Dan's Ramblings

Dan here ~

Thursday evening, sitting by the fire, at least until the back flies drive me back inside. They have been incredibly bad the last few days. I’ve been up on the hill playing with twigs, branches and blowdowns and woodpiles. They make nice fires in the evening but unless the wind is blowing, the damn flies carry you away. They are beginning to find me already and I’ve only been out a few minutes. I truly hate it when they fly into your ears and under your glasses. Real annoying. Well enough on the bugs. If I have to I’ll go inside. They actually let up as the evening progressed.

I mailed out the baby quilt today to Erin”s friends in Utah. I hope they like it. As I mentioned last time I rambled at you, I was almost finished with #24 for 2023, It’s done now. As I mentioned earlier, I placed the 7-1/2” blocks I came up with on point. I added sashing strips and corner stones and was very pleased with the outcome. On point is not my favorite to produce but I do like the results.

A while back I talked about the things I carry in my pockets. (August 25, 2021). I spoke about my nail clipper and a friend told me to just carry it loose in my pocket. If you loose it just go buy another, they are cheap. Fast forward probably 20 years and you guessed it, I lost it. I will say they are cheap and every time I used the replacement I swore at it because it did not cut clean. It would crack the nail adjacent to the cut. A real pain because then the nick would catch every thread and just be wrong. 

Stubb, my friend was wrong, things like that can not just be replaced. They don’t make them like they used to. The new one did not come close to replacing the old one. I was heartbroken when I lost the old clipper. 

Based on what I just mentioned you can imagine my surprise when I found my old clipper in the dirt beside where I park my truck. I must have lost it getting something out of my pocket. It was quite rusty, but hey, it was my clippers. 

I thought I heard it sigh when I picked it up, but then again, that might have just been me getting back up. I went into the shed and found some steel wool and proceeded to quite easily bring back the chrome.

Works as good as it ever did. Hopefully I can hold on to it for another 20 years. Maybe I should consider leaving it to someone in my will. I figure if I live another 10 years, most of the coins I carry all the time in my pocket will be totally smooth and will be hard to determine what they are. But further reflection tells me who will care? Probably not will worthy. Just memories for an old man.

I’m working indirectly on #25 for 2023, I say indirectly because getting ideas led me to more clean up. This brought me to a bin of pieces, where cut offs and other triangles and side triangles for V-blocks and Corner Beams were put. Many created for various projects, some left overs and some I’m making now to use up the pieces. The Corner Pops are good for making these “extras”. 

All various sizes, some of them just the cut offs (as in save until later, probably will get thrown away,) never having been trimmed yet. Well, I’m trimming them and trying to come up with something to do with them. Most have turned into Corner Beams and I find I have been making a pile of them. 

No real idea how they will be used as they are multiple different sizes, but the voices are talking. Some ideas aren’t too bad. Some V-blocks wannabes are hiding in the pile as well. I’m sure of it. I’m sure something useful will arrive out of the chaos of pieces. No guarantee, but you guessed it, time will tell.

Enjoy your weekend, I’ll try. I just heard some coyotes calling so some unlucky creature may not make it to the weekend, hopefully you all will.  Until next time...