Something New Has Been Added

I am using a new way to share my photos - Smilebox. Hope you enjoy the photos...and the music too.

Make a Smilebox slideshow

Take a Look at our Backyard Visitors

Make a Smilebox slideshow

Azaleas in full bloom and animals are picnicing in our back yard

The azaleas are in full bloom - the hummingbirds love to land and check out the nectar of their blossoms.

To view any of these photos larger, just click on the photo.

Tuffy is the resident cat. His favorite window on the backyard is one of the chairs or the floor on the back porch. From there, he can see all the comings and goings of the birds and squirrels at the feeders. There is a new puppy next door - they haven't met nose to nose yet!

.

We feed our birds year round, but it is always fun in the spring when those that fly south return for the summer...or even for just a little while as they head farther north.

.

The squirrels share the squirrel feeder pretty well. One can go upstairs to the sunflower seeds and one can stay downstairs with the corn.

The hummingbirds are back and drinking like they haven't had any nectar for a while. This one let me get pretty close with my camera.

.

.

The grosbeak come in the spring and then head out. While they are here we certainly enjoy their color. Look at how big their beaks are - makes it easy for them to crack into corn and seeds.

Here is a photo with a couple of male grosbeaks (the colored ones) and a female (the brown one). They are about the same size - just different coloring.

We don't see many blue jays here, but this year we've had several at our feeders nearly every day.

.

.

We have lots of goldfinches now too. The wrens are back and starting to set up house in our two wren houses that hang on the clothesline. And, we finally have a pair of bluebirds that have taken up residence in our bluebird house. It was new and I understand that they don't like new wood for their homes. This is the first year they have taken up residence in the Brownings backyard.

25th AQS Quilt Show is Now History

Wow...what a busy week we had. The 25th Anniversary Quilt Show closed at 5 p.m. last night. And Wayne and I were able to sleep in past 6 a.m. this morning. My feet and knees still hurt but I'm taking it easy today.

We began on Friday, April 17, as we moved into the newly-renovated Julian Carroll Convention Center (thank to the City of Paducah) to prepare for judging the quilts. The judging was done on Saturday and Sunday as Libby Lehman, Yvonne Porcella, and Mary Sorensen viewed and judged all 16 categories in the contest. Mariya Waters from Australia won Best of Show and she arrived at the show on Wednesday morning. What a delight, as she accepted the honor of winning this top award, talked with visitors about making her quilt, and enjoyed visiting Paducah. Wait until you see the photo of this quilt in the next issue of American Quilter magazine - you'll see the miles and miles of hand couched thread around every applique piece in her quilt!

Monday and Tuesday were set up days - getting the quilts all hung and vendors set up. Did you all visit all of the vendor areas, from the Expo Center, to both levels of the Convention Center, the Galleria near the Patio Dining Room in the hotel, and of course, the Vendors on Kentucky (Finkel Building) where we had even more vendors and the AQS/Collector Books "hurt book" sale? I bet you didn't buy just one book!

The show officially opened on Wednesday morning at 9 a.m. Thousands of quilters were waiting to view the winning quilts. Congratulations to all of the winners in this year's contest. Wednesday afternoon, Nancy Zieman hosted the afternoon tea and shared tips for making landscape quilts and some other quick projects. The evening program, the 25th Anniversary Celebration, sponsored by Janome, included Keith Harrell as the keynote speaker, introduction of the past Best of Show winners, presentation of the awards to this year's winners, followed by a reception for all who attended.

Thursday was the Quilt Auction at the Four Rivers Center in the Afternoon. That evening Eleanor Burns regaled the audience with a look back at her past 30 years of Quilt in a Day - she even admitted when there were patterns that took more than one day. GRIN

On Friday afternoon, the AQS/Hobbs Bonded Fibers Fashion Show included both the models wearing their fashions in the contest, and the Quilted Elegance Fashions by Rami Kim during the judging intermission. All were a feast for the eyes! The Ricky Tims Concert, sponsored by Ken's Sewing Center, featured Ricky playing the piano, his mini piano, a recorder, flute, and a trumpet. We are lucky to have all of this talent wrapped in one of our quilters. We already have him scheduled for next year...so if you weren't here this year, put Friday evening on your calendar for next year.

The Brunch & Fun with Helen Squire on Saturday morning was like something from outer space - you should have seen Helen's GREEN hair. She shared tips for getting all of our UFO's quilted.

And, so now, we move on to finalizing our plans for the Knoxville (July 22 - 25) and Des Moines (October 28 - 31) shows later this year. The Knoxville registration is open online (http://www.americanquilter.com/) and we are working on the registration materials for Des Moines so they'll be available soon.

Dogwoods are Starting to Bloom

This week the first of the dogwoods started to bloom. Look at how pristine these blossoms are. The redbud trees are all in full bloom now too, which means that they will probably be finished by the time the quilters arrive for the quilt show. Hopefully the azaleas will be showing off their color for the quilters then. The AQS Quilt Show is only 18 days away now. Do you have your plans made to be here to help us celebrate our 25th anniversary, April 22 - 25?


Look at this beautiful peppermint striped dogwood that I found today. It was at a home in the Downtown Artist area. I've never seen one that looked like this. I am calling it Peppermint Patty - have no idea what it's real name is.

Progress Report - Limbs & Sticks from Ice Storm

My sister, Karen Franzen, and her son, Mike, drove down from Iowa on Wednesday. They helped Andi & Dennis Affholter drive their car back to Paducah; Dennis was loading the last of their furnishings from their home in Keota. Karen and Mike spent all day Thursday and until noon on Friday helping Wayne get the last of our sticks picked up. They worked on the pine trees in the side yard, and burned several of our piles of sticks. We only have six piles in the back yard left, plus the piles in the front yard that the county is supposed to pick up. If they don't, we'll burn those too. Thanks, Karen and Mike! It would have taken Wayne and me all summer to get those sticks picked up.

Here's a photo of Mike on the dock at Kentucky Lake. The crappie were really biting. Yummmm, crappie is my favorite fresh fish. And when you catch a mess of 55 of them like these guys did, that is some good eating. And what is prettier than a view of Kentucky Lake in the late afternoon. Even the birds knew fish were being cleaned, as they hovered overhead waiting for the remains.

These are the tree piles of sticks that we burned on Thursday night. We took a break and went to Kentucky Lake and then to Catfish Kitchen in Draffenville for supper. It took until after 1:00 a.m. to get them burned down so Mike and Wayne could go to bed. We only burn two piles at a time and we keep the hose out there to water down the grass around the piles. Some parts of our grass are really. On Friday, the State ordered a "no burn ban" from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m. every day, until further notice. There have been people who started fired and it got away from them and burned whole fields or buildings down. We keep a watch on ours when we start them.

Here is what is left in the front yard. The county is supposed to come pick up piles that are next to the street. They use a piece of equipment that has a big pincher that scoops up these piles and drops them in a big truck to take to the tree disposal yard to be chipped into mulch. Do you think the price of mulch will go down because there is so much available? We'll see.

Spring Flowers & Birds

Spring is here when you begin to see the color that the blooming flowers add to the yards. I've snapped a few photos in my next door neighbors' yard - where the daffodils, hyacinths, and tulip tree are all blooming.

The purple hyacinths with the yellow daffodils sure add a lot of color to the yard

Look at this pretty double daffodil...in peach and white. We certainly enjoy the perennial flowers that Lorraine (rest her soul) planted on her property. This is just one of several colors of double daffodils that she planted a couple of years ago. This year they are the fullest that I have seen them. Each clump is as pretty as the next.


The tulip tree (some call it magnolia) on the corner of our neighbor's property is in full bloom now. We haven't had any hard rain to wash off the petals...but we expect some rain this week so I had to go snap a photo of this beautiful tree this morning. Each blossom is opened full out.
Pretty, isn't it?

This is one of the two bluebirds that stayed in Paducah all winter. We have had a bluebird box on one of our trees for the past few seasons. This pair is now looking to build a nest in it. I understand that bluebirds don't like new wood so maybe the wood has weathered enough now that they can make it their home. This morning I saw one of them taking a bath in the bird water bowl. It was happily splashing around to get itself all wet.

We have robins that stay all winter, taking advantage of the bird seed and water that Wayne makes sure are available to them.

But it is always fun to see how red-orange their breasts get in the spring. Besides those that stay, we'll have many more fly back soon.

Spring has Sprung

The first sign of spring in Paducah is the daffodils starting to bloom. The Bradford pear trees are blooming too, but many of them are scarred from the January ice storm..so they look a little battered.

The quilts for the AQS Quilt Contest have been juried, and there are 400 excited quilters who can't wait for the judging to see if they won. The judging is done on the weekend right before the show.

We are busy working on the final details for the 25th anniversary celebration - do you know that more than 10,000 quilts have been shown at the Paducah show over these past 25 years...and AQS has awarded more than $2.5 million in cash awards to quilters across the U.S. and around the world.

Most of the classes are full, but there are still a few seats if you want to register for a workshop or two. You can always attend some of the lectures - that's a great way to learn more about that instructor's techniques.

Be sure to sign up for the 25th Anniversary Celebration & Reception on Wednesday evening at 5:30 p.m. It will be a special night. The past Best of Show winners will be honored - all but 4 of them will be here as guests of AQS.

And, I'm busy working on details...like finalizing the lodging list for the sponsors and teachers, and getting the BEO's (Banquet Event Orders - there's a slip for every room for every day) updated with this year's information for the hotel; and beginning the text for the Showbook that will be available at the show. There are things to be finished every day between now and the show.

Hope you all are planning to come join us in Paducah, April 22 - 25, 2009. If you need lodging, call the Visitors Bureau at 1-800-PADUCAH and ask about the AQS Home Bed & Breakfast program. We still have some local homeowners who are willing to host quilters for the show.

Rainy day here today...good day for a book and a nap. GRIN

Bonnie B

Picking Up Sticks - the BIG Cleanup

My sister, Karen Franzen, and her son, Mike, and granddaughter Kaetlin, came to Paducah to help "pick up the sticks" in our yard. She said the photos I posted earlier didn't give a true picture of how many trees and limbs had fallen. Maybe these photos will give you a better idea.

Katie (the assistant cashier), Mike (the manager), Karen (chief flunky), and Wayne (the boss - on the tractor) filled this trailer numerous times as they gathered the sticks into piles in the backyard. They decided they needed to have titles - so they came up with their own.

This is the back right corner of our yard. Several large limbs fell in this area.

We had some fun while they were here too. We went to eat at Patti's Restaurant on Thursday evening. Here Katie gets her first look at the 2-inch pork chop we all ordered. We ate about half and brought the rest home.

The side yard - several limbs fell on the roof of the house on this side. We also lost a big pine tree on this side.

The "crew" was able to get some of the sticks burned, but then the winds pick up and they couldn't do any more burning.

Central Paving is one of the sites that is accepting limbs if you haul them there. We drove by and saw this huge barrel chipper machine they are using to chop up all of these limbs.

And this is the pile that they still have to chip. To get an idea of the height of the pile, compare the pile to the large pieces of equipment sitting in front of it.

Mike starts sawing up the limbs behind the garage.

Mike used the chain saw non-stop to get it into pieces small enough for the rest of the crew to stack into piles to be burned in the back yard.

Here are some of the 25 six-foot tall piles of sticks in the backyard, all ready to be burned when the weather cooperates so Wayne can get out there to do it. On Saturday, when we wanted to get the last of the sticks picked up, it rained in the morning. So we went out to pick up some souvenir T-shirts and stopped by to visit the National Quilt Museum. By the time we arrived back home, the rain had stopped and the wind had died down so we were able to finish it. By the time we finished, snow showers started and the winds picked up again. The weather cooperated just enough for us to get the sticks all stacked and ready for burning.

.

Karen, Mike, and Katie came on Wednesday and went home on Sunday. They helped us whittle this huge clean-up job down to a manageable size. Now Wayne can get his hose out there and start a couple of piles at a time to get it all burned.

.

Thank you Karen, Mike, and Katie - we would have been weeks trying to get all of these sticks picked up. We had some fun, and we went to some of our favorite restaurants in the area too. We took their photo in front of the fire station in Possom Trot...and of Mike pumping gas at the Possom Trot gas station. GRIN! I guess they will have stories to tell when they get home.

Oh, and by the way, I also gave Katie and Karen some tools so they can do some quilting. Katie went home with some of my books, and some that have some good projects for her to get started. While they were here, we made a baked potato bag...and they went home with the instructions. Katie did all of the sewing to make it too.

.

And now we are all exhausted...today was spent napping, watching the Nascar race, napping, napping, and napping.

Generators Off in Neighborhood

Would you believe that finally today there were no sounds of generators running in our neighborhool? Some of our neighbors had to have the lines rebuilt from their pole to the house and they are now getting to repair those lines.

Wayne and I have been working on picking up branches and sticks...and so far just about have the front yard done...well, if you can call two hugs piles in the front yard done. We could certainly have a gigantic wiener roast, complete with marshmallows. The county is working to get funds to come pick up the limbs...if they don't, we plan to burn them right where they sit.

Next we will have to start on the side yard where we had the most damage to our house - tore the cutters on three sides of the house on that end...and the limbs are larger than what we had in front. We also had damage to the gutter on one side of the garage, and quite a bit of damage to our garden shed in the back - one big limb broke down the double doors to the shed, and tore some siding off the front.

It will definitely be a while before we get this all cleaned up. Our insurance adjuster was here today and we should have the final report back from him in a week. The adjuster was from Montana, helping out with the storm damage in Western Kentucky.

Power is Back On

Our power came back on Monday night...wow, what a relief. Our home telephone (and Internet) are still down so if we aren't anwering your calls and messages, that's why. You can e-mail me at bbquilter@gmail.com and I can pick that up at the office when I check my messages there.

This week President O'Bama designated our ice storm a Major Disaster, which will allow the cities to get Federal funds to help with the clean-up. The Paducah fire and police have gone door-to-door checking on every household; we live in the county and the National Guard came through our neighborhood. This is the worst natural disaster ever in the state of Kentucky.

Here's a photo to give you an idea of what happened to the utility poles. This pole is located at the corner of the parking lot at the Paducah Expo Center. There are literally thousands of utility poles that have snapped in half, and in this case, thirds. There are 500 utility workers from nine states in town working with our local utility companies to help replace all of those utility lines before they can get power restored.

About half of our staff at AQS still does not have power back on at their homes. Cindy Carrico, our Assistant Show Director, counted 28 broken utility poles between her home in Fancy Farm and Mayfield, Kentucky - a distance of only 10 miles. That shows what a mammoth job these utility workers have to do to restore power. They are saying it will be March before Cindy's home has power again.

All for now...we have power and are warm again, and Tuffy has come out of hiding. GRIN

Bonnie B

Ice Storm Update

I'm taking my lunch break today to post a few of the photos I took on Thursday after the ice had stopped. There are big limbs and little limbs laying everywhere. We had some property damage to the house and shed that we know of now...and we've managed to stay warm and heat some food. This whole experience certainly makes me realize the trials that the people we visited in Bali and Turkey that do not have electricty have to go through every day to survive. We are definitely spoiled with our electronics and electricity.

Here is a close-up view of how thick the ice was on the branches - 1/2" to 3/4" all over the branches. You can see why they couldn't stand all that weight.

Wayne takes care of feeding our fine feathered friends. They didn't know what to think of this ice and snow. They really liked it when he spread sunflower seed on the ground to make it easy for them to find. I don't think I've ever seen icicles like this hanging from our clothesline before.

A big limb went through the doors to our garden shed out back. You can see how low our cable line is hanging. Telephone line had already snapped by the time I took this photo. Electrical line seems to be in tact ... when they get our grid of power going.

The view of our side yard from the back. We were lucky to only have gutter damage that we know of, so far. Still a lot of broken limbs just hanging from the trees.

Here you can see the grove of trees behind the garage and how they have broken in half or the tops have broken out of them. There is a lot of cleanup in this area.

Branches that have fallen on the garage.

The branches kept falling...the one tree in the center of this photo only has two main branches left of it. Behind it, our beautiful tall tulip poplar tree has lost many of its branches.

Stay warm...we are too now that we have our generator going.

We are Hunkered Down

Hello...I am at the Paducah Library writing this note. Just wanted to let you all know that Wayne and I are fine. Our power is out and last night a limb tore the phone box off the outside of our house, so we won't have a land line for a while. Our cell phones have not been working. Today I was able to get cell service for a little while, but it is still sporadic.

Thank heavens we have our gas logs in our fireplace. We have been able to keep the kitchen fairly comfortable with that. Our neighbors have a generator and we've run a line from that to put a heater in the family room. The grocery stores are getting back open so we have been able to get some things to eat. We have a gas water heater so we do have hot water.

We are just heading home from Home Depot where we bought a generator to be able to power our heater, the refrigerator, and maybe even the microwave - so we can eat something hot. This is like camping inside your house. I covered the doorway to the living room with a wool batting and that is good insulation - helped to raise the temp in the kitchen by about 5 degrees to 68. I can't wait to tell H.D. at Hobbs that I definitely vouch for the insulation qualities of their wool batting.

If you looked at my last post of the damage in our yard, it is twice that bad now. Limbs damaged the gutters on two sides of our house, and there are limbs everywhere. It's staying in the 20's so the ice hasn't started to melt yet. I've taken pictures but can't download them to post until we get power back up. That may be several days yet. Our power comes from transmission lines in Hendersonville and there are many power poles broken along that route. Today they are doing a helicopter visual of those lines to see what is causing the problem.

Until you hear from me again...we are staying warm, finding things to eat that don't require cooking, and I'm reading some books that I bought weeks ago and had no time to read (can only read from sunrise to sunset though since we just have candles and flashlights for light after dark).

Bonnie, Wayne & Tuffy (who hates the sound of those trees falling)

Ice in Paducah - January 27

The rain and sleet started last night. By 5 a.m., our power was out. Guess we were one of the first to call because the power company was here by shortly after 6 a.m. As we sat here in the house with no appliances running and no noise, we could hear the branches of trees breaking and falling to the ground. That was just the beginning. By 7:30 our power was restored. But the limbs have continued to fall. Here are some photos of our yard that looks like a war zone.

This is a major storm - last night the media called it the worst storm in two decades.

We only live about a mile or so from the office and Wayne took me to work this morning. All day long we could hear trees cracking in the woods near the office. Our power flickered on and off most of the day. Oh, did I say that I was the only member of our quilt show staff who made it in. I fielded calls for registrations most of the day. Then the power went out at about 3 p.m., so I came home. Guess the cell towers are iced over too because I had no bars on my cell phone and we were having trouble making outside calls with our office phones. Billy was finally able to get a call to Wayne to come get me. When I got home I grabbed my camera and shot some photos in our yard. You can get a larger view by clicking on the photos.

Even as I sit here typing, I can hear more limbs falling in our yard. Wow, there was a big tree that just crashed to the ground in the woods by our next door neighbor. And we have more sleet and snow to come yet tonight. This isn't supposed to end until about noon on Wednesday. More damage is on the way.

We are okay and have power for now.

We have a whole grove of trees along our left property line. Many, many branches have fallen from these trees. They just can't stand the weight of all that ice. It must be at least 1/2 inch thick. As pretty as the ice looks, we will have a big mess to clean up.

See how the trees have broken and fallen over into the neighbor's yard. It doesn't look like it damaged the fence, but now we've lost all four of the big pine trees that separated our yards.

This view from our back porch shows one pine

trees that has its limbs dragging clear to the ground, the next one is broken off at the roots and flopped our neighbor's fence, and smaller limbs that damaged our gutters on the back of the house.

This is the view of the back yard from our porch. Limbs are continuing to fall. I don't ever remember seeing icicles like this on our clothesline since we moved to Kentucky.

Christmas 2008

Wayne and I headed north to spend Christmas in Iowa and Illinois with our families. It was raining as we left Paducah, and the weather changed drastically after we hit I-57. Here you see a beautiful rainbow that went across the highway as we changed from rain to sleet. The sun was trying to peak through and gave us a rainbow that started on one side of the highway and ended on the other side of the highway. I've never seen both ends of a rainbow before.

Here you can see the drifting snow that was blowing across the highway, turning the road to a sheet of ice. We drove 20 to 25 mph for more than 3 hours. What should have been a 4-hour trip turned into 6 1/2 hours for us to get from Paducah to Lincoln, Illinois, where we spent Tuesday night. There were cars in the ditch and upside down everywhere along the road. We rode with the truckers and slowed way down so we didn't end up there too. The roads were a bit better on Wednesday morning -- we could drive about 40 mph.

This was the view as we drove into the Quad Cities on I-280. What can be more beautiful than snow-covered trees? Here they had been working hard on the highways so the driving was much better.

As we crossed from Illinois into Iowa, we saw eagles flying and I caught a couple of them sitting in this tree as we drove by. See those two black blobs on the branch that hangs over the open water.

.

We weren't able to go do any eagle watching along the Mississippi River there, so it was fun to catch them as we drove in.

On Christmas Eve, Wayne and I had lunch with his Mom, Buster, and sister Kathi. Then we spent the evening at my sister's home - Karen and Dellwyn Franzen. She and I went through the recipes that we are putting in our Cooking with the Kirklands' family cookbook that I've been putting together. We had a fun evening together. Wayne and Dellwyn joined in when they could get a word in edgewise.

.

Then on Christmas Day we picked Karen and Dellwyn up to go have Christmas dinner with most of the rest of our family at sister Marcia and Don Ekin's in Cambridge, Illinois. Here is a photo of the our gang.

Sad news....shortly after we left Cambridge to go home, we had to call an ambulance for Dellwyn. He passed away at the hospital in Geneseo, Illinois, that evening. The granddaughters and I put together a photo collage of Dellwyn - his life and loves, and the funeral was Monday. Condolences can be left at www.bentleyfuneralhome.com . We'll all miss that twinkle Dellwyn always got in his eye when he was going to be ornery. He'll be missed as a loving husband, father, grandfather, brother, and brother-in-law. He went safely into God's hands on Christ's Day, and will suffer no more from his diabetes.