I'M SEEING DOTS BEFORE MY EYES!

Fabricland has a 50% sale on this weekend for members, so I went this morning and bought these dots. I just love dots and I am already planning what I will do with them!

The shop was packed and they didn't have the quilting thread that I wanted which would have been 50% off and they back ordered it for me! I was so pleased with their courtesy.

While I was shopping I also managed to find the current Better Homes quilting book. $10.00 plus for the little sucker! I am going to check and see if I can get a lot of the contents online. I kept thinking what fabrics I could have bought for that amount. Yeah I love the magazine, but, it's a big price with the taxes and all.

I also made a huge goof while supposedly adding to my blogger list and made a mistake and then to make matters worse, I deleted all my list! I am going to spend a lot of time over the next few days and add everyone back. Don't ask me how I did it, but I did. I, believe it or not have done this before, and vowed to be more careful, and just did it again! What a goof I am.

The doctor gave me a clean bill of health regarding my little skin cancer thing and said it looked well on its way to full recovery without leaving a scar. As if I really cared, however am glad it's looking good. It's only because it was so itchy that I had him look at it, so he's a good guy today in my books.

I am off to quilt for the day even though it is sunny out and it's truly feeling like spring. There are a group of boys of all ages in the park playing basketball. It's a sure sign when that happens.

Have a great weekend.

SPRING WISHES

See that little purple flower on the left? Well if you look closely, you will see a little hummer with his whole head in the flower just sucking away on the nectar of the plant.

I don't know what the flower is called, am sure Kelly will give me the name when she reads this, but what ever it is, my little hummers just love it. So when I buy my hanging baskets in the spring, I make sure that the flowers will attract and feed the little beasts.

Hummingbirds are describes as the only bird who always appears to be pissed off at the world. They take on crows for goodness sake! They can also be really noisey and when the male decides he wants to take over a feeder, he is fierce in protecting it. I sometimes, because I am bigger will remove the feeder for a few days and move it to another location to really tic him off.

The females will share with other females, no problem and when they are bringing their young to the feeders will even share the same holes with them. One can always tell the young as they are a bit clumsy when approaching and will sometimes end up a bit upside down as they have a wonky landing.

Usually at the cottage they arrive, if the weather has been warm, by May 8th, which is our anniversary and usually just a few days into moving in, so our dinner is always simple of hotdogs and beans, as that was all we had that first year of being there at that time. Traditions die hard!
I do add the salads and wine though and as we wait for the little critters to appear.


The photo on the left wasn't taken by me, but appeared in Cottage Life a couple of years ago and when I saw this, I thought I had to have the flower. Echineca, oh well I have that already in a few colours to enhance the bed. But because I have the bee balm, they don't go there that often.

In the spring when the birds arrive, the will also eat the little spiders. I didn't know this till I saw it last year. We learn all the time the connection between the hummers and the spiders as the hummers use the spider threads to make their nests. By the way the size of an egg is about the size of a pea. There are lots of sites on the web to have a look at them because what I know about this little bird is about the size of a pea!

In the summer, when the females are nesting, we only see them at dawn and dusk mainly to feed like crazy and back to their nests. When it's very hot, I water the flowers and make sure the water sprinkles the hemlock which is where hummers like to sit and watch and when I water they will go crazy bathing. The actually try to turn themselves upside down! So funny.


I am still in a bit of a funk about quilting....It may be because I really need to finish that quilt I started and move on. My sweetie is off to Martinsville, Virginia for the Nascar race this weekend and he leaves this afternoon. Maybe I will get sewing when I am on my own.

Being Canadian, I cannot but talk of the weather here in Ontario. It's about 50 degrees today and it was great walking the dog this morning. But I was thinking of Manitoba and North Dakota having to endure the flooding and watching the areas affected struggle to contain water makes me think that when people come together for a common cause....well they can do anything.

THE BIG BUNKIE

When one first enters the "big bunkie" as it's known, even though we have tried to rename it over the years, it's still called the new bunkie or the big bunkie. It's 14 X 16 ft and with the large picture window and high ceilings, it's very airy compared to the little bunkie.





It also faces the lake as you can see from yesterday's photo of our site, but it's back a bit in the woods and is very private. I couldn't find an up close of the exterior, however it does have a small deck for sitting on, but almost everyone goes to the deck at the main cottage.


We put in the laminate flooring here, but painted the little bunkie floor because it just suited it. The floor is the same as the main cottage. As much as the interior is very simple and woodsy, we haven't been able to give it the appeal of the little bunkie. So mostly it's adults that come to visit that have a place of their own with lots of ventillation. Although this past fall when the teens were up, we put them there, as they stay up later than us and they were away from the old folks.

I've thought often of whitewashing the walls to give it a cottage feel.Now that I have quilts, hanging a couple on the walls might make it more cottagey, but the kids just love using them for coziness. Each original sleeping spot has a light so that one can read before sleep time. We did this as all the kids read and we encourage it all the time at the cottage.

Our neighbours Bob and Mary have more or less claimed this bunkie as theirs as they come often so Mary just calls it "my bunkie". We are thinking of putting in a 2 piece bathroom in there. If it happens, I will post it for sure...lots of planning is in the works.

When we built this, it was because our family is quite large and on weekends with kids bringing their friends, we can be in the teens for the weekends, so we were pressed for room to say the least. For a couple of years we had the girls, all 6 of them camping out on the deck in a large tent that one of our sons had. It was a tight fit, but they loved it. And of course there wasn't much room on the deck with a 10 x 10ft tent up there. So we built the big bunkie.


Beside the bunkie and a bit further up the hill is my sweetie's workshop which is known as the Home Depot of Long Island as we have lots of "stuff" packed in there. Any one may borrow what we have, but, they must return as soon as possible in case of someone else's needs. It works quite well. The workshop is the size of the big bunkie and has a garage door so that all the equipment for sawing etc is done outside on its deck.


Yeah, that's the name of our island, and we live in a village called Brooklin, isn't that something? Talk about Karma!

Of course we have a large septic bed and it has all the perennial flowers I can put on it and even annual cosmos because I like how they bend in the breezes and add their delicate foliages to the garden there. I have not had much success with sun flowers, but maybe this year will be different.

I think I have posted the main cottage before, but I may find some new photos to share as I continue my yearning for this wonderful place. It's a very simple cottage, not fancy as you can see from the above photos, but we have made it homey and welcoming for all that come!

THE COTTAGE

I didn't know whether to post our cottage aerial photo that was taken by one of our friends flying over the area and photographed our little place on the lake. It turned out so well that he sent it to us

The little bunkie on the left of the photo is the place where almost everyone wants to be because it's so close to the lake. It measure 10X18 ft and has a queen size bed in it and a set of bunks that are cot size only 32" wide because we couldn't have fit anything larger in the space.

Here is the inside of the bunkie. It holds all our wet suits, skis, ropes and also has the beer fridge in it which doesn't show. the fridge is in a cubby hole in the wall so that we could hold the beds etc.

Over the years this cottage has held as many as 8-10 people of various sizes. We would put all the little bodies on the floor in sleeping bags on top of our lounging mattresses. Adults usually slept on the "big bed" which is to say Kelly and my daughter in law Kate being the major sleepers there with as many kids as the bunkie could hold. It was there that a 13" tv held their attention when the kids were little. Many many ghost stories have been told in this little cabin with about 6 kids always huddled on the bed as Nana told the scariest stories she could make up.

Beware of anybody having to get up in the night and move around the bodies. One night Jeremy and Eric were sleeping on the top bunk, which had a guard on it so that they wouldn't fall out and Jeremy actually slid, with his bag off the back end of the bunk, but because there was so many bags on the end table he just slid to the end of the little cot that was put at the end of the bed and didn't even wake up!

Yes, many great stories have been made in that little bunkie. I just thought I would post this as our cottage season is nearing and I am getting anxious to be there.

I just couldn't get in the mood for quilting, sewing, or doing much else, it must be spring fever.

Maybe tomorrow I'll feel up to it.

DO YOU HAVE THIS FLOWER IN YOUR GARDEN

This is my favorite flower. Monarda or bee balm as it is commonly known. The reason I like this flower is, it's a perennial and the hummingbirds go crazy flitting from flower to flower all summer long. It blooms forever and even though it can get mildew on it, the flower still blooms.

When we return to the cottage next month, the first outside chore I do is clear and cut the bee balm, transfer plants to new locations and await their blooms.

The hummers arrive around May 8th -10th and are so hungry from their travel from Centra America that I usually have about 5 feeders out for them. Last year we didn't have any more than 6 that stayed around for the season, and that was very disappointing as we usually get more than double that for the feeding frenzies of the evening. But it was so cold last spring and I think that the little things stayed further south and just didn't move even after the warmup. We are near Algonquin Park in Northern Ontario, so it's a trek for them and the springs can be cool. I just love seeing these birds as it's a sign that we are awaiting lovely days.

Quilting at the cottage is a lovely passtime as I sit at a table in our greatroom with 3 sides of windows and can see lake, sky and trees without turning my head. It's such peaceful place for us and this year I am taking sewing machine and table to keep up my hobby.

This past weekend was so lovely that we sat outside with coffees in hand and chatted with the neighbours. It is a time of year when, after such a long brutal winter all of us emerge from our dens and face a new beginning!