Reconnecting

Someone I mentor has been gently encouraging me to reconnect with this blog, so here is my feeble attempt to do so. 

The farm is going fairly well, we have about 30 head of cattle now and have stabilized at raising about 180 chickens a year and 50 turkeys. 

That may or may not be about to change as our poultry locker is shutting down after this season and we're not sure what we'll do about it. A new locker is opening up near Omaha, but at about twice the price as the current one. Regulations in this state are deeply unfriendly toward small poultry lockers, and federally inspected lockers require that you bring 5,000 birds at once (yeah, that's not happening!). Those are definitely owned by Big Ag.

I do continue to quilt, here is what is currently "under my needle" and in progress. It's a large quilt, which I am attempting to quilt to a level I am comfortable sending it to a show. 

I've also finished a few others since my last post, of course. Here is a scrappy baby quilt...

...that I made from the scraps of our new bed quilt. I hand-quilted the center of this one, so it took forever. I've been working on it since 2008 and finished it in 2018.

I made a charity quilt for Cradling New Life (love the power line fabric!!)

And finished up a hand applique project I call "boil the ocean", inspired by a trip to Hawaii (also started in 2008, I think!). 

I made a couple of denim quilts for gifts and to auction off for Ryan's campaign fundraiser:

And I participated in my first Quiltville Mystery Quilt by Bonnie Hunter (if you're looking for a positive, uplifting daily blog, hers is the BEST!), this is "Good Fortune". Not my usual style, but a lot of fun. The mystery aspect with weekly pieces to complete kept me going.

I completed a whole cloth silk quilt, which is a lot of lessons learned. I designed this pattern for my sister-in-law's wedding quilt, but that one was too busy to see the pattern. I have some red silk I'd like to remake this on, and do it better. 

Last, I've participated in the last two Cherrywood Challenges, themed "Prince" and "Bob Ross". I've made it into both tours of quilts, but not yet won a prize. That's my next goal, we will see what the theme is this year.

Family life is going ok, it doesn't ever seem to slow down. Ryan didn't win his campaign, he's currently contemplating when and how and where he will try again. 

He fairly promptly picked up a "part time" job as the general manager of the Iowa Food Cooperative, which is not quite as all-consuming as a political campaign, but not far off. 

We continue to ballroom dance, mostly at Red Friar's in Ames through the winter as our standing date night.

The kids also keep growing, H went to her first year at Clearwater Camp solo before we joined her at family camp. I swear she wasn't this unhappy at camp, I just timed my only pictures before leaving very poorly.

Z is more able to enjoy the Northwoods every year. 

Ryan's brother also got married this summer in Vermont, to a lovely woman who suits him well. This pic is Ryan's dad, sister, brother, and Ryan. Apparently I didn't get a good pic with the lovely bride!

And the kids started taking on more of the farm chores this summer as well (yay!). 

I think that's all the news that's fit to print for now!