No Trip Bah Humbug. Damn quarantine!

So this past Thursday 4/15, Pamela and I were supposed to be going to the Hill Country on our annual Mother - Daughter Trip but the virus mess screwed up our plans of seeing wildflowers and drinking wine. We haven't even just jumped in the car to just drive round to view any. Now we might be drinking our wine that we already have. Just maybe.  We've started a new tradition and that is Pamela comes up every Sunday or Saturday and has dinner with us. And at that time she and I get into my wine collection.  As far as wildflowers and bluebonnets we just have to enjoy what we see when driving to the store or each others house.  

Being safe also messes me up on being able to go out and find new places to take pictures when I complete a quilt.  On my way to Bryan to help Pam and make an HEB run there's this historical spot by the Brazos river that had bluebonnets so I stopped to snap a couple of pictures of just the flowers and of my latest quilt finish. 

 We were supposed to be going to the baby shower on 3/28 but of course that couldn't happen which was sad but it gave me time to finish the binding on the quilt and not be an indian giver. Meaning I give the quilt but then take it back to do the binding. LOL

The Walk About quilt pattern has become one of my favorites to make.  This quilt was for Pamela's long time friend Marlaina and hubby Josh for their new baby boy.  Their oldest son Thomas calls Pamela, Aunty Pam. He became a big brother today 4/17 and this is the quilt I made for Connie Lee O'Brien.
In the photo the gray is reading black but it is gray.  It's Moda Safari fabric line that Pamela and I found at The Spoiled Quilter in Fayetteville. Cute little shop that I hope when all this quarantine is over I can go visit there and maybe drop by the Blue Mule Winery. LOL
Anyway this quilt was quilt by Donna's Lavender Nest with the animal cracker theme. You can see the giraffe and lion. Came out really cute. 
And check out the back.  I had a panel with some of the safari animals that cut out and my sweet friend Elly while at retreat cut out the letters for Connor's name.

And of course I made a label for it. 
Pamela was able to find diapers that Marlaina hadn't been able to find in Houston and Pamela made a door wreath and letters for the baby's room. She bagged up the quilt and other goodies and ran it to Cypress before Connor arrived and dropped on their door step. Here's a picture of the new guy in town.







David, I and Lilley have been having happy hour on the patio every other night or two. I drink wine while David usually drinks beer. Lilley just loves to hang out with us. No I'm not drunk in this picture.  LOL

David moved the temporary fence panels last Thursday (4/9) around the shed (aka mini mansion) because the grass had gotten so tall he couldn't just mow.  When we let the cows move in the grass was so tall you could just barely see their heads above the grass. And in an hour they had ate it down to where you could see them. They were happy gorged little cows and Jerry too. Of course he got into some mischief while in the area.  David caught him eating the insulation off the water tank pipes between the 2 - 5000 gal tanks. He had been pulling it off and in the process created a leak. Something David will now have to fix.  David had a couple extra panels to block off the area after that. 

 Oh there's the wood pile. Lol.

For Good Friday I drove into Brett's BBQ in Rockdale for curbside service and picked up 2 catfish dinners. Supporting the locals. Those catfish filets were huge. The cole slaw was a sweet/sour and oh so good and you can't go wrong with green beans.  And there was 2 hush puppies. all this for $10/plate.  Sooo good. While sitting in line they even had some live music. Made the wait pleasant. Gotta check out what this Friday's special is.. . ...  Yum






The plate stand and bunny with her pearls that my friend Donna Lynn made me sits on a sewing cabinet in front of the east window of my sewing room. Ms Bunny watches me sew and make a mess and if she tires of watching me she can look out the window and watch the sun rise if I don't have the blinds down.

 Well in 7 days the 11 cows and Jerry totally devoured all the tall grass in front of the shed. I can't imagine where they put all of it. They are little piglets and they're looking for more tall green grass.
So we are going to move them back to the back pasture the shortest distance which is past the barn and house. We were hoping this wasn't going to be a mistake because they could have ended up on the front porch if they didn't follow David with the cow crack or even worse in the garden.  We narrowed the possibility of that happening by lining up the cars and the truck.
While David was opening the gate to the back pasture and getting a bucket of cubes me and Jerry were talking.
 I gave him a good rub from his ears down his back. He enjoyed that. And wouldn't you know it when it time to transfer everyone he was the one who ran towards the garage and garden.  The cows were on top of David trying to get in the bucket. Since I was chasing after Jerry I didn't get a video of the cows crowding David.
I thought Jerry was going run right through the garden but he managed to run between the raised garden beds.  It took me 3 tries before getting him to head back around the cars to the gate to the back pasture.  Ornery thing.  LOL
He joined the cows in eating the cubes David put down in the grass. He and they were happy again.



After that bit of fun it was happy hour but first David pulled out a ladder to fix one of the ceiling fans on the porch. They blades were loose. Before he put the ladder back in the garage I asked him to put it under the Eastern Phoebe birds nest that we finally gave up on chasing them away. I wanted to see what the eggs looked like. Well the ladder wasn't quite tall enough so he had a hard time holding the phone up there at the right angle to get a picture. He wouldn't let me go up the ladder, like his knee liked when he went up.
He finally got the phone in position to take a picture in the next.

Well too late I still won't see what the eggs looked like.
There's babies in there sleeping.
I think I can count 3- 4 little beaks. About 15 minutes later Momma Phoebe showed up to feed them. You could hardly hear the babies. You had to listen real hard to hear their little chirps.
I will say unlike the barn swallows who make a complete nasty mess anywhere they build a nest this little bird is very neat. Between the mud and poop from the swallows they are not allowed near the house if we can help it. Unlike poor Pamela who has 2 swallows that keep trying to build a next on each side of her front door.

This little Phoebe bird is very skittish and swoops in and out only if she thinks we're not looking. I have say there's no messy nest dropping or poop on my patio. She built her next at the corner of the porch and and covered walkway to the garage.

Now we got to sit down for our happy hour. Apparently the cow moving and the bird nest adventure just wore Lilley out.  She hoped up next to David and closed her eyes until she heard us talking about her.  She closed them again though.





Right before things went into a shelter in place we met our good friends Larry and Sylvia for dinner at Crossroads Tavern for all the catfish dinner you can eat. They showed up with the big gift bag saying Happy Belated Birthday.  Inside was the cutest banner that now hangs in my sewing room. Go figure it has the tailend of a pickup truck. Too cute!  And inside was a wind chime. Couldn't have come at a better time.  The one we had had fallen apart for the 3rd or 4th time. David got it hung up not long after we got it home.

I love windchimes and this one has pretty little sounds. Thank you again Sylvia and Larry.

And on that Happy Note I'll end.

Until next blog post....Don't let someone be a priority in your life when you are still an option in their life…~unknown