A Patriotic Gift for Independence Day

Hello Friends; I hope all is well with you. 

Were having storms roll through each evening with high winds, lightening, thunder, and rain. 

I hung some laundry out earlier and just said screw it and left it out for the rain to freshen instead of running out in it to bring it in.

I finally got ink for my printer so I'm able to print my charts again and since my printer is multi function I can also scan them so hopefully this will print off just fine. If not let me know and I can try and fiddle with it to get it the right size. It's set for ruffly 11" x 8" in landscape mode.

Forgot to add the color inspiration.

Should be an easy stitch with only three colors and whole cross stitches, but there is quite a bit of back stitch. I think it would look great in variegated or over dyed threads, so pick your favorite red, white, and blue and start stitchin'. This could be turned into a pin pillow, mini banner, or a bowl filler, you decide.

As always, I would love to see your finished work of any of my designs and if you post a picture to your blog, Facebook, etc. a link back to my blog would be much appreciated.

That's it for today, thank you so much for stopping by the cabin to see what I've been up to.

Until next time.......

Take Care & Happy Stitchin'

Hugs, Sandy

The Honey Locust are Blooming

Hello Everyone, hope all is well is with you and your staying safe.

My Honey Locust have finally started to bloom and permeate my yard with their amazing scent.

I so wish I could bottle that fragrance and add it to my blog post to share with you all.

Enlarge the pic to see all the beautifully fragrant blossoms.

We have five of these trees on our property and have contemplated cutting down the two oldest and biggest that reside at the back of our cabin just for the safety of our home, but so far they have shown no sign of disease or decay so they remain standing strong barely moving with the strong Montana winds we get from time to time.

We will be cutting down the Elms that are across part of the front half of our property thanks to the previous, previous owners who planted two 20-30 foot spans only leaving room for the driveways and the apple trees. That's what almost got the car last week and it's not the first giant limb that has come crashing down from the winds or snow load, so this year they go. Most definitely won't miss them.

We also have a Black Walnut that needs to go at some point before it takes out one of the sheds. Our squirrel population will definitely miss that one, but at least they have two others to rely on. The hubs wants to be picky about how that one is take out as the wood would be perfect for selling to gun stock makers.

 A new gift will be posted soon, I've been working on a few. 💝

That's it for today, so until next time.......

Take Care Everyone

💞 Hugs, Sandy 💞

Cottonwood Creek Campground

So after a couple of set backs, I'm finally posting about our 1st camping trip of 2018.

 This is VERY picture heavy!

What were the set back's, you ask. 

Well the first one was this monstrosity falling during a Thursday evening storm. 

Thankfully it only left surface scratches on the body and no dents, the largest part of the branch is out of camera range and about a 20 feet long and foot or more in width.

The second set back was just grocery shopping, nothing exciting there.

OK, so now on to the camping trip.

We left before noon on Thursday the 24th and headed south down to Lovell, Wyoming and then several miles outside of town to the Cottonwood Creek Campground.

 

Very quite and no traffic noise with only one road in and out. When set up in our spot we could see anyone coming up the road. I thought it would be mostly empty as it was only us and one other trailer when we got there, boy was I wrong. 

By that first evening we had four (4) other 5th wheels show up along with a cargo trailer that carried three (3) of the seven (7) ATV's they brought. They went wheelin' every day but only after noon so they weren't noisy neighbors.

On Friday 25th three (3) more trailers showed up and a camper parked 1/4 mile down the road but posted their horses in the corrals, that are there. So this little campground that only has seven designated camping spots, had a total of nine trailers/campers enjoying the Memorial Day weekend.

Sorry, didn't get a picture with the four paints.

There is even a watering area for horses down on the left side of where we were parked. 

We had a couple of quiet evening with nice cool breezes blowing through the windows on both Thursday and Friday.

Lots of beautiful views in the Bighorn Mountains of Wyoming.

This was the view from our dinning table.

And out of the kitchen window, made cooking and doing dishes nicer.

You can see the watering area for the horses in this shot.

You could barely make out the town of Lovell during the day.

But at night you could see all the lights in town.

The first nights graced us with beautiful sunsets.

We took a trip into town on Saturday the 26th to pick up a couple of water jugs to put in the tank on the trailer. Lesson of the day: check the water when you are on level ground before you leave the house. 

We found this while driving thru town.

C & R Liquor, a drive-thru liquor store. Never seen one before.

It's part of the Red Apple Supermarket in Lovell where we bought the water jugs. We also found a section of freeze dried foods from Agason Farms and came home with two #10 cans of potato dices @ $6.56 each and a #10 can of honey powder @ $15.39. They were less than what they sell for on line. We plan on stopping in again the next time were in Lovell.

We also took a drive up the Bighorn Pass. There was still snow on the mountain and berms 6 foot high or better in areas where they had plowed to open the road.

And as always the views were amazing.

This was the sign at the mid point of the Bighorn Pass.

Not gonna try and pull the trailer up or down this area anytime soon.

On Saturday night and Sunday a couple of big storms rolled in and brought rain and high winds blowing down the canyon behind us that shook the trailer all night. They eased up during the day but started all over again on Sunday night, it was quite scary and had the hubs going out to check the stabilizers to make sure we were staying in one place. They felt like 50-70 mile an hour gusts and we were glad we were facing down the canyon instead of crosswise, I would not have liked to feel the wind hitting us broad side.

It made for some beautiful storm pictures though.

Love the low laying clouds creeping through the canyon.

We left on Tuesday the 29th after it rained all day on Monday.

These are the tracks we left behind on a muddy section of the road.

This was some slippery stuff that had us in four wheel drive and fishtailing this way and that just to stay on the road. We lost a cover for one of the front outside lights when a big clump of mud hit it.

And then 20 minutes from home we had our first tire blowout and we broke a leaf spring some where between leaving and the tire.

Here's whats left of the tire.

And the broken leaf spring. The hubs tied it up with a bungee cord. 

Had an Angel of a woman stop to make sure we were ok when she saw the treads on the road and us checking the tire on the road side, then she drove off only to turn around and come back to tell us there was a much wider and safer turn out about a 1/2 mile up the road. She then drove to the turn out and waited for us to get there before she waved and drove away.

Had another truck stop to make sure we were ok and a truck driver pull his rig over to chat for a while.

We made it home in one piece, but have a few repairs to make so our camping season can continue.

Thank you so much for stopping by.
Hope you enjoyed the views of our camping trip as much as we did.

So until next post......

Take Care & Have a Great Day

Hugs, Sandy

Small's SAL for May

We just got back from a week in the mountains (I'll post about the trip tomorrow), so I missed posting my Smalls SAL update for this month and I also missed the update for April, but there hasn't been a post on her blog either so I hope all is well with Heather over at the Stitching Lotus blog.

I stitched this while camping and finished it off when we got back.

"The Mountains are calling and I must go"

A quote from John Muir.

I added it to the hubs coaster and it will go in the 5th wheel. I may redo this one sometime as I'm not a big fan of the lettering after I got it finished and just didn't want to pick out all that back stitching.

Now I just have to find the other coaster and stitch the one I designed for me. 

That's it for today, thank you so very much for stopping by, it means the world to me.

So until next post.......

💞 Take Care & Happy Stitchin' 💞

Hugs, Sandy 

Beautiful Flowers Around the Cabin

My yard is once again a playground for the Honey Bee's and Bumble Bee's.

Let me show you some of the beautiful flower's I get to see and smell as I walk around the Cabin.

It started with my tulips blooming last month and early this month.

This is just one small patch.

I had to spray with Deer-B-Gone when they first started to come up, then again when the leaves were tall and the blooms were just starting to come up then one last time when the buds were tall and just getting ready to start opening. Deer are very, very fond of tulips especially the yellow ones.

Then the pear and apple trees started to bloom.

This is one of five apple trees at the cabin. We only have one pear tree.

Now the Lilac's are out in their full beautiful glory.

There are at least seven of these beauties in different parts of the yard and every few years a new one will pop up somewhere from a bird or other animal spreading a seed here and there.

 

What I think is a Gooseberry bush grows at both ends of the back yard along the fence.

 

It does put off small greenish berries that look very similar to the Gooseberry.

We have an abundance of Chokecherry trees/bushes all around the yard thanks to years of the birds eating them and crapping the seeds everywhere. Even though we remove quite a few every few years there are still lots of them for the bee's.

 The bee's really love these and walking by you hear a constant hum in the air.

I don't Chokecherries not even as jam or syrup so they are left to the birds. 

The bee are waiting not so patiently for these two to start blooming.

 

I think it might be some form of Honeysuckle but I'm really not sure. It's just a pretty bush that smells wonderful. 

This is from last year, they are just starting to bloom, but will make the bee's happy in a week or two.

This what they look like up close. 

I believe they are an Allium, each one of those little flowers turns into a pod with three seeds. I am guilty of cutting off the seed heads and sprinkling them in different places and flower beds that I know are safe from the mower. 💞 

I love all of the flowers we have around the cabin and seeing their beauty always makes me smile, but when the wind blows just right the smell can be intoxicating. Soon the wild plums will start to flower but I'm waiting for the Honey Locust to start it's blooms, but it doesn't usually start until later in June, they smell so good.

It's safe to say I will be hearing the constant hum of the bee's for a few months.

 

Thanks for stopping by and taking a walk around the cabin with me.

What flower's do you have blooming in your yard?

Take Care Everyone & Have a Great Weekend

💞 Hugs, Sandy 💞

A Monogram for the Table Topper

I tried and tried to come up with a fancier monogram for the center of my bread cover turned table topper for the vacation home on wheels, but my mind kept going back to a simpler one that would not compete with the rest of the design. 

This is what I ended up stitching.

Simple M for Miller, using Caron Wildflowers in Chili and Burnt Toast.

These are the same colors used for the hearts and the branches.

That's it fir today, so until next post.......

Take Care & Happy Stitchin'

💗 Hug's, Sandy 💗