Mystery Solved--Really Quickly

Just checking in here to tell you all thanks for clearing up the Mystery of the Big Old Tree.

Thanks to your excellent input, I discovered that I'm the reluctant owner of a black walnut tree, planted there by an itinerant absent minded squirrel no doubt.

I found You Tube videos to teach me what to do next with the green pods, to wear gloves, and get the nut meats out with a hammer and a metal snips.  Labor intensive, but apparently well worth the trouble.  They only produce every other year, so keep that in mind, too.  All that drying takes a while anyway, and I have to figure out a way to dry them without having the cats rearranging them all over the house.

Thankfully, my tree isn't in a part of the yard that gets any traffic, but is in my lilac hedgerow near the alley, so I don't need to worry about the ankle roller aspect of having the nuts fall.  

Thank you all for your helpful information.  This is the first year this tree has borne nuts.  I'll keep you posted, I hope.  If I remember.

Oh, and Leanne, the video said that the outer skin stuff is very poisonous to horses and some other critters.  I know your animals don't wander in your yard, but just thought of that fact to pass along.

Solve my Mystery!

This morning as I poured the first and best cup of coffee of the day, I happened to notice the reddest sunrise I ever saw.  I mean, EVER!

Followed shortly thereafter by a whang-doodler of a thunderstorm.  It was of short duration, but of epic ferocity.

Red sky in the morning, sailors take warning?

Of course, all this wind and wildness is ripping down our leaves in short order.  But before it's too late, I need to pose a question to you all.

Can you identify this tree and it's "fruit"?

This a a volunteer tree which towers over my lilac hedge:

Looking like this from the ground.  The leaf pattern looks like this:

And for the first time this year it bore "fruit" which looks like this:

Help me out here, friends!  Is this a nut tree of some sort?

In the meantime, have a great weekend!

Productivity

I have spent the past few days sewing and quilting with my sisters.  We have also occasionally taken breaks to play Words With Friends, Candy Crush, answer e-mail, and walk the dog.

So, we have accomplished a great deal---often working on each other's projects.  I've been quilting and binding baby quilts for Sister Two, and she's been basting my bedspread sized, long neglected Words Quilt.  Sister Three has a batik collection and has her friends and relatives pick combinations for hexagon "flowers".  She has a great many of them pieced together now---about 44 she says----roughly enough to make a house cozy.  She can make a number of projects from the completed segments.

She works by hand, whereas I am doing the quilting and binding on the machine.  No "enjoy the process" on these projects.  Git er done!!  

We have the most wonderful place to work.  S #3 and her DH have a finished room in their basement with brilliant lighting, a fireplace, an entertainment system, a design wall, an elevated table for cutting fabric and basting.  It's dang near Heaven for quilters.

So that's what's been going on here for the past few days.

 I am in awe when I look at the calendar.  How did it get to be October already?  I used to chuckle when my parents would sound like a year had suddenly whooshed by in an instant.  And now I know what they were talking about.

Many of our trees are in full leaf  but maples are losing their leaves as soon as a breeze comes up.  My cats are busy all day watching red and orange leaves fly by the windows.  Such a busy lives cats lead.  We also have dozens of birds at our backyard feeders.  That helps to keep the cats interested in the happenings of the Great Outdoors.

I hope you are enjoying the autumn season wherever you are.  In some places the weather is finally cooling down to tolerable.   Nice to chat with you.  Come again.

Whew! That was Close!

I am falling off my chair laughing.  I just got a message telling me that thanks to someone's service---which I'm probably eager to pay for-----I have 30 new followers.

Heaven forbid!  That's way too much pressure for me!

I will give you a little update, though, as long as I came over here to check on my 30 new followers.

Good Guy and I just had a little touring adventure around Lake Superior, returning yesterday.  We had the best weather, clear and still, so we had great driving conditions and clear views of the scenery.  It's a perfect combo for families that argue about vacation destinations----woods? beaches? mountains?  hunting?  it's all right there.

Of course, I didn't inquire about hunting seasons or how much a license to hunt might cost---but apparently wild game is plentiful.  Though we didn't see any moose or caribou, there were hundreds of signs warning of their presence----possibly on the highway----likely at dusk or after dark.

Most impressive to me was the rock.  Roads are cut through great crags of stone and forests appear to appear out of solid sheer mountainside.  Of course, the Sea of Superior is ever present.  It is amazing that we could drive around it for the whole week, and it is still the same water we enjoy at my brother-in-law's summer place in the Keewenaw Peninsula in Michigan.

I also was impressed at the amount of recognition given to First Nation presence and history along the northern coast of the Lake.  We walked through one park where the signs were in English, French, and the Ojibwa language.

Once we got back across the border and into Minnesota, we left the shore at Silver Bay and headed west toward Ely, where my family spent some time during my growing up years.  There we spent an afternoon and evening with an old friend of my Mom's.  It was a high spot of the week for me.

Getting home is always great too.  So now the laundry is caught up again, and I've answered my e-mail, and life is returning to normal.  (Except for those pesky new followers.)

Also, by the way, the most beautiful leaf color we saw was along the south shore of the lake, and I must confess Michigan had the prettiest hardwoods in oranges, bright reds, and golds.  Just gorgeous!  You've got to love Fall!

Lightening Up

Over the Labor Day weekend, I vowed to organize my workroom. This task consisted of considerable sorting and pitching-------which is a recurring theme around here, but this was a major purge.

I won't bore you with all of it, but the most wrenching, but satisfying thing was getting rid of magazines.  I found the patterns I wanted to save, and I got rid of the rest of the magazine.  I can't believe how good it feels to be rid of them.  I gave away art supplies, presents that creeped me out, paper products, even fabric I'll never use.

That felt so good, I believe I will do some more.

Tomorrow ReStore is coming to relieve us of old furniture and appliances.  I am in no hurry to fill the house with new things either;  I am grateful to them for taking it away.

In an abrupt change of subject, have you ever read the Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society?  I have rarely read anything with such winning characters.  I have read it before and gave the book away, but just borrowed it from the digital library to reread it on my Nook.

It was nice to have an escape, while the government decides what is a proper response to the problems in Syria.  I don't pretend to know and that's enough to say.

Time to get going on the further adventures of throwing junk away.  Happy days are here again.

A Very Good Week

Once in a while, a person has a week of fun that they would like to put in a box and take it out to enjoy again during bleak days.

This was one such week, with Sister Next here to visit and share with us the wonders of her i Pad,  book club met, office lunch mates of old met for their monthly lunch together, and there were hours of yakking, knitting, and quilting with my sisters---and even an evening with The Daughter along for the ride.

In addition to that, the same daughter had her offer on a house accepted; a wonderful house that won't need any refurbishing, has a lovely large back yard, and is close to where she works.  I am so happy for her.

The weather has been rather too hot to suit me, but we are grateful for the air conditioning and the rain is welcome.  It is helping my zucchini grow to epic sizes-----and you know how welcome that is.  Did you ever "phone a friend" and ask them if they'd like a zucchini the size of a canoe?

Have a Happy long weekend!  And a productive school year as well.

A Woman's Prerogative

Yes, yes, I know I told you I wouldn't do this any more.  I was quite convinced it was the thing to do----sure that my life was so boring that I was doing the world at large a big favor by not blogging.  
But yesterday I looked back to see what was happening a year ago, and it was fun to read.  So, selfishly I'm doing this for myself.  Besides, sometimes it's just fun to write.

I have been using most of my creative energy on churning out a succession of baby quilts to send away to worthy causes.  I have lots to send---not all the result of my own industry, but my quilting friends gathered up their flannels and scraps and contributed a great many as well.

So I'll send a box off at the end of the month which will start the September tally for Bundles of Joy group on Ravelry.  The group sets a goal for each month and the 900 plus members knit or sew items that are sent to the OB ward at Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota.  (Nobody ever has to send anything.  We call ourselves a no stress, no guilt group.  However.....it's peer pressure at its finest!)  There's lots of encouragement and affirmation at work here.

Last week Good Guy and Brotherbob spent five days watching live sports in the Quad Cities while I visited an old friend and roommate at her home/cottage at the lake.  We had a nice lazy time of reading, knitting and visiting for a couple of days.  It was so peaceful and pleasant!

She has a wonderful sign on her porch which reads, "If You're Lucky Enough to Live at the Lake, You're Lucky Enough."  So true.

She and her husband retired there, winterizing and enlarging the original cabin, but she closes it up for the winter now and lives in town.  It's too remote for her to stay alone during the snowy months, now that she's alone. Anyway, I was happy to have the time to spend with her.

After a couple days of hot weather, we were overjoyed to have thunderstorms move through and bring us some cooler air.  We are very spoiled here and can hardly imagine what others of you are going through with weeks at a time of 90 and 100+ temperatures!

Be brave, bear up.  Keep the electricity bill paid so you don't expire in the heat!