This is Danny, a big stuffed lion I have had as far back as my memory goes. Lately he's been a little deflated, I wish I had a before picture. Mari surprised me by adding more stuffing and stitching up some the holes in him. He looks properly regal again!
Mari taught a class on making fabric over styrofoam form Christmas trees at this years Sue Greer Fabric Circle. It seemed to be a big hit!
This handsome fella (or gal) was hanging out on the fence today. We're pretty sure it's a Cooper's Hawk since those are the most common around here.
Christmas goodness has arrived from over the sea! As great as the stuff inside is, F&M's packaging and art style is always such a fun mix of classy and whimsical.
And so, here we are. 5 days until the defining election of my life. We've thrown time, money, deep stress and a lot prayers at this thing. Let's hope, hope, hope for President Harris and Vice President Walz.
This year we had a herd of dinosaurs wandering the neighborhood. I wanted a better picture but you know dinosaurs, they never stay still when you want them to.
This year's meeting was held in a new room, but the events were the same as always. Hard to believe I've been to 14 of these things now. Time she do fly.
It's time once again for our yearly Policy Committee meeting, and the necessity to dress for said event. In a move I am extremely grateful for, this is year we were told ties are no longer required. Mari took this picture and did the color edit on her phone. Not bad for an old man.
In honor of upcoming Halloween, I give you the Dark Wolf Nebula.This celestial lycanthrope brought to you by the aptly named VLT in Northern Chile. VLT stands for Very Large Telescope.
We spied a new, striking butterfly on the bush today. We looked it up and he's called a Gulf Fritillary. The butterfly bush is a gift that keeps on giving.
Val Adams had another metal sculpture on display as well. I really like a lot of his work. He's a local artist and Air Force vet who runs many of Monthaven's "Healing Arts" programs, his focusing on veterans.
Living with a bunch of quilters I have learned a bit about the technique that go into it. While I liked the eagle quilt I know the center is just a panel, while from a skill standpoint this pieced quilt took far more time and effort.
The BBQ started with perfect weather but as the night went on got pretty cold, still I'd rather be cold than sweltering in the southern summer.
Biden put him down once, Harris will again and hopefully that will be the end of his shameful blip in American history.
Mari, Dad and I went to early vote today. The line was long but not ridiculously so and the time seemed to pass quickly with nice people around us and friendly poll workers. Most of them were probably Magats but it shows if you keep religion and politics out of most things people are just people. In the end it took about 2 hours to vote.
The old, original floor from 1998 plus the cheap parquet I put in are on the way out! Goodby gouges, scratches, sun bleaching and stains.
The house in shambles but for a very good reason, to be revealed tomorrow. So for now I have carved out this small and not very comfortable space to work in the guest room. #firstworldproblems.
Cult of the Lamb is a tongue in cheek game where you play a lamb who starts a cult and eventually becomes a god. You get to choose as you go how weird, kind, or dark your cult is. The cult building and action mechanics were fun at first but by the end had become repetitive I was ready to be finished. Still, I enjoyed by time in the cult so worth the effort.
At the end of the road there is a combination quilt store, bakery, and bait shop. You know, the usual. But the quilt shop portion was very nice and well stocked. Strangely around where we live there are no quilt stores. There used to be several but they all closed so now Mari and Dad have to get most stuff online. It'd be nice to have a place like this closer than a two hour drive.
Here's the Methodist Church where the quilt competition / display was held. Dad got a big red second place ribbon for his efforts. The winner was very traditional with a lot of applique so apparently that's what the judges liked.
Granville calls itself the Mayberry of Tennessee. They have some cars like the ones from the show as well as cutouts of various characters. This is arguably the largest building in town, which is usually a garage to display all the cars but was cleared out to become a temporary diner for the festival. In front was a full jazz band complete with two singers (one man, one woman) who preformed old-timey songs. They were pretty good!
Here's the other direction. One thing we did not expect to see in the middle of a tiny town in a deep red area was a booth for democrats! So we were pretty excited to see that. Note, there was zero noticeable MAGA presence.
I've been in a lot of small towns over the years but Granville has got to be the smallest. It's literally one street with a couple of buildings. Quaint and charming sure, but there just ain't a lot here.
Dad entered two quilts into the Granville, TN quilt competition this year and he took second place. So we're off to Granville to see his ribbon and collect his quilts. The drive was nice, and this is the view from where we parked.
I might have shared this before but I can't remember. Casie drew this for us years ago when all three girls were still around. Hard to believe we're alone now. Tara, Mystic and Mad. In our hearts forever.
Casie and John were kind enough to send us flowers in memory of Maddie. It's nice to know we have people in our lives who care so much, it makes life easier to handle.
This is an Indian wolf. The India kind of Indian not Native American. Just thought that was cool. Hard to get excited about much as we're still grieving Mad, but life will go on.
This is the last picture I took of Maddie. I wish it had been a little better but it is what it is. She had a difficult night last night where she just could not settle and kept whining. She wasn't in pain that we could tell or we would have rushed her to the emergency vet, but clearly was not well. About 4 am she finally started to rest, but in the morning she was barely responsive. It was time to let her go over the rainbow bridge. We will miss her so much.
Out in the middle of the yard, with nothing else around it, a brave dandelion shot up overnight. So I took a picture of it.
The 3rd edition of the Mafia series was by far the best. Solid story, great characters, excellent voice acting, and the open world was actually interesting this time. Definitely made getting the trio worth it. There is a fourth one in the works, after the first two I was leaning towards avoiding it but now I will take a look.
We've had a little froggy friend hanging out on our window. Using my normal camera lenses I couldn't get a close up shot of him. Mari had some clip on special lenses from a previous phone so I played with a few of them. This was the best result. Still not a great shot, but at least our amphibian neighbor will be remembered now.
It's sad that we were nervous to put this out, seeing as we live deep in MAGA country. We don't know if this will cause any trouble. When we put out Obama signs they got stolen. But after last night's stellar debate by Harris, and then Swift endorsing her, well you can't let the bullies win so we're putting out our yard signs!
The crew, '24. Muna, Christian, Nick, Me, Wes, Matt, Priya, Michael, Nathalie, Butch, Brandi, Amber, Gary H, Tracy, Janet, Joe, Gary P, Chris, Terry, Dan, David, Jerry. Missing: Will was sick, Edward and Emmanuel were at a conference.
