Baby Birds Fly

The baby robins left the nest this week. When we had dogs, this used to be a horribly nervewracking experience for me. I think that is why I got so good at listening for the specific call that mama robins use to coax babies out of the nest. More than once, I had to make sure a dog was out of the vicinity when the baby birds flew. They are a bit wobbly at first and don’t always end up where they intend to.

This one spent a few hours on our windowsill yesterday:

After dinner, I heard it crying again and found it sitting on top of the lawnmower. Then it flew over to the woodshed.

At one point yesterday, we had the baby robin on the porch, the bunnies out in the yard, and a male turkey attempting to impress a hen near the chicken coop where the garter snake hangs out eating mice. Welcome to my petting zoo.

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The husband and I didn’t see much of each other for a couple of days. He left early Monday morning for a job about 30 miles south of here and didn’t get home until after I had left to go to the homestead foundation board meeting. Our department got called to a structure fire Monday evening, and he was at the fire until about 10:30 pm. I was asleep when he got home. He was up early again yesterday morning to go back to the job, so we didn’t get to check in with each other until dinner.

I mowed the perimeter of the garden yesterday morning and sprinkled sulfur out around the beans. We got a nice soaking rain overnight, which should help to activate it. We are still feasting on strawberries, too. The pigs were very chatty while I was out in the garden yesterday. They like to come and stand by the fence and watch me.

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I worked on the Spencer Ogg Forever Shopper tote bag yesterday, which led to an hour of sorting and organizing zippers when I could not find a 16” metal one. (I have 14” and 18” metal zips, but no 16” ones.) Because I couldn’t go any further with that project, I cut out a few more canvas grocery bags and pulled out some canvas aprons that I cut a few months ago and stashed. These are for me, not for the sale, and they are based on my favorite commercial apron. This is one from the Cotton + Steel Under the Apple Tree line:

I like deep pockets that go across the front of the apron. The leftover piece I used for the pocket wasn’t quite wide enough, so I included that bit of selvage. I make my own double-fold bias binding for the edgings out of Kona; it behaves so much better than the polyester-blend packaged binding that I don’t mind spending the time to make a big batch of it. (I cut the bias strips with my Accuquilt cutter.) The binding will go around the body of the apron, and then I’ll use the 2” wide twill tape, folded over, for the straps. I like this style of apron best because it doesn’t tie horizontally around my waist. The ties come down at an angle and thus the waistband of the apron isn’t constantly riding up because the ties are in the wrong spot for me.

I’ve got four of these aprons to finish. My friend, Anna, the caterer, asked for one like the water resistant one I made from Splash fabric. I have enough left to make one for her, so I may go ahead and add that to the queue.

My tolerance for scraps is very low. It’s not that I don’t like scraps—scrap quilts are favorites of mine—it’s that I get overwhelmed by all the scraps I generate. It feels wasteful if I don’t use up every single scrap of every piece of material. Some of these pieces of canvas are still a good size, so now I am looking at cutting them into pieces to make some small zip pouches.