This and That

Not much going on around here.

The boys are done with school now and we're prepping for vacation.

We seemed to have skipped spring. Our weather has turned hot.

Really hot...like August hot complete with high humidity.

The random things going on around here:

Pepper waiting for me to come home from walking to my neighbors.. AKA the in-laws.

I finished this quilt top I've been working on.

It was part of a sew along I did.

I'm thinking of adding another border to it to make it fit a full size bed.

That will wait until after vacation.

I'd love to do it now but I've got work to do!

We set up the tent for a practice run.

We also wanted to see how our new cots will fit.

It will be interesting.

I finally spent the last of my birthday money and got some precut fabrics.

I picked out the three smaller bundles but the rest was from a surprise package.

I thought that would stretch my fabric comfort zone. :)

I reinforced the end seam on a flag for my father-in-law.

I felt like Betsy Ross!

Dwayne and I came across this painted turtle in the pasture on one of our walks.

We relocated him to the nearest ditch.

Sadly our Pekin hen, the one on the right, died this week.

We're not exactly sure what happened.

So now our drake is a bachelor.

A Little Bragging

The boys are finishing up their school year.

It's the first time Nolan has been in public school since the first grade but that was an eternity ago!

This was Connor's first year in the public arena.

I think it's safe to say that they were very grounded in their primary education.

They have done well for themselves this year and we are very proud of them.

They worked hard all year.

For starters they go to school 40 minutes away in another time zone.
That is a challenge in and of itself!
Now, let's not pretend for one minute that this school year was perfect.

There were some bumps along the way.

However, this post is dedicated to bragging somewhat about their achievements this year.

Early in the school year Nolan was an Algebra II student of the month and

Connor was a student of the month for 7th grade.

They both made honor roll all year.

They both earned a spot on their respective National Honor Societies for middle/high school.

They've both made a reputation among the teachers and staff as being good students and role models.

We were aware that Connor was receiving an award of some kind for academics.

We had no idea it was four!

For each of the subject awards there were GPA high marks to maintain and
work ethics to show to receive those.

REACH stands for Raising Expectations And Challenging Habits.

To earn this the student has to meet certain criteria all year regarding

things like character, habits, scholarship, leadership, etc.

There were several 7th graders that received this recognition.

As they stood these students on stage they told the rest

of the 7th and 8th graders to emulate these students.

What an honor.

I'm not sure which award this was for...

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The junior high awards were during the day but he high school awards were in the evening.
The high school honor society helped serve a delicious meal before the awards ceremony.

Nolan earned some academic awards too.
Again, we knew it was at least one.
He also earned four!

We learned that this is done for every class (yes, the ceremony was long).
They have set the bar pretty high for next year.

I Couldn't Resist

 Sometimes I just can't help myself.

Wouldn't you know it that someone we know is having a baby?

I couldn't resist making something quilty.

I decided on matching doll quilts for the new big sister and her soon to arrive little sister.

Granted, the baby won't be able to play with hers for a while.

The pattern is called jelly roll race.

A jelly roll is a pre-cut fabric package of 42, 2 1/2" wide strips.

I cut my own strips from fabric in my stash.

It's incredibly fast and easy!

No thinking, just sewing.

I will definitely make this pattern again.

I wanted the backs to be similar and yet have each one distinguishable from the other.

A little breeze and some curious ducks.

These quilts are roughly the same size at 19" x 20".

Grounded

This past Tuesday I managed to hurt my back.

It's the kind of back pain that brings you to your knees and takes your breath away.

Great.

I had so much I needed to do including getting ready to head to Texas.

I hurt myself doing morning chores. I was afraid I was going to have to stay in the duck run until my in-laws came to our end of the farm to do their chores.

I didn't like the thought of that one bit as it was pretty early and I would probably have to wait a couple of hours. So I managed to pull myself upright using the duck coop. I hobbled my way to the house and waited for the chiropractor's office to open.

I've been to the chiropractor twice so far and I'm waiting for my next appointment. Last time I was like this it was a few weeks before I was back on my feet.

After the first night I made the hard decision to not go to Texas. I couldn't get out of bed without help. How in the world would I survive flying and sitting in a courtroom every day? I felt guilty for a short while. My body harshly reminds me why I chose to stay home. When you can't even put your own socks on you have no business flying across the country.

So now I'm confined to a rocking chair to rest and recuperate.

I try to ice my back once an hour.

I'm not a fan of sitting and doing absolutely nothing.

I've done this blog post with the tablet because my back only lasts about five minutes sitting at the desk.

And of course I have a hand pieced quilt to sew

I didn't sew at first because I was too miserable.

It's ok now as long as I am careful.

I'm almost done adding a second new row to the confetti table runner.

There are only seven rows left to add!

QDD

I think I might suffer from QDD.

Quilters Deficit Disorder

Seriously.

It's bad.

I've posted about the four projects I'm currently working on.

They are going great and I'm making progress on each of them.

Since then I noticed my scrap triangle jar was kind of getting full.

(You know where this is going, right?)

I sorted through them to see what I had.

Wouldn't you know it, I have enough triangles to make some mini quilts!

So I've pulled those scraps out for yet another project (or two).

I even made two patterns in EQ.

I know, I'm hopeless.

As if that wasn't enough...

Then I decided to start two more quilts. They are mini quilts too, but quilts nonetheless.

There must be something wrong with me.

I'm OK with that! hehe

Quackers

I planned on another Quilt Quack post but decided each subject needed its own post.

It's my blog and I can do that!

:)

Apparently there was enough shade from this tree to have nap time.

Sometimes you just need a little duck therapy.

These guys can be quite entertaining.

Especially when peas are involved.

Nothing like being photobombed by a chicken.

Two of our guys are going to a new home today.

The big white one in the back and the one below him with the white spot on his head.

Too many drakes to hens causes problems.

This is my favorite duck.

Runners are skittish by nature but this one seems to have a friendly side.

Her name is Bender.

 She's always the first one to come for peas and she always eats them from my hands.

She's the most gentle one of them all.

Some of the others can be aggressive when eating peas from my hand.

(Think feeding frenzy.)

A couple of them even pinch.

We named her Bender before we knew she was a hen.

(Bender is a character voiced by Robin Williams from the movie Robots.)

When she was a duckling something happened to cause her tail to bend to one side.

That's why we call her Bender.

For the longest time we wondered if she would be able to lay eggs.

She turned out to be one of our best layers.

So now you know all about Bender.

She's a sweet duck but don't let her fool you.

She can be quite noisy too!

Pepper catching a pea...or at least trying to.

We have this one chicken...

She does this every afternoon.

We find it funny that the other chickens haven't figured out how to get out to the field yet.

This field was planted the other day.

I hope she doesn't scratch the seedlings when they come up!

******UPDATE******

We got a new hen!

Long story short: We gave a lady a couple of duck eggs to hatch.

She ended up with one male and one female.

This is the same lady who was willing to take our spare drakes.

She said she didn't need the hen and gave her to us!

It was a win-win for both of us.

This new hen replaces the hen we lost a few weeks ago.

This hen is what I would call a mutt duck.

She's half Runner and half Khaki Campbell.

She's beautiful and friendly too!

She seems to have the long legs of a Runner but the body of a KC.

We've seen her occasionally stand like a Runner too.

It will be interesting to see how she finishes feathering out.

We plan on keeping her inside for maybe a week.

She's about 2 1/2 weeks younger than our ducks that we hatched.

She needs to do a little growing before we let her run with the big ducks.

I hope to get better pictures soon.

You know animals, they don't cooperate very well for pictures.