Around OakMeadows

We went to the Butterfly Festival in Mission, Tx which is located down in the Rio Grande Valley.  The weather was perfect and JMM and I had just a wonderful time. I'll bet you didn't know we have a National Butterfly Center--I sure didn't know that.  But thanks to Michelle and her beautiful blog Ramblingwoods.com, I have really gotten into butterflies. I joined the North American Butterfly Association some months back and they sent me the information about the National Butterfly Center and the Butterfly Festival. I have never, ever seen so many butterflies--literally hundreds--in one place. JMM took a day long field trip on landscaping for butterflies and I took a class on Butterfly Basics where we went all over the NBC with a guide identifying the butterflies and the native plants they were feeding on.  One of the guides had just celebrated his 85th birthday and other than being a bit hard of hearing, he was fit as a fiddle and certainly knew his butterflies.  There was an evening program on Moths that I hope to attend next year. There are, unfortunately, no photos because my camera is shot and I am still waiting for my new iPhone 6P.  So no photos until next year. 

We have moved into much cooler weather here. It is nothing compared to what is going on up north but for us Southern wimps--it is COLD.  I moved all the succulents indoors yesterday and the ones that are too big, I moved them to be sheltered from the wind and gave them a thorough watering.  My sweet cats are extraordinarily affectionate in cold weather. Nice to have a warm purring cat on my lap!! Another good thing about cold weather is that it is soup and stew weather. Tomorrow I am making cassoulet in the slow cooker and maybe a pan of cornbread. 

Speaking of water, we had to have a new hot water heater installed. We have been living on borrowed time with the old water heater for a year so it was expected.  There are 3 temperature settings on the new one so we had it set to the middle setting. Yikes! We were used to the old heater that produced rather warm water when turned all the way on so it was a shock to get into the shower with really, really hot water!  Had to turn it down to the low setting. I cannot imagine how scalding the high setting must be. 

I have been very frustrated with the quilt I am working on because of its size. Now that I am trying to handle the queen sized monster, I remember why I have only been making baby or lap quilts. I am considering paying someone to machine quilt it for me just to get finished with it so I can go back to my baby quilts. Ack!

Anyway, that's all the goings on around OakMeadows for now.