Keeper is the sweetest dog I’ve ever known and I am so thankful I kept him. Honestly, I can hardly stand the thought of him being in the shelter. However he has some quirks and I wonder where they came from. He was 4 months old when I got him and I had already fostered him at a young age with his two brothers. So where did his fear of the fly swatter come from?
It was raining earlier today and I mixed up cookies and put the dough in the frig – forgot about it till tonight so here I am baking cookies at 8 pm when I could be sewing.
We’ve had over 4” of rain recently – we’re going to begin to look better after the drought last summer. I sewed more grass seed today in hope it might grow.
Dot in NC was right as well as someone else who referred me to Barbara Brackman’s book. My block is #2048 and is called Crown of Thorns, Georgetown Circle, Memory Wreath, Georgetown Puzzle, Memory Fruit. This isn’t what I remembered Crown of Thorns however. If you like the colors so much, just enlarge the photo and write down the colors. I can give you my measurements when I finish. Blow up each block individually and go to your fabric collection. I’ll bet you can reproduce it pretty quick. And if you can’t, take your picture to the quilt shop. I can’t decide how many blocks I want to make because I want to know where I’m going to hang it. I have one small space and one large space.
A very sweet reader named Minnie from IN came across a bag of our wool – this bag was from Munchkin – and sent it to me. Just another sweet memory when we had my sheep sheared, wool washed and carded and we sold it in bags for Santa beards. Wow, does that date us!
Hey, Minnie – since you live in Indiana, do you watch Caitlin play basketball?
I got this book today from my friend Tanya in Houston – yup, another Caitlin Clark book and I was not familiar with this one written for kids. she knew I would love it! The dollar bill lying there is actually a silver certificate that someone sent for payment. Silver certificates were taken out of circulation 1964-68. I haven’t seen one in a long time.
One reader quilt – I’m going to use my extra weekend time to post the bullseye pictures.
Molly spent the afternoon with us. Such a sweet girl with some underlying issues.
Can you find Greta?
Talk tomorrow.
Jeanine, you so busy and generous with your charity quilts. They are always beautiful quilts.
Mary, bless you for taking in so many orphan fur friends. God knows what he’s doing.
I wish you could share some of that rain. We got a little bit and the apple trees are busting out with blooms. So is the dandelions.
My Loretta is afraid of everything. I think it’s because she is so small. It cracks me up. She saw a bag blown against the fence. Growled, stalked then went a long way around it.
Happy 3rd birthday, Keeper! Boy that 3 yrs went fast!! He & Hazel get along so well & really enjoy each other’s company. Interesting why he would be frightened of fly swatters. May be just like things we’re afraid of. I’m deathly afraid of snakes. I’ve never been bit by one or even touched one & I stay as far away from them as possible! You might be right with Hazel’s reaction to the flyswatter & eating the flies.
Yes, I watched Caitlyn Clark. She was fun to watch. I started cutting scraps for Dashed Dreams out of your book Beyond The Battlefield. I had already cut lots of scraps into strips waiting for a pattern to use them in.
Keeper is a lucky boy! And a handsome one too. We have had Golden Retrievers, beagles & mixed breeds who had strange fear quirks. One of our Goldens was afraid when we tore aluminum foil or waxed paper from a roll. The only dog breed we lived with who was not afraid of anything was our two Jack Russell terriers. Who would have guessed! Jeanine, I love your plaid potato chip quilt.
Thank you, Dee. All made from men’s shirts.
Happy Birthday Keeper. Such a sweetheart and so lucky he became your keeper. Can’t believe it’s already 3 years!
Jeanine, what a beautiful quilt and, the back is so interesting. Love it. I’m trying to decide on what quilt to make next. I’m leaning towards all scrappy to take care of some of my small pieces.
Thank you Connie.
Dear Keeper! Happy, happy birthday sweet soul! I wish we could find someone like you too that would be good with Penny and Lucy.
Wanted to let you know, Mary, we have been seeing a Baltimore Oriole since Monday and today we saw 4 males and 2 females having a party with our hummingbirds feeders and suet. I guess they will head your way North soon.
Pamela – I’m ready for those orioles! Got my jam, suet – but it’s just too darn cold here. They’d better wait a bit.
Mary I just can hardly believe that it has been 3 years since keeper came into your life. I remember his story clearly. He’s what one would call a lucky dog! Happy birthday keeper!!
We’ve had just 0.14 inch of rain today; there is potential for a little more. So far, we’ve had sufficient rain this spring. Last year, it didn’t dry up until the end of June.
Our cat seems to be scared of the clicking sound of the “grabber” sticks. It does come in handy when he runs outside and we need him to come back in. He was a few months old when he came to us.
I went to a local area quilt show today. There were many lovely quilts. The guild had a booth selling older books. I found a copy of “Quilts from Aunt Amy.” It came home with me.
HaPpY 3rd Birthday Keeper! He looks like a Dutch Shepherd, which are really obedient, affectionate & loyal dogs. My Lacy turned 15 on April 1st, no joke and she still has lots of energy. She’s a keeper too ! Jeannie’s quilt is beautiful. I love the scrappy quilts, my favorite.
Thank you Beverly. I enjoyed making it.
Bev said that she found the block in a Judy Hopkins book, with rotary cutting instructions. That’s nice to have; it looks tricky to rotary cut. I have several of Judy’s books, but not that one. I took an Empty Spools class from her years ago. She was a good teacher and a fun person, always making us laugh.
The block is also shown in Maggie Malone’s “5,500 Quilt Block Designs”, number 2044, named “Georgetown Puzzle”, credited to Nancy Cabot. Just a drawing, no cutting instructions.
Happy 3rd Birthday Keeper!!!!!
Love, your BFF -Hank
Glad to know it is getting to be spring in Iowa. My husband Eric and I head to MN in two weeks and ny knees, hips and shoulders prefer warmer weather. I love the colors in your quilt.
Happy birthday Keeper! And I too found Greta! Sweet!
Four inches is a great amount to help with the dry soil! We got an inch total yesterday!! Yay! It rained off and on most of the day! A lazy day!
Joy – I haven’t gone out to check the rain gauge but it rained lightly all night – there are puddles everywhere – again. Wow!
Joy – with what we got last night, we’ve had over 5” recently – what a relief! The pond is full and overflowing and will stay that way for awhile since the ground is saturated. Yahoo! I hope some more comes your way – our farmers won’t be in the field for awhile.
Happy birthday, Keeper!
We’ve always gotten our dogs as puppies except Dylan, our current dog. He’s 9 yrs old and he was a rescue that we brought into our life at 2 yrs old. He is the sweetest dog we have ever had and he does have quirks too. He is afraid of noncarpeted floors so we have runners all over to connect carpeted rooms so he can get around and when he wants to go into the sunroom he turns around and goes in backwards. It’s the cutest thing!!
Dorothy – if you took a video of Dylan walking backward into your sunroom and uploaded it to YouTube, I’ll bet it would go viral!! What happened in his first 2 years that developed this fear – wow.
It could just be something in the dog’s personality or a breed trait. My friend got her dog as a puppy and he is one of the most spoiled and best cared for dogs I’ve ever seen. He’s afraid to go up or down stairs and will also turn around backwards to walk into a room. Sort of looking over his shoulder and wiggling his backend, so cute!
Once I saw Greta, I wondered why it took me a bit to see her. She pops right out next to the arch. Enjoy your day. Marthanne
About Keeper’s fear of the fly swatter — we had a beagle mix, Lady, who was found in a ditch at 6 weeks old. She had a fear of the broom. One of our current dogs, a sliver lab named Star, we’ve had since she was 3 months old and when you correct her with a stearn voice, she cowers like she’s going to get hit. We’ve never hit her. She’s almost 11 years old! I don’t know where these fears come from, but they must be instilled very, very young.
As always, thank you so much for this blog. I thoroughly enjoy it and so appreciate the time you put in to it!
Susan – we have never raised a hand to Keeper either and I’m wondering if the fly swatter fear is because Hazel goes bezerk when we kill a fly – she eats it! She barks and jumps and carries on – as you can imagine she would! – and I wonder if that’s what Keeper is afraid of. Leave it to Hazel. Who would leave a 6 week old puppy in a ditch?? God knows.
We will never know if she was left in the ditch or if something happened to her mother and she never came back for her. My husband ran into the people who found her the day they found her. He talked them about how cute she was. They asked if he wanted her. Our kids were 9 and 13 at the time, and he brought her home. She lived to be 2 weeks shy of 15! Best dog we ever had.
Mary, your silver certificate is worth more than $1.00 –
Hi Mary, beautiful day here, ANZAC day,remembering my dad who served in WW 11, Korea and did several tours of Vietnam. I love Keeper’s ears!Take care everyone, best wishes from Sandy
Sandy – what does ANZAC stand for? Your dad really served his country, didn’t he?
Hi Mary, ANZAC is for Australia new Zealand army company, they were soldiers together at our first joint battle in WW1,fighting the turks on a beach and hillside for months,loads of heroic deeds. It is a sign of respect on 25th April, many people now make a visit to turkey for celebration of amazing bravery by so many young men. We wear a poppy on that day to respect them, Tears in my eyes writing this, my grandad fought in WW1 .
Sandy – I figured it was like our Memorial Day.
Sandy, my husband served in Viet Nam and took RandR in Australia. He loved the country and always told me how wonderful the people were to the troops.
Sometimes unexpected gifts come when you are looking the other way, just like Keeper.
I have really enjoyed seeing Jeanine’s shirt quilts-liked them all! And Mary’s blocks too. Cloudy here today but no rain. I mowed yesterday…and it rained so waited about an hour and mowed some more-and it rained again. Waited until it passed and finally finished mowing about 6 hours after I started. Usually takes about three hours from start to finish but glad I got it all done in one day.
Cindy K – Thank you. I saw the pattern on the Quilted Twins website and liked the different layout of the potato chip pieces. It is a free pattern. All the patterns are free, and they have a lot on their website. I really like it done in men’s shirts.