The purple martins arrived today – honestly, I thought they weren’t coming this year because they usually show up in May. They actually send the scouts out in March but I did not notice them being here – they’re usually just here for a day or even less. Their house is all cleaned out and I will enjoy their singing!
I started a photo album called “Around the Farm” – some need explanations but others don’t.
Good Night, Everybody!
Your gardening is wonderful. Thanks for sharing all those great pictures.
It’s truly beautiful…tons of work and it shows.
Jo in Wyoming – hey, Jo, how’s it going at the jail?
Jail is very different now!!! We have a new deputy in charge, the other one retired, and I have been “assigned” a “helper”. Another deputy fixes the sewing machines at night, yeah!
Tension is way down, respect is way up. That’s really good.
They take care of a cat or dog from the shelter. There is a budget, I don’t have to purchase all the supplies…only batting, which I can get wholesale or Overstock.
They can have paper patterns, that means I can demonstrate a technique and leave instructions. Because we have been quilting so long, that doesn’t seem like a big deal, but it is.
If they are sentenced to time at “the big house”, prison, they have sewing skills and will get the better “jobs” there.
They can have chapstick, it can be used to condition the thread for their hand work. Small things that make a big difference. It’s has been really fun to go back. The other programs have resumed too, AA, Bible study, drug addiction, domestic abuse, etc. we’re getting back to normal.
Jo in Wyoming- so happy for all of you that things are looking up! They’re lucky to have you!
Your garden is so beautiful. You are a busy lady, and sewing too. I really admire you. Your farm is so pretty, and enjoy seeing all your animals. Hugs from Many
Mary, thanks for sharing the Grand Garden Tour and animal photos with us tonight. What a lovely gift to all of us! Your plants look so healthy……love the succulents in the old desk.
It all looks heavenly! Plants and animals thriving thanks to your love and devoted work and attention!
Charlotte Barnard – has your borrowed kitty gone home? I’ll bet it’s hot in the city, isn’t it?
Hello Mary, Thank you for your farm tour. I love all the flowers and of course the animals. We have been so dry and had to water all the flowers and garden. tonight that changed as we had a severe storm that lasted several hours and dropped almost 3 inches of rain. Last week I put up 12 quarts of strawberries. Made 4 batches of jam, several glazed pies and mixed some with rhubarb for a pie and some sauce.
Carolyn b Shenandoah Valley VA
Carolyn B – won’t you just love those strawberries next winter? And 3” of rain? Hallelujah! It takes a real thunderstorm to produce that much rain!
I always love seeing pictures of the farm and animals. The antique planter w/morning glories is very cool. Thanks, Mary. 🥰
Thank you for the marvelous tour of your farm. I especailly love the peonies around the stairs. I have always heard it takes them at least a year to get over the shock of being moved, but you have put that theory to rest. They are beautiful. Everything is so healthy looking. Isn’t it nice to have summer here again?
Just beautiful, Mary!
What a lovely home and plants you have! Thanks for sharing these pictures with us. Love the goats! They use goats in our city to take the weeds down around the dry creek beds. Great for fire prevention.
Gosh Mary thank you for the tour! Just beautiful. Isn’t it great to be old and be able to just stop and enjoy such beauty?
It’s easy to see why you’re never bored. Your flowers are beautiful!
Beautiful!! Thanks Mary for the tour 🙂
Thank you for the tour. Your gardens are beautiful.
Beautiful gardens and pictures around the farm. I especially enjoy the animals. Isn’t it great to relax in the evening and take in the beauty of what you’ve worked so hard on. Thanks for sharing.
Hi Mary!
What a wonderful idea!
Everything looks so beautiful and alive!
LOTS of work.
It’s wonderful of you to share all
Your talents w us
Keep up the good work…
A friend from Illinois
💕 Ethel
Breathtaking, no other words. I’m ha ungrateful fun with cucumbers and patio tomatoes. I have planted them in troughs (44 gal). I’m loving it and the plants are doing amazing. Hi Mary. I haven’t sent any messages in a while. I have a chicken in the house (in a kennel of course) because of a lame leg. The vet put her on medicam and she has to stay in the kennel in the house for a least a week. That’s my farm news. PLEASE GIVE COLTON A HUG. I sure wish he could been a part of my life. He is special. Take care. ❤️🐩. Sue Davis. Argyle tx.
Sue Davis – Hi, Sue! So glad to hear from you – I gotta get somebody to help me with my hens – I’m waiting to see what Linda has to tell me. I will give big old Colton a hug from you! Hope your chicken recovers!
I enjoy seeing pics of your place. It looks so peaceful
Beautiful and your hard work is enjoyed by all if us. Thank you for sharing.
Love purple martins. You farm pictures are awesome. It reminds me of my Grandparents farm, I spent many summers with them.
Enjoyed the tour this morning! So pretty! I felt like I was there! Thank you for doing this. It’s been an odd year for birds that usually return on schedule. The hummingbirds are just returning here. I had 3 at a feeder yesterday and I was so excited! Haha. Colton is such a handsome fella…I just love him! Hope your day is wonderful.
Very beautiful!
I really enjoyed the garden tour!! Just wonderful!!
What a BEAUTIFUL tour!! Everything is so pretty and inviting; I know you worked hard to make it so!
Wonderful garden tour!! Everything is beautiful. All of your hard work is greatly
appreciated by all of us. Thank you so much!
Love the pictures! Took me a minute to realize the one that said “book a beach vacation “ wasn’t yours! 😆
Oh my, what an enjoyable tour. Thank you for sharing with all your friends. Now we are praying for rain on all the beauties! Love seeing all the animals on your farm. So alive! Have a great summer day.🌞🌺
Wow! Your tour was a real feast for the eyes. I love all the colors and varieties of greens. The animals are always fun to see. Thanks for sharing this peek into your world!
Love all your plants,Mary! My mom who lives in Cardinal Grove really enjoyed you and Becky singing last week. She said she recognized so many of the old songs. Thanks for volunteering your time.
Diane Deibler – we sing those really old songs because the people know them! Like Home on the Range, Oh, Susannah, Blessed Assurance, How Great Thou Art – and we both have low voices so it’s lots easier to sing along. We had a great time last Friday at CCC! I saw your mom!
What a wonderful tour! Made me miss Iowa!
Nothing better than living on a farm!! Wide open spaces, fresh air (most of the time), wonderful animals and flower gardens! Does it get any better?! Some think yes it could be, but I think not!! Thanks for the lovely pictures!!
Thank you so much for the tour! Everything looks so lush and your flowers are gorgeous! I love seeing the animals enjoying themselves.
Beautiful pictures. Everything looks so nice. I just got through all my flower beds and everything is mulched. It feels so good to get that step done. Now I just have upkeep and watering for the rest of the summer.
What a nice blog post seeing your tour around the farm and house. Even your weed area (well that word can be mistaken big time now with that stuff legal! Ha) but that area looks like an English garden to me. So how long do you leave your potted trees in containers before planting them? I ask because we have tons of maple and walnut trees we are always digging out of the flower beds and getting rid of them. Maybe I should be doing the same for the maple tree seedlings and put along the lot line.
Good to read that Jo is back at jail restoring hope and creativity for the girls.
Encouraging to know they are feeling respectful.
Kathy in western NY – yes, wasn’t that good news from Jo? I don’t know about the trees – I thought I would plant them in one area but we are so dry and it is so hot that I think I’d probably lose all of them as a water source isn’t close.
We did plant some pretty far out from our house a couple of years ago and my husband would use the lawn mower and small trailer with some buckets filled he could dump on them for water. Some times I would see him go several trips on the golf cart too. He saves any plastic buckets just to refill to water them. Well they did grow tall so now we should fill in other areas out back next fall with your idea to keep seedlings in the garage over winter. He likes planting trees in the fall.
Thanks for getting back to me.
Kathy – I have a rain barrel which will be empty very soon because we’ve had no rain and I save Tidy Cat plastic litter jugs and carry water in those – have a handle and I save all the rain water from the barrel over the winter in them. I think my plants do better with rain water.
Your farm looks lovely!
Hi Mary, your garden looks fantastic, say a special hello to Rosie and Fatty, l love goats! My son in Taiwan may bring back his wife and the girls while he helps sort out the property, very exciting, l haven’t seen them for 18 months.My best wishes to all, sandy
Sandy – oh, you’ll get to hug those little girls!!! I hope you’ll send me some pictures!
Mary, I don’t know how you find the time to care for house, barn and all those babies then keep your yard and gardens so lovely. I know after cooking, cleaning house and barn, caring for husband and all the other critters I can barely find time to sew. I used to love gardening and could easily identify tons of plants but an inoperable back has made gardening a very unpleasant task.
I’m wondering why your chicks cannot walk? Do you know if they have mites? One of my girls had them really bad and would not walk it was so painful. Mites burrow under the scaley skin on their feet and legs and leave them looking very scaley white. A very fast and simple cure is to coat the chicks legs and feet with Vasoline which smothers those pesky mites. My Zsa Zsa chicken had a nasty case but I smeared her with Vasoline everyday for a week and she healed completely. I think my Andy rooster has them too but good luck catching him – his legs look like has them but it doesn’t stop him.
Linda Schluchter – yes, I’m sure some of them have mites but it’s such a huge job and I have nobody to help me treat them. I have considered killing them – they are all old! The old rooster in with them has them, too. Some had really long toenails and I have slowly but surely clipped almost all of them. After you coated the feet with Vaseline, what did you use for bedding? I have spread diatomaceous earth in this pen hoping for some help.
All the good news. Animals, girls in jail, flowers, seeing grandkids, etc. This kind of life is pretty nice and we all have missed it. Seems like everybody we see has a great smile on their face.
Again, what my mother always said…..the reason birds and chickens take dust baths is to get rid of mites. What she used to say isn’t always true. When our alley was dirt, the wild birds were always giving themselves great dust baths. Sure looked like they enjoyed it. The long nails wouldn’t help.
Betty in Rapid City
Mary!!! Tnx for the what do! I tell people about your web site. I hope there a lot of viewers today. You put a lot work into your site. And into keeping your farm and the animals cared for. Someone should tell Mr. Biden of your endeavors. You should be recognized for your contributions to keeping Americans learning and being entertained.. Thank you Mary and Connie for your endeavors. Lois in Omaha
Lois Palmisano – haha! I hope you’re entertained! I think I write this blog almost for my own pleasure and I was always good in English so I know how to spell and construct a sentence – I hope it shows! Thanks so much for your kind words!
The morning we arrived at Country Threads on a summer morning several years zgo, the house was shaded and you were playing the piano. I was greeted in the quilt shop and my husband played with a tiny gray kitten you had named Colten. My husband had bypass surgery on Memorial Day and is a bit frustrated and depressed, but that photo of Colten brought a big smile. Thanks for the memory!
I have toured your beautiful Yard & Gardens over 5 times. I keep showing it to William too !!! You must not have Coyotes & Foxes like we do in Alabama. They eat Cats… I’m sad to say.! We had a Coyotes, for a long while, that came from our backyard … then across the front yard every day about 4:30 . We have a Fig Tree and a Fox came to eat the figs off the ground! It came several times when William was IN THE BACK YARD & I was on the deck. That scared me! I thought it must have Rabies. I called my Vet & ask if I should call “Animal Control”. They said, “If it had Rabies, it would be dead within a week! It stopped showing up within the next week! I Love to watch Cats outside! Rancher, here, keep Donkeys in with their Cattle to run the Coyotes & Wildcats away from their Cattle & Calf’s. Do you think Goats might do the same thing for your cats? But, you must ‘bring them in at night!’
I read one other BLOG; and this week she said, “We are getting ready for “Winter !” I Thought, “What??? Too early for Winter Quilt Patterns!!! Then, I remembered that she lives in “New Zealand” or “Australia” ! …Duh! =”Gourmet Quilter”. They had Snow this week!
I DO ENJOY YOU BLOG!!! Freda in AL.
Freda in Alabama – I will post about my fencing which keeps everybody safe!
The last picture in your 6/8/21 post has a small quilt on a round metal table. What is this pattern called and do you sell it in shop. Years ago I was part of a bus trip and we stopped at Country Threads, I loved it there!
Such a welcoming country feel! Always wanted to go back but did not work out, so glad to have found your blog. Enjoy all you do today
Kristie – I will measure the block and post it since I don’t think it was a pattern we sold. I think it’s just something I did for fun. I believe it’s called Puss in the Corner.