Dan's Ramblings

Dan here ~

Thursday evening, no fire tonight, raining out. Had a nice one last night, not cold out and no bugs. The good fire evenings will be harder and harder to come by as time goes on. Not much I can do about it, I’m still in denial that fall is here already. The leaves are changing fast and I’m seeing some of the oaks turning brown already. Oh boy, I’ll have something to do most days real quick besides sewing. Truth be told, I would prefer to sew most days. It still wears me out but I’m already inside where naps are taken. I wonder what age I was when I realized that naps were an OK thing. I predict some in the future as autumn takes its annual dump on us.

I learned something disappointing this week. Disappointing to me at least. It is one of those things like my puttering. No one will really notice whether I did it or not. Just me. Anyone that has spent any amount of time around me, knows that I like to whistle. I may not know the words to a song, but I can hit the melody and harmonize with most of the tunes I listen to, with whistling. I no longer can. 

I know it’s not much in the larger scheme of life, but to me it is one more bloody thing about getting older. First it was my voice when I realized I could no longer hit Frankie Valli’s high notes. That happened in my late 40’s maybe 50’s. A loss I learned to live with. After all, I could still whistle. Beginning to see why this is a bigger thing? I had a tooth pulled last week and the air now moves differently within my oral cavity. Hence, I will need to either re-learn the process, or else just chalk it up to another thing I no longer do as the aging process continues. My voice only really failed me going for the high notes so I still have that, mostly. Many notes still work while whistling, but much like when a boy’s voice changes, it is disturbingly unpredictable as to when it will come out wrong. Oh well I can still sew.

Speaking of playing in the studio, #28 for 2025 is still plodding along. This one is following a design concept I used to use a lot. Design on the fly. Pretty much right after the main idea was drawn, on EQ8, variations in he blocks were needed. This is the block #28 centers around. 

It's a 10” finished block made up of 69 pieces in each block. As the design process continued I found I needed half and quarter blocks. 

These caused a few moments of thought before realizing I was now looking at half rectangles or my Split Rect tool. No problem, the half of the Square 2 unit became a Flying goose I made using my Corner Pop tool. The 1/4 of the square 2 unit is merely a half square triangle. All tools were within my toolbox, I just needed to recognize the shape and pull out the tool needed. Another 2-3 days hopefully I’ll be able to wrap this one up, depending on what maybe the weather causes.

I found a way to hang the seed tray on the birds pole. They were pleased and quickly began feeding on the seeds. We haven’t seen the mourning doves around much all summer. We heard them, just seldom saw them. They are back now. 

I guess this guy didn’t think the little birds were knocking the seeds on the ground fast enough.

Speaking of the weather, summer like temps are supposed to be returning. As I write this I can hear the rain pelting on the roof. It is a soothing sound and we need the water. The pond had risen a little but more wouldn’t hurt too much. It needs to rise quite a bit before my procrastination of connecting the sump pump becomes an issue. The velocity I can hear driving down now is a bit disconcerting, as that can cause washing and the need for road repairs. I guess time will tell whether I will need to play road repairman or not. I could pass on that one but like the leaves falling it is inevitable.

Enjoy your weekend and stay safe, hopefully I get a couple fire evenings. We’ll see.