Mountain Musings

Two Spring Giveaways

Fun stuff! Morgan is having a spring giveaway over on her blog. If you're a scrapbooker, you'll have to check it out! Thursday's the deadline, so head over her way and leave a comment. Sorry I'm a little late in announcing her contest, but you still have time!

Check out this second contest. Alli over at She Works With Her Hands in Delight is giving away one of her periwinkle pincushions. I'd love to own anything Alli has made! (Or eat any of her delicious sounding recipes!) Her deadline is Monday the 31st.

~Deb

Come Back, Granny!

Granny's visit is over, and I am sooo sad and lonely. All the humans around here are busy getting back into their normal routines, and no one is paying a bit of attention to me this morning!

But we did have fun this past week while Granny was here. I heard Mom say she hadn't written a blog post in a looong time with so much going on! Well, this is what I observed these past few days:

• Sarah baked an Easter carrot cake for a customer. I love carrots, so she slipped me some extras. Yummy!
• Hannah sewed some new colorful neckerchiefs for my cousin Barney and mailed them to him for his human's birthday. They're different from the one I'm wearing since he's such a little punk, but they were very nice.
• Mom and Dad's first-met-each-other anniversary was last week, but I don't think they did anything special but errands. Anyway, I didn't get to go with them.
• Micah and Elizabeth came over to eat with us and to see Granny (and me!). Now they're off house hunting in snow country, because on Match Day he found out where they will be living for residency during the next seven years. I won't say where, but I sure will miss them (and Teak!).
• Jonathan has been studying a lot and took a mid-term on Saturday morning. I love it when he comes home to play with me.
• Friends came over for a game afternoon on Saturday. I got LOTS of attention that day!
• Mom took Granny to the Shenandoah Farmers' Market to look at antiques, but I didn't get any old bones from that trip!
• Easter Sunday was lonely for me. I don't go to church, but they're nice enough to have hymns playing while they're gone.
• Yikes! I almost forgot about the water leak in the ceiling right outside my room. It dripped and dripped and made the wall and paint look horrible--at least I could tell from Mom's face that she didn't like it at all. But...just to let you know...I defended my people from those mean ol' repairmen!
• More games...Granny loves Rook, so she played with the girls and Mom and won! And Sarah put a puzzle together with Granny's help while she was here.
• I love the food smells in this house! Sarah made Baked Potato Soup and a Key Lime Pie yesterday while chicken was smelling yummy in the crockpot, but my people won't feed me their food...except carrots. I love carrots.
• I rode in the back of the van with the family when they went to get ice cream at Kline's to celebrate Jonathan's spiritual birthday.

I love the special things we do when company is here! Come back, Granny!

Well, hopefully those humans will return to the blog soon.

~Pepper

A Lesson in Cake Decorating

The girls in our church have been wanting to get together to learn some skills from each other, and the first subject they picked was...CAKE DECORATING! Guess who was elected to teach that? :)

Last Friday was the big day, but I had a lot of preparation to do the day before. Each of the 3 girls had a small, 6-in. round cake all iced and ready to decorate, plus I made a sample finished cake for them to look at, and a cake that I worked on during the class.

Everyone arrived bright and early, with aprons in hand, excited to start! Before we got to the decorating part, I had to explain how to level, fill, and ice the cake, and also about the different consistencies of the icing.

We then adjourned to the table, where everyone had their own set of decorating bags, couplers, tips, icing, cake, and practice board. First thing to do was fill the bags with the different types of icing: thin (green), medium (yellow), and stiff (pink). You can see them using the little trick I showed them of putting the bag inside a cup to help you fill it easily. :)

For the next 3 hours, we had fun learning some of the basics: stars, shells, writing, and more. I had made some practice boards out of cardboard covered with waxed paper, so it would be easy to scrape off the icing when it was full and practice more! One fun thing we did was making a clown. It's easy to do, and it's very cute. :) We also attempted to make some sweet peas and roses, but that was harder because the icing was too stiff for them to squeeze out easily.

After practicing, the girls each decided what they wanted on their own cakes and started decorating! I think they all did a GREAT job - don't you?

Everybody took a short break for lunch, then finished the last touches before packing up to go. I think it went very well, and they all had fun. :) I felt like there was so much more to tell them, so maybe sometime in the future there will be a "Cake decorating, part 2!"

~Sarah

Getting There Was Half The Fun!

Speaking of old red barns...I love seeing red barns on country drives. Blue skies, red barns, and white sheep with black heads nibbling green grass has to be the most peaceful sight.

This past Saturday was a sunny, 50+ degree day and just perfect for riding over to Highland County to the Maple Festival held in Monterey each March. I always look forward to the drive over the mountains, and here are some pictures to prove that getting there was half the fun.

Please...no one mention this to Tom...but the red barn picture (which definitely isn't a good one but the best I could do under the circumstances) was taken when I stopped dead on a two-lane road (with my flashers on in case a car approached) because there was absolutely no place to pull over for the picture! And, of course, I had to have the picture of the sheep. After only one quick snap, I hightailed it down the road away from the traffic coming behind me.

Here's a picture of another sheep farm where, thankfully, there was a small grassy area leading to their pasture. I pulled in and walked toward the mama sheep and the newborn babies, who were eyeing me cautiously and gathering closer to their mamas behind the barbed fence. How cute they were! How neat it would be to knit a scarf from wool from our very own sheep! [You can see more newborn lambs over at Farmgirl Fare!]

I spotted these maple syrup buckets along the side of the road and passed them as I sped towards Monterey, so I quickly noted some landmarks so that I could stop and take a picture on the way back home. This time I found a dirt road to pull onto and walked through just a bit of brush to get closer to the buckets.

The 50th Annual Maple Festival itself was crowded as usual, and the smell of pancakes, fried pork rinds, and maple donuts filled the air. The food lines were extra long! The usual vendors were set up along Main Street and inside the local school. I enjoyed browsing the booths and little antique stores in town, although I sadly didn't purchase the collectible green antique watering can I saw and thought would look right at home on my front porch steps.

Next year, why not come visit and go along with me?

~Deb

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

In honor of the day, I made some GREEN desserts for church yesterday! One of them was Key Lime Cheesecake...I searched for this recipe after seeing a delicious looking cheesecake at Costco last week.

In the rush out the door, we didn't have time to take a picture of the finished product, but I did take one of what was left after we got home. :) I really liked it, but I love any type of key lime pie. In the comments on the All Recipes website, people were saying it was "VERY limey!" It seemed just normal to me. :)

Today we are having the leftovers of both the cheesecake and the Cool Whip Layer Dessert (with lime jello and green shamrocks on top) in celebration of all things Irish! Yay!

~Sarah

"Wild at Heart" Quilt Giveaway

Why not head on over to the Old Red Barn Company--because there's a quilt giveaway going on! You can check out pictures of the quilt here. It's beautiful, and it's done in one of Kari Ramsey's Fresh Cut Quilt patterns. I'd love to win...so would over 700 other people who have already signed up!

All you need to do is leave a comment over on this post at the Old Red Barn before Wednesday, March 19th, at 7:00 p.m. There are five additional entries for posting on your blog!

Hat Tip to Morgan!

~Deb

I Love Quilts!

Today is the 17th Annual National Quilting Day. The logo for NQD this year is the "Eight Hands Around" block which symbolizes the long tradition of friends joining together to share their love of quilting.

We don't have friends coming over today to celebrate, but one thing I plan is organizing all my quilting fabrics and thinking through what I need to start the girls' jelly roll quilts. I don't have a sewing room, but I do have an extra closet shelf that Tom is installing for me this morning to have a spot for my quilting basket and fabrics. I will love having more room.

Do you have any quilting plans for the day? If not today, you can also unofficially recognize the observance this whole month of March, which is what I'll do. I so want a finished quilt before gardening season rolls around.

~Deb

Pincushions

I know...you waited all week for a post from one of us just to see a picture of our pincushions, right?  Well, it's all because of a giveaway!

I was visiting Krisp-Quilt and found a link to Blueberry Lane Designs who is challenging us to post pictures of our pincushions to be entered in a drawing for a delightful out-of-print book on pincushions by Lynette Anderson Designs.

Here are the stories behind these three. The pincushion on the left is one I found at Rockfish Gap Country Store as a gift for Sarah, our lover of antiques. The cushion is made into the top of an old baby shoe. If you look closely, you can see the words Needles and Pins written on the side and top of the very worn and loved shoe. Sarah probably uses this pincushion the most in her sewing.

The middle pincushion is one that my sister delegated to a yard sale (if I'm remembering correctly), and I snagged it before it made its way to the quarter-table. It's just a cross-stitched old-timey cushion that I think will be a treasured antique one day. Thanks, Bet.

The one on the right is our newest pincushion made by crafty Randi over at I Have to Say. All of Randi's bags, aprons, and pincushions are colorful and very well made, and we love the three she sent to us!

The cushion I didn't photograph for this picture is one given to me about 30 or more years ago and is a cross-stitched Partridge in a Pear Tree. It is my oldest and most used pincushion.

~Deb

Double Date at Michie Tavern

Isn't Michie Tavern impressive?! We saw the photo on the website as we were planning the trip, but it is even more beautiful as you drive onto the property. The ride over Afton Mountain to Charlottesville was quite foggy, but, thankfully, the rain held off for the trip there. We met our friends and wandered around the gift shop until we heard the dinner bell ring as time for the meal approached.

As we entered the main tavern with our friends, we had our choice of tables with wooden benches. This is one of several fireplaces that warmed the cozy rooms. We walked through the establishment trying to decide whether we wanted a warm but darker room or one of the rooms with a view and no fireplace. Ah, can we have both?

As you can see, we chose the room with a view. It was beautiful. You can't tell from this picture, but we could glimpse UVA Hospital from our table and also a partial view of the city and mountains in the distance.

We went through the buffet line filling our pewter plates (like the ones on the mantel above the fireplace) with fried chicken, pork barbeque, green beans, black-eye peas, mashed potatoes and gravy, stewed tomatoes (which I passed by, but thanks anyway), cornbread, bowls of stew, did I miss anything? There was a lot!

Our server brought us any refills we wanted, and we topped off the meal with sharing a peach cobbler. I couldn't imagine leaving without trying their cobbler even though we were fairly full of food without dessert! We sat for four hours eating, talking, and catching up (and opening birthday presents!).

Later, we walked around outside and toured this gift shop, Meadow Run Mill built in 1797, before time quickly came for each of us to head in opposite directions back home.

What a great day and what wonderful fun with our friends, Fred and Chris. All in all it was a great double date!

~Deb

Countdown to Fun...

10 - 9 - 8 - 7 - 6 - 5 - 4 - 3 - 2 - 1...the day is here! Our double date day with our friends!

We met our long-time friends, Fred and Chris, about 25 years ago at our church in Hampton/Newport News, Virginia, when our firstborns were just babies. I think we hit it off right from the beginning, but somehow with raising our four and their ten children, we didn't start double-dating until fairly recently.

Our first double date was in 2001 at the James River Pie Company in Williamsburg...not the most exclusive place, actually, but oh, the pizzas and pies they produced and what memories we made!  I did find a picture of us back then at a picnic table in front of the place, but it wouldn't scan in well. We were seven years younger, so believe me, I definitely would have posted it if it had worked!

The picture above was taken in 2004 at Ruth's Chris Steakhouse in Richmond. We had moved out to the Valley by that time, so our plan to get together was for each couple to drive a couple of hours and meet halfway in Richmond. Our being several hours apart didn't stop our friendship as the double date pictures below show.

The top two pictures above were taken in Maymont Park in Richmond for our double date in 2005. Do those beautiful purple flowers behind me look familiar? Hannah selected them to become part of her website banner for Graceful Designs.

The two lower up-close-and-personal shots were taken at Olive Garden when we managed to squeeze in a double date while attending the History Conference in Hampton in 2006. Where there's a will, there's a way!

Somehow, we never were able to schedule a time to meet in 2007, so that's why today is extra special. Later this morning we'll travel and meet in Charlottesville for lunch at Michie Tavern. I've never been there, but it sure sounds like a neat place to sit and talk with good friends by a roaring fire enjoying good ol' Southern fare. The weather forecast says to expect rain and wind most of the day, but I'm thinking we won't even notice!

That's what we're doing. So, how are you spending your Saturday?

~Deb