I Made a Mistake

All of the pieces of the BU jacket have been quilted and cut out. I am ready to begin the assembly. However, I made a mistake. I do not want to confess it until I know if the fix I came up with works. I was talking about it with the husband last night and his first question was, “Do you have more fabric?” I do, but what I don’t have right now is time.

The truth is that sometimes creativity—like weeds—flourishes in those places where it’s up against a rock and a hard place. In the grand scheme of things, this isn’t a disaster. I am fairly sure it’s fixable. Also, mistakes will be the subject of next week’s podcast episode because it’s important to make lemonade when handed a bag full of lemons.

Today is National Sewing Machine Day, for those of you who track those important dates. I love my sewing machines. I wish I could find time to go out to the garage and tinker with some of my vintage ones. Maybe next month. The garage is a lovely cool place when it’s 90F+ outside.

This morning, though, I absolutely have to get out and work in the garden. I need to bring in the rest of the strawberries. The potatoes desperately need weeding. The hemp mulch works nicely, but lamb's quarter still manages to spring up right next to the potato plants. Fortunately, lamb’s quarter is one of the easiest weeds to pull, especially after it rains.

[I am sure that the more enlightened gardeners out there will point out that lamb’s quarter makes a fine salad green, but I’m having enough trouble harvesting the stuff I planted deliberately without also having to worry about harvesting weeds.]

Those four baby robins are so demanding that papa robin has been drafted to help feed them. The photo isn’t great, but both mama and papa robin have been bringing bugs and worms to the babies:

I think this same mama robin has been building a nest in this spot for several years. She doesn’t get startled and fly away if I walk past the nest—or worse, strafe me for getting too close. (Papa robin, however, is still skittish.) I talk to all the animals. Even Bunny has stopped hopping away when it sees me. Now it just sits there, calmly munching on dandelion stems, while I tell it my plans for the day.

The husband found the little lame chick dead in the coop a few nights ago. That made me sad, but sick and lame animals get culled on farms—either naturally or deliberately—for a reason. I’ve had lame chickens before and they rarely do well. I was already starting to obsess about what I was going to do if that chick got outside, because I knew it wouldn’t be able to get back up the ramp into the coop.