Our Little Cottage

Quilts, Gardens, and Clothes...

Good afternoon!

I saw this Precious Moments picture and it reminded my of the quilts that I want to make for my 2 oldest children.  They share a room and I would love for them to have matching quilts for their bunk bed.  I have never quilted before, but am looking forward to learning how. 

I've seen some pictures on different blogs where you've used quilts on the kitchen table.  I loved how cozy that looked and would like to make a quilt especially for my kitchen.  I think it would really add something special!

Last night my hubby, Danny, picked a HUGE zucchini from our garden.  Our neighbor was there with us and said that I could make 3 loaves out of that one zucchini easy!  I've never made zucchini bread before, but I'm excited to try it out.  Danny is anxious, too, he says he really likes zucchini bread!

Our neighbor was talking about other down home country meals that his wife used to make for him.  I believe that Danny's mouth was watering right there as the neighbor was speaking!!  I really need to learn how to "cook country"!  I know that it would make my husband very happy if I did.  Our neighbor said that I could come over anytime to copy some of his wife's recipes.

Our garden is doing good!  I'm so pleased that our first attempt at this is going over well.  We've gotten 3 tomatoes, 3 zucchini, and 1 pepper out of our garden so far.  Danny says that there are about 3 more peppers that are probably ready to be picked, but he'll get them in the next day or two.  We have about 3 cucumbers that are about done and ready.  Our corn is looking big and hearty!  It has not topped yet, but we planted late.  We have flowers on just about all of our potato plants, too.  Our sunflowers are growing like mad!  They are enclosing the kid's play area quite well!

When our neighbor was visiting with us last night he said that next year he will have a friend he knows come over with his big tractor to prepare our garden for us!  He said one, maybe 2 swipes and it will be ready!  What time that would save!  We are looking forward to enlarging our garden next year.  So the tractor would make that job much easier on us!

I would love to add more fruit trees next year as well.  I already have a peach tree.  It didn't give us any fruit at all this year because of that crazy cold weather back in the beginning of Spring.  I was looking forward to some yummy peach cobbler from my peaches...not this year though.  The neighbors apples didn't fruit either.  I was hoping that he would at least get some...apple cobbler would have been really good, too.

We have some wild blackberry bushes around our property line.  The birds get to them all before we do though!  I'd love to have some bushes in a fenced in and covered area somehow so that we could get more.  And a huge area of strawberries!

Our habitat garden is finished...for now!  It will always be a work in progress, but we are ready to move on to other projects.  Our pond is wonderful!  It is a great pleasure to sit out there in the evening hours and watch the fish swim around!  Danny has 2 catfish, 3 big gold fish, a couple little gold fish, 2 blue gill, 1 bass, 3 crawdads, 1 algae eater, about 2 dozen minnows, and we did have a frog, but I haven't seen him in some time.  Danny added a light inside of the pond.  Last night we sat out there just watching all the life moving around!  It was much more interresting than anything we could have found on the tv!

Have I told you...We have 6 turtles now!  One did get away, out under our chain linked fence.  But since "the escape" Frosty found a little little turtle!  It is just a baby!  Plus Danny brought another young one home just the other day!  So far we have kept those in an aquairum in the house until Danny can make them a "playpen" out in the habitat garden.

The other turtles are enjoying their new area very much!  They have all found new spots for themselves out an about.  I love it the most when I catch one drinking out of the pool area of the pond.  I will def have to catch a picture of one to share with you! 

Which makes me think of the pictures that I got back a couple weeks ago!  I still have not scanned any in yet!  I will have to do that soon so I can add some more pics here!  Maybe I can get to scan in at least a couple few later on today to add.

Well, I must get to my work today.  I got my kitchen table all cleaned off yesterday....to the dismay of my bedroom!  I packed up everything that didn't have a "home" then put it into my bedroom to deal with at a later time!  Procrastinator...yep, that's me!  But now that the kitchen table is cleaned off my goal is to finsih packing the clothes that I have to go thru in my bedroom!  The ones that I want to save for the younger boys.  I divide them up by size in different bins.  I've been putting off doing this because it is such a big job.....not hard, just long and time consuming!  But it is my goal to get it done TODAY!

So I better get started!

Have a Great Day!

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{ 01:42 PM, Wednesday, July 11, 2007 } { Posted by Patti }

WE have 19 fruit trees in our back yard (5 cherry, 3 plum, 3 pear, 3 apricot, 3 peach, 2 apple). And you know what! WE are only going to be getting fruit from 8 of them this year...and some of those 8, not much. We had a late freeze in April, when all the trees had blossomed, and there went our crop!! Last year was a bumper crop, though, so I still have lots of jam in the pantry. I also have some peaches and cherries still frozen. But no canned fruit left.

I guess that is how it goes some years!

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{ 01:58 PM, Wednesday, July 11, 2007 } { Posted by kristina }

Your garden sounds like it's doing great! I love the idea of a quilt on the table! Wish I knew how to sew! Take care!

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{ 04:07 PM, Wednesday, July 11, 2007 } { Posted by Kitty }

Congrats on the fresh veggies. I know what you mean about 'country cookin', my dh is a meat and potatoes kind of guy, so I had to learn quick. Good luck with the garden and the fruit trees.
Kitty

You really are my "twin"!

{ 05:46 PM, Thursday, July 12, 2007 } { Posted by connielj }

No kidding -- Before logging on this afternoon I had just cleaned off my kitchen table and coffee table (and, if I'm being honest, the area around my favorite chair!) and carted it all back to my bedroom for the infamous sort, store and pitch. With Mitch gone I find myself sitting in my quiet bedroom after Jack's in bed and listening to a book on tape or watching an old B&W movie on our little portable player while sorting though stuff. Great minds think alike! By the way, I have my mom's zuchinni bread recipe if you would like...I know there's a million but I'd be happy to send it to you.
Connie

Edited by connielj on Thursday, July 12, 2007 at 04:46 PM