A Return, an Update, and a Giveaway

Okay, so life is returning to what passes for normal here at the Three Cats Ranch. We're back from our five-day getaway at Mayfield Lake in Silver Creek, Washington. We had a very nice and relaxing time. Relaxation is the best part of this particular destination. We spent our days sitting, stitching (that was me), bobbing in the boat, swimming (that was Mike), eating, and napping. We even took a walk. We even visited a quilt shop. Today we'll unpack, and then get back to business.

So let's just see what's been going on, shall we? If I am to understand things properly, someone posted to my blog while I was gone. I have a feeling it's the person associated with these ears:

As was mentioned, she managed to stay home while we were gone by hiding in a spot from which we cannot retrieve her. (You can see the explanation of said spot, at this old blog post.) I'd stuffed a box into the opening of her little hidey hole, but she managed to power her way past it. We could either wait for several days until she came down, or we could leave without her. We chose the latter. She was fine while we were away, but she was pretty starved for her morning snuggles this morning. I could barely get sat down before she was on top of me for the badly-needed morning pets.

Backing up to the day we left, I gave all the flower pots a good watering, and then took one last look around in the vegetable garden. There I found one of the sunflowers blooming. I believe this one is called Lemon Queen.

And this one was close to opening. This one is called Red Lemon.

The garden is looking pretty good. Critters have been eating some of the beets...I suspect gophers...but they haven't done too much damage. Here's how it looked when we returned yesterday.

While we were away, the first zucchini made an appearance. There will be many more.

Also, the purple hydrangea turned into a stunner while we were gone.

As for our time at the lake, we had a nice spot. I was texting images to Sadie while we were away, and she posted the one I took of the view from our campsite. Here's how it looked in the afternoon light.

It was foggy each morning we were there, and that kept the day from getting too warm. We spent a lot of our afternoons bobbing in the lake. It was a treat watching the many ospreys soaring overhead. These aren't great pictures, taken with a point and shoot while standing on a rocking boat, but I think you can get the idea.

On Wednesday, the fog didn't burn off until late in the day, and so we took a little drive into the nearby town of Morton. Sometimes we find a "lumberjack festival" going on there, but signs said it wasn't until the second weekend in August. On our way back, we stopped off to take in the view at the Riffe Lake Overlook. It was pretty despite the cloud cover.

Here's a little sign about the surrounding area. (Remember you can make the image larger by clicking on it.)

We were boating on Mayfield Lake, which is formed by Mayfield Dam. Riffe Lake (prounounced Rife, with a long "i") is formed by Mossyrock Dam, and it is a much larger lake. It's not great for boating as its size is rather intimidating. It's possible to get so far out that there are no signs of civilization, whereas we're always in view of private residences when we're on Mayfield Lake. There's something reassuring about knowing you can swim to shore for rescue if the worst should happen. The sweet peas at the overlook were beautiful.

For grins, I asked my friend The Google if there were any quilt shops nearby. Lo and behold...

This was a tiny little shop. I won't write a separate post for it since I can show you the whole store in the one image pictured below.

It was still fun to pick out a regional print for this area we've visited since our kids were babies. This one seemed to capture it perfectly. I'll be adding it to the Shop Hop 2.0 quilt blocks.

Back at our campsite, I noticed this lone foxglove, nearly bloomed out.

After lunch, Smitty and I shared a cup of espresso and our afternoon chocolate.

And then we got out for a little walk. He was good for about five minutes...all sitting on the picnic table. He does look so macho in his workout attire.

I tried a new recipe while we were gone. This was so, so simple to do. The recipe is for Sheet-Pan Italian Sausage and Pepper Sandwiches. Everything is loaded onto a sheet pan and roasted together. Although the recipe says to add the pepperocinis to the roasting pan, I worried they would burn up in our convection oven, and so we added them at the end. It was so tasty, I wouldn't change a thing. On a whim, I picked up a personal-sized watermelon, and we shared that for two side dishes. Why don't I think of watermelon more often? Oh yes, and those are some apple chips. They're made locally, and they are so good.

Of course there's plenty of time for stitching on these getaways. I made good progress on the fourth block for Calendula Patterdrip's Cottage. I finished filling in one hoop, 

and then another.

I'm well on my way to finishing up the third hoop, and I'll just keep going until it's finished.

Also, I stitched up July's block for the Posies quilt.

This morning, I added the borders and this block is finished.

Sadie helped with that. After so much alone time, she was ready to get back to work too.

Here are all the blocks I have for this quilt so far.

This is my project for this year's

so I'll be linking up there this morning. You might recall that "light blue" was the color several months ago. I was (shall we say) light on light blues, and so I did the darker blue block earlier. In the meantime, I picked up this fabric for the light blue block.

And it must be our week for seeing big birds. When we drove up the driveway yesterday, we noticed a very large bird sitting in our field...hunting for those pesky gophers, no doubt. It flew away when I tried to get its picture, but then we noticed it later sitting on the roof of our pump house. It flew away again, but I caught it sitting in a nearby tree.

There are two hawks circling around our place right now. I believe one is a juvenile and the one pictured above is the parent bird.

Okay, and so that brings me to the present. Today I'll be unpacking, but there's nothing else on the agenda until dinner time. It'll give me some time to get the Beary Patch quilt sandwiched. 

I want to get this quilted and bound and sent off to the new baby. Also, I want to finish off the Sonora Desert piece, but I'm waiting for one other fabric to arrive. I have lots of ideas about how to finish it off and bring it to life. 

I'm sorry. The giveaway is now closed.

But let's just get to the whole reason you're here today. I promised you a giveaway upon our return, and a giveaway you shall have. This giveaway is to celebrate my 11th Blogiversary, coming up on July 13th. I'll be giving away this ten fat quarter bundle of Sharon Holland Designers Palette Color Master

Okay, so here's what you need to do to be a winner.

1. Just leave a comment...any comment will do. If you can't think of anything, then tell me about any travel plans you might have as restrictions are lifting and life is returning to normal somewhat. Please leave your comment here on the blog. If you are an email follower, simply click on the title of this post to be taken to the actual web page. You can leave your comment there.

2. Since this giveaway is to thank those of you who have followed along over the years, prizes are reserved for followers only...new, old, salty, sweet, bitter, and twisted...just step on up and tell me how you follow. If you want to become a follower, you can find lots of ways to do it there in my left side bar. Also, I will ship internationally, so all residents of Planet Earth are welcome to join in.

3. If you're no reply, be sure to leave an email address. You can't win if I can't contact you.

So good luck, and a big thank you for helping us celebrate the day! I'll leave this giveaway open through Tuesday, July 13th and announce the winner sometime on Wednesday, July 14th.

Good luck everybody!