My friend, Laurie, has a volunteer vine growing out of her compost pile. Is she growing squash or gourds? Either is good, but we're not sure whether to try cooking these or not.

I've got yellow squash but it's the wartiest squash I've ever seen!

If you are not from the south, you may have only heard about fire ants. These ants make a distinctive looking mound – that you don't always see in time. Here's one at the base of a big rock in my front yard.

If you poke the mound, thousands of tiny ants flood out. If you aren't paying attention, they climb up your leg and then they all bite you at once. It feels like fire, hence the name "fire ants". I took a stick and drew across the bed…

… I hope you can see the fire ants. I moved away pretty quickly.

Click on the picture and I think a bigger one will open for you. The little white ovals are eggs. You can see the ants better on the rock. I have at least 3 of these fire ant beds out front and I have to watch my grandkids so that they don't get into them.

I was taking pictures of my yard and happened to catch this bumblebee in flight. It makes me happy every time I look at it. FYI – the flowers are 2 different kinds of salvia. They look a lot like lavender, the flower all summer and the bees and butterflies love them.

The rehearsal dinner is one week away! I went to work yesterday on the centerpieces. I saw some centerpieces recently that mixed tall sticks in glass vases with short logs that were drilled to hold votive candles. I liked the little logs a lot  and decided to use that idea. Steve cut several cedar logs…

He then cut them with the miter saw to make them level and 10"-12" tall. He stripped the bark by hand and cleaned them up with a wire brush.

I cut the daisies to the correct height and we stapled them to one side of each log. Actually, Steve stapled them.

I tied a cute yellow tulle bow around each flower-studded log. I've borrowed some mirrored tiles that are nice. I've got some pretty acrylic "diamonds" that would add some wedding-flavored bling at the base of each centerpiece.

Or I might not use the mirrors. When all of the centerpieces are on all the tables I'll be able to see which what looks best.

Lemons scattered on the table around the centerpieces could be fun! I didn't think that up all by myself – I saw it at A Cup Of Jo.

John Flynn tells a good story! Here he is:

"I would like to use this opportunity to announce the very first World Quilt Federation, AKA WQF, “Smackdown”. This will be the quilting equivalent of a no holds barred cage fight refereed and administered by Ami Simms to benefit the Alzheimer’s research project.

The participants will be; Hollis Chatalain, Becky Goldsmith, Sue Nickels, and myself.  We were not chosen by anyone to stage this ultimate contest, it developed at a dinner party that spun out of control. First there was a fairly civil discussion about whose quilt donated to The Alzheimer’s priority project had brought the highest price. We were unable to figure this out among ourselves so we went to the source, Ami Simms. Ami did not answer any of the four of our phone messages about this critical issue. She had the lame excuse of being at the Penguin’s- Red Wing’s Stanley cup playoff game. With no help from Ami we decided that the only fair way to settle the discussion was to have a head-to-head no rules contest the winner to be determined by the highest auction price.

This contest will be unlike any other contest in quilt history in that there will be no rules. We all agreed on a size limitation but I do not exactly trust anyone to adhere strictly to or even remember accurately the guidelines set forth late on the evening of the dinner party that started all of this. What I do expect is that you will see and have the opportunity to vote on with your pocket-book the best work each of us is able to produce in our own style in the allotted time.

The four Smackdown quilts will be revealed for the first time at the Alzheimer’s booth during the Houston Quilt festival.  The auction will take place on the Alzheimer’s website in mid-November and ending when the ultimate Smackdown winner is declared."

John has started his quilt. Y ou can see the beginnings of it on John's blog. It's very good. You can scroll down this blog to see photos of my quilt in progress. I have a great deal of respect for my fellow participants and I know that each quilt will be marvelous – I just want mine to be the most marvelous!

Please do tell your friends about this auction. The more money that is raised for Alzheimer's research, the better.

Sarah Fielke has posted an interview with me @ SEWN.com. It's a good interview and I hope you enjoy it! Sarah lives in Australia and here is what she says about herself:

I'm a quilter,
a teacher, a designer and an author, but most of all I'm mum to my two
boys.
Most recently I was co-owner of Material Obsession in Sydney, Australia
– right now though, I'm doing my own thing as well as being the
creative director of SEWN. Here's where I'm going to tell you all about
it. 

Some of you know Sarah from her wonderful books, Material Obsession and Material Obsession 2. I love these books! Sarah's blog, The Last Piece, is happy and colorful and fun to follow.