Arts and Crafts

I'm just writing to show you what we did this last Sunday. 

A few months ago, Kathy - my mother in law- saw a garden ornament that looked like a rusted cut-out of a blue heron. She fell in love with it and wanted the boys to make one for her. Well this weekend we did it. Laura and I did the work sketching it out on the side of an old chest freezer. Fred helped us cut the shape out with some air tools. The Laura and I went to town burning all the old glue and muck off the back that held the cooling tubes in place. We started out with a blow torch and decided that wasn't working well enough and then just decided to throw the whole thing into the fire. After the bird was well-cooked, the guys fastened the wings and welded on a couple of legs. Before long, we had our own lawn ornament!

I'm thinking of quitting my job and doing this full time! It might be a much more fulfilling career!

Here I am sketching the out-line. It kinda looks like a dinosaur doesn't it?

Here we are cutting with air-tools!

Burn baby! Burn!

The finished product...

The Nerdiest Family on the Block

Today the Hartbecke side of the family came over to help us improve the flow of rainwater on the west side of our house. Basically, the guys came over and put some drainage tile from the eaves pout around to the other side of the flower bed and away from the house. While the guys did the hard work, us girls (3 of us) ended up doing some weeding and watching of the Jaren. At a stopping point when Fred, Seth, and Jaren went to the farm to saw a concrete block in half, Laura and I decide that it would be great to draw the solar system on our driveway with Jaren's sidewalk chalk. Since Jaren always makes me draw him trucks and turtles and semis, what's the difference.

The following is our end result. As we neared the end of our pictorial description of our solar system, we got some more help adding nice touches, like Planet X and the UFO and the asteroid belt. You can't forget that!

It was so big, we spilled it into the street. Then it was too big to even take one big picture of.  So I took a video for you to enjoy our nerdiness. But unfortunately, this blog site is having trouble uploading it. I will try another day because I am tired of being frustrated at it. This is what you get for going to college and learning a bunch of information that is seldom applicable in everyday life. Thank You tax-dollars!

The best part though, is that we started getting tourists! On a few occasions the same car would pass our house, turn around and pass it again even more slowly. There was more than a few passerby that pointed and laughed. I'm glad we were able to put a few smiles on some faces but then you also know how small of a town Cascade is if this is considered entertainment!

We had a blast though!

Finally! It is Done!

I have been working on a quilt for Jaren for months now and it is now complete! Actually, I started all the way back in January cutting the diamonds out to make the hexagons that look like 3-d boxes when it is all put together. It has taken me all this time to piece it together.

I had the idea way back in October when my mother-in-law's sister came up and we visited the Amish community about an hour and a half away. There, I saw a nice blue quilt made like this, only a gazillion times better. It was made as a rocking chair runner.

This is my first quilt. And I had no patterns or guides. Although, I did get some quilting tools for Christmas that were very helpful. Even though the edges don't line up and stitches show and not one of the diamonds is perfect, I think Jaren likes it. I really hope it doesn't fall apart too fast. I will wash it on "Hand-wash" from now on!

He was very excited to be able to sleep with it when I finally finished stitching the two layers together. He almost wouldn't let me wash it!

The real goal was to make Jaren a blanket that would entirely cover him for quite some time and fit his crib/bed. So it was toatlly a custom job- no standards.

I think I should make him a small version of a Big-Kid pillow next. That should be comparably a piece of cake.

I did learn some things though:

1. When I started this project I chose this design because I thought most quilts were kind of old fashioned and ugly. I've gained a new appreciation for the craftsmanship that an intricate quilt takes, but I still don't know if it is my style. 

2. There is no way that a $50.00 quilt is handmade! I know I am a total amateur but I know I spent easily 80 or so hours on this. $50.oo barely even covers the fabric and batting I used!

Now that it has been done a few days... I almost wonder what project I'm supposed to be working on next. I feel empty without a huge project looming over my head.

I'm sure one will come sooner rather than later. They always do! 

First Crop!

I was surprised and amazed to find that beans had grown in my tiny garden. Look! I made something edible!

For now there is only enough beans for me... and maybe Jaren too. That's okay though because we both love vegetables. The peas look they are only a few days from producing a first crop too! I'm so excited!

My Summer Science Experiments

I'm going to take this opportunity to show off the outside projects I have this summer.

The first project is my National Weather Service Project. This last spring Seth and I went to Weather Spotter Training and the speaker said that the National Weather Service was looking for someone in Cascade to be part of their National Co-Op Observer Program. The National Weather Service provides the equipment and you would be responsible for taking daily temperature and precipitation data.

I am such a geek! I signed up right away!

Within a month the official Cascade Station was moved from the city's power plant to my backyard. Every morning at 7 am I check to see if it rained (usually I just know) and check the high, low, and current temperature and record it on the Internet.

The instrument on the forefront is the daily rain gauge I check every morning. It has a funnel on top that funnels into a tall cylinder inside the metal one you see. This is to make it easier to measure the tiny increments hundredths of a inch are. Of course, there is a special calibrated ruler that goes with this too. The second rocket-looking instrument is a cumulative rain gauge. It basically measures the weight of the rain and records the weight of water it is holding in a bin every 15 minutes by punching a specific hole sequence in some ticker tape. I send in the ticker tape every month so that they have an idea of how much rain fell and when.

The third instrument in the back that looks like a bee-hive measures temperature. It is slatted to allow the breeze through. It is wired into our house and I can read the temp from inside. This will be nice in the winter.

 

Here you can see the almost 2 inches of rain we got today. In the daily rain gauge, One tube full is exactly 2 inches of rain.

My second project for the summer is my small vegetable garden. I mean very small, even though it is crowded. I think I over-planted but please forgive me, it is my first!

We got some old doors from an old cement stave silo over at the farm and we stacked them two high and I filled them up with dirt and used them as raised beds. 

It is my little OCD garden. It is confined and neat! I have 2 tomato plants in one square, too many peas in another, too many beans in a third, and in the fourth I have an eggplant and some green and yellow peppers.

We will see how they do. I already have some tomatoes growing and I was so worried that everything would die! Next year I think I'll need more squares!

My third project is keeping my flowers alive. I've never had much practice with gardens other than mowing them. Now that I have one (it came with the house) my goal is to try to keep it going. I've planted a few flowers here and there and I'm working on learning more about what we have but mostly what is here was here. I think, however, they must have been planted just before we moved because I don't remember flowers a-blooming like they are now! Take a look!

I do a lot of weeding and I'm teaching Jaren to help. He knows all about those "Bad Thistles!"

Today's Rainbow

After 3 weeks of hardly any rain, we got about another 3 inches of rain since the beginning of the month. Almost 2 inches of that fell today. Seth said that we in Cascade had pea sized hail but just a few miles down the road, Monticello had 2 inch hail. Check out these pictures from my friend Mel's blog! The rainbow is looking east from my house between storms this evening.

Good Morning!

Jaren enjoys his morning cup of Mo!