Rain Fall

Yeehaw, the first month of 2017 has been wet, wild, and crazy here on the Central Coast of California.

Sunday, January 8th, 7:08 pm ~

 

Although we welcome every single drop of rain, the severely drought-stressed trees are having a hard time staying upright during the stormy weather.

Thursday, January 5, neighbor Jim's tree ~

Sunday, January 8th, neighbor Deanne's tree blocking Leah's driveway ~

Wednesday, January 11th, our tree, our driveway ~

The worst of the storms occurred last weekend. Mattie and I listened to the wind howl and blow against the house through the night into the wee hours of Sunday morning. I finally fell asleep at 4:30 am when the electricity went off. We received just an inch or so of rain but the winds were damaging.

Everyone - aka The Whole Neighborhood - were without power or passage on our dead end street.
(The Man being The Man fired up his ex-military diesel generator and kept the lights and power on at our house.)

But wait, there's more, we found out the power pole had been brought down when a couple of trees fell onto the wires. The trees were now blocking ingress and access to the pole. It was going to be a quiet Sunday for our neighborhood.

By the end of the day progress had been made to clear the road so work could start on the power and cable lines.

We also lost more trees during this powerful storm but luckily no structures were damaged and cleaning up will be a work in progress.

 We've had a few days of sunny weather and have appreciated the time to dry out.

More rain is expected this week.

Pink and Orange

Our color scheme for the Holidays seemed to have been pink and orange rather than red and green as I worked on the baby blanket taking up residence across our dining room table. Not surprising to me, or The Man, I wasn't able to finish Becky's blanket before she left work on maternity leave just before Christmas (though I did have the foresight to ask for her mailing address).

Silly me, I thought it would be a quickie project.

This was my plan: A cute fabric panel for the top piece and soft cozy flannel for the backing. The top panel was printed with a black border that I could fold over and use as a self-binding edge. Easy-peasy.

But wouldn't it look so much nicer to hand-stitch a blind stitch binding and then do a machine top-stitch? A week went by. Yes, that looks nice. Now how about hand-quilting around each big block? I retrieved my small sharp quilting needles, pink thread, and a thimble from my sewing box. Another week or two flew by.
 

Okay, but now the four small blocks looked unfinished so they also required tiny quilting stitches around them. Another week.

Almost there, after a quick wash Becky's blanket will be ready to take up residence in it's new home. I'm holding off the temptation to just add a few more stitches to the cute animals. Don't you think that elephant tail needs an outline stitch with black embroidery thread?
 

And speaking of orange . . . .

Christmas Day was spent making Orange Marmalade with the home-grown citrus Jerry has been sharing with us. The yummy citrus preserves were processed using the Boiling Water Bath Canning method.

Welcome 2017.

New Year Wish

Here's

hoping

you have a

wonderful

happy

healthy

delicious

New

Year

Allrecipes.com: Apple Pie by Grandma Ople (Moshasmama)