Dan's Ramblings

Dan here. Another busy week, coming to you on Thursday evening out by the fire. Walking still under par. ( am I allowed to use golf terminology even if I would never on my worst day ever play the game?) This week I was under the 38.9 miles needed to “make week” only by 1 1/2 miles. That is why I put miles in the bank last winter. Walking many more each day than I “needed” for each week, gave me miles I can use now when it is too hot or too much life in the way to walk. Haven’t done the math yet so don’t know what yearly total is. A little under 1100 miles, I think. I’ll figure it out and let you know.

Beautiful evening. 

More and more lights around the pond as people coming to camp

Cooler than many of the last few, but that is fine. Fewer mosquitoes etc. anyway. Shorts on but added a jacket and fire is hot. Overall a rather enjoyable evening. Carol is in bed early, as is her need of late. This is fine as she needs her rest. So I sit, alone, by the fire, rambling at you on the computer.

I did something today I do not do very often, I went fishing. I caught 5 bass all around the same size. 

I wear a size 9 1/2 shoe. This was a smaller one, a couple were bigger. 3-4 pounds and 14” - 18” is my guess. They put up a fight before I released them.

Today we saw the beginning of the tadpole crop on the pond. 

The first of this years tiny bass were also seen. It doesn’t seem like many of them survive because mostly what is seen in the pond is bass the size I just showed you or bigger. I’m sure there are the smaller ones, but it seems I don’t recall seeing many.

We are also beginning to see mud turtles swimming along the shore in front of the camp, floating to the surface and popping their heads up to breathe. They pop back down. When Edgar the snapping turtle comes around he/she just slides to the surface and when done breathing or looking around just slowly disappears under the water. One is hanging around the swim float. It may have to be relocated or no one will dare to go swimming.

The quilt to block off the door that was mentioned in my last blog is coming along fine. I kept it fairly simple. Remember I am into using up parts and pieces and scraps. What I did is turned to some 6“ finished nine-patch blocks and found some fabric Carol had left me to cut up that came off trimmings during longarming a quilt. I measured several of the nine-patch blocks and saw that sashing pieces of 6-3/8” not 6-1/2” would work better. Glad I saw that before I noticed a lot of puckered blocks. Still saw a couple, but I can live with it. Only time this will be used is to close off the hallway at night to allow cooling of the bedroom. It may be used often but we will be in bed when it is used.

My design came from what I had available to me close at hand. I had nine-patch units from daughter Erin’s failed boyfriend quilt. You remember the quilt where the construction took longer than the relationship lasted? I’m sure many of you can relate. I also had some nine-patch blocks from my earlier attempts to use up my 2-1/2” squares. I decided to break up the different nine-patch blocks using 6-3/8” x 3-1/2” cut rectangles to attach to my nine-patch blocks and 6-3/8” x 2” cut rectangles to attach to Erin”s old blocks. When I laid them out with two of each type of block with their sashing's attached I saw that it would be just wide enough when I added borders to fit the end of the hallway. I began to make blocks and assembled the rows. I added sashing between the rows as well and started to make it long enough to drag on the floor and would block the cold. Almost ready to see if there is enough of the trimmings left to be used for the outside border.

Then I’ll have to see if Lena has objections to me handling her so I can quilt something on it. Time will tell.

Enjoy your weekend, we will and remember, where ever you go, there you are, if I’m supposed to meet you there and you get there first, draw a blue line where we planned to meet. If I get there first, I’ll rub it out.