Our "Nana"

Yesterday I took Noah and went in to visit my grandma "Nana" and take her to lunch.  My sister in law Glenda met us over there too.  Nana has recently moved into a new assisted living home, and she is getting settled in.  We arrived and visited with her in her room for a bit before going out to lunch.  Noah had brought a little tin lunch pail with his trains inside to play with.  And without hesitation, my Nana got down on the floor to play with him!  Nana will be 98 years young on August 1st.  She has been blessed with good health and longevity!  In fact her entire family has been.  Her big brother, my great Uncle Joe, will be 100 this November!  And their little sister, will be 96 in November!!!  Their parents, my great grandma and grandpa, lived into their late nineties, and I remember them well.  Here is my much loved "Nana" on the floor playing with Noah.  Prepare yourself to smile.

Do you see Noah playing hide n seek back there behind Nana on the floor?  These just  make me smile so much!  Nana LOVES these kids.  She loves babies, and just gets so excited to see her great-great-grand children.  We had a nice visit, and nice lunch at Marie Callender's.
When we got home, the giant shrub removal was complete, and this is what the side of our garage looks like now.

Now we need to decide if we are going to put concrete in, or level it off and do gravel.  Or remove that gate, and put a new one up closer to the front, level with the front of the garage, and park the boat or motor home behind the gate on this concrete pad?  So much to figure out yet.    But I am glad that messy plant is gone.  But I do not like how much it opened up the view to my neighbor's house. 
Good news, my Rhode Island Reds are laying again!  Snacker still is not.  But she is getting healthier every day.  Since we have put the 6 baby hens in the coop, Snacker has stopped going up to her roost at night, and is staying down on the hay underneath the light with the babies.  I asked my go to gal at the feed store why this is, and she says she is "mothering" them!  

Awwww.  I knew she would be the Broody type.  We have some suspicions that Noah's chicken, Ham, might be a Roo.  Noah has insisted since Ham was 1 day old, that SHE was a HE!  When I asked him what he wanted to name his chicken, without skipping a beat he said, "HAM."  I said, "Noah, this is a girl chicken.  Ham?  Really?"  He said, "NOPE, it is a boy...I name him HAM!"  So Ham it is. Some time later, while looking something up that Greg was reading, he excitedly calls me over to read what he has discovered.  He says, "listen to this Bunny, (he calls me Bunny) HAM is son of Noah in the bible!!!"  Can you believe that?  SON of Noah!!!  Noah says his chicken is a boy.  And he names  him HAM?  NOW, we see that Ham is looking quite different than the other girls in the pen.  Ham  has longer tail feathers, and his looking more regal in some way.  And acting sort of as leader of the pack.  If "she" or "HE" starts to cock a doodle doo, we will know.  I said to Greg, "what will we do?  We can't keep a rooster!"  Greg says, "there is NO WAY we are giving Ham away if he is a rooster!  No matter what!  He is Ham.  He is son of Noah.  We are keeping him!!"
I will keep you posted.  Ham is the larger of the babies. The black and white one.  She/or he, is  Light Brahma.  With beautiful feathers on her/his feet, that remind me of ornamental feathered moccasins.  Here are the little "B's" all tucked in for the night in their modified playhouse/coop.

I hung my bunting in my sewing room last night.  Now I am working on my patriotic bunting for the 4th of July.

I love it!  Some of you asked me a couple questions regarding making the bunting.  I used a template that I downloaded and then I enlarged it to the size I wanted.  I drew it out onto card stock, and then cut my flags out using my pinking rotary cutter!  It is by Olfa, and is called Wave Cutter, I believe.  I used double wide bias tape, sold by the pack, for a little over a dollar a pack and it is 3 yards long.  I used three separate pieces of bias tape.  You could use twill tape, or make your own bias tape, or even twine, or cording.  I pinned the flags between the folds of the bias tape, and then sewed it all the way across, spacing the flags a couple inches apart.  I think I got 9 or 10 flags per piece of bias tape.  Oh...after I cut the flags out, I sprayed them liberally with heavy spray starch and ironed them for a nice crisp piece.  This gives them body and makes them much easier to work with too.

For the patriotic flags I am doing now, I am going to make my flag template an inch or so smaller.  This way, I can get more cuts using 1/4 yard pieces.  A quarter yard cut is nine inches.  So I can set my template on it and use nearly every single bit of fabric for the flags, with little waste.
It is RAINING here!  Well, drizzle really.  But wet!  My garden is singing, I can hear it from here!!!
See you soon!