Walks continue, and I want to share a little quirk of Alvinston. At least, I think it’s a little quirky…

I mentioned before that Alvinston is a very small town – about 2,500 people. I suspect, looking at the houses and other buildings, that it was relatively prosperous until the late ’80s. Then it went the way of many small towns… the bigger cities around got the Walmarts and other big box stores, and little towns like these just died. There’s not a lot of industry out here, mostly agriculture.

But despite that… Alvinston has/had FIVE churches. Now… only two of them are still working as churches, but still that seems a lot of a town of this size, in a day and age where religious commitment is not what it once was.

Here are the two working churches.

The church on the left is a Presbyterian Church. The one on the right is the United Church of Canada. They are both quite large churches, which as I said, surprises me in a town this small.

The rest of the churches have all been converted to houses.

This one is on the main street coming into town. I don’t know if the house addition was built before or after it was converted to a residence. That addition is definitely modern. Above the main entrance, the stained glass says St. Matthew’s, and the limited research I’ve done tells me it was once a Catholic church and it closed as a church in 2007, so it’s possible the addition was built before.

The next residence was once a Baptist Church, and the little plaque at the top declares it to have been built in 1881. I couldn’t find any more information on it.

This last one, you saw a glimpse of already with the little bird church. It was called St. John’s and built in 1873, must have been the first church in Alvinston. (Evidenced also by the fact it is on Church Street). I’ve discovered it was an Anglican church, and it’s bell is now in a conservation area almost an hour south of here. It looks like the bell was moved in 1981. I’m not sure when the church stopped being a church.

I’m going to keep doing some digging. There’s a lot of history in this little town.

Before I get into this week’s stitching…

WHAT THE HELL MOTHER NATURE???? This was her Easter Monday treat for us! Now it’s supposed to be up to 18C/34F by Thursday, but I really could have done without seeing any more snow until November. I blame Dave – he siphoned the gas from the snow-blower this weekend, thinking he wouldn’t need it until next winter.

Sigh…

On to more enjoyable things…

With it being Easter weekend, I had plenty of time in the evenings to stitch away on my little Queen.

I’ve finished almost all of the flowers and vines on the right-hand side. I say almost, because there are five little stitches in the centre of that one rose that should be gold. But it seemed silly to cut a new thread for just five stitches. The left-hand side has a rose just like it, so I’ll wait until I do that one to do them both… and cut a new thread for just 10 stitches! Lol.

It’s been a few weeks since we’ve shown you any Blockhead progress, but we have two more blocks added to our collection

That brings our total to four, and both Burton and I think this quilt is looking pretty fab so far!

First, let me wish you all at Happy Easter! It’s a quiet one for us. Dave’s Grandma is back in the hospital (she fell again – nothing broken, but she’s bruised pretty good so they are keeping here there until she’s more steady). I’m hoping to get Dave out to do a little antiquing today, but it’s weather dependent.

Burton meanwhile, is having his own little Easter party, it seems…

This little carrot bag was a free pattern on Connecting Threads. I just couldn’t resist making one! I filled it full of chocolate, and will drop it off to Wren next time I’m down that way!

In the meantime, the nicer weather also naturally had me poking around the gardens, such as they are.

The bulb box had definitely made the most progress – especially the tulip section, as you can see above. It was time to get the protective screen off.

After I did that, I was able to get some pictures of this season’s very first blooms!

Pure little crocuses! I don’t have many of them, and at the townhouse, I never got to enjoy the blooms long before the buns got them. But I’m hoping to plants scads of them here. They are always such a cheerful thing to see!

Mother Nature has finally decided to slow the roller coaster, and allow us a chance to start comfortably tackling the jobs that need doing around the yard.

Back in the fall, when Dave was fixing the windows on my shed, he told me that the ground behind the shed was at least two-feet taller than the front. I figured it was just years of leaf-litter built up (In the summer, the space between the shed and back fence was impassible from Virginia Creeper vines.)

I told him I would take care of it in the spring… and boy…. am I regretting that now…

The picture does not detail the true horror of it. There’s some leaf litter, there – yes… but underneath it, there’s vines upon roots, upons vines, and MORE vines, all tangled together! But there’s also garbage… piles and piles of garbage. Not household garbage, at least, but so far, I’ve found a pile of plastic sheeting, rope and twine, chunks of old carpet, several cinder blocks, broken bits of wood and metal, and old metal plant stand (which unfortunately wasn’t salvageable), all buried under at least 30 years of composted leaves and such. I worked at it for a full afternoon and barely scratched the surface.

This was obviously the old homeowners’ dumping ground. Out of sight… out of mind kind of thing.

I’m hoping to get it all cleared out this weekend… but I told Dave, I’m not making any promises. It’s a much bigger job than I thought.

One small bright spot. I did uncover a little bit of buried treasure.

It’s to far gone to be used as a lantern ever again… but Dave’s going to clean it up and give it a paint job, and I think it will make a fabulous little garden decoration.

Fingers crossed there’s more treasures somewhere in all that dirt!

When you make it to Friday, but that’s as far as you’re getting!

Back when I had my little finished quilt parade, you might have noticed one missing… my gnome quilt.

I’d left it with Mom to work her magic on. I wanted some outlining on the panel, and she’s really good at free-handing that kind of stuff.

I told her she could leave the rest for me, or finish as she liked. She chose the latter option!!!

And it’s no surprise, she did an absolutely AMAZING job.

What an artist! I can’t wait to bring it home in a couple of weeks!!!!

I haven’t gotten out for a walk every day since last Wednesday, but I only missed a couple.

Here are a few of my favourite things from around town this week:

A house on our street has a butterfly house in their garden! And though it’s hard to tell, the currently dead bush beside it is a butterfly bush! I’m going to have to get pictures of this later in the season, because I bet it’s just beautiful in bloom!

Another house a few streets over is a converted church. I was just delighted by the juxtaposition of their little church birdhouse to their own churchy house!

And last, in front of the library, there’s a memorial for the young men of the area lost to the First World War. It’s not only a beautiful piece of scuplture, but a poignant reminder that the conflict reached far and wide, including little towns like ours.

Another weekend come and gone, and my little Tudor Bee continues to grow.

She got some honey comb, and her crown. And I completed most of the vines from which her flowers will grow. I think there’s only a few more weekends work left on this one! I’ll have to start thinking about what to stitch next!

April’s rainbow scrap challenge colour is pink! And instead of waiting until the end of the month like usual, I was able to dig deep in my scrap bins and get a good collection of pinks and bang this one out right away.

Burton couldn’t wait to help show it off…

Uh… Burton… we can’t see it if you’re standing on it…

That’s better. I think this one might be our favourite one yet!