Rose Prairie Quilts and Farm

I'm in Minnesota for the quilt show in Duluth this weekend and I had brought along my socks, which I am progressing very well on. I also brought a book that I am so excited about reading and that is Growing Older by Joan Dye Gussow  read more about it here I'm going to make this short because we need to set up our booth and get ready for the show starting tomorrow but I'll let you know more about this later.  I am so excited about this book, I loved her first book that I had read called This Organic Life. If you haven't had a chance to read it, you might want to give it a try if you're a gardener like me.

My slow Sunday will be a little gardening  and some quilting on my daughters quilt. Plus I will spend some time updating my blog.  I have neglected keeping up, so what  could be better on a slow  day  than to write. (and read)   check out who else is taking it slow at Kathy's Quilts

I have not gotten rid of that egg sucking varmint yet.  Here I thought that maybe we did. We have trapped a raccoon each night the traps have been out and the second one we trapped, I thought was surely it. Had the same coloring and size. But no the next day this is what I found. That night we trapped another one. With high hopes I thought now this is the one because the next day (yesterday) no eggs were eaten. Was I so wrong.  I went out to gather some eggs, had earlier this morning, and as  I got closer to the hen house I could hear a hen was cackling. They make that sound to announced she laid an egg but in the middle of her song it change. I could see a shadow of a varmint in the hen house. So I went back to get my 22 (close your eyes to that if you don't like) and headed back to the hen house. Well the noises were still happening, not like I'm getting hurt noises, just there is something in my house type noises. So I try to be as quiet as I could but the da

I wanted to give a short update to my lost of eggs. I had comments about that maybe it was one of the hens doing the crime and I have had that happen before. So I would go out to the hen house many times throughout the day to gather eggs instead of just a couple times a day like I have been doing, hoping that I would catch who was eating the eggs. Well low and behold I did. Wasn't any of the ideas of who I thought was the cause. Remember I thought it could be a possum due to no chickens  (other than Love Machine)  being killed.  Than with the responses to my last post on the chickens the thought of a hen doing the deed was a very good possibility. But no I was so wrong I got a glimpse of the thief leaving the house and escaping before I could do anything. Yes it's a raccoon.  Why no chickens have been harmed during these times I do not understand but I'm very grateful. So Ricky here will be caught and relocated to another place

This is the latest book I'm listening to. I read about this on another blog and thought it sounded like something I'd like. My dream for years and still is, is to some day hike the Appalachian or Pacific Crest Trail. I just downloaded the first part and I haven't started yet but today while sewing I'll listen. Book Description Publication Date:   June 1, 2012 A powerful, blazingly honest memoir: the story of an eleven-hundred-mile solo hike that broke down a young woman reeling from catastrophe “and built her back up again. At twenty-two, Cheryl Strayed thought she had lost everything. In the wake of her mother’s death, her family scattered and her own marriage was soon destroyed. Four years later, with nothing more to lose, she made the most impulsive decision of her life: to hike the Pacific Crest Trail from the Mojave Desert through California and Oregon to Washington State “and to do it alone. She had no experience as a lon

Since I had gotten home last week there has been a problem in the hen house. courtesy of backyard chickens  Something has been sucking out the egg and leaving the shell. Snakes would just eat the whole egg. So that leaves raccoons, skunks and possums. This is the first time for this to happen to me which is hard to believe. I thought I have seen it all.  No chickens were being hurt and this is happening during the day and no sign of who could be doing this, so I wasn't sure what I was dealing with. I'm thinking maybe a possum because no chickens were killed (they go for small chickens usually)  and its in the daytime. Raccoon are pretty much nocturnal and are killers. A skunk I think I would smell something.  So Saturday night I moved the new hens out to the hen house thinking that they would be fine. And to spare you any horrid thoughts they are fine.  But the old rooster aka  "Love Machine" was being the guardian of the hens he is and wouldn'

I bet that is what your thinking. What has happened to me, it's been 10 days since my last post and I have felt so lost in some respects because I haven't. I am home now (5 days) and it took a couple of days of just resting to get recharged for what I need to do around the farm to try to get catch up with the garden, yard, chickens and other odd jobs that were put on hold for the 3 weeks I was gone. We were lucky here where I live, did have tornadoes warnings but no sightings closer than 10 miles. Did receive rain and hail. Others again in our state and adjusting states were not. It has been a very beastly May and I pray for it to be over.  For what I have been up to has been mainly working outside in the veggie garden the past couple of days. Seeing how that is where a portion of our food comes from, that was priority over the yard and porch. I'll write about the garden later and the chickens. I haven't done much sewing the past month, other than the vest