backyard garden

Lots of flowers popping up in the garden. We're going to spend the weekend relaxing and just hanging out around here.

Happy weekend, everyone!

painted fields

I went up to the farm this weekend and spent the night with my mom and dad. I like do this one of the weekends that Garrett is away at training. We usually bake a lot and spend time making things, but this time we dedicated all of our woman-power towards fixing up a rental property that my mom and dad invested in. I spent most of Saturday afternoon touching up walls and painting trim. I'm glad I could help them out. I've been kinda self-involved lately and I forgot how good it feels to pitch in.

I snapped these photos on my drive back to the city. The fields around my parent's farm are filled with wildflowers and green grasses. Soon they will be filled with big bales (as soon as this rainy weather passes over and all of the grass can dry out.) My dad told me that because of the long winter a lot of things like raspberries and hay are about two weeks behind schedule. The raspberries in our backyard here in the city are only starting to look green and plump - they haven't even started to turn red yet.

They will be waiting for Garrett when he gets home. I'm happy about that. He usually misses them. (I eat them all.) Just kidding . . . . I freeze a small portion of them, but it's just so hard to resist a homegrown raspberry.

Well, here it's already Sunday afternoon. Monday looms. Better get on the laundry and the dishes or my work week will be a chaotic mess.

Talk to you soon,

Jillian

peony days

Peony days around here. Almost everywhere I look when I'm out for my daily walk I seem to find these flowers spilling their blossoms at my feet. Their scent is overpowering when I bring them into the house. It fills the entire room - as if I had some glamorous diva as a house guest who douses herself in this perfume that we only get to smell these first weeks of June.

Bree and I have been hanging out. We are about halfway through Garrett's annual training. The time is going by fast and slow. Fast when I'm at work and busy on some project, slow when I'm home here in the evenings preparing dinner and walking the dog by myself. Slow as I'm drifting to sleep.

Hope you have some flowers blossoming in your neck of the woods.

Jillian

summer evening

A shady backyard with
One goofy dog
And a hot grill
Lots of blooming flowers
(Don't look at the weeds!)
One pink frisbee -
Oh, where did it go?
One smiling hubby
Dinner on the patio
Blessed in so many ways
Happy to be here

hello sheep

First encounters with the woolly kind. We brought our 3/4 Shetland Sheep dog - 1/4 Rough Collie up to the family farm this past weekend and introduced her to everybody - plus our flock of sheep. One party (the sheep) was very little impressed - the other (our lovely Bree) was captivated.

Up until that point we'd heard two types of barks out of Bree - her bark for "there's another dog out on the sidewalk" and her joyful "throw the frisbee! Now!" bark. Yesterday we heard a new bark out of her. This was was a low woof - a very intense low woof. I haven't been able to translate it into human speak yet, but I definitely will once I figure it out.

Yes, that is more yarn. My sister and I each picked out a shade of blue to start a project with. I'm not sure what I'll make with my selection, but a lovely, lacy scarf sounds nice. The colorful single ply on the bobbin above is also a work in progress. I'm about 1/3 through another bobbin that I intend to ply with the one shown.

I've got to give a plug for my sis's blog this week - I just love the words and the images. She's my quilting connection (and has got a slight addiction to barns, as well.) You can find her here.

Well, happy beginning of June, everyone.

Jillian