Last day with Juniper

It's my last day with my little granddaughter, Juniper, before I have to fly home. I'm going to miss her so much. Her smiles are contagious and she's discovering new vocal sounds every day, which she practices mightily.

She's started showing interest in the cats and bunnies and books. "Goodnight Moon" is one of her favorites (and mine, too).

She loves going for walks. Here we are hiking at Palisades Park ...

... which has great views of Spokane.

 

We also went back to Manito Park and enjoyed the spring blooms for a second time this visit.

Goodbye Juniper, Julia and Jade. Goodbye Spokane and spring flowers. It's back to the desert for Grandma.

Have a colorful day

Being Grandma in Spokane

I flew into Spokane a week ago to see my little granddaughter, Juniper. It's been four months since I last visited, and she's grown so much!

She's holding her head up high during tummy time and starting to roll! When she grabs my fingers, she holds on so tight that it's hard to escape (as if I would want to).

She came down with croup while I was here and had a rough few days, but the doctor gave her medicine that cleared her breathing tubes and now she's about over it. Charlie and Tiny kept her company.

We go on walks a couple of times a day. I took some photos of her view from the stroller of the trees overhead.

Not bad!

One of our walks was through Manito Park, where Juniper's parents were married. The Japanese Garden is always beautiful and so were the iris and lilac gardens.

The flowers here are so much bigger than mine in the desert! These next few are from their neighborhood.

Another day we walked along the Centennial Trail overlooking the Spokane River. It was a brisk, sparkling day.

 

This last photo is something I thought my crafty readers would like. A friend of Julia's made it for her out of smooth stones to look like baby footprints. Very sweet!

Have a colorful day

Book Club/Eating Club

 

I haven't written about Book (Eating) Club for awhile, so here are some pictures from last night's get together. As usual, food took precedence. Everyone brought something to share and hostess Beth outdid herself with appetizers and a main dish. There was a lot of talk about travel because three of them just got back from a long European tour.

We started with homemade pretzels by Beth, both regular and a cinnamon-sugar batch that were soooo good. They sounded like a lot of work, kneading and letting them rise, boiling them like bagels to give them their nice chew and then baking them. But boy were they good!

Beth also made a chicken gnocchi dish with spinach and a creamy sauce. Judy made a Greek pasta salad, and Kristina combined tomatoes and basil from her brother's garden with feta for a tasty hot dish.

I had planned to bring a Caprese salad with tomatoes from last weekend's farmers market, but the tomatoes went bad so I substituted slices of watermelon. It was refreshing with the mozzarella, basil, and a syrupy balsamic drizzle.

Sandy made shrimp scampi that was delicious.

And Barb brought a decadent ice cream cake!

And yes, we did talk about the book, "The Bird Hotel," which we all liked.

Here's a review that I found online, which summarizes it better than I could:

"Escaping a life riddled with tragedy, Irene finds herself alone in an intoxicatingly tropical corner of Central America. At La Llorona, a neglected lakeside hotel beside the village's storied volcano, she builds a new life for herself, one woven together with Scheherazade-like fables of Indigenous life. This heartrending, epic novel is about the histories that come back to haunt us, the indifference of fate, and the magical powers of the natural world."

Speaking of which, here are some magical flowers that bloomed overnight on a neighbor's cactus.

Have a colorful day

Another happy bowl

I made another yellow bowl because yellow is the happiest color! The rope and strips of fabric ran out at the same time, which made it easy to decide when to stop.

I added a little hot pink and orange to make it sizzle, since it's getting hot here in Tucson. We haven't hit three digits yet this year, but we're getting close. Saturday is predicted to be 97.

The yellow prickly pear flowers are also blooming.

And in three days I'll be in Spokane smothering this little girl with kisses!!! She's grown so much in four months and I miss her every day. She's getting strong and is making cute babbling sounds and is so alert. I'm thankful for FaceTime and for my daughter being able to send videos and photos at the click of a button. I probably watch her videos fifty times a day.

Have a colorful day

Spring quilt for sale

 

Here's another oldie but goodie that I'm listing for sale, for $175. It's 24 inches square.

The Kiowa saying expresses gentle reverence for the land: "Walk lightly in the spring; Mother Earth is pregnant." The Kiowa are indigenous to the Great Plains.

I stamped and outlined the letters on fabric that I painted in soft spring hues. The center panel is stamped with spirals, hands and forest animals ... 

... and unfurling ferns are beaded at the bottom. The crinkled sheer blue fabric represents rain.

This is one of my favorite quilts, but it's time for it to go to a new home and bring someone else pleasure. I just have too many quilts!

Have a colorful day

The nastiest cactus -- the cholla

There's a very common cactus here in the Southwest that I don't write about much because I don't like it, but now that it's blooming I thought I'd introduce you to what I consider the nastiest, most dangerous cactus:

The cholla

(pronounced choi-a)

The dead ones look like zombies (above) and the live ones are thick with barbed spines that are really hard to remove once lodged in the skin. 

And they jump on you! If you barely brush up against one, it will break at a joint and attach itself to you, like what happened to these unlucky guys who I found by googling "pictures of cholla cacti stuck on people."

The first one fell while ATVing in the Nevada desert. I don't know what happened to the one below, but it looks like medical help has arrived.

In my four years of hiking here, I've never been stuck by a cholla because I'm terrified of them and give them a wide berth and a lot of respect. On my first Meetup hike here, our leader advised us to carry combs in our packs to remove cholla joints that might get stuck on us. There's no way you can remove them with your hands, because they would stick you again.

They bloom April-June, and they're everywhere. I took some of these photos in Catalina State Park and others along a walk by my neighborhood. They'd make a good security fence!

There are more than 20 species of cholla with some colorful common names such as teddy bear, devil, chain-fruit, club and jumping cholla.

The flowers are pretty, but beware of the rest.

Have a colorful day