My newest quilt - another block-a-month.  I just started my first block this last weekend, and got the 2nd block in the mail today....better get busy!!!

Here is the progress so far on my block (or two or three)-a-month quilt with the local quilt club.  It's coming along!  I'm caught up on it, at least!

 

More garden harvest!  The first of the tomatoes - served drizzled with balsamic vinegar and salt - and more beans - sautéed with onions, garlic and mushrooms!  I have a couple of cucumbers set, but no zucchinis yet - and one bloom on my eggplants.  It's a weird year this year for my garden.  I'm blaming the early heat, since we don't usually see the temps at 110 until mid-July, and we got hit early in June this year.

 

I'm not looking forward to this week....but at least the AC is fixed in the office!

Robin and I made our first kayak trip of the season last week.  We had originally planned it for the week of scorching temps (109!!!) but had to reschedule - and the temps were in the low 80's, but very windy.  If we stopped paddling, we went backwards....

The lake was beautiful, and not very crowded - probably due to the wind.  The hillside are green, covering the burn scars from the Carr fire.

We found a family of ducks, and they followed us around for a while.  My guess is that other visitors have been feeding them - they got very nosy and very close to us.

Robin took a photo of me taking photos of the ducks...

So I took a photo of her, backlit!

 

Well, Lea didn't come home with Ralph - he took both our dogs over for a meet-and-greet, and it didn't go well.  Lea was very aggressive and assertive towards both dogs, and Cindy had had issues with her with her female dogs too.  I think Lea needs to be the only dog, or with a male dog. Cindy said she responded well to her male dogs - just didn't like her female.....bummer.....

Meet "Lea" - soon to be Ralph's new dog.  She's at Trinity County Humane, and he is going over today and bring her home.  Her name will change, I'm sure, since Lea is pretty close to Luna (not that I call the dogs by the correct name anyway....)  These pics are from Cindy K - my retired hair dresser, now heavily involved with rescue work.  She's been fostering Lea up to now.

 

New hair cut!  (not the best pictures - just ones I grabbed real quick on my way to do something else....)  I like it - it is much more wash-and-wear than I've had for a while, which is great for the summer.

 

The first harvest of beans from the garden!  It was only a handful, but I mixed them with other fresh beans from the store - sautéed with some mushrooms, onions and garlic!  

The purple beans turn green when they cook.  Here's one turning in the pan.  They've been know to turn green in the heat of the summer here - just saying that it's HOT here!!

 

Woohoo!  THE AC is fixed in the guest house/office!  The AC went out Friday night of Memorial weekend.....ouch!  Not only was it a 3-day weekend, we had a heat wave - 109 degrees last week.  The repairman couldn't get to us until this Saturday (he said they had never been so busy - the first of summer usually is busy for them, but jumping to 109 so fast made it extra busy), so the last week at work was miserable - 95 degrees in "the office".  Alex and I were jumping in the pool at lunch and right after work (and he took at least one cold shower on his break...) to cool off as much as we could.  Koori was determined to hang with us though, and her favorite spot was in front on the fan.

 

I walked by the couch in the computer/sewing room the other day, doing my usual "pick up all the dog/Alli toys that are strewn about" daily chore, and when I grabbed this "toy" it moved!  Indy was napping under the couch and his paw was sticking out - looking very much like the nyla-bone toy Luna had been chewing on.....

 

I added a new lily to the koi pond, and it's blooming!  I love the shot with the reflection, and the koi....

This was taken a different day - earlier, and different bloom.  I think I'm getting control over the algae - finally!  But....since we are running temps over 105 this week, we'll see if it stays under control.

 

Update on my friend's "nest in the door décor"...they hatched!!!

 

Sorry - I got "busy"  - Alli has been getting up earlier than normal, so I haven't been posting.  Here are a few random photos..

I needed a change of pace in my sewing/quilting, so I made a pouch for my sunglasses.  The instructions called for quilting the fabric using a tool I didn't even know I had for my machine, so it was more about the process than the finished product.  Not too bad!

I finally decided to buy a new skimmer for the pool.  Margene had given us one when she moved, but the motor burned up in our Snow-mageddon (the pool was covered in several inches of snow, and the skimmer was trying to push through the snow....note to self made....)

I now have two quilts (at least) to hand-sew the binding on, so started back on that project - with a little help from Koo.....

A work friend noticed a lot of bird activity at her front door and investigated - only to find there was a nest in her wreath on the door.  They are now committed to using the back door for a while...