Friday Finish!

This week I made a few smalls and worked on finishing my pillows, which I am still working on, and I started a table runner, something simple from scrap blocks and hand stitching.

A friend sent me a belated gift box with lots of goodies and some patterns. I decided to make the scissor case, since I need one. The design is by Rebekah Smith and I added a few of my own touches.

The second is a pillow I made from an old block, I had laying around. It was a freebie from the Facebook group, Little Red Hen's Wooly Mysteries. She offers a monthly freebie throughout the. year, so a fun group to join. Last year it was cat blocks to make a quilt, this year they are smalls.

We have had a few adventures, and enjoying the outdoors. Last weekend we went to the ocean and visited the lighthouse. It is under repair so I couldn't get good shots of it, but we enjoyed the views and watched the kite surfers.

Today we got out with Alex, he had the day off from school. We took him to the submarine museum where they have rooms for kids to play with the mock circuit boards and he loved going in the submarine with the interactive radio they gave him. Like all boys, he had to try out everything in the museum.

Another surprise I got this week was when I opened one of my husband's packages. When I saw what was in it, I knew it was for me, an early Valentines gift, a 400 zoom lens. It is definitely on the heavy side but I can brace it, to keep from moving when I take photos.

These were my first, backyard birds, love how it blurs the background.

Today I captured some birds on the pond, but the Herons were further away and the sun made it hard to get a clearer shot.

And we spent time at the point, watching the ferries and letting Alex explore the grounds. It was a fun day, but always tiring, trying to keep up with him. A view of the haunted lighthouse, college students using the sailboats today and a view of New London, across the Thames River.

I hope you all have a wonderful weekend. We are expecting rain tomorrow, so hopefully I can get out Sunday and practice with my new lens.

Weekend Wanderings!

This weekend was good and bad. On Saturday we stayed home, it was raining and we had to wait for my wood to come in, so Bill could work on that. Well, it did not come until 7:30 at night, so too late to use it and that didn't matter, because the wood is junk. I wanted rustic wood, but this was so rough, Bill got a splinter, picking one up. Their were 8 boards in a box, and they were all crooked, so they went back today. We will just get our own wood and do the sanding and painting, not worth the cost of finished when they did a horrible  job on the wood.

Sunday was our day to get out. The bad thing was, I was sick, a combination of fighting off the latest flu and inhaling toxic smoke. I could hardly breath and I was coughing, so I took some med and headed out for the day. The med cleared up my lungs but I am still sick, but at least I can breath a lot better.

We headed to the apple orchards in Connecticut, but our first stop was an old prison building. We always see them on the way and I wanted to get a few photos. There are several building complexes along the road, but this is the only one without fencing. It is falling apart and all the windows are broken, such a shame to let buildings like this go to waste, lots of beautiful architecture on them. Also a bit creepy.

Of course we stopped at the orchard next and I got a large bag of apples and a few pears, they weren't as good as last time. Golden delicious are Bill's favorite, so half the bag is filled with those.

Afterwards I noticed a pull over at the river and then a sign, I can't pass by a historic cemetery. We walked around and I took a few more photos, sadly a lot of the graves are sinking into the wet ground. 

Since I was feeling better, I decided to head down to Groton and enjoy the views from the beaches. On the way I saw a tall stone tower, so we took a side road and headed up to see what it was. What we found was Fort Griswold. It was the site of a battle in the Revolutionary war, involving Benedict Arnold. This is the tower that I saw, it was erected later, as a monument to the men who fought in the wars.

We walked through the gates and entered into a large depression surrounded by earthen mounds. There was a door and an opening, so we checked it out.

It was a tunnel, that led to the other side.

On the other side was the area were the men were stationed with the guns and lookouts for enemies coming up the river. The tunnel was their escape route, they could run up and through, to the area we started in, to protect them from incoming fire.

On the edge of the banks, we could enjoy the views of New London and the ferries.

Some of the buildings are still there, the old furnace, where they heated up the canon balls, so that they would burst into flame, when they hit.

And the powder house, were they stored the munitions. It was a fun place to visit and I left a rock at the gate and it was found by a wonderful family, so they posted a photo of their little boy on DSmiles4miles on Facebook. It is fun for us too, when someone posts and we get to see the smiles.

Our last stop was  Eastern Point beach, it is at the end of the Thames River, so it is a nice spot to relax and enjoy the views and of course the boats and ferries, come and go.

A fishing boat coming past the Haunted lighthouse.

And to end the journey, a funny story. Maybe not for one seagull though. I was taking photos of these two guys, fighting for some reason and the other gulls seemed to be egging them on. Just as I was readjusting my focus, the one gull threw the other one off the roof and the gull went falling down the side. It was comical, especially when the poor guy got up and walked off, the flew away, no harm done. I also left a few rocks on some ledges on the house, on the backside, rough sea areas are not good places to hide things.

I hope you all had a good weekend. I am working on finishing a few more pillows and a new stitchery of the month.