Things of a Less Quilty Nature -

This is a photo of a heinous chestnut tree.

I’m not sure if that is actually the species name, but it is definitely the name I am giving it. 

This is the first time I’ve had a chestnut tree in the yard, and to tell you the truth, I wouldn’t be sad if it left – but it would have to leave a full sized many decades old tree-of-another-kind in its spot were it to move off and go elsewhere.

THOSE HULLS!  They are prickly beyond belief and it is this time of the year that they start hitting the ground in bunches.

Last fall was our first foray into chestnut pick up – this year we are doing things a bit differently.

Sharp and evil chestnut hulls have met their match!

The chestnuts themselves are not a problem – (Are you humming “Chestnuts roasting on an open fire…..” yet?  STOP IT!  That can’t happen until AFTER Thanksgiving!) In fact The Electrician pulled out his pocket knife, stooped down, scooped one up, peeled it and popped it right into his mouth with a “Yes, ma’am! These are Goooood!”

Having never been a huge fan of chestnuts – they were just not readily available where I grew up, I told him he could take as many as he dang well pleased – but please throw the hulls over the fence in the process. 

Truth be told – I bet the deer will beat him to the chestnuts, but there is no getting the deer to throw the hulls over the fence.  They just let them lie where they are. Dangerous little land mines just waiting to be stepped on!

Under the Chestnut Tree.

This little rolling chestnut-picker-upper is the newest gadget to take up residence in the garage/shop at Quiltville Inn.  It certainly beats picking up those spiny balls of death by hand. Even with gloves.

We got the ones that had fallen scooped up on Sunday, in preparation for son Jeff and the big mower to do their job yesterday. But by the look of these branches, there will be many more to fall before it’s all over.

And did I mention that there is also an ancient walnut tree to contend with?  

The squirrels mostly take care of that nut-bombing, I have so far only found a few of those on the ground.  We have a lot of oaks in the woods around the cabin, and we can sit on the porch in the evening and just listen to them fall.  But at least they are NOT falling in the yard!

Hill looking golden behind the back porch!

There are some very dead trees that are going to come down as soon as the other trees have lost their leaves and the brush is minimized.  You can’t hardly see the creek and things are running very low as we have been without rain for quite a while.  Every time I think we are going to get a cloudburst – the clouds move away and leave us high and dry.

Colors kind of happening -

But mostly leaves just falling and looking bare.

(Nice mowing job, Jeff!)

Interesting things from the old General Store.

The Old General Store needs to COME DOWN.  Seriously.  The floors have fallen though, it’s been open to the elements from the roof, the broken windows, the floor – but The Electrician asked if he could poke around in there a bit – and I said sure, but watch where you step. 

In its day, it was not only the store, the post office, and the electric company, but the center of community.  We found this thing still in its box – we have no idea how old it is, but there were also old electrical meters, rusted locks with keys, and several things in original boxes just left behind when the store closed in the 1970s.

Some kind of start/stop switch.

I thought I might keep this around so I can push the red STOP button during this year’s Quiltville Winter Mystery if the whining starts ramping up for any reason.  LOL!

Let there be shower caddies!

There is a story behind these.  In this little town of Jefferson/West Jefferson, North Carolina there are only a couple of choices for hardware type things.  Roses, Walmart, Lowes, Dollar Tree.  

NO ONE had caddies that would work with the spray nozzle type of shower head.  None of them.  I asked at Lowes first – they don’t even CARRY shower caddies.  Walmart?  Nothing that did what I wanted it to do.  So sometimes when you live remotely, you are FORCED to order off of Amazon to get what you need.  I have tried to buy local.  My first thought is to buy local. We are just so limited here.

And then I stopped beating myself up because there has been mail order for needful things since Sears opened their doors in the 1880s:

“In 1886 Richard W. Sears founded the R.W. Sears Watch Company in Minneapolis, Minnesota, to sell watches by mail order. He relocated his business to Chicago in 1887, hired Alvah C. Roebuck to repair watches, and established a mail-order business for watches and jewelry. The company’s first catalog was offered the same year.

In 1889 Sears sold his business but a few years later founded, with Roebuck, another mail-order operation, which in 1893 came to be known as Sears, Roebuck and Company. In 1895 Julius Rosenwald, a wealthy clothing manufacturer, bought out Roebuck’s interest, and he reorganized the mail-order business. Sears meanwhile wrote the company’s soon-to-be-famous catalogs.

The company grew phenomenally by selling a range of merchandise at low prices to farms and villages that had no other convenient access to retail outlets. The initiation of rural free delivery (1896) and of parcel post (1913) by the U.S. Postal Service enabled Sears to send its merchandise to even the most isolated customers.” [source]

Amazon is now this generation’s version of “Sears Catalog” and I am one of “even the most isolated customers.” (And now you've learned something new that you didn't know before today!)

I still had to tell the folks at Lowes that I would have bought from them – had they carried what I needed. But since they had NO shower caddies of any kind, they had forced my hand and I had gone straight to Amazon.  It is what it us.

Thank you, Judy!

Judy sent an adorable vintage china sugar bowl in the mail that nearly matches the sweet old pitcher that I bought while out with Martha in Chilhowie on Friday!  I just LOVE LOVE LOVE it.  Thank you, Judy.  It now holds my stevia packets for my tea and is residing next to the electric tea pot at the Quiltville Post Office.

And I know I said this was NOT a quilty post – but still – this you have to see!

Who woulda thunk it??

When you don't realize you've pieced glow-in-the-dark fabric into your quilt until you turn off the lights and find it glowing green. Oh. My. Heck. Lol! It made it kind of a fun start for the Halloween season that is almost upon us.

This weekend I think it’s time to get out the autumn décor for real and put summer away.

Today – Dentist day number 1.  I am having a crown replaced, and this dentist does the whole process start to finish, making new crowns in house while you wait.  It may be a few hours of a wait.  I may shop, I may find the library.  I’m not sure what I’ll do in between, but I’ll be hanging around Jefferson as I don’t want to make two trips in one day only a few hours apart.  I could take handwork and sit somewhere lovely – maybe a park and listen to an audio book while I stitch and enjoy this late September day.

Next week there is a filling on the OTHER side that has to be replaced, and I opted to do that in two different appointments rather then have the entirety of my face numb for a good portion of the afternoon.  By the time I head to California I’ll have my mouth all back and ship-shape.

Did you see that we have a Quilty Box Gift-Away happening on Monday’s post?  Head on over there to enter to win – it’s a great one with some gorgeous fabrics, and more!  Drawing to happen on Saturday.

Quiltville Quote of the Day

Vintage bricks quilt found in North Carolina.

I read once that the people we surround ourselves with either raise or lower our standards. In other words, we become like our friends.

True friends will lift you up into a better you and you will do the same for them!

Have a lovely Wednesday!