Ripe for Picking

It was a jubilant day for cherry picking yesterday, but there was other business to take care of first. My slow stitching has suffered over the past busy week, and I expect next week will be busy as well. The Fourth falls on Wednesday, and our family tradition is to set up a base camp on the east bank of the Willamette River to wait for the evening's fireworks. Here's an image of Erik from last year.

Always a great day. Oh yes, and did anyone notice his beloved OSU Beavers won the College World Series of Baseball a few days ago?

Also next week, I have appointments for my monthly pedicure and a haircut, so it'll be another week of running around. As for my stitching, I gave myself a little extra time to work on it yesterday morning.

Now I've hooped the last of it, and I'll probably finish this up this morning.

There was a quick grocery shopping trip to do next, if grocery shopping on a Saturday can ever be "quick." Sigh. The usual slow movers in the aisles, and is there some rule that restocking the shelves in a grocery store must be done on the busiest days of the week? It seemed every aisle was blocked with a huge cart loaded with boxes of some kind. But let's just not go there okay? My blood pressure can't take it.

When I got home, I finished up the last two blocks for row three of the Shop Hop quilt. Next up was this block from the Suwanee Valley Quilt Shop in Trenton, Florida. This was one of the more interesting shops I've visited. You can read my post about it right here. At the time of my visit, the owner was retiring and the shop was up for sale. I wondered if it was still open, and it seems to be, as evidenced by its active website. My print for this shop had to be these manatees.

We'd been on something of a quest to see the manatees in Florida. We'd visited many places where they were present, but the water was so murky, it was difficult to see them very well. Thanks to our dear friends and amazing Florida hosts, Dick and Karin, we found them at Homosassa Springs Wildlife State Park.

What a thrill to see these interesting critters. You can read my post about our visit to the park right here.

The final print for row three was this one from Sew 'N Sew Fabrics in Fort Bragg, California. You can read my post about it right here. Fort Bragg is a rather small community, and so I wondered if the shop was still open. It seems it is, although they have no web presence aside from their Facebook page. I'd been on the hunt throughout California looking for some California poppy fabric. This large scale print was the best I could do.

You might recall that I boldly used it as a background for the "Working for Peanuts" quilt. And, FYI, I took this quilt and showed it to Ann Shaw and asked her for her honest evaluation of the fabric. I told her I made my decision based on my new "WWAD" criteria I'd established for myself: What Would Ann Do? That seemed to tickle her, but she pronounced my choice a good one. So there.

She also offered that the light breast of the bird is a little hard to see against the background and suggested doing some quilting there to bring out the boundaries of the bird. Very good advice that I will follow. And as long as we're talking about this, quilting and binding "Working for Peanuts" is going to be my OMG for July.

With the last two blocks finished, I sewed the whole row together. While I was getting ready to take a picture of the blocks sewn into a quilt, I received a visit from my furry friend. Hey, Smitty, look at the camera!

Your purrsistence that I furrequently pose for snapshots is purrticularly annoying. However, I will submit if it will motivate you to put catnip in my bowl.

And here is where the Shop Hop quilt stands...or lies, depending on your perspective.

About that time, Tractor Man came to tell me it was time to pick some cherries. And, whoa, what a haul! We started with the low-hanging fruit.

Then, with me at the tractor controls, I raised him up in the bucket to the highest limbs of the tree.

We still couldn't reach the tippy tippy top ("tippy" taking on a whole new meaning here), but we managed to pick 4-1/2 pounds of the ripest cherries.

We only picked the Bings since the Black Tartarians are not yet ripe enough. With this haul, I have enough to make both cherry chutney and some sweet cherry barbecue sauce. Something else to add to the list of next week's activities.

While we were out, I noticed the first sunflower was beginning to open. This morning, I went out to take a picture of it.

A few days ago, I was out and noticed the sunflower beside it had fallen over and uprooted itself. This caused me such grief. The plant still seemed unharmed, and so I propped it up inside a tomato cage. This morning, it looks no worse for wear.

Still, it had probably lain on the ground for at least a day, and so it had grown toward the sun with a distinct bend in its stalk. We thought it might straighten itself out when we stood it upright again, but I think the bend is there to stay. It looks like I do first thing in the morning.

While I was out, I was joined by my furry friend. His day outdoors was cut short yesterday when our neighbor's dog appeared in the field. They both high-tailed it into the house. The dog was corralled by its owner almost immediately, but they wouldn't go out the rest of the day. This morning, they were ready to go out again. So what's he looking at?

Oh...it's Miss Sadie...and she looks like a cat on a mission.

Birdies and mousies...I'm looking fur you!

Before ending my sewing day yesterday, I was off to a good start on the June block for Tuxedo Tales. I'll get back to that today, and I'm also hoping to get a start on July's block. Before that, however, I have dilled carrot spears to make. It's pretty quick, but I have a couple of bunches of carrots to work with. I expect sewing will have to wait until after lunch.