Winter on the Mississippi

Last week my husband and I went to visit our friends, they recently purchased a home on the Mississippi river. Winter is a perfect time to visit as the eagles are feeding on the open waters of the river.

We woke up to this view out our bedroom window every morning. 

A fish in his talons for breakfast.

 One morning we saw 8 eagles sitting on the ice with more flying in the sky looking for fish.

Of course we can't forget the Canadian geese who swim by every morning, some times more than 50 swam by.

With all this beautiful inspiration we had to put it into fabric.

This is the beginning of my friends winter wall hanging, (nothing is sewed on, with lots of thread work and embellishment to come).

I love this little wool mat she had on her counter. Tea Time, and we drank lots of chai tea while quilting in front of the windows watching the birds.

Her daughter-in law just finished beading this beautiful cuff bracelet.

We took a wonderful hike down by this old mill,

into the woods following a creek,

past wonderful out-croppings of rocks,

with tiny frozen waterfalls.

A great place for a photo.

Our wonderful friends, we've been friends 30 years. We meet at a conference with our husbands. While in a lecture Donna and I were both doing needle work (trying to hide it from the speaker). Introduced ourselves to each other and became instant friends. We've had lots of fun family vacations together, now our kids are all grown and we're still having fun together.

Along the river drive there were hundreds of eagles in the trees.

I sure am glad the turkey is not our National bird.

You know all those jars full of wonderful pearl buttons we have, well this little town is where many of them were made. So much so the mussels were almost extinct in the area. I believe they said it started in 1856.

This was a huge window full of the buttons with the clam shell in the background showing how they punched out the buttons from the shell.

More buttons and punched out shells.

They also made the white tops for the keys of the manual typewriter from the shells.

String of punched out buttons.

Their were beautiful sunsets over the river.

 

and the Full Moon shinning down, the light at the bottom is from a barge parked on the river.

Looking back towards the house glowing in the night.
Thank you Jack and Donna, your "resort" is wonderful.