Heavenly Father Sent Us Two Black Cows

Cutest, Toughest  Little Calf  Ever

I've always loved looking at the faces of cows. 

So when I was reading Ree Drummond's Blog and looking up a 

yummy recipe that I just had to have to cook for dinner.

 I stumbled upon this little guy. 

Adorable right?

That jogged my memory back in-time when we had just moved to 

Loomis California. 

It was a hundred years ago in 

about 1987. 

One night when we were kneeling down for family prayer my husband 

asked my little girl Amy if she would like to say the prayer.  

"Sure" she said. 

During the prayer she asked Heavenly Father to please send us 

some cows because they were so cute and 

their faces were so sweet. 

Of course I was thinking not a chance that would happen, 

Right? 

 In the middle of the night there was such a ruckus going on outside. 

Dogs were barking, coyotes were howling, 

the whole works. 

I couldn't see a thing out there it was so dark. 

We had no street lights, we lived in the country for pitty sake. 

Well low and behold the next morning standing in our front pasture were two

Big Black Angus girls.

Really

Honest 

No kidding

Unforgettable.

The End

Love, 

Grammy T.

Box Elder Bugs I Hate You!

Box Elder bugs

Really I do not like them at all.

Those things come like clock work every year. 

So here's the facts Mack.

The boxelder bug:

• likes to bask in the sun
• feeds on seed-bearing female boxelder trees, but also like maple and ash trees
• lays eggs on the trunks of these trees
• seeks shelter in cracks and crevices on buildings to survive winter seasons
• emerges in spring once temperatures are warmer, but will occasionally emerge earlier on sunny days
• choose the south and west sides of buildings to swarm to because they're the sunniest and warmest
• population is most abundant during hot, dry summers.
• poop on the windowsills inside of the house.
• crawl all over the floor and get stepped on and squished in the throw rugs. 
• fly around and land on the innocent and scare them to death. 

So what's the answer?

1. We need to close all cracks and crevices in our homes.

Oh OK, that will be easy.

2. Chop down all Box Elder trees and Maple trees in our yards. 

Oh OK, I'll do that tomorrow. 

3. Re-insulate our houses with TAP.

TAP is Thermal Acoustical Pest Control insulation is 

nothing short of awesome. 

 For areas in your house that you don't go 

into very often, like your attic, 

TAP will do the work for you.

Perfect because since it installs itself and 

works all by itself I'm set. 

Love, Grammy T. 

UFO - Did you say UFO?

  

 This is a UFO. It means Unfinished Object. Quilters have a tendency to see a lot of beautiful things they want to quilt and they don't finish everything they started. 

The rule for a UFO challenge at my quilt guild is that it has to be 
something in your stash and you don't need to buy anything for to finish. 

Or something like that. 

This is one of three UFO's I have to finish before Novembers meeting. 

I washed it so it would turn out old fashioned looking. 

And because it's a grandma quilt. 

I started with a pile of scrapes and just sewed a lot of 
pieces together until I had a 

12 1/2 by 12 1/2 block. 

Then I sewed all the blocks together to make a quilt top. 

I then layered the back which was popcorn minky 
and the batting 
which I pieced together from leftovers 
and then I put the quilt top on. 

I pinned it together. 

I will show you how I do that with the binder Clips 

on one of my next blog posts.

With these Frixion pens, that I ordered from Amazon, 

I marked the quilt top with designs.

They iron off with a warm steam iron. 

After I had the free motion quilting done I put on the binding. 
This is the walking foot that I use to do that. 


See the little blade on this walking foot, I  love it. 
It keeps me on the straight and narrow.


This is the stitching on the front of the quilt.

This picture shows you how the stitching shows up on that minky. 

The minky is really cute and cuddly. 

Here it is when I got the binding done and before I washed it. 

BTW, The Frixion pen washed out completely.

I'm not that good and I am a humble quilter but 
I love it.

Love, 
Grammy T.

I want the Lord to know I was really here ~ Marjory Hinckley

I don't want to drive up to the pearly gates in a shiny sports car, wearing beautifully, tailored clothes, my hair expertly coiffed, and with long, perfectly manicured fingernails.


I want to drive up in a station wagon that has mud on the wheels from taking kids to scout camp.

I want to be there with a smudge of peanut butter on my shirt from making sandwiches for a sick neighbors children.

I want to be there with a little dirt under my fingernails from helping to weed someone's garden.

I want to be there with children's sticky kisses on my cheeks and the tears of a friend on my shoulder.

I want the Lord to know I was really here and that I really lived.”

~ Marjory Pay Hinckley



Sister Hinckley was the cutest little lady wasn't she. 
I loved her to pieces, her parenting ideas and her ways were so special. 

Her kids were hers and nobody else had the right to keep them after school etc., she wanted them home with her. One time she marched to the school and told the teacher exactly that when one of her kids had been kept after school and she was missing them. 

She believed that her children should have time to lie on their backs and look at the clouds in the summer too. 

She would have been such a fun mom to have. 

Love, Grammy T. 

What fun memories do you have of being little and just having fun? Tell us below in the comments. 

I Hate Little Chicken Pens

I borrowed this picture from one of my favorite blogs,  Old Picture of the Day

 Yes, I hate little chicken pens because they are cruel. 
Yes, I said cruel. 

How would you like to live in such a tiny space. 

If I was a chicken and I was let out everyday to roam that would be one thing but 
to live in one of those tiny ones 24-7 is not happy. 

So here is a picture of a chicken pen as I remember them back in the day. 
You notice the size. 

My Nana and Papa Pillsbury, who lived in Sutter Creek CA. had a big pen except their pen was taller and had chicken wire on the top so the red tail hawks couldn't sweep down and get themselves a cheap chicken dinner. 

I loved walking barefoot in the pen because the soil felt so soft on my bare feet. It was soft because it was the ashes from my Papa's wood burning stove that was kept on his enclosed back porch. He would sit their and read the newspaper and relax. He needed to relax because he worked so hard for PG and E as an electrician. You know climbing poles, fixing downed lines and getting up at 2 in the morning when the storms took the power out. 

Anyway it was one of my favorite things to walk in that pen. Nana decided it could be dangerous to do because I could get a splinter from the unburned wood in my foot so I had to wear shoes in the pen.  

I loved her very much and she wasn't a wimpy, bossy kind of Nazi Grandma 
so I didn't argue a bit, out loud. 

But I still think it was the funnest thing ever to walk barefoot in those ashes. 

Chicken poop?
Who thought of chicken poop in those days.

There are lots of really cute chicken coops now days but make a bigger pen OK.  
 Don't be cruel. 

Love, Grammy T.