Dan's Ramblings

Dan here ~

Thursday evening, here’s my 3 second time lapse looking out the studio up the pond at 9:00 this evening. 

Although I’ve sworn all day that today is Saturday I guess it doesn’t really matter because it’s supposed to snow then as well. In my life I guess one day is pretty much like another. We only got an inch or so of snow today but it was heavy. 3” of it would have been fun. Oh yeh, the 6-10” on Saturday into Sunday is supposed to be wet also. Requires several tree painting passes. I’ll be ready for the next one as soon as I clean up a little in the morning while Carol is at sewing with the car.

I’ve given up on trying to keep an area of the pond ice clear and skate-able. The snow is too heavy, the ice not the greatest and no one uses it anyway. It seems my life now is pretty much spent doing things that really don’t need to be done. I guess that is karma after spending my working life running steady doing things that others needed done. Spring will come and I can once again start wasting my time trying to get rid of some of the wood piles by burning some of it in the fire pit. I had a fire the other day, getting rid of some old paperwork and burnt some wood as well. I don’t think I’ll run out of wood anytime soon.

With spring approaching I’ll need to begin to plan what I want to attempt to grow in my limited planters. I’ll need to have a tomato plant or two for Carol. Back when I had the greenhouse I would have tomatoes in either planters or sheetrock buckets well on the way to producing cherry tomatoes for her salad by now. Several years I had ripe tomatoes by mid March. 

I truly miss my greenhouse. It was a lot of work and a dedication of love to keep it warm (or cool) whichever was needed. I used some interesting methods to keep it warm year round and only once did it get cold enough to kill some plants. The one I was sad to loose was a crown of thorns that had been one of my mother’s. We move on in our lives and things change. I have no room for it now so like my orchid cactus I would have needed to eliminate it when we downsized anyway.

One thing that doesn’t seem to change, at least not yet, is my constant creating of quilts. #5 for 2025 is complete. 66" x 78"

2025-5

 I saw the hint of some circles in #4, so I thought I would see if I could make them more noticeable in #5. I think that my choice of sashing strips allowed me to find them. The use of my Corner Pop on the 9" finished blocks and then using my Corner Pop III to create the 3" sashing units gave me my circles. The color changes in the sashing was for added pizazz.

Keeping track of the sashing strips was challenging to say the least. My method to make the sashing units works good. I use my EQ8 layout and I erase each sashing section as I create it. 

I usually still manage to screw some up while assembling them once they are all made. I think this one might be my newest favorite. 

#6 is well under way, I’m using a 10” block this time with a 2” sashing. I think the idea is cemented into my head enough that I want to see what it looks like so it probably will not see another design change. Time will tell.

I guess I will also wait and see how much of my weekend will be spent moving around snow. Were I to tell you the truth, I hope very little. It is no where near as much fun as it used to be. Like today I have no idea why the shear pin snapped on the auger on the blower, but whatever caused it, allowed me to have an extra ten to fifteen minutes of fun getting the old one out and the new one in. I still like knowing I am in control of whether we get out of the driveway or not. The driveway is tractor work, easy-peasy (ask Carol) it’s the rest of the cleanup where the work lies. I suppose were I not as anal as I am and did not feel the need to scrape it all down to the blacktop if at all possible it would not be as much work. That is the joy of the black top, if you can expose it the sun will keep it bare and it does not need to be treated constantly. If it does not need to be treated then I do not need to bring the vacuum cleaner down from the studio as often to clean up the sand that gets brought in on the bottom of our feet.

Take care, stay safe and try and enjoy the weekend. I will. I learned you have to enjoy everything you do even if the only enjoyment there is in the project is the satisfaction in knowing you completed it. Remember tomorrow is Valentine’s Day, tell your valentine you love them. I’ll try and remember to call down from the studio, she’ll probably call back.

Until next time...