Dan's Ramblings

Dan here ~

Thursday evening, too windy for a fire. 

I have been wasting, I mean spending my time picking up sticks and burning them in the fire pit. I currently have four 55 gallon drums of them ready to burn. They burn quickly so I can’t see just leaving them on the ground in piles to rot for the next 10 to 20 years or more.

In chemistry class we learned the burning was called rapid oxidation. There is an endless supply of available clean up, but not as easily obtained after the leaves and bugs pop out. I like to play while the window is open, so to speak. When the window closes because the bugs get too bad or it gets too hot out, that is why there is air conditioning in the studio.

Unless I can find a market for some of the fire wood I have I don’t know how many more places I can find to make my round wood stacks. I’m eyeballing some at the neighbors that could be cut/split and stacked and left right there for them. The fun part done, let them burn it. It seems like it ought to work. You may remember my current pile from last fall. 

I grew another wood pile with about 1-1/2 cord in it. It contains the wood I cleaned off from Mud Pond during the winter and hauled up unto the hill and split up camp fire fine and is currently stacked and drying to burn another year. The wood pieces sticking up out of the water that I left are now normally covered with sunning turtles. So I guess that was ok.

Maybe I can make a quick buck next year early spring selling it to someone desperate to get the rest of the way through the winter. The way things are going I may need to go back to gainful employment. Hopefully, I can figure out how to sell some of the many quilts we are creating and have created and have lying around. I know I can’t get the prices that we used to get in the quilt shop but there are many lap quilts I’d let go for $600 each and many larger quilts for $1000 or less. Yes, there are also many that would require a larger investment for you to obtain them. Many of those are larger and custom quilted by Carol. There a few “kicking” around that could be purchased that are from patterns from the quilt shop days but most are designed by me and are one of a kind. Then they were either custom quilted by Carol or computer quilted under Carol’s watchful eyes and attention to detail. Hopefully when it gets warmer I’ll figure out a way to get decent pictures and work out the details of selling some of them. Carol keeps saying she won’t let me keep making them unless I get rid of some. It is a very expensive and time consuming addiction, donating them all as is often suggested, doesn’t feed the addiction. Oh well, time will tell.

I caught Carol out on the patio the other day in the sun working on a binding. I do believe it was the first time of the season.

The kayaks are on the beach and ready to go. 

 

Now if the wind would only stop blowing and it could warm up a little. Not 80’s and 90’s, 70’s are fine. As it warms up I’m going to have to figure out what I’m going to plant in all my planters. I wasn’t impressed last year so there will be a couple evenings of research to get some ideas of the best things to try this year. I want to get things that we can actually eat besides a few tomatoes. Time will tell.

In the studio, I continued with the blocks I showed you last time and arrived at the four different blocks with a couple variations and used them to create #13 for 2025. 

2025-13

 Here is a close ups to see crazy in the studio. 

It was fun, but it required a lot of foursomes of the different sized four patches and half square triangles. This meant that most had to be made from scratch just for this project. Between projects I make a lot of different sized units and place them in bins trimmed ready to go. 1” through 4” with no 3 1/2”. I don’t know why I left that size out except it makes odd sized blocks to work with from a design stand point. It leaves you to work with 7” then 14” blocks. That is way too large to design lap quilts around.

After I finished #13, I spent 3 days making four-patches of the 1-1/2” and 3” varieties. I then headed down the rabbit hole that will become #14 for 2025. I see many more 1-1/2” four patches needed, I hopefully will have plenty 3”. This time I am not using foursomes unless it just works out that way so it will be a lot scrappier. You got it time will tell. I’m using up a lot of scraps on this one. With a lot of luck and windy evenings I may get it done before next week.

Until next time stay safe, our weather is supposed to be warm on Saturday. Who knows the kayaks may actually get into the water. Time will tell. I was in hopes of going today on my birthday but it was way too windy. Maybe next year.