Is it July Yet?

Good morning, my friends. Finally! It's officially July! Phew! I thought it would never get here. It was a busy day yesterday. There was no time for any machine sewing, and so I still have some paper-piecing ahead of me. Sigh. It was all slow-stitching yesterday, and I made good progress on my quilt binding. 

But let's just back up to earlier in the morning. I finished off the last of the "Wash the Clothes" stitchery for The Story of My Day.

This one and the one finished earlier still need borders added. They're kind of fun to sew together. It took only a few minutes to finish that off, and then I took the first stitches on the next block for the Joyful Journey quilt. This one is called "Peace at Home."

And then it was time to get outside and hoe the vegetable garden. Mornings outside always start with a walk around. I'm keeping a close eye on the cherry trees right now. I think we'll be harvesting cherries within the week. Their color is still bright red. When they turn a darker color, they'll be ready.

The lavender is making the most heavenly fragrance right now. We have a lot of lavender. Its only purpose is to make Bees Knees and to smell good. It performs both of these functions perfectly.

The day lilies are all in bloom now. I captured these just after they were watered.

And oh! Lookie there! The Edda clematis has bloomed! I've been watching it every morning. The previous morning, it still appeared to be in a tight bud, and then...SURPRISE!!!!

One of the dahlias is developing its first flower bud. The others appear to be forming buds as well, but the is the only one that is obvious.

The replaced dahlia is getting little leaves now. It's very encouraging.

The red leaf lettuce must have read my post where I threatened to pull up any lollygaggers. It's starting to get some leaves now, and the little replacement seed has sprouted. Now, it'll be a race to see who will survive this existential challenge.

Around front, I found the kitties inspecting Mike's RV electrical repair job. He has it all finished now, but he still needs to reassemble everything. The kitties want to be sure everything is ship shape before we take off on our next trip.

In the vegetable garden, I was impressed that this little bean figured out to climb the pole without any instruction or encouragement from me. This bean obviously has leadership qualities. It makes me proud.

These others are still trying to find their way.

The first zucchini blossoms have appeared. The bees love these.

All three plants have flowers and zucchini.

One of the sunflowers has formed its first bud. This one was planted by the squirrels.

The apples are about the size of ping pong balls now.

As I returned all my gardening tools to the garage, I caught this swallow as it entered the nest box. We can hear quiet cheeping nearly all the time. When a parent bird returns to the nest, the volume increases significantly.

By then, I'd made our dessert for our dinner with the neighbors and I'd hoed the garden. It was time for lunch. After lunch, Smitty joined me for a short nap. His dirty feet would indicate he'd been digging for gophers.

After my nap, I still needed to make a potato salad, and I had all the ingredients for pulled chicken sandwiches loaded into the slow cooker. I'll start that this morning. The only other thing I need to do for our dinner tonight is make some coleslaw and set the table. The rest is all finished. And so I was able to devote the rest of the afternoon to my quilt binding. By the time I stopped, I'd turned three corners. This should be easy enough to finish this morning.

Happily, dinner was from leftovers last night. But you didn't think I'd make a dessert and then not taste it, did you? Usually I cut this down to make it a dessert for two, but I made enough yesterday for dinner tonight and dessert last night. Obviously, I wouldn't want to set this down in front of guests without first tasting it.

This is such a light and bright and yummy dessert. It isn't hard to make, but it does use a lot of bowls. You can find the recipe right here. 

So, I have just a few things to do today to get ready for our dinner tonight. There should be some time for some machine sewing. I want to finish up my quilt binding, but I want to make some progress on those other little finish-it-off tasks on the embroidery blocks that were finished recently. And then there's that Tiny House still waiting for me. There's always plenty to do in the sewing room.

Aside from dinner tonight, we don't have any particular plans for the upcoming weekend or the Fourth of July holiday. What about you? Anything going on in your neighborhood? We used to enjoy the fireworks on the East Bank of the Willamette River, but our enthusiasm waned during the pandemic. We haven't gone in several years. Also, the danger of wildfires these days makes fireworks seem a bit risky. In any case, we'll have a quiet holiday at home. And now...it's time to get going on my day. Enjoy your weekend, everybody!