Summer!

It feels like the tropics around here. We have had lots of warm weather with almost daily rain.
My flowers have never looked better, not so my planters. Too much rain and hard wind.






But there are still a few places for plants.
This week will be the end of the gardern center at the local Zehrs store and all the plants are discounted.
This morning I found a few more and each has found a place.

This had to happen ,while Laurence was at a meeting. After working in the flowerbeds I seem to complain about my sore back with as a result, that I'm not "allowed" to get more plants.
Anyway they are planted and he would not know, what to look for.

Last week we had Evelyn here for a night. She is walking now and she is a very busy girl. Crawling is still faster, but not for long.
This is the first time she wanted to sit on the rocking horse and it looks like we might have another generation of horse lover in the family.







I finished the second small quilt for the African quilt project.
Both are 20 by 16 inches with extra seam allowance. That will be cut back when the different parts will be sewn together.



Both are machine quilted. With this one I tried to give it the look of a landscape with trees and grasses.
I have lots of other ideas for this quilt, but they are written down. Once I have the workshops here there might be people, who need some help with ideas. If not I can still make more.

Horse power

 Last week we went for a few days to Ohio.
Laurence wanted to go to the Steam Threshers Show in Wauseon and I came along for the ride.
This time the attraction was not the tractors, although there were lots of them, but the 50 or so steam engines.And where there are steam engines, there is dust and smoke. The air was grey and there was lots of smoke. My eyes are still watery.
You would think, that to work with  these 100 year or somethimes older machines, you would find older men, but that was not always the case . Here are 3 teenagers driving a machine around and different ones were driven by women.
It was good to see the interest of younger people in these old engines.




And they came in different sizes. From huge monsters to smaller full scale ones.Then you had the 1/2 scale models , what you see here.
Then finally a 1/4 size model from Ontario.





On the Saturday there was a tug-of-war.
First up was a 1/2 scale steam engine. The kids in the junior grades were asked to come up and pull. When they could not budge the engine, older kids could come. As more kids were asked to come up, bigger machines were used.

Then finally everybody could come up and try to move this big machine.
This proved to be hard till the rope was full with pullers, motly big guys.
It was fun to watch and especially the kids loved it.




The weather had its moments. The 2 days we were there the mornings and afternoons were fine. Mostly sunny and warm. But later on in the afternoon the clouds would roll in and the rain would start.
This picture was taken during the parade and it was raining hard.
Not much happened after that.




For Laurence it was the tractors and engines. For me it were the horses and mules.
On Saturday morning teams of horses and mules were plowing , followed later by a team disking.
A team of 6 Belgians plowed with a 2 furrow plow.






Once part of the field had been plowed the disk came out with a team of 8 mules.
We do not see mules around here, so it was something new for me.
And we managed a visit to the Henyr Ford Museum. We had been there once before with the kids and this time it was just as interesting.
Now it is back to work. I hope to have some quiltery things to show by next time.