Bricks and Quilts

While tearing out an old foundation of the small house that was built on the farm, I found some unusual bricks.  They are clay bricks but the structures are different that what I am use to seeing.

The  small single story farm house was built for my wife's parents to live in while her dad worked the farm for his dad.. It was like a hired hand house.  The family lived there until my wife's dad bought the family farm.  They then moved into the big four by four house.

I have brick that look like ceramic tile in my basement  that was put in during the 1940's.  This brick reminded me of that from the farm house, but I have never seen the internal structure configured like this.  It actually is a double thick brick compared to mine and would have made the making of the foundation go faster.  It doesn't have a glaze on it like mine does. 

The house itself that sat on this foundation was accidentally burned down by my father in law during one of his burning sessions that he liked to do in the fall. The foundation had to be ripped out and buried into the basement area and then fill dirt was put on top of it.

This brick came from southern Iowa and it was a paving brick for a street.  It has the grooves in it to help the bonding material to hold on to it.  The material probably was cement or an asphalt like material.

While shooting photos of this quilt I could see squares of different projects that my mom and grandmother had going on in their lives.  My grandmother made stuffed chicken figures from cloth.  There were two sizes but the material is scattered throughout this quilt.  My mom made photo albums that were covered with padded material and the leftovers from that project are also in there.  One of the pieces is actually a scrap from which my mom made for me many years ago. 

Just another shot of the quilt.  I gave it to my son and his wife when they were back from Thanksgiving.  They were very glad to receive it.

I am an office worker today but will probably teach tomorrow.  The staff came back with bad colds or with flu in their families so I am sure I will be subbing a lot more than in the past.

Thanks for stopping by my blog.

Creative ventures..........

I spent Friday afternoon trying to get these all hung on the wall.  Every year as things are sold out, I have to rearrange the entire display.  The wall is full of small nail holes which I will eventually fill with filler and then repaint the wall.

I finished this Saturday morning getting the rest of them on the wall.  We didn't actually sell so many with the economy in the ditch but we did remove a lot of them to take to the art show and I needed to rearrange them.  We did sell a few of them out of the bunch.

While I was out planting tulip bulbs I noticed I could find a few thinks to shoot.  After planting I brought out the camera and took a few pictures.  The last two leaves left on the red maple tree.  The look like young late sprouts from the branch,

We ate out breakfast on Friday morning with our oldest son and daughter in law.  I chose the time to send off another quilt.  This one went to Chicago and Andy and Patricia were pleased to receive their now second one.

While I was out taking photos, I turned and saw one of the neighbors many cats sleeping next to to the garden shed.  It wasn't scared of me but the cat did really wish that I would go away so it could go back to sleep.

Thanks for stopping be to visit my blog.  I have been busy enough that I didn't realize that I had missed a day.  I see the earth didn't stand still so it must be ok for me to miss once in a while.  Enjoy your Saturday.

Ready for winter....

Woodward, Iowa

The grain in the field I believe has all been harvested.  They were still at it a couple of weeks ago but our dry weather has allowed all of it to be harvested.  I did see a field in southern Iowa last Friday that hasn't been worked on but sometimes they don't pick it.  I don't know the circumstances of it but a field can be left for no reason through spring not being harvested.

Just to let you know I did finally get my patio furniture put away for storage.  It wasn't snowing and blowing wildly this year so it was a rare sight to see me doing it on a good day.

I did get my gazing ball carried over towards the basement stair door and it will go downstairs before it gets frozen into the ground. Most years I think of it too late and it has to winter outside. I even took in most of my little statues for the winter.

I mowed over some of my flower beds this year and yet I like to leave some of the dried stems for the beauty of them in the snow. Button and Barney were wearing the dead leaves into the house and it was getting to be difficult to have to sweep them up two or three times a day.  I pulverized them with the mulching mower and that has stopped some of the leafy transporting.

Here is another one of my leaves that I brought in from the side yard.  The subtle colors and textures are so nice.  This is actually a shiny leaf and it weathers better than the silver maple leaves.  I will never have my leaves all picked up and I don't really care.  The first mowing of the spring grass will take care of any leftovers.

I am in the high school math room today.  The teacher is so sick that he wasn't able to make out lesson plans.  I hope I don't catch that particular form of viral infection.  It is a quiet day so far and I can just hear my keyboard making sounds as the students are all using their free time to catch up on homework.

I talked to my oldest son last night and he and his wife are coming to Iowa for Thanksgiving.  His wife is allergic to cats and dogs so we will be going to the Machine Shed for our meal.  We will find a place afterwards that is open to hang out for a while and then they will go back to Chicago in the afternoon,  I am going to use their visit to be an opportunity to give out some family things from Andy's grandmother.  I have another quilt for them to take home with them now that they have a home in Arlington Heights, Illinois.  The above quilt is actually my youngest son's quilt that I gave them but the one I want to give to the old son is a similar quilt as above only it is done in tan's and browns.  I thought I had a photo of it but guess that I don't.  My mom had so many quits and I will give more of them out as time allows. Photographing all of the quilts should be a good job for this winter before I send them out to new homes.

Have a good Monday and take care.  Thanks for stopping by to visit my blog.