The First Friday in August

I made a lot of headway on the Noon and Night pattern yesterday morning, incorporating Joanna’s comments, re-drawing some of the graphics, adding a few more, and including some photos. I am really pleased with the progress so far. Now I just need to finish the quilt.

I ordered myself a Martelli rotating cutting mat.

I have a Fiskars one, but it’s a bad design—the base and the top tend to slip apart when I am cutting. I think this one will help speed up the trimming process on the Noon and Night blocks. It is supposed to arrive on Monday.

I need to rearrange some of my sewing areas. I have stuff in all four bedrooms. I’d like it more centralized, but we have to keep beds in all the rooms for the once or twice a year when we have houseguests. The setup is great from an exercise standpoint, because I am constantly going back and forth from the sewing machine in our bedroom to the cutting table in DD#2’s bedroom. However, the most convenient place to plug in the iron puts the ironing board right in the doorway of our bedroom.

When the husband has some time to attack the honey-do list, I’ll have him help me move furniture around to make the space more efficient.

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One of our employees—the guy who has worked for us for many years—gave two weeks’ notice. He wants to get an inside desk job. This puts the husband in a bind not only because he’s down a person, but because this guy knew enough that the husband could leave him in charge of one job while he went and worked at another job. We put an ad on Craigslist, but everyone here is in the same boat trying to find workers.

A lot of people are trying to get houses built right now. We funnel all foundation inquiries to the husband’s cell phone, but occasionally someone will get our home number. I talked to one guy the other day who is trying to get a foundation poured for a shop. He said some contractors aren’t even answering their phones, so he was very happy to get a live person on the line, but then I had to tell him that I am not in charge of scheduling. The husband said that there are quite a few homeowners who are trying to pour their own jobs. You can imagine how that works out. And one of the concrete companies had to fire a mixer driver because he was driving down the highway last week, not paying attention to the mixer, and discharged a load of concrete that damaged several dozen vehicles.

Add to that the real estate market….the husband reminds me that when we moved here, in September of 1993, there were people moving out because they thought it was getting too crowded. If only it were still like that. I checked Zillow the other day—I know it’s not necessarily a good measure of reality, but it’s a useful data point nonetheless—and it noted that our primary residence had appreciated $15,000 in the last 30 days. It’s just nuts. My concern with all of these out-of-staters moving here is that they will try to turn Montana into the places they left. The first person who moves into the neighborhood from California and complains about my roosters is going to get an earful, and not just from the roosters.

Everyone I talk to is praying for a hard winter. Truly, I think that is the only thing that will keep Kalispell from turning into another Jackson Hole or Aspen. And even if the climate keeps the population down in the winter, we’re still going to have to contend with tourists during the summer.

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My liberty-minded blog readers might be interested in a new podcast called Unloose the Goose. (Try not to let the grammar irritate you.) It’s a group of some really deep thinkers including Nicole Sauce of Living Free In Tennessee (probably my favorite podcast ever), Jack Spirko of The Survival Podcast, Curtis Stone (The Urban Farmer), and half a dozen other contributors. They also livecast the podcast recording on YouTube; sometimes I find it easier to watch the YouTube video because it’s hard to tell who is speaking when I am just listening.

That front came through and brought cooler and windier weather, and we even got a nice soaking rain overnight. I’ll get out in the garden this weekend and start doing some cleanup work. The corn stalks can come out and I might be able to move a few more loads of compost from the pile into the garden. I’ll also start another tray of lettuce in the greenhouse.