Farmer In The Dell

Saturday was Whatcom County Farm Tour Day, a day set aside when the public could visit many of the small family farms in our area and learn about their operations. There were too many for us to visit them all, so we picked the ones that we were unfamiliar with. It was informative and fun...and there were samples of cheese, milk and ice cream. It was encouraging to see so many families dedicating themselves to hard, hard work and the determination to do it as environmentally friendly as possible. And of course there were the animals!

Turkeys

Chickens
Goats

Pigs

Cows

And of course my favorite....sheep!

And late summer beauty...

And interesting examples of different county lifestyles!!

....And We Are the Sheep of His Pasture

I have a sheep fetish. They please me on many levels: they are cute, their wool provides me with endless opportunites to create lovely and wearable objects and God picked them as a metaphor for His people. It's an apt metaphor, to be sure. Sheep are basically incapable of dealing with life without a shepherd. Get the drift? I have many, many photos, paintings and knick knacks that feed my fetish, and now I have another Ryan McKenna designed quilt just finished! Baaaaa

New Every Morning

Blue morning glories have quickly become my favorite flower in my garden. Blue is such an unusual color in flowers and these beauties exemplify it. But it's not just their color that delights me, it's also the fact that they are a perfect spiritual metaphor!

These flowers can only produce blossoms when grown in poor soil--they are completely dependent upon their vines and the sun to reach their full glory. Each blossom is absolutely breathtaking in its perfection, I can easily see why Georgia O'Keefe used them so frequently as a subject for her art.

But the metaphor doesn't stop there! These flowers only last one day. They open with the rising of the sun and then they close and fade with the onset of twilight. They have just enough energy for today. As the sun rises the next day, a whole new set of blossoms bursts forth! Like God's mercies they are new every morning as He provides us with just what we need for the task at hand.

It's true, you know. We are without excuse, as His glory surrounds us every day. We cannot say, "we never knew!"

Kind Of Blue.....

No, not Miles Davis!
No, not ennui!
It's a blue ribbon! I won a blue ribbon! My very first ever!

Yes, I'm unabashedly tooting my own horn here, but you've got to appreciate the history. I've never been particularly good at using my hands: I received terrible marks in penmanship, never could type very fast, and generally have issues with anything that requires small motor coordination! For years I avoided knitting because I was sure I would be terrible at it. Shortly after Jess was born I decided to make a leap and I took knitting lessons from a kind and patient woman and I was hooked. I wasn't terribly good at it, but I had come to peace with my lack of perfection and just enjoyed the process.

So...when my good friend Lynn suggested I enter something into the Northwest Washington Fair held each year in Lynden, I stuttered and back stepped and said, "Oh no, my things are not fair quality." But she kept goading me and I decided to give it a try. I won 3 ribbons! A blue, a red and a white....how patriotic! And they even give you money! Who knew? I contemplated quitting my day job, images of me spending delightful days knitting a myriad of objects flashed through my head until I did the math and figured I'd be making about 2 cents/hr. at it. Ah well, the check paid for the gas up to the fair, I guess!

And about the fair, I had no idea that such things even existed until I moved here in 1978. Surely there must have been a state fair in Maryland where I grew up, but I never heard about it! I LOVE the fair. We spend hours there touring every building, spending extra time in the sheep exhibits, the draft horses (BIG horsies!!), the cows, the bunnies and of course the needlework exhibits. I envy the farm kids who raise animals and enter them in the fair, how fun and rewarding that must be. Almost as rewarding as winning your first blue ribbon at age 61!

Enduring Friendship #3

Newest member of the family is Darcy, front and center!

One of the great "mysteries" of life is the way that God weaves people into and out of our lives. How else can I explain that several years ago I met a woman that I attended the same private school with in 5th grade in Maryland? Her husband worked at the same company that mine did. Or try explaining how I met a woman who was dear friends with an actual relative of mine, not one I'm familiar with, but one who shows up on my family tree with the last name of Ridgely? I did write her and explain the "coincidence", but sadly she never responded.

Or....how do you explain the fact that my "second home" is in a town I'd never heard of until almost 20 years ago when Wally and I met Mauri Macy at THE FIRS which has begun a long-standing friendship that now includes Sherry Macy and that our daughter ended up attending college in this town and now teaches in it? Small world, eh?

Mauri and Sherry embody the word gracious. Their hospitality knows no limits, their friendship is genuine and precious and I truly, truly wish we were not separated by so many miles. Whenever they host us, we feel like "family" and they treat us this way. I love our conversations, our shared passions, and the easy way we fit into their world. We treasure them and wish everyone had a Mauri and Sherry in their lives....now there is a real path to world peace!

Hangin' Out

One of my favorite "chores" during summer break is hanging clothes on the line. This activity appeals to me on so many levels: it's meditative; I love being out in the crisp breeze in the early morning hours; wildlife seems undeterred by my presence (birds dip in the birdbath only 5' from me, raccoons trot through the yard on their way to the cherry tree) and no matter what chaos is going on in the rest of the world, I can still order my wet clothes--shirts, pants, socks...very fulfilling!

So it's no surprise that I tend to gravitate to art that deals with laundry day, and my latest addition is a "landscape" quilt that I've just finished. It's one of Ryan McKenna's designs and was really fun to put together and looks fabulous when completed, mostly because it's a great design and the batik fabric does all the "work". I like it so much that I'm working on another of her designs that includes my other passion....sheep (not only are they darned cute, they are a renewable resource as any knitter will tell you!). Stay tuned.....

The clothes on the line are actually separate from the rest of the quilt...3D if you will!

Hats Off To You

A group of women from our church gather monthly for sit and knit sessions. Usually I am not able to attend as I am yet to be a lady of retirement leisure, but this month I was invited to the English Tea event. We were to dress appropriately. I was in a quandary as I had a dress, but thought a hat would be just the perfect accompaniment; but, alas, I didn't have one. So I made a visit to the local Goodwill and found a lovely cherry red straw hat. It was pretty smooshed after being stuffed into an overcrowded hat rack and it boasted a really unfortunate braided something-or-other around its crown. I thought it was was worth rescuing, so I paid the exorbitant $1.00 and brought it home, removed the braided thing-amajig, put it on top of a plastic bowl, sprayed it with water and let it sit for a few hours and....viola....a lovely summer hat.

Here we are in all our finery. Lynn (2nd from the left) is in her usual "good form" and has dressed and "stuffed" herself to the hilt. Um, let's just say that this is not her usual "profile". She was the spitting image of Nanny McPhee. She cracks me up! Just a sampling of the delicacies we shared along with good company and, of course, knitting!

We drove down to Seattle on Sat. to pick Jess up for a brief one-day stay. We stopped on the way home at the street fair in Marysville and spent a bit of time in an antique store where she found a fabulous hat and an old French phone. She looks every bit the part of a Gibson Girl and I couldn't resist the urge to snap a shot!