Inside our house the fall season is magical. An ear of corn is as big as a pumpkin,
bright leaves cascade down the doors,
palm trees shed Jack-o-lanterns as well as oak and maple leaves,
and purple bats hand around
with giant spiders.
Fall is definitely in the air here in southern Arizona.
Always fun at our house.
Louise and Duane
The Eagle was screaming to fly. To oblige him we took a day off from working to take our new friends, Kenny and Lisa, on one of our favorite bike rides. Kenny and Lisa arrived from Iowa last week to spend a year in Tonopah AZ at the Saddle Mountain RV Park. Kenny showed up one day to learn to play pickleball. He wearing a Harley-Davidson shirt, which prompted us to set up this ride.
With Kenny and Lisa in tow, we set off at 9 am on a 320 mile round trip ride up several mountains and across several valleys from Tonopah through Wickenburg, Yarnell, Prescott, and Jerome to Cottonwood and back, arriving home at 6:30 pm.
In addition to enjoying an interesting ride through beautiful scenery, my goal was to find what fall looks like in this corner of Arizona. In the lower elevations (1500-3000 feet) I discovered green from the recent heavy rains,
white cholla (choya),
red rocks.
Up higher (3000-7000 feet) I found some orange and yellow with a bit of red here and there,
and tan
and pink rocks.
At sunset everything turned orange.
We all enjoyed the whole day--the company, the ride and the scenery, and I especially appreciated the fall colors.
Back to work tomorrow.
Louise and Duane
Tonight’s sunset was a work stopper for me.
Left to right across the western sky
‘
Clouds hovering along the eastern horizon produced an equally beautiful moonrise.
Play time tomorrow.
Louise and Duane
Today while I was working on quilt squares, it suddenly dawned on me that we are almost at the end of October and I haven’t decorated our house for fall. I climbed the ladder for my decorations—window decals—and am ready to put them up tomorrow. Meantime I have finally gotten my square construction perfected and have picked up speed. Today I completed four squares. These squares complete 4 1/2 rows out of 9, which means that I’m 1/2 way done. More squares and ornaments tomorrow. Louise and Duane
When I was in high school, I was 5’ 2” tall and weighed 110 pounds. I wore a size 10 pants. Today I’m the same height, but four babies and 50 years later, I’m 15-20 pounds heavier. Oddly enough, my pants size actually went down. Now I wear a size 6!
Weird, huh?!
Louise and Duane
I have been talking about the quilt squares that I’ve been making, but have said that I won’t show until the recipient receives the finished quilt. Today, as I got back on track with my goal of making three squares a day, I thought that I might show the problems I have been trying to overcome without actually showing that the completed square looks like.
Each square consists in part of eight diamonds of alternating light and dark. This square is really flat and had all eight points meeting perfectly.
This square, which unfortunately represents most of the completed ones, doesn’t lie very flat and has some points and some flat ends mostly meeting in the middle.
Sigh. I’ll keep on trying. Maybe I’ll get a second perfect one!
Tomorrow, same stuff.
Louise and Duane
While we are waiting for our Ohio friends, Gene and Barbara to join us here at Saddle Mountain RV Park in Tonopah, AZ for the winter, our activities are pretty uniform. We practice pickleball (or Duane goes to Buckeye to play) in the mornings. Afternoons are devoted to chores like grocery shopping or laundry, or making Christmas presents. In the evenings, sometimes we work on projects and sometimes we take a break. When we opt to relax, Duane does stuff on computer and watches tv. I listen to tv (or turn it off) and work Sudoku puzzles and play with my adult dot to dot or color by number books.
This is a color by number.
Also in the evening we enjoy our sweet treat. We are presently eating ice cream with different toppings every night. First was plain vanilla, next night—blueberries, then hot fudge or chocolate syrup, whipped cream and a cherry. After that was bananas, and tonight was strawberries.
Tomorrow night, maybe we’ll have caramel.
Louise and Duane
The last time we were at the grocery I bought a tube of hamburger. After thinking about it for a couple of days, I decided to use it to make stuffed peppers, but kept forgetting and fixing something else. Yesterday, I had resolved to stuff the peppers, but forgot again. Later in the evening while I was half-listening to the news while I waited for the weather report, I managed to get most of a report of a nationwide outbreak of salmonella poisoning. The report warned that the suspected source of the outbreak was beef products made by JBS Beef. I went to the fridge to check and yes, my tube was made at JBS. At the end of the report the reporter said that the beef being recalled would have the EST code 267. Yep, there it was on my tube, which went from my hand to the trash. I was feeling lucky, grateful, and kind of scared at my close call.
If you have any suspect beef, don’t take any chances. The results of salmonella poisoning are pretty severe.Go online and check it out immediately. I just typed in bad beef and clicked on bad beef in Arizona. From there it’s easy to find out.
Good luck.
Louise and Duane
To make one quilt square, I use 4 square pieces, 4 triangular pieces, and eight diamond shaped pieces for a total of 16 pieces for each square. I have to make 54 squares for a grand total of 864 pieces. Each corner of each piece has to be precisely marked on each point where the seams come together so that I can sew each seam from from dot to dot with no overlap. That precision allows all the star points to meet perfectly and all of the edges to be aligned. That means I have to mark 60 points before I begin piecing a block together. When I’m done with all 54 blocks, I will have marked 3,240 points.
I was thinking about this as I marked pieces for the next few blocks. As I picked up each stack, I noticed that some of the stacks didn’t have squares and triangles. Because of these things, I didn’t get any blocks made today. I’m ready for some heavy duty sewing tomorrow, though!
Duane was busy, too. Each ornament he carves takes four steps. First he roughs out the general shape. Second, he carves out the shapes so that they are recognizable. Third, he puts in the final tiny details. Last, he puts on the paint and finish. He takes all the ornaments through one step at a time. Today he completed step two on ornament number 9.
Plugging away.
Louise and Duane
After more fiddling around trying to find a quicker way to make my quilt blocks, I finally decided to try making them backward. Being the contrary person that I am, I found that working from the outside in worked much better and, after a bit of trial and error, was much faster. Today I managed to make three blocks instead of two! None of them are perfect. They still don’t lay flat, but most of them are close and have the eight points meeting in the middle. I’ll take it. I won’t post a picture of them until the recipient sees the completed quilt. After that I’ll post a picture of a completed block and one of the completed quilt, but that won’t be for a couple of months.
I now have 8 blocks completed, only 46 more to go!
Louise and Duane
Lots of things going around today. This morning I started my rock tumbler spinning again. After that was going, we spun our wheels to Buckeye for some groceries.
This afternoon I started the ice cream maker turning while I spun the wheel on my sewing machine and accomplished my goal of two completed quilt blocks per day.
The blocks are ok. The ice cream is downright delicious!
Tonight—vanilla, tomorrow—???
Louise and Duane
After spending all afternoon fiddling with my newest quilt block, I finally figured out how to get it to lay flat and get all the points to meet! Since I can’t show it to you yet, just enjoy the sunset. Even when the clouds don’t light up with color, they are still beautiful.
Hiking in our future.
Louise and Duane
Another nice day here at Saddle Mountain RV Park in Tonopah, AZ., although after several nice cool days, we are getting back to the normal 90 degree daytime temps for this area this time of year.
We were joined at pickleball practice by Christine, a full-timer who winters here every year. After lunch Duane had the blahs and didn’t work on his carving. He took a nap. I worked on my quilt blocks. They are tricky and have to be assembled in the right order or the points won’t meet and they won’t lay flat. So far I’ve completed two. The first was very humpy with uneven points. The second was less so. The third—still in progress—is looking better. I figure that by the time I get to the last one, number 54, I’ll have it figured out. I plan to hide the imperfect ones in the quilting process. If that doesn’t work, they’ll go around the edges!
Workin’ it tomorrow too.
Louise and Duane
When there are no clouds we still have beautiful sunsets:
the western horizon glows orange
while the eastern turns purple and pink.
Sitting on my couch watching the color play every night is a tough job, but I’m up to it.
Hope you enjoy it too.
Louise and Duane
Back on track with my quilt project, today I started turning this pile of fabric pieces into 12” blocks. Duane detailed ornament number 9.
In the evening I relax with adult color by number or Sudoku. Duane amuses himself with computer stuff and
playing with his beard.
Isn’t it cute!
Amusing ourselves is not a problem.
Louise and Duane
After we practiced pickleball today Duane worked on an ornament while I made a concoction for lunch called Cock N Bull Stew. Years ago, Jonathan Winters, a nationally known comedian, a member of the Winters National Bank family (now a part of JP Morgan-Chase), and a native of Dayton, Ohio. During a visit to his home town, Winters shared this recipe with readers of the Dayton Daily News where my mom got the recipe. Now it’s readily available online. It isn’t complicated but takes some time to cook the beef, then add the chicken, then the vegetables. I didn’t have any steak sauce, so I used red wine. It is delicious. After lunch I had an attack of the blahs and goofed off instead of working on my next project.
Tomorrow’s another day.
Louise and Duane
Since we had to drive to Goodyear to get the oil changed in the truck, we decided to take care of some other chores while we were there.
Our old faucet didn’t swivel—totally wrong for a double sink—and was always loose and leaky.
This one works great.
Trying to find the right thread for Thor’s Hammer (see Another One Done blog), I suddenly realized that I needed to replenish my stock of thread. Mission accomplished.
Yep! Flu shots!
Town chores done, back to work on projects.
More rain predicted.
Louise and Duane
