Competing with China

I hemmed the sunshade yesterday and hung it back up.

I also installed a grommet at each side, about halfway up, so we could tie the shade to the posts and keep it from billowing out in the breeze.

The rod system the husband rigged up works very well:

However, I noticed that the Coolaroo is starting to fray a bit around a couple of the grommets. I think that was due to it blowing around in the wind before we designed this hanging system. I’ll dab some Fray-Chek on there, but were I to do this again, I would probably put a square of heavy-duty interfacing under the grommets for added stability.

I stopped at Hobby Lobby yesterday, and as I was walking around the home and garden section, I rounded a corner and ran smack into an end-cap display of Coolaroo sunshades, 12’ x 12’, with mounting hardware, 50% off. When I got home, I e-mailed my friend Scott—who gifted me with the roll of Coolaroo after he finished making a shade for their pergola—and joked that he and I were competing with China. I didn’t look to see how much Hobby Lobby was charging for the shades. I don’t want to know and it doesn’t really matter. My custom-made shade works perfectly for this situation and that’s all that matters.

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I took a break from the GOOT bag and messed around with an apron design on Wednesday. I had this cute coffee-themed fabric in the stash:

It’s reversible:

Some day I will figure out the white balance adjustment on my iPhone. I need to get a replacement battery for my fancy digital camera and go back to using that one.

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All is well out in the chicken coop. The peeps will start working on their second (40-pound!) bag of chick grower soon. I see a significant difference between these chicks and the ones we usually get from the farm store. The ones from the farm store travel through the mail when they are literally just hours old, and they seem to take longer to recover from that stress than these chicks have. These chicks only had to travel from the kitchen to the chicken coop.

With all the rain, our yard is starting to look like a jungle. I cut the grass in the backyard yesterday afternoon and was hoping to do the front yard this morning, but it’s supposed to rain all day again. Tomorrow’s forecast is warm and sunny. However, I have a denominational board meeting via Zoom so I won’t get much done outside. (This is my last board meeting. My term ends in June.) I need to plant some lettuce seedlings on Sunday and get the zucchini plants out under another hoop. And weed. The weeds grow faster than anything else.