V is for.....

It's not for Vicki or Vacation. Sigh. Vacation is over.
We came home Saturday from one of our best vacations ever. When we go to Maine my allergies go away almost immediately and I don't take much medicine at all while I'm there. I've been home less than 48 hours and I'm already back on high Benedryl doses. But I'm lucky that I get to escape for a bit and it won't be much longer before the seasonal mold dies down here.

I didn't post after the 31st because my friends arrived in Maine to help me celebrate my birthday. It was great to have them there and I did meet my goal of hiking Cadillac Mountain on my 60th birthday. It was me, Chris and my friend's husband and we hiked the North Ridge Trail. Anne, Lora and Dale actually got up at 4:00 that morning to drive up and see the sunrise but, sadly, they were clouded in and didn't see anything. The same thing happened on the hike. We got to the top and had a great view of mist! I didn't care, I've seen the views from there before. I just wanted to complete the hike and I did.
Then I came home and took a nap.

Many of you probably know that my favorite bird is the vulture and "V is for...." is the name of this quilt that my friend, Anne, made for me. The vulture pattern is from Sally Trude.

I've had "Make a vulture quilt" on my wish list for a while but now it's magically done! I had actually been a little worried about my friend since COVID started because every time I talked to her she was working on some bags and making absolutely NO progress. I couldn't figure out what was wrong. She's usually so productive. Now I know that she's actually been really productive, she just couldn't tell me!

One of the coolest aspects of this quilt is the stamped border. She actually carved these stamps!

She even bought some vintage linens, dyed them and stamped them too. I can't wait to use the placemats.

You wouldn't believe how much vulture art I have around my house now. You might be wondering why I like the vulture so much. 
It all started when we first moved to this house on 10 acres. The whole idea of 10 acres was overwhelming to me at the time and nature kind of freaked me out. One day during the first year we were here a giant pregnant beaver died at the edge of the pond. It was disgusting and I nagged Chris to do something about it. He knows nature much better than me so he naturally ignored me and the beaver. Low and behold, 3 days later there's a wake of vultures cleaning up the mess for me and they cleaned up every speck of it. From then on I started paying a lot of attention to vultures because they are nature's perfect vacuum cleaner.

Fast forward about 10  years and we started having a serious raccoon problem that we needed to take care of. Over one weekend we had to dispatch a number of them. That time I kept an eye out for my friends and they put on quite a show for me. I've loved them ever since.

I like collecting vulture art because there isn't very much of it so I can't get too out of hand. I can't wait to sleep under my vulture quilt.

I'm glad to be home. The laundry is done and everything is put away and it will be nice to be back in my routine this week.