Dahlias, slippers, and steak fry

The attempt to revive my blog continues! 

Fall is always a busy time on the farm, Ryan took two cows to the locker this last week and we have a batch of chickens out on the pasture along with our Thanksgiving turkeys. Weather has been good this fall for all of them; honestly with climate change it's getting harder and harder to raise poultry in the summer. June is hot more often than not anymore. 

I'm literally watching this little guy out my window as I type this up, as he wobbles around on new legs from being born this morning. It's a rainy day to enter the world, little calf!

The dahlias have been awesome this year, we ordered some bulbs from Old House Gardens and they've done beautifully. Dahlias are annuals here, although you can try to dig them up and replant them. I know Ryan will try. In the meantime, I've ordered some for next year already. ;-)

Under my needle this last week I finished a pair of slippers for H, which she's been begging for since July and I haven't wanted to tackle. I used this pattern, which was ok. I shortened it by 1.5" in both pieces to change it to a size 4 for her.

I lined them in minky, which makes them super soft inside, but I think is part of why I had trouble getting them to fit together. The minky is so thick I probably should make the top piece a bit larger to accommodate the bulk. The pattern is also a bit wonky, but is nice for how well it finishes seams. I'm also continuing to quilt the lake-and-sky quilt, which is super slow going. 

As it's early fall now, the kids had an impromptu dance session on the driveway while I sat in an Adirondack chair and watched the sunset. Simply lovely.

I also took the following pic when some friends and their kids were over Saturday afternoon last weekend:

I adore this picture because those three boys are sons of these three (oh so young-looking!) handsome guys:

Can you match the kid to the dad? None of the three are actually in the same order in both pictures! This is something I never had growing up - lifelong friends starting in elementary school, and I think it's completely awesome. 

Yesterday Ryan and I went to the Polk County Democrat Steak Fry. I've heard there were over 12,000 people there, and I believe it. It was crazy. I think all of the major democratic presidential candidates were there, as well as most of the "minor" ones. 

If you look closely, you might be able to see a podium in the background of that photo, in front of the giant Iowa flag! I don't have a candidate I'm supporting at this point, I really haven't made up my mind. There were a couple candidates (minor ones) that I'm definitely not supporting after hearing them yesterday. A couple were a total mess! Those ominous-looking rain clouds you see definitely did open up and pour right at the end of the event and on the last candidate speaking - poor guy. Based on the crowd reaction, I think the caucus in Iowa will come down to between Elizabeth Warren and Pete Buttigieg, but we will see. Iowa's famous for last-minute momentum. 

The steak was surprisingly good, even if it didn't come from our farm!

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!

New placemats, costumes, and completed hearth

As usual, life got away from me and so did the Fall. We had a very long warm Fall here, which is unusual but was generally welcome. Ryan has been starting the chicken building by pouring a concrete pad, I believe more on that can be found on his blog. He brought me in for some of the two-person work, like leveling out the top of the wet concrete.

 I hadn't ever done that before, it was interesting to do! Just add it to my list of "Skills I never thought I would have."

The 6-month-old calves tend to come investigate every time we're out there, they're very curious what we're doing in the hay lot. There was another one in the following picture as well, but I couldn't capture them all in the same shot. 

In September we went to the Apple Festival at Penoach Winery and tended a booth for the business. It was an OK day, but I'm not sure if we will do it again.

With Thanksgiving over recently, I was proud to get my turkey boiled down for stock already! I took a picture, primarily for posterity.

In sewing/quilting news, I went to upload pictures and discovered I've completed more than I thought I had in the last few months. I sewed myself a new laptop bag for work because the one I had was worn out and the one I could get from my company was just less interesting to me.

I lined it with some pretty pink fabric and edgestitched it in pink as well to add a personal and feminine touch.

I also finished a quilt from the scraps of my lone star Christmas quilt that is serving as a seasonal throw on my couch.

Also in quilting, I replaced the placemats that I made 6 years ago, and this time I made 16 of them!

They're a bit of a modern aesthetic and I also made matching napkins and a table runner.

Lastly, it was Halloween season and for the first year I really did it justice (in my opinion). H wanted to be Tinkerbell, which means she needed wings in addition to her costume. Here is the picture I found online that I used to base the wings on:

I did some work with a couple of wire coat hangers to get the basic shape:

Then I got some white tights and stretched them over the frame:

Then I tightened them up and sewed it in place, and attached some elastic:

The last step was to draw the swirly patterns on the back with silver puff paint that I had on hand.

I also made some shoe covers out of fleece and big white pom-poms. 

I picked fleece because I don't have to hem it and it has a bit of stretch to it. I also made both kids' costumes out of fleece. 

Z wanted to be Mario (the kid loves Mariokart if I haven't already mentioned it) so we bought the hat and the red sweatshirt and I made the overalls out of--you guessed it--more fleece. His mustache is a piece of felt taped on.

Ryan decided to also get into the fun with his blue Carhartts and a hat of his own. 

H has shown an interest in sewing, so she is sewing an Elsa dress from the movie Frozen for one of her dolls (with heavy help). I'm trying to get her to do as much on her own as she can, so here she is cutting out the pattern.

I also finished the hearth project that was mentioned a couple of blog posts back, and it looks awesome. I'm not sure when it will get a wood stove, but it will at some point.

I've been working a lot more than previously and took this mirror selfie on a business trip, so I thought I'd include it on this blog since I usually post about Ryan's work and not my own! ;-)

The kids are doing well in school, Z is enjoying Montessori. His spatial reasoning is especially good. 

I also failed to post first-day-of-school pictures, so here are some:

We all hope you have a happy early winter season, perhaps I'll get another post in before Christmas!