I posted about this when it happened this summer, my son bought me a hand-guided quilting machine and frame.  I had to wait until my semester was over before I could reasonably devote any time to learning how to use it.  In the past couple of weeks I have spent time on youtube watching videos on how to load the quilt, batting, and backing onto the rollers.  Then I had to summon the courage to actually thread the machine and start it up.

Now I think I am ready to try.  Being the kind of person that I am I can't practice on scraps it has to be on the real thing so, Amanda the top for Anna Grace's quilt is done and the back is done. Tomorrow all I have to do is load them and the batting onto the rollers and choose a pantograph.

Say a little prayer that I master this thing on my first try.

After I finish the baby quilt I plan on loading this one that I made several years ago but never finished.  The picture doesn't do it justice but it is one of the best I have ever done.  It is a Triple Irish Chain done in tea-dyed muslin with a tone on tone muslin that has a star print on it.  The other fabrics are a blend of golds, blues, burgundys, greens, and neutrals.  It has a seminole border with the tea-dyed muslin outlining the border.  It was a bear to do but a pleasure to look at and the colors are all my own.

Blindness may be survivable but I think that deafness is definitely out.  As I sit here working on a project with the mellow tones of a Paul Desmond tune playing in the background, the occasional sound of Layn playing with his toys, and my daughter talking to herself as she completes her mid-terms, I am quite certain that my ability to hear is as treasured as my ability to distinguish the difference between spring and fall soils. 

I learned to listen, really listen from my dad.  My dad loves music.  From a very early age I can remember falling asleep to the sounds of The Modern Jazz Quartet, Miles Davis, Beethoven, Mendelsshon, and other greats.  When I was growing up we lived in a house where my bedroom was situated above the livingroom.  After my parents put us to bed they would sit in the livingroom and talk and my dad would invariably put some of his music on the stereo.  There was a vent in the floor of my bedroom that brought the heat up from the first floor and I would get out of bed and lay on the floor listening to his music until I fell asleep.  I sure surprised my dad by humming the second movement to Beethoven's fifth at a very young age.

Later when he taught me how to drive my dad honed my listening skills.  He helped me to almost become one with the vehicle that I was driving.  Even now I continually surprise my husband by telling him that there is something wrong with my car before he is aware of a symptom simply because "something doesn't sound right".  This morning MK, Layn and I went to the bank.  When we pulled into the drive-thru the man in the car ahead of us kept trying to get my attention.  You would have to be deaf not to hear the noise that my car was making.  I know that he meant well but I just wanted him to get done with his business so I could get done and go home.  The idler pulley that the serpentine belt passes by on my engine, the one that runs the fan, alternator, and other such necessary parts of the engine, has a bad bearing.  There is also a bad drive pulley in the same path.  I am waiting on parts for it.  Suffice it to say I heard that bearing going before anyone else believed that there was something wrong.

Yep, deafness is not an option for me.  Not with the listening that I have been taught to do.  I have been taught to appreciate the range of the voice of Karen Carpenter, the smoke and sizzle of a hot clarinet when it is playing a good piece of jazz, and the sweet mellow tones of a muted trumpet when it is mourning the blues.  These ears were trained too well.

While sitting on the picnic table eating my grits this morning I began thinking about what kind of blind person I would be.  Very strange early morning thoughts to be sure but that's how my mind goes sometimes.  Actually these thoughts sprung from the scents and sensations that swirled around me as I sat there.  Yesterday and today are unusually warm days for the end of October for this area, that combined with the excess of rain has hastened the demise of fall.  As I sat there, with my eyes closed, I could smell the moldering of the leaves that had only recently fallen from the trees above.  Turning my head a bit in one direction I scented the tang of the weeds in the garden and the soil that has been turned up from harvesting the final crops that were there.  The soil in the garden has a different smell in the autumn than it does in the spring.  There is an odor of finality, of completeness as if it has done what was expected of it for another season and now it is waiting for a well earned rest.  Turning still another way I could smell the freshly harvested cornfields and soybean fields across the road.  Even the corn stubble and the soybean straw has a particular scent about it that says, "it is time to sleep." 

These thoughts led to other thoughts which led to still other thoughts.  I finally came to a realization that my life is one of sensation, far more than the average person.  At least far more than those around me.  I have begun to notice that when the seasons change and I am no longer working so much outside the calouses leave the ends of my fingers and I rediscover anew the sensuous pleasure of touch.  I don't notice in the summer how things feel to me because the palms of my hands and the tips of my fingers become somewhat caloused which deadens sensation.  In the fall and they soften and fade away there is a whole new world to touch. 

I recently got a commission to make some baby clothes for a woman at our church who is expecting her first baby girl.  I ordered some pink cashmere flannel to make an outfit for the baby.  When that fabric came what a pleasure it was to sit and run it through my fingers.  The yards of imported batiste for the christening set and the lace and insertion that came were a wonder to hold.  Even while I have been working on the embroidery I continue to marvel at the feeling of the silk floss and the texture of the stitiches on the fabric as the pattern emerges.

These discoveries are what make me think that I could be a good blind person.  I would miss the color and the glory of sight but my nose and my fingers already do so much to enhance what I see that I wonder if my mind wouldn't build the colors in my head anyway.  I know that spring leaves smell green and fall leaves smell orange, yellow, and brown.  I know that corn smells like august and pumpkins september.  I can tell the difference between a Macintosh apple and a Cortland by the smell and the texture of the skin.  But, then again I am sure glad that I do have my sight because I know the smiles on the faces of my family and the love in my husband's eyes and those are sights that I would surely miss.

Last week Ian bought this one-row corn picker from a neighbor.  When he brought it home he kept saying, "It's not much but it will get the job done."  He doesn't need much of a picker for 4 acres of corn and besides he's only just starting out and it is all he can afford.

Ian being the man that he is couldn't wait to try it out.  Saturday morning dawned dry and nice so he hooked his corn picker to the tractor and his gravity wagon behind it and got started picking his corn.  What a pleasant noise the ears of corn made as the plunked down into the bottom of the wagon.

As any farmer will do he lost a few ears on the corners but Layn was there to pick them up.  When he gets old enough we'll give him a feed sack and it will be his job to pick up the stray ears so that none get wasted.

Layn found out the hard way that field corn isn't as tasty as sweet corn.

Even Doug had to get in on the act.  Just like little kids at Christmas they had to stop and check to see how much corn was accumulating in the wagon.

After a few trips around the field the bottom of the wagon was full and Ian was satisfied.  The steers, pigs and heifers will eat well this winter.

Outside my window....the sun should be rising but alas it is behind the clouds that bring the rain and the wind.  Still this is also part of the autumn weather that we have been enjoying and I wouldn't trade it for any other season.  Saturday was a beautiful fall day, a little less sunny than ideal but the temps. were nice and the time spent helping my husband build fence made the sun shine for me.

I am thankful for....countless things that I know I must keep upper most in my mind.  Without the virtue of thankfulness bitterness would settle in.

From the schoolroom....Matthew and Mary-Kate will soon be at the business of learning.  I need to write some plans for Matthew and go over the papers that he wrote last week so I will have my day pretty well mapped out for me.

From the kitchen...much cooking and baking has to be going on today.  There are no leftovers in the garage and strangely there are still a raft of hungry people in this place.  It seems a funny thing that if there is no more food left there should be no more hungry people but unlike mathematics that doesn't compute.

I am wearing....scrubs and a tee shirt.  There is a nice cheery fire going in the stove so there is no need to bundle up in here anymore.

I am creating....hmmm?  Well, the quilting machine is now pulled out and I think I will try to load the batting and a quilt onto it and see if I can get it going.

I am going....to stay home all day today.  Three people have asked me if I had anywhere to go today, I hope that doesn't mean that they have some place for me to go.  Wait! everyone here except Layn can drive themselves.

I am reading.....St. Francis de Sales Introduction to the Devout Life.  That is a work that should be read a couple of times a year.  The good man had a lot to say that is wise and well worth heading.

I am hoping...there is a whole theme for meditation.  Hope.  My hope is in the Lord who made heaven and earth.  There I go again waxing philosophical.  Where is the big dude when I could use a good philosophical discussion.

I am hearing....morning sounds.  Waking up sounds.  The sound of Doug leaving for work, Melissa stirring in the other room.  I hear MK and the dog prowling around upstairs and the clock on the wall ticking away the seconds.  The sounds of the morning that wrap themselves around me and warm me like a blanket or a good hot cup of tea.  Sounds that fill my mind and turn my heart like a compass in the direction of home and family.

Around the house....half is clean and neat and half is a disaster.  Thanks to MK, Melissa, and Doug this weekend one half of the house has been cleaned and reorganized.  Thanks to the fact that we all live here the livingroom and kitchen look like a bomb went off.  What a pleasure and joy to go around straightening and dusting and making everything orderly again knowing that we all spent the weekend together.  It's all in how you view the job.  It's that proverbial spoonful of sugar.

A few plans for the rest of the week...classes, holy hours, more classes, laundry and cooking.  That is the shape of my days and I love it.  Creating a haven of warmth and invitation that my husband can come home to after a day of work is the aim of all my waking hours.  Seeing that my family is happy and contented, that my daughter is guided as she walks along the road to young womanhood and my son on his journey into manhood, these are the things that occupy my days.

Here is a picture thought that I am sharing with you...

When the forecasted wind and rain this week is over (if it transpires) I am afraid that this beauty will be spent.  Enjoy this last glimpse into our fall.

I swung by the farm that has the beautiful longhorn cattle on it last night when I went to get Doug from work.  I hadn't been out there since the beginning of the summer and I wanted to see how they were doing.  I cannot get enough of looking at those majestic beasts out in their pasture.  Imagine my surprise when I saw not only mom and dad but little heifer along with them.