Now July

I had to show you a picture of my sunflower. The fences are six foot fences and this sunflower is that much higher than the fence. It was a volunteer. We grow comfrey in our flowerbeds. Since Ron has been going to school to be a Master Herbalist. We have more herbs than we did flowers or vegetables. Last year, Ron had read how healing the leaves are of comfrey for your garden. He picked off all of the brown leaves and buried them in our garden bed. We never gave it much more thought. Then this sunflower started growing and growing. Now it looks like this. I grew these at my other house, they are my favorite but they never got over six feet or so. So I am thinking there might be something to the health of your garden. Our orange trees have struggled since we planted them and now he has each one surrounded by comfrey and they are all growing like crazy and are healthier. 
 

I mentioned that we were painting the rooms because we were going to be carpeting the bedrooms. Everything got painted and then I decided my bedroom funiture needed to be painted. I started painting it last Wednesday. It was like everything a much bigger job than I thought it would be. Yesterday, Ron helped me to get the bed frame and the night stands all finished. We have the dresser to still do but that is going to be a bigger job and we ran out of paint. I had to order some more. I am using Amy Howard Miracle paint and I am in love with it. What nice paint. If I am not careful I could turn into a monster. I really enjoyed it and I was not expecting to, but my bedroom set turned out nice. No pictures yet of course. 

I don't know how well you can see that. My daughter Emilie drew this out for me years ago. This is going to be my next project. Its been awhile since I have done a chicken rug and I love doing chickens.

I think it will be fun. Every time I sit down I have been binding my mule rug. I have the last edge to bind today and then a very big job of steaming. It took quite a while to steam it when I did that first steaming. Then I will have met my goal of finishing it in July. 

 

Just an aside. On the 4th we met a man who was a veteran. We were talking how we didn't enjoy the Fourth of July fireworks like we used to because of all of the bombs people shoot off now. He told us that he really has a hard time because its so out of control now, that he feels like he is back in the war. It gives him flashbacks. I thought about that all day. When the bombs were going off I kept thinking about him. Then last night, on the 5th when the bombs were going off I thought about him again. Sometimes talking to someone, can change my perspective when I listen to life from another persons story. I think why I keep thinking about him, is the brokenness I could sense. Those chance encounters always give me pause. 

I will be moving furniture and all of the things in closets this week. Trying to find room for four bedrooms of furniture in the living room and kitchen and dining room. Then I have to move it all back. That is the fun part. When we moved in five years ago, I just moved in. I didn't really fix or do things because there were so many changes coming at us. It being 2020 and the crazy that brought. In 2021 our son moved in and all of the things that happened with his life. Now here we are in 2025 and I feel like I am finally living here and making this house ours. Life is always so full of twists and turns. Always none of it that I ever planned on or expected. But its all good. Because I never knew I could do the things I have done.

 I am kind of all over the place. I hope your next week is all that you would like it to be. 

~Kim~

"I think the smell of horses is the most exciting smell in the world. ---The Changeling, Zilpha Keatley Snyder, 1970 

 

 

Finshed the Rug

 I finished hooking my rug yesterday. It has been a good month for work. We finished painting our last bedroom on Friday. We painted four bedrooms. I have de-cluttered and cleaned and on May 10th we will get new carpet in those bedrooms and new baseboards. Our bedroom was so big and it was by far the hardest. It had been brown, so covering that was huge. The only thing left will be the master bathroom. It can wait. Yesterday I was so tired, but I had set my mind to be finished hooking the rug by July. My hands were sore from painting but not sore enough to hook. I sat down and decided I wasn't going to stop. It took me about three hours and then I thought, I am going to steam it. So I did.

Here it is. 

 

I don't know when I have hooked a rug so big so fast. I think it helps when you like what you are hooking, at least it is for me. I have done such smaller rugs that took me years, because I either didn't like the colors or I end up just hating the pattern. Or, I prefer hooking with wide strips, but the pattern has too many small fiddly shapes I have to stop can cut smaller strips by hand. 

 

Here is the original picture. As I look at the picture, it, it might have been nice to do it in Sepia colors. I didn't think of that until now looking at this. I really did enjoy it. Now to get it bound and the ship-lap above my fireplace painted so I can hang it.  

 

I am not going to even start another project until I get this bound. I am going to be doing some furniture painting projects next week, my bedroom set was my parents. They were so proud of it in 1960. It really needs some updating and I want to do it. We were moving the head and foot board into the spare bedroom before we  could paint and I told Ron, " I have been moving that bedroom set since I was seven years old." It was such a weird thought, my Mom loved rearranging furniture. She changed rooms in our house like people change clothes. My Dad remarked once," its a good thing I am not blind because I would be falling over funiture every time I get home." When I got about seven she thought I was big enough to help her move that bed. Its a king size and it was and is solid maple. Its heavy. When we got married, that bedroom set was in the guest bedroom in my Dad's house and I asked if I could have it. He gave it to me so its been mine for 45 years. Painting it seems like sacrilege but I am going to do it anyway. 

 

 

  

 

Here is something I read in a book while I was hooking. The book is called The Land Breakers by John Ehle. 

 

"He fastened the harness, which he had cut from the bearskin, which he, Verlin and Fate had tanned. He flicked a switch and the old horse moved, and he and Verlin and Fate lifted the plow and carried it up the hill to the field. "Whoa, here," he said, the horse stopped.

Lorry came to the door of the cabin and watched then. "How many rows you planning on making?" she asked.

"As many and we can fit in," he said, checking the harness. He and Verlin set the plow in place. He clicked his tongue at the horse, took the plow handles firmly in hand, and put his weight on the plow handles and weighted the blade, and the plow moved, the earth turned, the dark earth turned and the smell of the earth came into the air and the row opened to him and yielded to him and was ready. 

 

There is nothing to me as great as working with the land to plant and get ready and work with my husband. Its nice living here, but life was really so nice when we were out here playing in the dirt, dreaming dreams and planning. 

Having a tractor was really nice too. I hope your summer is a nice one. This has been nice for us. 

Thanks for reading and letting me share my rug pictures. I am very thankful to have this place to share what I have been doing. 

~Kim~

"Once I might have wished for that: never to grow old. But now I know that to stay young always is also not to change. And that is what life's all about---changes going on every minute, and you never know when something begins where it's going to take you."

---A Gathering of Days, Joan W. Blos, 1979

 

 

 

 

Moving Books

 I have spent two days moving books. I have been wondering about my sanity. Why on earth am I a book hoarder? Could I get rid of them? No, when we moved here I took 20 some odd boxes to the used book store. I hauled boxes to North Carolina, and Tucson. I left bookcases at the other house. She wanted to have a library like I had. I brought five book cases with me. They are stuffed with books. (Six boxes in one of the closets, I will have to move.)

One side of the room, this is the dining room now doubling as a library. 

The tall book case is Ron's for his office. A normal kind of bookcase. Mine are stacked books behind books.

My Anne of Green Gables set of books. I might rescue these if the house burned down. When my Mom died, and my Dad had remarried, I was really I think in a bad place. (I didn't know it of course.) The school librarian had worked for my Dad when I was five or six so she had known my birth Mom. We got to go to the school library every other Friday. It was the most favorite thing I did. After I had read all of the Nancy Drew's and I was at ends. She gave me Anne. I was enchanted. ( When Matthew died, is still one of the most traumatic things in my mind.) I didn't know there were others and the school library didn't have them. I credit that lady who knew more about my life than I suppose I did, she wouldn't let me get yukky books but would find books for me and put them on the end of her desk every other week. Now, I realize how much impact she had on my life and my character. She molded my mind. I always wondered if that was why I wanted six kids because Anne did.
 

These are jumbled but when I move them back, yes, after the paint and carpet, I will move them back. This is my hardback Little House books and my Mienert De Jong books. All of these I read out loud to the kids. I love that they read out loud to their kids now. When I bought those Anne books, I would have to talk and talk to get someone to take me to the book store. I worked in the summer for five dollars a week. It would take me awhile to save up and when I got enough money, then I would go buy another one. It took me almost a year. I remember when I went to go buy my first copy of Anne of Green Gables and I stood staring at the shelf and there was a whole series, I was just in shock. I think about it as I write this post, if it was me I would have bought them for my kids because it was something they loved. Not in my world, then I had to earn it. I wonder if that is why they mean so much to me now. 

I have been moving books, and cleaning and trying to find places to put things. They will re-carpet the closets. so I have to clean those out too. Its a good thing to do for now. All of this to say, I haven't hooked one single loop. 

Here is where I am as of today. I have my last strip of wool sitting here to be cut so I can finish, but I have to go buy food. I hate when life gets in the way don't you? 

 Just that tiny bit. I also had to order wool from Dorr. I had to wait for it to get here. Then I will hook a frame around the outside. I can't wait to get it steamed and hung. Then I have to go through that, what will be my next project? 

We only got one room finished last weekend. We hope to get two this weekend. Then the last will be the our room. Its going to feel so nice once its all done. 

Thanks for reading. I had all of these thoughts as I was moving books so its nice to get them out of my head. 

I hope you have a lovely day,

~Kim~ 

 

"Perhaps, after all, romance did not come into one's life with pomp and blare, like a gay knight riding down; perhaps it crept to one's side like and old friend through quiet ways." Anne of Avonlea,--- L.M. Montgomery, 1909

 

 

Odds and Ends

 Its early this morning. The sun isn't even up yet. We begin painting today. One of our son's was getting rid of old movies on his phone and he had taken a movie of this house the day we got the keys. We got to see all of the things we were going to change and haven't in five years! We were going to paint all of the house and get new carpet. But we didn't. There were other things that we had to do. We are now back on the trail now. Painting begins this morning. All four bedrooms. Then all new carpet. Then last of all, I am going to buy a new hooking chair. 

I won't even take a picture of my old hooking chair. I love my chair but it has seen better days, like maybe 10 years ago. My Mother-in-law got it at a yard sale in the 90s and then she sold it at a yard sale, and I bought it. It was old when she bought it. J.C. Penney used to sell them but its got harder and harder to find them. I finally had to admit, everything is worn out on it and when I am afraid for people to see it because its so ratty, maybe its time. Our son Peter just turned 30 and he said, I think you have had that ugly chair since before I was born. Time goes by fast doesn't it?

I don't know if Ron and I can do it, but we have great plans to paint two rooms today, and the smallest room tomorrow. Then next weekend the master. But you know that getting older thing right? So we will see.

I just thought I would check in, I am that close to getting my rug finished. I hope all of you have a lovely weekend, while I am here getting covered in paint. I can never figure out by the end of the day it will look like I rolled around in a paint can, and Ron will have no drips or anything. Same goes every time we work in the yard. He is spotlessly clean and I look like I dig ditches for a living. Sometimes things just don't change. 

~Kim~