Montana's June Snow (Bend, OR)

The last two days of June will be forever in our hearts. Our first great-grandson - Finley James Howard was born on 29 June 2020. 6.2 lbs 19 1/2 in long. 💓😍

Welcome, little one!

The next day, on 30 June, Dan and I celebrated our 45th anniversary with Thai food and a dessert of gelato ice cream in downtown Bend, OR.  Hard to believe we are great-grandparents to this cutie!

So what have we been doing for the past month?  We spent a month in Deer Lodge, MT.  We were ready to settle for a while after our long days of traveling from Texas.  It was so nice to see so much green and snow-capped mountains!

At the Indian Creek RV park's entrance

We were assigned a site in the far back corner near the highway with a truckstop behind us.  We rarely had neighbors.  Which was fine for us because we had a great view of the mountains and plenty of space for the cats to roam.

We thought it would be noisy being close to two high-trafficked areas, but it wasn't too bad.  The noise seemed muffled from both areas.  Only at night, I would hear a truck's generator running.  It reminded me more of a cat's purr making it easy for me to fall asleep. 

View from our bedroom window of mountain and truck stop to the right.

After our 14-day quarantine ended, we explored the small town by walking from the campground on a scenic nature trail that took us to a pond with a river otter living in the two bushes on the far side.  We tried to sneak up on him a couple of times to get a photo, but he was too fast for us.  It was still exciting to catch a glimpse of his head or a flick of his tail before he disappeared.

The trail also took us past several creeks flowing with crystal clear water...

One of many creeks/streams along the trail

Creek running through the town's residential area

 and past a large property with its own pond and pasture with a donkey, horses, and one heifer.

This became our favorite stop to take in the view and to watch the animals graze.

Hey!  I've seen you before, haven't I?

We talked to the owner one day while he was out feeding the horses a snack and getting one ready for a ride.  The donkey was staying close to his side as he walked around the pasture checking the horses.  The owner mentioned his donkey was getting old, but was friendly and loved hanging out with the horses.  

Have you seen my friend, Shrek?

He also told us that we were welcome to stop by and ride a horse because they needed the exercise.  It has been too long since I have been on a horse and had flashes of disasters that would happen if I was even able to get into a saddle so I just thanked him for the offer.

As we walked along the trail past this one tree, a Northern Flicker kept startling us by suddenly taking off just as we passed the tree.  After a couple of jump-starts to our hearts, we started looking for the bird as we approached the tree but we were having a hard time seeing him before he would fly off.  We thought it was just a favorite eating spot and he was moving around the tree to stay out of our sight before flying away.  Then we found a hole on the opposite side of the tree trunk.  As we got closer to the tree, we would look for the Flicker's head to peek out.  He (or she) must have gotten used to seeing us because he stopped flying away or maybe there were eggs to be protected and did not want to take the chance of leaving them alone.

On 5 June, we woke up to snow.  Big fluffy flakes!  By 10 am we had around 7 inches of snow and no power.  Having a generator really comes in handy at times since the power was out for most of the day.  We were very happy we had no travel plans for that day.  Dusty did not appreciate the snow and sulked most of the day.

Looking outside, it felt like Christmas in a winter wonderland!  We had to go for a walk.  The pond was overflowing and running down the trail.

The Canada Goose family was enjoying the snow day with a swim in the pond with their little ones.

The only thing sad was the damage the snow did to a lot of trees.  It was wet and very heavy causing branches to snap off.   Some of the campers found trees leaning heavily on the roof of their rigs and vehicles due to the limbs being heavy with snow.  One small trailer had almost disappeared under tree branches and snow.  Not quite sure how the owner got out of his door that morning.  The campground crew was quick to remove the damaged limbs and snow before it caused problems for the rigs.  By evening, most of the snow had melted.

Dan discovered these two sleeping together on the bed.  Dusty must have been extra tired to let Max put his leg on top of him.  I don't know what it is with Max and his hind leg lately.  He keeps trying to do that with me.  Nothing like waking up in the night with his leg across my head!  Yea, I don't think so!

Hitch was in a spunky mood during one of their outings.  He was rolling around in the grass while poking Dusty once in a while and making strange sounds.  The grass must have felt extra good after months of dirt and gravel in our previous sites.  I thought it was funny.  Dusty did not.😾

Dusty does have his happy moments and for the most part, is very gentle with the other two.  He loves it when one of us takes him for short walks.  He talks to us the whole time.  Before this photo was taken, he had been rolling around wanting a belly rub until Hitch showed.  Poor Dusty, sometimes I get the feeling he wishes he was an 'only' cat.😼

On The Cutting Board

My brother received his quilt last week.  He is quite happy with the finished quilt.

I decided to do simple machine quilting so I was able to finish the quilt quickly.  The freeform was a little shaky at times, but using the walking foot worked out great on the sashing, borders, and mountains.

I am down to one major project!  I have started my first quilt-as-you-go.  Our queen size Native Flair quilt.  Below is a photo I showed you a few months ago of the layout without the alternate blocks.

For those that are not quilters:  Each block is layered, basted,

and quilted before sewing the blocks together.  Unlike my brother's quilt above where the top is assembled before I layer the top with batting and backing for quilting.  After the block is quilted, I trim the batting so it will lie flat.  Then I sew the top layers together on the machine and use a slip-stitch to secure the two backings together

This is a learning process for me and one mistake I made was quilting too close to the edges.  I should have re-read the instructions before proceeding. I should have left a good 1/2 inch free of quilting stitches along the edges.

Now, I keep my little ruler and marking pen
nearby so I don't quilt too close to the edge.

This caused some major heartburn while making enough space for the machine's foot to sew the top layer together.  It came out a little lumpy and made it hard to keep the line straight.  I finally had to rip some of the quilting stitches out.  I'll have to go back and pin the loose stitches or rip them out and start over after I slip-stitch the backing together.

Here it is!  My first row is done and it is laying flat - thanks to lots of ripping and grumbling chant "I will not quilt past the 1/2 inch mark!😁  Only four more rows to go.  Sorry for the angle of the shot, but it's hard to get a good photo of something this long inside the coach.

Hitch supervised and approved of the first row, so time to start working on the next row.

Happy Quilting!