When You Give a Gal a Jar of Honey

 DH's BIL was here Sunday and Monday night. He's a cow buyer which means he finds cattle for people that want cattle and he finds buyers for folks that are liquidating or wanting to sell stock via private treaty. He is on the road all the time and he often stays with us when he's in our neck of the woods. Lots of time to catch up while visiting in the evenings.

Yes, he has his phone out, but he's just running numbers on his calculator. He and DH are discussing cow business. He says he likes that he doesn't have phone service here.

He's easy, laid back, and kind...he always brings something...pecans or wine or whiskey or pinto beans. This time he brought us honey. He says he doesn't need breakfast, but a jar of local honey just can't be accepted without fresh, homemade biscuits! It's like when you give a mouse a cookie...well when you give a gal a jar of honey...she's got to make biscuits.

Coming right up!

Truth be told, I hadn't made biscuits in a while...probably since the last time I cooked for a cowboy crew which would have been last May. Shameful, I know! But, I don't know if these biscuits are that incredible or if it's just the fact that we hadn't had them in a while, but dang! We just about foundered on them. I made bacon and eggs too and they enjoyed it so much. Definitely worth getting up at 4:30.

More company headed this way on Friday so guest room refresh and prep is on the menu for today

 

And yes, that is a price tag hanging from the lamp. I just bought it, but I'm not sure if it's right for this space so I may return it. Just calling it my Minnie Pearl lamp for now. 😉

Fall Flannel Quilt

 This quilt came about as a request from our girl. She saw this quilt that I had made for her Daddy and she said it was the softest quilt she'd ever felt and she wanted one for herself. Farmhouse Flannel Quilt

This is Primitive Gatherings Flannel and it really is incredibly soft and cozy. I did a little research and found this online...perfect!                   But then when I ordered it, it came with a lot of grays I wasn't crazy about for this project, but in April of last year, I settled on a Broken Dishes block and started sewing anyway. I looked for that same photo online then, but wasn't able to find it so I don't rightly know what happened between that photo and what was actually released.

I had 2 layer cakes so I pulled more of the brighter squares and sprinkled some of the grays around and I ended up loving it

This came together fast, but with our move, I didn't get to it until now.

I didn't make it very big because our girl always travels with a flannel quilt and this one was made to replace her current one, which, after a decade, has become thread-bare so it's just 60"x72"

I never request a particular quilting pattern. I just let Jackie and Sandy choose and they always select something wonderful

I backed it with this rust orange that I found on sale and bound it with another orange from the collection.

Here's hoping it'll be much loved. Even if I DO give it to her when it's 85 outside.

New Visitor

 The wind was blowing a pretty good lick Monday night (April 1). It was late - after 9. DH was asleep and I was reading in bed. I heard the horses whinnying and I heard something unusual in their tone. I worried that maybe one of them was caught in the fence or injured in some way so I slipped on my barn shoes, grabbed a flashlight and wandered outside to investigate. I didn't see any reason to wake DH unless I found something amiss, so I tentatively wandered around in my jammies for probably 20 minutes. The horses were jittery and nervous and continuing to whinny, but they weren't hurt so I headed back to the house and listened a while longer from the deck. Eventually, they settled down and I curled up to sleep.

The next morning, I shared my night-time walk-about with DH, but everything seemed normal. He saddled up to put a few miles on his young horse and when he came back, he showed me this

He'd seen tracks right below the house so the horses' reactions were absolutely understandable. From the size of the tracks, he was a pretty good-sized mountain lion. I'll admit that I felt like something was up while I was out there, but once I saw the photo, I shivered, thinking about my proximity to Sir Lion the night before. I'm glad he chose to move on and not engage with the crazy lady wandering around in her jammies in the middle of the night.

After the Snow

 Sunday morning we were greeted with blue skies and sunshine

Our high was 45 and the snow was melting quickly. Icicles were drip, drip  dripping and the snow was beginning to slide off of the roof.

When I went out to the shop to clean out the chicks' trough, I couldn't resist building a quick snowman

He's a little wonky, and not very big, but I was in a bit of a rush.

DH had ordered bees and he had gone to town to pick them up and he was just getting back. I quickly moved  him into a bit of shade

Before I trotted inside to mix up food for the bees

And we went down to get them settled into their new home

It'll warm up nicely again this week so hopefully they'll begin to explore and find their new mountain home to their liking

Just like we have