Year's End Post

I kind of want to say nasty things about a cursed year and express wishes for a better one to come, but that seems like tempting fate.

So instead, I will say that today I got the backings for both baby quilts finished, and both quilts basted.  I also whip-stitched the leftover batting from those endeavors together:

...and have that ready, together with the Christmas wallhanging and its backing, to baste together.  Then I will have three smaller projects ready to quilt.

It's popular among quilters to pick a focal word, something for them to think on and strive toward, for each new year.  I'm not going to do that.  But I will be making three sort-of resolutions.

(1) I will write 400 words of fiction each day.

(2) I will only go to the fabric store when absolutely nothing from my stash will work.  Sew up what I've got!

(3) I will only eat when I'm actually hungry.

Let's see how long I can cleave to these goals.

Family Quilts, Far and Near

 I finished the quilt top for my cousin's child.  I give you Rainbow Mermaid:

I don't like it quite as well as Squiddle's Rainbow Quilt (maybe the black made that pop more for me?), but I think it's a good quilt for a baby/toddler.  And, hey, in a few years her parents can use it to teach her colors.

Actually, on further consideration, maybe it's just that I don't like the above photo, because it was taken at night with indoor lighting.  I think the quilt looks better in person and in daylight.

Also while going through the photos on my phone, I found these pictures from the quilt I gave to my mother at Christmas:

I laid out the quilt on my queen bed, so I know it's a good size for my parents'.

A closeup of the feather wreaths I quilted in the open squares.  I'm quite pleased with them.

In the pieced squares I went for a simpler motif, yet they were more difficult to do, simply because of the extra bulk at the seams and especially the intersections.

And I made a pair of matching pillowcases!

Christmas and Baby WIPs

 So!  A couple of days ago I mentioned a couple works-in-progress.  The first one is this:

I got the stars in a miscellaneous box at some point.  They're hand-sewn, about 15.5" square each, and done with very dated fabric.  That said, I couldn't just let the poor things languish!  So at some point in the past I'd pulled and cut the sashing fabrics and bundled them together with the stars.  I'd actually sewn the center part together, so all I did on Christmas Day was sew the borders and nine-patches for the corners and put it all together.  It's only 38 1/2" square, so it will fit on a single width of fabric - which I've already dug out from my Christmas stash and pressed, so the next step involves batting and basting.

There's a bit of bulk in the center of some of the blocks, so I'm thinking maybe feather wreaths for the quilting motifs?  That would allow me to avoid fighting with the bulk....

Also in progress is this:

Gosh I wish I had more of that mermaid print!  But since I only ever had the one fat quarter of it, clearly it was meant for this project.  It looks a little odd here, with just the first row of color added.  But I'm up through the orange row now, and it's looking like it makes more sense.  If my math is right, it'll end up at 58 3/4" x 55 1/4".  Odd size, I know, but the FQ wasn't precisely square to start with, and trimming it so it was left it odd.

Of course, my cousin's child that I'm intending this for is now 9 months old... but given how much of this year I lost creative impetus for, it can't be helped.  Plus I prefer making toddler-sized quilts anyway.  They'll see years more use than crib quilts ever will.

(And in between the rows and pressing, I may have been leader-endering a tree block for my Christmas Trees wallhanging.  It'll get done... eventually.)

Christmas and Crafting

Seven quilts gifted at the greater family gathering on Christmas Eve.  (I made sure to say not to expect this every year.)  At least two of them have been slept under - Wonderful Husband actually napped under his Minecraft quilt, and Squiddle now has his rainbow quilt on the bed.  Jazzy was irked when he realized his dinosaur quilt is much too big for his toddler bed, but he decided that he wanted it on the sofa instead so he can cuddle under it when he's watching TV.  (Side note: Jazzy's speech is improving by leaps and bounds the last several weeks!  I actually literally physically cried with happiness a few days ago because he said "eight" and pronounced the "t" at the end, which he has never done before.)

I hosted Christmas Eve dinner this year, and pulled off the smorgasbord fairly well, I think.  My mother brought her potato salad and my sister brought the kottbullar.  And all three of the kids actually ate some things from the spread!  (Also, parts of the downstairs got a pretty good cleaning.)  One of the funniest parts of the evening was my sister giving Jazzy a drum set.  Backstory: when I was three, my grandparents gave me a drum set.  My mother never forgave them, and spent the next forty years swearing she was going to pay it forward on my children.  And did she?  No, she did not!  So my sister took it upon herself to fulfill that promise. ^_^  And I'm actually pleased about it - thus far, at least, the boys like it but in a less volumetric way than Niecelet was doing.

So, having done all that quilting leading up to Christmas, you think I'd be burnt out on it, wouldn't you?

No.

I went out into the garage this morning to find my bodkin to repair a few of the drawstring gift bags whose strings had been pulled through.  I also found a quilt top I'd been looking for, a round robin I did with the Orange County Quilt Guild a couple years ago.  I was thinking it might be a good baby quilt for my cousin's daughter, born in March.  (I know, I know.  But I lost a lot of mojo this year, like many other people.)  Except now that I look at it, it's so sewing-themed that I want to keep it for myself!  But I also found a purple mermaid-themed fat quarter, and realized I could use it to do a kind of reverse of Squiddle's rainbow quilt, and that would make a good baby quilt.  (Need to get more green, but I have enough of the other fabrics to whip it up.)  And I pulled in three projects-in-pieces.  One's a bundle of patriotic Friendship Stars I haven't looked at yet.  One's a Christmas wall hanging I'll blog about tomorrow.  And the third one looked like this:

It's 25 yellow churn dashes on black and white backgrounds, set on point and already pieced in rows with the setting triangles.  I have a vague memory of this - these were swap blocks.  Were they from Block Lotto, though, or the Orange Grove Quilt guild?  Or maaaaybe Orange County Quilt Guild - I never put my name in, but on the rare occasion someone else ran block party for me, they did.  But why did I get halfway on this and stop?  So I pressed all the creases out and seamed the rows together.

Not what you'd usually think of for a baby quilt, but given that babies rely on high contrast more than anything for their first few months, I think this would be good for an infant.  My friend Jamie from Orange County Quilt Guild was due to have her son late this month, and I think she might like this....

Christmas Eve Eve

Little boys got baths last night and clean jammies and I changed their bedsheets and pillowcases as well, surprising Squiddle when he came into his room after his bath.  He didn't understand that changing his bed meant different pillowcases as well, I guess?  Jazzy opted to keep the same quilt he's been sleeping under, but Squiddle wanted a change, so I dug out one of the more bohemian quilts I've done - a scrappy vintage top with fabrics dating probably from the 1950s through the 1970s.  The more important factor, to me, was the flannel backing.  Why?  We have central heating!  They're not going to need the extra warmth!  Sometimes what the instincts want has nothing to do with reality.

Yesterday I went out-and-about and got food for our Christmas Eve dinner, as well as stocking stuffers and chalkboard labels, since at this point we are largely a gift bag family.  I've grown to dislike the sheer waste of wrapping paper and have been shifting us over for a few years now.  But we don't have quite enough gift bags on the large end of things, so four presents got wrapping paper regardless

And I finished, washed, and wrapped Squiddle's quilt!  All done.  Seven quilts for Christmas - everyone who will be here tomorrow gets one this year.

The house is cleaner than it was, all the pots and pans are washed and put away, the kitchen counters are clear, the duck eggs are hard boiled, the shrimp is in the sink thawing, the jello chilling out in the garage (with a towel over it; the fridge was full) and all I need to do in the morning is prep cold foods. And possibly send Wonderful Husband to Costco for a cheesecake.

Squiddle's Rainbow Quilt

The menfolk, tall and small, have been tucked into their beds and lay dreaming.  I'm the only one awake, still working on the last Christmas quilt, Squiddle's.  This is my own choice - it's in a state now where I could give it, quilted, bound, and labeled.  But I want to get the last four rows of interior quilting done as a point of pride, and at the moment I'm redoing a section of the binding that I pulled too tightly on the inital pass.

The quilt is a little bit bigger than it needs to be (roughly queen sized, and Squiddle sleeps in a full bed) but it will likely shrink up a touch when I toss it through the washer and dryer.  And I love it so much that I'm actually considering submitting it to a quilting magazine.  Even my father-in-law gave an impressed "bloody hell" (according to my mother-in-law) when I sent them this in-progress picture:

I've been using black thread for most of the quilting - circling every dot in that center panel, a line of quilting on each side of the black stripes, and zig-zag quilting in the outer border.  For the rainbow stripes I'm color-matching my thread and doing a different motif for each color.  So far I have infinity eyes in the purple and waves in the blue.  The binding is rainbow stripes.  The back is a red flannel - Squiddle's (current) favorite color.  And even though it looks like it in the picture, the color stripes aren't all from the same fabric line!  Only the red and yellow match.  The orange and blue are batiks, and the green and purple are Keepsake Cottons from JoAnn Fabrics.

I don't have matching pillowcases for it yet.  And I like to do those when I give a bed-size quilt.  But I'd need to get more black fabric from JoAnns first, so I think after I give it to Squiddle I'll ask if he wants me to make them or not.

But for now I think I'll get my sewing machine threaded with green, start the dishwasher, and go to bed.

Chugging Along

Trying to juggle everything for Christmas and the boys' last week of school for this calendar year!  The tree is still not decorated yet. :(

I've been working on the quilt for my mom as I can.  I've got all the feather wreaths done, and fourteen of the eighteen blocks.  If I concentrate, maybe I can finish it tomorrow?  Wednesday at the latest.  Of course, I still need to make the matching pillowcases....

For now, though, I'm knocking off to bed.  Because last night I kept working, and didn't get to bed until almost midnight, and that kind of thing does me no good at all.

Feathers!

This afternoon we made an outing of it today and drove across the Tacoma Narrows Bridge over to the (bigger) Joann Fabrics, where I did in fact find a suitable orange batik for Squiddle's quilt!  I also purchased a wide flannel backing so that I won't have to stress over seams.  And I let myself have one splurge: a yard of this Star Wars fabric.  (Wonderful Husband: "Han Solo says gay rights?")  It's quirky and I'll never see it again, so.

Last night I got the quilt for my mother basted.  (And this morning I steam-mopped the floor to get up any excess spray baste.)  I had tried marking circles on the alternate squares with the water-soluble markers I had, but they were old and heading toward dried out, so it was an uphill battle.  I got new ones at Joanns, and oh my they made such a difference!

You can kind of see the triple circles I marked (using a dinner plate, a soup bowl, and a small canning ring) to use as guidelines for feather wreaths.  I got four quilted before the boys turned in tonight.  Thirteen more to go!  They're being so easy because there isn't any seamline bulk to fight against.  Of course, I had to remember how to do them, so maybe don't look too closely at the first one. ^_^;  And in the picture above, you can see the fabric I used for the backing.

Progress Made, Progress Stalled

 So!  Bad news first.  I started in on Squiddle's Christmas quilt, and got the first two rows (red, then black) around the center panel added on.  But when I cut out the next row (orange), I ended up 11.5" shy.  And this is a years-old fabric, I can't get any more of it.  I was at Joann Fabrics up in Port Orchard last week, they don't have anything suitable.  And I've gone through my stash in the garage.  And the only quilt shop here in Gig Harbor closed.

F*ck.

However, I looked on the Joann Fabrics website, and if it isn't lying to me, the store over in Tacoma (so across the toll bridge) has some possibilities.  So the plan is to go there tomorrow and hope.  And if that doesn't work, go farther afield to The Quilting Fairy in Puyallup, which I recall was a pretty big store.  (I looked at the website for Shibori Dragon, in University Place, which is closer, but again found nothing that would work).

So since I can't work on that today, I'm going to get the quilt for my mother basted and labelled.  I found about eight yards of a backing fabric in my stash, so I got that seamed up and pressed ready yesterday.

Here's the quilt top as I pulled it out of the stash:

Pretty well made, obviously a sampler quilt, but not a great size for any of my parents' beds.  Also, I found a pin my grandmother left in it!  So I've set that pin aside in a special location because I am a sentimental being.

Here it is after I added borders:

(Forgive the lumpiness from the toys scattered all about under it.  I wasn't in the mood to stop working to clean them up.)  The near and far final white border are each 2" narrower than the same border on the sides.  Otherwise it was going to drag on the floor while draped across a bed.  I have some of the blue from the bottom left square prepped as the binding, though I'm still debating if a dusky pink might work better?

A WIP, a Book, and an Argh!

 I've been working on the quilt top for my mother's present.  It started at 60"x84"... which is maybe a good size for a twin bed.  But my parents' home doesn't have any beds that size!  So I'm adding a white/floral stripe/white border to embiggen it to 80"x104", which... if their bed is the same height as ours, will be brushing the floor on the sides.  Hmm.  Maybe not?  I've got the white and floral stripe on, which takes it to 72"x96".  Wide enough for a queen (18" overhang) but not quite long enough.

Wonderful Husband suggests a slightly wider final border on two sides.  That might work.

In any case, I did my first mitered corners on this quilt!  I wanted the floral strip to look nice, and it does.

Also, and unrelatedly, I finally got the book I'd requested from the library!  Red, White and Royal Blue by Casey McQuiston - about a romance between a theoretical First Son of America and a younger prince of the British royal family.  Its enemies-to-lovers storyline had me thinking it would feel rather fanfic-ish, but to my surprise, it wasn't!  Though at certain points it was very very much escapism from the hell that has been the last four years of the American political landscape.  The secondary characters are well fleshed out and I found myself thinking I'd happily read stories about any of them.  My only minor nitpick was that the prince was the Prince of Wales, which I believe is a title typically given to the heir to the throne?  So it should have been his brother's title if I understand correctly?  Otherwise, the British parts of it read well to my ear.  I ended up very much liking the book (418 pages) and wishing there was more.  I'll happily read her next novel!

And, finally, in assembling fabrics for rainbow rings on Squiddle's quilt, I've had to compromise on a red-orange.  But I knew I had the perfect orange in my stash.  So I went and dug and found it!  But I'm pretty sure it's not enough. ;_;

Busy Sunday!

Looking at the jar of split peas in the pantry the other day, I was struck by a yearning for split pea soup.  Which takes having some ham and a hambone.  So I bought one.  But hams don't come in small - it was over 11 pounds!  So I invited my parents and niecelet over for dinner this evening.  (I would have invited my sister too, but she was working.)  And since there were going to be more than just Wonderful Husband and I here, I made a blackberry pie (Squddle, Jazzy, and Niecelet will not eat pie yet) from this summer's berries.  And some loaded cornbread.  And since my parents were coming over, I made salsa so I could send a couple jars home with them.  And at Squiddle's request, I made hot cocoa.  (Making the cocoa and the salsa at the same time was a bit of culinary cognitive dissonance.)  But despite cleaning up as I cooked, all day long, I have still ended up with a sink and counter full of dishes, waiting for the dishwasher to be done.  Le sigh.

Yesterday, however, I gallivanted!  I picked up a present for my sister, did some grocery shopping at Winco, popped through two different St. Vincent de Pauls, picked up some things I needed at Joann Fabrics (largely to complete Squiddle's Christmas quilt), and some other things (picture hangers, Citrustrip, etc.) at Lowe's.

My thrifting score included two bedside tables for the guest room!  They're badly painted over, with the drawers poorly decoupaged with pages from a poetry book.  They are, in fact, what the aforementioned Citrustrip is for.  But they're solid wood with lovely lines, and I hope to get to work on them this week.  I also found a couple pairs of trousers apiece for the boys, some fabric, about a dozen quilting magazines, a new duvet cover, a vintage pillowcase, a kitchen towel, and a couple of Christmas tree ornaments.

One amusing moment this afternoon: when all three of the short people were wearing us adults down with the running and screaming, I busted out the paint and wooden paint-ables.  Amazing instant silence as they all worked on their projects.  Me, to my mother, a bit too smugly: "Twenty bucks at the dollar store." :)  I think I might've convinced her to get some paint and paint-ables for the days she watches Niecelet.

And, to turn this post back to the quilting I usually post about here, a couple pictures from recent projects!

I love this starry blue fabric from the back of my sister's 16-patch quilt.  I also love the line/circles/line quilting I did through the three borders.

And this is the fabric for and script quilting I did in the border of Jazzy's dinosaur quilt.  If you look carefully, you can read "triceratops."  (And see one at the bottom of the fabric, and one at the right.)

Cluck Cluck Cluck

The chickens started laying eggs a few weeks ago.  Well, at least two of them did.  I'm bringing in one or two eggs most days.  I know they're not from Sunny (Color Pack, so her eggs will be in the blue-green range) or Joanne (Buff Brahma; her eggs will be a light brown) so that leaves Roberta (Brown Leghorn), Kaya (Silver Dorking) and Sassafras (Golden Campine) as the suspects.  When I put more oyster shell in their calcium free-feed dish, though, they all had some.

Thing is, through, Squiddle wants a couple scrambled eggs for breakfast most days.  And if Jazzy or I want some as well, the egg count in the fridge remains going backwards!  I know it'll get a bit better in that regard as the other three hens continue to mature, and when spring comes, etcetera.  Still, this has me thinking I might want to expand the flock next year.  If I do, I'll need to build another run - I am not going to try cramming ten hens into a 8'x4' space!  And in any case, the new chicks, like with cats, would need to be kept in sensing range but not attacking range until the current set got used to them.

So would I want to build the same setup again, but lighter, and have two structures to shift on every few days?  Or go for an 8'x8'x2' true mobile pen without a proper coop?  And, if I do do this, what breeds do I want?  (Current shortlist: marans, barred rock, Rhode Island Red, and ameraucana.)

Thinky thoughts for winter.

Movin' Right Along...

 (Footloose and and fancy free~)

Well, Quilt #4 (that being the dinosaur quilt) is completed, washed, and in the dryer.  I did simple straight-line quilting in the sashing, and Xs in the blocks.  For the outer border, I grabbed a chalk pencil and wrote the names of dinosaurs in cursive, then quilted my writing.  I think that may become one of my go-tos - it's fun and distinctive.  I did much the same thing for the pirate quilt for my dad, scripting Jimmy Buffett lyrics in the border: "Yes, I am a pirate, two hundred years too late. The cannons don't thunder, there's nothing to plunder, just an over 40 victim of fate." I wish I'd been able to spell out "40" but there just wasn't the space.

Striking while the metaphorical-as-opposed-to-physical iron was hot, I've started in this evening on quilting Quilt #5, which is the 16-patch.  I made a good dent into it this evening - I got to the last row of the alternate blocks before my top thread ran out, and when I loaded up the next spool I also treated myself to a fresh needle.  So that's ready to go in the morning.  I'm doing a simple Orange Peel quilting pattern in the alternate blocks, and I'm planning a slightly more complex Orange Peel variant in the 16-patches.  And probably feathers in the outer border, taking all three as one....

I'm looking down the gun at t-minus 23 days until gift giving, and two of the quilt tops aren't complete yet.  I can do this, but I need to remind myself to stay on track.

Two More Basted

 I spent parts of yesterday getting another two quilts basted and ready to go.  First up was the dinosaur quilt!

I dug around in the bins and found two one-yard remnant pieces of backing fabric (90" wide? 108" wide? dunno) that were the same print but clearly off different bolts if you looked at them right next to each other.  Together, they weren't going to be quite wide enough, so I pulled out all the bajillion 3.5" strips left over from the bright tumblers quilt I did a few years ago, and pieced a couple into a center strip:

So the paisley beige of the back kind of goes with the sandy dinosaur footprints sashing on the front?  I'm planning to bind it in straight black.

Next I set to work on the 16-patch I'm going to give to my sister:

I ran into a problem when I ran into the end of the batting on the roll.  Not that it wasn't enough - you can see the kind of pointy bit on the left which was the tail end of the batting.  It was just the right amount!  No, the problem was that the batting was 90" wide... and the quilt was 92" square!  So I had to pause halfway through, cut a leftover bit of batting from one of the previous quilts into strips, and whipstitch it on.

I also pieced the backing for this one, nicely symmetrically, I think:

I purchased the blues from all the stuff I'm storing for my quilt guild, for specifically this purpose, and the stripe down the center was from my stash.  I did my best to center the quilt top on this.

Now to label and then to quilt.  But first, cranberry sauce and pies to make!

Christmas Quilting (Do Not Panic)

 Quilt #3 for Christmas done, run through the washer, and currently tumble-drying with its matching pillowcases.  (This being the first one that's bed-sized; thus, why the other two haven't had pillowcases.)  I've pulled #4 (this one being for my sister) out of the closet and am ATM piecing together the backing.

I also dug out in the garage and found some possible backing bits for Jazzy's quilt, or maybe for the one for my mother... and also some fabric to expand the one for my mother, as it's a sampler quilt that currently measures ~50"x70".  If I put a couple borders on it, it could become bed-sized.  The problem is, my grandmother made the quilt top in the 1990s, and fabric colors and patterns are very different now than they were then!  Fortunately, I have a too-big fabric stash, and have found some pieces of the right era.  Including some that appear in the quilt!

Four and a half weeks.  Four quilts.  I can do this!

Lacing

 Today's project has been lacing an embroidery piece.  I'd previously taken it for framing, but when we got it back it was just a little crumply and not quite square in the frame.  So I took it back to Michaels and they took it out, cut some acid-free board for me to lace it around, and said to bring it back when I was done, and back into the frame it will go.

One severe pressing and oodles and oodles of white thread later, I'm done and the pins holding the fabric taut have been removed.  I've got a few heavy books resting on top of the piece right now, hopefully correcting the slight warping of the board that I didn't notice until after I got the first half of the lacing done....

Two Done, Five To Go

 The first two Christmas quilts (Niecelet's, and Wonderful Husband's) are completed, quilted, labelled, bound, washed, and in the dryer at the moment.  Next up is the one for my father (labelled and basted), but I need to shift my sewing desks around for that one, as it's larger and needs a bigger surface to lie on.  First, though, I need to prep a fabric piece for framing.

Meantime, here's a picture of the latest quilt top: Jazzy's!

It has a pair of matching pillowcases made from the fossil footprints sashing fabric, bordered with the last of the colorful dinos fabric of the outer border.

ETA: Pulled both quilts out of the dryer, folded them to store for the next month and a half.  Had to pull out a Wearable Art Fabric Marker and rewrite the labels, as the Pigma Micron writing had faded to near-illegibility.  Grr.  Labels no longer as neat and pretty, but hopefully now will last longer?  Only time and further washings will tell.

One Done, One Ugh

So I went spelunking out in the garage and found a few interesting things.  Another of which was one of the quilt tops my grandmother made.  There's at least one other, which at some point I'll get back to repairing - one of the fabrics is literally rotting away, and as it's only about 30 years old, that says something about the quality of that one fabric.  But I digress!  The one I found is in good condition, and of fabrics that are dated enough that I feel like they're starting to come back into style?  More importantly, if I quilt it up and give it to my mother for Christmas, it will hold a bit of extra sentimental value, as something made by both her mother and her daughter.  It's sized for a twin bed, which my parents don't have, but I lay twin quilts crosswise across double and queen sized beds, so hopefully it will be okay.  So I've put that quilt top on a hanger in the closet.  Five down, two to go!

For my sister's quilt, I checked with the guild president that it's okay for me to shop all the fabric that I'm storing for the guild out in the barn, and have paid the treasurer the per-yard amount that the lady in charge of the fabric sale has set.  So I have enough of a couple matching fabrics to (hopefully not too garishly!) piece the back of that one.

For my dad's quilt, I found backing fabric from my own stash in the garage.  I also cut out the binding strips today and sewed them together, as well as two contrast bands for pillowcases.  I'm hoping there's enough extra of the backing to do the bodies of the pillowcases.

And for Wonderful Husband's quilt, I did actually remember to snap a picture before hanging it up!

I'm quite pleased that I got all the directional prints, well, directional.  And there is some very careful piecing in the top and bottom of that outer border. :)  It's to be bound in the black/gray blocks that's the sashing.  It's not quite a bed size quilt (62"x76") so I'm not planning on pillowcases to go with.

And since other things were going okay, I sketched out and cut out the dinosaur quilt for Jazzy:

You can see where Jazzy was helping me color!  And, yes, the outer dinosaur fabric really is that colorful.  I left my math visible in the bottom of the picture to show you how I do in fact try to measure things pretty carefully and make sure I have enough fabric.

Except no matter how proud you are of exacting methodology, it is inevitable that you will SCREW UP once in a while.  Say, by calculating for the sashing to be 2" instead of 2.5".  And thus not having enough fabric for the bottom and two side sashes!

Fortunately an online search turned up the fabric at a quilt shop in Michigan, and I was able to buy two yards.  Enough to finish the sashing, and to make the bodies of two pillowcases, since this will be bed-sized.  But since it'll take a week or so to arrive, I'll piece what I can of the inner part, then switch over to another project.  Probably working on all the requisite backings and bindings and pillowcases for the rest of the Christmas quilts.

Apple season!

Woke up a quarter hour early this morning to the sound of pounding rain paired with thunder and lightning.  It all went away by the time, an hour and a half later, that I was walking Jazzy to his bus pick-up.  This afternoon we had intermittent high winds; the lawn (and the roof of the barn, which Wonderful Husband had just cleared) is covered in small pine branches.

I did suffer a brief bout of inspiration this afternoon and dragged out my heating mats and seed starters.  They're set up on the kitchen counter for the next couple weeks, with placemats underneath, planted with leeks, spinach, and Swiss chard.  I also figured out how to fold a parchment paper envelope for the Black Krim tomato seeds I'd saved, so those got tucked away.  And I crushed all the eggshells I've been saving, so they're taking up a lot less room and are ready to be fed to the hens once they start laying.

And since we had high winds, there were even MORE windfall apples on the ground!  I gave the bird-and-or-rabbit-nibbled ones to the chickens, then started in on the rest.  I made Dorset apple cake (thank you for the recipe, Mary!), of which Wonderful Husband had two slices, and a batch of unsweetened applesauce, currently cooling in the fridge.  The boys love turning the apple slicer/peeler/corer.  Good thing, too - I have at least twice again as many apples still sitting on the kitchen counter.

And there is, amusingly, ONE quince on the quince/pear tree this year.  There were bucketloads last year, so I'm guessing it, like one of the apple trees, is alternating.  We're planning to get all three trees professionally pruned when they're dormant in January; we'll see if that helps even things out.

Quick Catch-Up

I've been plodding away at things.  I finished up the flimsy for the quilt I want to give Wonderful Husband for Christmas, and have it waiting in the closet.  Currently the quilts hanging there are:

--for father, flimsy only

--for sister, flimsy + 2 pillowcases + binding

--for husband, flimsy + binding + backing

--for niecelet, flimsy (Goodwill find) + binding, backing in progress

I want to do quilts for Jazzy and Squiddle also, and go through the vintage quilt tops I have and pick one out for my mother.  Whether or not I'll be able to complete all these by Christmas, who knows.  There may have to be some photos and IOUs.

I did also complete the masks I was working on - five for Jazzy, six for Squiddle, and four for Wonderful Husband.

Gardening wise, I pulled the two tomato plants that were done for the year, as well as most of the squashes.  And since the bi-weekly yard waste bin was going out this week, and that was all that was in it, I took the loppers and started whacking back the bushes by the apple trees.  At some points they're twelve feet deep!  So I filled the bin, and hope to again this week.  I'd like to get rid of those bushes and put in some lilacs and hydrangeas where they are.  Also, our neighbor gave me 30 tulip bulbs this morning, so I'm considering where I want those to go.  (And, I need to harvest some apples to give to her and the neighbors across the street....)

We got several inches of rain over the weekend, and I'm amused that the grass where the chicken coop has been is growing back greener and lusher than where it hasn't been.  We shifted them back to starting position this afternoon, and in the process they all escaped!  That was a fun half hour, trying to get all five of them back into the coop.  Eventually we managed, though not before one (Sassafras) took refuge ten feet up in a tree.  No eggs yet, but theoretically they should start laying by next month.  They're in the middle of being transitioned onto layer feed.

Sewing Again

School changes for the boys coming up this week!  Since we have opted to have Squiddle remain an online student, one of the roughly 25% of grades K-1 in his school to do so, he's started with a new teacher today.  At least we got his testing finished last week!

And Jazzy starts school on Wednesday.  This is a calculated risk - I can help Squiddle with math and reading, etcetera, but I cannot help Jazzy speak better.  He needs professionals.  His class size will be small (5 or so), with daily temperature checks.  I haven't been able to confirm whether or not he will have to wear a mask on the bus (some sources said yes, others, no) so I may end up as a chauffeur.  Regardless, he does have to have masks for school (they will practice putting them on and off, if nothing else), so over the weekend I pulled out my box of bright/kid's fabrics, and he picked out five.  So I cut and sewed and he now has five flannel-lined masks all his own.

And since Jazzy got masks, Squiddle gets masks too!  So he picked out six fabrics and I cut those yesterday and am sewing them today.  I suppose next will be Wonderful Husband's turn.

Also!  Yesterday we all went out and got our flu shots.  I barely felt the needle go in, but Jazzy was wailing after his was done, so I took him to the toy and candy aisles while Wonderful Husband and then Squiddle got theirs done.  Everybody got a candy bar (and a lot of praise) as a reward for suffering through immunization.

The Last Midnight

 You know you're a grown-up when you find yourself in the parking lot of the grocery store, sobbing uncontrollably at the death of a Supreme Court Justice.

May Ruth Bader Ginsburg's memory ever be a blessing.

And f*ck Mitch Hypocrite McConnell.  The Republican party makes me want to sing.  Specifically a verse or two from Into The Woods: "You're all liars and thieves, like his father, like his son will be too.  Oh, why bother?  You'll just do what you do. It's the last midnight."

Ugly September Skies

 I lost all my spoons for a while.  They're starting to come back.  Long may they stay!

Though my sister says we here in Washington state currently have the worst air quality in the entire country, I personally doubt it.  Though there is a persistent haze here in Gig Harbor (and we're nowhere near the 500-acre 50% contained Sumner fire), the worst sky I've seen has been a faint yellow tinge.  My friends in the California Bay Area have Martian skies!  Not to mention the fact that last week's heat wave got Woodland Hills, CA (where Costume College is held) to a record 121 Fahrenheit!

Oh, but don't worry.  The Cheeto-in-Chief says that climate change isn't real and Californians just need to rake their forest floors better.

(Pardon me for not disguising my disgust.)

Squiddle seems to be doing well at remote learning, though it's frequently a case of gently nudging him away from video and game screens, and back to his schoolwork.  His school is supposed to open back up for kindergarten and first grade students at the end of this month, but we've already opted to continue on with online learning for him.  For Jazzy, we do not have that choice - I can help Squiddle with his schooling, but I cannot help Jazzy learn to speak better.  So we take a risk, but as small a one as we can manage.

Both boys went to the dentist (a new-to-them dentist!) for the first time in a year.  Squiddle got a referral to an orthodontist (one of his adult incisors is coming in twisted) and Jazzy got what they called a "happy visit" meaning a see-our-office-isn't-scary-maybe-next-time-you'll-let-us-examine-your-teeth visit.  At least (sitting on my lap, with the bribe of a toy dangling over his head) he let the dentist look at his teeth with the mirror, and did not throw a fit....

I have finished another quilt top and have it hung in the closet, waiting for me to shift gears to quilting.  This one, I did matching pillowcases and binding, so I'm not worrying about finding the fabric when the time comes.  Meantime, of course, I've moved on to another project I pulled from my stack of them in the garage: a long-overdue Minecraft quilt for Wonderful Husband.

I've also watched the first three episodes of Victorian Farm on Youtube. :)  Interesting stuff, even if they're clearly not 24/7 immersed in the way the narrator would lead you to believe.

1st Day of School

 I haven't gone on my walk this morning because it's been so blustery the last couple days!  All night, too.  We've had at least three power outages in the last twenty-four hours.  Possibly more, because I know there was at least one overnight.  So I'm a touch stressed, and woke up with knots between my shoulderblades and at the base of my skull, and am hence taking today easy.  Except for the part where it's Squiddle's first day of school!

The wind knocked down eight apples from the trees, so I collected them and turned them (and a softening apple from the fruit bowl, as well as another one that Jazzy only ate a quarter of) into applesauce last night.  A little lemon juice, a little sugar, and it's very tasty.

Well, brief post, but it's now just about time to get the boys up!

Counting... Ah-Ah-Ah!

 As I walk my laps around the block in the morning, I count things.  What lap I'm on (5 laps make 2 miles).  How many bunnies I've seen (least: 5; most: 30).  How many squirrels (record: 3).  How many doves (record: also 3).  Anything unusual (that one time I saw a pair of quail who quickly ducked into the brush).  How many times I've heard that rooster off in the distance crow.

I count houses (25 in the tract).  I count cars.  I count who has a large outbuilding behind their house (5).  I wonder, judgmental as all get out, how in a tract with two and three car garages, there are only three homes including us that don't have (usually multiple) cars left out in their driveways.  It's not quite as bad as it was in Anaheim, where we quite literally had people think we weren't home because our cars were in the garage not the driveway, but still!  I guess most people, even here, use their garages for storage and workshops, not car parking.

Squiddle starts school on Tuesday.  We've got his desk and a side table set up in his bedroom, and we'll see how a more intensive schooling schedule over Zoom will go, compared to this last spring.  We've been working with him on lessons most days over the summer - writing a sentence, doing some math or maps pages in his first grade workbook from Costco, going through a stack of vocabulary flashcards, reading books or pages from the workbook, and we're fairly sure he's ready.  Well, save for maybe the reading comprehension... he's been having a bit of trouble with those workbook pages.

But since he's going to need at least light supervision, I'm going to need to be at home, even after Jazzy starts developmental preschool again (2 days a week) on the 21st.  No more thrift stores for me for quite a while!  So I went on a brief jaunt up to Port Orchard on Friday, as a last huzzah.  I found nothing at St. Vincent de Paul, got only what was on my list at Joann Fabrics, but actually found some things at Goodwill: ten canning jars ($2), which I haven't seen at a thrift store in months, another mirror for my wall of mirrors ($1.40), four quilting stencils ($4), and a quilt top ($2).

Gardening-wise, my tomatoes are finally starting to come ripe!  Yum-yum.  I took half a dozen over to my parents' yesterday, along with a few zucchini and some of the radishes whose growth has been stunted due to living in the shade of the zucchini.  As for the inevitable sneaky monster zucchini, the chickens have realized they're most tasty.  So, win!  And yesterday I also finally finished putting the weed-suppressant circles around the new fruit trees and blueberry plants, and weighting them down with a thick layer of mulch.  Hooray for a slightly tidier garden!

A week of leisure

 Chickoletta was delivered to his new owner last week, who seemed quite happy that Chickoletta was (a) in such good condition, and (b) quite docile during the transfer.  Though given that in the week since, I've noticed a lot fewer shed feathers in the chicken tractor, I have to wonder if Chickoletta was in fact a bit of a bully, or if having six chickens in the 4'x8' space was simply a bit of overcrowding?

Wonderful Husband has taken this week off, since it's the last week before Squiddle (remotely) starts school.  We went to the Point Defiance Zoo on Tuesday, which had timed entry tickets, direction flow arrows on the ground, and required everyone over the age of five to wear masks.  Despite the play area and the goat feeding station being closed, a good time was had by all.  At the exit, we bought Jazzy a 6' corn snake toy, and Squiddle a small Lego-esque elephant to build.

Yesterday, we drove up to the Olympic Game Farm, since Wonderful Husband had never been.  We drove through, feeding slices of bread to llamas, yaks, bears (behind fences), deer, buffalo, and reindeer.  We were ignored by the elk and zebras, as well as by the predator animals (lions, tigers, wolves, and probably a few others that were hiding from view).  Not as many bunnies roamed the grounds as in previous visits, but there were still plenty of peafowl about.

After the game farm, we sought out some lunch and as it was right by a quilt shop (which is apparently closing later this month), I popped in and found some fabrics which will become the boys' Christmas quilts.  Then we drove up to Marymere Falls and did that brief hike.  Not as crowded as last time!  But by the time we got home and dinner finished... well, we all ate after 8pm.  Long day!

Chicken Woes

 This morning, as I got back from my walk, I heard something distressing: one of our chickens, making its first attempt at crowing.

Chickoletta, the French Wheaten Marans (ie, the expensive [$15] chick) is now confirmed to be a rooster.  Which I'd been wondering at, as she (he) was not the right colors to be a hen.  But I'd hoped maybe she (he) was a different colorway of Marans.  She (he) doesn't have spurs... but no.

Even though all the lots are a full acre, as opposed to the 1/5th acre we had in Anaheim, we still live in a housing tract.  And even though the HOA (which forbids poultry and livestock) seems to be defunct, it's terribly rude to our neighbors to keep a crowing rooster.

So I took the above picture and put a free ad up on Craigslist.  And I have a taker for pickup tomorrow morning.

But I'm still annoyed.  I really wanted some dark dark brown eggs. :(

Some Stitching Has Been Done

 Squiddle had his eye exam last week, and the eyepatches have helped his amblyopia quite a lot - his vision in his weaker eye has improved to something like 20/40!  So not all the way there yet, but good progress has been made!

Also last week I went on a digging through bins expedition in the garage, and found a few projects.  First up was a couple bundles of pirate themed things I'd been collecting together.  Part of one was thirteen ship blocks I'd won in the Orange Grove Quilt Guild a couple years ago.  And there was a remnant and a yard of fabric that went well with them, so I checkerboarded them together:

The ships were sailing two different directions, so I put the east-bound ones on odd lines and the west-bound ones on even lines.  Then I did a 2" border from two fat quarters that were in the bundles:

A closeup of the border fabric so you can see why I needed to include it.  Ship's wheels!:

And for the finale, a 12" border of three different JoAnns remnants and a thrift store purchase, all of the same skull and crossbones material:

The quilt is about 87" square, if memory serves, and I have enough leftover of both the skull and crossbones fabric, and the nautical fabric, to make pillowcase borders, though not enough for them to be the full pillowcases.  The extra block can go on the back, as a label.  Squiddle thinks this quilt should be for him, but Wonderful Husband and I both think it should be for my dad.

The next project I found was leftovers, sort of, from a quilt I made for my mom when she found out she had cancer.  I'd made 100 blue/white 16-patch blocks, and used 49 of them in that quilt, so I still had 51 left!  I pulled other fabrics in the yellow-to-orange colorway, and laid this out:

In hindsight, I wish there had been more of a color difference between yellow #2 and yellow #3, because in this picture they seem to be the same.  But they look quite different from less than six feet away, and since they were already cut I didn't want to dig more for something better that I might not even have.  I've got the rows half sewn, and after this is all together (about 79" square IIRC), I'm planning a blue/orange/blue six inch border.  The yellows and oranges have enough left over for pillowcases, and the two extra blocks can go on the back.  Not sure yet who this one is for.

In other news, I picked enough blackberries the other day that I made a pie, which we're still working through, and I also turned a large zucchini into chocolate cupcakes, but the recipe made 34 of them!  So I gave a dozen to our neighbors who have three kids.

Ugh

Around 5:30 this morning, Jazzy came into our room, wanting to be tucked back into bed.  Around 6, he came in again and just ended up snuggled in between Wonderful Husband and myself.  Which I don't mind that much, in theory, but he doesn't stay in the dead center, no, he has to sleep on Mummy's side.  Which means Mummy gets half a pillow and half the amount of duvet she had before, and, really, I did not sleep well after that point.

Today was also a run-around day.  After my walk/run and shower this morning, I put chicken sabzi in the crock pot for dinner, then went to Stokes Auction to pick up the items I'd won (a bedside table for me, a rug that turns out to not be the color it was on the listing, some hanging pots that were a lot smaller than I thought, and a vintage Fantasia coloring book).  Then I headed to Michaels to get a framing issue dealt with.  Then to Wilco to purchase a 6' orchard ladder since they were on sale and having one will be most helpful with the wall of blackberries on the west side of our house.  Then I put petrol in the car, picked up a prescription refill, and went home for lunch.  And that was my morning!

This afternoon I picked up my order from the farm co-op: blueberries, peaches, nectarines, and a couple varieties of garlic to try.  I figured that since there was a playground at the civic center (where the pickup happens) and I've never seen kids playing on it at that time, I should take the boys with so they could get some time outside the house and with a change of scenery.  They ended up doing a lot of running around and finding dandelions to blow on.  And I also knew at the back of the green area behind the playset, there were blackberry bushes....

With a bit of help from the boys (who have both decided they love blackberries, though Jazzy will not touch blueberries, go figure), I picked this:

I figure that will keep us in nibbles for a few days, and maybe a pie, who knows?

Walking and Stitching

 About two weeks ago, I moved the bathroom scale out of the corner where it sat hidden and neglected, and to a spot where I would actually see and step on it daily.

I did not like the number it gave me.  I did not like it rather a lot.  So that, combined with jeans fitting too tightly, or not at all, has spurred me into a new habit: I get up, feed the cat, get dressed, feed the chickens, and go walk five laps around the block, which theoretically adds up to two miles.  It takes about fifty minutes, and I'm giving myself one morning off a week.  Today, now that my body is used to that routine, I kicked it up a little and jogged the downhill stretches, which added up to about half a mile.  I am so woefully out of shape, but I know if I dive in head-first I will (a) regret it, and (b) not stick with it.  So a little bit at a time, and minding what I eat a bit better, with that daily weigh-in for me to keep in mind.

I also actually started doing some sewing again yesterday!  I attended Costume College's virtual retreat a week ago, which was essentially three Zoom classes, and picked up a couple interesting tips and tricks, but what I started sewing yesterday were quilt block pieces I had already cut out.

I finished these two yellow Crown of Thorns blocks.

And started stitching on another six blue ones.  Plus a 4" pine tree block because I've decided I'd like to get that wall hanging done by Christmas.

Marymere Falls

Yesterday was going to be hot here (the weather app on my phone says it hit 93) so I accepted my sister's offer for the boys and I to join her and my niece on a hike a ways up the Kitsap Peninsula.  And I hauled the aircon unit out of the garage and Wonderful Husband and I got it set up in his office, to keep him not roasted for the day.

Marymere Falls ended up being a 2-hour 20-minute drive away, and when we got there it was a struggle to find parking.  But we did, and had a nice picnic lunch with all three kids in the shade, then did the walk to the falls.  It was like walking through Endor!  The trail was mostly pretty flat, except for the bit at the end where there were stairs up to the falls.

Going back down the stairs, everyone except my sister skidded and fell on their duff at least once.  Farther on on the way back Jazzy tripped and skinned his hand and a tiny bit of his knee.  But he refused to let me carry him back to the car.

Unfortunately there was a 35-minute-delay traffic snarl going through Bremerton, so we would have ended up twenty minutes late to Squiddle's eye appointment.  When I called Wonderful Husband, who was going to meet us there, he said the optician would have left by then, and he got the appointment rescheduled for next month.

And, the oddest thing... on the trail, heading in the opposite direction from us, was a woman who looked so strongly like my high school friend Rita that I almost asked if it was her.  But I didn't.  Maybe I should have?  Regardless, I poked around on the internet last night and found Rita's professional contact information and e-mailed her.  Here's to hoping she e-mails me back!

Wildlife Season

It was a good thing we star-gazed when we did, since the weather's turned overcast again, so we really didn't get another chance to try and see Neowise.

One of the chickens got out of the coop the other afternoon.  When Wonderful Husband and I had shifted it the night before, it ended up in a spot where there was a 3" gap between the frame and the ground in one of the corners.  Apparently that was enough space for a teenage chicken to make an escape attempt!  When I noticed, I went out and wedged some scrap wood underneath to block off future escapes, and attempted to herd Joanne back into the coop.  During this attempt, another of the chickens (Sassafras) got out through the open door.  Putting my thinking cap on, I encouraged Jazzy (who had followed me out and was wearing nothing save his diaper) to chase the chickens clockwise around the coop to where I opened the door.  It took a few attempts, but eventually their fear of the toddler overwhelmed all desire for freedom and exploration, and they went back inside.

In less amusing critters news, apparently the deer from the other day came back and munched on my fruit trees!  The apple trees are big enough and old enough not to mind the loss of some leaves, but I'm ticked off on behalf of my plum and cherry saplings!

And on a run up to Port Orchard this week, I saw either a fox or coyote cross the road (it was too far ahead of me for me to be sure which) and, a couple miles farther on, a doe.  Critters everywhere!

In non-critter news, our school district has finally decided to do remote learning this fall, and continue it until certain public health conditions are met.  Which is a decision I applaud.  We had a company come out this week to repair our sprinklers in the front, so now they all work again and are set on a timer.  And I've actually been stitching some quilt blocks together.  Let's see if the trend holds.

Stargazing

I went to bed on time last night!  And then got woken up at 11pm by a cat fight outside.  Urgh.  So I went downstairs just to double-check that Sushi was inside and not part of it (which, he was on the sofa, so all good).  Back upstairs I looked out the bedroom window to see if I could see the culprits.  Which I could not.

BUT.

Clear sky night.  Big Dipper was huge!  I couldn't find Comet Neowise, but as tonight's also a clear sky night (somewhat rare here in the Pacific Northwest), I'm planning to set an alarm for 11pm, haul Squiddle's telescope out, and see if I can find the comet.  And then wake Squiddle and Wonderful Husband up to see it, since it's going to be 6,800 years until it comes back around, and none of us will be here for that.

(I still remember going to see Halley's Comet with my dad when I was a kid.  My goal is to live to see it again.)

Saturday Stuff

Ugh.  I am wiped.  I'm fairly sure I know why: I get up with the cat, which means 7am or before.  Whenever he starts bumping at our bedroom door because he wants his breakfast.  Today being a weekend, I let Wonderful Husband sleep in - he got up 2.5 hours after me.  So I'm going to hit the sack early tonight to make up some of that sleep deficit.

That said, getting up earlier than anyone else in the house isn't all bad.  I worked some more on the third trellis I'm making for the garden  Seventeen lashings done this morning before I ran out of the first roll of twine and decided that made a good stopping point.  Only fourteen more to go; if I'm diligent, I can finish it tomorrow morning and get it in the garden and have one less thing on my to-do list.

We had a couple of deer in the yard today, luckily while my mother was here and while we were Skype'ing with my inlaws, so they all got to see them.  A couple of young bucks, investigating my vegetable beds.  They fled over the back fence and into the wooded area even though we never left the patio.  They were gone before I thought to take pictures, alas.

We're starting Jazzy on toilet training, with mixed success.  Sadly, wetting his big boy undies does not seem to cause him distress.  But we shall persevere!

And, in other also less-fantastic news, Wonderful Husband managed to stab himself in the thumb while cutting up chicken for the boys' plates at dinner.  It's stopped bleeding, but we're both thinking he's rapidly going to find out just how often he uses that digit for typing.

But now, bed for the boys and then for me....

Various Things

I actually set my sewing machine up and did some sewing on it!  Mending, to be sure (two pairs of trousers and one pair of shorts, a garment apiece for the malefolk of the house, the totality of the mending pile ATM), but stitching nonetheless!  I haven't sewn anything in months, which is probably a symptom or cause (perhaps both) of the general depression that Covid-19 has caused for me.

I am terrified of Covid-19.   We're fortunately in an area with not many cases, but I'm even second-guessing Squiddle's playdate with his school friend tomorrow.  He hasn't seen K in months, and K's grandmother says they've been mostly isolating too, but still.  What if.  Both my mother and husband have medical histories that mean they're more likely to have complications.  Is his socialization worth the risk?  Impossible to know what the risk is against an invisible enemy.

I keep trying to step back and remind myself that I can only control so much.  At some point the school district is going to ask us to commit to either online or in-person learning for fall.  For Squiddle, it's still a coin toss.  But for Jazzy, he needs the in-person learning to help with his speech delays....

I need to stop circling.  The chickens have figured out how to get in and out of their coop.  I'm amused that when I peek in while shutting them in at night, all six of them keep squeezing into one nest box.  They are outgrowing the chick-sized feeder and waterer, though, so in the last Lowe's run Wonderful Husband picked up a couple mud pans and some S-hooks for me.  I'm going to drill holes in the pans and use the hooks to secure them to the mesh of the tractor run.  One for food (positioned beneath the coop, for when it rains), and one for water.  Hopefully they'll work.

And I finally hauled straw over and got garden beds #2 and #3 mulched.  I don't know if the beets or leeks are ever going to come up, but we're now hitting hot and dry summer days, so the mulch will help keep the soil moist.

I managed to snag the last basket of salal berries from the co-op this week (pickup on Wednesdays), then researched them and realized that we have a fair amount of salal around the edges of the yard!  (Not ripe yet.)  So here's to hoping that we like the berries, and to knowing another plant that should be spared as we trim things back.

I've also been thinning out the cedar strand by our barn.  It was so densely packed that even Jazzy wouldn't be able to get between the trunks, and half of the trees are thin, spindly, and dead.  I'm taking out the dead stuff first, then planning to thin the plants some more so there's a bit more light, moisture, and nutrients to share around.

Coop Coop Galoop!

Ugh, I've been quiet here for nearly three weeks.  Sorry!  In my (paltry) defense, I've been working on and stressing on a few things.

First, I've written an posted a couple fanfics in the Check, Please! fandom: Cornucopia and Running From the Moon.  And I'm almost done with a second chapter of Cornucopia.

Second, I finally planted the third garden bed.  I could have sworn that I had parsnip seeds!  But apparently I do not.  So I transplanted in four oregano plants, two Italian parsley, two habenero plants, four various summer squashes, and seeded two rows each of carrots-and-radishes and leeks.  I need to make another trellis for the squash, but that can wait a few days.

And, third!  We (mostly) finished the chicken tractor!

The windows on either side still need their shutters and latches installed, and we still need to figure out wheels.  But it is structurally sound and the girls are out of their box and living on grass and sunshine.  (And water and chicken feed.)  Yesterday I had to physically put them through the door to shut them in the coop for the night, and this morning I went back out a couple hours after I'd opened it and they were still inside the coop so I had to shoo them out the door.  But tonight, five of the six of them were already inside when it was time to shut them in, so here's to hoping they can be taught!

In other news, Squiddle has lost his fourth tooth!  No more upper incisors for him.

Trees and Tractors and Scapes

Since today was partly sunny and more importantly, not raining, I set to working on the five-in-one European plum tree I planted earlier this year.  The problem I needed to address was that the branches are all very close together, and mostly heading up at something like a 76-degree angle.  I wanted the branches to spread out a bit more, and preferably to be at a 45- to 60-degree angle, as they'll set significantly more fruit that way.  But how to go about this task without spending a lot of money on branch spreaders?

Why, take inspiration from what I've done with the cherry tree, and use up most of the rest of the clothespins that Jazzy keeps attaching to the kitchen drawers!  I chained them into branch spreaders:

And I took twine and some of those rocks I've dug up from the ground, and used those to make branch weights:

We also worked some more on the chicken tractor today!  (The roof bits got added on when my parents and sister were here for dinner on Friday.  Having a couple more sets of hands to hold everything in place made the angled bits go together much more easily.)

We also learned that the chickens are indeed flight capable at this point when one fluttered up onto the side of their box while I had the mesh off.  Fortunately that was as far as she went!

And, finally, I had ordered garlic scapes from the co-op this last week:

I was expecting them to have a mild garlic taste, like garlic greens do.

They do NOT.

So, since they pretty much taste like raw cloves of garlic, I tossed a few into the blender while I made salsa yesterday. ^_^

Rainy Tuesday

One of Squiddle's current favorite books for a bedtime story is The Lorax.  Which is a problem for me because I always end up crying at the next to last page.  Much as I like to be an optimist, when it comes to things like the environment and climate change, I just can't be.  We've messed up too much and the greedy people with all the money and power don't care.  As a species, we're fucked.

On a slightly happier note (because not much can be more depressing than that), Wonderful Husband and I worked a little on the chicken tractor this evening.  Here it is as we finished:

In the lower right are the "ceiling" joists, which Wonderful Husband cut so that it'll be a thirty-degree angle.  We'll put those on, and the center beam, tomorrow.  And probably the mid beam on the sides.

We also found four of these fellows in the barn!:

The previous owner had mentioned field mice, but this is the first we've actually seen of them.  That beam next to it, BTW, is 1.5", to give a sense of how tiny they are.  Were the chickens fully grown, I would have tossed the mice to them (chickens are not strict herbivores; they will eat bugs, slugs, and mice if they can get them), but instead Wonderful Husband tossed the mice out into the wooded area out back.  Live and let live, unless there's a reason it needs to die.  (Like the wasps off the patio.)

Children and Chicken Coops

A Squiddle quote from the other day: "My brain is making me angry!"  We have been working on appropriate expression of emotions, so this was a good one.

And last night, when Wonderful Husband was going to bed, he found that Jazzy's bedroom light was on, his gate open, and his bed empty.  A full-house search ensued.  Eventually Jazzy was found tucked into Squiddle's bed beside his brother, fast asleep.  So sweet!  But knowing that Squiddle would likely kick up a huge fuss about his brother being in his bed, I picked up Jazzy and tucked him back into his own bed without waking either of them.

In a less-cute mien: Jazzy has taken to pulling a chair from the dining room into the kitchen and using it to reach/climb up onto the counters.  Wonderful Husband has installed a magnetic latch on the corner cupboard and we have moved the knife block, all other sharp objects, and all the vitamins and daily meds up there.  Because cute as he is and much as I love him, the three-year-old is decidedly not to be trusted around any of those things.

In project news, we finally began work on the chicken tractor today!  Transforming it from a set of 2-D drawings to a 3-D structure is going to be both fun and interesting.  Time to see if we can do this as well as we hope!

We started by assembling the 8' x 4' base, and roughly laying out a side to make sure it was what we wanted:

We've opted to give the total structure an extra foot of height from my initial sketches.  The side poles were initially to be 4' high.  Here, they're 5'.  The two crossbars will be part of the supports for the coop.  Everything is attached using a nail gun and some wood glue to fill in any gap space.  The bits of wood underneath the corners are just to keep any drips of the glue from attaching the structure to the floor as it dries.