My Favorite Photos - August 2021

 Below are some of my favorite photos from August. First, Olivia finished one of the barn quilts that she commissioned to do. The "F" is for the clients' last name.

Sophia moved back to college. As a junior now, she has made some good friends at college and I love seeing how happy and settled she is on campus.

At the Carver County Fair, I had a chance to feed two parakeets that sat on my hand.

Olivia finished a barn quilt for another client.

My sister and I went to Owatonna, Minnesota, and saw this mural on the ceiling and upper walls of the Owatonna Arts Center. There was so much to see - lots of details - in the mural.

Connected to the arts center is a museum at the location where the state's orphanage was located. It was actually a rather sad and sobering place to visit. However, the stained glass windows in one section were beautiful.

Also at the orphanage museum were the old light fixtures. 

In one of the cottages that held the boys, there was a row of sinks. 

There was also an old movie projector.

At the Owatonna airport, there is a statue of three Air Force jets. 

Returning back home, we stopped in Faribault. There's a beautiful mural on the side of a building. I really like the bright colors, the different skin tones of the hands, and that the Braille letters are below the four letters that spell love. 

My sister was a good sport and sat in one of the Tilt-a-Whirls on the main street. They don't move. She's just leaning to one side. 

My sister and I also went to the Steele County Fair that is about two hours from where I live. It was really fun to see a county fair that I had not been to. At one time, the Minnesota State Fair was located at the Steele County Fairgrounds.

At one of our Lions club meetings, I arranged for the local sheriff and K9 unit to come to our meeting. Here, they are showing an example of how obedient and focused K9 Viking is when he is working.

Then there's time for play. The reward is a yellow ball. The officer swung K9 Viking in the air which he likes. This also shows how powerful of a grip the dog has on an object.

I went to the State Fair on August 30th this year with Olivia who was competing in 4-H. While she was being judged, I went to the Ag-Hort building. The floral kaleidoscope was there again this year. This is one of the images I took through the viewfinder. 

This is what the floral kaleidoscope looks like. You spin it around and then look through one of three viewfinders.

Olivia won a blue ribbon on her Diamond Dotz picture. It's an image from Harry Potter. 

Olivia and I went to the Fine Arts building at the State Fair. There are so many interesting pieces to look at. This is a collage piece.

This is a needle-felted moose. It was about 2 1/2' x 3 1/2'...quite big and an ambitious project. 

It was 3-dimensional and the head and antlers stood out from the foam background quite a bit. There were even eyelashes on the moose!

August was a month filled with day trips, art, history, and transitions back to school and Fall. 

Hobbies that Begin with "F" - Blogging from A to Z Challenge

During the 2018 Blogging from A to Z Challenge, I will be focusing on hobbies that I have introduced to my daughters to through their childhood and teen years. Some were done as part of homeschooling, while others were areas that we explored because we were interested in the subject or activity. These are hobbies that anyone of any age could try as well.

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These are some of the hobbies that the girls have been introduced to during their childhood and teen years: falconry, felting, fencing, firearms, fishing, and flower arranging.

Falconry

We were having lunch with friends one day at the Scandia Café. When we left to go to our car, there was a gentleman who had a falcon in the back of his car.

September 13, 2012

He shared with us about the hobby of falconry, and let the girls touch the falcon. It was interesting learning about falconry - something that we don't see each day.

Felting

Sophia and Olivia began felting when they were 7 and 5 years old respectively. There are two types of felting - wet-felting and needle-felting. I taught them how to do needle-felting because it was something they could do wherever they were and they wouldn't get wet in the process.

For her second project, Olivia made a heart with different colors of wool. She used the barbed needles for needle-felting well, and didn't poke her fingers with the needles once. She was proud of her project.

January 25, 2008

For Easter one year, I taught the girls and their friends who were in a home economics class I taught at the homeschool co-op how to make needle-felted eggs.

They chose from a variety of colors of wool, and then used the barbed needles to attach the wool to the Styrofoam egg shapes.

 

March 30, 2009

The girls were so focused while they worked.

March 30, 2009

They did a base color and then added colorful wool embellishments to their felted Easter eggs.

April 6, 2009

They also made toys - like felted balls - that they could use for decoration and/or play.

December 3, 2009

Fencing

The girls did fencing on February 18, 2016, at the Minnesota Sword Club in Minneapolis. They had never done fencing before so it was a good introduction to the sport and hobby.

There was gear that they had to wear to cover their bodies and heads.

They practiced different positions and stances; and had fun fencing.

It was a fun way to spend a cold winter day in Minnesota.

Firearms

The girls' first introduction to guns was at an educational program held at Fort Snelling. These men are showing the type of guns that would have been used during WWII.

September 14, 2007

We were traveling throughout the New England States and visited a store that had guns on display. As we were looking at them, we realized that they were about as long as Olivia was tall.

September 9, 2011

One November 23, 2013, we went to the Minnesota Waldorf School for the holiday fair. The girls wanted to play a game with riffles that had foam bullets. 

The goal was to aim at the knights on the castle and hit them.

It was something that they don't normally do, yet they had a lot of fun trying to aim at the targets.

In 2018, Olivia is studying to get a license to use a gun so she can do trap shooting. She is going through firearms safety training during March and April; and will have a field day test on April 28th.

Her uncle (my brother) is loaning her two guns so she can get comfortable with them before the field day test.

So, on Easter (April 1, 2018), Olivia learned the proper way to hold a rifle and to stand as she takes aim.

Her younger cousin, who enjoys target practice, showed her how to load and unload a gun.

The one pictured above belonged to my dad, so there's a special connection there. Olivia said she preferred my dad's gun and would most likely use that one for her field day test.

Fishing

The girls learned about fish and their parts at a youth program at Interstate State Park in 2012. They did fish painting (using rubber fish) and learned about fishing.

June 15, 2012

On June 7, 2014, the girls and I stayed at Wild River State Park and did the I Can! Camp program. One of the activities offered during the camping stay was learning how to fish.

We did some fishing off a bridge in the park overlooking a river.

They learn to cast and how to bait a hook.

They didn't catch anything at that location, so we changed spots to the St. Croix River and the boat launch there.

It was a relaxing way to spend the day.

Flower Arranging

In 2013, we did a lesson about etiquette. The girls set the table using the good China dishes and silverware; and created flower arrangements.

April 4, 2013

We used a bouquet from the store and they made several smaller floral arrangements.

April 4, 2013

On May 9, 2015, we brought floral arrangements to the nursing home and decorated the tables in the different living areas.

It was Mother's Day weekend, so the tables looked nice for family visits.

We visited with some of the residents and their families while we were there.

We brought flowers also for people who were special to us and made a point of visiting each time we were there.

Often, when we go the farmers market, we will get a bouquet of flowers to bring home to create many smaller vases of flowers. These brighten up our home and lift our spirits.

15 Creative Goals in 2015

I've been thinking about what I want to learn and do in terms of my creative goals in 2015. Although almost two months have already passed, there's still ten months ahead to incorporate more creative time in my life.

During 2015, I want to:

1. Learn how to do fused glass.

Source

2. Do glass blowing.
3. How to build a portable brick oven so I can create homemade pizzas and breads in it during the summer.
4. Finish all the WIP (works in progress) in the bin.
5. Go through all the fabric bins and donate what I no longer like or want.
6. Use the bag of felted wool to make a project (or two).
7. Learn 3 new crocheting stitches.
8. Make a pair of socks using the sock loom.

9. Learn to knit and make something useful.
10. Use some of Dad's clothes and make legacy gifts to give to Mom, Mary, Jim, and me.
11. Do two upcycled crafts that use jeans.
12. Make six handmade cards using inspiration from other DIY cards.
13. Make three homemade bath products.
14. Paint and install a barn quilt.

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15. Make something for the next door neighbor's daughter who is expecting her first child this spring, and who has a baby shower in March. Did this on March 1st. I made two baby bassinets from diapers and a washcloth bouquet.