Good Morning Wednesday Progress and Surprises

   Good morning everyone,

The other day I made six very large sweet pepper halves stuffed and 'baked" them in my slow cooker. They turned out so delicious we had them two nights in a row and invited our friend Mr L over. He does not eat allot but he ate all of his supper this time. One night I served with kale and last night some of my garden green and yellow beans. 

About an hour's drive from me there is an Amish community named Leadmine. A couple years ago they started an auction of their grown veggies and fruits. Some years they have good prices for a family and some years one has to buy a huge quantity to purchase, so we quit going.
   Last year my friend went and brought back gorgeous canning tomatoes for me and also these wonderful huge red sweet peppers I have never seen them so large-and after freezing they are still sweet-so these peppers just turned out so well. I have froze sweet peppers in the past that will turn bitter after being in the freezer.

   I am making progress on my first page of my fabric book and started working on January's pages.  My staz on ink pads arrived yesterday and tomorrow my letter and number stamps are to arrive-so I am anxious to stamp some wording.

   I have over the years collected beads and buttons. I have a few things that I found at yard sales and thrift stores of old jewelry that sometimes works out nicely. I found three small glass leaves in my stash that I sewed on, and added a few rock beads too.

I did make the mistake of getting a little too close to the bottom edge as it is just barely over 1/2 an inch but I think it will be ok. For my next pages I will mark a line to remind me.

  Since I am not going to seal this over with mistyfuse and tulle I put a cloth over the needle felting and pressed it a bit front and back.

I am pleased with this first page so far. I do not have drawing skills so I have been looking online at coloring book pages of things I can make into appliques. I found a neat tree for January.

I have decided after watching a good you tube video on using freezer paper to print on fabric that I have the wrong ink in my printer and she also pointed out tips so the ink would not smear. so I will try this technique again but not right now.

     I have a fun story about the pair of ducks that have been visiting us. At first hubs noticed that there were two different pairs of muscovy ducks visiting but never at the same time-he is always so observant. Now it is pretty much the same pair and they are hanging around all day, we do not know where they are going in the evenings to be safe from predators but they are always back at first light.
   Yesterday when I was walking my compost pail to the compost pile, miss calico kitty was following me and all of a sudden we must have startled the ducks and they flew off to land in the pond. I am thinking they were up in one of the trees. On the way back to the house they flew out of the pond and landed right in front of me. I told them sorry but it is not 2 in the afternoon yet-so you will just have to wait for your corn. haha   
    When they see me with the corn they come right up to me-waiting for the hand out. too funny. hubs wouldn't mind if they stayed here to raise some youngsters as eat lots of bugs. We used to raise them back in the '90s when we also had goats, a couple black angus and hogs for eating. We also raised chickens and pheasants.
    
   I took this photo just now

I also wanted to share some very nice surprise gifts I received. My friend that drove me to Yellowstone last May loves to knit and crochet-she is always making something, and her favorite thing to knit is socks.  Last year I gifted her with 8 skeins of alpaca-wool that I picked up at the thrift shop-expensive yarn if in a yarn shop. I have so much yarn here for weaving that I gave it to her.  We went over to visit and she surprised me with these that she made from that yarn. How awesome and sooo soft I love them they are a neat color a red orange. I was totally surprised.

and a couple days later we got a ups delivery from our new friends in Wisconsin that came down in November for deer camp 
    A big box of chocolates and three sets of sewing scissors from Japan that seem to be very high quality.
    I needed the smaller pair with the sharp point for my applique pieces as I was just thinking I would need to buy a pair, and I have never owned the clippers which are working out great with my hexagon hand sewing. So another total surprise

   I want to thank you all so much for stopping by and also helping me with my fabric art journal-this is a totally new craft/art concept for me too lol  
    I am so happy to have found all of you lovely people through Elizabeth's T for Tuesdays  I enjoy blogging so much more than facebook and all of my original blogging friends of 12 years have all left to facebook--so I just want you to know how special you all are to me--big hugs from the Ozarks.