How is it the first of August already? I know for many, COVID has made time crawl by, but I swear March was just last week.

I guess it’s because the virus really hasn’t changed a whole lot for me. I’m not overly social, and I already work from home. It’s made shopping a bit of a chore (I used to enjoy it, but not any more), but other than that, it really hasn’t altered my life. I count myself VERY lucky!

But, time is indeed marching on… I know it because the Black-Eyed Susans have started to bloom.

While they will still bloom for a couple months yet, to me they are  always as sign that we are on the downside of summer.

The coneflowers are still going strong

As are the butterflies that visit them

Tickseed, Bee Balm and Liatris are all in bloom.

We’ve also had our first harvest of sweet banana peppers and yellow beans. (And there’s lots more of both to come.) The pepper was cut up and put on homemade pizza, and the beans were boiled up and served with bbq chicken and corn-on-the-cob (I love summer eating!)

And I’ve made some small enhancements to the yard. Our local Dollarama didn’t have much left of summer yard stuff (can you believe they are stocking the aisles for Thanksgiving and Hallowe’en already!?!), but they had just four of these cute little solar lanterns left.

Four was the perfect number to grace each of the  posts in my back fence. (Two for each side.) They don’t cast a tonne of light, but they look nice when the sun goes down.

I found this slightly different style to hang on the empty post out back (the post originally held Winston and his hanging basket, but he’s now on my Welcome stand).

For out front I grabbed the last four of these neat torch style

I assumed they be blue/white LEDs like the others…. so imagine my surprise when I went out that night and saw this.

Orange! And what you can’t tell from the picture is that they flicker!!!! Just like real torches. Now I wish I could get more!

And last – I upgraded the hooks for my hanging baskets out back

The plain style I had has been replaced by this pretty curlycue. (I have one on each side). As you can see, my Nasturiums are happy.

Mr. Cardinal approves too!

First – thank you for your condolences on the loss of our baby butterfly. But nature is all about balance, and the world needs wasps too… so, what can you do? Either way, it was a pretty cool experience and I definitely learned several new facts!

Now… onto business!

I’ve decided to make a DIY birdbath for the garden (more on that later this week), and as I was playing around with some ideas, using things I had around the house, I came up with a little set up that used a flower pot, and old china bowl, and some lake rocks (because the bowl was deep and I didn’t want little birds to drown).

I set it in the garden, and sat back to wait to see which feathered beauties would come to bathe…

Hmmm … not quite the creature I was expecting.

I regret to inform you that I will not be able to share the magic of a Black Eastern Swallowtail butterfly emerging from its cocoon with you all.

I came out the other morning to discover this.

I thought at first maybe a bird had raided it – we have a robin’s nest full of babies in the tree behind us, and the parents have been working overtime to keep their brood fed.

But then I did some research…

We knew about parasitic wasps that attack the caterpillars when they are feeding, but we figured since it made it to chrysalis, we were safe. Sadly not. Apparently there is another parasitic wasp that lays it’s eggs on the caterpillar while he is building his cocoon. Then they get built inside with him, and eat him up when they hatch. The tear a hole in the side when they are ready to fly away. He was basically toast from the minute he stuck his butt to that stick.

So all this time, I thought I was raising one of these…

But I’ve really been raising a whole bunch of these…

Nature is a cruel mistress.

As planned, I got the dinosaur quilt completed on the weekend.

It always amazes me how “finished” a quilt looks once it’s quilted and bound. It’s not much different from the completed top – just some poof and squiggly lines, but it really brings it up a notch.

It finished out at about 63″ square – a lot bigger than the baby blanket I had originally planned. It would make a good lap quilt, or an extra layer for a twin bed. There are a lot of fun fabrics in the the dino “prints”, but I really love the flannel I found for the back.

Not only dinosaurs… but woolly mammoths and saber-tooth tigers too! (And such adorable tigers!)

 

While it may not seem like it, work on the barnyard cardigan has continued. I’m through the back and working on the last front. The fact that it’s all in one piece makes it hard to photograph, and it’s not really an exciting photo anyway.

Beside which, any time I set it down for more than five minutes, it ends up under a cat.

As you may recall, I like to support the good work Natalie does over at Bee Meadow Farmwhenever I can.

One of the big things I usually do is send her a box of crafted items for her Silent Auction at her yearly open house. Because of COVID, and  limits on gatherings, Natalie cancelled the open house. It was a big dissapointment, not only for the yearly visitors, but also for Natalie and all her critters – it’s her biggest fundraiser, so it’s big hit to her rescue efforts.

One of the things I was planning on sending her was Les Chats Fantastique.

Since she can’t have a silent auction for it, I thought, why not a raffle?

Details are on her facebook page.

The quilt measures 42″ x 52″. It’s made with 100% cotton prints for the front (all cat prints), 80/20 cotton/polyester batting, and 100% cotton flannel on the back. It’s machine washable and dryable. The raffle is open to Canadian and U.S residents, and I’m covering the cost of shipping to the winner.

Raffle closes Sunday, August 9th!

So if you can, please spare a little to help out Natalie and her foster kitties! You may even get lucky and get a quilt out of it!

 

On any normal day, Dave and I are woken not by an alarm clock,  but the gentle, yet insistent purring of a 15 lb floof monster crushing our chests.

But the other morning, I awoke, and Burton was no where to be seen. Rupert and Relic were in their usual positions on the blanket box at the end of the bed. But Burton was nowhere in sight. It could only mean one thing…

We had visitors at the breakfast bar.

By the time I got downstairs, the peanuts I’d put out the night before were long gone. All the diners scampered off when I went out to serve up more. But it didn’t take them long to find their way back.

We spent a good hour at least watching this pair alternate. Both opted for take-out, which is fine with me – less mess to clean up when they are done!

Fun fact: Both of these little guys are Eastern Grey Squirrels,despite the fact that one is black.

Once the breakfast bar closed for the morning, there were some dramatics over the lack of service…

…but I promised them there would be a dinner service and all was well.

When people ask me about attracting butterflies to their garden, my number one recommendation is to plant coneflowers. In this day and age, a lot of plants at the nursuries are marketed a “pollinator-friendly” and usually have a picture of a butterfly on them. But there are many, many types of pollinators (bees, wasps, hover flies…). They are all good, and by all means, plant things that attract them, but if you want butterflies, I’ve found there’s nothing better than coneflowers.

Monarch’s do need milkweed (it’s the only place they lay their eggs) but when it comes to snack time, they love a good coneflower.

This Black Eastern Swallowtail spent a good half hour checking out each one of the coneflower blooms in my backyard the other day.

Another one came by a day later. He was missing half his wing, but it didn’t stop him from getting some good eats.

This little one came by a day or two after that. She was about half the size of the others, and was hard to photograph because she would NOT stop fanning her wings!

Part of me believes she’s the caterpillar that got away – though there’s absolutely no way to know.

And last… the coneflowers are even interesting to the White Cabbage butterflies.

They are probably the most ubiquitous butterfly in our garden. At any given moment there’s at least one fluttering about. But they are notoriously hard to photograph because they rarely sit still!

This fall, I’m planning a it of a revamp on the gardens, and if there’s any room in them come spring, I’m planting more coneflowers!

I just don’t understand….

how something so chonky…

…can be so darn flexible!

This one is not my FO, but I just had to share – mom finished her sampler quilt with all the fancy quilting!

She was unsure when I first suggested using the dark grey grunge for the sashing and borders. But by the end she was absolutely convinced. Much like on my rainbow cabins, that dark grey makes all her solid colours pop. Especially on those border geese.

I also offered up this beautiful songbird fabric for the back. I got it for a steal off the clearance table and had no plans for it. Obviously it was just waiting to be part of this project – the colours couldn’t match better!

For the binding, I convinced her that the leftovers from the back of my Spin Me Right Round quilt would work. There was plenty left, so I was happy they could go to good use.

And while my ability to put together fabrics definitely contributed to this quilt – the REALLY amazing part is the quilting

Every single one of those blocks is different! Some of it’s freehand, some of it’s done with rulers. All of it’s incredible. That mother of mine really is a wizard with thread! I better get my blocks finished so she can work her magic again!