Practice What You Preach

Among my weekly quilting friends, the QB's, I'm kinda known for always being the one to preach at anybody who puts down an open rotary cutter or does something stupid like cutting towards themself rather than always cutting AWAY from yourself.

Well, I'm sure you can guess where this post is going....uh huh, I did it. I was trimming up something and cut towards myself. Only my finger happened to be in the way. It is now a skinnier finger than before. I never realized just how much a finger can bleed -- WAY more than a head wound, at least in this case. But, I suppose that when you slice off a chunk of skin about 1/2" x 1/4" from the side of your finger tip there will be some blood involved. No blood ended up on the fabric but the bathroom, well, that's another story....


The Spotted One thinks it is his duty to try to lick the bandage off my finger.....thanks Arlo.

Acer palmatum 'Dissectum Viridis'

So, we have this corner of the yard that we've been working hard to clean up. For the first 16 or so years that we've lived here, this corner was inhabited by 4 very large pine trees. 2 of them came down in a large rain and wind storm about 4 years ago. We lost another tree in yet another wind storm the following year. We're down to the one last tree.

Last year I tried to keep the weeds out by filling the bank with pumpkins. This year, since we had so little summer weather, the weeds won. As you can see, we've finally managed to get the area cleared. So now that means it's time to plant something other than weeds. Along with the viburnum, I've also put in a rose of sharon, a forsythia and a couple other ornamental shrubs. But, the latest addition this weekend is this beauty:

It was love at first sight when I saw this tree. We had originally gone out in search of a red Japanese Maple but, when I saw the color of this Green Cutleaf Japanese Maple it was all over. For the past two weekends a local, wholesale only nursery has been open to the public. They have an incredible variety of stock.

Of course the Spotted One had to help. He thinks he's the official inspector.

And to all my quilting friends, yes, I realize that the main color of this tree is ORANGE. Please, you don't have to point it out to me -- it has already been duly noted. The Bearded One thought it was quite amusing that the one tree I liked the most had ORANGE foliage.....