Dan's Ramblings

Dan here ~

Monday evening in the studio. 

After the bloody snowstorm and the wind over the weekend the fireplace is not available to be sat by. 

It had been looking pretty good. As I said last time, I have already burnt a lot of the winter’s supply of branches and twigs. Hopefully, I won’t have too many new ones when the snow melts again. I guess that will bring us Spring 2.0, hopefully we won’t have another summer where we wait four months for it to get here then give up and have Fall.

The weekend snow storm was a bugger. For us it started out as powder. After receiving the first 6-7 inches I went out and relocated it out of the area around the house and the 250 - 350 yards of driveway to get up to Old County Rd. At that point the town pretends to maintain the road. As of a couple hours ago it is hardly passable by one vehicle let alone two. Fortunately, I met no other cars either on my way out or coming back home from the grocery store.

Back to the storm events. After my first pass at clean up, I went in the studio and sewed and went about my day as normal until about 10 PM. At this point it had rained for a couple hours on top of the new 6 inches then returned to snow for a couple more inches. I’m guessing about 14-15 inches, maybe a little more total. More than we got all winter put together. 

 I may have waited a little too long to go out for my second pass at relocation. My little tractor was maxed out with that real wet snow. A good portion of that long driveway is uphill, having no choice but to take a full width path because it was the first one. That pass was really difficult. It was go ahead a little, back up, go again. I really questioned if I was going to make it all the way to the mailbox at the top of the driveway. I finally made it and headed back down now only taking about a third of a pass and still the tractor worked hard. I have also decided that I need cab mounted lights to be able to see more when out blowing at night. 

I will say that having a full heated cab with the blower mounted in front of me sure beat all those years with no cab and the blower behind me. Looking like this when I came in from snow relocation in Rangeley was a common occurrence.

I did not get everything cleaned up to my liking but between me and the sun I think we’ll get it done.

Quilt #9 for 2024 is coming along slowly, the box of 1-1/2” finished units of four patches, half squares, V-blocks, Corner Beams and several oddball units just for fun. I have been turning them into 4-1/2” finished 9-patch blocks. I have no idea how many I have made so far. Remember last time? I don’t like to count things like that. I just know that I can always use more. Here is a sample of some of those blocks. 

Here is a hint of the direction the quilt is headed in. 

It went through several permutations to reach this one. My final design is still subject to change and I will need to make a final decision tonight in order to continue. That is unless the option is chosen that requires a good deal more of my 9-patch units. Time will tell.

I hope you enjoy your week and until next time, stay safe.