Helens Quilts

Helen's Kids

Atchison Kansas

This thanksgiving we celebrated my mother in-law's 80th Birthday which actually falls on Dec. 21st. Helen and her husband Sam raised these nine kids in a very small farmhouse about 30 miles from where we celebrated.

They farmed around 350 acres, raised chickens, cows, and gardens. In 1990 Sam passed away. A year later Helen set out to take up her mothers art, quilting, she had plenty of experience prior to that but this project would be different.
She decided to quilt a quilt for each of the nine children. In no certain order she began.
She hand sews, and her stitches according to my wife are so tiny she gets some ungodly number to the inch.
She has never had them all together in one place, so as part of her celebration we displayed them.

Shes an artist in my mind.
Each sibling could pick the colors and discuss a general plan they liked, and she would begin mostly in the winter, in the living room of the farm house.



Over the course of the next 17 years she completed the quilts, sang in choirs, grew the best blackberries in Kansas and met a nice man who taught her to make blackberry wine. She married him. Shes made him a quilt too.
This is a many more photos than I normally post but I wanted to show the project complete.



Thanks Helen.

Sunrise on the Missouri

Sunrise on the Missouri River #1

Atchison County

I have been out of town for the holidays, my wife and I traveled to North east Kansas to Atchison Kansas for a family Thanksgiving.

Wednesday was the first snow fall of the year, merely a dusting but frigid temperatures.

Early Friday morning I ventured out looking for waterfowl and eagles on the river at dawn. This

time of year they are just north of here at Squaw Creek.

I didn't see any eagles, or any waterfowl but was treated to a beautiful sunrise.

Sunrise on the Missouri River #2

Atchison County

Got back in time to pick up a few family members and head down to Paoluccas restaurant near the river . Homemade biscuits and gravy, eggs and coffee, not a bad way to start the day.

Blue Bird Box

Blue Bird Box

Crawford County

This old box has seen many a blue bird nest, I haven't kept track, its a goal to start. Right now it needs cleaning up and maybe clear some of the brush around it. The leaves on this honeysuckle vine are still green, hard to believe its November. We are suppose to get a cold spell for thanksgiving, that will help. There was a mockingbird sitting in a large multiflora rose bush further up the fence row near this, he watched me as I took this photo. Its really odd to see him so silent at this time of year. Seems like yesterday he was swooping down at the cats and yelling (see I dont think sing is the right term for mockingbirds, shout or yell fits the bill better) his chorus of songs to the point I would yell from the garden, "man give it a rest".

Fishing Spot

Mined Land Area

Cherokee County

"...a spiritual landscape exists within the physical landscape. To put it another way, occasionally one sees something fleeting in the land, a moment when line, color, and movement intensify and something sacred is revealed..."--Barry Lopez, Arctic Dreams
I first read Barry Lopez when i was studying to be a biologist back in college, always have enjoyed his work. I'm not sure if this photo is up to the quality of the quote but i like it.

Frost

Yesterday we had our first hard frost.

Wordless Wednesday

People move on

The other day on my way to lightning creek I came across this old building.
I'm not sure if its an old school or a old community building, the kind used for rural 4H groups to meet.
Mostly wasps, here now.
Maybe a few teenagers meeting here once in a while. There was an old piano still inside.
The nearest town is about 4 miles away, its an old coal mining town, people still live there but its really a shell of what it use to be, kind of like this place.