Hot Fun in the Summertime!

So many fun things happened last week. Diane Knott, one of my favorite quilters and authors (Scrap Quilt Secrets and Strip Quilt Secrets) was in town for a Handi-Quilter seminar. She was there to learn lots of new things for several days. You might remember that Diane quilted my Lattice Birds quilt, and did a beautiful job. So anyway, we met up for some fun shopping and a photo op at Quilters Lodge in Draper, Utah.

Diane is so warm and friendly, and we just talked and laughed (and shopped) like we’d known each other for years. Truly, a nicer person you will not find! Quilters are such a wonderful group, aren’t they??  That was Saturday, and I was finally rested from two trips to Wheeler Farm earlier in the week.

**************

Wheeler Farm is a county-run historical working farm that is a block from our house. After I retired from my full-time job as a credit manager, I worked part-time at Wheeler Farm as a kids Camp “Cow”-nselor and then as a bookkeeper and docent for almost 4 years. Wheeler Farm is almost 78 acres of trails for walking and biking, plus lots of farm animals (and participatory cow milking), farmhouse tours, a machinery barn, wagon rides, summer camp, pony rides, teaching gardens (in cooperation with the county extension service) and so much more. I have a label (hashtag) on the sidebar for Wheeler Farm that includes all the posts I’ve written about it over the last 12 years of blogging.

So, on Wednesday, Cousin Kim and Bruce and I went walking around the farm just for exercise. And then on Thursday, the grandkids from Colorado visited with their mom Emily (Bruce’s daughter), and we had to show them all the new stuff. These pics combine both visits....

The restored Farmhouse, newly restored gardens.

Looking from the Farmhouse to the west

From the farmhouse you can look northeast to see pastures for cows and horses, old farm trucks and the machinery barn.

Beyond the farmhouse are the two duck ponds. That building below is the Ice House, where they used to store the ice cut from these ponds. It’s also the headquarters for Kids Camp. 

The two ponds above are formed by water diverted from Little Cottonwood Creek, which flows down from Little Cottonwood Canyon (ski resorts Brighton and Solitude). With the spring runoff, they are running at very high and dangerous levels.

Looks like some folks (picture below) are getting a tractor-pulled wagon ride. The little playhouse at the right is situated next to The Lightning Tree (a box elder), so named because it’s been hit twice by lightening. 

Here are some of the teaching vegetable gardens with the in-process Nature Center that’s being built in the background. It’s scheduled to open this fall, but the wet spring later means that it will be late fall instead of early fall.

And looking in the other direction, you can see more gardens.

We loved this little “skep” made of two-by-four chunks of wood. It’s in the center of the nature walk/teaching area for kids. 

Naturally, Cousin Kim and I had to sit in it on Wednesday.

On Thursday, Abbie, Gunner and Deacon rested in the skep and certainly look a lot cuter!

And here’s most of the gang walking along on Thursday. 

The County cleverly had wood carvers transform the stumps of dead trees into wood carved wonders along one of the main walkways of the farm.  Here daughter Emily poses with Abbie, Deacon and Gunner.

Abbie

Gunner

Deacon, Abbie, Gunner

Emily and Deacon

Not to be outdone, Alfie and Darla wanted me to show you their pictures too.

Alfie’s favorite “hang-out” is to sit on the back of the couch and look out the front window shutters to watch the neighborhood goings-on. He even naps like that sometime. 

Meanwhile, Darla sits on the ottoman and pretends she’s asleep. But we know her better; she knows exactly what is going on. 

And a final picture for the week, just because. My volunteer hollyhocks are huge. They were planted several years ago on the other side of that bed, but somehow these sprung up here for the first time last year (ish). They’re just getting started. This picture was taken last week too, and the apricots are almost ready. We’re thinking next week at the latest. If the propped up branches can hold on.....