Tuesday, August 9, 2011

They just kept coming...

Last week when Sarah and Lorelei spent a couple nights, we ran through the strip pits...first we saw what we thought were a couple hen pheasants, but on second thought for me, I am wondering if they were half grown pheasants. I didn't get a chance to take any photos, they were just there and gone. We went on a mile or two farther and saw this female and a young one crossing the road ahead of us...I took the above photo through the windshield.
We were paused and oops, there came another one!
Oh, and here are a couple more! I was out of the Rav for the last two shots, but they are still nothing to brag about. Yet I am happy to even have gotten them. This is the first time we have seen young pheasants out there...I suppose they are called chicks but don't know for sure.
*************
I canned a couple more jars of tomato juice last night...brings my total to eight. I am having a hard time not opening a jar....just so hard. But I know I crave it so bad in the winter and the stuff you buy just does not do the trick for me. Maybe because they are processed a little too much and made from concentrate. I guess I should be thankful I am the only one that likes it.

I also got the quilt sandwich made using the quilt top I showed two or three days back. Getting everything stretched out on top of each other and then doing all that pinning is the part I don't like to do in quilting. There is no easy way to do it at my house--I have to get down in the floor on hands and knees and then when it comes to the actual pin basting, I am on elbows and knees...I pin about every 5 or 6 inches....sometimes a little closer....talk about getting stiff.

Normally, I take a break or two with a quilt that big, but there was a show on TV I wanted to see so I pinned for almost two (2!!!!) hours straight and just barely got done in time. By the time I finished, I felt like head was right down between my shoulders....and have had a stiff neck since. But it is done and I enjoy the quilting by machine. I think I am doing diagonal lines through the blocks with the red, and then something else in the blocks that are made of tans....some kind of free-motion work.

I do my quilting on a regular sewing machine...well, it is a Juki and has a little more space to the right of the needle than most. Most people think quilting on a sewing machine is easy until they try it. It is harder than it looks, specially when it comes to a big quilt.But I am going to wait a few days and get over some of this soreness.