Weddings, Mountains, Flowers

We just attended a wedding this weekend in Red Lodge at the Wild Flower Gardens. It was a beautiful setting, BUT the chairs were facing into the sun and the wedding was at 4 p.m. It was a little warm. The bride and groom didn't mind and we were happy to celebrate this exciting day with Scott and Kristen.

I just had to take this picture before the wedding started. The rows were all decorated with mason jars with flowers, lots of sunflowers, in them. The iron work looks like Wayland's! What a cute idea. If it had not been at a "wedding" garden, the cost might not have been too much. I just loved the idea!

I wanted to get a picture of the altar and flowers and with the sun in a better position. The wedding party is taking some more pictures after the ceremony. Beautiful grounds...

Bridges, I love bridges--just ask Cowboy! I have all kinds of places I would like one or two or more foot bridges!! Well, I would settle for just ONE! Anyway, the man was hurrying to get the chairs picked up to put in the tent. I wanted to get just the right picture without him motoring right in the way!

This is the last picture I took. I thought the table decorations were beautiful with the sunflowers, table cloths, and tan napkins. See the tent to the right. We decided to sit at this table, it was cooler than the tent looked. We ate a scrumptious meal at 6 p.m. and by 6:30 p.m. I was hunting our jackets! Never satisfied are we??

Back to the ceremony. It was good and I wonder how many really listen? The minister tells the woman to RESPECT her husband and of course we women want to be CHERISHED, with lots of communication in between. We pray for God's blessing on their marriage.

This morning we ate breakfast at the Regis which is an out of the way cafe in Red Lodge. How could I not eat something special? I had a crumpet with my eggs and Canadian bacon and fruit bowl. The crumpet was homemade which made it taste that much better with the butter!

The drive home was beautiful...fall colors are starting!

TO KNOT OR NOT

At our ranch Cowboy is particular about knots. Does this remind you of anyone you possibly know? Little did I know that "granny" knots were out and square knots are in for the simple reason the granny knots pull out. When I thought I was making square knots, sometimes they weren't and I was really trying to go right over left and left over right...

I have been known to stomp away from a gate that "might not" be tied right and was re-tied. I keep trying because I am not THAT blonde!
This one is not tied as the horses seem to leave it alone.
This gate is tied. The last time Bill was gone to Roscoe I was in charge of "horse" chores. I asked about the gate and Cowboy said it would be fine they were leaving it alone... I always seem to have "here is the rest of the story" story, don't I? I went down to the barn one morning and sure enough, the horses that were to be out were " in" eating hay and the horse that was keep his knee from getting too much activity, and his buddy were "out" in the pasture. It took several deep breaths and swinging gates and they were back where they belonged and I managed to tie a square knot!
My Joe is the culprit! He can open gates and he looks so innocent! And what a charmer he is!

They get a few oats, cake or whatever Cowboy has on hand. So they are always at the gate for an easy catch as was the case this morning!

One more special knot is making sure the end of the rope on the halter itself is tied so it goes back toward the back of the horse and not in the eye as demonstrated! Ace is a cupcake.

I just had to throw in this picture. Amy and Tiggy always go to the barn with Bill. Tiggy thinks she is a horse kitty and she can water with the horses too! She likes to walk the top rail and make sure things are just right.

Shop Hop Craze for 2009

Every September is the Trail of Fabric Shop Hop. This is the eighth year and it runs from one Saturday until the next Saturday. There are four quilting shops: The Plaid Square in Glasgow, The Bent Pin in Williston, ND, Quilts & More in Sidney, and the The Enchanted Room in Glendive. This year some of the girls are going on Tuesday and I was unable to go that day. I asked a couple of friends if they wanted to go to Glendive and on to Sidney on Saturday afternoon. So...five of us made a quick trip.

I have only gone twice and it is a LONG DRIVE. It is a 490 mile round trip for me to all four shops starting at Glasgow and ending in Glendive. By the time we get to Glendive who wants to spend any money or look at any more fabric!! I have done three of the shop hop quilts (I sent money one year!). They do NOT post the quilts as the draw is to get you there!! It works, I think it makes money for these shops!!! Quilts & More told us that they had over 100 women come on Saturday and that is just the first day!!
This year's blocks to buy (we buy three at each shop) are the Bear Paw blocks. All the blocks will be Bear Paws in different variations. The completed one quilt with all twelve blocks at The Enchanted Room is beautiful and the completed one at Quilts & More is striking. One of the girls is picking up the other blocks from the other two stores for me on Tuesday.

I try to at least get the blocks completed fairly soon because sometimes there is not enough material in the packets or (heaven forbid, I don't measure twice and cut once!), so it best to get them done ASAP.
I am always on the lookout for flannel as it is my standard gift for baby showers. They get a double sided large flannel receiving blanket. The two pieces on the left are for one of those and the pieces on the right are for a small flannel baby blanket (girly!!).

Naturally, since I didn't go on the Shop Hop last year or make the quilt blocks I had to buy SOMETHING! I have an envelope that I write on the front "Fabric Stash" and when I get a little money I put it inside so I have some for fabric. Last year I tried not to buy much other than backing as I have several projects to complete FIRST!!! I had a little money in the envelope and it was burning a hole! Ha! I think I am going to quit getting quilt magazines as there are so many beautiful quilts...so little time...

Anyway, the fabric above caught my eye. It is just out and hasn't been posted on the website for The Enchanted Room. It is a Moda fabric line. I love the colors!!! I saw the pattern made up in different fabric which was pretty but wasn't for me. The big squares are called "Layer Cakes" so I am off and running with a new quilt running around in my head. I may not get to it for several months...I have aprons to make but that is a different blog altogether!!

Speaking of aprons, there are oodles of patterns out there and I saw the cutest aprons on our adventure.

There is so much to see that it does become brain overload. You simply can't take in all the quilts, runners, purses, wall hangings, etc. that are made up.

One thing that sells are kits!!! One of the ladies said they just didn't have time to make up some of the newer fabrics into something fun. I forgot my camera or there would have been more pics.

Ice Cream "Sew"cial

This is a quilt top to be given to an injured Montana soldier. Our quilt group, the Cross Country Piece Makers, are giving these quilts to our injured Montana soldiers. It is one of our projects. One of our members quilts them on her long-arm machine as her donation. Someone else binds them and puts on a label. They are lap quilt size and we have donated about 35-40 so far. Of all the things we have done, this is very special.


This is our yearly quilt retreat and this year we went to Colstrip. We stopped in Forsyth and shopped at the fabric store there (that is soon to close). The Ace Hardware store in Colstrip has a wonderful fabric section and we left a few coins there as well. There were 25 of us that made the retreat and that included guests. The retreat starts Friday at noon and usually ends Sunday at noon.

Our theme for this year's retreat was Ice Cream "Sew"cial. We made ice cream cone blocks to be given to the lucky winner. We had a brown bag with a fat quarter (that is 1/2 yd. of material cut in half widthwise), of our favorite ice cream flavor and a story telling why and then we had to guess each person's flavor. That was difficult. The winner guessed seven of the flavors!
The ladies in the background are at the cutting table cutting and visiting. As you can see it isn't all head bent over the sewing machine! You can see projects in the background that came for show and tell.
These lighthouse blocks are for Jo as she chose lighthouses for her theme for a share-a-square block. After one has joined the club, the other members will make a block of her choice for a quilt top to be put together by that member. It is a special quilt as we sign our name to our block.
This is the Jordan bunch...
This caught my eye. Roma took a class for this wall hanging. Stunning!
Wyna's internet quilt. I can't remember how many little blocks. She had to figure out how to do each one. Not my cup of tea! It is beautiful!


This is one of two games that we played. Of course our name tags were ice cream cones with different colored ice cream buttons sewed on them. The color of my button was green so there were three others with green topped cones! That was our team! We had to come up with a name and we called ourselves the "Tutti-Frutti Pedal Pushers!! Did I tell you it was hard to get any sewing done in long stretches?! This GAME was to toss the cotton ball off of the ice cream spoon into ice cream bowls set at a distance. Of course we had to keep our toe behind the tape! I couldn't get my cotton ball in the bowl and "close" didn't count!! But our team one as two of the members were hot shot cotton throwers!!

Our other game was a dice game that we played with five fat quarters as the "bootie", is that the right word, gambler that I am?? Anyway, there are three dice and they can say R for right, L for left, and C for center. We just followed the directions on the dice and if it said R that person on our right got a fat quarter or it went left or the the center. The one left with material won the material in the center of the table! I didn't win, but I got rid of some fat quarters...
Brenda won the ice cream blocks. She was very excited and it will be fun to see what she does with them.

We were given material to trace and ice cream cone (the size of the ones we did) and we got everyone's signature that attended. We were given a fat quarter of the yellowed coned material hanging on the bulletin board to complete this little wall hanging.

We also had a show and tell with the Colstrip quilting ladies. They provided lunch of salads and more on Saturday noon and that was a fun interlude. See, not much sewing, but lots of looking and getting new ideas...

Saturday afternoon after the showing, we had ice cream and toppings with Colstrip ladies. Thankfully the kitchen kept all the goodies and fruit that we brought, so one had to make a decision to walk down the hall to the kitchen to munch! Many times it has been in the sewing area and it is so had to resist as we have some REALLY good COOKS!

Cowboy Shipping Yearlings

Bill went to Roscoe to help ship yearlings. Since I bought the digital camera for him for an anniversary present a few years ago, (that is another story! To say he was surprised is an understatement! Sort of like buying your wife a rifle!) I thought he should take it with him and take some pictures. So all the pictures are from the back of a horse. There are mountains up there and it is just beautiful country.
Gathering...

Getting closer... As I was looking at the pictures I was glad we don't have to ride over those rocks all of the time. Rock garden anyone?
The buyer and two hands...

Jerome and Allison conferring...
A closer view. The mountains in the background are beautiful. I thought he took good pictures from the back of Ace.

Kitten, Kitten...

Miss Fancy was coming in the house to get acquainted with us. She would come in for 10-30 minutes, depending how much time Bill had to play with her. Then she got to thinking maybe she was little miss princess. She was up and over and under and flipping and flopping. She took an extreme liking to the grandies' rocking chair, which has two special bears in it. When she started to claw the cloth strips, Bill got the spray water bottle and she hasn't bothered it since!

When Cari came home Miss Fancy showed her all of her fancy footwork! All the kittens have loved the dished out rock on the top of the deck railing. She was acting scared of the other two cats in the following photo.

I need to figure out how to zoom the picture on the last one. She was so cute looking at Cari taking her picture. Her markings are getting darker and her tail and legs are getting longer! She entertained herself quite a long time trying to dig imaginary things out of the knot holes on the deck!!

Working on the Ranch Together...

Early one morning my Cowboy decided that we could gather some pairs (cows and calves) from a bunch. We didn't want to get all of them. Do you see trouble coming?? He said if we got started early it would not take us too long to get the job done and it would be good to be done before it got very warm. By the time the horses were saddled it was later than planned AND the wind had started to blow.

He had planned to get about 40 pair. It didn't work that way. We were trying to work off some against a fence. I was down the fence trying to keep them from slipping by me--he wanted me more to the middle and told me so in short terse terms... AND the wind blew. They didn't want to be worked off and when it was said and done we had between 20 to 25 pairs. We got them gathered together and going southwest to the gate. He had to get to the gate and we got them through the gate but it was my job to get the last of them through the gate, close the gate, quickly mount up and hurry to help him as they wanted to go anywhere but where we wanted them. The cows wanted to go East by doubling back and we wanted them to go West. Do you see trouble coming?

I got them through the gate and parting words were hurry all you can... I went to step off my saddle and it slipped sideways. Oh, great! Now I have to reposition my saddle!

Let me regress and tell you why I want my saddles on TIGHT! When my cousin was 9, the latigo broke on her saddle and she got a compound fracture and she wore a halo on her hand with pins sticking out of her fingers. It happened on my 14th birthday, June 9. I can still remember the halo on her hand. For those that don't know, a latigo is the leather strap that hooks to the rigging on the saddle and loops through the cinch to hold the saddle on the horse.

I want my saddles on tight. I lead my horse around and then I want to tighten my cinch even more. I may not have much strength, but for that job I have some in reserve. My Cowboy likes to cinch up looser than I. He tells me he doesn't want to cut the horse in half. He is an excellent rider and can balance and his saddles never seem to slip, but mine always move a little. Now back to the story...

I loosened the cinch, moved the saddle to the front and tightened everything as best I could and hurry at the same time. I stepped in the stirrup and the dang thing really twisted that time. Do you see trouble coming? Over the rise comes my Cowboy at a lope. He took one look, didn't ask one question and said to me, "You can't get on your horse with his saddle under his belly." He jumped off of his horse, resaddled my horse and WE took off at a lope. He said go to the trees and turn those cows to go South as they were now going due West. I picked out some trees (not the right ones), do you see trouble coming? I got the arm waving and the hand signals that are so not readable and figured something was amiss. Why do men think we can read those waving arms? Most of the time one can't see them waving until one is a lot closer!!

Communication in marriage is so important...

I finally figured out WHICH trees, after he rode around me and we got them headed South. It was a beautiful day and the outside of a horse is good for the inside of a girl too! We were jingling along and I was trying to smooth my feathers somewhat when Cowboy rode up and ask, "How about a little kiss?" My reply, "Are you kidding??"

Oh, we have had many laughs since, but you know how it is...

Just keep talking!

College, Kids, Pets...

This has been a busy week starting with last weekend. Tristin went to "big school" at Montana State University, Bozeman. It is where I graduated and to my recollection, I think it has only been a few years...gads!! I was going to go welcome her to MSU and then remembered, she didn't need/want Grammy there. She was probably trying to get Mom and Auntie pushed out the door after they got her moved in the dorm!
Tristin and Mom...
Tristin and Auntie...

I had to take Amy for her first set of x-rays on her foot, so she and I had brunch with Meghan and Cari at Cari's apartment. Cari took some good pictures of our "country dog visiting the sites of the city."
One wonders what they think...
She is still a pretty dog. I felt sorry for her as the splint has rubbed her leg raw above her toes and it has rubbed up on her thigh where the splint ends. She got a new splint and a new bandage and the x-rays looked good Dr. Brown said.

I think she thinks she "might" be a town dog...
It was so good to see Meghan. We missed Sydney being with us too! We planned a girl afternoon for pedicures and I was wanting the other girls, all of them, with us too!! (I have been wondering how to make it possible one weekend with just us and kiddies...) With them working or having kids it is impossible to have a spur of the moment gathering. Our gatherings take some planning!!!
Cari took a day off and we spent some wonderful time together. We laughed, and cried and teased. They teased their Mom, imagine that! Meghan asked me if I remembered the time with Peggy and the girls... I didn't remember and then we got off on another train of thought and I have been racking my brain over our little trip with Peggy, Tessa, and Terra... hummmm!

We put Meghan on the plane Monday evening. Goodbyes are so hard, but I know she will be back soon. Thank God for air travel and telephones and e-mail. Snail mail is nice to re-read cards and letters. I am a card person to my very depths!

This picture was taken this morning after getting home from Billings last evening. I put Amy outside for some fresh air (she is still to be confined) and when I looked, Tiggy had climbed in the kennel. She has done it before. They are truly buddies and they are excluding Miss Fancy for the time being! One day when Amy was in the kennel, Tiggy was in the dog house sleeping.
Nothing like pets to watch and wonder about...