The latest Mini-Mystery project is completed!  This is Happy Go Lucky - a cute little table topper about 23 inches square.  The next big Mystery Quilt project will start in July.  Maybe I'll be caught up on my other projects by then???  (Probably not, but, it's a thought!) 

 

My garden is thriving!  We had fresh green beans for dinner last night, fresh zucchini a couple of nights ago, and the tomatoes and cucumbers are getting ripe! 

 

Meet Harley, a visitor we had last week. Margene had dropped me off to pick up my car after having the windshield replaced, so got home before I did.  She wasn't paying too much attention as she walked toward the house, and when Jordan let her in, Harley came scampering in with her, took a couple of sniffs around and curled up in a dog bed, just like she lived there.  A bit of a surprise to both Margene and Jordan! (Not to mention for Ripley and Luna.)

She is the cutest thing!  Margene called the numbers on her tag, and in a few minutes got a call back.  The biggest problem, Harley's Mom and family had just landed at LAX.....oops!  Turns out they live one street over and their older son didn't go with them.  He came by a couple of hours later and picked her up.

I took Margene and Jordan to Glowing Wild at Turtle Bay while they were here.  I didn't take any pictures of the actual displays, but I did grab a couple of pictures of the river.  The bottom shot was taken as we were leaving - around 9:30.  The phone camera did a neat night shot! 

Cindy and her husband took Alli to a special sensory session at Glowing Wild on Sunday afternoon/evening.  The session was at 6:00 so it was still daylight, but I think Alli enjoyed it.  (Yes, I was invited, but declined so I could catch up from having company for a week and going back to work the next day - the worst part of a vacation!)

This is what happens when you forget to water your plants before you go on vacation..... I'm hoping it will survive.  Not what you want to see when you get back to the office after a week off.

I caught a couple of the "babies" sunbathing, or rather dust-bathing, the other day - too cute! 

 

Formations is officially done, and was gifted as a wedding present.  I finished it Wednesday, and the wedding was Friday.  Whew!

 

 

My first harvest of green beans! They were so trasty blanched and mixed with sauteed mushrooms, onions and garlic!

Some of the flowers I saw in the redwoods.   

 

Some photos from my trip... 

The elk were hanging out under the trees, quite a ways from the visitor's center.

It was cold and windy on the beach and Margene didn't want to go for a walk with us, so Jordan and I wandered around a bit.

We hit several redwood groves, and other places like Trees of Mystery, to give Jordan a good feel for the redwoods.

We also drove through the Avenue of the Giants- I hadn't been there since I was a kid!

I took a quick trip to the coast over Memorial Day weekend - leaving Sunday morning and coming back Tuesday afternoon.  Margene, Jordan, and I went to Brookings, then to Garberville, then home. The focus of the trip was to take Jordan to see the redwoods.  He had been super impressed with one of the large pine trees he saw at the McCloud Middle Falls trail on their last trip, and Margene and I had just shook our heads - wait until you see a "big" tree....he was definitely impressed with the redwoods! 

 

My new project hasn't gotten anymore work done on it, but the kittens like is "as is". 

My lilies are blooming!  They are also blocking the water from the sprinkler onto my other plants, which luckily are in pots.  I need to move my flower garden around, at least while the lilies are blooming. 

That's it, AJ is officially grounded - he can't borrow my car anymore.....He took my Mazda to Sac last weekend instead of the Volvo because it gets better gas mileage and returned it with a quarter of a tank of gas, a nail in the tire, and a broken windshield, lol!  The gas was intentional - gas was $1.00 more a gallon there so he just got enough to get home where it's "only" $5.50 a gallon, not $6.50.  The nail and windshield, not so much.  The nail was just a slow leak that Les Schwab fixed for me on Monday, and I have an appointment on Wednesday for the windshield.The joys of driving I5..... 

Cindy M and I took the dogs out for a hike on Monday up to Whiskeytown Falls.  It was beautiful - a cool windy morning, but sunny.   

Ripley decided she did NOT want to ride in the back seat with Cooper and Roo.  On the way up, she half-crawled her way into my lap for the ride, so on the way home, I just let her share the front seat with me.  Since she had gotten a drink in the creek, I was wet, hairy, and hot sitting with her on my lap, draped over me to stick her nose out the window, but she was happy!

 

I'm working on the quilting for the Formation quilt - all straight line quilting, which looks really nice, but I needed a break from sewing straight lines for hours. They had a mini-mystery quilt last weekend, and I had got fabric for it, but hadn't participated.  I got the blocks done last night, now just need to put it together.  It's about 22 by 22 inches when done - a cute table topper. 

I had a little help (as usual) when working on it.  James decided to take a nap on my ironing board.  Not much disturbs her, either!  I had to keep moving her tail out of my way when I was pressing. 

I almost got to put a quilt sandwich together without help....almost.  I got to the final step - getting the backing on (hopefully on straight) before I had a visitor. 

This one will be straight-line quilted, running along the sides of the triangles.  I got about half of it marked up so far.

 

And I found a baby zucchini!  The last couple of years I couldn't even grow a decent zucchini (and I thought they were kind of like unwanted weeds - they grew all by themselves), so I think I waited too long to bring in new dirt.  Yes, I add fertilizer every year, but obviously not the right stuff.  This year, along with new dirt, I also added 1/4 cubic yard of mushroom loam.  It's working! 

Cindy M has been taking Alli on walks for Special Olympics, but I think we have come to the end of them, unless they move them inside.  We've been up into the 90's this week - and it's on mid-May....

Here they went to Lema Ranch ( a beautiful walk!) I don't think Alli is impressed, but, she is walking!