Rhubarb, anyone?

Dorry gave us a Rhubarb plant last year because Norris really likes it. We had just purchased one of our own, and had roots for two more in the mail. Those two aren't ready to harvest from yet, but the one from Dorry has the potential to keep several families in rhubarb for the year all by itself.


Cheryl was up on the deck to take the picture but please be certain that several of those leaves are chest high. This plant is probably enjoying one of the sunniest spots in the yard but is threatening to encroach on the landscape shrub and cilantro. The rhubarb plant we purchased (normal sized) is partly visible just to the left.

Native Stone

When we had our landscapers come and expand the wildflower meadow, clean up the yard and put in new mulch, we also had them move some rocks around. Cheryl thought the back yard would look more natural and less like a mulch desert with a few of the natural stones strewn about. We pointed out a few up the slope that might be nice - never anticipating the three men would find and move one like this -

We did not post its picture before this because there needed to be something in the picture for scale, and Lu was not cooperating with Cheryl's idea to pose him on the rock. The landscapers didn't pick it up more than to get it out of the hole they found it in - just rolled it downhill and then right over the rock wall. As a bonus, it has a lot of moss growing on it. We paid extra for rocks with moss that we had added to our Reston landscape.

The very large mountain laurel was a good investment we made with the original landscaping plan. It's been blooming like this for 10 days at the top of the stone stairs at the end of the driveway -

Thread Palette

Cheryl is quilting the Raffle Quilt for Quilters Unlimited, the Northern Virginia guild she's still a member of. Her friend Dorry was in charge of this year's quilt's construction. We'll post pictures of the full quilt when Cheryl's part is done - but for now, here are the thread colors. The quilt can be seen in the background on the quilting machine.

as we were saying...

The stairway between the house and the logging road is used by all our wildlife visitors. The computer sitting on the island in the kitchen affords a nice view, allowing us to keep track of who stops by, including this critter, just before we would be putting the sunflower seed feeder away for the night.

First, an attempt to climb the feeder pole.


Then we tried to see if climbing the tree would help -


Finally, we just gave up and shook the pole and cleaned up what was on the ground.



Pictures were taken through the screen of the porch - the camera automatically decided it needed the flash to help. Software helped put some of the color back in. The camera's flash did cause the little bandit to stare right at the photographer (second photo), but did not deter the pursuit of a snack.

Welcome quilt

Cheryl fixed the problem with the wrong-way hanging sleeve, then waited for a good day to take some photos outside. Finally here are some pictures of the finished quilt, Welcome to Chestnut Ridge, designed and pieced by Dorry, quilted by Cheryl

The full quilt, shaded so the colors come out more true to life.


This shot with shadows to show the border quilting.



The next picture shows the bear among the trees. She's walking along a stone path. The bear paw blocks (the brown and white blocks that surround the trees) are quilted with a fanciful version of the tulip poplar leaf on each "paw." These are the most plentiful trees on this slope right now. (Hardwoods will be replacing them slowly as the slope goes back to something more like its pre-logging state.)



There are various animal tracks in the white borders with the stone colored "flying geese" triangles: turkey, bear, squirrel, raccoon, bobcat, and deer. All the critters have been seen - or left tracks in case of the bear - on our property, and like the bear, they've been given a stony path to walk on. The animals here all make use of the logging road and the stairway we put in that leads to it from the house. This shows the bobcat tracks.



Similarly, the turkey tracks show up in this shot on the left.


In case you were wondering, the only real turkeys to be seen around here lately are males - Toms and Jakes. The hens are probably all laying and incubating. The laying takes 11-15 days, and incubating about 28 days.

The Coreopsis Meadow

Norris thought the pictures Cheryl took the other day did not show this meadow to its full glory. This was just taken, mid-afternoon with the sun shining

New Wildflower blossoms

This year, we went to the source - a retailer in Waynesville - for the wildflower seeds for the sunny meadow next to the house. They told us this year's mix is a little different from what they had last year, so we don't know what flowers we'll be seeing.


These flowers took off this week, creating a beautiful green and yellow view from our deck. They showed up in the same areas that were seeded last year, where we had the fantastic rudbeckia later in the season, and not in the newly cleared and seeded parts.



Cheryl is thinking this might be coreopsis. Any experienced gardeners should chime in with a correction!

Mid-May blooms

We are trying to landscape with mostly native species, so Cheryl chose an Iris Virginica L. in stead of a bearded Iris last fall. It has produced its first blossom today -

This iris is supposed to like damp areas, and we don't really have any except the culvert under the driveway. We planted it at the mouth of the drainage system, next to the dry stream bed and hope it likes it there.

Meanwhile, the two large Mountain Laurel at the lowest part of the property are just starting to look grand, while those above and behind the house are just promising to flower. Cheryl's Mom had not seen a Mountain Laurel in bloom until her last visit here, a year ago.



A closeup of the 10-petal flowers. They remind you of peppermints.

New Furniture

Our new family room furniture got delivered this morning. We've got a new sofa and chair to go with our new rug (the rustic coffee table stayed). The old green furniture is on its way to Habit for Humanity.

great day for quilt photography

Cheryl was up early and noted the lack of wind and favorable morning light and prepared to photograph the quilt she's been working on. (here's the back of it)





Well, yes, conditions were right but it was only after getting the quilt on the display rack it was obvious that Cheryl had sewn the hanging sleeve on the wrong side of the quilt - it's hanging upside down!

The odder thing is, today, the Blogger software today is also getting directions mixed up. There was another photo Cheryl wanted to use here that showed the trees behind the quilt, taken with the camera rotated. The rotation was changed in software before uploading, but for reasons of its own, Blogger keeps rotating the photos back to the original sideways view.

Until the sleeve comes off and is reapplied, here's a closeup of the raccoon tracks quilted in one of the borders -


And next is one of those sideways photos (it's been corrected and reloaded twice!). This one shows the quilt Cheryl is currently putting together, as pieces arranged on the design wall. (Some parts are over at the sewing machine.)

It is good to see a quilt layout through the camera like this - and it doesn't hurt that it's sideways. The camera allows more distance than the room allows, and now it's clear that a couple of these squares of Asian style prints need to change position to better balance the color distribution.

Incredible gardens

Yesterday, Cheryl's neighbor took her along on a neighborhood garden tour on the other side of Weaverville. The first garden we visited is tended by an Italian-born woman and her North Carolina-born husband. She said she had no garden growing up - she lived in the city.

Above is the view of the flower garden, taken from the upper driveway. The owner-wife is locally known for teaching Italian language and cooking classes. Right next to the house and driveway, not shown, are her extensive herb garden beds, but more herbs are tucked in among all the beds.

Below is an early-season look at the produce garden. The long row of plants under the hoops are strawberries. Just to the right you see garlic planted right among the lettuce, to ward off some of the pests.


Beyond the longs rows seen above was almost as much land devoted to berries - blackberries, blueberries and raspberries - and grapes. And just barely visible is an orchard of fruit trees including pears, peaches and plums.


The landscape at their house is completely different from our "Forest Preserve." They built on former pasture land so there were practically no existing trees, and yesterday it was very windy on their slope. They have lived there only 7 years. Their former home was a lot more like ours - completely shaded.

If all the gardens behind and around the house (not shown) weren't enough, they had extensive gardens in the front yard area - she called this little seating area her rock garden:

(the approach to their driveway is just visible lower left. Yes, the man of the house mows that slope - and that's not the worst one.)

Some distance away from the rock garden was a koi pond -



Just below the koi pond was a fire pit, not pictured. Cheryl took this photo standing next to a brush pile waiting for less windy conditions for a burn day. Bird houses and feeders were every where - but we saw no birds, and particularly missing given all the free food were chattering squirrels.


There was yet another seating area up by the greenhouse, and one under development below the driveway.

Here's a final shot of the flower garden, looking down from a vantage point near the greenhouse. These are peonies and irises.

The tour went to two neighboring yards, with equally beautiful - very different - gardens - but none as extensively cultivated as what these people have done.

small token

Cheryl just finished the last of the projects for hr mother's minister. He had purchased some vintage host cases covered with decorated fabric. He thought he would like pillows made from the fabric. There was a green one with an applied band and an off-white one with a turquoise embroidered cross.

Cheryl found a tapestry fabric to go with the three-dimensional surface of the cross. The off-white band on the green one was decorated with gold thread, and made a vertical stripe on the cover of the case. After removing all the stitching and cardboard, there was enough of the green fabric to cover a little more than half of a 16-inch pillow form on one side. The lining fabric built it up to a 16 inch square. There was only a small strip of the green fabric left. Cheryl stitched it with gold metallic thread to resemble that on the original off-white band.

update on Tina

Tina just a few minutes ago -


Cheryl has seen her mating with big males. Females lay 11-15 eggs, one a day. We've learned that the eggs incubate about four weeks and hatch together. Tina is still having trouble walking so we hope her feet get better before the poults appear. The hen is very vulnerable to predators while she incubates the eggs. The poults can start feeding themselves pretty quickly after they emerge, but if she gets them that far along, she will have to protect them from predators for the first couple of weeks.

spending Norris' money

We're waiting for new furniture for the great room to be delivered - we heard two weeks ago it's in the local warehouse. But not happy trying to pick a rug to go with it from a catalog we bought this - partially unrolled, sitting in the dining area)


Norris had to go to Northern Virginia on business. On most of his trips there, he acts as the Quilt Ferry, taking projects to and from Cheryl's quilting partner and friend Dorry. But this time, Dorry and family are heading to Georgia Tech for their son's graduation, so Cheryl traveled to a fabric store on their route to take care of the Quilt Exchange, and to spend some money while Norris is earning it.

These pillows are works in progress, but Norris should get a chance to see what's been going on here at home -

first photo is without flash, so the colors a re little more true to life -


This photo from another angle with flash so a little sharper for detail