Old Dog, New Trick

Yesterday I tackled a new skill. I learned to use this long arm quilting machine. It is a Gammill machine with a Statler Stitcher and costs about $30,000. I'm not going to buy one anytime in the near (or distant) future. However, I can rent it for $20 an hour and it took me two hours to quilt the top below. If I had paid someone else to quilt it, I would have paid about 2 cents a square inch (the quilt below measures 74 by 68 and would have cost $100). Other alternatives include quilting by hand or on my home machine for no cash outlay, but lots of time and effort.
BTW, I'm in the process of making a quilt just like the one on the right in the background of this picture.

This is the finished product and if you click on the photo, you can see an enlarged image and see the quilting stitches.

Or maybe you can make them out on the back.

I intended this quilt to be a birthday gift for Ben (d0n't tell) because I want each of us to have a quilt we can wrap up in when we sit around the living room reading or watching TV. Only trouble is, Logan loves the quilt and keeps asking me if he can't have it to cuddle in, while Ben has shown very little interest in it (or any of the others I make).

Summer, so far

Logan's favorite summer activity is cuddling with the dogs. He wishes he had four more! When he's not doing this, he's swimming, playing basketball, playing stupid video games or working on Grandma's chore list. We've cleared out a lot of junk the past couple of weeks through garage sales, donations, and trash hauling. I should say we got rid of lots of stuff, but our lives and house don't seem to be any less cluttered. Health maintenance takes a lot of time, too. We've done sports physicals, the dentist, orthodontist and still have the eye doctor to see.

CSA Summer bounty is underway and I love it. I like picking up my share of fresh veggies and then planning our menus around the harvest. Many of these goodies are best prepared in a plain and simple way. We had the squash last night with fish fillets, organic brown rice, and green salad. I'll use the broccoli tonight with potatoes roasted along with Millsap farm chicken served with raspberry balsamic sauce (raspberries fresh from our garden). Later in the week we'll have Kohlrabi slaw and I've already made a fabulous Caesar salad with the lettuce. I saved the liquid from a jar of Klausen's dills and will use it to dress the cucumber. The turnips are the mild Japanese turnips and I like them sliced and fried up with onions, tossing in some greens to wilt just before serving. Buried in the pile is the first harvest of Tat Soi, a veggie I never encountered until we joined the CSA. It's kind of spoon shaped and rather like Bok Choy in taste but more delicate in texture. I like it just steamed or stirred into rice.

Tomorrow is our work day at the farm. I'm a hot weather wimp, so I hope it won't be too hot and humid.

Undulatus Asperatus

These photos of local cloud formations were taken yesterday morning by Georgia Douglas, a member of our church and also a member of the "Tables for Eight" group I belong to. According to Georgia, "It turns out that these may qualify for a new form of cloud - last time was 1951! The new name will be Undulatus Asperatus - isn't God AWESOME!!!"

I was out driving at the time, observed the clouds and wished I had a camera. The first person I saw after that greeted me with, "Did you see the sky?"

Please do not copy or distribute these photos without permission from Georgia -- I can put you in touch with her if you like.

Early Harvest

Raspberries are the first thing to ripen in our garden. Maybe because we haven't planted anything else -- don't want to rush, what if we get a late season frost? Ben has been carefully collecting these beauties for several days and yesterday we had the required 1-1/2 cups so that I could make muffins. Here's the recipe:

Plant a berry bush (from Baker's Seed Farm in Marshfield)
Wait three years
Pick berries as they ripen and save up till you have 1-1/2 cups

Serves 12 Hands-On Time: 15m Total Time: 45m

Ingredients

• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• 3/4 cup sugar
• 2 teaspoons baking powder (Rumford's aluminum=free)
  
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, melted
• 3/4 cup whole milk
• 1 large egg
• 1/4 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1 1/2 cups fresh raspberries

Directions

1. Heat oven to 400° F. Line a 12-cup muffin tin with paper liners or coat it with cooking spray, vegetable oil, or butter.
2. In a medium bowl, combine 1 3/4 cups of the flour, 1/2 cup of the sugar, the baking powder, and salt. Add the butter and combine. In a second bowl, whisk together the milk, egg, and vanilla. Gradually add the milk mixture to the flour mixture and stir until just combined; the batter will be lumpy. Toss the berries with the remaining flour in a bowl. Gently fold the berry mixture into the batter.
3. Fill each muffin cup 3/4 full. Sprinkle the batter with the remaining sugar. Bake for 17 to 20 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into the center of a muffin comes out clean. Transfer pan to a wire rack to cool for 10 minutes. Serve warm.

But, that's not how I do it -- I just dump everything into the bowl, except the berries and stir with a whisk until well mixed then gently toss the berries into the batter.



And there's a ton of raspberries on the vine -- I'll need more recipes!

Golden Oldies

Valery feeds the ponies at Grandma's house in Fallon. I bet Valery can still tell you the names of the ponies.
Valery and her doll -- I think this one was named Janet. Valery's dolls were named after my high school friends -- the blondes were named Linda and the brunettes were called Janet. Scott has restored the high chair and is using it for his year old granddaughter, Scarlett. BTW, this image is reversed.

Brother Rick in his Davy Crockett coonskin cap. He loved it!
(This image is reversed, too.)

Grandma Minnie Blair celebrates her 85th birthday and the housewarming for 5401 Leona St.

Mrs. Hugh Brown, and a woman I believe is a reporter from the Oakland Tribune, and my grandmother Minnie P. Blair at her 85th birthday celebration. She and Mrs. Brown were neighbors in Tonopah, Nevada.

Hail, hail, the gang's all here, Christmas 1961.

My mother, Ruthanne Blair, feeds the duck and chickens on Leona Street. I love this picture.

Cleaning out closets for the garage sale, I found these old slides. I used a little hand-held slide viewer and my camera to get these pictures.

Robin's egg blue

I always thought that Robin's egg blue was a light subtle shade of blue. Not so, these four eggs are a vivid, gorgeous color (one is completely hidden behind a leaf). I'm also surprised at how large they are. While I took the picture the mother sat on on a roof top scolding me and then dive-bombed my head. I don't blame her.

Odds and Ends

Ben is selling odds and ends we found around the house. We hope to earn money for our vacation to an undetermined location. So far, we have enough for a tank of gas that will get us to Kansas City for Rachel's graduation. While Ben takes his turn manning the sales table, he fills in his idle hours with a puzzle book. When it's my turn, I read a novel, and Logan plays games on his laptop. While Logan was sitting at the table yesterday, a lady come up to him and asked him if he was a college student!

. . . and odd ends.

Here you see the east end of a west bound dog. Only he got stuck in the doggie door. Cinder is now officially too fat to fit. So, he pushes through as far as he can, then backs up, still stuck in the door. This pulls the door open and he wiggles free and exits the opened door. Not bad for a fat dumb animal.