Lots of Sewing

Good morning, my friends. I'm happy to say the smoke has mostly cleared, and we're able to see the mountains this morning.

The air quality was better yesterday, but still hazy, and the sky still a strange shade of yellow. The sun is up now, and we'll be breathing easier today.

The morning started with finishing off the "Find Matching Socks" stitchery. It still needed its borders.

There was just a little time left, and so I took the first stitches on the "Garden Glory" block. If I'm going to finish this one before we leave on our trip, I'm going to have to stitch fast.

In spite of the air quality, my first stop on yesterday's agenda was outside to hoe weeds and harvest vegetables. I picked about a quart of Sungold cherry tomatoes from our plant. We grow these in a pot up next to the house so that we can pluck them off the plant and eat them like candy as we walk by. They are so yummy with just some ranch or blue cheese dressing.

As I made my way to the vegetable garden, I noticed this little corn poppy growing in the pot with the gaillardia. We planted a mix of poppies. Mostly, they've been California poppies, but there have been a few stragglers of different varieties and colors.

This Red Sun sunflower was dazzling yesterday. The bees work their way around the center of the flower, moving in concentric circles and stopping at every single seed cell. It's fascinating watching them. And there are hundreds buzzing all around me when I'm in the garden...not aggressive at all. They feel like little fuzzy friends.

Another new one has bloomed. This is the Floristan sunflower.

Also, lots of corn is coming on now, and I harvested the first of it for last night's dinner.

Back in the sewing room, I finished sewing together the first of three Painted Ladies blocks.

And then I made two more.

Those were sewn together with the partial from the day before.

And then I sewed that row to the four I've made already. With the addition of the fifth row, the quilt is officially half done.

From there, I finished off the two blocks for The Story of my Day quilt. These are a bit of a puzzle to sew together, but the instructions are easy to follow.

And here are all the blocks I have for this quilt so far. There will be 25 when it's finished.

We were back to battling the "Z" force last night. (We took a few days off.) Last night's dinner was this Classic Zucchini Casserole. It polished off seven more zucchini. Yahoo! The zucchini was sliced and then fried along with some onion. Then it was mixed up with some seasonings and added to a baking dish, sprinkled with shredded cheddar and topped with a Ritz cracker crumb topping. It was very tasty!

Okay, so today I need to water the flower pots, and I have a couple of housekeeping chores. Also, I'm going to bake a blueberry zucchini bread recipe that landed in my email inbox. It uses whole wheat pastry flour. I happen to have a nearly full bag from when I thought baking lots and lots of bread was a good idea. I haven't given up on the bread, but I have taken a lengthy break from it. So, the bread will polish off more zucchini, but it also gives me an opportunity to use this specialty flour taking up space in my freezer.

When all that is done, I'll get back to my sewing. First stop will be to spend an hour on Tiny House #32:

Before I left the sewing room yesterday, I cut apart all the sections and left them protected with one of my rulers.

And that's the way it is here at the Three Cats Ranch. Apologies to Walter Cronkite. (Please tell me you're old enough to remember Walter Cronkite.) True story: When Mike was a newly-stamped high school graduate, he sailed from San Diego to Tahiti with his brother. (His brother was a navigator in the Coast Guard, and he got a gig sailing yachts to wealthy people after leaving the military.) They stopped off in Hawaii to pick up supplies, and while there, met Walter Cronkite for some reason. His brother had a framed picture of the meeting. Incidentally, he also had a framed picture of a meeting with President Bill Clinton from his days at the Bureau of Land Management. Phil was not a person who sought out meetings with celebrities. He just happened to be at the right place at the right time. Good old Phil. We sure do miss him.

Okay, so getting back to the way it is here...that's the way it is. It's time for breakfast.