Color in the Bee Garden

Good morning, my friends. It was a short day for sewing yesterday. My morning started with a doctor's appointment. I’ll say more about that in a minute. After my appointment, I stopped off at our local Safeway store and picked up the things currently on our list. We get our vaccines at Safeway, and they always give us a 15% off coupon for our next shopping trip. We don't often shop at Safeway, but there are a few things they carry that I can't get at our regular store. As long as I was driving by, I figured it was a good time to use that coupon. (Also, Bonus! I'm thinking we can get through the week without another grocery shopping trip.)

Back at home, it was lunch time. I had some lunch, and then a nap, and then I filled the bird feeders. While I was out, I took a look at the garden. I'm checking on the green beans every day, encouraging them to climb the poles rather than tangle themselves up in the fencing. As the runners get longer, I think they'll get the idea.

Some of the zinnias are starting to show their color. I'm excited for these to bloom. It's been a long time since I've grown zinnias.

Here's our GOAT insect. I spotted several of her clan in the garden today.

If you look very carefully at the center of the sunflower below, you can see some of its yellow petals showing. Most all of the sunflowers look like this now. I expect we'll see some flowers from them by next week.

It's hard to see in this image, but there are already four zucchini close to being ready for harvest. I have in mind to do something with the blueberries today. There are a couple of recipes that also include shredded zucchini. I'll check on them again this morning, and then decide what to bake with the blueberries.

The largest of the pickling cucumbers has two eensy weensy cucumbers and flowers. I'm hoping for a good pickling cucumber harvest this year. We need pickles. We need them badly.

Gazing out at the bee garden, I was thrilled to see about half a dozen of these cornflowers in bloom. They're also known as “bachelor's buttons.” I've been hopeful we'd see some this time around.

While I was looking at the cornflower, I spotted this flax. It's another newbie. I'm hoping we'll see more of this.

Back closer to the house, there are lots of cherry tomatoes now...but no ripe ones. Hopefully, we'll see some soon.

The deer have been eating the apples from our tree. There were fewer apples than I've seen previously, and I had to look up high for the ones still on the tree. It's really no loss with these. They never produce anything larger than a tennis ball, and they aren't particularly good eating. Still, I'd like to get enough to bake something with them. 

The Bumble Rumble dahlia continues to tease me. It's a little more open, but still a ways to go.

Okay, so back inside, I headed to the quilting machine. Smitty kept an eye out for invading forces from the far side of the room.

A second row is quilted now. 

There's enough contrast on the block below that I think you can get a better look at the quilting.

Here's a peek at the back.

And now I've left it needle down at the bottom row. I'll start there today.

Not as much was accomplished sewing-wise as I’d hoped. The doctor’s appointment in the morning kind of wore me out. Although I was pretty sure I knew where it was located, I still needed to rely on GPS to find it. Then…a new doctor. I don’t know about you, but I find it stressful meeting a doctor for the first time. He took three little swipes at my skin. I can't say I was surprised because it’s been more than a year since my last skin check. Despite my whining, I’m happy to say that I liked him very much. The best part is that he's young, and so I'm confident his practice will outlive what's left of my life. Having all my doctors retire is one of the most annoying things about getting older. I have faith this new guy will be around for a while.

We finished off our day meeting up with Erik and Mae for an early dinner. We handed off their new phones, and it was just plain good to see them. They were camping over at the Oregon Coast this past weekend. Mike and I were married around 7 years before we went on a tent camping trip for the first time. Erik was only around 2 at the time. Our “camping equipment” consisted only of sleeping bags, and we were using a borrowed tent. It was so much fun that we went out immediately and purchased our own tent, a Coleman stove, and some other equipment we’d need to be tent campers. And we were die-hard tent campers for around 25 years. We have fond memories of that time, and so it tickles me to see the kids outfitting themselves to do more of it. They’re doing it in the van they’ve modified for camping. It has a real bed, and so it seems luxurious compared to our experience of sleeping on the ground in our first leaky tent.

As I mentioned earlier, I want to do some baking with the blueberries today. I'm still making up my mind what to bake.  For sure I'm going to make some more of the Granola Cups. We've really enjoyed those, but they're all gone now. This time around, I'll try refrigerating them after they've cooled to see if I can get them out of the pan in one piece. Either way, I'll be putting them in ramekins this time around. The custard cups worked, but a larger dish would have made them easier to eat. The blueberries have been a good accompaniment for those.

If I can get all that done, I'll get back to my quilting and sewing. It would be good to quilt another row of blocks on the Shop Hop quilt, and then I'd like to get a start on the block for Across the Wide Missouri. In the meantime, I'll read up on Kate Carmack, for whom the next block is dedicated.

So, there's plenty on my to-do list today. With that, I'll leave you to your day. I hope it's a good one.