It was 60 degrees today! Rick’s birthday – some years we’ve had a snowstorm on March 10. I made his favorite – carrot cake.
And here is Alice’s new baby – BOOTS!
The strawberry truck came to Garner today –
I started to write up the pattern for the Citrus Splash pink and gray quilt and it has gotten complicated – too much for posting on the blog so it will have to be a $10 pattern. This will also insure that those who really want it will send for it and I won’t have to keep posting it over and over. I will work on drawing it up and having someone proof it so put this on hold for now.
I think this photo got misplaced – the reader who sent it in told me she pieced this on adding machine tape. I’ve always wanted to try that.
A reader asked about this pattern – I actually think it’s a Country Threads pattern but I’ll have to search to find it. Anybody know the name?
Happy birthday Rick! Carrot cake is a good cake to celebrate with.
My son’s birthday is today. We are up in Iowa this week. It all just fell into place. We haven’t always been able to celebrate his birthday with him since he’s been up here.
Susan – good timing! How old is he? This is an ugly time of year in Iowa – all brown and messy with twigs and branches and trash in the yard. And too sloppy to clean up yet.
He turned 34 this year.
I haven’t been able to keep up with the blog this week. Monday we went down in the basement to see if the old dryer was gas or electric. Surprise! There was 4-5″ of water covering the floor! So the neighbor came over and we figured out the breaker had flipped and the sump pump quit working. We had already scheduled an inspection for today but we’ve spent a lot of time getting things dried out down there.
Once the breaker was flipped back to working, the pump did get the water out quickly. We set up fans to dry it out the rest of the way. Thank goodness we didn’t have much down there.
Today we got a new sump pump.
There is at this point very little that we haven’t upgraded in the house now.
Susan – oh dear! Thank goodness you didn’t have much down there. Nothing is simple! I have said this at least 2 dozen times last week.
Happy birthday to Rick & that carrot cake looks yummy. Boots is a lucky boy to find such a loving home. It was 72 and sunny here today. Tom was busy pruning trees & we bathed the little spaniel we are dog sitting & worked some of the mats out of her fur. It was a beautiful day to take a long walk in the warm sun.
Des – lucky dog to stay with you and get some attention for a matted coat. Mama Kitty in the barn has had a real matted neck area that I’ve been cutting away as she lets me.
Happy belated Birthday, Rick. I love your choice of birthday cake, a favorite of mine. Yes, First Watch has a wonderful carrot cake pancake, one of my favorite choices on their breakfast menu. Mary, your cake looks wonderful!
Jan
Jan – the cake is almost too delicious to have around. I can’t leave it alone!!
Rick, Happy belated birthday. Mary our cake look delicious. We hit 64 degrees yesterday afternoon with clear blue skies. It was a great day but we still have snow. Today’s high was only 34 degrees, but then we get warmer days for the rest of the week. There was a robin outside our house about two weeks ago but I haven’t seen one since. Alice, congratulations on your new dog, Boots. He will be well loved by both you and Ron. I really like the Hiding In Plain Sight quilt. I did a web search on the quilt name and a photo of Connie came up. She was holding up the quilt that appeared in the book. I looked for a copy of the Beyond the Battlefield book but I got sidetracked looking at two other Country Threads books that I want to own . . . decision time for me on which book to purchase. Janice Traverse City
That cake looks rather inviting, I think we all should come over for a piece….and sing happy birthday to Rick.
It’s nice outside. I think I’ll water trees. We need moisture, but….
Boots looks so happy with his new buddies, Ron and Alice will give him so much attention and care. Thank you for rescuing another dog. Our rescues were both a year and a half each.
It’s 63 today and wind has picked up again. We have to get our sticks burned soon as a burn ban will be in effect for us thru mid May.
I got my Spring pattern Mary and I must say your new copier does a wonderful job with printing. I can see why you needed a specific one due to the size paper.
Thanks for giving us this chance to get some patterns from you.
Happy birthday to Rick! That cakes looks marvelous! Lucky people to have Boots, too. Love your blog, Mary.
Thanks for working on Citrus Splash! Let us know when you are ready for money!
Happy Birthday to Rick! Wish we were there to have some of that delicious looking carrot cake with you both!
Happy belated birthday to Rick! Carrot cake is one of my favorites & plan to make one for Easter when my son & family are here. Also want to let you all know that Ron isn’t my husband! He’s a dear friend who lives across the street from me. Our mates passed 5 yrs ago within 2 wks of each other. He has his home & I have mine, but he comes each night at 5:30 & we eat dinner together. I love to cook & he likes to eat! Both of us were married to our mates for many years, him 65, me 55. Boots is only a yr old which is a much younger dog than I normally adopt. But I wanted a small dog & preferably this breed, but I would have adopted any small breed. I have a small home. Boots is my 5 rescue. Such a sweet little pup! He was the only small dog at the SPCA!
So you love to cook and he loves to eat. Plus you both love dogs. Sounds like a perfect friendship to me!
Alice – thank you for introducing Ron to the readers. I didn’t think it was my place to do that but I’m happy they know how happy Boots is going to be!
Mary is the pattern hiding in plain sight only available if I find your book or would it be a pattern I could buy from you. I have three of your books but not that one. I’m lucky I could have you send the pattern to my son in Nevada if it is available.
Teresa – I’m going to post on the blog tonight – you can get it from me for $10
Happy Birthday, Rick! Enjoy your delicious carrot cake! Our family loves carrot cake & German Chocolate cake with peanut butter icining or cooked white icing. Mary, those strawberries look wonderful; great price and from Florida, too!. I buy fresh fruit, strawberries, blueberries, raspberries, blackberries, then freeze. I add a handfull to oatmeal before microwaving; the fruit thaws while the oatmeal is heating and it’s a delicious way to have fruit with breakfast. “Boots” is adorable! Spring is finally here in SE PA (for a bit anyway) . Robins and other songbirds were vocalizng this morning when I let granddog Pearl out. Crocus and other spring plants are starting to peek out of the ground. Blackbird murmurations are a treat to watch as they drop to feed then lift up of the ground to swoop and swirl in the valley.
Mary, you will be so proud of me!, I finally got my iPad figured out to be able to click on all the adds! It was really simple! I just had to read your block in Safari! And hey they were! So I just click and click and click!!!
Yesterday my cousin and I went for lunch…we went to Luverne because we both wanted cat food from Bomgaars…but the restaurant we want to go to was closed! So, we drove back to Brandon and had a wonderful lunch there. Got all caught up in the chitchat! I came home and was bushed! I actually slept for an hour! Stupid time change! So did I accomplish anything? Nothing but clicking the ads on Mary’s Blog😉
Joy, your comment jumped out at me when you said Luverne and Bomgaars in the same sentence! My husband and I grew up in Pipestone, just down the road from Luverne, but have been in northern Iowa since the mid 70’s.
Joy – YAY!!! Thank you! I had to look at a map to see exactly where Luverne and Brandon were located. I tried to catch a nap this afternoon but with three dogs, it was impossible.
Happy birthday to Rick!
Boots is adorable!
Happy Birthday Rick!! The strawberries look yummy! Alice your dog is so adorable.
The quilt is from Beyond the Battlefield and it’s called Hidden in Plain Sight. It’s an eye-catching quilt! We are warming up for a few days, also. Can’t wait to get outside! It feels like winter has lasted forever. Happy Birthday to your husband. The cake looks delicious!
Happy birthday to Rick! Enjoy that beautiful cake!
Now I have to buy yet another book to make the Hidden in Plain Sight quilt!
No sewing for three whole weeks as I go out of state to move my daughter and family here to live with us. It will be worth it.
Mary, yes that is your pattern. I loved it the first time I saw it and made several quilts and table runners using that pattern, but didn’t put the name in my picture gallery. It is a catchy name but I cannot remember it, ,sorry.
WOW what a good price for the berries. I drive 53 miles to a strawberry farm and pay 30.00 for half that. But, they are so much better than buying them in the store.
Where do your berries come from?
Sandra Pierson
Sandra – the berries came from Florida and are soooo much better than the ones at the store
Mary my friend moved to Plant City, Florida and that is where the strawberries are raised. I always watch for them in the stores! They are the best!
Happy birthday Rick! That carrot cake looks amazing! Maybe you would share the recipe, Mary?
That little black dog is so cute!
Erin you will have a great time with your daughter and family! How long will they live with you?
Cooler today than yesterdays 67*.
The strawberry truck was at Bomghaars Saturday night by my house. I bought 3 flats! 2 are gone – I made 30 jars of strawberry jam, but still need to do something with the rest. These were Florida strawberries and were very good. Just follow The Fruit Truck on Facebook and you can see where the truck will be next and what they are bringing. I got peaches from them a few years ago. Long lines but we got there early.
Finished up a Duckworth quilt last week, need to take to my lqs for quilting. Maybe tomorrow.
My hubby landed in the hospital Friday morning at 5 am due to a nasty seizure. 2 in 5 months – not sure why they are happening, so doctoring will start today.
79 degrees here yesterday. So nice to get the grands outside. Not much playing in the yard – it is soaked and feels like I’m walking on a wet sponge! But at least the snow is gone.
Hope everyone has a good week!
Diana – oh no! Your poor husband! And you’ve always got your hands full with the grandkids. Keep is updated – is he still in the hospital?
Thankfully no. Came home Sunday evening. Funny thing – his identical twin brother is also experiencing seizures! weird.. They are both on the same meds, so lots of commiserating and grumbling. lol
Happy Birthday Rick🎉🎉. Carrot cake is my favorite cake too. You have great taste in cake.
Strawberries look yummy. I have hyacinths breaking ground. This weeks weather will see more spring like changes. 🪻
Happy Birthday to Rick. Carrot cake is one of my favorites also behind German Chocolate Cake with coconut pecan frosting. Alice and hubby thanks for giving Boots a loving home. Strawberries look delicious. How did you know about the truck coming.
Mary I received the patterns, thank you very much.
Spent the morning outside burning the black walnut twigs that were on the garden patches. Still more to do. Got done before the wind picked up in the afternoon. Raked along the brick trim and picked up the rocks that wander out into the grass. Then took a shower and sat outside in the sun for 1/2 hour. That felt really good. No sewing done.
Rita – the strawberry truck announced its schedule on Facebook. You and Rick have the same two favorite cakes!! Next year I’ll make German chocolate.
Happy late birthday to Rick who has great taste – look at the loving beautiful woman you married and who loves carrot cake, but who doesn’t, especially the cream cheese frosting Yum! I’m catching up from yesterday when I sat at our town hall all day hearing petitions for property tax reductions. We had four poverty exemption petitions, first time ever having more than one. Sign of the times? The saddest part of the petitioning is that they are women who never had the opportunity to hold decent jobs that paid anything much less into social security and now the little monthly they receive makes it nearly impossible to keep their homes and feed themselves.
Boots is an adorable little boy. God bless Alice and her hubby for giving Boots a loving home to live out his cute little life. I would love to adopt a grown golden who has been relinquished for whatever reason but then I stop and don’t even look because I don’t think I can go through losing another beauty when I will have to do that with Sammie and my precious Nelson. Such is life, but sure isn’t easy at all.
Blessings to all!
Linda – I have had two goldens in the past and both were rescues. Both were ignored at their homes and it made me so sad. One belonged to my neighbor and when she escaped the barn she came to my house. Finally I couldn’t take her back. The other golden was advertised in the paper – the man in town had three dogs, two were hunting dogs that always got to go with the man and the golden was always left behind. At least he did the right thing and got her a loving home she deserved – she was Maggie, the first one I called Red.
Happy. Birthday to Rick. Here’s to a great year!
The strawberries look delicious. Do they come from California? We have our local strawberries the end of Msy-June. Can’t wait for the wonderful juicy treat.
Bobby in Md.
Bobby, I looked up The Fruit Truck’s schedule on Facebook! I will be purchasing strawberries on their schedule for Marshall MN on the 16th. They are from Florida.
Bobby – strawberries came from FL
Happy birthday to Rick! Carrot cake is always what I want for my birthday too.
Thanks for writing up the Citrus Splash pattern, Mary and if you locate the stars and squares pattern shown I’d love that one too.
I’ve been piecing a bunch of donation tops lately but now I’ll have to stop and quilt them. Ugh! I’ll have pictures to send soon.
Barbara – I will post the book tonight – within 15 minutes of that post, a former employee sent me the name and said she had just hung hers that day. Thank you, Kay!!
The small scale of the blocks in “Hiding In Plain Sight” makes it a quilt that I am interested in making also. Lends itself to a broad choice of colorways.
Happy birthday, Rick. Carrot cake was my husband’s favorite! It is delicious. I should make one.
Alice’s puppy is adorable!!!
My crocus are blooming and my peonies just popped out of the ground. I love spring.
Charlotte – doesn’t spring hold so much to look forward to? I love it!
Happy birthday Rick, your cake looks yummy.
Welcome Boots! Such a lucky doggy you are. Hope to see and hear more about you in the coming years.
Sorry, I meant to say I wanted to finish the month of March with snow. Sure don’t want it at the end of April as I mistakenly wrote in my earlier note.
Jeanne in Co.
Happy Birthday, Rick. You picked my favorite cake for your birthday cake. It will be my choice for my June birthday too. Does yours have pineapple in it? It’s yummy either with it or without it.
The breakfast cafe called First Watch, here in Loveland, makes pancakes that are carrot/pecan. Taste just like carrot cake. They are delicious too.
Hyacinths are up by our porch and we saw a big flock of robins this week. Can spring be coming? We haven’t had nearly enough snow this winter to give the grass and ground a good start for spring. Actually, I’m praying for a good snowstorm to finish off the month of April. Am I crazy, or what?
Jeanne in Co.
Happy Birthday, Rick! Carrot cake and fresh strawberries sounds like a great birthday.
Alice’s new puppy is adorable.
Thanks for doing the Citrus Splash pattern. I will get my order ready.
Thanks, Mary 🥰
Happy birthday to Rick. So nice it wasn’t a snow birthday. Those strawberries look delicious. Where are they grown? Have a wonderful day.
Teresa-:strawberries came from Florida
I made that quilt! Hidden in Plain Sight
Carolyn – THANK YOU!
Happy birthday Rick!