Frost and Flannels

I'm glad I took some pictures of my flowers as some of them were hit hard by the -3 degrees of frost on Thursday night. These autumn joy sedums are tough though, and look just as nice today as they did before it froze. It's nice to have a flower that is at it's best in autumn, when so many others have reached their peak or are blackened by a frosty night. Sedums are hardy perennials and don't need a lot of water to survive a hot summer. Not a problem this year!

With the colder weather, I went back to putting flannel sheets on our bed. I actually keep them on year round in the basement bedrooms as it's usually cooler and sometimes on the damp side in those rooms. We've had a dehumidifier going in the family room and it's amazing how soon the water tank needs to be emptied.

No harvesting to report this week but we are hopeful things will change soon. Today is cloudy, cool, (11.4 degrees C at two o'clock) and the forecast is for much of the same this week, with chance of showers on a couple of the days. I picked in all the tomatoes and that was it for my garden this year, except for the asparagus which we enjoyed all spring. Our apples and chokecherries didn't produce this year. We think that the heavy rain and winds during blossom time were the cause of that. It's too bad we aren't grass eaters as that needed cutting every few days! We should have had some goats to take care of that problem.

We were a couple minutes late for the 8:30 service last Sunday but made it on time today. Good thing, as I was down for playing! It was cold in the church as there's a problem with the furnace. We always keep back some of our quilts in the spring in case some emergencies come up. Some of these quilts were handed out this morning to keep the congregation members warm!

Speaking of quilts, I actually sewed a top for Lutheran World Relief this week and have a second one almost done! I've had a box of 12 inch squares taking up space in my sewing area so it's time to get rid of this "clutter". The only way to do this is to get them sewn up and bring them to Trinity. Vi picked up several rolls of batting this week so we'll be all set to start quilting when January arrives. There are boxes of squares all cut and sorted into the various sizes at the church if anyone wants to take some home and work on. The men have cut a lot of fabric for us. It certainly makes quilting go a lot faster when the blocks are ready to sew. I like the 12 inch ones as you just need five squares across and seven down to make a quilt about 60" x 80", which is the size specified by LWR. I'll try to sew one every week and let you know how I'm doing. That might help keep me on task to reach this goal.

After service we had coffee in the WARM kitchen along with delicious apple muffins from Vi's kitchen. She said they were from the second Lutheran cookbook and I found them on page 54 -"Apple Cake Muffins". Those two cookbooks actually have titles but most of them don't even have covers left on them and are commonly referred to as "the first one or the second one". I bought a new, "Family Favourites Cookbook"(aka the first one) but am hesitant to use it as I don't even recognize my favourite recipes when they aren't marked up with spots of butter or batter!!

After coffee the Torquay Grannies practiced some songs for our Thanksgiving program on October 3 at 7:00 pm. Then two Grandpas, Bob and Howard, joined us and we worked on a couple quartettes. It works well to practise after service as it saves a special trip.

There are two very special birthdays coming up this week in our family. Clare will be 40 on Wednesday and Jodi catches up to him on Friday! I better get busy and bake a cake, probably a T shirt one with a big 40 made with Smarties or chocolate chips. Clare often spends his birthday in the field and I'm sure he's hoping to be able to do that this year.

Shauna's mom, Louise Rasmussen, will be in our thoughts and prayers this week as she faces cancer surgery in Regina on Wednesday. She has already had some chemo and it has worked well so we trust that this surgery will take care of it.

The Markentin family in Saskatoon is also in our thoughts and prayers as Morris' mother, Sharen Markentin, passed away this past week. Her funeral service is tomorrow.

Happy birthday to my cousin Esther (Moen) Gulbranson in East Grand Forks, Minnesota. We'll be thinking of you on Tuesday. Are you taking in Host Fest this year?

Belated birthday greetings to sister-in-law Judy Erickson at Frontier who celebrated last Friday. You will be looking forward to having Devan, Michelle and family closer with their upcoming move to Shaunavon from Redcliff, AB. Hope they soon find a suitable house there.

I think I've rambled on long enough so this will be it for this week. Hope to have a harvest report for you next week. Take care.