graduate program. 

We were completely fascinated and overwhelmed and had a huge case of information overload by the time we climbed back into the truck. 

DH looked at me and said, "Don't talk. My ears are tired." 😂 My brain was tired. 

And Jaimee is doing all of this at 72 years of age! All while taking care of her husband who has stage 3 kidney disease at home. Here she is picking us wild celery that she grows

She has work study students on occasion, but she really does all of this on her own while growing a garden, doing all of her cooking on a wood stove, and trying to heal and take care of her husband. She also has horses and competed in endurance races and still competes in ranch sorting events.

We will go back and pick up some trees as soon as we get holes dug and fence up. Jaimee is also grafting us some trees that will be ready in September. 

We are planting 3 apple trèes, 2 peach, 2 plum, 1 apricot, 1 pear...and we may try some grapes. We'd like a few cherry trees, but she said the birds and bees usually get to all the fruit first and she's in the business of making sure folks can feed themselves. We may try anyway although they won't be heirloom trees. And when we go pick up our trees, we drive right by White Oaks Pottery...sounds like a must-stop to me. 

Jaimee lost all of her chickens so I'll take her eggs and this time I'm bringing a notebook so I don't have to file everything in my brain. I can't keep up with this special lady!

How We Spent the Snowy Weekend

 We spent a few days winterizing in anticipation of the winter storm that has been blanketing so much of the country. We were kind of on the western edge of it according to the weather maps.

DH built a couple of frames to cover our HVAC units. When it snows, the snow and ice piles up on top and can freeze up the system and we don't want to burn out the motors.

We got those put in place

Heat lamps in the well house, shop, and tack room (because there's a bathroom and sink in there)

Freeze misers on the faucets

The chickens have feed and water in their insulated coop. Spoiled chooks.

Our high was 12 on Saturday and they may have ventured out, but I didn't see them.

The horses came up looking for breakfast

They get frisky when it snows and will be playing in it after their feed buckets are empty

Our injured horse is still being confined

Normal people would follow suit of the chickens in such weather, but we never claimed to be normal. This man doesn't have an idle bone in his body...retired or not. After a warm bowl of Posole and corn bread muffins at 11, we spent 4 hours burning slash piles 

I don't even know how many there are...maybe 15 or so, I lost count but we just burned 4 on Saturday. 

We have to let them burn down and then walk around and toss outlying stumps, logs, and debris into the center so we get a complete burn.

We'll see what the weather does overnight, but if there's no wind, we'll tackle more tomorrow with our trusty supervisor in tow.

Snowy trails

When we came home, I made a big pot of stew since we'll be away from the house and will want something warm when we come in. While that was simmering, I wrote this post, watched a little UFC, and tried not to fall asleep.

Showers and our heads hit our pillows pretty early. That's about as wild as it gets around here on a Saturday night. We ought to sleep really well tonight! 

Sunday update: We ended up getting 5" overnight and it's snowing again this morning, but we didn't have a ton of ice with this storm and we never lost electricity. We're at the end of the line so restoration takes a while when we do.

And we're on slash pile duty and behind the shovel again today

DH started them first thing in the morning and then came back to pick me up at 8. We came back in at 4 to eat and tend to chores at the barn. It's a ton of work for 2 old people.

So many areas were hit harder. We're just grateful for the moisture and honestly, it's just beautiful here when it snows.

We've got a good fireplace and access to more wood than we could ever burn and a gas stove and grill so we got along just fine. You can see the house way off in the distance.

Skeet's prayers for more snow were answered.

I'm just praying I can lift my arms tomorrow. 😂

Into the Woods Quilt

 I'm always in need of masculine quilts, but they seem more challenging to plan for me. 

This particlular quilt doesn't have a home yet, but I felt called to make it when I tossed this dark brown fabric into a basket and it landed next to this.

I pulled a few coordinates and this 5-yard quilt pattern felt like a perfect combination.

The pattern is called Jitterbug, from the book Step it Up  With 5-Yard Quilts from Fabric Cafe.

I had this green in my stash and initially, I thought it was too dark, but it really matches the pops of green in my 2 main fabrics. It's been in my stash for longer than I've been making quilts and I  have a lot of it so it also ended up on the back

I really like the way the dark brown, that's been in my stash for many years as well, looks a little like paths from one area of the woods to another in search of a deer.

And I used the same brown for my binding.

I didn't fussy cut my fabric with resulted in some partial deer peeking out from the side of some of the blocks, but it looks more realistic since you have to hunt for them. 

This finishes at 60" x 72" and I love the way it turned out.

We have deer wander through here almost daily, but this morning, elk stopped in for a visit.