Packing It In

We're on the final stretch before taking off on a short get-away. The weather is going to turn hot while we're away. Erik and Matthew have volunteered to come up and keep the landscape watered. With some new plantings, we really don't want things to burn up while we're gone. This seems as good a time as any to tell you where we're going. We're sticking to some of the less-traveled areas in southern Oregon and northern California, making visits to Crater Lake National Park, Lassen Volcanic National Park, and Redwoods National Park. There are a few things we'll stop and see along the way. There will be hiking and photography, but mostly, there will be relaxation. I'm planning to blog along the way, but internet is notoriously sketchy near the national parks, and so it always depends on whether I can get access. Look for me, but don't be surprised if I'm a no-show.

We're particularly interested in visiting Crater Lake, and that might have instigated this whole idea for a trip. We've lived in Oregon since 1978 and visited the park three times during that time. Even visiting in July, we found the Rim Drive around the lake partially closed due to snow. Oh yes, and I can't resist this picture of Mike and young Erik feeding bread to the chipmunks during a visit in 1980. Erik was more interested in eating the bread.

On the way back through, we stopped off again, and hiked down to the lake's edge.

Okay...so back in Today Land, we're looking forward to driving all the way around the lake and seeing at least a little new territory. Neither of us has visited Lassen since we were kids, but it's been on our bucket list for a long time. As for the Redwoods...I can never get enough of those beautiful trees. I'm aware there are fires burning in some areas of California. We'll be avoiding those areas, and we're hoping the smoke won't be too much of an issue. In that regard, it always depends on which way the wind is blowing.

So it was busy here at the Three Cats Ranch yesterday. I did some cooking for our trip. There's an Overnight Lasagna and some Frozen Breakfast Burritos in the camper fridge now. You can find the recipes for both right here. The breakfast burritos are nice for days when we travel. We can heat them in the microwave, and then eat them over their wax paper wrapper for a breakfast with no dirty dishes. Also, I made some croutons. But camping food wasn't all. I broke my No-More-Canning-this-Season rule and made some more Tomato-Jalapeno Jam. We had lots of tomatoes from our greenhouse, and I wanted to use them.

And now I'm re-declaring that this is absolutely, positively the last canning I'm doing this season. 

After that, I went out into the garden to check the corn. While there, I couldn't resist a few more pictures of sunflowers. You can see one of the giants in this next picture. They bow their heads as they fade. I always just leave the dead flowers. The birds will pick them clean of seeds soon enough. It'll give them something to eat while we're gone.

And more flowers from the bee garden.

I have been trying for weeks to get an in-focus picture of this next one. Finally...I caught it.

Now, here's something. It's just a weed, but it has developed these berries. No idea what it is, nor if the berries are edible. I'm not going to taste them to see. It almost looks like the berry on an Oregon grape, but that isn't what it is.

Okay, and then I headed into the sewing room. I realized I hadn't photographed all 12 snowflakes together, so here they are:

As long as I had them out, I took pictures of the fabrics I've pulled from my stash. I have some ideas about how I'm going to sew this into a quilt top. I might use all of these...or only some of them. But for sure, something you see here is going into the quilt. The two on the left are different colors of "fairy frost."

And then I sandwiched Half Square Affair for quilting. It's a small quilt...something like 24-inches square.

It's small enough to quilt on my domestic machine, but I took it upstairs to the mid-arm anyway. The thread I wanted to use was there, and I already had an m-class bobbin wound with it. I'm using this YLI machine quilting thread, which is a 50-weight thread, both top and bottom.

It's a nice forest green color.

I quilted a swirly-armed-pinwheel kind of thing in the center. (Technical quilting terms. Try to keep up.)

And then I did this loop-de-loop-insy-outsy-swirly thing for the flying geese. This has become my go-to motif for flying geese of all sizes.

And then for the quadrants of HST's, I continued on with the loop-de-loop. This was fun and fast quilting. I'm often doing designs that require me to cut threads frequently, and so it was nice to do a design that would allow me to just keep going, and going, and going...quilting just like the Energizer Bunny would do it.

No bunnies in the sewing room though...only Energizer Kitties.

When I quit for the day, all but the borders were finished.

Here's how it looks from the back:

Smitty has his eye on this for a kitty quilt, but I'm going to use it as a fall table topper on our breakfast bar.

But I wasn't finished cooking because there was still dinner to be made. I tried this new recipe for Grilled Shrimp with Mom's Avocado and Orange Salad.

This turned out to be really good. I liked the combination of the orange sections with the avocado, and it gave me a way to use the cherry tomatoes from our plant. I did the shrimp in a skillet rather than grilling it. It was a winner. Definitely we'll be having this again sometime.

This morning I took a picture of Miss Sadie since she hasn't been seen on the blog for a few days. Sadie is kind of a scaredy cat, even around us. Mornings are really the only time she feels calm enough to have her picture taken. Formerly feral, she's used to running away when she sees people. We keep hoping she'll get over that, but for now, she runs whenever she's caught being alive.

So today, I'm going to finish Half Square Affair to the hand-stitching of the binding. It can be my slow-stitching project tomorrow morning since I'll be packing up all the embroidery projects today. (There must be slow-stitching Every. Single. Morning. Lives are at stake.) And then I'll get busy packing my clothes. Food gets packed tomorrow. There's lots to do, so I'll just get moving.