Poor Me

Shortly after Emma's eye trauma, I had a "trauma" of my own. The yurt is only about 10 feet from our back door, but between the yurt and our house is our hot tub. We had drained it for the summer and in anticipation of someday using it again, I decided to lift the lid to see if it was all icky inside.  Bad idea...exceptionally bad since it was incredibly hot out.

I got a not-so-lovely surprise. These guys had taken up residence and were not impressed that I was messing with their home. Did you know that angry bees actually chase you the same way they do in the movies??  I got away, but not without three lovely stings on my arm in almost the same place. OUCH!!

Within a few hours, my arm was swollen from about three inches above my elbow almost to my wrist! I think I'm either allergic or it was too many bites at once.  Remind me never to move anything outside when it's hot!!!

Dory

Poor Emma

We went out to feed just the other night and discovered that some bully had punched Emma in the eye.  Well, okay, so it wasn't really a punch or a hit of any kind. She just all of a sudden had a really swollen eye. A call to the vet to determine whether we should just dose her with penicillin resulted in a trip to the vet and a lovely $125 bill! He thought she might have a fox tail in her eye, but we knew better: first, she's not in a pasture that even has fox tails (it's too wet), and second, her eye wasn't tearing, so it wasn't trying to get rid of any foreign object.

Unfortunately, this is our only trailer. Small, eh??? It's great for endurance rides, but really a pain when you're only transporting one horse. However, I was quite proud of my girl. she'd only been in a trailer once, last summer, for trailer loading practice. She'd never actually gone for a ride and she'd certainly never gone in by herself. She was such a trooper, she loaded right up and off we went. Of course, when the vet came out to see her, he asked how many horses we'd brought...such a smart aleck.

He gave Emma a cortisone shot and gave us drops to put in her eye three times a day. I was amazed at how good she was about the whole ordeal, but I think she knew we were helping her. Hardly any head tossing as I held one eye lid up and the other down so Dennis could put the drops in. This is how it looked after a few days.

Finally, she's back to normal and as beautiful as ever. The only cause we've come up with is some sort of bug bite. Consequently, her fly mask goes on early and comes off late. (Ignore her stupid brother in the picture below...he likes to toss his head)

Dory

Busy, Busy!!!

This has been such a busy summer; it's been almost impossible to keep up. To that end, I'm going to be giving notice with regard to one of my four jobs and that will get me down to a nice, tidy, doable three! Much better!!

I've been quilting and several quilts have gone back to their owners this week. These first two are from Barbara. She's a new customer and does really nice work. Of course, what did I do??  I missed this one teensy, tiny, spot. Best part, I told her about it and she couldn't find it! (She's binding them now and will return it to me for a quick fix.) Below are both of her quilts, with close-ups of the front and back. She used muslin on the back of both of these.

This quilt was just returned as well and since my customer lives in Reno, I just had to go to the Reno Quilt Show while I was there.  She made this quilt for her daughter and asked me to quilt it after seeing the many quilts I had quilted on display at our quilt show this last May. That was a real honor for me.

Don't you love the "pretend applique"? I thought that was such a clever idea!!

More quilts coming up...

Dory

Sixteen Very Long Days

Its been 16 days since I last posted. Granted, 16 days is really not very long for some things, but in "blogland," it can be a lifetime. It can be the end of anyone taking the time to check to even see if  I did finally post.

I'm back now and perhaps even a bit more consistent. During that time, my netbook crashed. Who knew you couldn't treat a netbook like a real computer? Not me. I had it loaded with many programs and it was so slow--go figure.

But, for your patience, you shall be rewarded with pictures of quilts recently finished.

First up: Stars on Parade. As you can see, it had a human holder whose main objective was to keep it from touching the floor.

I took this photo with my iPhone, so its not super clear; however, with the computer crash, it was the best I could do. 

Then there was this Underground Railroad quilt. My customer wanted the blocks to stand out and be "puffy." I used Quilters Dream Puff batting and did a tight fill around the main part of the design. I have no idea what the pattern of the fill is called as I just started stitching and it's what happened. Luckily, she loved it!

And the back with another happy "accident." For some reason, my brain and hands disconnected and this is how the sashing turned out. Piano keys are in the outer two borders with my new fill design (that I probably won't ever be able to repeat) in every other "key."

Thanks for not giving up on me!!!

My Granddaughter Comes for a Visit

 Over the 4th, our granddaughter was here for a visit. My step-daughter, Hannah, and her boyfriend were up to enjoy the music festival, so Violet stayed with us. She's such a joy to have around and is absolutely no trouble. She plays with the boys, avoids Chloe, and they all have a grand time.

We go for a 2-4 mile hike every morning (depends on which route we take); Violet loved the hikes and even taught the boys to swim! These ponds are up behind our property and are usually dry by now, but with the heavy snowfall in the mountains, they're still quite full. She went in just to swim around and again after a stick. Dash watched, but he was none too sure about the whole process.

Later, on the last day of her visit, we took her out for a ride with the pones. What a site we must have been...three  Border Collies running around and a Pitt Bull following along. She had a great time and seemed to enjoy meeting Andy!

All in all, it was a perfect weekend!!