Picture of the week ~ Roots

Stimpson Family Nature Reserve hike

We (my husband and I) set off to hike in an "often" hiked, walked and run "by us" locale today: Stimpson Family Nature Reserve. I've blogged about this area many times. Today in addition to the regular loops we did add a little exploration down a side spur trail off the Geneva pond trail. I took a lot of photos of trail side observances today and put the collection in a movie format. I hope you enjoy your armchair view of the trail as we saw it on our hike today.

*The video is just under 3 minutes long, you may want to click on it and watch it full screen.

https://youtu.be/GfC7wmG76ew

Garmin stats:

total miles hiked - 6.4 miles

total ascent - 935 feet

total descent - 938 feet

Mon Oeuvre ~ Good Fortune Mystery Quilt progress 3

After cutting and sewing a "frillion" (code word for many, many, as amounts aren't to be posted) half square triangles, it was time for pressing to the dark (fabric) side 😉 (quilting/star wars reference humor) & cutting off the dog ears & trimming to size.

My clue #2 "frillion" done!

*I'm calling anything over 100 a frillion.

Clue one and clue two.

Th clues for 1 - 5 have all been released, wondering if I'll catch up by the time the quilt is revealed in February.

This week’s colors were chosen from  the ceiling beams from the courtyard at the Temple of Heaven in China.

Picture of the week ~ Winter Solstice

The shortest day of the year

leads to the longest night of the year.

Please don't quiver in fear....instead let us look to the next days' cheer.

Fir Island birding

We had planned to be hiking at the Stimpson family nature reserve Thursday of this week, but we heard the weather forecast for high winds on Thursday and calm on Friday. We opted to go on an outing on Friday instead.

We really did have high winds in our area on Thursday. We had some damage to sections of our fence and our canoe went sailing over our neighbors fence. Exciting times for sure! We were thankful that our damage wasn't any worse. I looked at the past observations on the Intellicast weather site and found the recorded highest gusts before the storm let up. Our highest was 63 mph. You can read the other stats in the screenshot photo below.

We weren't sure about the tree debris that might be on the trail at Stimpson after the storm so we chose to go birding at Fir Island. The temperature today was quite a change after yesterday's high 50's. It was 41 degrees when we began our walk. I was glad I brought my layers, gloves and warm hat. The southeast breeze was chilly. There is a nice path to walk along the slough.

Great Blue Heron

Snow Geese overhead

We went in the bird viewing hut and spotted a Ruby-Crowned Kinglet. I tried to get a picture of it but it flew too fast for me.

Here's my great attempt. Tada! A blurry bird photo 😄

It was a very grey day and it made everything very subdued looking.

Rose hips along the way. We saw a Flicker and many Robins in the trees.

It was hunting season, so there were Safety zone areas signed along the way.

We took a right turn and headed out along another direction of the slough.

We saw a couple of Eagle nests and Eagles sitting in the old snags. Zoom in to see them more clearly.

As walked along towards the point the trail narrowed and the brush became more of a thicket along the way. There were Spotted Towhee here and there all along the path. 

 

Looking out at the sea of Cattails.

The path narrowed even more as we neared the point.

The end of the trail view. 

We lingered and enjoyed the view and reminisced about our past times on this trail.

On our walk back we saw a Northern Shrike. No photo but confirmed it's I.D. with my iPhone's ibird  PRO app and our Sibley's bird book.

I looked back and saw that the sky was beginning to get a slight sunset hue to it.

It was fitting that it was chilly and low light on this shortest day of the year.

Such a nice day and place to walk 4 miles and welcome in the Winter solstice.

*If you look at the photo below you'll see my ibird birding journal list, it includes a photo of the birds we saw.

Mon Oeuvre ~ Good Fortune Mystery Quilt progress 2

As I said in my progress 1 POST, I'm taking a more laid back approach this year on the mystery quilt. Clue 4 was released Friday and I just finished Clue 1. Hurray!!!!

I sewed my "many" four patches together (we aren't supposed to give out the amounts, it's a mystery remember😉). The center seams have been spun and the four patches are pressed.

TaDa!!

Picture of the week ~ Seattle Seahawks Super fan

Old dog - Great Dane/Mastiff mix

Picture of the week ~ Christmas light

Blog subscribe is now fixed

A little behind the scenes blog fixing was in order. It came to my attention that the "subscribe to my blog by email' link wasn't working. It has been fixed and the link is now active. I just needed to re-enter the code from feedburner into the widget. Hurray!! 

If you haven't subscribed it is an easy way to keep up with each new post. It will come directly to your email inbox.

*This won't affect those of you who are already subscribing to my blog.

Mon Oeuvre ~ Good Fortune Mystery Quilt progress 1

It's that time of year again. Quiltville's mystery Quilt is on!

Bonnie Hunter released the Introduction at the end of November with the Name of the quilt, the colors and the yardage amounts. This year I decided I wasn't going to obsess about getting each clue done quickly. I'm going to do it at my leisure and enjoy my time learning and creating.

These are the color's she chose, based on a trip she took to China in 2018.

The paint chip colors are from the Sherman Williams collection at Lowe's.

It took me awhile to pick out my fabric, I'm not going scrappy, my comfort level is more one fabric per color.

My fabrics with the paint chips and a Panda from China. My brother went to China several years ago and brought me home the Panda as a gift. ❤

New clues are published each Friday. I've done some of Clue 1 (red and white 4 patches) and Clue 2 (blue and white half square triangles).

Picture of the week ~ Beauty Berry

💜