Last week we went camping for 4 days at a fairly new State Park in Arkansas. Lake Fort Smith was a state park years ago and then it was dismantled due to the building of a new dam. The state said that they would make a new park near the old location and it opened in May of this year. We had a great time camping at the park, it was really pretty and has a nice mile loop road in the campground area that provides you with a great up and down hill work out and is very pretty. One morning I was stretching my legs and walked to the bathhouse and was greeted by 5 deer near the bathhouse. When I came back out the deer were still there and then proceeded to follow me a short way back to the campsite instead of fleeing! That was unusual to say the least. Here are some photo’s from our short trip.
Outside of visitors center:
Part of the inside of the visitor’s center:
Road to the campsites:
This part of the road shows a campsite and a bathhouse across the road:
We took a hike on the Ozark Highlands Trail which taps into the park. This is part of an old homestead – the chimney is all in one piece and is in very good shape for as old as it most likely is, I would judge it being from the 1800’s:
A view of the lake from the trail which follows the lake very closely in places.
Another part of the trail:
Me on the trail looking at something, I don’t remember what:
Here is a link to the park if you are interested in visiting it: http://www.arkansasstateparks.com/lakefortsmith/
Here are several links to information about the Ozark Highlands Trail:
http://www.trailkeeper.com/trails/view.aspx?id=253MDA2NEZ
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ozark_Highlands_Trail
http://www.hikearkansas.com/ohta.html
There are many access points to the trail from many parks and park areas. If you want to walk part of the trail you can park a vehicle from one of your hiking buddies at one site and then drive to another park and start from there by parking another car there and just go back for it later. We have done that in the past when we went backpacking on part of the trail – in our younger days — that way you don’t have to turn around and back track on the trail that you have already seen.
I don’t know about the rest of you but I love to bake. I love cakes, cookies, pies, bread ect. I just came across a site that has some great recipes and thought I would share it with y’all, they have all different kinds of recipes, a blog, help, shopping ect at all one site. http://www.kingarthurflour.com/
I have one of the cookbooks from King Athur Flour company, the book on whole grain baking and it has wonderful recipes. Some of the recipes from that book are at the link above.
I started my second Dear Jane quilt back in April, I have just finished 4 of the 13 rows this week and have the rows sashed together. It is looking pretty good – so much different than the scrappy look of my first Dear Jane that I completed last year.
Here is a photo of the first 4 rows:
I wonder how long it will take to finish this quilt 
last one took 3 years. So far I have over a thousand pieces in it already and a little over 100 hours of work!
Finally the big flower bed that I have been working on for several years is full of dirt and is planted!! I started working on this massive project 4 years ago. I have so many rocks that pop up out of our soil that digging a hole is almost impossible without a backhoe so raised beds are the answer on our property. On the far side of the yard I had thought a really big raised bed would be great for shade plants so I went about designing a rock border and getting them in place that took a whole fall one year to do. Then I started to fill it in with mulched up leaves, bark, rotted trees – everything I could find and over the next two years I kept adding more and more and gradually it was turning into soil. Still I needed more so finally I ordered a dumptruck load of soil and had it dumped in an area out of the way – only problem with that is then you have to move the dirt afterwards to the areas you want it. So last year I started to move dirt, finally this year Mike took pity on me and helped (this was my idea and my project after all and he has his own things to do )and low and behold within a week I was ready to plant.
Yesterday I went to Lowes searching through their nursery and I got 4 hostas and 2 large coralbells, plus 10 vinca ground cover plants. This summer I had rooted 7 blue hydrangeas and they were well rooted and ready to plant. A couple days ago I dug up about 10 tiny ferns from the woods and put them aside to go into the garden as well. I got everything planted this afternoon. It of course looks pretty empty even with all those plants, but I do know it will fill in within a couple years and each growing season I’m sure I will pick up a couple more plants to stick in empty spaces. It will look good in a couple years I’m sure.
Here is what it looks like now – I am not bothering to put any mulch down on top of the dirt right now because the big tree above the garden has leaves turning orange already and some are falling every day, I’m sure within a week there will be plenty of downed leaves to help protect the plants and help keep the dirt moist.
another angle:
I don’t guarantee it but I will try to periodically post a picture of this shade bed so you can all see how it is filling in and you all see within a couple years as soon as those hydrangea start growing it will be looking pretty good.
Another quilt finished!! I had gotten so behind on finishing projects that it is a great feeling to finish another. I started this quilt back in the spring – it is hand appliqued and hand quilted. I have 2 more finished tops that need to be quilted, another on the frame that is half way quilted and three quilt tops in progress. I’m not sure how it is that I started so many, normally I only work on 2 or 3 at a time.
The finished product:
When we visit our daughter in Wisconsin the quilt shop that I love the most in her area is Mill House Quilts in Waunakee about 8 miles from her house — and here at home I have to travel miles and miles to get to a quilt shop (80 miles to be exact). I couldn’t believe it but they are open every day of the week – how neat is that. We went on a Sunday afternoon and the parking lot was packed. A link to their store near Madison WI: http://www.millhousequilts.com/ and some pictures of in and out:
This is a very neat building - an old millhouse that has been renovated from my understanding about 13 years ago. There is history about the building on their web site. If you are in that area of Wisconsin visiting drop by and visit them, the selections of fabric is amazing – very large selection. They will get my business when I am in the area. The owners and employees are very friendly and helpful. Besides the fabric they have a large selection of books and notions as well.
Fabric bundles:
another view of outside:
Stairway leading to the classrooms on the 2nd floor:
Another fabric corner:
Now you can all see why I love this store so much. If I lived near this store I have a feeling I would be applying for a job or I would be visiting it every week just for the atmosphere
Well I do believe I have fixed the problem – thank you Ranny on Quiltersbee for the suggestion of little rubber legs that you put on chair ends. It took a little bit of invention but problem solved. I ran to Wal-Mart today and headed to the hardware section, I got two packages of the little rubber feet – I wasn’t sure what size was needed, I got 1″ pieces and 7/8″ pieces. The one inch were too tall, and so was the 7/8″ but I didn’t think I had seen any smaller so I got out my craft knife and shaved about a 1/4″ off of one rubber piece, turned the board upside down and got out the super glue, glued that little sucker down after making sure it wasn’t in the way of the turn table:
I thought it would be the right size but it turned out to not give enough drag on the swivel so I found a piece of felt that also goes on the end of a table leg or whatever so it doesn’t scratch the floor, I had that from a previous time so did not have to run out to the store again, at first I covered the whole end with it but that gave it too much drag and wouldn’t rotate, so I cut it down to fit the very center:
It is a little blurry but I think you can see what I did. The end results:
Even though it is actually resting directly on the table top the felt lets it swivel when I need it to, you have to help it slightly but better that than it moving as much as it had to the point that I felt I wouldn’t be able to use it.
This a perfectly beautiful cutting matt on a lazy susan that my husband bought for me at the Wisconsin quilt show held in Madison last month. My problem with it is that it swivels while I am trying to cut. Any ideas?
What it looks like from the top – it matches my work table so well
From the side you can see how far off of the table it is and maybe can come up with ideas on how to keep it from swiveling while I am cutting:
