Connie invited me to join her and Roy and Roy’s two sisters and husbands at the Northwest Steakhouse in Mason City tonight. The steak, Greek salad, bread and spaghetti were once again out of this world. I haven’t been there for over a year or more and I enjoyed it very much. I miss seeing Connie every day so tonight was really fun. Betty rode along – she likes the car as much as Keeper does!
I am mesmerized by the beagle rescue in Wisconsin. It makes me sick that anyone could mistreat animals like that and I hope they are charged with a felony and jailed. It makes so so happy to see those delighted beagles touching grass, smelling outdoor air and feeling the sun for the first time in their lives.
Reader quilts
More rhubarb recipes
This is a Country Threads pattern available for $5.00 and a self addressed stamped envelope. Send cash or check to Mary Etherington, 2345 Palm Ave, Garner, IA 50438.
I made this quilt last year – you can find it by searching for Timeless Traditions online. It measures 60” x 60”. I can’t wait to hang it up – maybe in the porch?
I could cover the entire fence with red, white and blue quilts! Wouldn’t that be a quilt show?
Got most of the lawn mowed today – tomorrow cleaning lady will be here and Casey is coming to finish the flower beds.
A busy day today and another tomorrow, game Saturday and church Sunday.
Michele got some cards today! Thank you – she was surprised!!!
Good Night!
Been very busy here lately. A couple of weeks ago 19 tornadoes touched down in northern Illinois. A small town (Lena) just northwest of us was hit with a high end F2 tornado just as school was letting out. Everyone is all right but many of the houses and trees did not fare well. We were pelted with 2-1/2 inch hail as was a very large area that stretched for miles. Our roof was destroyed as well as every inch of the west side of our house, garage and sunroom. Our insurance company has been here and has offered their payment based on their assessment. We have been waiting for our contractor to get to the worst first. It is amazing what wind and hail can do!
Love the chick pictures.
Polly – oh no!!!! We’ve seen pictures on the news but of course I didn’t realize you’d been hit hard. And finding a contractor and all the clean up ahead – I am so sorry!!! Were you home at the time the storm hit? I cannot imagine what 2-1/2” hailstones must have sounded like on your roof!!!!!
We were home. I was in the basement and of course Bob was upstairs watching the storm. It was very loud! and they were telling us to take shelter! Many vehicles were totalled and windows and windshields were smashed. Our screens were broken but windows and skylights were ok…. so far. Been told to watch this winter to see if condensation forms to indicate seals were broken and argon has escaped. Seems like it will never end. With so much damage so widely spread who knows when they will get to us.
Polly – oh, how terrible! Please keep me updated – I hope they come soon!
Saturday morning…..I am heading to Akron, Is shortly to do a Mother’s Day thing with my daughter and granddaughter. I really am not sure what the project is, I’m just excited to spend time with my daughter and granddaughter!,💕 I will let you all know.
Loved all the quilts, etc. the red/white/blue is so awesome! I’m sure you would have a raffia stopper if you put your quilts on the fence! The chickens are really growing! Pretty soon you’ll have pullet eggs. What do you call those little eggs? Michigan calls them new beginnings!
Yesterday we attended our grandsons’ Graduation at Mitchell Tech in Mitchell SD.
Enjoy your day. Yesterday was beautiful.
Joy – ooh, what a busy weekend for you! Can’t wait to hear what your daughter has planned. I don’t know where Akron is – will look it up.
I call them pullet eggs – about the end of the summer I’ll be buried in those sweet little eggs.
It’s cooler here today but I’m sitting in the porch anyway with a quilt over my lap.
Mary,
Boy, the chicks ARE growing! They’ll be full grown beautiful hens soon. I love your 2 red, white, and blue quilts shown. I really like the name, Walk around the block.
I got to watch Scotch for three hours today. We had a good time. While I unloaded a load of wood chips at my son’s house, Scotch stayed in the car. He loves the car..any car actually. You may remember me telling you Scotch’s first human lost their housing situation and ended up living in a car. He was surrendered because he was one of two large dogs in the car. He was fostered unsuccessfully by my neighbors as he was adopted within a few day by them!! And he’s living his best life now.
Nice weather day here. Continuing to transfer plants into my greenhouse. I think I may chance planting some dahlias this weekend. Maybe!
I’m wishing all the readers who are mothers, a very Happy Mother’s Day. Take care, Mary. 🌻
Sunflower – Lucky Scotch! I’d have kept him, too. Keeper begs to sit in the car IN the garage. It must be a safe spot for them. Yes, those chicks are really getting big – I go see them many times a day.
I took lots of pictures of quilts today. It was beautiful here today and I love when I can get lots done. I can’t wait to see what you’re doing in the garden!
Oh such a beautiful quilt show!!! Loved the chickens and the dogs and the cats and the rhubarb recipes! I hope my rhubarb grows. I took my car in today to have the front wheel bearings replaced by a great mechanic referred by a friend. Now it doesn’t sound like a small plane going down the freeway. It’s always something that needs fixed. I had plans of quilting today while the car was in the shop but it was so nice out that I cut dead roses off my bushes and cleaned up dried bougainvillea flowers. They are beautiful when they bloom but when they dry up, they blow everywhere and they look strange hanging in the cobwebs. Hopefully I can quilt tomorrow.
There is no match for a Greek salad. Automatic go to. The red, white, blue log cabin arrangement is one that begs to be made. Thank you.
Wonderful group of pictures. Love the chicken and their long toes.
Can’t get Plaidy Cake out of my mind. Have any of your readers made it? Interesting to know if it uses up a lot of scraps(my goal!)
Pat – the reader said it did / I think 3 sizes of strips, the biggest was 3-1/2”. I have ordered it yet but I’m sure considering it
Hi Mary,
Thanks for your blog each day. I recently made Yes We Can America and was inspired by yours !
Thanks for all you do
Kim in N IL
Kim – I love that quilt, don’t you? It wasn’t hard just lots of piecing which I love.
Beautiful quilts today. So fun to see the animals. The dogs have so much fun together and you ar so good to them. I also feel so bad for the Beagles but happy that they are getting a chance for a better life. I want them all!!!! What fun to spend time with Connie and friends! Your blog makes my day!!!
Thanks for showing us a couple of the baby chicks, they grow so fast. They are going to be beautiful birds and hopefully give you lots of eggs. I miss my chickens but rebuilding the chicken yard and caring for them require more strength and time than I have now. I don’t know where my time goes but there is never enough to get everything done.
The quilts are all inspiring this morning. I would love to sew today but I need to dump the huge load of branches and twigs I picked up yesterday because there are more in the front that need removing. Then I hope the lawn mower will start so I can cut the grass that soon will need to be baled! It started and ran until I drove it out of the garage then refused to start again.That’s typical of all the machinery around my farm, my husband usedpi to keep everything in top shape but that’s a thing of the past. I was then going to clean a smaller flower bed and wanted to use the tractor bucket to hold all the leaves and other debris to take to the compost to dump but the tractor wouldn’t start either! After working for 2 1/2 hours in the cold yesterday I then gave up and came inside and did laundry.
The triple puppy butts made a cute picture. Show they are always smelling for something interesting.
Blessings for a wonderful day for all and wishing all a happy mothers day! If I get the lawn mower running I may not get back to my computer until next week, there is a lot of our 25 acres that we keep under control with that mower.
Linda – for this problem I will give Rick all the credit for keeping our fleet of mowers running. The dealer we bought the zero turn mowers from will also come out and get a mower that doesn’t run for some reason. I love mowing and it’s also what I do to keep the weeds at bay – it’s easy to sit on the mower. It hard to bend over to pull weeds!
About the chicks – the eggs are a by product that later this summer will become a problem because there will be so many of them. I love the chickens free ranging in my yard. And before I got them I decided I wasn’t too old to get chicks again!
Wonderful posts today! Love all the quilts and all the furry/feathered pics!
So glad Mary that you were able to spend time with Connie. And eating at one of your favorite places. The quilts were lovely. Hopefully I can get back at sewing more. Just a little bit more garden work to do. Still need to get plants.
My aunt’s funeral today so lots of family time. Although sad that she is gone it is time for cousins to reconnect.
Rita – I haven’t seen my cousins for a long time – I have a lot of them! It’s good to conclude the funeral with smiles and conversation, isn’t it?
So glad you enjoyed your outing — nothing better than spending time with dear friends over a delicious meal. Love seeing all the quilts….. beautiful!!!! Ladies, thank you for the rhubarb recipes! I have started looking but I cannot find mine for the rhubarb cake. So frustrating!!! Mary, I will keep looking. Lord only knows where it is. Thinking about the recipes, it reminded me of my grandmother putting cut up rhubarb in a pot with a bit of sugar and cooking it until it was all syrupy….. absolutely delicious over ice cream especially when it was warm. I did find that the one grocery here, Sprouts, has it in the freezer section. Oh boy, there goes my diet! Out the window!!!
Love the red white and blue quilts. I think we are all thinking patriotic with our 250th birthday coming this July.
Have a Good Friday!!! or as a friend calls it FriYAY!
Your evening out with Connie and Roy sounded lovely.
20 years is a long car life; Pammie looks good. I enjoyed the beautiful quilts! Thanks
Great quilt parade tonight.
Your chickens are beautiful, they are growing fast. It must be the bugs they love.
We got 9 inches of snow this week!! About 1+1/2 inches moisture. My trip to the car wash worked.
It was hard to shovel, but a small price to pay for liquid gold.
Mary, I’m having trouble clicking on ads. They keep pulling up their websites. It takes forever to read the whole blog. Please forgive me if I don’t click every time. My kids are coming for Mother’s Day and they will fix my iPad.
Don’t worry Jo about the clicking on ads for todays post cause I clicked on enough to make up for both of us. Some days I have a lot of easy ones to click on and other days they take me to the website rather than closing them. Todays that were easy for me were James Avery jewelry ads which make me chuckle cause I am not a jewelry person. You’d think the ads would be for fabric companies and not jewelry. I was happy to be able to close about 10 ads easily this morning. It doesn’t always work well for me to close them either.
Kathy – THANK YOU FOR CLOSING THE ADS! As I got the notice that $278 was automatically taken out of my account yesterday for my monthly copier lease payment, I knew I could thank many of you for helping me pay that quite high bill. 🙂
OMG, what a quilt show tonight!!!
Mary, what a fun time you had with Connie! Today I also got together with old neighbors for lunch. Lots of memories to treasure.
I love your red, white and blue quilt and a fence full of them would make some beautiful pictures!
Don’t work too hard Friday!
Thanks for all your work on the blog!💙❤️💙