Dan's Ramblings

Dan here ~

Sunday evening out by the fire. 

Had a substantial shower just after I finished grilling the burgers. Excellent timing. I had already started the fire and was able to rekindle it and dry off my seat. I sit on a cushion anyway and not on the seat of my chair. That is only bad if I forgot to bring it inside the night before and it rained. You can count on that part this year, it will rain.  

The clouds during the sunset looked cool, I see a dog, you?

On our kayak ride today Carol and I saw, I think, 18 turtles. One of them was this oversized snapping turtle. 

This big boy was about six feet down. When I lowered my kayak paddle I plopped him on the back and he took off.

Next weekend is Labor Day weekend. Where did the summer go? I dread the coming of winter more this year than I think I ever have before. Carol and I have been discussing how the leaves will get removed this season. The pond is so high there is no beach on a large portion of what is normally beach. The water goes right to the edge of the woodsy overgrowth. 

We’ll have to wait and see what happens as fall descends upon us.

I have been “working” over at the neighbor’s lately. The neighbors are new this year, they are in the process of redeveloping the old camping area next door into a glamping area. Small tiny houses with bed and bath and a full kitchen and hot tub outside on the covered deck. They had a bunch of wood they pushed out of their way to split up later. Long story but the end result was they approached me to see if I was interested in cleaning up the eyesore on a “one for me one for you” basis. That works for me, the only real problem is most are too long and require additional cutting before splitting them. No big deal, I’m sure I’ll end up with more than half. (i should) 

It gives me something to do and I always did enjoy splitting and handling wood.

I’ll need to move more wood down to the wood box soon. 

I hate to say it but many of my plants are beginning to either look sad from “old age” (like me) or are just tired of the inconsistent watering that has occurred this season. The watering issue has caused problems with both my tomatoes and my cucumbers. It has caused odd shaped cukes and splitting tomatoes. We still have more than enough, but I had figured we would be giving lots away. Has not happened, at least on a regular basis. Typical gardener, maybe next year. Beginning to think about saving some tomato seeds again. That worked out well for this season. The tomato plants I started from seed are just starting to produce red fruit. About time.

Quilting wise, I have been plugging away trying to use up the abundance of cut off units I seem to accumulate. I just can’t seem to throw them away. I made many of them into Split rect units and attached those to rectangles the same size. I did this with two different sized split rect units. I used the units to make various different blocks figuring to use them in a mix. 

 

Then I came up with this block 

and managed to still have enough left of the split rects to make 62 of the 63 blocks needed. There is a middle block in the layout so I just chose a different block to use in the middle. Now I have moved on to the sashing strips and cornerstones. Then comes assembly. I have been on this top for almost two months. I guess it’s not a race. If it was, I’d use less pieces in each quilt.

The weather doesn’t look too bad this week, get out and enjoy it. It’ll be snowing before you know it.