Our Garden Update Sept 2016

Our Garden in Spokane Washington
My daughter Suzanne and her husband have a lot of experience with vegetable gardens and flowers. This year will be the first summer that they will have most of the vegetables in pots.  Our yield is less and the produce is smaller. But at least we have food growing!  Also included here is: our Peach canning with peaches from the local farm; My Grand daughters Birthdays - Ramona in July and Kat in August, Suzanne, George and Hannah's camping vacation in Tillamook, Oregon.

Basil

Yellow squash

chillis

Pumpkin in the ground

Green Bell Peppers

                                                                  Tomatoes

tomatoes 

More tomatoes

                                                                               

The tomatoes are so good! 

one of the baby tomatoes

                                                  Our Roma Tomatoes and some of our Basil

The mum from last year is budding

Spinach

Suzanne at work watering the garden

Chard in the pot and in back left is our blueberry bush

Flowers

Flowers in pots where she had grown the gladiolas blubs

Two kinds of Lavender

Paint Plant

Canning Peaches

We bought some peaches and canned them!

Close up of the peach

                                                              From this farm

                                                         Looking yummy!

                                            I bought one box and my kids got two boxes

                                         We all have had experience canning = Sterilize jars = we got new jars

                        Scald in boiling water, slip off skins, cut up in halves or quarters. I wanted quarters

                                    Boil water in canning bath = Vitamin C sprinkles to the left

        We used this apple juice with water a 50% formula and the vitamin C sprinkles for our packing

We all took turns with the jobs, I removed the skins and pitted the peaches. Suzanne cut up the peaches as well as scalding them. The girls helped with pitting and removing the skins. George put the peaches in the jars. Suzanne prepared the jars and the lids. George put the jars in the water bath. Suzanne took them out.

                                                      

I got 18 quarts with my box. I ate three fresh. They got 40 plus some they froze. They cut theirs in half. 

Birthdays for Granddaughters Ramona and Kat

Hydrangeas inside the house

Hydrangeas  outside for color variation = she loves them

Ramona with some of the gifts she got for her new smart phone from her BF 

Vegan Lasagna made by Ramona's BF -  we used that for her candles! LOL

Singing Happy 21st Birthday before she blew out the candles

for the Cherry pie with Vegan Gluten free crust - Suzanne whipped up the Garbanzo water into whipped topping -  taste just like whipped cream!!!!

Cherry pie with gluten free and Vegan crust

Nom Nom so good!  Also there was strawberry pie!  

Kat's Birthday

Kat is now age 19 

cupcakes from this cute Bakery 

Some of the flowers we grew by seed and some purchased

Bachelor Buttons and Mint Large Pansies 

I don't remember the name of the pink one

We love the Hydrangeas and got this Pink one for us

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While I was in California - Suzanne, George and Hannah went to Tillimook Oregon for camping vacation

Suzanne and George at Tillamook, Oregon

George and Hannah looking at the Pacific Ocean from Tillamook, Oregon

Pacific Ocean from Tillamook, Oregon

On the way home from Oregon to Washington

Now there were a lot of fires in Washington and California as well as Oregon, Kansas and other places in the USA. I will have another blog post about that coming up! 

Cats, kitties, and more cats!

Big Changes:

First 

 The reason I have not been blogging.  We had two family members pass away within two days.

The first was a shock as we did not know how sick my ex-husband was.  Here he is in this photo back in 1995 with the birth of our 2nd grandchild.  Our son and daughter in the photo as well.

A week at the most before he passed away we found out that his illnesses over the last year turned out to be end stage liver disease.  He had a cough for months that he tried to get rid of with medication and Nebulizer machine to deliver the mist for asthma.  He was a long time sufferer of Diabetes.  He was in the hospital for a week then came home a day and then back to the hospital.  There was nothing to do for him except make him comfortable.  He passed away a month after his 68th Birthday on August 17, 2014. It has been very difficult for the kids and his 2nd wife.  

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The other death happened two days later.  This one we expected. My 2nd daughter's ex husband had been diagnosed with lung cancer.  We knew that he did not have much time left.   It was very difficult for their two sons and his stepson as well as for my daughter.  

One thing she and I found out - even though they were our ex-husbands we felt very much as a lot of people feel when their spouse passes away.  

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Crafting!

Back to crafting and other things!

So Cats, kitties and more cats!

I had mentioned before that I was going to start using Aida cloth that was size 7. That is pretty much the same grid size as regular plastic canvas or 7 holes per square inch.  Most Aida cloth patterns are for size 10 to 14.  I have done these in the past and here are my past Aida cloth projects:

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The first cats are the ones I have made in the last 4 months.  The first of the Aida cloth in size 7 is this cat!  Specifically "Grumpy Cat!"  

This is the pattern. The print out is for size 14 Aida cloth! I knew it would work fine for size 7 Aida cloth.  There was no actual color code for this pattern. So I had to use what I had on hand and purchased.  I used all six strands of DMC floss.

                         Here is the outline and eyes done.

                          Finished with the word "Whatever."

                               Close up of "Grumpy Cat!"

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Another Grumpy Cat

Almost done. The rest of the cat is white, so it is hard to see where I have left off, but the remainder is going to be white.  I am making several more for family and friends!  

More Kitties!

I found this pattern on Pinterest. It actually was in Russian!  Easy to see what was what on the pattern.  The tail in the original pattern was as large/wide as the legs. I wanted the tail to be thinner. So I enlarged the pattern by cutting out the original print and adding 1 inch to the outline.  I used felt for the eyes on this one as well as felt for the face and nose.  I embroidered the whiskers.

      

   After I finished it I realized I forgot to add the claws!

So I cut out more and also cut out the claws in white felt.  I did not like the face so I decided to just have the nose and eyes felt on the second and third ones.

I was not real happy with those either so the black and white ones and the pink ones just have puffy paint for the eyes nose and whiskers.

                     

 So I added the eyes and nose.   I need to add the wiggly eyes and whiskers next.  Then they will be done.

My cats!

 So this is Batman and Robin now just over one years old! They always sleep like this on my bed. My Mom crocheted that Afghan back in the 1970's!

Robin now sports a Blue collar. He likes to get my attention by sitting on the keyboard of the computer!

Batman sports a silver collar now and he loves to look out the window. I love the way the sun shone on his whiskers!

That is the update for now. Next blog update will be about moving day!  I will also have a blog about my trip to Washington state for the reunion.  We got home from the reunion and that is when my ex husband passed away - so I did not make the blog about the reunion with my Grand kids and 2 daughters.   So I will work on that!

I will be glad to email any of the patterns from any of my projects. Just ask me for which one you want and your email address.    :D

And last but not least: Inspiration

An awesome Poet Artist from Canada has this awesome website. Go see it at        Above The Rayn