Tony called me to take a look at this little guy on the back yard railing. He'd been watching him for some time and he hadn't moved.
Sorry the reflection of the front door glass is weirdly caught in this photo.
He thought he might have died as he was so still. We kept watching and breathed a sigh of relief to see it lift its head and glance about but stay where it was. Then we wondered if it was sick or something. But it eventually stood up, stretched out each of its tiny back legs and took off running. It was sunbathing! It too recognized how rare these warming beams have been. A relief!
The front yard is looking springish but the roof snow is hanging on. Out my kitchen window.
The pond is overflowing its bank, a regular spring occurrence. These geese are in an area that is normally grassland. Taken from a great distance so as not to disturb them.
Inside my stitching hasn't exactly been smooth sailing. I worked on the England in Quakers project...I began another little motif but the result was this. I didn't like it so frogging had to happen.
And then I tried the little sheep design. I had to use this grey thread as the called for white was too white for my fabric. But I'm noticing a difference in weight between the colours...very slight of course, but enough to make the stitches look too crowded on this thread count fabric like this grey is looking. I'm debating more frogging...actually the more I look at this the more I'm sure I'll be removing these too. I'll use a couple of French knots for the eyes and he will be cute eventually.
I've stitched three EPP stars/hexagons in reds, this month's RSC colour -my only photo cut off part of one which I didn't notice till now. Luckily I have lots of red fabrics on hand.
We finished this series... I cried at the ending. Any of you watch it?
The spring sunshine is illuminating in more ways than one. Like making visible this very intriguing spiderweb that just seemed to materialize in a back bedroom, a room I'm seldom in. It had a rounded funnel shape which made me wonder if its maker was a more unusual spider. I left it there which I know would drive some people crazy but you all know how I love all the critters. I'm going to check back and see if I can get a glimpse of the spinner.
What kind of housekeeper am I!
We recognize we need to downsize. This won't be easy as Tony has a thing about needing land mostly as space from neighbours. It's hard to find the combination of smaller house and big property. Since I have lived in so many places and in many types of housing, I really don't care what it needs to be except less chores on the land and in the house. I would be very happy in a condo, for instance, but that would be Tony's nightmare, LOL. When I was very young I used to worry about the eventual having to leave a house you'd lived in for decades...I was thinking about my older grandmother, the fisherman's wife, who had to do just that or maybe a farmer's wife who would find it so unbearable and poignant to leave their home after a lifetime living in the very same spot. Well, that turned out to be another of those totally senseless worries that occupied space in this strange head of mine.
In my middle of the night mind ramblings recently I was thinking of losses and out of the blue this line came to me...You have to give a little, take a little, and let your poor heart break a little...Recognize it?
Since I last wrote, we've had more snow- 14 cm to be exact, prior to it turning into an ice storm which was scary, then a thunder and lightening storm, high winds and rain, more snow -the mean kind, small bits driven by the wind and the weather warnings kept piling on.
Seeing the trees laden with ice is always sad.
They tried to say there might even be a tornado in the mix. Yikes! It's -7 windchill this morning..yes it's staying cold and I'm still clunking around the trails in my winter boots with cleats and wearing my winter jacket. But as we always say, it could be worse. Some folks lost their power and it's taking days to get it back. I am always so grateful when that does not happen here...so far. But perhaps this was winter of 2025's last hurrah. The temperature is supposed to rise dramatically by the end of this day to 18C!!
Okay, that's enough yakking about the weather. What else happened this week. My computer was having glitches and then failed completely. Tony worked on it most of Wednesday to figure it out and got it working fine again. I was happy about that as this Acer is not that old and shouldn't be giving up just yet.
I've now completely finished two of Liberty's Birds blocks; well no, as it happens, not quite. When I took a photo of the Red Cardinal, I didn't like the curve on the flower stem so I took out the stitches and fixed it. I like to add a few embellishments like blanket stitches here and there so that adds time.
I had thought the RSC colour is teal for this month and I had to check out what exactly is teal. I found this handy chart at Art in Context so apparently teal can run to lighter shades as well as the dark that I immediately thought of. Whatever the shades, I have very little of these lovely colours in my stash. *Actually Red is the colour for April, 2025. But the teals are pretty to look at anyway. :)
I dug deep to find a few pieces. I've finished one Starry Hexagon and prepped a couple more.
I must show you that paisley up close. It's from a thrifted man's shirt (don't think Tony would ever wear such!) and when I bought it, I thought it would be neat and interesting for Halloween pumpkin fabric.
I had stitchy mail this week. My Aunt Martha's State Flowers transfer set arrived.
I plan to stitch the Canadian Provincial and U.S. State flowers together in one project, as a way of marking our two countries marvelous shared history. I was thinking maybe arranging them alphabetically or something.
Update
Okay, so we made the over an hour's drive to the huge hospital complex- and with Brad's help found where we needed to be for Tony's appointment. Once in that particular wing, it is smooth sailing with folks ready to guide you even. We met first with the respirologist then with the pulmonologist-lung cancer guy joining us. We spent an hour with them all told and the conversations were excellent. I won't bore you with all the questions and answers, but the bottom line was this...the procedures to check out the tumor have risks...maybe too many for someone Tony's age to take a chance on. And then even if it was found to be cancer, the treatments with the usual awful side effects also are not advisable for someone in his age category. But the decision to proceed or not was up to us, of course. Since our gp had already provided us with this line of thinking and we had talked it over, we knew what the answer would be. Unless something happens to change our outlook, we are leaving it alone for now. And Tony's fatigue...they didn't think it had to do with his lungs. Since he's had every test known to man showing nothing else untoward here's what they thought... a rapid decline in strength and stamina in your eighties can be part of the natural aging process and, in fact, is that way for most folks. No getting around or over it. But Tony is struggling to accept that idea nonetheless.
So in a way, we are both relieved a bit too. It is daunting to face hospitals and treatments, etc. at any age and especially at ours. The less we have to do such may be for the better.
Thank you all so much for your kind words and all the considerate suggestions, encouragement, etc. Tony appreciates it very much too.
March, someone said, is the triumph of hope over experience...not unlike second marriages as somebody else said. So here we are cruising along through the month and I'm going to ignore the major snow and ice storm warning we have on the horizon. Perhaps it will not materialize; they've gotten these predictions wrong before. However, just to be on the safe side, I've filled both tubs in case we lose the power.
The way down through the big woods path has opened up and I've been taking Ned there adding a further loop to our daily walks. He's been loving all the new to him smells down there.
It's wide open to the skies there just now but soon millions of leaves will begin to emerge and close it all in.
I watched a falcon fly overhead one day which made me smile and yesterday I heard a Phoebe' s unmistakable call...spring!
Indoors I'm feeling good about how I'm moving along several stitchy projects. Like my cross stitch piece, Quakers In England. I'm enjoying laying these tiny stitches. It's so satisfying to complete a little design. Sorry, I just can't seem to get a good photo of this that shows the true colours. That red is a cherry red and there is lavender there too.
And I've been meaning to share this for a while...today it is then. If you'd like to try a Quaker cross stitched piece yourself, The Fat Quarter Shop offers this sweet Little Quaker ABC by Susan Ache project for free.
And more of the Basket Love bottoms have been appliqued too. I'm enjoying choosing the fabrics for this. Two more thrifted men's shirts in this lot. Can you guess which two?
Tony is eager for his appointment on Monday and I'm really hoping we will get some answers. He is weakening steadily...he has to take rests while getting dressed and I now have to take his boots off for him. But I admire his fortitude...he continues to follow through on most of his routines no matter how much longer they take him or tire him. I could only hope to have such resolve if I felt like him.
I don't particularly follow politics and I never talk about it here on the blog. But after much consideration, I'll share this bit of news and for a couple of reasons...knowledge is power and it's something else worrying me and as you all know, I do share my feelings here in this space. A friend visited one day with sad news of Canadians getting harassed at the Canada/US border to the point of them turning around. There are many living in border towns who have been crossing for decades to work or do a shop and have dinners in Ogdensburg, NY, for instance. We have done that ourselves. We all found the news depressing and worrisome too. We wondered where is this all going. There just seems to be so much more unpleasantness generally in the world these days. But then a country always has the right to defend its own border whichever way or whatever form that might take. So be it I guess.
It's making me think I should move back home to Newfoundland...being an island there are no borders. :) And that reminds me, we are following a couple who are starting to homestead on an island off the coast of Newfoundland, yes, an island off an island in the Atlantic. We have watched all Matty's past videos of him crossing the Arctic Circle in a boat he built himself and of his time living in the Labrador wilderness too. He is an unbelievably resourceful and hard working fellow. He met Kelly on an alpaca farm in Virginia, US- of all places, and fell in love. They are genuine and sweet together...and providing just the kind of entertainment that's needed in the world these days. And Ned is envious of the life Ronnie, their dog, is living too.
On that bright note, I'll leave you today. Hope you are all having a wonderful weekend and your stitchy fingers are flying!
We had a fresh 2 cm of snow overnight Monday. In the morning it was -2 with a windchill of -11C but it didn't feel as cold as that when I went about my chores of filling the bird feeders and putting out the garbage. This morning it is the exact same wind chill so we'll see how that "feels" when I go out in a little bit. Our annual spring problem is the snow off the roof fills in our front walkway and we never get direct sunlight in this area to help speed up the melting. I had to use an ax to create steps in the snow that hardens during the overnight freeze ups.
I still have my Deliveries box at the bottom there as I really don't want folks trying to climb the stone steps at any time of year but especially now.
Anyway, let's focus on how the season is moving along. Below is what I think is a juvenile White Crowned Sparrow I photographed in Amelia's backyard last week which gets full sunshine all the time. The light in her little house is always lovely. I was amazed by how this one blended in so well with the early spring frozen ground cover, I almost missed him.
In my internet rambling I found two quilt patterns I would love to stitch right now. I had to hold myself back from giving each of them a go.
One is a Jen Kingwell design and I know you think of bright multicoloured fabrics when Jen's name comes up. But this one uses much more subdued shades and is a pattern I think even I could put together. It's called Sunny Day.
Here it is at the Fat Quarter Shop that offers the pattern in a free PDF form.
I subscribe to Rachel Hauser's lovely Substack Stitched in Color column and she recently made a gorgeous log cabin quilt that I fell head over heels in love with. You can take a better look at her finished version there...Rachel's Scrap Cabin Quilt. Rachel is a real pro at using scraps beautifully.
But with only two hands and hours in the day that seem to absolutely fly by, I must stay strong and stick to finishing what is here on my plate right now.
And I am pleased with how my own present projects are moving along. More of the stars and hexagons have been prepped and stitched. I'm cutting my diamond templates out of old calendars and flyers.
And it's really fun to stitch this appliqued border for one side of the Baskets Love project too. I love this chocolate and camel woven fabric that is so soft to handle. I'll try to get a better photo of it.
On a completely different topic, I've been meaning to ask...are any of you ordering from Temu? I've not yet as I'm not sure I trust it. Items seem ridiculously cheap even in Canadian dollars. But I did watch a lady on YouTube who shares what she buys from there all the time. It appears like she is getting mostly amazing bargains.
Tony was just on the phone to the local hearing aid folks inquiring about how to get one of his hearing aids fixed. He had to repeatedly ask the girl to speak up as he's hard of hearing and his hearing aid is broken. ha ha
I used to think of March as a very long month, but this one is zooming by. Is it just me feeling like this?
The ground is starting to get that in between seasons look...grimy snowbanks and patches of old grass showing through here and there. Freezing temps overnight still and it was -14C here yesterday morning for a windy walk with Ned. They keep promising warm ups that don't happen. I gave my Geranium a deep trim-all my plants are getting a little "leggy" as they reach for the precious light. You can glimpse our snow free gravel driveway here so the sun is working it's magic even if the air is cold. Yah!
We went to Robbie's last hockey game of the season, part of their tournament. They won their game which was fun. They've played together well in the Under 13 league but some of the players will be moving on to the next league in the fall so it will be a different team then. His Dad built him a marvelous backyard rink again this year and he spent hours on it practicing...great exercise in the fresh air.
I cooked a roast beef dinner for us on Monday and we had leftovers for Tuesday. I got the beef at Farm Boy and it was good. We are not big meat eaters and I always worry we are not getting enough iron. I did a little checking online. I was reassured to see that nuts and dried fruits can help in that regard. I keep dates, prunes, apricots, and raisins in the house most of the time to have with cereal and oatmeal as well as little snacks. Apparently they are fairly good sources of iron.
I did get a photo of the oven roasted potatoes and carrots I made to have with salmon one night. I'm trying to include fish in our diet once a week.
That's a spinach and kale salad with lots of dressing for Tony and he said he actually enjoyed it.
This week I"ve been working on prepping more of the Liberty's Birds blocks. The Cardinal and the Bluebird have been readied for stitching...mostly. These are large pieces and not fiddly at all to applique. Just like the Everglade blocks that were fun to hand stitch.
And I also prepped the side panel for the Baskets Love project. I took a photo but for the life of me I can't find it.
💓 I got some lovely stitchy mail from Magpie's Mumbling's generous Mary Anne. She sent me her grandmothers set of the Canadian provincial flowers stencils. Looks like they were the Aunt Martha's set which was so familiar to all us older folks. I was able to order the American version from Amazon and am looking forward to embroidering these pretty flowers. What a great summer stitchy project that will be.
The Jolly Jabber is a fabulous site for us stitchers to hang out and ogle lovely projects of all sorts. It has several sections of free quilt patterns. I enjoyed looking through the one labelled Vintage and Classic Quilt Patterns- the link to that is HERE.
Update on Tony
We got a second opinion report on Tony's CT scan. This doctor confirmed everything from the first fellow but also noted what he thought was a slight collapse in a small area in one lung. So we have an appointment with a respirologist on the 31st to check that out. We also sat down with our GP and had a good talk. He brought the conversation around to something we had not really thought about. And that was should Tony have an operation, one that requires opening the chest, even if the specialist thinks so. I guess there could be ramifications for recovery, etc. in light of his age. He favoured the idea of waiting three months, having the scan again to see if the tumour will grow. That certainly gave us food for thought.
I am enjoying seeing your photos of the pretty early spring flowers appearing in your necks of the woods. Please keep them coming. Mine will definitely be a while.
I hope all reading this are having the best kind of weekend, one with treats and stitching time too.
We had it very foggy with wild wind and pouring rain here in our corner of Ontario this weekend. There was a fog and rainfall warning -there are always weather warnings these days it seems. It is still very gray and windy this morning. Ned and I were sorry to see so many of the trees have lost branches. The white snowbanks are littered. But it is an old forest here on the property and we have to have these March winds to bring on those May flowers...eventually. The path along the left fence line always floods in spring. It's the spot where, with one step I went up to my thighs in icy water one spring. Though a pretty walk normally, I don't venture down that one when it looks like this.
I've been busy in the house and actually did a lot of sorting of old stuff in the basement. And "stuff" it was. A lot of things came down from the farm with us that probably should have been sorted then. There are the 9 bankers boxes of Tony's old business papers that came with us, for instance, and have still never been opened. He just might be ready to have rid of them.
I've been stitching too. My Queen has her crown.
I caught up with several of my favourite flosstubers while stitching yesterday. That includes, CountryStitchers, Deb and Liz, who share their love of all things flossy. And for you American stitchers, they host a lot of fabulous giveaways.
That is my cross stitch basket there for toting the current project and this bad photo is actually showing the true colours of this motif.
That reminds me of all the practicing Princess Elizabeth had to do before her coronation ceremony. The crowning crown weighs almost 5 lbs so there is a trick to keeping it balanced on a head especially when it has to stay there for 20 minutes.
Meanwhile,in my mundane life as far from crown anxiety as you can get, I've also been adding to my EPP stars, steadily turning them into hexagons. I'm still mostly working on the February Blues with a couple of March yellows in the mix. These are fun slow stitching too. You can see lots more lovely yellow stitching over at the So Scrappy weekly party.
I am so sad to see the Crabapple Hill Studio folks are retiring. I've stitched many of their projects over the years and am currently stitching their Snow Day project. I did take advantage of their sale and downloaded five PDF patterns...no paper ones left at this point. The link is this one Crab Apple Hill Studio PDF if you'd like to check out those. Btw, I bought these online one after the other which triggered an alert with the credit card folks. I spent twenty minutes this morning in a telephone queue before speaking with a very nice lady that helped clarify the situation and release the hold put on my card. She told me it was the small amounts plus number of transactions in a row that caused the issue, just a heads up there.
I put on this audio book to listen to while I pinned another Liberty's Birds block. Alice McDermott's After This and I am enjoying it.
It was a 2007 Pulitzer Prize finalist. Families are seldom easy it seems. I read one of Alice's books back awhile, really enjoyed her interesting writing and then forgot about her. In my old days, that would never have happened.
LeeAnna at Not Afraid of Color asked, in light of St. Patrick's Day, what is our favourite shade of green. I had to think. I don't wear green very often but I use it a lot in various stitching. I actually love all the shades ranging from the sages to the deep forests. I love trees with all the leaves and the needled trees too. When I lived in Canada's far north on Baffin Island, I really missed trees and all the beautiful greens they add to a landscape.
Hope you had a good weekend and your week is off to a good start too!
The trails are providing all the workout I need these days. With melting and overnight freezing (-15 windchill -glad I wasn't out there), they are slushy, bumpy and narrow in places. Like walking a tightrope which is good for my balance. But I've had to take a ski pole along as I really don't want to turn an ankle. On the up side, the slightly warmer daytime temps mean less clothing is needed which is enjoyable. And surprise, surprise, the song birds are singing. Last Saturday, early morning, when I was gathering wood at the back basement door, I heard the unmistakable sound of chirping/singing that stopped me in my tracks. I stood listening in awe. How nature surrounds us with moments of beauty and is so uplifting.
Spring Sunshine on my indoor plants makes me happy too. At this stage of the long winter, they are all survivors, LOL.
Been keeping busy moving a couple of projects along. I'm still machine stitching Everglade blocks together and "faired up" as my grandmother would term it and I find this part of quilting soooo boring. I spent the better part of an hour one day arranging these, and no, this is not the final arrangement below...I did take a photo of that.
I also have this project from Norma Whaley at Timeless Traditions which was a gift to me years back. I had a start made on Basket Love, one of her basket quilt patterns, which involves applique so will stitch another now and then. I have this many bottoms stitched to date. These are fun.
And when I just need something to keep the hands busy, more scrap sorting gets done- this latest by colour. I keep expressing bafflement about how many scraps I have but it is something that does amaze me. I really haven't made that many quilts with that much fabric.
I've been more impressed with what many of you are stitching. For instance, a lot of beautiful arrow stitching has been occurring around the web for the Project Quilting Follow the Arrow challenge. I've enjoyed seeing the imaginative projects and in the process found a link to a free pattern that I really like. It is called Anita's Arrowhead and the link is there at Quilting Daily. And Carol Thelen has a YouTube video of exactly how it is formed which is absolutely brilliant! You have to check this one out. This colourful quilt shown here really appeals to me. Do you like it too?
I was happy to see the Cornell Labs folks have Jim's Indiana Barred Owl cam up and running. I notice work has been done to further secure the box to the tree and also fancy stitcks at the entrance for the young owls to perch on. The female has already laid two eggs and the male has been fabulous in his duties keeping her well fed. It is always interesting to me to see what she eats..so far a rodent and a crayfish. I check in most days to see what they are up to and fingers crossed it will be another successful breeding year for these beautiful birds.
On that hopeful note, I'll close this post. Enjoy the rest of this week...
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