Equinox

We do things the odd way around here. For example, for our First of Spring fun, we torched the Christmas Tree. Not so odd. But then we roasted some Peeps. Yeah, those yellow marshmallow yummies. If you do it right, they're crunchy on the outside (the yellow sugar coating) and gooshie on the inside. DD and DH tried several before they got it right. They both ended up with blisters from grabbing hot Peeps. We've gotta give a shout out to Ranger Carol for sharing the world of Hot Roasted Peeps with us.





Most of the snow is gone, kinda. This is the Duv version of Ice Sculpture. I expect we'll have a clear front porch by tomorrow.
We can get to the grill now. That's pretty exciting. We usually grill all winter, but this year we ended up using our camp grill in the garage.
Not so sure about the pile on the corner of the house.

Lessee, who's in the Non-Contest? Barb and Loopy Dave so far. If you haven't guessed a date for when the snow finally melts, it obviously isn't too late to get in on the non-action.

And Mr. and Mrs. Cooper are back. Dunno which one this is, but I was pretty happy with this pic. They've nested in our neck of the woods for at least three years now.
But Wait! There's More!
And I'm jumping into the quilt-by-bloggy fray. I'm going to play "Pay It Forward." I will get something from Rhonda in the next 365 days. (I'm hoping it comes when I'm out west, wink wink.)

Here's the deal:

1. I will make a little something for the first 3 people who comment on this post. It will be a surprise and it will arrive when you least expect it.
2. I will have 365 days to do it in. What's the catch? To get a handmade present from me, you have to play too! This means YOU pledge to send a little handmade something for 3 readers of your blog. It doesn't have to be quilty - just handmade.
3. You must have a blog. Duh.
   
4. Once you comment here, you must post about your Pay It Forward on your blog to keep the fun going - with the Pay It Forward badge.

Lots of folks are posting pics in a Flickr Group, but my Flickr account is all screwed up. I have utterly no idea which e-dress I used, much less my username or login. Sheesh. I'm hoping to get that figured out soonish.

So I'd better get to winding yarn for BadAmy tomorrow so I can dream up something to make for you!

Springtime Rumors

This morning's pics:

Rumor has it that we will have spring this year. Yeah. Right.

March~~Lion or Lamb or Polar Bear Non-Contest!

We've had odd winter weather. Yeah, I'm starting to sound like a broken record. My bad.

Anywho, March arrived not like the lion of past years, but as a polar bear. We didn't get any new snow, but on Feb. 28, we got 1.5 inches of rain on top of the snow-soaked-and-covered ground. Several area communities are under water, yet again. The temps were in the upper 40s when we got the torrential rains. Now it's back in the 20s at night, creeping to the mid 30s as of this post.

My friends in communities to the east of us, closer to Lake Erie, are all a-buzz about FOSs, First of Springs. They're seeing buzzards, wood cocks, robins are nesting, long-eared owls are going nuts, all sorts of fun stuff. This is what we're seeing:

So here's my plan--specially for the mommy quilty bloggers who love those contests! Leave a guess when you think the pile of snow in the bottom picture finally disappears and I'll send you an note back. Naw, I don't have any connections with fabric companies, magazine subscribers, mystery quilts, thread makers, BOMs, none of that. Just me and my lousy blog!

Then in May, when I get back out west, we'll have the same contest, with the same lousy prize, to see when those snow piles melt. And out west, we're talking REAL snow piles!

I Had a Feeling About This One

We've had interesting weather this winter. We've had real snow. Here in NW Ohio, snow is often a hit or miss deal. Or we get hit, it looks pretty for a day or two, then it turns yucky looking, then it melts, and we start over again. But this year, it snowed in mid-December, and we've had snow cover since then. Somewhat colder than usual, too.


A local forecaster, who really should get a hobby, spent a good part of the winter forecasting gloom and doom. It's pretty much reached the point where you automatically subtract 6 inches of snow off his prediction. (He works at a tv station with the coolest new predicting toys and programs, so you'd think he'd be better at it.....) He also completely, totally missed the biggest snowfall of the season, but the other forecasters weren't that close either.

Late last week, they started saying~~finally~~well, we don't know what's going to happen with the next system. What happened was we got hammered with a crappy, rotten ice storm. Here at our house we had a nice snow, followed by hard pouring rain and some sleet, then more snow, then really quickly freezing temps. At our daughter's home in West Toledo, a scant 20 miles from here, they got a little snow, then freezing rain and sleet, followed by more freezing rain and sleet, and then some snow and freezing temps. It was down to 9 this morning. She's been without power now for 48 hours. We put them up in a hotel for the first night and they stayed last night also. There were so many trees and branches down over on that side of town that walking around was flat out dangerous--you never knew when a branch or power line would be coming your way. The elementary school in her neighborhood is still closed, as are all the schools in SE Michigan.

Our Red Cross Chapter set up a warming station at a local YMCA and there have been some folks staying there. The motels are all full, and many of our other friends and family are shacking up with other folks. The up side is that BadAmy and hubby will be able to clean the 'fridge and freezer..... and completely restock it. Everything had to go. Bummer.

I took the crappy weather as an opportunity to sew. Our power was out for about 3 hours in the morning, but that's no big deal. The temp in the house only dropped about 2 degrees. Let's hear it for super-insulation! I was sewing downstairs while my niece and her year-old son were here--their house was powerless for about 18 hours, but she didn't want to chase the baby around, flashlight in hand, so they came and stayed with us. So anywho, as I was madly working on blocks, the lights kept flickering, but they stayed on--yea!

I also went beserk and decided to make a wall hanging for some friends who are getting married. I found out yesterday that they set the date: March 4. This year. Holy crap! They are very interesting folks with wildly divergent backgrounds so the quilt with be pretty much off the wall (har har--get it? Wall hanging? Off the wall? Yea, it's late. Er, early. Either way, it's the middle of the night.) I'll get pics later today and post them. So far all the material came from my stash, but I'll need 2 more materials to finish it the way I want. Okay, maybe 4 more..... Then I promised DD I'd get back to his quilt. But I also need to get a flannel scrappy quilt done for the kid that will be bornt sometime this July--gotta do that now, since I get very, very little time to sew in the summer. And I'll definitely need to go to the store for that one.

The boys have an appointment with the shrink today, I'll have to decide if they go to school for the rest of the day or not. I'm inclined to just bring them home. So very much simpler and easier for everyone. DH will have a cow, but oh well. We'll see....

Snow Days~~edited with new pics

After a week of hype, it's finally snowing here. Three or four inches last night, no biggie, and more tonight. We're right on the border of snow/freezing rain. Everyone prefers snow over freezing rain, so we'll see how the night goes.

I did get to back to the sewing machine. I'm cranking out a smaller quilt for a special young lady, using fussy cut Debbie Mumm fabric and one of my favorite things, chunks of stuff. For the chunk part I made strips 3 inches wide, then chunked 'em up in various widths. Then I randomly sew them back into strips. I used five fabrics for the chunks. It went together quickly, and since I'd like to give it to her next Saturday, I decided to machine quilt it myself. After surfing the web for a long time, I decided to use masking tape to make stripes. Originally, I was just going to put one line down one side of each piece of tape. But instead, I put a line down each side, using a 1/4 inch space between tape and stitches. Since the quilt is busy and 'horizontal' I put the strips on diagonally, creating diamonds. I also went high and outside on the thread--it's blue for the rivers and streams around here. Weird choice, but there it is. I also made binding last night, but didn't get to it today~~too busy breaking up fights since the boys were both home today. And of course, there was snow to shovel. And here's the finished quilt, complete with binding and the whole works.
This is a sneak peak about who gets this quilt. If anybody spills the beans before Saturday. . . .

Here are the updated photos: (I'd label them but blogspot has something weird going on with hyperlinking anything I type in between the pics.)

The top pic is the quilt with the tape for quilting lines.
The next one is the finished binding and the whole works!
And the bottom one is a sneak peak at who the quilt will be going to---don't tell her!