Dan's Ramblings

Dan here ~

As I said last time the ice is out. The wind has been blowing ever since. Well, it seems it anyway. The first raking of the incoming sticks etc. were removed from the beach. I will now be able to do it again every day or so for the next 7 months until it freezes again. Ahhh, life on the pond. 

The squirrels are a nuisance around here. They get into everything and leave piles of acorns everywhere. Knock on wood, the mice were not an issue in either the basement or the shed this winter. That was a good thing. The squirrels on the other hand, not so much. They get into the filters on the truck so the filters need to be replaced every service at a cost of over $100 each time.

I was cleaning out the back seat of my pickup and opened a wool blanket that is kept on the seat. This is what I found when I opened the blanket. 

That’s right, there’s probably 50 acorns I dumped into the trash. I hit a bump the other day bouncing down the camp road and now I can hear acorns rolling around above the headliner in the cab. I want to know how they get such easy access to inside the cab. I never leave the door open, I don’t leave the windows open. I’d like to know where they can get in that easily to keep bringing in that many acorns. It obviously took several trips. Must be one of Ford’s better ideas. I guess it’ll remain a mystery.

We have been entertained the last few days by several eagles flying around and diving for meals. We have seen two adults and one younger one. They are fun to watch as they fly from one side of the pond to the other. Watched the younger one try repeatedly to catch one of the rather large number of diving ducks that come for a while in the spring to fish. They will be around for several weeks then their numbers usually dwindle. The last couple days we have also been treated to a male cardinal eating under the feeders. A very pretty bird. 

I made a small quilt last week to use up some of what I call orphan blocks. I define a block as orphan block if it was created for no real reason, (ie: shop samples, or tool demo blocks. Yup, I saved those) or blocks that were created as a trial or many times I just made too many as I hate to count. I call this quilt “Workhouse” because it is full of orphans. For the non-literary, Workhouse is the orphanage in Dicken’s “Oliver Twist”. 

It was a quick fun project and yes it used up some scraps. It was a win-win.

The fabric has arrived for grandson Evan’s graduation quilt.

and this is the final design I have chosen. 

This is my set of directions to follow during construction. 

Anyone want to create it with me?

Enjoy your week, hopefully the wind stops blowing to enable me to have another fire to burn off more of the past winter’s debris. Time will tell. ’Til next time...