A Walk in My Woods

It has been two years since I've had a dog to walk with in my woods.. Fritz just wasn't up to it his last year... Because it has been a bad year for ticks I waited until June to start Morris... The first couple weeks I kept him on a leash so he realized this was a TRAIL activity we did as a team and not a "chasing through the woods after rabbits" activity.. Molly will follow about 100 feet into the woods for a few good sniffs but then she goes back to the house. Here they found a particularly good spot and practically buried their noses in the ground.

Morris has found a balance between wanting to be in the lead and stopping to sniff. The vetch is in bloom now and it's so gorgeous. My woods are 20 acres and I made the trail to loop around the outer edge and then another loop in the center..... a mile total...

Morris stays on the trail through all the trees but every so often there's a meadowy part and he loves to run and roll in the tall grass. In years past the elk have wintered in these areas scraping away the snow for the grass.

But where the trees are thickest and the trail bends out of sight, Morris stays real close. Here he is waiting for me to catch up because a wild turkey flew out here the other day and put on a terrible ruckus to distract us from her young...really scared Morris.

And I finally got a good profile shot for his puppy book... He has lost his puppy face.

Afterthought!!! The woods looked like this in 1995 when I planted the 5,267 trees. High school kids came and helped on Arbor Day... Of all the things I've done...... I love my forest the best... In fact my tombstone should read "she loved her dogs and her forest."

Karrin's Stumpwork Finished

Today was one of those days that I spent most of the day waiting on this person or that person. Thank heavens for needlework which help fill those hours... I did add greenery to Cobi's hydrangea and added a little daisy trail to fill in and carry through the garden... Have mixed feelings about the daisies but they'll be easy to rip out if Karrin doesn't want them... They looked so much more effective in my head!!! LOL.. Only one more block in this RR. One thing this block REALLY needs now is a big old happy face sun.....

Karrin's Stumpwork Block

I definitely had an attack of the whimsy on Karrin's block... I used the art work from my old logo for the nursery. As I mentioned in a previous post, I designed it and posed for it using a couple mirrors...

I thought it would be a fun motif on a stumpwork block because of the 3D potential.... Instead of felt I did it on muslin on a hoop and used mostly chain stitches...(like my friend Laurie) In the future anything I do on muslin I will color in the muslin before I stitch to make it easier to applique it on the block without bits of white muslin showing. The bloomers are stuffed with batting and the hoe is actually wood.

I repeated the color of Diane's lovely sunflower in the check of the bloomers so it is balanced... I added a tiny bit more of that color under the birdhouse post.. At this point it really needs something to carry the eye around the block and I'm not sure what I'll do about that... First though I will add the greenery to Cobi's hydrangea.. I'd like to get this mailed out at the first of the week to Arlene in Australia...

Photos of Finland from Ritva

Ritva sent me the following information and photos about the area she lives in Finland... Don't you just love the yellow church... I was amazed by how similiar it is to the part of the US where I live... Our rape fields are also in full bloom now..

Exerpt from Ritva's email:

Hikiä is a little village with about 1200 inhabitants and belongs to the municipal Hausjärvi near Riihimäki where I am working. Main occupation is agriculture but nowadays here comes lots of young families who are working in the towns nearby or even in Helsinki, the capital. It is easy and fast to go to work by car or train.














The big landmark is RAUTAROUVA the Iron Dame, an electricity line which goes through Hikiä to different directions. They grow here barley, rye and turnip rape(yellow you can see around the Iron Dame)\
This old picture is from the railway station which still stands near my house but is now used as living house. Only the local trains stop in Hikiä.

Here is a picture of the wooden yellow church which is quite monumental. Farmers did build it two hundred years ago.
Some pictures are typical landscape about province Häme we belong.We have lots of forests and main trees are pine, spruce, birch, aspen and alder. Here nearby are no lakes although we have tens of thousands of lakes in Finland. I miss lakes and often go to Central Finland to my childhood`s homevillage by lake.

There is also a picture about the armorial of province Häme with lynx.I appreciate a lot your interest and will answer if you have anything to ask.





With kind regards!Ritva

Poppies and Finnish Stone Church...

I should say almost done because I still have to seal and gilt the button but I like to let the paint "cure" a few days before I seal it... I was embarrassed by how little I knew about Finland so all the while I worked on Ritva's block I was doing Internet searches on Finland. What a diverse and beautiful country... I was looking for a farm or landscape to paint on a button but fell in love with this stone church.. Pyha Olavi in Sastamala... If I ever get to Finland I would love to see it in person...

Another interesting fact I learned was that many of the round barns in in the US were built by Finnish immigrants. This one is is in Wisconsin and was built in 1917 by Finnish master stonemason Matt Annal. But there were Finnish-built barns in Idaho, Montana and other parts of this country and Canada... Expertise with log construction and stone masonry were skills they brought to this country..

Ritva live in Hikia in southern part of Finland, north of Helsinki... I couldn't find one picture of where she lives on the Internet so I'm hoping she'll send me some as I am next to work on a block of hers in another RR....