Catching Up Part 1

Not much blogging going on around here, but lots of other stuff happening:

FAMILY

Mom has come to stay with us again, so life is a lot more structured – 3 proper meals a day, no peanut butter sandwiches with hot chocolate for dinner. But we are settling in just fine (and definitely eating better).

It has taken about a month but we are now into a workable schedule as to baths and laundry. We replaced the bathtub in the family bathroom with a new shower. Big improvement in looks and comfort. The shower in the master bath is quite small so The Husband prefers to use the front bathroom. I didn’t get a before photo but here is the new shower.

GD2 made her First Communion in early May. She was able to wear her sister’s dress with just a few alterations to the underslip. We thought the crowded church would be too much for Mom, so she and I stayed at the house. That worked out well as I was able to help with the meal preparation.

I did not make the cake but forgot to get any photos of the other food. The purple roses were very much in demand among the children present.

GARDENING

The summer vegetable garden is partially planted. Our son came down the day before Mother’s Day with a box full of plants.

There were 3 different kinds of tomatoes, a summer squash, 3 six-packs of lettuce and a variety of peppers, including one habanero.

We had already planted 4 tomatoes, 6 eggplants, 12 cucumbers and 6 Anaheim peppers. There are some volunteer beans in with the Costco tomatoes, Santa Maria pinquito I think. Still need to plant more beans, onions and some more squash. Also mesclun and arugula for summer salads.

Mom wanted to give me a pomegranate tree/bush for my birthday, so we caravanned out to the nursery on Southside Road. They had two very small plants, each in a 5 gallon can. We bought the taller one and it is now planted out by my greenhouse. Probably no fruit this year, but we are hoping for some next year. When I was a child, I remember visiting my step-grandfather’s sister Marie Trescony. She lived in the old adobe house on their ranch near San Lucas and the walled garden was very old California. The big attraction for me was the pomegranate. As a city girl, I was really impressed about being able to pick something off a tree and eat it. In those days it seems I was always hungry, no matter how often I was fed. Actually, I guess I haven’t changed that much…

For Mother’s Day 2008 we gave Mom a self-watering planter box with a rolling stand to raise it so that she wouldn’t have to bend. She grew tomatoes, peppers, onion and basil that year with pretty good results. This year we did the planting for her: a cherry tomato and a mild green pepper. We’ll probably add some basil seeds and maybe a few green onions.

The sunflower seeds we planted in April are growing up nicely. They need to be thinned but I just can’t make myself pull up a healthy plant. I know it needs to be done for the health of the remaining plants, but it’s so hard.

We also planted over a dozen dahlia tubers on the other side of the front walk. They are almost all up and growing fast. We should have a good supply of cut blossoms for the house this summer.

GENEALOGY

Nothing has been done in this department but I really need to get my Spencer Stout info together because I hope to visit Montague Co, TX and Cedar Co, MO on our vacation this year.

I cancelled my Ancestry World Deluxe membership and went back to the US Deluxe. There is just so much information still to find in this country, that I don’t see myself using it enough to warrant the price difference. I need to check with the Gilroy library to see if they have World in case I need it on down the line.

Knitting, Quilting and Sewing catch-up will follow soon.

A Day of Faith

Yesterday was Good Friday, a cloudy day with possible showers. The clouds persisted, but the rain was limited to a few sprinkles early in the day.

Every year on this day the Catholic parishioners of Sacred Heart Church have a procession where they follow the Cross. It used to be just in the area around the church but, since a second church was built in Hollister, they walk from Sacred Heart to St. Benedict’s, a distance of about 4 miles, maybe more. This photo was taken at about the half-way point where they had stopped to rest. The entire procession was about two blocks long at this point. You are looking more or less west, towards the Gabilan Mountains.

I don’t remember hearing about this kind of Good Friday event before we moved to Hollister and, for many years, I had wanted to see it but wasn’t able to because of my job. So when I was on my way to the supermarket and saw all these people walking, I realized what it was and took a detour.

Sunflower Bed

Sunflower Bed
Originally uploaded by sarahjb2007

Finally got my spring planting going. I used Flickr to add notes to this photo to show what seeds I planted where. The notes don't show up in this photo but you can see them here.

This parking strip is especially difficult to grow anything because it's so dry - no irrigation system, although a couple of years ago when the city replaced the sidewalk, we laid a pipe under it so that eventually we can add one more easily.

There is another strip beyond our front walk but I'm thinking of putting dahlias in that one. They don't require too much water once they are established.

This Is a Test

 

I was catching up on the quilting blogs that I like to read and had an epiphany when I read this.  It may be just what I’ve been looking for to make Blogger more user-friendly.

  Blogger has been notoriously hard on my photos – even when you do a Preview, you never really know where they will end up in the final posting.

I just checked this posting in Live Writer preview mode and the photo is encroaching on the previous posting.  I’m not sure how to  fix that, other than by typing in a lot more text, but I’m sure I’ll work it out eventually.

By the way, the photo is one of the Dutch Iris that I planted several years ago.  This bed is right up against the house and there is enough of an overhang that it doesn’t always get rained upon.  And we tend to forget to water it because it’s the middle of winter and the rest of the garden is water-logged.  So the only plants that survive here are drought- tolerant.  So when spring bulbs pop open, it’s always a surprise.

PVQA Annual Show

The PVQA quilt show is being held today and tomorrow at the Santa Cruz County Fairgrounds. There is a wet and windy rainstorm forecast for tomorrow, so I decided that today was the day to go. Usually The Husband drives me over but this year he wanted to finish his yard work before the big rains arrive again, so I girded my loins and set out for Watsonville by myself. You'd think I would know the way after going there every year for maybe 10 or 12 years. Or that I would have looked at a map done a little preparation ; but I managed to get lost twice!

So coming home I set the GPS but, when it looked as if she were taking me the long way around, I turned before she wanted me to. Then a stoplight turned red pretty quickly and the GPS landed on the passenger side floor. There was no way I could reach her without stopping the car, getting out and walking around to that side. At this point I knew my way home, so I just left her on the floor. All I heard after that was "Recalculating," from time to time. We've used her successfully several times but this was my first attempt with no one else in the car.


This orange quilt was created as a challenge to someone who thought that no orange quilt could be beautiful. I think the quilter was successful. The big surprise was the reverse of this quilt:

Not sure how she did this but there are horizontal seams about 12 inches apart with the curves matching perfectly. One of the women from my guild commented that it should have been the front.

These Santa Cruz quilters are always so imaginative. I never fail to be inspired by their creations.
This year, however, there were way too many "One block wonders" for my taste. It's not that I don't like one-block quilts but most of these just seemed to be a blur. Maybe there is something I'm missing; it might have helped to have another quilter's comments

The rest of the photos I took at the show can be found here on my Flickr page.

The Road Never Travelled

This week the "long-awaited" Highway 25 bypass through Hollister was finally opened to traffic. Residents had been dealing with the traffic messes caused by this construction for almost two years - or has it been longer? Seems like it. This is an entirely new road, so these views have never been seen before.


Unfortunately, the current speed limit on this beautifully paved, wide, 4-lane road is an unbelievable 35 mph! We can only hope that this is temporary because it's really hard to keep your speed down. Maybe 10 years from now when businesses have been built here, but not now.

I really feel sorry for the folks who live in the housing behind this wall. Their backyards are now not only small but are hemmed in by this giant wall on the west side. Forget about sunsets in this neighborhood.


We're leaving in a few days for a mid-winter break in Cambria. The weatherman is predicting lots of rain but, this year especially, I can't complain. We'll work around it.

Six-Word Biography

There is an article in today's SF Chronicle about this book which is a collection of six-word sentences that tell a story - in some cases, the writer's life story.

So our breakfast table challenge was to tell our stories.

DH's contribution: "Born. Married. Fathered children. Retired. Happy."
You've got to love the man!

My only thoughts given the state of my sewing room: "So much fabric, so little time." (Not very original but very true nonetheless.)