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Back in February, I attended a weekend retreat of my quilt guild and made a table runner under the direction of our guest teacher, who also picked out the harmonious fabrics for it. Over the spring and summer, I hand-quilted it and finished it with a scalloped edge as the instructions called for, although the curved edge was a little tricky to do. It was my only finished entry for the biennial Flower Valley Quilt Show, which was held this weekend. Imagine my surprise when I arrived at the show this afternoon and my friends in quilting greeted me with smiles and said, "go look at your quilt!" 
As a result of the Viewer's Choice voting on Saturday, my little table runner (at lower right in this photo, with some of the competition) received the third place yellow ribbon. I was (and am) so pleased and a little humbled because the winners in all of the categories are some of the experts in our guild, whose work I have admired since I joined in 1990. To receive any prize at all is something I have never even imagined I would do.
On Saturday many friends outside of quilting visited the show, including my aerobics instructor and friends from the water exercise class. And I got another surprise when our friends Karen and Gary from Edwardsville called on a cell phone to get directions to the show. (I think they might have voted for my entry. Thanks, guys!) The quilt in the background here also got Karen's vote for full size quilts, although it didn't win a ribbon. There were over 100 quilts in that category and more than 300 quilts in the entire show. It was a full and fun weekend.
Our latest adventure was a trip to Sikeston, Mo., in the delta country. The area is known for its cotton and rice crops, and for a restaurant whose signs decorate Interstate Highways from Colorado to Texas and beyond.
We and our friend Mike took a drive in Gracie and arrived at Lambert's Cafe (a misnomer, since it's more like a cavern or a warehouse in size) in time for supper. The decor is early American license plate, hardwood benches, and all the "throwed" rolls you can catch. I'm smiling because I actually caught two of them (and dropped none)!
We were actually on a mission to attend the area assembly of our church (hence, my T-Shirt in the photo above.) After a restful night at the local Super 8, we found the First Christian Church easily. It seemed to us, with the red brick and steeple, to have something in common architecturally with Compton Heights.
It was a glorious day--clear, cool and calm.
Contrary to rumor, this is not Norm's harem, but part of the Compton "crew" that attended the assembly, plus our former student associate pastor, who graduated from seminary last spring. Inside, the sanctuary reminded us of Compton, too, from the arrangement of the windows to the kind of wood and finish on the pews. It was a good meeting, and we saw a lot of old friends from many churches.
One unique feature we noted about Sikeston as we were driving around, trying to find the church, was a pair of cotton fields almost in the middle of town on South Main Street. The smoke in the distance in this picture is from agricultural burning, something that irritated a few sets of city lungs.
As I was taking this close-up of the cotton, I kept hearing an old melody from the Sixties run through my head:
When I was a little bitty baby, my mama would rock me in the cradle, in those old, cotton fields back home...Finally, decades later, I actually got to see a cotton field, up close and personal.
Just this week, with the help of a fellow blogger, I've figured out how to embed links in my posts, both to other web sites as well as internally to earlier posts on my own blogs. For a right-brained person, this tecchie achievement is heady, indeed. So when you are reading a post and come across some words that are a color (usually a pink but on one of the blogs it is a blue) instead of black, that's a link. Clicking on it might take you to a picture, or an earlier post, or someone else's blog or web page. As my friend said, blog on!
We have enjoyed ruby-throated hummingbirds at our feeders since April, and this month we are seeing some migrating birds beginning to vie with the natives for a turn at the sugar solution. This female at left seems at ease and indeed spends some time each day preening and guarding her squatting rights outside the dining room window.
Trying to sneak up on a hummer to take its picture from inside the house is harder than it sounds. As I sat in a chair right at the window, this visiting female stretched her neck and peered at me, ready to fly at a moment's notice. She was probably also watching for a diving run by another hummer, since they defend the feeding sites pretty viciously, resembling small fighter jets in a dogfight.
From the dark markings on its head, I think this one is an immature male, possibly one that was fledged around here in late July, when the adult birds were busy filling up on nectar almost constantly. He was also trying to stake out territory, but another bird chased him away.
A little bit later, this young male or another one managed to perch and drink for a long time. Soon all of the hummingbirds will be migrating south to Mexico and Central America for the winter. They react to day length, so the presence of our feeders won't keep them here until it is too cold for them. The average date for their return in this area is the last week of March. We'll be ready for them!
An informative site about the migration of hummingbirds is run by a local bird bander in nearby Fenton, Mo. Check out Hummingbirds.net at this link.
Here's our newest set of wheels, a 2005 Dodge Grand Caravan that had about 21,5000 miles on it when we bought it on August 14 from Enterprise Leasing. After trying out various rentals this summer, we came back to a Chrysler Corp. minivan because it was the most comfortable and had the most room for the money. This one follows our two previous vans and keeps up our unbroken string of minivan ownership since 1986.
We took our new GC on its first road trip to Tulsa last month, and it performed extremely well. It has power features only dreamed of when we got our first Voyager: adjustable drivers' seat, rear vent openers, side door and liftgate power opener, etc. We can teach it to open our garage door, and it has a nifty "miles to empty" gauge that is extremely accurate! Both sets of rear seats fold down into the floor for cargo room. The middle seats are bucket style and comfortable. We feel fortunate to have 21st century wheels!
So, why and how did we name this van Gracie? Coming back from Tulsa, we tried all kinds of combinations. Since the car is silver, there were suggestions from friends such as Silver Fox, Hi Ho, etc. But then we realized that both of our burgundy vans had names unaffiliated with their color: Minnie and Vanna. So we asked, what can we do with Grand Caravan? We tried some "G" names: Gertrude, Griselda, etc. Then we tried "C" names: Charisse, Clarissa, etc. We tried wordplay: Caravanna. The we thought: GC. Gracie. And it stuck. So say hello to Gracie. We hope she'll be around, transporting us far and wide across the U.S. in comfort, for a long time to come!
One sure sign of September in these parts is the blooming of the wild star clematis vine that covers almost everything in sight. A few years ago we realized that the 'weed' sprouting out front on our slope was actually clematis, so we let it grow. It also drapes fences and bushes all through the village. Birds will eat the seeds in winter, and the frosty appearance of the blooms reminds us that snow might be only a few months away.
A summer bloomer that got a second wind around labor day is this plumbago, growing in a pot near the back porch. In August we thought it had finished its season, but it has surprised us with new buds and glorious, pure blue flowers. It's an annual, but we will look for more of this plant next year.
The lack of variety in this layout is due to my trying a shortcut and uploading all of my photos at once. Even though I specified "right, left, right" for the placement, I got this lineup. Lesson learned. But just before we took our quick trip to Tulsa, the goldfinch clan, which had been busy with nesting responsibilities, started bringing some of the new brood to the feeder outside our study window. On the left side, a youngster bends down to see if dad will get some thistle for him. Dad refused, and junior had to feed himself!
The last week of August, we made an un- scheduled trip to Tulsa because of a death in the family. Debi's mom, Mary Jane, passed on to the next life after a difficult 15 years with Alzheimer's disease. Norm led a service of celebration for Mary Jane's life, but the Raburn family really supplied the content in memorable ways. Here Mike, Debi, Norm and I are savoring this chance to be together, even if it was a sad occasion.
The clan of Raburns were all present to remember their mother, grand- mother and great- grand- mother. After a dinner at Cari's house, everyone gathered on the patio for a group photo. My cousin Mike has a big family now! Debi has written about her mother's life and their family on her blog, Debide's View.
During our time in Tulsa, we visited the Gilcrease Museum, founded on the collection of an early oilman who also was a native American. His home (left) is on the museum grounds and serves as an education center. The museum features mostly Western and Native American art, although we also saw an exhibit of drawings by Andrew Wyeth while we were there.
A stroll through the grounds revealed several lovely theme gardens. In the colonial garden, purple phlox were blooming and this tiger swallow butterfly was enjoying the food supply.
In some galleries, taking photos is forbidden, but items in the museum collection can be photographed. This gallery looks out on the Osage Hills and features the bronze sculpture, "End of the Trail." (The bronze belongs to the museum. Norm is merely visiting!)
On Sunday, August 26, we attended the final service at Rogers Heights Christian Church, Judi's home church in Tulsa. After 62 years, the congregation had dwindled to the point it could no longer continue, so the remaining members decided to give the property to the Oklahoma Christian Foundation. Judi's parents were charter members of this church and Judi was 3 when they started attending. There are more photos and memories on Thursday's Child. Clicking on this link will take you there. I've figured out how to add permalinks to my posts! Hooray!
On this trip we also had somewhat subdued celebrations of our 39th wedding anniversary and Norm's 69th birthday. Time does march on, and things do change.
Back in February, I attended a weekend retreat of my quilt guild and made a table runner under the direction of our guest teacher, who also picked out the harmonious fabrics for it. Over the spring and summer, I hand-quilted it and finished it with a scalloped edge as the instructions called for, although the curved edge was a little tricky to do. It was my only finished entry for the biennial Flower Valley Quilt Show, which was held this weekend. Imagine my surprise when I arrived at the show this afternoon and my friends in quilting greeted me with smiles and said, "go look at your quilt!" 
As a result of the Viewer's Choice voting on Saturday, my little table runner (at lower right in this photo, with some of the competition) received the third place yellow ribbon. I was (and am) so pleased and a little humbled because the winners in all of the categories are some of the experts in our guild, whose work I have admired since I joined in 1990. To receive any prize at all is something I have never even imagined I would do.
On Saturday many friends outside of quilting visited the show, including my aerobics instructor and friends from the water exercise class. And I got another surprise when our friends Karen and Gary from Edwardsville called on a cell phone to get directions to the show. (I think they might have voted for my entry. Thanks, guys!) The quilt in the background here also got Karen's vote for full size quilts, although it didn't win a ribbon. There were over 100 quilts in that category and more than 300 quilts in the entire show. It was a full and fun weekend.
