Catching Up!

 poodlegirls  cooking, Daily Happenings, Gardening, General Sewing, Life at home, Nature, Travels, Uncategorized  February 25, 2025 1 Minute

What are difference from last week’s freezing temperatures.  We had the coldest nights of the year.  Not supposed to happen in mid-February! Several nights in the teens!  We got plants covered and they survived pretty well.  One didn’t and that was fine.  Was hoping it might not. Galen dug out the old frames with frost protector covers that we had used on our raised beds.

Amaryllis under this one.  Paperwhites under the second one.

Moved the Merkot Lime next the house and covered with several old sheets.

This week. Mostly 70’s during the day with 50’s at night.  Now to get some rain. We did sit on the deck for awhile last evening. 

Our bird feeders were busy all week as well as the birdbath with the fountain.  We had the small heater in so it didn’t freeze.

Red-bellied woodpecker

Orange crown Warbler

Cedar wax wing

We did get out on the 17th to the Granger area.  While we had seen very few Northern Harrier Hawks other times, we saw quite a few that day.

Northern Harrier

Northern Harrier juvenile jumping up and down! He was having lunch.

A long distance shot Galen got of a juvenile Eagle.  That was a bonus for the day.

I spent a good part of the days making dog bandanas for my friends dog grooming shop in CA.  39 for St. Patrick’s day.

Working on ones for Easter now.  She is going to be in town this coming weekend.  She can take these back with her.  Will get others made for the groomer here and deliver those early next week.

With the cold damp weather last week I tried a new recipe for Spicy Butternut Squash Soup.  That recipe will go in the make it again file.

It’s the time of the year to get out at least one hummingbird feeder.  Also to decide what do we want to plant.  It will be whatever will do well in containers.  Getting too much shade in the back yard.  Yes shade is good except for gardening.

Hope everyone has a great week.

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A Gloomy Monday

Looks like we won’t have much sun the next few days. Do have showers in the forecast.   Hope we get some.  Also a couple of nights below freezing temperatures.  Welcome to a Texas February!

We got some work done outside last week.  Guess I should say Galen did.  He cut down our SeaOats in the front bed.  They were starting show green again.  Dead stuff needed to come off.  He also pruned back more bushes that were hit by our cold nights. 

We’ve decided we have too much shade now to use all our raised beds.  A friend will take 2 of them and we moved the 3rd one to a sunnier location. Mother Nature did a good job pruning our Texas Laurel several years ago.  One met it’s fate.  They other she pruned to one main stem! So now we have a sunnier location on thr path where we had 2 Texas Laurels. One on each side of the walkway! Other veggies will go into big pots.

The chicken wire cage keeps squirrels and birds out.

I spent some time going through things we brought home from storage as well as getting tax papers organized for Galen.  A little more of that to do, then he can start working on them when he wants.

I managed to get some sewing time in yesterday.  Put a Mississppi pot roast in the slow cooker. The rest of the day was mine. 

Merry Mayhem usually has mystery quilt along on New Years Day and Superbowl day.   I picked the smallest size.  My blocks are done but not arranged in rows and sewn together yet.  That’s a job for this week!  I kept the dark constant, medium and background are scrappy. There are quite a few different layouts. Need to play a little and see what works for the smallest size.

4 stacks of 3 blocks each.

We ventured out to Thrall this past Saturday.  We were hoping to spot some Sandhill Cranes.  A friend had seen some the week before.  No luck, they may have been just passing through.  We used to see big flocks of them and Snow Geese. These past few years, hardly any.  Last year we were lucky to see 3 of the Cranes. Galen managed to get a few pictures while we were out there.   Think he took more pictures while we were having coffee on our deck!

Taken out in Thrall. American Kestrai ( flying) and Redtail Hawk

Downy woodpecker and American Goldfinch. Pictures from feeders in our yard.

Tried another new recipe- Cabbage pasta.  It had bacon as one of the ingredients.  And yes, the title didn’t sound appetizing but it was good.  Next time I may add a little red pepper.  Kick it up a notch!!!!

Sewing is on my agenda this week.  Have a few projects that need to get done.  3 quilts that either need more blocks made and/or layouts done.  Have a baby quilt to start working on now I know which pattern I plan to use.  Also need to get back to dog bandanas.  Those projects should keep me busy a long with the regular day to day things!

Hope everyone has a good week. For more eye candy go to Design Wall Monday

https://smallquiltsanddollquilts.blogspot.com/2025/02/design-wall-monday-february-10-2025.html

See you next week

 

Beautiful First Monday in February 2025.

Up in the 60’s as I write this. High 70’s today or maybe a low 80! The birds are enjoying the feeders. Will be a good day to get some work done outside. Much different than last week.

We had our eye appointments last week. Still no glasses for Galen. He will use readers when he needs too. I could go with my old one, not a lot of difference but the coating on one lens is a problem so got an updated one. As I told him I can still thread a sewing needle!

Speaking of sewing, I managed to get the last of the 3 quilts bound. It is Plot Twist. I didn’t like the instructions. They had cut off quite a bit of the uneven edges to make the border even! I have enough scrap fabric as it is. Found fabric here that I could use for setting triangles. Looking at this you can see how much I would have needed to cut off!

It was Lunar New Year on the 29th of January. Normally I do fix a Chinese meal but didn’t this year. Actually we went to Salt Grass for dinner! But I did get the placemats and napkins made so we could use them for Saturday’s dinner. We had good friends over for Crab Cakes. Both placemats and napkins are reversible. I have several containers of Asian fabrics that need to be used.

For a vegetable dish I tried a new recipe Skillet Roasted Green beans with garlic and Percornio Cheese I t was really good. Will go in my tried and good recipe folder. How many of us save recipes from magazines that look good and we never use? I have been going through some of those and asking-why did I save it or I really need to try this one? There is a cabbage one on my list for later this week.

Galen was out most of Sunday. Went with a friend to their place near Leakey, Texas. He was finally able to give them their Christmas present-the Texas quilt I made last Fall. She was thrilled. I had debated on Dragonflies and Butterflies or a Texas theme. Decided on the Texas theme. She said that was even better than the Nature inspired theme.  The backing is all names of Texas cities.

Lady and I enjoyed deck time yesterday while Galen was out.

Linking up with Smallquiltsdollquilts.blogspot.com.

Hope every one has a good week- stay well and do something you enjoy.  

 poodlegirls  cooking, Daily Happenings, General Sewing, Life at home, Nature, Our Girls, Quilting, Travels, Uncategorized Leave a comment  February 3, 2025 2 Minutes

 

Last Week of January!

 poodlegirls  Daily Happenings, General Sewing, Life at home, Nature, Our Girls, Quilting, Travels, Uncategorized  January 27, 2025 1 Minute

I took a break from my blog for a few weeks.  Sometimes when I get out of the habit of writing it it takes a little while to get back to it! And I was busy making bandanas for my friend’s 2 grooming business.  Lisa, my friend, was going to be here from CA for a few days.  I wanted to get as many done as I could to send back with here. This is what 84 look like,  xxsmall to medium!

This is just a few of them. They were mostly for Valentines Day but also included some for every day. Will start working on a few more for them in February.

I bought templates from Linda Winner designs.   With the no move material on the back I xan cut through 5 or 6 layers of fabric with no movement.

http://winnerdedigns.com

I met up with Osie who quilts for me.  Got 3 quilts back.   Didn’t have any tops ready to give her.  That will help her get caught up. Here are 2 of them all finshed.

Carnival.  A very old UFO from John Flynn

Backing

The 2nd one was a quilt along by Border Creek- Pulsar.

We have had some really cold days with just dusting of snow when along the coast had a lot.

We had the heater in the fountain birdbath . The birds love it

We have had lots of birds at our feeders.

Lesser Goldfinches

A flock of 12 white Pelicans graced our little lake for a brief stopover

We did get out for a few trips to look for birds.

1- Burrowing Owl; 2-Crested  Caracara ( Mexican Eagle); 3- Red tail hawk; 4- Red Shoulder Hawk

Been working on my placemats and napkins for Lunar New Year this week.

Will close with 2 Lady pictures.  Our liquid dog!

To see what others are making good to http://small quilts and doll quilts