Making Fairy Dust

Okay, so maybe it's not really fairy dust.  Maybe it's just ordinary dust.  We made a lot of it over the past two days.  You can't see the trailer behind this blue machine, but the blue machine travels down the rows, picking up nuts and tossing them into the trailer.  Dirt and non-nut debris fly out the side vent.

 The result is streaking sunlight and "magic" in the orchard.  Unfortunately it's really just hanging dirt.

 We had our second shake on Monday, and they picked up the nuts yesterday.  It's been a big week at the nut house.

 We'd done some gleaning on the weekend, not knowing that we'd be shaking on Monday.  We were concerned that all of those nuts on the ground would end up in someone else's pocketbook.

For more details, you can check these posts from last year: here (shaking), here (dehydrating), and here (to market) .  I find it fascinating.  Then again, this is only my second year as a walnut farmer, so it's still novel to me.  :)

Sew Eclectic (our Art Group) met on Monday.  We had a bit of a painting party, inspired by another blogger in Oregon.  You can read about hers here.  Ours was like this:

My mind was elsewhere, thinking about nuts.

And Best of the Valley.  The website is in the process of being updated.  As soon as my pages are submitted, they are up and running.  Perhaps we'll be completely refreshed with new content by the end of the week.  Goals are good!  It all depends upon my getting the pages to our new webmistress.

My excuse (and I have many!) is that perhaps I took on too much this summer, what with the carpet project and everything else.  Maybe I'll take more pictures of the results, once I've finished with the website.  Goals are good.

But first, to finish the donation quilt that will be auctioned on Saturday.  I basted it on Sunday, and am stitching down the binding today.

If this post seems disjointed, I apologize.  My mind is a crowded place today, and trying to make sense of it is a job for only the most determined.

Perhaps a bit of quilting will straighten it all out.  I promise more pictures soon.  Until then...