A Day of Many Gifts

What a beautiful day yesterday. There were a couple of rain showers in the afternoon, but it was sunny and relatively warm most of the day. It was a perfect day for a reunion walk with Sue. We haven't walked together for about six weeks since both of us have been off gallivanting around the southland. And so that was the first gift of the day...walking with my friend in the sunshine!

Also, I have a shiny new camera...the next iteration of my favorite Nikon Coolpix. It was an early birthday present from Mike. (My birthday isn't until next month.) It's the A1000 model. It's about the fifth Coolpix camera I've owned, and each revision brings fixes to some of the camera's cons coupled with the addition of a few new pros. Everything was in bloom on our walk, and so I had plenty of opportunities to test out the camera's capabilities.

Let's just start there. Everything that blooms appeared to be showing its stuff along the way. I don't know the names of most of these, but I'll tell you if I know. First, our Oregon native flowering red currant.

These are grape hyacinths.

Some sort of ground cover. I don't recognize it.

This next one is rosemary.

Don't know these next few.

Here's a camelia.

This one was high overhead. I don't recognize it.

This is the first rhododendron I've seen blooming.

This next one is the blossom of our state flower, the Oregon grape. But it isn't a grape, and it has nothing to do with wine-making. It produces a bitter purple berry, not really edible, but not poisonous either.

It was fragrant all along the Fanno Creek Trail yesterday. These high overhead blossoms might be the ones, but I don't have a good nose for that sort of thing. I just know it smelled like spring yesterday.

These little ladies live in someone's yard. There is a big sign on the fence that says, "Please Don't Feed the Chickens."

Still, these little ladies thought they might snag a snack if they got close enough.

What are these? Bluebells?

There are several beaver dams along Fanno Creek, and so the creek itself floods the trail in spots, but it's also very shallow and swampy in spots. Yesterday, Sue spotted these skunk cabbage in one of the shallow parts. I've never seen this in Fanno Creek before, but you know how it goes...let nature do what it does naturally, and the natural habitat will restore itself.

And this is the end of the trail for us. The beaver dams have flooded the trail pretty significantly beyond this point. Like I always say, show me a body of water of any size, and I'll show you a Canada goose.

Now here's something. The picture below was taken in January. They've been working on this playground near one of the middle schools. See those bare tree stumps there?

Look at them now. They've been transformed into enchanting fairy villages.

Oh my gosh! It is a work of art. We were mesmerized by all the little doors. I wouldn't be surprised if I missed a few, but I took pictures of all the ones I saw. I'll just keep quiet and let you look. These range in size from about 3 x 3 to maybe 12 x 12 inches.

This next one says "Stairway to Heaven."

And Sue brought me these gifts from her trip. I love that candy corn is now an Easter candy. Surely we can figure out a way to make it a Christmas candy too, can't we? Also, a mix for some Sheepherder Bread. She said the bread was good, and so she brought me some of the mix. I might just bake that up today. It's a just-add-water mix.

It was such a nice day, I let the kitties out before leaving home. When I got home, they were still outside. Smitty was waiting for Sadie to hunt down a critter for him to eat.

Shhhhhhhhhh...stealthy hunter on the move.

Fortunately, she came back empty-pawed. Those things have a way of making their way into the house as a surprise for me to find. This is not considered a gift, although I'm sure the kitties think it is.

I sat and iced my knee and spent some more time stitching the binding for the Rainbow Jubilee quilt. Now I've turned three corners.

All I can say is that Matthew better get home fast because Smitty is purrchasing propurrty rights to this quilt.

Also in yesterday's mail, my friend Ila sent me a little surprise package. Ila knows what I like. Won't those sea salt caramels taste good with my afternoon espresso?

Ila is often gifting me with treasures when she cleans out her sewing room. Just look at this bag 'o thread. These are beautiful variegated Aurifil threads. She knows I like quilting with variegated threads, and so these will be treasured. Thank you, Ila.

Finally, this is the first picture I took with my new camera. Backing up to Friday evening, I purchased a quilt suspension system from Patsy Thompson. There are a couple listed on her website, but for my machine, the second one will work best. I haven't set it up yet, and so I'll have to report back and let you know how it works for me. All of that to say that Patsy Thompson sent me a gift of these beautiful King Tut threads along with my purchase. Cool, huh?

And that brings me to day's end yesterday. Smitty was so happy for the setting sunlight coming in through our sliding glass doors. He loves lying in the morning sun, but there has been none lately. And he loves lying in the evening sun, but again...there has been none. So yesterday's sunset was a luxury, and he soaked it in.

For dinner last night, I tried yet another slow cooker recipe from our Cooking Light Diet. This is Slow Cooker Sweet Glazed Chicken Thighs. I'm using the image posted on the myrecipes.com website here since I didn't take a picture of mine.

(image source)

These were super easy to put together. It was in the crockpot and cooking within about 10 minutes, and it was very tasty. I'm always on the lookout for recipes easy enough to do in the RV, and this is a keeper. You can find the recipe right here.

There's really nothing on today's agenda. I'll try to finish off the binding for Rainbow Jubilee, and then I'll get back to making some quilt blocks. My monthlies are nearly finished, and then I can get to work on some of my other WIPS.