Covid-19 Life: A Quilt Finish, New Books, a Walk in the Woods, and The End of the Rainbow

I finished machine quilting the Water Lily quilt! I intend to wash it and the fabric and cotton batting will shrink some, giving it an antique look. I bought this Mountain Mist pattern early in my quilting life, almost thirty years ago. It was time I finally made it.

I hand appliqued it and machine quilted it. I should not have machine quilted it. It was a very bad idea. But, when I read that the quilting was to be echo quilting I did not want to do all that hand quilting. It is what it is.

Book mail from The Book Club Cookbook and St. Martin's Press included the paperback edition A Good Neighborhood by Therese Anne Fowler. 

I reviewed the galley when it came out. I wrote,

Foreshadowing began with the opening sentences, narrated in a voice that brought to mind Rod Serling introducing a Twilight Zone episode, setting up the story.

A girl sitting beside a swimming pool behind her newly built home. The neighbor boy welcoming her to the neighborhood. A typical day in a typical good neighborhood, upscale and friendly, a place where women gather for book clubs and teenagers can safely run in the local park.

But underneath the 'tenuous peace' simmers the possibility of fracture, the conflict of class and money and race and values. For some, conspicuous wealth is the goal. For another, environmental concerns are primary.

And probing deeper, there are secret desires and blooming love and the blindness we hold on to for self-protection.

Lives will be destroyed. A Good Neighborhood is a reflection of the social turmoil of our time.

New on my NetGalley shelf is

• Classical Crossroads by Leonard Slatkin, director laureate of the Detroit Symphony Orchestra, on ideas for the classical music world to meet the challenges of the 21 st c. Slatkin blogged about these ideas over the pandemic as orchestra concerts were shut down. We had season tickets for concerts that never happened last year. But we did enjoy accessing online concerts!
• Zero Waste Gardening:Maximize Space and Taste with Minimal Waste by Ben Raskin. We took a class in organic gardening in 1973. I am interested to learn about new techniques that address zero food waste.

From Goodreads giveaways is coming 

• The Ground Breaking: An American City and its Search for Justice, about the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre by Scott Ellsworth. I have read books that reference massacre, now I will learn more about this tragedy. 

And from The Book Club Cook Book I won

• A Hundred Suns by Karin Tanabe, historical fiction set in 1930s Colonial Vietnam

A snow was followed by temps into the high 20s, but our flowering fruit trees seem to have survived! I am thrilled since this is the year for a high apple yield from the Northern Spy trees. It is filled with buds ready to bloom.

I brought in the tulips. They were closed but opened with the warmth indoors.

April 22 was Earth Day. I was still in high school that first Earth Day. Students from a university had tables set up in the hall to educate us. I bought a pinback button still in my collect. Give Earth a Chance. Fifty-one years later,we still are hoping for changes that will protect our one and only home.

On Friday we went to Tenhave Woods in Royal Oak, Michigan to see the early spring wildflowers. The woods is next to the high school I attended and my biology teacher was instrumental in preserving them. 

Trillium are beginning to bloom, trout lily predominated in a yellow cloud, and we saw spring beauty and wild geranium. The may apples were budding. And we spooked a garter snake sunning himself.

We have visited the dentist and eye doctors, appointments we skipped last spring.  Last week we made some shopping trips into several local specialty stores, but are still using Shipt and pick up and social isolating. After all, these amazing vaccines are not 100% effective and we don't want to be the 5% who contract covid or pass it on.

I purchased masks with filters from Vera Bradley last summer and have been very pleased with them, plus they are pretty! I love the adjustable ear straps. They are now only $5.

Here are my obligatory fur grandkid pics. First up, Gus the kitten.

Sunny and Ellie go to Dogtopia where this  cute photo was taken. Apparently, the idea of a picnic did not appeal to the pups.

My brother and his girlfriend have been walking the North Country Trail across Michigan. Last weekend as they drove home, Martha caught this rainbow coming out of my brother's truck! 

Tom noted he was at the end of the rainbow, so perhaps was Martha's "pot of gold," but I suggested he also might be her leprechaun. 

Stay safe. And here's to finding the rainbow's end!