Re-Foresting

Our little bit of earth has had a long and varied history. When the Farmboy first purchased it shortly before we started dating, parts of it had been logged and re-planted, but then left alone for several years. The result was a forest that needed a lot of our care and attention. In the past 18 years we've tackled everything from blackberry patches with stems the size of a cucumber to wild pests that like to eat fresh young trees to volunteer conifers that grow so thickly together they're like hedges, to pieces of land nearly impossible to reach without first building roads. It has been an adventure, and one that has seen its rewards (if not monetary, at least we have bragging rights!).

This Spring, we bought a parcel of bare root Douglas Fir seedlings to fill in some holes where we want a healthy forest to live again. The kids are now old enough to join in on the fun, much to their (insert sarcasm here) delight. Some day, we hope they'll be able to show their kids the trees they planted. I know that its rare anymore for properties to stay in families, but its our dream for our little bit of forest to be a place that our great-grandkids play one day.

This is what I wore for the occasion...
Don't judge. Camo and Plaid totally go together.

My camera has a little feature that turns a longer video into a shorter clip. I didn't choose the sections of video or the music, so I really can't take credit for how it turned out, but thought it was too perfect not to share.

For the Fun of It

Reading Styles

We all have a preference, don't we?

Some have readily made the switch to reading electronically without looking back.

Others will never, ever give up their love of turning pages.

I'm somewhere in the middle. I prefer pages, but have found that I fit a lot more book-reading into my life when I have the freedom of picking up my phone and flipping to the Kindle app no matter where I am. The result is that although I've always historically been a one-book-at-a-time person, I now usually have two going; one bound and with a cover, the other made up of pixels and light.

Scratch that, I usually have three going... we like to listen to audio books in the car.


My kids... well, pretty obvious where they fall. How about you?

My current books:
Bram Stoker's Dracula (this edition)
Marcus Sakey's Brilliance (via the Kindle app)
J.K. Rowling's Order of the Phoenix (audio book)

What she's reading:
C.S. Lewis's The Magician's Nephew

What he's reading:
J.K. Rowling's The Deathly Hallows

Kids Were Here

First Firepit

After last Summer's ban on fires (which started in late June), our firepit was extremely neglected and in need of an overhaul. The ground is sand, which means the weeds pull up rather easy, but also means that they germinate profusely. You could hardly tell where yard ended and sand begun.

I usually tackle this project manually, pulling the weeds by hand. But the severity of the weed problem required that I call in the big guns.

The farmboy rearranged some boulders and scraped the surface with his tractor bucket, helped rake it out, then left me to my devices to finish pulling all the unwelcome guests up by their roots.

Don't let the following photo fool you. These two are still pretty worthless when it comes to weeding. But I did make them return the wheelbarrow and tools to their homes once I was done. 

One sunburnt back (really? on April 2? guess I should know my complexion better by now.) and a collection of very tired and sore muscles later, she was returned to her former glory.

And with the promise of an evening that would remain unseasonably warm, we kicked back and enjoyed to our heart's content.

First Crush

I always want to remember her like this... new batch of freckles across her nose, both proud of her drawing and embarrassed to show that it is of "Legolus", who she loves with all 8 years of her heart.

We've been watching through the J.R.R. Tolkien movies, first the Hobbit trilogy, then the Lord of the Rings set. My three all know that I'm the local expert on all things Tolkien and regularly ask questions about whether or not something is in the books, or for clarification on what/why something is happening. I can hardly wait to read through the books with the kids (up next after we finish the Harry Potter series).

This girl was shocked and so, so, SO sad to find out that Legolas Greenleaf wasn't actually a character in The Hobbit. I like to think that if Tolkien had known about Orlando Bloom, he would have written him into every single one of his books, just to make the girls of America sigh with happiness.

As I tucked her into bed last night, she whispered and giggled in my ear that she also likes Aragorn. And just to make her laugh, I told her that I thought Gandalf was the most handsome. "Really?" she squealed, laughing until she had tears in her eyes. "But I thought you loved Daddy!"

Life is...

...a story. Every single one is worth the telling.

 

*NEW* Cross Stitch Nation

During my recent trip to Nashville for the yearly cross-stitch Market, I went to a writer’s round to hear some local songwriters performing their original music. I was able to meet them before the show (it was a very un-crowded venue, and one of the writers was a childhood friend). Apparently, they found the reason I was in town to be intriguing, because there was an impromptu rendition of one of their songs mid-way through the evening, that included a reference to the Cross Stitch Nation. I knew immediately that I needed to use that phrase in a design.

Consider this our very own stitched anthem, to be displayed proudly above your stitching chair or on your sewing room door:  I belong to the Cross Stitch Nation.

I realize that although I created a few different body types and hair colors, I didn’t represent the demographics of our nation very well in that all of the people have pale skin. Please feel free to customize one or all of the skin/hair combinations to reflect you and your local stitching group, or online stitching bffs. I did it that way to keep the color palette simple, but would love to see what variations you bring to your version of this design.


Stitch Count: 200 x 83
Model stitched with one thread over two
on Silkweaver 32ct. Wexford “Midas’ Touch”

Weeks Dye Works:
Charlotte’s Pink, Fathom, Red Rocks

The Gentle Art:
Endive, Lambswool, Mountain Mist, Mustard Seed, Picnic Basket

Classic Colorworks:
Eggshell, Hazelnut, Muddy Puddle

Conversion to DMC included,
as well as an alphabet and number set for customization.

The frame was found at a thrift store.

This design is now available in my etsy shop, and will soon be in the hands of my distributors and the shops on my auto-ship list. If you prefer to bypass etsy and order directly through me, you can send me an email: beth@heartstringsamplery.com

Lately

Grape Hyacinths, Spring Break, Easter celebrations, frost on the Daffodils, brilliant sunshine, blossoming orchards, a new handbag (much deserved, after lugging the last one for nearly six years), antique shopping, stitching, and all the regular things that somehow don't ever get photographed.

Life is good.

Life is...

...waking up an hour early to live an hour more.