Family dinner

We had a wonderful evening with family in Geneseo and their children and grandchildren gathered from Virginia and Canada.
















Jen and Zac in charge in the kitchen.













Dylan working on one of his toys.
















And giving me some giggles at the dinner table.




















And with his headlamp so he can see when he goes outside.

Fabric Dyeing

With the mild weather we've been having, the room in my basement that has my dyeing supplies and large sink was nice and warm --- good motivation to do some dyeing!

I started with four yards each of three values of turquoise.

I separated the turquoise fabrics so that each of the three buckets had a light, medium and dark fabric.

Then I over-dyed them with three values of black.

I also kept one group of turquoise out so it had no black added, and I dyed one group of black that did not have any turquoise.






Here are the final fabrics.

Jewel Orchid

My Jewel Orchid (ludisia discolor) is sending out lots of blooms again this year, even though it is very overdue for repotting.

I bought it in Florida 15 years ago and am so pleased that it's still going strong. 

I had a report from a friend last week that a cutting I gave her from this plant a year or two ago is producing its first buds.








Each of the "petals" of the bloom produces individual orchid-shaped flowers.

Peeps meeting

Linda hosted our December meeting at her beautiful home. 

Our agenda was mostly about the delicious Xmas lunch and the other sweet goodies for snacking.

Mary showed us her quilt that won a couple of awards including Best of Fiber at the Festival of Trees in Canandaigua.  She made it from a pattern by Nancy Murty.

Otto Tomotto's

We decided to try dinner at Otto Tomotto's on Rt. 96 in Victor. 

Don't you love their sign?

We both ordered pasta entrees which were very good.

Even though I neglected to get a picture of our dinners, I captured the great plates in their wall decoration.

Winter is here

Our area received about 20" of snow over the last couple of days -- plenty enough to provide lots of exercise from shoveling the wet and heavy stuff each day. 

The water in the fish pond stays unfrozen as we have a stock pond heater in it to help keep it open.

Tree Trimming

We have a long list of necessary maintenance requirements for our property.  Some major tree work is part of the plan.















A local company was retained and came today to begin some removal.  They took down whole trees and cleared limbs around electric, telephone, and television transmission lines.














Some good-sized limbs resulted and were hauled away.  A large volunteer cottonwood tree was totally removed.














A powerful stump grinder was part of the extensive equipment they used and quickly removed any residual roots.















Some wonderful extended booms with movement controlled by the operator in the air were used -- no more ladders or scaling trunks and limbs.  Bill indicated he would like this portable model for Christmas!

We have a tree line of 20+ mature blue spruce to be replaced on the list as the next project.

First Friday

Nancy and I went to the Hungerford Building in Rochester for the open studios night.  The Hungerford has four floors of studios, and most all of them were open tonight for the large crowds of visitors.
















We enjoyed visiting Jeanne Beck's studio and chatting with her and her husband, Bob.























More of Jeanne's work.



















Nancy and I both liked the whimsical work done by this artist.













Favorite sign of the night.