bag worms - lots of 'em

When we moved here, there was a small weeping willow in this spot near the end of our driveway. It was a messy thing, never really healthy and hard to mow around.

 Eventually it died and we replaced it with some pricey little tree from the nursery up the road. That tree started declining in health as soon as we planted it in the ground, it finally died...so, I picked up this cheap and fast growing Thuja "Green Giant".    It was only about 3 feet tall when it was planted.

Just last week, I was noticing how tall and nicely shaped it was.  Then, the next time I noticed it,  the whole top was brown and nearly skeletonized!  What?

It is covered in bag worms!

Bag worms are the ones that look like little pine cones but if you keep  looking at them you will see them moving.

There are hundreds of them eating the leaves of my tree.  

I started pulling off all the ones I could reach and tossing them in a five gallon bucket.

When you disturb them, they close up their little cocoon.

I see you in there.

Then they will come out about half way to see what's going on.

Are they not hideous little things?

I pulled off all that I could reach. By then it was getting too dark to bother getting the ladder out to get those higher ones.

 

I do feel sort of bad about killing them. Their cocoons are little works of art...

But they shouldn't have chosen my tree!  These are ready for a cool bath with a bit of dishwashing liquid added to the water. (the soap helps them to sink instead of float)

If I can't reach them all I will have to spray some poison. I don't like doing that either but I want to save the tree.

garden veggies

Finally, I was able to pick some vegetables from our garden.

Two Japanese eggplants and two yellow squash.

I sauteed both together in a little butter and olive oil until they were just tender crisp.  I like a sprinkle of salt and parmesan cheese on mine.   

I also tried a chicken recipe...Chicken Marsala.  I really like it when I order it at Carrabba's, but I tried making it at home a few years ago and it was nothing like what was served at the restaurant.

 I wanted to try again.  The recipe is on the bottle of Marsala cooking wine that I bought at Kroger.  I'm sure real Marsala wine would taste a lot better.

Basically, you saute mushrooms in butter...

Add the Marsala, salt, pepper and parsley.

Saute the chicken breasts. The recipe said to pound them and lightly bread them - but I just sliced them in half to make two thin pieces from each.

Then pour the mushroom combination over the chicken and simmer for a few minutes until the sauce is reduced.   I added a teaspoon of chicken base to the sauce as well.

It was okay but not great.  I think it might be better without the Marsala...just chicken and mushrooms (and the side of brown rice - not shown).

Now, I have over half a bottle of the Marsala cooking wine left.  I will have to look for more recipes that I can use it with.

*** Edited one day later...my husband ate the leftover Chicken Marsala and said "Boy, this is really good".   Well, that's a surprise to me. I guess there won't be a problem using up the rest of the bottle, after all!

Whittles and vittles

Members of my quilt group, Mt Washington Quilting Bees, had a day scheduled to meet and carpool to Whittles, a discount fabric store in Smiths Grove, Kentucky.

It's over an hour away but the time passed fast because we were all talking.

The store looks small from the outside...

But inside, it's jammed with fabric!

There is so much fabric it's hard to make a decision!

Linda made her choices quickly.

I had made a list of what I needed to finish a couple of projects then headed to the clearance section first. I found a couple of things there...

But then, I had to get a cart as I found more and more pretty stuff. By the time I was ready to go to the cutting table I had this.....

But I changed my mind on 3 of the fabrics and put them back.  

Besides fabric, thread, and batting - they also sell cemetery floral arrangements. I think that was their original business and the fabric sales came later.

Jan, Charlotte and Shirley are looking them over while they wait for the rest of us to have our fabric cut.

That's a big rack of quilt patterns behind Joyce, Barbie and Nina.

Good and fast service. They had us all taken care of and then had the shop back in order before we were even out the door.

 

On the way back we were in a traffic jam for a long time.  We were starving when we finally made it to "Whistle Stop" in Glendale.

Good food and huge portions. Almost everyone had to ask for a "to go" box. 

We all had a nice time. On the way home one of the ladies was telling us about Montgomery, Indiana and the quilt shops and an Amish restaurant there.

We are going to bring it up at the next meeting and see if members of the group would be interested in making that our next day trip.

Sounds like fun to me!

screen porch sewing

The Sasquatch didn't get to replace the leaky hose on my Jeep over the weekend. The hose had to be ordered and wasn't in until Monday morning.

Since the leak wasn't too bad, I just picked up the hose and drove over to his house so he could work on it there. Easier anyway since his tools are there.

The part wasn't expensive and he had it repaired pretty quickly.

He also noticed a screw sticking in one of my tires.  He got his tire plug kit out but when he removed the screw, it was a short one and was barely in the rubber. No plug necessary.

When I got home, the screen porch looked so shady and inviting...I went in the house and gathered up a sewing machine and some supplies and set up out there to sew awhile.

Oh, and I made that enormous cup of iced coffee.  

I am trying to use that cup as much as possible. I bought a $5 lemonade in it at a county fair we went to and I want to get my money's worth out of it!

Below, is a "quilt block holder/folder".  Several of us in my Mt. Washington Quilting Bees group made these in a class at our last meeting. 

There are 3 flaps...2 of them have a stiff foam board sewn inside.

One flap has a flannel square sewn on it. You can set it up like a display board and use it to keep your pieces in order as you are sewing a quilt block.  The fabric clings to the flannel (unless the ceiling fan is on!) 

 Then you can fold your finished quilt blocks inside to keep them nice and neat between sewing sessions, or to take them to and from meetings.

While I was sewing, this deer came out of the woods to have some pears for an afternoon snack. I don't think he could see me inside the porch. He disappeared back into the trees when he'd had his fill.

It was a good way to spend a pleasant, non-humid, nice weather afternoon.

random Sunday stuff

Lonnie really likes his new grill and he wonders why he waited so long to replace the old one.
I asked him to cook out some hamburgers and cheeseburgers for Sunday dinner.

I had it easy...made black beans with ham, Crash Hot Potatoes, and southwest salad.
No Bake cookies for dessert.

I cooked the black beans using a bag of dried beans. Usually I use canned or jarred beans because it seems like I have trouble getting the dried beans cooked properly. 

They're either crunchy or mushy...nothing in between.  These came out okay.  I'm going to try the dry ones more often to see if I can improve.

The Sasquatch brought more cucumbers from his garden. A lot of them, but I might not get any more for awhile...he is going to be using them to start a crock of pickles working.

These are so much better than the cucumbers at the store! 

There were only three of us for dinner this week because Chopper went to a concert in Nashville and didn't get home until the wee hours of the morning. The concert lasted until late and there's an hour time difference.

He and some friends (that he's had since high school), went to see "Guns N' Roses", a band that was in their heyday when Chopper and friends were in middle school and high school.

Great that they could see them together all these years later!

He emailed me a couple of photos.

They had good seats close to the stage (it was in a big outdoor stadium), and there were large screens on each side with close-up of the musicians.  

They had a fun time!

unproductive garden

Our vegetable patch isn't giving us any thing to brag about.  

The tomato plants are sturdy and leafy but the tomatoes aren't even thinking about getting ripe.

I have a couple of Japanese eggplants that might be ready to pick soon.

Also yellow squash.  No zucchini yet. 

The green peppers are a lost cause. They have some sort of blight or something.

Disappointing so far but maybe things will improve.

Except for going down the road to a quilt group meeting, the Jeep has been staying in the driveway this week because it's leaking power steering fluid. I carried an extra bottle of it with me, in case it started leaking really bad.
It's only a hose that's leaking and the Sasquatch should be able to fix it this weekend.

My husband keeps telling me it's time for a new vehicle but I think this Jeep will keep going for a few years yet.  If it doesn't rust apart!

giving a lesson

My friend Dee asked if I would help her get started on learning to machine quilt.  I told her that I haven't had any real lessons on it myself, but that I'd help her with the basics.

We are both members of the Carzy Quilters group that meets at the extension office...so at first we had planned to get together on meeting night and work on it.
 But as I thought about it, I figured it might be better if we didn't have the distractions of being in a room with a lot of chatty quilters, so I invited her to come to my house and bring her machine.

We sat up in the dining room...

I helped Dee get her machine ready for quilting by dropping the feed dogs and putting the quilting foot on.  

Then I had her practice drawing quilting lines on paper.

After that, the only thing to do is start the machine and work on coordinating the movement of the quilt under the needle to how fast you are running the machine.

Then practice, practice, practice!

I had two little "quilt sandwiches" ready for her to practice with- which is a top, the batting layer, and a back.  I used old sheets and batting scraps for one.

The second one was a little doll quilt I had quickly put together from some scraps another friend gave me.   I sent this one home with Dee...telling her to pretend it was a real quilt and to do her very best work on it.  I will be anxious to see how she does! 

I learned something too. Dee had mentioned she would bring a can of spray basting.

It's a light weight aerosol adhesive that you can spray on the batting and it will hold the quilt sandwich together with no safety pinning.

We took everything outside and tried it out. It worked well and it really helped - not having to watch out for safety pins and remove them as you quilt.

A bit pricey though...about $13 per can,  for probably only enough to do one large quilt. I won't be using it but it's good to know about, anyway.