Dan's Ramblings

Dan here ~

Monday evening. A beautiful day today, a little chilly with the breeze but not too bad. Beautiful evening also, I took this pic a little after sunset. 

Grocery shopping this morning, nothing much exciting there. 

This afternoon though, our landscaper/sand guy etc. brought me two yards of gravel so I could begin to fill some sand bags to raise the level of our retaining wall.

We have fingers crossed that I am wasting time and money. Maybe not though, as I put a sump basin and sump pump under the crawl space on Friday to keep the water level below the floor of the crawl space. As it is, if the water level of the pond rises much more my new sump basin will be below pond level. But should still keep water below problem causing levels. You guessed it, time will tell.

I have no idea what the newly predicted snow storm will bring us. We lucked out with the power last time, but again, time will tell. I know this is Maine and we should expect an occasional snow storm this time of year, but this is crazy. Hopefully, we don’t get the 18” plus they are talking about. Personally, I think them weather dudes just like talking about it. I have no choice but to attempt to relocate whatever is deposited. The lighter the better, thank you.

I will spend tomorrow getting ready for the storm and finishing filling and stacking sandbags the rest of the way across the retaining wall. The one level will use up about half of the 100 bags I had ordered and almost a yard of gravel. Another 100 bags are on the way. 

 I am, and probably always will be a devil’s advocate, you know, a “but what if” kind of guy. Sometimes it pays off, sometimes not so much. No big loss, if the water doesn’t become an issue, the bags are filled with the same gravel I use on the driveway. After the water recedes I will empty the bags into the road and save the bags for another time, if needed.

In the studio I finally finished quilt#9 for 2024. 

2024-9

 Making each quilt top from scratch with the number of pieces I cram into each one takes time. #9 is made from those pesky 1-1/2” units I made in such abundance. Truth be told, way more were created than were used in #9. Many of those units will show up in #10. With a little head start maybe #10 won’t take almost a full month to get completed. I have several sashing strips all made that I did not think worked with the on point design of #9. I have a different approach to get rid of them. All in my head at this point, the boys and girls are arguing about stuff now, trying to see if any of the ideas will work. I think we have a general consensus, I will need to take over and try a couple things and get moving before Carol catches up with me on the quilting queue.

Don’t overdo if you have to deal with our snowstorm, take breaks. I personally like to take naps and probably will. Relocate some snow, come in and take a nap and then repeat. Maybe get something going on #10 as well, we”ll see.

Stay safe, ’til next time.