Just realized I forgot to schedule a post for today!

We’ll be back tomorrow with a proper post!

Pure Beauty. Pure Burton.

Our temps shot up up again so the butterflies have been sticking around.

I suspect, warm weather or not, I think the Monarchs will be gone soon. But for now, they are filling up on the abundance of nectar in the yard.

There have been a few Red Admirals flitting about.

Like the Monarch, they migrate south – though not all the way to Mexico.

I’ve seen a few of these Checkered Skippers, but this is the first one I’ve captured this year.

And speaking of first time captures…

I give you the Mourning Cloak butterfly!

It’s a big one! Around the size of the monarch. And just look at that colour – especially those bright blue spots! Beautiful!

But the leaves are already changing, the warm weather won’t last forever. So we’ll enjoyed our beautiful visitors for as long as we can!

Sunday has come and gone and I have a quilt top to show for it!

Lemmy and I got started bright and early in the morning.

And by dinner time, Burton and I had a finished top, complete with three borders.

I’m very pleased with this one. Especially considering it came together pretty quickly.

I used almost all of the layer cake – just six squares were leftover. That green butterfly border was from the layer cake too. It didn’t work with the layout for the main blocks, but it was too pretty not to use. So I sliced it up and had just enough for a skinny border.

The stash yielded up this the most beautiful butterfly flannel for the back (seriously – could it be more perfect?) and I had just enough of that dark green for binding. And when I say just enough, I mean it. There was barely a sliver left when it was cut up. Sometimes, things just come together perfectly!

Now I have four tops, and a date set with Mom to get them quilted! Stay tuned!

Stitching hit a few hiccups this weekend.

Hiccup #1

Hiccup #2

Despite their dubious assistance…

I feel like I made decent progress. I was able to finish up the spider webs on the numbers, add in the orange bits, and finish up the section frame. And on top of that, I got a crow, a mouse and one witch foot done in the next section. This next section is the biggest/most complicated, so progress is probably going to slow a bit. That’s okay – I’m still loving it!

On the weekend, I was stitching on the porch, when I noticed there seemed to be heck of a lot of hummingbird activity in the yard. So I set down the needle and picked up the camera.

In actuality, it was only two hummingbirds. Both females. But they did NOT like each other. Hummingbirds are very territorial. I don’t know which one claims my yard, but there was a lot of scrapping going on. It was like a miniature warplane dogfight, occasionally punctuated by sword fights (they sure do put those long beaks to good use!)

Throughout it all, I was able to get some of the best pics of the year.

They are such fascinating little creatures.

I don’t think I will ever tire of taking picture of them.

I did manage to get a shot of the two combatants together, though it’s not quite in focus.

They just move too darn fast!

Our temps have shot up, so they might stick around for another week or two. But soon enough, the yard will be void of their antics. As least until next summer.

It’s the middle of September, but we’re still eating well from the garden.

We definitely have not got as many cucumbers as last year. But that’s ok – we had to give many of them away last year, so it’s not like we are going without this year.

Last year we were overrun with cucamelons, but this year I wonder if we’ll get many. There’s lots of flowers, but this is the biggest fruit so far.

Last year we were overrun with tomatoes. This year, I’d say it’s just about right. And those red ones on the right… that was a plant that seeded from last years. I dug it up and put it in a pot in late July. So it’s really just bonus fruit!

Thank you to Delighted Hands for the tip on when to pick peppers! These will be coming in soon! I think at least one may end up on a homemade pizza!

We’ve got all kinds of neat gourds and just two small white baby pumpkins. They will be nice for a fall display next month.

And… here’s a fun story. I planted two types of parsley – a plain parsley, and a fancy curly parsley. I planted them solely for the swallowtails, though I have snitched some of the plain parsley for cooking a couple times. Anyway, I explaining this to a neighbour the other day, noting that while I had caterpillars in the carrots, I didn’t see ANY in the parsley. She breeds guinea pigs, and said if I was looking for a home for the parsley (which had gone crazy) the pigs would be quite happy to take it off my hands!

A day or two later, she stopped by and we started cutting and bagging the curly parsley! And would you believe… we found no less than TWENTY black swallowtail caterpillars hiding in there!

We transferred them over to the carrots. There’s still half a bed full, so there’s more than enough there for them to eat (and plenty of carrots for us to harvest too!)

And last…

We’re still enjoying berries, and there’s still three melons left on the vine! There’s still plenty of summer to enjoy in mid-September!

Last Saturday, the weather was perfect. I spent the WHOLE day in the front yard; weeding, deadheading, and doing some long overdue tidying up. Dave was busy working on other things (as he usually as when I’m gardening) but that doesn’t mean I was alone.

Furby, my faithful gardening companion hung out with me for most of the day.

He dissapeared several times, but always came back to check on what I was up to.

And of course, inspect my work!

I don’t know how I ever got anything done in the garden without him!

By the time you read this, this little Marshmallow may already be home.

Two weeks have just flown by! I think she had a good time. As I noted before, she spent the majority of it in the catio.

And a good chunk of that time was spent trying to convince us to let her OUT of the catio.

I hope Bronson doesn’t have too much trouble keeping her inside after this.

And as for Lemmy…

It’s hard to say how much he will miss her.

I know I certainly will.

It’s been a while since I updated you on my Leader/Ender postage stamp quilt. It’s been over a year since I started sewing 2″ squares together. While working on my four patches on Sunday, I finally ran out of what I had cut up.

The giant ziploc bag I’ve been storing the two-patches is a little less than half full. It seemed like a good time to start sewing them into four patches.

We got a nice little stack completed while working on our blocks. Of course, we’re these are small, so we are going to need a lot more than that to make a decent sized quilt. I suspect it will be at least another six months or so before we have anywhere near enough!