Surprise in the Garden-Deer-More Finds to Keep

  Finally a day with no rain-however that returns again tomorrow-sigh -we are saturated here in Missouri as are other surrounding states.Flooding everywhere.

   I dug up those fire bricks that I used for my dutch oven cooking-baking, and gathered up outdoor grill stuff that I want to take along. I decided to walk around the garden to see if there is anything I wanted. I decided on the one iron bed headboard and will decide for sure if there is a spot for it-perhaps amongst the iris flowers or next to a tree. That Weber fire pit works out well for starting charcoal when I am needing lots of it for dutch oven baking, and the big heavy pot is perfect for ashes. Not sure on the little plastic seat but that does come in handy.

Of course this heavy grill is coming with-the guys are supposed to be designing a way for me to raise this up and down on wheels-that would be really nice as this is too heavy to move

   Here is the surprise though-do you remember these plants? Couldn't believe my eyes as these are not suppose to reseed here, so I walked to the back of the garden where I had the biggest patch-and wow some there too. I may try to dig these up and see if they will transplant for me.

These are indigo plants-so excited that they came back especially after a very cold winter.

Last night a bit before dark some deer stopped by. One was jumping up to bring the mimosa branches down so they could eat them.

I found more cast iron to keep-Hubs had picked these up real cheap at a flea market. I wasn't crazy about them as they are from China so the cast iron is not really nice-but he liked them for fajitas. So I worked on seasoning them this morning. Don't look at my dirty stove-living between two houses I have not kept up the cleaning here-figured I do a really good job when we are done moving.

There are two that say tobasco on them and three plain ones

And I decided not to put these heavy copper pans out for sale either. They need retinned which I don't know how one would do that-but they can just sit and look pretty on top of the cast iron rack shelving.

I am off to make up a big salad for us  happy Mid week.

T Stands for Tuesday & Winter is Back

Tuesdays is when we gather for T with friends and a beverage related post.
  You are most welcome to join us-find our hostess Bleubeard and Elizabeth's link in my right hand column

   We were spoiled for sure enjoying those spring like temperatures for a few days-but winter has returned and is staying around this time-with snow on the ground, ice in the mornings, and just cold-I am going through the propane gas this month faster than I want to. We are staying in this winter pattern for awhile now-well I know it is still winter-but it is slowing us down for outdoor work at the lake house.

    This week I thought I would share photos of the deer visitors-they are always so fun-and lots of birds too with this snow on the ground now.

just click for full size photos

I found some corn on the cob that had been in the freezer too long so I put it out for the wildlife-a nice treat

A few days ago I posted about a book I was reading Blue set in the 18th century and was a spy type read about the newest blue color and the fight to get it. This was a very good read based on historical facts.
    I wanted to thank the two commenters letting me know that a new blue has been discovered after 200 years-I would think this would have been huge news but I had never read about this.
    Crayola bought the rights to it. Find the new blue in crayons here So I wanted to thank you both again and of course I had to buy it lol  I bought the crayon box that had 4 crayons of this new blue. I hadn't searched out crayola lately and they have a great site-I picked up a few other things too-to expand my art a bit.

For my beverage share this morning-I am enjoying a cup of my chicory beverage with whipped cream on top.  very good lol
 
   I have been picking up in two's a few plates and bowls designed by the Pioneer Woman-I really love the flowers they are so pretty-my go to dishes right now

Happy T everyone!

T Stands for Tuesday & Catching Up

   T on Tuesdays is where we gather together with friends and share a post with a photo of our beverage.
   You are most welcome to join us-find our hostess Bleubeard and Elizabeth in  link on my right hand column.

     What a difference a week makes-such up and down weather here from a day at 70 degrees f back down to frigid temps and some ice with wind. We have so much mud everywhere, especially our long driveway-the worse condition it has ever been in. So much freezing and thawing and lots of rain doesn't help matters.

   My eyes have much improved finally around last weekend. The second eye no longer has the white film over it, can't feel the new lens any more, and the distance vision is much better-but still not as clear a vision as in my right eye-really hoping that improves.
    I can manage readers now for reading and the computer-which I just couldn't do a week ago. The doctor reminded me last week Wednesday that this was major surgery and will take time. So I have adjusted and working on patience lol  I drove to pick up our mail for the first time in two weeks this morning.

  I have worked on my July pages (2018) and have those completed now.

I have been working on overlapping the elements more instead of everything just being in it's own space
    July was the buck moon so I found this scrap of fabric that was perfect. The piece to the right of the moon was the cut off so I wanted to add that-but it shifted on me and was suppose to be a bit further apart and angled more at the top-decided I did not want to take out all that blanket stitch stitching and do it over
     If it bugs me too much I will re do it

The piece of fabric that has July stamped on to it is a scrap from a baby quilt I had made for a friend about 18 years ago or so. I had used black embroidery thread to outline all the motifs on the fabric to quilt it-came out really pretty-a nice remembrance piece.

When I sewed this cat down that was from my Mom's sewing stash-I almost sewed it with black thread but decided to use the white thread instead

I decided to sew down a cover piece to protect my eco print page from getting torn from all the buttons and beads I just did a row of hand stitching on the top.

I did allot of eco dyeing in July and August so wanted to sew in a piece, this is one of my favorites
   Update: I thought I would add a note here as I had a couple comments thinking this eco print was on fabric-this is on paper-and actually was that bonus print I got by layering this butcher paper in between the other sheets of paper for clearer prints.

We also have been enjoying a surprise visit by this handsome guy. He has attached himself to a group of does that come by for the corn. The bucks do not usually venture this close to the house so this has been fun watching him the last several days

 For  better viewing-click on photos for full size

I keep forgetting to mention about the geese and muscovy ducks that were here last year.
    Usually the geese pair will stop by before they migrate on but they did not last fall.
   The muscovy ducks in late fall began to be pests-then one day the female was all by herself. We have allot of predators here so the male must have been taken defending the female. After a couple weeks or so, the hen muscovy was a major pest-eating Miss Calico kitty's food, would not stay away from our front door. She really just needed a new home.
     Our friend found the perfect home for her-a few miles down from us a small farm had ponds and they love muscovy ducks, had many of them and they spoil all of their farm animals. So Mrs Muscovy now has a new home I am very grateful-This happened early January

    I can't tell you how good it feels to be able to read books again. I read allot in the evenings.
   One thing really nice for my situation now is that I am able to enlarge the font on my reader-that is really helping me now-yeah-but I am anxious to get back to the Outlander books-the one I had started is in paperback form with very small print-patience lol

  For my drink share this week, I had a taste for a drink one evening so I decided to make me a Kahlua (coffee liqueur) and cream
      Instead of cream I used milked walnuts-soooo delicious (this is one of the nut milks I mentioned a few weeks back)
    This was a delicious drink-but sigh for some reason I totally forgot about the caffeine in the Kahlua which sets my blood pressure to super high
    I usually make my own Kahlua with decaf coffee but just didn't think about it-oh well  It was worth it though lol

Happy T everyone

A Movie and a Book & Winter has Arrived in Missouri

The other night on the tv they were playing a movie that I have enjoyed, and usually will watch again if I am in the mood for it again.
  It is a time travel movie, I liked the story line and I also liked the actors in this one. The time travel is about how an 1800's duke accidently gets thrown into the future-and of course no one believes that he is from the past.

   Kate and Leopold a 2001 movie

Here is a trailer:

    
More about the movie here  
    It didn't seem to get high reviews from most critics-around 3 stars. It is a romance movie and I really liked it   Meg Ryan is always so good in these movies.


and something really different for a book suggestion

. Many of you know I love anything and everything about Yellowstone National Park. On Facebook where I am mostly there for the groups-I follow several photography groups about the park which I enjoy every day, and I also follow the Park's group and also the non profit for the park's group-where they sometimes will share  stories from the very early days of the park.
    I have purchased several books now that were either written from when people visited the park in the very early days, or an accounting of those early years.
   Last week I was intrigued over a story about young newlyweds that visited the park for their anniversary and encountered a Native American attack, and how they survived-and mostly the bravery and determination of the wife to save her husband. 
     The story was a recap about one of the women in the book Women in Wonderland by Elizabeth A Watry  
    and more about the book here too

     
                                         


I found a like new used book on Amazon that just arrived yesterday-am anxious to dive into this book about 14 incredible women during the early years of the Park. The author includes women from the late 1800's and the early 1900's as well.
    


Missouri got hit with winter on Friday into Saturday

  So far we didn't get hit with allot of ice-it snowed hard for 10 minutes in the afternoon and then stopped. During the evening after dark I heard it raining for several hours-so we may have ice after all. St Louis Missouri was to get upwards to a foot of snow-north of us up to 8 inches of snow. Where our lake house is up to 5 inches or a bit more. Here in my woods so far just a little.

I grabbed the camera-I had put the corn and bird seed out earlier than usual as the temperatures were dropping and the deer must have been just inside the woods watching me as they came as soon as I got back into the house and it started to snow

There were three deer-but this one shooed off the others-didn't want to share the corn  lol

Early evening I decided to make a lemon meringue pie. 

   I had fresh lemons in the frig, and my neighbor gave me a small bag of fresh Missouri pecans that she had shelled-just the thing for the crust. I am mostly making nut crusts these days for the flavor and to save on carbs.
     This will be perfect for breakfast Saturday morning

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 Enjoy your Saturday

A New Brownie Recipe

   Here in the Ozarks we are getting ready for the rains that are coming up from that Florida storm- all the way up here to us. The weather people are saying now 3 inches of rain or more from tonight through late Saturday. So of course the warnings for flooded streets--"Turn around Don't Drown" are in the news. We'll be staying put for sure-and right where I live no worries of flooding.

  I am slowly trying out some recipes using almond flour (a protein flour) opposed to gluten free flours or wheat which are full of carbs. Little desserts like brownies usually adapt pretty well. Many of the paleo recipes are using the almond flour.

  I found a recipe online that I tried out today-and we love it!
   I hadn't made brownies using melted chocolate in a long time. Only thing I changed in the recipe was instead of the 3/4 cup of semi chocolate chips-I used a 95% dark chocolate bar that I chopped up and melted it with coconut oil. After everything is blended and mixed together it says to add another 3/4 cup of semi sweet chocolate chips-which I thought was a bit "over-kill" haha. So I had some very dark chocolate bars with orange peel that I chopped up instead and only added in about 1/4 cup.
  They baked up really nice-I cut mine in bite size pieces and my cast iron pan was a bit larger so they came out not as high-but I love just a little bite instead of a large piece.

  

and a little cuteness-Mom and the twins

T Stands for Tuesday and My Found Hand Dyes

Good morning T party friends and all that stop by

   Tuesdays is where we share a drink related post with friends, just show a photo of your tea, coffee, water bottle or what ever beverage you are drinking. Join us with our hostess Bleubeard and Elizabeth-find link in my right hand column 
    You are most welcome to join the T Party.

   I have been busy accomplishing things since Friday. If you missed it I started in on my craft room in one section to purge and organize. This will be a long process-you would not believe what all I have in here ha ha Post here  I uncovered quilt projects I no longer want to make, and I found buried my lovely hand dyes and my rust dyes I did probably around 2008 or so. I was really into rust dyeing on vintage fabrics and found fabrics at the resale shop I wrapped rusty objects around vinegar-water soaked fabrics. I also soaked fabrics and stuck them on to rusty equipment etc I found outdoors. These pieces all processed during a very very hot summer like we have now. About every hour or so I went back outdoors and soaked or sprayed on more vinegar.  I will share some pieces with you today.

   Saturday I got out my two dutch ovens and baked sourdough gluten free bread post here  over and under the coals since we had cooler temperatures. I had planned on also baking a lemon meringue pie afterwards but I decided that was a big project too and saved it for today.

  I was hoping to share my first eco dye project with you today but we are back to the super hot and humidity and seems now after one big project I am not up to a second one-older age I guess but I am blaming it all on the weather ha ha  
    So after our 2 pm dinner and feeding the wildlife I decided to work on my hand quilting and remember what stencils I had planned on using instead.
   I am all set though, with all my supplies and how I want to proceed-for the most part-I even collected allot of leaves this morning-hopefully they will still be nice for tomorrow-I may just put those in the frig. overnite. I also bought rit dye for the water-I feel like i am cheating though using that but seeing the results I may still do that. I also dug out logwood dye that I have not used as of yet and also pomegranate for dye as well-so I may use one of those instead. I will decide tomorrow.

I thought I would share with you some of my uncovered hand dyes. Some of you that followed me in the past may remember some of them. I had sold several pieces as well at the time.

These are rust dyes

This was a very old vintage fabric I didn't care for so I rust dyed it still have not decide how to create with this piece

I had been given a huge huge bag of fabric interior decorator samples-cottons linens, poly-those were fun to rust dye over

This is an old curtain

I also had uncovered my most favorite hand dyes ever-my first  experience with procion dyes and dyed in gradation. They were so beautiful I just couldn't cut them I did end up using some of them in a quilt with batiks I have about 6 whole pieces left-they were fat 1/8th's-and I have a few scraps left

a sun dyed piece using setacolor from France with rock salt on top of the dye

I had forgotten about these-a couple pieces left that I had flower pounded one of the first years we retired here back in '04-'05 Most all of the colors are now gone except the greens.

and at the bottom of the pile were these fabrics that I shared this month on second on the 2nd-I need to make a quilt with these

For my beverage I am sharing a photo of my water bottle with mineral water inside. I was sitting outdoors keeping an eye on the dutch ovens with bread inside

And a little cuteness to share.  

    Mama deer has brought up the twins this week. I have corn out for them every evening now. They are around a month old now I would guess-if they are the same ones I saw on the driveway that were so small.

all photos will enlarge to full size just click on them

Happy T Day everyone

Lemon meringue pie with almond crust being served