Where do the days go?

Can you believe that there are only 10 more days left until the end of June?  Yikes!  And today is the Summer Solstice and you know what happens soon after, right?  The days start to get shorter and before we know it, autumn will be here.  But that’s not a bad thing.

This morning, Mr. Painted Quilt and I moved the girls to the chicken coop in the barn.  This will now be their permanent residence as they have feathered out nicely and no longer need to be under the incandescent heat lamp.

Aren’t they getting big?

It took them about a minute to settle in and start exploring.  They seem to love it there and are not at all skittish. 

Since day one, whenever I approached them, I made a kind of chirping sound to announce my arrival so as not to alarm them.  I find that they  recognize me both by the sound and my physical appearance and are not afraid.

On the way back to the house from the barn, I had to do a quick tour of our ‘back yard’.  The flowering dogwood is now in full bloom and the pastel peachy-pink color of the petals is spectacular!

The roses are finally starting to open, in spite of the very dry spring we’ve had.

I try to water our veggie garden every day but because we’re on a well, we have to be prudent until we get a significant rainfall.  If we thought that a rain dance would help, we’d be boogying from now until sundown. 

Yesterday I received two piles of 6”  shirting charm squares from a swap that I participated in on Kathleen Tracey’s Small Quilt Talk board.  There are close to 100 different pieces of fabric and not one is repeated.  I love shirting fabric and can’t wait to use them in a future scrappy reproduction quilt.

And for the first time since November, I went back to my hooking group that meets every Tuesday at our local rug hooking shop.  It was great to see all the gals (and guy) again and it felt so good to get back at it.

I made some progress yesterday and of course Frankie had to check it out…

and gave it his 100% approval!

Yesterday must have been my lucky day because I also received my gifts from my swap partner Pam (no blog) in Connecticut.  I also joined in on a pincushion swap on the Jo Morton Stitchers list. 

Pam read on my blog that we had chickens so she appropriately made me a hen and matching egg pincushion(s).  Her work is exquisite and I’m thrilled to bits not only with the pincushions but also with the other wonderful goodies that she included.

After moving the girls and then doing a little bit of weeding in the gardens this morning, I came in and baked this blueberry pie for tonight’s dessert. 

Do you think we’ll be able to wait that long?