And Now, Mastery Classes

I had an appointment in town on Thursday, so I stopped in at the quilt store on my way home. The owner came out to my car to chat with me as I was on my way out. One of her employees is leaving. This employee currently teaches all the mastery classes, which are the classes that customers get when they purchase a machine. (I had a mastery class when I bought the Q20.) She wanted to know if I would be interested in teaching the serger mastery classes.

Oh, sure, why not.

To sweeten the pot, she said that when teaching these classes, I’d be considered an employee of the store, not a contractor, and I would get the employee discount. (Twist my arm.) I need to familiarize myself with the Bernina sergers and with what’s covered in their mastery classes, but that’s doable. I’ve already got copies of the Bernina mastery books.

She also ever-so-gently nudged me about deciding on a class for September and getting my class samples on display at the store. Store samples do help to generate interest in the class. When the class coordinator and I discussed future classes a few weeks ago, I suggested that the fall classes might focus on making Christmas gift items. That’s a big and wide category, though, so I need to narrow it down a bit.

I spend a lot of time thinking about how to structure my classes. A successful class is going to be one in which the goals are clearly laid out and students get a mix of both theoretical and practical knowledge. No one wants to sit through a two-hour Power Point presentation. I took a photography class like that once, at the community college, and I didn’t know any more about my digital camera at the end of the class than I did at the beginning. Finding that sweet spot where the theoretical and the practical come together is key. It also helps if the class progresses from easy to more challenging, so the students have a chance to build on what they’ve learned.

While I was in Alaska, DD#1 asked me if I could make her a batch of cloth napkins. We use cloth napkins here at Chez Schuster-Szabo, although ours have a simple mitered hem. I seized on this request as an opportunity to practice making rolled hems on my serger. When I got back to Seattle from Alaska, I picked up several packages of cloth napkins at Ikea. They were approximately 14” square and I thought I would cut them down and make rolled hems on slightly smaller napkins.

I spent yesterday working on that project. I used my 12-1/2” square ruler to mark the new size of the napkins, then set up my serger to make a rolled hem using regular serger thread in the lower looper and right needle, and wooly nylon in the upper looper. And I made lots of rolled hems.

Napkins will work for a class. I’d like to have at least a couple of projects, though, because there is always that one prodigy who gets through your class handout way before anyone else. Because a rolled hem flows naturally out of a three-thread narrow hem, we’ll start with a 3TN using some decorative thread in the looper. We’ll move on to some rolled hem napkins, and we’ll finish up—if time permits—making a lettuce-edge scarf, which is a rolled hem on knitted fabric. That’s ambitious, but the last project is optional. It could even be its own class. I am happy with that plan, and it will take me only a day or two to make up class samples.

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The Singer 9W is partially back together and looking very nice. I think I may put it into a treadle base. It doesn’t have a motor boss, so I can’t mount a handcrank easily. The 9W reminds me of a Singer 15 with pheasant decals that I picked up at an antique store in Whitefish in 2010. I cleaned it up, put it into a treadle base, and sold it. That machine literally sang as I sewed on it. It was the oddest thing. I couldn’t tell if the machine was happy to be sewing again or what, but it was a beautiful sound. This is why I do this.

We’ve “cooled off” to the upper 80s and low 90s here. It’s still hot, but not as brutal as being up near 100. The hot-weather crops are going nuts. A couple of my tomato plants have already set fruit, which is unheard of, and I’ve picked several cukes for our salads, also unheard of. The lettuce and the peas are struggling, though. It got way to hot way too soon for them.

Every year is different. Every year is different. Every year is different.

The forecast doesn’t change much for the next couple of weeks—mid-90s and no precipitation, although it’s hard to predict those afternoon pop-up thunderstorms. Hopefully some of them will come with rain.

A Couple of Successes and a (Temporary) Setback

The Singer 500 Rocketeer needs just a bit more work before it’s ready for prime time. I set it aside and pulled the 401 off the shelf to work on yesterday. Even though it was terribly dirty, it looked like an easy cleanup and it was. A true beauty was hiding underneath all that grime. She sparkles.

I have a specific recipient in mind for this machine, if it passes its sewing test. I need to put my hands on the correct power cord so I can check it out. The guts of this machine are nearly identical to those of the Rocketeer with a few minor differences.

[I think I paid $5 for this machine at a thrift store in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho. It was hiding under a table.]

My other success is huge. Way back in November 2019 I picked up a Singer 9W locally off Craigslist. In a weird twist of fate, I had also run across the specific (and uncommon) presser feet for that very machine a few days earlier at the local Goodwill. Unfortunately, the machine didn’t have a bobbin case. I ordered one off eBay but either it wasn’t the correct bobbin case—that model started out as a Wheeler and Wilson machine before the brand was acquired by Singer, and there are some weird issues with parts—or I didn’t have it installed correctly. Long story short, I broke the bobbin case.

I don’t break things often, but when I do, I break them irreparably.

I’ve been watching eBay since then, because I am not content for this machine to serve out the rest of its life as a mantle decoration. Last week, a listing came up for a bobbin case that potentially matched that machine. I ordered it. The bobbin case came in yesterday’s mail. I VERY, VERY carefully installed it into the 9W—which has been sitting on the floor of my office looking at me reproachfully for 18 months—and it fit.

It is a bear to get seated properly, which may have been the issue the first time, but once it’s in place, everything turns smoothly. I have two bobbins for it. I’ll have to take it out because, as you can see, the machine hasn’t yet been cleaned. I’ll be very careful when I put it back in. (It is possible to remove the bobbins without removing the case, so once the machine is cleaned and the case is back in there, I won’t take it out again.) This machine has leaped ahead to the front of the line because I am eager to see what it looks like when it’s prettied up.

Slowly but surely, I will get through the backlog of machines.

The Necchi is back together and sewing—sort of. There is some issue with the tension assembly. I took it apart and reassembled it, with pictures, and I am fairly sure that the assembly itself is fine. For some reason, though, the part inside the machine that is supposed to engage it, isn’t. I need to check with my friend and find out if her mother actually sewed on that machine.

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I am trying not whine about the weather (with little success, obviously), but this heat is awful. And we have this strange thing happening where we’re getting gusty east winds for a couple of hours around 7 pm every night. Our (one) bedroom window faces east, and the gusts of wind blow the shade all over the place. They don’t do a lot to cool things down, either. I’ve been having to pull the shade up when I go to bed, but it stays light here until about 10:30, so then it’s like trying to sleep in the middle of the day. I may put up one of the heavier insulated shades tonight to see if that helps. Or try to find a portable AC unit.

I have an online subscription to the Ketchikan newspaper, and I got quite a giggle out of a recent headline—apparently, Ketchikan set a high temperature record last Sunday. Curious, I clicked through and read the article. The record-setting high temp was 80 degrees. At this point, it wouldn’t take much coaxing to get me to move to Alaska.

Trying to Stay Cool

When the husband moved into his new shop, I took possession of the old garage and put all my sewing machine stuff out there. I’ve got a nice workbench with good lighting and all my supplies close at hand. The old garage stays nice and cool, so I spent most of yesterday out there working on a couple of machines. While I don’t tinker with them as much as I used to, I still enjoy it.

Last fall, a friend of ours was cleaning out her mother’s house and came across a Necchi sewing machine in a cabinet. Knowing how much I love my Necchis, she asked me if I would be willing to look it over and clean it up. Her mom had picked up the machine at a yard sale for $10, so the request was practical, not sentimental. Thankfully, she wasn’t in a hurry because I haven’t had time to get to it. I pulled it out yesterday.

There are Necchis and there are Necchis. Like many other sewing machine manufacturers, Necchi moved its operations to China, Taiwan, and elsewhere in the 1970s. Nylon and plastic parts started showing up in machines. This is a Necchi 534FB (FA = free arm, FB = flatbed). I’ve never worked on one of these before. This model does have a toothed belt system—two belts, intended to provide more torque—but is otherwise fairly straightforward.

Alas, it contains a time bomb.

These nylon parts, be they gears or bushings or other pieces under stress, tend to yellow and crack. This is on the bobbin drive shaft. This machine might work fine for another five years, or it might self-destruct next week. (Rather like the transfer case on the BMW.) The husband opined that these parts potentially could be replaced with 3-D printed ones, but I have no interest in going down that road.

I cleaned the machine thoroughly. I’ll do a sewing test on it today, although I did plug it in yesterday to make sure everything was running smoothly.

I also pulled out a Singer 500A—a Rocketeer—and worked on it. The 500 model has built-in cams for decorative stitches. The 503 is similar, but with plastic cams that can be swapped in and out. (I’ve got two 503s waiting to be cleaned up.) Rocketeers are probably my second-favorite machine after the Necchis. This wasn’t the dirtiest Rocketeer I’ve ever seen. That honor belongs to mine, which was filthy and half hanging out of the cabinet when I found it at the thrift store for $10. Cosmetically, the one I worked on yesterday looked like it had been rode hard and put away wet, as we say out here. The insides were in relatively good shape and all the parts were moving freely, but the fact that the machine looks so beat up makes me wonder if the mechanisms were abused, too. That one is ready for a sewing test today, too, so we’ll find out.

I have the two 503s and a 401 to work on yet. Those are solid machines and I’d like to find good homes for them. I also want to check out the Viking/Husqvarna that came from my neighbor, Kim. It was her mom’s machine. Elaine has the same model. I’ve never sewn on one and I want to try it out. And if I get all of those cleaned up, I have a few old Singers that could be rehabbed. The husband is also going to help me finish taking apart the Singer 66 I began dismantling two summers ago. I want to remove the guts of that one entirely and see if our friend, Bill, will clean it up for me in his blasting cabinet so I can repaint it. I need a bigger hammer for that job, though.

I Prefer -15 Degrees

So do the chickens. It’s easier to keep them warm than to cool them down. The thermometer read 100 degrees yesterday afternoon, so I rigged up a misting station for them:

One of the hose nozzles has a “mist” setting, so I anchored it to the fence and turned on the water. I thought the chickens would stand under it—they love to stand out in the rain—but they preferred to splash in the puddles that formed after an hour or so. Whatever. The aim was to cool them off and I think it worked. I dug a few bags of frozen strawberries out of the freezer for them, too, although Dave now assumes that every time I come out there, it’s to deliver more strawberries.

Dave really is a great rooster. He may end up being the best rooster we’ve ever had. He knows his job and does it well. If he thinks there’s a threat, he hustles the hens into the coop. He makes sure that they know when I bring treats out. He knows his name and will stop and look at me (out of one eye or the other) when I talk to him. He’s a bit standoffish with humans—even me—but he is never aggressive. And he is handsome and he knows it.

It appears we have a rooster among the pullets. One of the White Rock chicks is starting to look and act like one. If he starts to crow, we will be sure. I was hoping not to have to train any roosters this year, but if he watches Dave, he might learn something.

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I stopped at Cathy’s yesterday morning on my way to town to run errands. If I hadn’t been on a schedule, we probably could have sat around for several hours, catching up. I don’t think I’ve seen her in person for almost a year, although we message back and forth. I took a jar of Rhubarb BBQ sauce to her, and she gifted me with this:

She was shopping on Renaissance Ribbons and saw this ribbon and bought it for me. It will make a nice embellishment on a sewing machine cover or some zipper pouches. How cute!

The husband is out working in this heat. I don’t know how he does it, other than he is very good at staying hydrated. Most crews are trying to pour early in the morning to avoid the worst of it. Last night over dinner, I showed him the pictures of the concrete buckling on I-5 in Seattle. And there was a 20-acre wildfire in Issaquah yesterday, which is a suburb east of the city. (That’s where DD#1 worked when they lived in Seattle.) Things are a mess over there. DD#2 happens to be in San Diego at the moment, visiting a friend, so she’s missing the worst of it. My Portland friends have been through the wringer, too—I hope you’re all okay?

I run the sprinklers out in the garden from 6-9 every morning, just to keep things from drying out.

The upstairs gets too hot in the afternoons for me to sew, even with the fan on (which also blows pieces of fabric around). I think I will go out to the old garage and work on some machines today. It’s nice and cool out there. I could also clean the basement.

The long-term forecast improves only slightly; I expect it will be in the 80s and 90s and dry for most of the next two months. That’s not atypical for Montana in the summer, but I don’t enjoy it.

Heat on the Way

The husband and I spent all day yesterday getting ready for this coming heat wave. I mowed the yard and trimmed with the weedeater. We put grass clippings as mulch around the fruit trees, which we do every summer because they help retain moisture. The husband pounded T-posts around the garden for me and set up the sprinklers. We took the last bit of shade cloth from the roll that my friend Scott gifted me a couple of years ago and hung it up in the chicken coop:

That will give the chickens a cool(er) space to hang out. I thought about rigging up some kind of misting system, too, but that would require de-energizing the electric fence around the coop. I might just put pans of water out in the chicken yard for them to stand in. The coop has a concrete floor and has only a thin layer of pine shavings on it right now, so they can lie down on the floor to keep cool, as well.

[All of the surviving chickens appear to have recovered from their respiratory illness. The roosters were back to chasing each other around the chicken yard yesterday so they must be feeling better.]

The pigs have plenty of shade and an on-demand watering system. I’ll go out periodically and make sure they have a wallow for cooling off. The husband went to a nearby farm and got the 1000-pound feed tote filled with pig food. It sits on a pallet next to the Piggy Palace. He extended the electric fence so that it goes around the tote, too, to discourage any curious bears.

The tomatoes and zucchini, which were already looking really good, will probably be amazing after a week of this heat.

We don’t have AC, but our house is well insulated and stays 10-15 degrees cooler than outside. As long as I keep the shades drawn upstairs, it’s usually cool enough that we can sleep with just a box fan running.

This will be a good week to spend some time in the old garage working on sewing machines. It’s nice and cool in there. I’ve got three machines in particular that I would like to get cleaned up and running.

I’ve been chipping away at my current quilting project. The blocks are not difficult to put together, but they are based on a 5 x 5 grid—25 squares measuring 2-1/2” each—and some of the 2-1/2” squares are half-square triangles and hourglass units. I have to make all the units, first, then sew them into a block. I’ve got the Janome set up with Diagonal Seam Tape for making the units, and Vittorio, my Necchi, set up for sewing the blocks together. I found that trying to chain piece multiple blocks was too confusing, so I gather all the pieces for one block and make one block at a time. One block takes about 30 minutes to make, which provides a nice sewing break. If I do the size quilt I envision, I’ll need 42 blocks plus sashing and cornerstones. I’ve made nine blocks so far.

Huckleberries should be ready to pick soon. I have been waging an ongoing battle here in an attempt to keep the huckleberry bushes on our property from being destroyed. We had a patch up on the north corner of our property, but part of that area got cleaned out last summer to provide better access to the easement for our neighbor’s horse trailer, and there went those bushes. There is another patch by the woodshed, but the husband got a bit enthusiastic with the backhoe a few months ago and bulldozed some of the bushes into oblivion. (To be fair, huckleberries are not high on his list of priorities.) Yesterday, he was cleaning up some overgrown grassy areas with the brush mower. When I saw him heading for that huckleberry patch by the woodshed—or what’s left of it—I went and stood over one of the bushes. I felt like one of those environmentalists chained to a tree to keep it from being cut down, LOL. I’m going to have to lay in a supply of orange flags and mark all of the bushes so they have a fighting chance.

Getting Better

There was a dead pullet in the coop at lunchtime yesterday when I went in to make sure everyone had fresh water and food. The rest of them look fine, so let’s hope that was an isolated incident. The big chickens seem to have recovered. Dave was outside most of yesterday, and Baby was walking around inside the coop. Dave started crowing again—after three days of being quiet—but he has laryngitis and sounds like a rusty gate.

We have a new rule: No more off-farm imports. Either we get chicks from the farm store or we hatch them out ourselves. I don’t care if someone wants to give us 25 laying hens for free; I am not going through this again.

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I was able to get the new toner cartridge to work—briefly—yesterday, but I think the drum is screwed up now. I ordered a replacement drum. If the new drum/toner combo does not work, this machine is getting trashed, much as I hate to do that. I will not spend the price of another printer attempting to get this one operational with no guarantees that I’ll be successful.

I did run into town yesterday to get an inkjet printer. I can’t run a business without a printer, and stuff was starting to pile up on my desk. I hand wrote this week’s payroll checks. Besides, a color printer would be useful for for class handouts. I bought a small Epson wireless printer and got it up and running in just a few minutes. My preference is a laser printer, but this will be a good backup to have, and the husband can keep it down in his office.

Death by a thousand paper cuts.

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After getting the printer up and running and clearing the logjam from my desk, I made this:

My sergers came with very cheap, very ill-fitting plastic covers. I ran across this tutorial for making a cover for the Brother 1034 serger—which has a similar profile to my Juki sergers—and thought I’d see how I liked it. It is a huge improvement over the plastic ones, and I love that print. The cover in the tutorial is interfaced but not lined. I interfaced the main print of mine with fusible fleece and made a lining out of a coordinating small print. I sewed them together, right sides facing and leaving an opening at the bottom for turning, then topstitched around the bottom edge. This took about two hours, start to finish, and I am very happy with it. I’ll make one for the other serger at some point.

Also, I made this entirely on my beloved 73-year-old Necchi sewing machine, which is a testament to how things used to be made.

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I was reminded this week that kids remember everything. Last summer, when I was helping to ferry WS back and forth to Kids’ College, I usually drove the BMW in Sport mode. The default mode is Comfort and I don’t always remember to change it when I get in, but Sport mode is way more fun for driving. As we were pulling in to the college parking lot on Tuesday, he said, “Are you driving in Sport mode?” (Well, that came out of nowhere.) I said no, but I could drive in Sport mode on the way home. Naturally, as we were walking out to the car after class, he said, “Don’t forget to put the car in Sport mode!” And then he wanted a detailed explanation of how Sport mode differed from the other modes. I don’t ever drive the car in Eco mode, because it feels like a lumbering 1970s Cadillac, which kind of defeats the purpose of having a BMW. The car also comes with Sport+ mode, but I told him that we could only drive Sport+ mode if we were on a closed course in Munich.

I am sure that me—a middle-aged woman with just enough knowledge about cars to be dangerous—trying to explain the difference in driving modes to a 7 year-old was hilarious. I am glad no one else was around. I told him that changing the mode changes the handling and acceleration. The husband says that changing the mode also changes the shift points in the transmission. WS likes to make noises like he’s shifting gears when I am driving, so I told him that sometime we would ride in the Acura. (The BMW has paddle shifters, but it’s just not the same.)

Sick Chickens

I am hoping the carnage will be over soon. I came home from town yesterday to find three more dead hens. The current death toll stands at six. I would not be surprised if we lose a few more yet, although everyone was okay when the husband checked on them this morning. Baby spent most of yesterday tucked into a nesting box and Dave hung around inside the coop. I’d rather not lose any animals, but I am most concerned about my roosters.

I still suspect this is a virus, so antibiotics would only be useful in preventing secondary infections. In any case, the farm store does not carry chicken antibiotics, only horse, cow, and pig medications. I did pick up a bag of pig wormer to be added to the piglets’ feed. That was recommended by our pork supplier, and this is the week it needs to be administered. Some of the livers from last year’s batch of pork didn’t pass inspection because of liver flukes.

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I spent a frustrating two hours messing with the laser printer yesterday. About a year and a half ago, I finally gave up on the second of two color laser printers, the first an HP and the second a Xerox. They were hideously expensive to operate, and because I wasn’t printing knitting patterns any longer (everything is digital download now), we went to black and white. I really liked—past tense—this Brother printer. The toner JUST ran out last week, but replacing the cartridge has been a major headache. The first time, I ordered the wrong cartridge. I sent it back and got the correct one, but after putting it in, I am getting continual error messages instructing me to close the cover on the machine. It’s closed.

Judging by the YouTube videos explaining how to get around this problem, this is not an uncommon issue. I followed the instructions in the videos to reset the toner counter, which is supposed to fix the problem. I followed them about a dozen times but continued to get the error message. I called Brother support. Of course, the printer is out of warranty. Of course, the tech support person helping me was reading off a printed flow chart and had me do the exact troubleshooting I had done a dozen times already. Of course, it didn’t work. She concluded that the machine must be broken, and her only solution was for me to take the printer to an authorized service center. The nearest service center is in Spokane. By that point, I had had it, so I said, “That is unacceptable. I am never buying another Brother product again,” and hung up.

Within 15 minutes, I had a survey in my e-mail inbox asking me about my experiences. I gave it to them with both barrels. Interestingly, I put the old toner cartridge back into the machine and I don’t get the error message. The machine isn’t broken.

I’ll hammer at the problem a bit more today. In the meantime, I scrounged an old HP inkjet printer out of the storage container—left here by a kid—and I’ll try to get that one working just so the husband can print out some plans.

These are the kinds of stupid issues that make me feel like I am being pecked to death by ducks. Is it too much to ask that a replacement toner cartridge work upon installation? Yes, apparently it is. I miss the HP LaserJet 1200 that worked flawlessly for 24 years until a bearing wore out.

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The warnings about this impending heat wave continue to get more dire. Spokane and Seattle are both expected to shatter records with temps into the 100s. We’re on the eastern edge of the bubble, so I don’t think we’re going to get that hot, but it’s still going to be pretty awful. The tomatoes, cukes, and zucchinis are going to love the hot weather. I am hoping the lettuce doesn’t bolt. This hasn’t been a good year for lettuce, for some reason.

Every gardening year is different.

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I pulled out some of my sewing fabric for a quick project. I love this one—it’s the mice from Cinderella:

I am sure I’ll have a fair bit of sewing time next week while it’s hot. I’ve got a Firefly Tote ready to start, too, as Anna has just released the first video for the sewalong.

Pandemic in the Coop

Our chickens are sick. Egg production fell of a cliff a couple of weeks ago—we have been getting 5-8 eggs a day at a time when we should be getting a couple dozen. That sometimes happens when they are molting, or in late summer when it’s really hot, but neither of those things are happening right now. Earlier in the week, I found two dead birds in the coop, but that’s not out of the ordinary. They were older hens and hens sometimes drop dead for no obvious reason. The husband found another dead one the next day.

Yesterday afternoon though, when I went out to the coop, I could tell something was wrong. The chickens—especially Dave, the rooster—normally get very excited when I show up to give them their afternoon scratch grains. No one was excited. Most of them were droopy and lethargic. By the time the husband got home, some of the chickens were coughing.

We cleaned the coop thoroughly and replaced the bedding. He said all but one came in to roost, which was a good sign, but we didn’t know what we would find this morning. I was expecting a bunch of dead chickens. It was also eerily quiet; Dave usually starts up as soon as he sees a sliver of daylight, but all he could manage this morning was an anemic croak. We did not find any more dead chickens, but most of them are coughing and looking unhappy. The pullets, thankfully, don’t seem to be affected.

We’ve had chickens for more than 10 years and never had a problem like this. I looked online and I’m leaning toward infectious bronchitis as the diagnosis. I am wondering if it came in with the 10 Leghorns we got about a month ago. The husband was doing a job for someone who raises show chickens and these were hens that she didn’t want to breed. She offered them to him for free. I expect that her chickens were vaccinated, but recovered chickens can still be asymptomatic carriers. The Leghorns don’t seem to be affected by this. They are also the only chickens that have been laying reliably lately.

We might still lose a few chickens, but this infection should clear within a week. Unfortunately, it’s probably now going to be endemic in our flock and we’ll probably have to vaccinate from now on. (The vaccine can be administered in their water.) Hopefully, it won’t affect the pullets. And we’re going to have to rig up some kind of cooling system this weekend. The chickens don’t like hot weather, and chickens that are already stressed by illness are going to have a much harder time in 90+ degree heat.

In other news, I do have a broody hen—one of the Light Brahmas has been on a nest for almost three weeks now and I am hoping to see chicks soon.

Oh, and the irony?—infectious bronchitis is caused by a coronavirus. :-/

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I weeded the corn yesterday morning, then top-dressed it with a thick layer of compost. And then we got a nice, gentle rain for a couple of hours, so that was great. My assistants were busy digging up the pasture:

They’ll have plenty of shade in the heat next week. I’ll also make them a big mud wallow to roll around in.

Here Comes the Heat

Those of us who have lived here for a long time joke about needing a good natural disaster to clear out some of these tourists and newly-imported residents, but my level of concern about wildfires is starting to ratchet up. I have one of the Spokane news stations in my Twitter feed. (Monitoring the news stations, traffic reports, and weather in Spokane and Seattle is all Twitter is good for, in my opinion.) Last night, the station had footage of a brush fire within the city limits. In fact, the fire was only about a quarter of a mile north of the BMW dealer and close to one of my favorite Indian restaurants. The news report said that another nearby restaurant had to evacuate during the dinner rush when the hillside next to them went up in flames. Spokane is under an excessive heat warning from Friday afternoon until Tuesday, and that heat is headed our way next week. I am seeing forecast highs in the high 90s. This currently-green vegetation will dry out quickly, and all it’s going to take is some idiot dragging chains on the highway or flicking a cigarette out the window and we’ll be off to the races. It’s going to be a long couple of months. Summers are great for road trips, but I am going to be sticking close to home.

We’ve also had more than the usual number of jerks visiting the neighboring state and federal hiking areas. The amount of traffic out here has increased exponentially. I was blasted out of a sound sleep at 3:43 this morning by someone who thought it would be fun to drive by our house while gunning his (very loud) engine. It was so loud that at first, I thought someone had hit a tree in our yard. (That has happened before.) None of these people seem to have mufflers on their vehicles. Our house sits on a straightaway just after a curve. Drivers come around that curve and take off like it’s a NASCAR speedway. Our road is also a popular cycling route, and I worry that it’s only a matter of time before we have an accident out there.

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I am done organizing fabric. My mother shipped me a box of leftovers a few weeks ago—she’s no longer making masks—and all of that has been pressed and added to the stash.

Elysian’s son is doing Kids’ College again this summer. I ran errands yesterday morning and was happy to provide transportation, which also gave me an excuse to take him to lunch afterward. He’s in a math camp class this week. I asked him what they were learning. He said they have learned such marketable life skills as playing War, Rummy, and Go Fish. I wondered if poker was on the syllabus as the teacher seems very laid back. I am providing transportation again later this week, so I’ll find out what else they’ve learned.

[I picked up a booster seat to keep in my car for when I have him or Ali’s little guy with me. WS was very impressed that the booster seat came with cup holders.]

The husband is on a bit of a concrete hiatus this week because the batch plants can’t find enough mixer drivers. (Oh, the oft-heard refrain . . . ). He’s used to being able to call a day ahead and order concrete, but he tried to do that this week and they couldn’t fit him into the schedule. He says it’s very similar to several years ago when all the general laborers left here to go work in the oil fields in North Dakota, except that this labor shortage is courtesy of the federal government paying people to sit on their asses. He and the crew are prepping jobs for next week when they will be able to pour again.

We’re about to be overrun by raspberries. The canes are loaded:

If anyone wants to come harvest and take some home, let me know. These should be ready in another week or two.

Do You Know Where Your Fabric Is?

We sing a song in church about building bigger barns, the point being that if you have to build a bigger barn to hold your stuff, you’re doing it wrong. I think about that song as I am trying to downsize, consolidate, and move stuff out of my house, although much of what has arrived on the incoming tide over the past couple of years has come from family members. There definitely exists a tension between “enough” and “too much” and I try to be cognizant of that tension. I am making a real effort not to buy any more fabric until I use up some of what I have.

I started organizing my stash yesterday, after obtaining additional clear plastic bins and labels last week. (The bins are clear, yes, but they are stored in a room that doesn’t get any outside light to prevent fading.) This organization is helpful on several fronts.

• I see that I have plenty of fabric.

• I see that I have an abundance of blues and should not buy any more.

• Seeing my fabric sparks creative ideas.

• I can find specific fabrics quickly.

• My kids will know what to do with it after I’m gone.

I have a system. Fabrics is first organized by fiber. I have a bin for linens, a bin for flannels, and a bin for knits. Quilting cottons make up the bulk of my stash. Anything that is mostly of one color family goes into a bin, although blues get subcategorized into light blues, dark blues, and turquoise blues because I have a lot of them. Same with light brown and dark brown. Multi-color prints get divided into florals and geometrics. Novelty prints are divided into bins for Tim Holtz fabric, farm animal prints, music prints, food-themed prints, sewing prints, and everything else.

And all of the bins are labelled:

I cannot work efficiently if I cannot find things. I was pleased to uncover the bin of chiffons and other fancy fabrics, because I am going to use some of them in a decorative edge serger class.

I’ll finish organizing the stash this week, and then any leftover bins will be used to corral stuff in the laundry room. And now that I have the station wagon back, I’ll be taking a few loads in to donate to the thrift stores.

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I am pleased with the garden’s progress thus far, although I think the corn could do with an application of some hot chicken manure. That’s on the to-do list for this week. We are supposed to be close to 90 by next weekend. Things should start to take off then, and the garden will look really nice around the second week of July. I need to make a decision about an herb garden out there. We have the space. I just need to decide how to arrange it.

Dinner With Friends

I didn’t time my chicken feed runs properly last week. We almost ran out, which necessitated a trip to town yesterday morning. I try to avoid Kalispell on weekends during the summer. I was pleasantly surprised, though, to see that town was nearly empty, and I was able to get all my errands done in record time. One of the items on the shopping list was this:

The bugs have been awful this year—so bad that it has been almost impossible to sit outside. I refuse to allow the bugs to drive us away from our favorite rocking chair spot. This was the biggest bug zapper Home Depot had in stock. Hopefully, it will help.

Before I left for town, the husband helped me move some black plastic around the garden. Many years ago, I planted horseradish. Don’t ever do that. The stuff spreads and is nearly impossible to dig out. I am tired of it being where it is and will leave the black plastic there for a couple of seasons to make sure it’s gone.

The potatoes look fantastic. The husband put a whole bunch of compost in that area last fall.

The herb garden next to the chicken coop is still slated for demolition when it becomes part of the expanded chicken run, but that project is a ways down the list. In the meantime, it has run amok. There are salvias in the middle of the lavender bed and lemon balm coming up in every nook and cranny. I am enjoying the columbines, though. I love this fringed one:

And this one is such a pretty color:

The salvias will bloom next, followed by the bee balm. I’ve gone in there a couple of times to pull the ox-eye daisies and the hawkweed as they are garish white and orange and spoil the landscape. They are also classified as noxious weeds in Montana.

Our friends, Tom and Marcie—the ones that got stuck up in Jewel Basin during that storm Tuesday night—invited us over for dinner last night. (Their youngest son and his wife live in our rental house and Tom was on the fire department with the husband for many years.) Marcie is an amazing cook. We started off with chips and homemade salsa followed by a salad, and then the entree of sage chicken with bacon and tiny potatoes cooked in a creamy wine sauce:

Doesn’t that look like it belongs in a magazine? It was so good. Tom and Marcie have a pottery business. I have a whole set of dinnerware exactly like that plate in the upper left of the picture.

It was good to visit and catch up with them.

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I am working on a quilt project. This one is challenging for me because the design relies on the sashing to pull it all together, so each block looks a bit unfinished. (That’s also why I don’t have any pictures of the blocks, because they don’t make much sense individually.) The blocks themselves are not difficult to construct. This one is going to be mildly scrappy, but in a controlled colorway. I’ve already done one prototype of it in a different colorway.

I am still trying to figure out how to switch back and forth between the creative half of my brain and the “keep the wheels on this bus” half of my brain. The latter half tends to take over during the summer when there is so much to do and everything has to be done on a tight schedule. I don’t have time to manage a flood of ideas, so I keep the creative half on a tight leash. It’s frustrating, although working on a project where the design has already been fleshed out does help.

Men are so much better at compartmentalizing than women. The husband goes into “work mode” every morning and it’s like the rest of the world ceases to exist. I have trouble doing that.

In any case, it’s raining hard again this morning (yay!) and I can sew this afternoon without guilt.

Successful Serging

I thought the serger class went very well by my metrics, which were:

• No one cried, yelled, or threw the serger out the window.

• We were able to get each machine adjusted properly.

• Each student was able to make all three projects during the class time.

• There were requests for additional classes.

• The teacher enjoyed herself.

I had a total of nine students. Tera was there, which was an enormous help at the beginning when we were troubleshooting machine issues. We had a mix of machines—everything from a White Speedylock to the higher-end BabyLock and Bernina machines—and a variety of skill levels. Two of the students were cousins, one of whom sews but had never used a serger. She inherited a White Speedylock from her cousin, who had just purchased a Bernina. The Bernina cousin was still getting used to her machine. The White Speedylock cousin took to her serger like a duck to water. She had brought extra fabric and by the time the class was over, she had a a pile of completed projects. Every class has at least one outlier—the rank beginner who manages to absorb enough information to leave the session several skill levels higher.

I am a bit sorry I begged off on teaching in July and August. I truly do enjoy it. I know better than to overload my schedule, though. The store owner said she would fill in with a couple of basic classes on threads and fabrics during those months. I suspect the fall classes will be T-shirts and leggings (for adults) as those are what people were asking for. One of the students in my class used to be a patternmaker in her working life (she just retired to the Flathead), so we chatted after class and I think she’s going to be a great resource.

We have come a long was since my mother’s Stretch & Sew classes in the 1970s.

I mowed and trimmed part of the yard yesterday. Before it warms up again today, I need to mow out by the garden and finish what is left of the yard, but when that’s done, I plan to reward myself with some sewing. And Tera and I did some scheming last night. I think we’re going to take a field trip soon to The Confident Stitch down in Missoula. She’s never been there.

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We have a farm sitter coming over this evening to meet the animals. The husband works such long hours in the summer that we would like to have someone check on everything during the day if I happen to be traveling. This young woman is someone I’ve known since she was 3, because she and DD#2 took dance classes together. She is part of my friend Elaine’s extended family. She also has extensive 4-H experience with pigs. The husband suggested that I ask her about farm-sitting. He knows her because she is on the fire department.

Rain Makes the Grass Grow

The husband came home Tuesday evening and was unloading the trailer when the skies started to darken. I checked the radar and saw a large orange blob taking aim straight at us. The storm hit with a fair bit of fury. Fortunately, it didn’t last long, but just as things were settling down, my cell phone rang. Our friends, Tom and Marcie, had gone up to Jewel Basin earlier in the afternoon to hike. That’s a popular hiking area not far from here—and one they hike often—but the only access is up a steep mountain road. Their way down that road was blocked by a downed tree, and they wondered if the husband could come up with a chainsaw and help them get out.

As it turned out, he had to cut through six downed trees in order to get to them (and the other people stuck on the road). I cannot imagine how harrowing that must have been for our friends to sit through that storm and see those trees coming down around them.

We lost power until just after midnight, but no trees fell here. And the rain, however brief, was welcome.

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Susan and Rose deposited me at the BMW dealer in Spokane just after noon yesterday. We had had a lovely ride over with a short stop in north Idaho at Rose’s in-laws. I chatted with Kevin a bit about the repair. He assured me that BMW had redesigned and remanufactured that part so that it would not fail again in 30,000 miles. Let’s hope. The husband says that these recalls usually come with an extended warranty on the parts.

I lose an hour going from Spokane back to Kalispell, and even though it stays light until almost 11:00 pm in June, I am not as alert late in the day as I am at 5:00 am. My goal was to be heading east by 3:00 pm Spokane time. That gave me a short window for running some errands there, which I did, and I pulled into our driveway just before 8:00 pm.

The car seems to be running well. I had forgotten how zippy it is even for a wagon. And I am thrilled to have cargo-hauling abilities again.

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My serger class is this evening. Tera is going to come and be my assistant. Eight students are signed up, so having an extra pair of knowledgeable hands will be most welcome. My serger is threaded with four very different—and colorful—threads so I can demonstrate stitch construction to the students.

The first time teaching a subject is a learning experience for everyone, teacher included, but I’ve tried to anticipate as many pitfalls as I can.

I’ll be cutting the grass this morning before it warms up too much.

Victorian BBQ Sauce

I’ve said before that I don’t really like to cook, but I forget how much I enjoy canning. I think it has something to do with the fact that cooking and cleaning lack permanence. The husband can pour a concrete foundation without worrying that someone will come along and dismantle it an hour later. I prepare a meal and it’s gone within minutes of him sitting down to dinner. Canned food gets eaten eventually, as well, but at least for a while, I get to admire the fruits of my labor lined up neatly on the pantry shelves.

I made a triple batch of Victorian BBQ sauce yesterday. I started out by raiding our neighbor Mike’s rhubarb patch. I used to have a really nice rhubarb plant that produced abundantly, but it died of some black fungal infection. I put in two other rhubarb plants (in a different location). One of them tends to bolt and go to seed immediately and then do nothing for the rest of the season. Cutting off the seedy stalks doesn’t seem to help. The other one, right next to it, grows anemically. Both get a large helping of chicken manure every year. I put in a third plant on the other side of the garden. It’s growing well, so I have hopes for a reliable future supply. It should not be this hard to grow rhubarb.

Mike’s rhubarb plant needed some thinning and he told me to take what I wanted. My friend Marcie also has a huge rhubarb patch, so I got some from her, too. After running town town for an appointment and errands, I spent the afternoon chopping up rhubarb, onions, and raisins and cooking them into a lovely sauce.

I’ll pour a jar of this over a pork roast and let it cook all day in the crockpot. This is also supposed to be good on chicken. I ended up with 11 pints—enough for us and some to share.

One side benefit of canning is that my kitchen tends to be extra clean during canning season because I am constantly wiping everything down.

I discovered that Monday morning is a great time to go shopping. All the stores were empty, including Costco. I avoid town on the weekends if I can, but even weekdays during the summer can be nuts during tourist season. However, it makes sense that we would have fewer tourists earlier in the week.

It’s supposed to be much cooler today than yesterday. I might get a few tasks done in the garden, but I’ve also got to spend some time today getting ready for the serger class.

Summer is in Full Swing

Susan and her daughter rearranged their schedule to something that worked better for them, so I’ll be able to hitch a ride with them to retrieve the car this week and still be back to teach the serger class on Thursday. I worked on the handout over the weekend and that’s just about ready to go. I have a list of what I want to take with me (serger, threads, fabrics, etc.). The class samples are already on display at the store. When I traveled and taught knitting, I had a bag of dedicated teaching supplies. I might have to make one for these serger classes, too, so that I am not pulling tools from my workspaces.

I put the borders on the Cultivating Kindness jelly roll quilt over the weekend. It’s ready to be basted and quilted, but for now, it’s in the “future projects” pile. I haven’t had time to get back to the Slabtown project and probably won’t for a few more days. All that rain has made the grass and weeds grow.

One of my apple tree seedlings is struggling. It’s the Seek-No-Further that Susan grafted for me last year. (Of course, it’s the one I most want in my orchard.) Susan looked at it last evening and her assessment is that it probably won’t make it. We can’t quite figure out what happened, because the other four apple trees that we planted at the same time—two from Costco and two other grafts from Susan—look fabulous. I am going to leave it and hope that by some miracle, it recovers. Fortunately, she had grafted two of the Seek-No-Furthers, so she brought me the second one. I’ll put that one in the spot where we took out the pear tree that was destroyed by a falling tree in the last windstorm. We also took out the Fantasia Nectarine. I commented to the husband that it’s called “Fantasia” because it’s a fantasy to think that we could grow nectarines in Montana. Susan had one and took hers out, too, so I don’t feel so bad. We removed a couple of cherry trees that just couldn’t hack the winters. That’s not a huge loss as cherries are my least favorite fruit.

It’s survive or die here, plant-wise.

And we had a bear visit. Someone posted on a neighborhood social media group that a bear had gone after one of their piglets a few nights ago. This person lives down the road from us a couple of miles, so I knew the bear was probably roaming the neighborhood. The husband and our renter saw it Friday night around 10:30 pm, out by the garden. The husband said it was “not small.” (It’s a black bear.) So now I’m carrying the can of bear spray with me every time I go out to check on pigs.

I don’t think it can get to our pigs because of the electric fencing—and we close them in the Piggy Palace at night—but the fact that it was out there means it was scoping out potential dinner locations.

I processed 18 pints of chicken stock yesterday afternoon:

Pints work better for me than quarts.

I still need to pick rhubarb and make the Victorian BBQ Sauce. I might do that today as it’s supposed to be close to 90 and I don’t want to be outside. Thankfully, the temps are supposed to go back to seasonal mid-70s for the rest of the week. If the long-term forecast holds, they should stay there for the rest of the month. We do need more rain, though.

The News is Good

Kevin texted me a video of what they did to my car at the BMW dealer, starting with replacing the transfer case under the recall. The tech noted that the splines on the output shaft flange had gone bad—exactly what happened the first time—and there was no charge for that repair. The husband is hoping that this third transfer case has been remanufactured with better materials so that it does not also fail in another 30,000 miles. While running the full diagnostic panel, they found two other parts that needed to be replaced for an additional cost, so we had them do that and replace the battery as well. I am going to continue to drive this car as long as I possibly can.

Now I just need to retrieve it. Susan and her daughter are heading in that direction Thursday and offered me a ride, but that is the day I teach the serger class and I don’t want to risk not getting back in time. I have a couple of other options. Amtrak goes through Spokane, but the train gets in at 2 a.m. and I’d have to sit in a very sketchy train station downtown for a couple of hours. That’s not going to happen. Given the hiccups we had with the car hauling company, I am reluctant to use their services again.

I’ve never quite understood why there isn’t air service between Kalispell and Spokane. I looked into flying to Seattle, changing planes, and flying back to Spokane, but the ticket is close to $600. I could take the train overnight to Seattle for $49—it gets in mid-morning—Uber to the airport, and fly back to Spokane for $89, but that would take at least a couple of days.

I’ll figure something out. I know of a few other people traveling in that direction this week, and perhaps the timing will work out. I just don’t know how we would shoehorn a trip over there into the husband’s schedule right now, or he’d take me.

I met with the class coordinator at the quilt store on Thursday and we talked about additional serger classes for the fall. She agreed that I should see how this first class goes and talk to the students about scheduling other classes in the fall. I’m not crazy about teaching classes in the evening, but not everyone can make a daytime class.

Our employees were here yesterday morning, helping the husband load some things on the trailer, so he enlisted the help of two of them to move the new cutting table up to DD#2’s bedroom. (He treated the crew, including the mixer drivers, to lunch at a pizza place near the jobsite yesterday.)

That top is a jelly roll race quilt I made while I was in Alaska. The fabric is Deb Strain’s “Cultivate Kindness” line. I’m going to add a narrow border of red Kona and then a wider border of one of the prints in the top.

Now that I have my system back in place, I can organize and prioritize some future projects and finish existing ones. I probably won’t be doing any big quilt projects again until the fall, though. We had a frost warning for yesterday morning, so on Thursday (in the rain), I covered all of the plants with row cover or tarps. It did dip down to 32 degrees briefly yesterday morning, but everything seems to be fine. At least it wasn’t snow. I weeded the peas yesterday. It’s raining again now, which is wonderful even though it means that the yard and the garden will be a jungle again by the middle of the week. I’ve got a big batch of chicken stock simmering in the roaster that I’ll can and process tomorrow afternoon.

And I would be remiss if I did not note that tomorrow is National Sewing Machine Day. I was out in the old garage yesterday looking over some of my machines. A couple of them just need an hour or two of TLC to get up and running again. I am not lacking for projects.

Safe in Spokane

Kevin—who is beginning to feel like a member of our family based on the number of texts we’ve sent back and forth—let me know the minute the BMW arrived in Spokane yesterday. Now we wait while they take it apart and see what the issue is. I asked them to call the husband directly when they find out, as he’ll know what they’re talking about. I hope it can be fixed under the recall. If not, we’ll have to decide how far we want to take this. I am not enthused about buying another car to replace that one, but I need something reliable.

I had WS here for a few hours yesterday morning while his mom had a job interview (she got the job!). He helped me put my new chair together.

I thought I might use this as my office chair, but I decided to swap it with the chair I’ve been using upstairs at my machine. That chair truly is an office chair (an old wooden one) and the new chair is a sewing chair. The back support on that sewing chair is amazing, by the way.

I cut the green Cordura for the lining of the Slabtown Backpack, and after lunch, I assembled the front and side pockets:

The pattern is thoroughly detailed and hasn’t once left me scratching my head. I really like how this is coming together. We have another day of rain in the forecast, so I’ll probably work on this again this afternoon. We also have a frost warning for tonight. I’ll have to cover everything. We had 3” of snow one year on June 10, so this isn’t unheard of, but I could do without the whiplash. The forecast high for Monday is 89. Those poor plants won’t know what hit them.

McCall’s (the pattern company) is planning to close its Kansas printing plant by the end of the year, according to this article on the Craft Industry Alliance’s website. It sounds a bit as though the Big 4 got caught flat-footed with the recent resurgence in sewing and are trying to catch up. The source cites customer complaints about the quality of the pattern tissue (no, really?) and notes that the Simplicity plant in Wisconsin—which will now do all the printing—can print higher-quality tissue patterns. Perhaps they will also revisit their 1950s-era sizing charts.

There are so many great indie patterns companies out there.

I need to get my serger class handout ready this weekend. The store wanted to have me teach a class on the third Thursday of every month, but I asked to hold off on any more classes until this fall. Summer is always nuts, and trying to fit two more serger classes in with everything else could very well have sent me round the bend. Also, seeing how this first class goes will give me a better idea of what to offer next.

Where in the World is My Car?

In the ongoing saga of “How shall I get from point A to point B?” I discovered yesterday that no one seems to know the whereabouts of the BMW. I had made arrangements for a company in Kalispell to put it on a car hauler heading west and drop it off at the dealer in Spokane. It was supposed to go last Thursday, but the truck driver got sick and the company couldn’t find a replacement driver. I was told it would leave Monday, so I called the BMW dealer and told them to expect it then. I called yesterday morning just to confirm that it had arrived. Kevin, my contact in the service department, said it wasn’t there. I called the car hauling company. The woman there who had made all the arrangements for me was out of the office, and the young woman I spoke with had no information. She said she would try to find out where it was and get back to me. She never called back. As it happens, the farm store is right across the highway from the car hauler, where we had left the car, and I had to go into town yesterday afternoon to get chicken feed. I can tell you that the BMW is not in their parking lot, where we left it last week, but beyond that, I have no idea where it is.

I don’t believe it is time to panic just yet. Hopefully, the car hauler was delayed until yesterday and the BMW has been delivered safely to Spokane. When I related all of this to the husband, he shrugged and said, “Well, it’s insured.” I’ll check with Kevin again this morning.

I am driving DD#1’s Acura, but it’s a two-door coupe with a hatchback. Naturally, this was the week that I had to get pig feed, chicken feed, pick up the husband’s new cut-off saw, make a Costco run, and buy a new office chair to replace my broken one. I miss the station wagon. Also, my left knee is starting to complain about having to work a clutch pedal again. The Acura is a solid little car, though. It’s getting me where I need to be, and for that, I am grateful.

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I finished mulching the potatoes yesterday and then planted the corn, finally. I’ll mulch that with some chicken manure this weekend. I opened the door to the Piggy Palace so the piglets could come out and I could monitor them while I worked. They wasted no time in exploring the pasture:

I expected to hear a few squeals when they ran into the electric fencing, but they all seem to have a good appreciation of its location. They were out in a paddock when we picked them up, so it’s possible that they already know about boundaries. In any case, they had a jolly time rooting around and eating rocks. (That is a pig thing that I don’t understand. All the pigs we’ve ever had have eaten rocks.) When the husband checked on them in the afternoon, they had all gone back into the Piggy Palace for a nap.

My plan for today involved moving the strawberries, although it’s raining right now and supposed to rain today and tomorrow. I might move them anyway. Rainy days are good for transplanting. If I decide to stay inside, I think I am going to make some Victoria Sauce. Elysian made this last year and gifted me a jar. I put it on a pork roast in the crock pot and it was amazing. It’s a good way to use up rhubarb, and we currently have a lot of it.

While I was in Alaska, DD#1 made this Instant Pot Smoked Sausage with Green Beans and Potatoes. I made it last week for the husband. It’s peasant food, basically, and he liked it so much that he requested it again. A double batch of that will be dinner tonight. The bonus is that it only takes about 15 minutes of prep and then two minutes in the Instant Pot. I’ve decided that one of my goals for this summer is to level up my food game in the kitchen. Cooking is one of my least favorite activities, and as a result, I’ve gotten lazy. I make the same meals over and over again (mostly what I can make in huge quantities to feed the gaping maw). It is time to experiment again and add some new dishes to the menu.

And I want to keep plugging away on the Slabtown Backpack. I went stash diving and unearthed just enough dark green Cordura for the lining. The zippers are here, too, so I can move ahead with that project.

Six Little Piglets

The piglets are here and settling in nicely:

It was a bit of a harrowing ride getting them home. We use a large dog crate to transport animals. That worked well for last year’s batch of pigs, but when we got to the farm yesterday, we realized that this year’s batch of pigs was a few weeks older—and much bigger—than the ones we got last year. Six of them in the dog crate was a tight fit. The husband, usually very laid back on the road, drove faster than I’ve seen him drive in a long time. We were worried that one or two might suffocate or die of heat stroke on the 40-minute ride. Thankfully, everyone was fine. There are five females and one male. These are Hampshires, a popular 4-H breed here. The pig supplier told us that if they had been born six weeks earlier, they probably would have gone to 4-H kids. Some of their littermates were sold as breeding stock.

We’ll let them out into the pasture this evening and the husband will do some fence training with them. He is like the Pied Piper of piglets. They will figure out quickly that they should follow him around. And getting another dog crate at the thrift store is on my list of things to do.

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If you’ve read this blog for any length of time, you know that community is very important to me. Sadly, most people are lacking in any kind of community, and what community there may have been was utterly destroyed by the pandemic lockdowns. Don’t talk to me about the people who died from covid unless you’re willing to include in that number the people who committed suicide from despair. Our church community took a hit, too, but we have a great leadership team that navigated us through the past year with grace and consideration. We had Zoom-only church for a few months, but we’ve been meeting every week in person—albeit in smaller numbers—since last September. We will continue to provide a Zoom link for those who want to join us that way, but as of yesterday, we are back in the church house for both Sunday School and services.

The worship resources provided by Mennonite Church USA for the next several weeks are entitled “Joyride,” and I find that very fitting. I commented that it was about time we were joyful again. We had a full house yesterday, including a large family visiting from Virginia and a young man who is studying at the University of Montana in Missoula. He is from a Mennonite background and drove the two hours up from Missoula to attend church with us yesterday. He plans to come back when his schedule allows. (Bonus: He plays the piano and would be willing to fill in for me—yay!) We have small children running around after years without young families. We sang. We laughed. We visited. It was loud and chaotic and utterly wonderful.

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The tracking number indicates that the 12” zippers from Klum House should arrive today and I can move on to the next step in the Slabtown Backpack project. I’m also expecting some knitted ribbing fabric to arrive from an Etsy seller. I pulled out a yard of Jane Sassaman fabric to make a Noodlehead Firefly Tote. Sewing time has to fit into bits and pieces of time now instead of the marathon sessions I have during the winter, but at least it’s sewing.

A Day in the Garden

All of my good intentions to weed Friday morning were upended by a line of thunderstorms that came through here as I was getting ready to get out of bed. (One clap of thunder was so loud that I thought it was going to scare me back into heart palpitations.) I don’t mind weeding, but I do mind weeding when it’s hot and muggy—which it was for most of the morning—so I stayed inside and reorganized the pantry. I’ve got nice big cabinets, but they are deep, and sometimes stuff gets lost in the back of them. That led to cleaning and organizing the laundry room, and the whole project took most of the day.

My friend Susan came by in the afternoon. She is making an I-Spy alphabet quilt for her grandson, and I told her not to buy more fabric until we went through my collection. She left here with a bag of goodies. We tore the fabric bins apart in the process, but I assured her that was perfectly fine because they are on my list to reorganize, too. I think we’re going to have to figure out how to get the new cutting table upstairs. Having it down here is not working well.

Yesterday was much cooler. The husband went out to get the pig pasture ready and I worked in the garden. I finished weeding the potatoes and then mulched them with straw:

We got a huge round bale last spring that has sat and rotted nicely for a year. Rotted straw makes great potato mulch and then it just becomes part of the soil amendments. The bale is sitting at one end of the garden, so I forked the straw into the old Little Tykes wagon to haul it over to the potatoes. That worked.

The husband used the big string trimmer around the edges of the fence to make sure the electric fence wire was exposed. The piglets will learn to respect it. He also trimmed the perimeter of the garden for me:

My goal is to have a wide enough strip of grass around the edge of the garden that I can just come in there with either the rider or the push mower and keep that trimmed down. With all the rain we got a few weeks ago and then the hot weather, the grass in that area was over a foot high. Now it’s manageable again.

We moved one of the billboard tarps to a different part of the garden to kill the rest of the weeds. We’re trying not to till—because we actually have fewer weeds that way—but there are some really stubborn weeds that take drastic measures to eradicate. I won’t use chemicals.

And we decided we will close off that back portion of the garden where the strawberry bed used to be and let it become part of the pig pasture. That area got all overgrown with quackgrass. I’m going to move the strawberry plants that are left to a different part of the garden. There are only two of us here and we don’t need as much garden space, so it’s time to consolidate some things.

I took lettuce seedlings out of the tray in the greenhouse and transplanted a row of them into the garden, then re-seeded the tray.

My currant bushes are looking phenomenal. Cathy suggested I prune them and they seem to concur with that advice.

My garden/yard projects for this week are:

• Move strawberry plants and mulch them

• Plant the corn (I didn’t do that yesterday because the location will be dependent on where the strawberries go)

• Weed the peas (that won’t take long)

• Keep the grass mowed everywhere

• Plant some beans?

• Pick rhubarb

I also need to make up my class handout for the serger class. Five people have signed up so far and the owner of the quilt store is thrilled. I put a limit of 10 on the class, but that is pushing it a bit. Five students will be a good-sized serger class.

We pick up piglets this afternoon!