Grands 'n' More Meeting in Winnipeg

Grands 'n' More is a group in Winnipeg that works to raise money to send to grandmothers in Africa who are looking after AIDS orphans. These African grandmothers have known the horror of burying their own children.  They have been called upon to parent at an age in life when they would have expected to take their ease.  Their situation is often desperate.  However, they have found a strength and resilience in the middle of it all that is truly inspiring.

We were guests at the Grands 'n' More AGM.  Our group of four represented the newly formed Treherne/Holland group called Grands Go 2 Gether, an umbrella group of the Stephen Lewis Foundation, as is the Winnipeg group.  We were treated royally by the Winnipeg group.

At the meeting there was a presentation by two members of the Winnipeg group who traveled to Africa to see the work being done by the Canadian grandmothers' donations.  They traveled to Ethiopia, Rwanda and South Africa.  The power point presentation showed the amazing experience these two women had in Africa!

Krista, Sandra, Shirley and Nancy at the Grands 'n' More meeting.

Trip to Oma's

A few of us drove to Oma's on a FART (Fabric Acquisition Road Trip). I had never been there before. Oma has a wonderful store beside her house on the farm near Grunthal. She has a studio in the loft of the store. Ideal set up!

Yvonne is delighted by some fabrics she found.

Oma cutting some fabric in her shop.

Leaving Oma's.  Each of us has a bag of fabric!

Oma's road sign.

Then we drove to Steinback to have lunch.  We stopped at the Oakridge Green House.  It has a wonderful cafe.  We each had soup and salad or sandwich.  Delicious!  Then we looked at the plants.  Lots of beautiful flowers.  Unfortunately, we just had a bit of room left in the car, so we only bought a few.

Zandra, Marj and Yvonne enjoying lunch on the deck.

On our way home, we stopped in New Bothwell to visit the cheese shop.  This is the location of the Bothwell Cheese Factory.  We were able to buy bulk cheese and fancy cut too.  I got some green pepper corn, jalapino, and horseradish cheeses.

Lots of bulk cheese - ends of the cheese logs that are cut into regular size pieces.

Here are the coolers containing many varieties of cheeses.

Movie Night

A group of us met to begin watching movies together. Our first movie, on Sunday night, was Philomena. Great picture. 

Only in rural Manitoba would we get together at a house and watch Apple TV!!

Triple Picker Arrived

Lisa and I bought another piece of equipment to ease the process of taking raw fleece to cleaned, picked, carded and ready to use fleece. The Triple Picker is hand crafted by Pat Green from British Columbia. He and his wife hand-make various equipment used for fleece. They seem like true pioneers.

I gave the picker a try. It takes some getting used to. It works like a charm to open the fibres up and get out seeds and small debris, but doesn't remove pieces of straw.  I used the Triple Picker to pick an alpaca fleece I bought last year at the fibre festival that I have been spinning. Now the fibres are airy and fluffy. It will be much easier to spin. The alpaca fibres are ready for spinning with just some picking.  Other wool fibres will still need to be carded before they can be spinned.. 

Wooden Triple Picker on the right and a boxful of picked alpaca fibres on the left.

Just sit in front of the picker and rock it back and forth putting fibre through.

Deadly teeth of the Triple Picker.  It is very dangerous and could be a torture device!

Wouldn't want to get your fingers caught in the triple row of picker nails!!

Carefully add the fleece!!

Rock the swinging portion of the picker forward....

and back..

until you get a pile of fluffy fleece.

Planted the Garden

Don, Leah and I planted the garden Sunday evening just as it was threatening to rain. The plan was for Aaron to join us to plant on Victoria Day Monday, but the forecast was for rain, so we planted without him.

Aaron and Rhayne came out Monday anyways. I put the kids to work going through the stuff in their rooms and downstairs. We ended up with a full truck box full of blue recycle bags to take to MCC Thrift Store in Morden. Wow!  Felt good to purge!

Everyone headed back to the city.  Before he left Aaron took some birds eye shots of the landscape from the top of the seed plant grain leg. I could hardly watch - I am so afraid of heights. Aaron is using bits of all this footage in a film he is making about his Dad and farming. 

Don tilling the garden

Aaron up on the tallest grain leg taking film footage.

Closer up.

Leah and Monkey heading home to Winnipeg.

Monkey is very concerned.  

Garden all planted and rained on.  Great timing!!

Camp Assiniboia Quilt Retreat

A group of eight friends got together to create our own quilt retreat at Camp Assiniboia for the May long weekend. We had a great time quilting, eating, hiking by the Assiniboine River and laughing!

Camp Assiniboia is awesome.  It is located in a bend in the Assiniboine River and is very scenic.  Early Saturday morning Cynthia and I were up soon enough to catch a glimpse of 9 deer walking about the area.

Looking out our kitchen window at the deer.

Some deer a little closer

Cynthia's first quilt, a New York Beauty, from a class last fall by Marj!

Cynthia's One Block Wonder coming together.

The back of a wildlife quilt Cynthia was working on.

A pillowcase for Marj's grandson.  (My landscape quilt is hanging in the background.)

Faye showing off her Escher-esque quilt.  Cynthia and Yvonne checking out a Celtic Quilt book.

Beth finishes her pizza quilt.

Beth finishes her New York Beauty wall quilt too!

I finish Serenity quilt.

Joyce finishes a Cancer lap quilt for her sister in law who will undergo chemotherapy next month.

Deciding on boarder colours for the lap quilt.

Faye working on the Buggy Barn applique quilt.  She finished!  (Sorry I didn't get a photo of it done!)

We even did a few demonstrations.  Marj demoed  how to make a flange binding and a hotdog pillow case.  Yvonne demonstrated how to make a child's apron from two fat quarters.  I demoed three different applique techniques I had learned in the last year.

Yvonne cutting the armhole for a child's apron.

Child's apron demo close up.

Tarda Tulips

Thank you to my friend Heather who told me the correct name for these tulips. She knew the name of them from her mother-in-law, Marie, who had clumps of them growing in her garden. Heather has some in her flower garden from Marie. I got mine from Georgie and May. Who knows, Marie might have shared hers with Georgie and May originally. Small world!

Tarda Tulips

Tulipa tarda (late tulip, tarda tulip) is a perennial growing from a bulb. It is cultivated for its flowers with a yellow center and white tips, blooming in spring. Tulipa tarda is native to central Asia, growing in rocky subalpine meadows.

Just heard from another friend, Rosie, that she bought these as bulbs at WalMart.  She was also able to get purple ones.  How lovely!!

Card Making

Today a group of five ladies met at Arlene's and made cards. Arlene did all the prep work and we put the cards together. It is wonderful of Arlene to open her house, share her tools and paper products for us. Lots of fun too!

On my return home after card making I was greated by sun shine and some early spring flowers. Yahoo!  Maybe spring really will arrive soon!

Shirley and Nancy enjoy a few laughs while making cards.

Judy, Michelle and Arlene at another table.

Name these flowers for me.
I have had them for a long time, they look like a small tulip, but smaller and grow in a clump.

Pre-Mothers' Day Nature Drive

Don, Leah and I took a drive to the sand hills Saturday evening. It was a nice calm evening for a drive. We were looking for crocuses and we found some.

We also saw many animals - deer, two elk, rabbit, squirrels; and birds - red winged blackbirds, bald eagle and heard the thumping of a grouse. 

Gorgeous evening!  Wonderful Mothers' Day gift!!

Don got some great crocus photos!

Leah checking out the crocuses.

Those crocus leaves are soft and fuzzy.

A couple of marsh marigolds are blooming at the creek.  More to come if the weather ever warms up!

Leah by the Cypress River spillway.

Looks like Don is walking on water!