Hanging Up My Apron

The pastures have been gathered and the calves are weaned. Our pens are filled with bawling calves and the weather has finally taken a turn towards fall. My kitchen has been wiped clean of flour, my stove has been scoured, and I am hanging up my apron for a few days.

 I thought about running away to a quilt show in a town about 90 miles away, but I'm just too tuckered out.

Conversation after supper while we were clearing the dishes in the kitchen:
Me: I think there's a quilt show in Clovis this weekend.
DH: I'm not going.
Me: * Chuckling* I know, but if I were unable to drive, would you take me?
DH: Yes. *Brief pause with the beginnings of an eye twinkle* Because I know I don't have to.
Cue our laughter.
And a minute later, as he walks past me with his mug of ice cream, he piped up, "But if it was important to you, I would take you."

And that's reason 254 - I'm thinking of keeping him. :)

 He is helping the neighbors today and he'll probably be home about noon. Hopefully we'll be able to sneak in a nap and then make a circle to check cattle and waters.

Since he left just after 4 this morning, and I didn't have to feed anyone, my kitchen stayed dark and quiet and I slipped in behind my sewing machine. Lots of 4-patches are made:

 I am working on my Ginger Belle quilt - making hourglass blocks

 and beginning to put some blocks together.

I just finished listening to an audio book called The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie. I ran across it at the Johannesburg airport while browsing through the bookstore and the title intrigued me so I made a mental note to add it to my list. Here's Amazon's review

Amazon Best of the Month, April 2009: It's the beginning of a lazy summer in 1950 at the sleepy English village of Bishop's Lacey. Up at the great house of Buckshaw, aspiring chemist Flavia de Luce passes the time tinkering in the laboratory she's inherited from her deceased mother and an eccentric great uncle. When Flavia discovers a murdered stranger in the cucumber patch outside her bedroom window early one morning, she decides to leave aside her flasks and Bunsen burners to solve the crime herself, much to the chagrin of the local authorities. But who can blame her? What else does an eleven-year-old science prodigy have to do when left to her own devices? With her widowed father and two older sisters far too preoccupied with their own pursuits and passions—stamp collecting, adventure novels, and boys respectively—Flavia takes off on her trusty bicycle Gladys to catch a murderer. In Alan Bradley's critically acclaimed debut mystery, The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie, adult readers will be totally charmed by this fearless, funny, and unflappable kid sleuth. But don't be fooled: this carefully plotted detective novel (the first in a new series) features plenty of unexpected twists and turns and loads of tasty period detail. As the pages fly by, you'll be rooting for this curious combination of Harriet the Spy and Sherlock Holmes. Go ahead, take a bite. --Lauren Nemroff

It is written by a Canadian author and narrated by Jane Entwistle, whom I adored. I was utterly charmed by her accent as well as the author's ability to turn a phrase. It's a delightful book. I love mysteries but I just can't do the gory ones or books with awful language and this one has neither so it gets 2 thumbs up in my book.

There are enough leftovers that I won't have to cook this weekend and that just tickles me to pieces. I think I'm going to smell like bleach forever after washing mountains of dishes for days.

If anyone is looking for me, you can find me...correction, US...here: