Green Inside

The blog needs a picture, but all I’ve got is one of the current batch of lettuce in the indoor lettuce system.

We’ll have some in salads this weekend. I’ll start a new crop out in the greenhouse soon.

Yesterday’s serger class was a bit of a challenge. The store had told me four students; I actually had seven. Three had L890 computerized machines, two had non-computerized air threading models, one had an older manual-thread Bernina model, and one had a Bernina model I had never seen before. All but two of the machines were combo machines that did both serging and coverstitch. One lady had a friend with her who was “helping,” although the friend was more of a disruption than a help. She left the class after about an hour to go shopping in the store. The Bernina model I’d never seen before caused some trouble for both the student and me, but thankfully, a customer was in the store who was familiar with it and was able to step in and offer assistance.

We managed. Everyone stayed calm and kept a sense of humor, although we were all exhausted by the end of the six hours. I taught them everything they needed to know about basic serging on their machines and threw in a few special lessons. The top-of-the-line sergers have a blanket stitch programmed into the machine, by name. One of the women with the non-computerized machines said, “Oh, I can’t do that stitch on my machine,” because she looked at her stitch guide and blanket stitch wasn’t listed. I said, “Yes, you can.” (It is based on a two-thread flatlock stitch, which her machine can do.) I gave the instructions for setting up all the machines, handed out materials for everyone to use—that stitch requires the use of some washaway stabilizer—and just like that, they all made blanket stitch samples. That’s the fun part of teaching.

I came straight home after class, did chicken chores, and checked on the plants in the greenhouse. By that time, the husband and two of our employees were pulling into the driveway. The husband lets the guys use his shop to work on their trucks, so they were here for a while and then came in to visit. Around 6 pm, I finally sat down, only to get a text from my friend, Twila, asking me if I was coming to choir practice.

I had completely forgotten about it.

I was really exhausted by the time I got back. And I need to polish up the accompaniment part to that piece because I haven’t looked at it in three weeks. We are singing it on Sunday.

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I stopped in at Staples yesterday morning on my way to class. If I have to ship anything via UPS, that store is the most convenient drop-off location. (I make the labels here using my account.) When I got there, however, the printing and copying area was closed, so I went to the register and asked if the store was still taking UPS packages. The cashier said, “Yes, we had to close the printing area because we only have two employees.” I left my package and checked my account this morning to make sure it had been picked up.

I heard last week that the state of Montana has a 2.4% unemployment rate. That is one of the lowest in the country and the lowest in our state history. What is happening here, though, is that the cost of living has skyrocketed. A lot of people just can’t afford to live and work here any longer and the effects are becoming widespread.

Uncovering the Ugly

Much of the snow disappeared quickly after a couple of days of 60-degree weather. I can see just how awful the garden looks now:

Friday and Saturday are supposed to be reasonably nice. I’ll spend some time out there and rake that dead vegetation into piles to be burned.

These are the images that never make the covers of magazines.

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Due to an apparent breakdown in communication, the class I thought I was teaching today at the quilt store north of town never made it to the calendar. That’s not a big deal; the weather today is supposed to be cold and blustery and I have another laundry list of tasks that need attention. I’d just as soon stay home. I have four students signed up for tomorrow’s Bernina serger mastery class at the quilt store south of town. I’ll take my completed class samples with me for the Christmas in July class. They’ll be put on the display near the checkout to advertise the class.

I’m also collecting a load of stuff to take to the thrift store. Some unused items are impeding progress and either need to be put in the storage container or donated. I still want to move a bed out—either from DD#2’s room or the spare bedroom—and reorganize those spaces more efficiently.

The husband and I have been watching clips of the PBD Podcast hosted by Patrick Bet-David, an Iranian-American entrepreneur who is the head of a media empire called Valuetainment. We especially enjoyed this one:

I jokingly refer to this as the “Bro Podcast” because it’s four guys sitting around discussing various topics. Some day when I feel like angering a large group of people all at once, I’ll do a blog post about why I think we’ve overdone it with female energy. I happen to enjoy being around strong male energy, and that balance is important.

If you don’t want to watch the clip—although you should, because it’s good—I’ll sum it up for you: The job market is tightening, and those employees who thought they could get paid simply for showing up are going to find themselves out of a job and unable to find another one. And if you’re over 50, your work ethic may soon be in demand by employers.

Inch by Inch

I gauge the coming of spring by mileposts big and little: longer days, the arrival of chicks, seedlings popping up in the greenhouse, the day I no longer have to wear boots, etc. I took the ice cleats off my mucks yesterday, because the path to the greenhouse is finally clear of ice and snow. This week, I will take the insulated shades off the windows and put them away.

Turkeys are everywhere. These two think they are all that and then some:

The flock comes to hoover up any scratch grains that fall outside the chicken yard.

Inside the coop, the peeps are busy learning to be big chickens:

We hit 60 degrees yesterday afternoon. I wish I could say that spring is here to stay, but it looks like we’re going to cool off again, with some rain. We need it.

I did not have a very productive weekend. I puttered, mostly, and cleaned and organized. I did have a brief moment of insanity late Saturday afternoon when it occurred to me that I should have made myself something to wear to church on Easter Sunday. I started to look through my patterns and fabric, then came to my senses. Beginning a project at that late hour would have led to nothing but frustration.

I am still lacking some really nice blouses, mostly because I’ve been fitting muslins. Maybe I can get a few made next month. I could also use some dresses, but those are going to take a bit more work.

This week, I have two serger classes, a board meeting, and a birthday party to attend. I’ve got a long list of little errands to chase down, too. We’ll see what I can accomplish.

O Spring, Where Art Thou?

It has been a long 10 days. All of my volunteer obligations have been met, though, and I can give my attention to other tasks. Susan and I copied, folded, and taped 2400 homestead foundation newsletters on Wednesday, and Thursday. (After the first time I helped her, when we folded newsletters by hand, I bought a paper folding machine.) We got some offers of help but the timing didn’t work out so it was just the two of us. The copier needs a new fuser, though. I called the business machine company that has serviced it in the past. They are checking to see if replacement parts are still available. I bought this copier from our church about 20 years ago, and while it’s been great for the limited number of copies we make on it, I know that at some point, we’ll be out of luck.

The chicks got moved to the coop. They have recovered from their initial terror of the big chickens—Dave, in particular, wanted to know what was going on and paced around watching them—and are taking advantage of the additional space to run around. We have a flock of turkeys hanging out by the chicken coop. The two males strut around with their feathers up, gobbling and trying to impress the hens. No doubt we will see babies in another month or so.

Seedlings are up in the greenhouse and looking good. I pruned as much of the fruit trees as I could yesterday, although I need to get a ladder out there and there is still too much snow in the yard to position one securely. The weather forecast is saying 64 degrees on Monday, followed by a few days in the mid-40s before warming back up to the mid-60s.

I was able to get a photo of the front of the raffle quilt before our service Thursday night:

The colors are not quite right, but this will do until I can get a good shot outside in natural light. I like to photograph quilts on the side of our woodshed. It makes a good backdrop and the lighting is great. Unfortunately, there is still too much snow out there. (I might be saying that until July at the rate we’re going.)

I finished my Christmas class samples yesterday and will drop them off at the store next week. My sewing area(s) need to be throughly cleaned and reorganized. I’m spending way too much time looking for stuff I know I have. I also started an apron yesterday. I need about six more, but one is good.

Sinclair Patterns released a new design this week, the Delta Dress:

Karina at Lifting Pins and Needles did a review of the pattern. I like that is has princess seams. I also love that Sinclair Patterns includes a “tall” option in the pattern, which should cut down on the number of adjustments I need to make. I’ll make the longer length skirt version. Anything that ends at knee length on me looks weird.

It’ll be May, though, before I get back to making any clothing.

Men Should Not Name Quilts

Our little community here is known as Mountain Brook. The Mountain Brook Ladies Club has been in existence for many decades. I am on the board of the Mountain Brook Homestead Foundation, whose mission is to maintain and upgrade the 1927 schoolhouse and Community Center. The two groups work together. Last year, the Ladies Club made and donated a quilt to the Homestead Foundation which we raffled off. They made another quilt this year. I picked up the finished quilt last week and last night, I sewed the label on to the back:

The quilt is different every year. This year, it’s made from batiks and has a large center panel featuring a buck standing on a mountain looking out over a valley. I asked for a name for the quilt and Robin came up with “Mountain Splendor,” which I thought was perfect.

The husband wanted to see the quilt, so I unfolded it and held it up. He looked at the center panel—which also has black birds in the sky—and said, “You should call it ‘Something Died in the Valley’ because that looks like a flock of vultures circling.”

This man says the most inappropriate but hilarious things. He is forever reminding me that quilting is “cutting up big pieces of fabric into little pieces of fabric and sewing them back together into big pieces of fabric.” I have never been able to maintain righteous indignation about anything for long because he’ll make some comment and I’ll dissolve into giggles. It’s one of his superpowers and he wields it mercilessly.

[A thousand apologies to my friends who made this quilt. “Mountain Splendor” is a much better name.]

Now that I have the label sewn on, I’ll take the quilt to the church, hang it up, and get a good photo of it.

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I did not move the babies yesterday as planned because it never got above 40 degrees and snowed intermittently all day. We’ll try again today. Everyone is tired of this weather. It is the topic of conversation everywhere I go. And it doesn’t look like it will change any time soon.

The husband reminded me that I was praying for a long winter so that people would stop moving here. That is true. If I weren’t trying to grow half of the inventory for a plant sale, though, I’d be a bit more patient for better weather.

I spent the afternoon finishing up one of the class samples, although I still need one or two items that I wasn’t able to find in town. I tried to go to the yarn/embroidery store yesterday but they were closed, even though their sign said they should have been open. Shopping here is so frustrating sometimes.

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Episode 56 of the Sew & So Podcast features a recap of the Sewing and Stitchery Expo that Tera and I attended last month. This is a Bernina-sponsored podcast, so the perspective comes from that angle, but I thought it was a nice recap of the event, including a lot of the history. The host is excellent. She did an interview with Kaffe Fassett at Bernina University last summer and that episode is also worth a listen.

Imagining the Potential

Everything but the corn has been started in the greenhouse. Now we wait. I feel like we are weeks behind, but I think we will catch up by the time we need to put plants in the ground.

The garden is going to require some work:

The strawberry bed looks great. Everything else is a mess. I’ve got to move plastic around and rake up dead vegetation. The husband will plant potatoes for me as soon as the ground is workable, so we have been talking about what is going to go where. I try to shift things around from year to year to confuse the bugs.

I am moving the baby velociraptors to the chicken coop today. This is an aggressive bunch of chicks and I am worried they are going to start pecking at each other. The coop has a small, enclosed room. The chicks can see the big chickens and vice versa, but they are physically separated. The chicks will have plenty of room to run around.

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I let my inner magpie loose in the sewing room yesterday to play with shiny serger thread:

This is such a departure for me. I am not into bling, but I’m teaching a serger class called Christmas in July (in July) and I need class samples. Class samples might be made from a commercial pattern or they might come out of my head. Even if I am using a commercial pattern, I have to make it up at least once to identify potential student pitfalls. And if the class sample has to come out of my head, it almost always requires several iterations before I have something I can use. The process can be tedious.

I am working on three projects for this class. One project has a prototype—out of my head—that needs refinement. A second project is almost done; I need to get a few supplies to finish it. The third project has been through the testing phase and looks great.

The goal of this class is to make the projects, yes, but it’s also for students to learn some new techniques using glitzy threads. I used the Bernina L860 yesterday. I will also try some of these techniques on my Juki serger in case I have students who don’t have the fancy Bernina sergers. Fancy is nice, but I want these projects to be accessible to everyone.

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I’ve been having trouble getting a live person on the phone at BMW of Spokane. The husband wanted me to call and find out if the current fault code is related to the work they did back in September. I called again yesterday afternoon and someone finally answered. I gave my name and asked for Kevin, as I usually do, and the guy on the other end said," “He’s no longer here. He went to work at another dealership. My name is Josh. Can I help you with something?”

[Bummer. Kevin did not treat me like an idiot woman who knows nothing about cars, and now I have to break in a new tech. I might not be an expert, but I am conversant in the basics.]

I said, “Hi, Josh. You and I are about to become good friends.” I explained what was going on and of course, he wants me to bring the car in so they can hook it up and run a thorough diagnostic panel. Fortunately, the husband does not think this is a critical fix as it involves the heater in the diesel exhaust fluid tank and we’re heading into warm weather. He’s going to check the car again this weekend to make sure it’s not throwing any other codes (the check engine light is still on). I will figure out when I can get the car over there—Robin and I still need to take a trip to Spokane—and let the dealer take a look at it.

Someone consigned a 1999 BMW 328 sedan to the auction last week. I looked up the Kelly Blue Book value just in case I decided to bid on it. It had a gas engine, not diesel, but it had fewer miles on it than my station wagon and I thought it might be a nice beater car to keep around. (I did clear this plan with the resident BMW mechanic, although he wasn’t quite as enthusiastic about the idea as I was.) The car went for more than I would have paid so it was a moot point.

Pixie Dust

One of our homestead foundation fundraising committee members uses a phrase that I love. We were discussing, in our meeting last night, the fact that we have to limit registration for our kid activities because we don’t have enough adult helpers. She framed it as an opportunity to counter the belief that “Someone sprinkles pixie dust and things just happen.” We need to let parents know that if we had more adult helpers (parents), we could open up our kid activities to more children.

The pixie dust analogy applies to many situations these days. People expect that someone else will sprinkle pixie dust and poof!—things will happen.

Honestly, I don’t think most people understand that historically, life was hard. Even with all we do here at our place, we only get a small taste of that. If my crops fail, I can get food from the grocery store. If the husband forgets to load the wood boiler in the morning—or worse, doesn’t stack enough wood in the fall—our backup propane heat kicks in. A hundred years ago, a diagnosis of leukemia would have been a death sentence. Our lives are not difficult, all things considered.

Resilience has been lost, individually and socially. By removing obstacles and impediments from people’s lives, we’ve created a culture where people expect to be given everything with little to no effort. And that expectation causes many people to fold the moment things become tough.

I’ll fall off this soapbox soon, I promise.

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Montana PBS is airing a documentary right now on author Ivan Doig. (I believe it’s only available through PBS Passport, though, for PBS members.) I watched it last week. Ivan Doig’s books are near and dear to my heart. I was first introduced to them by my friend Kathy, back when we still lived in Pennsylvania. Kathy was reading Dancing at the Rascal Fair, the second book in Doig’s “Montana Trilogy.” (English Creek is the first, set in the 1930s. Rascal Fair is set in the late 1800s.) If you want a glimpse of what life as a sheepherder in northern Montana in the 1800s was like—and it was not for the faint of heart—Dancing at the Rascal Fair provides an excellent description. Doig’s trilogy is somewhat autobiographical, as he was raised by his sheepherding father and his grandmother in the part of Montana where the story takes place. To say that their way of life was tough is an understatement.

The third book in the trilogy is also special, and takes place in the 1980s:

DD#1 is named after one of the central characters, Mariah McCaskill. We chose that name while we were still back east—she was born in Baltimore—and practically no one had heard of it other than in association with the song “They Call the Wind Mariah.” When we moved out here, it seemed like every third little girl was named Mariah.

[Fun fact: The pass from Glacier Park over to the east side of the mountains is called Maria’s Pass, but Maria is pronounced like Mariah.]

Ivan Doig did a book signing in Kalispell some years ago and was kind enough to inscribe a copy of Ride With Me, Mariah Montana for DD#1. All together, he authored sixteen books before his death from multiple myeloma in 2015. If you can access the PBS documentary, I highly recommend it.

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I might be able to sneak in some sewing this morning—more class samples—before going out to the greenhouse this afternoon. I ought to start pruning fruit trees, too, but it is still hard to get around the yard with all the snow.

I sent an e-mail to the company in Seattle that sells industrial sewing machines. They have several used machines that would fit my needs and budget, so I will try to arrange a shopping trip there some time in the next couple of months. And the husband ordered a new piece of equipment this past weekend. We can’t take delivery until the fall, but at least the order is in.

A Shift in the Mood

I’ve worked a lot of Creston Auctions over the years. This weekend’s auction was different and I am trying to sort out why. The weather was awful, yes—cold, wind, and snow—but we’ve had successful sales even when the weather wasn’t great. We had lots of community support; one elderly lady who came to fill bags with trail mix told me she wasn’t sure she was contributing much, and I responded that to those of us who like to munch on trail mix all weekend, her efforts were greatly appreciated. Everyone pitches in and helps.

We didn’t have as much merchandise consigned to the equipment sale as in previous years. This was my view from the (enclosed and relatively warm) auction wagon:

That’s the husband on the right and our head auctioneer on the left. Amanda was manning the computer and I was up there to help her and provide a backup report of what sold.

The crowd seemed smaller and the auctioneers were having a hard time getting bids out of people. The mood has shifted. Pessimism would be one word for it. Grief might even be another—grief and sadness that something important has been lost with the influx of outsiders to this valley.

[I want to be clear that we came here from elsewhere, and we have lots of friends that came from elsewhere, but there is a huge difference between moving to a place and becoming part of the existing community and moving to a place and trying to change it into the place you left. We moved to Montana to live in Montana.]

We’ll have to see how the final numbers shake out. All funds raised will go toward the construction of our new fire station.

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I was approached over the weekend by a friend and asked if I would be open to considering a position on a volunteer board in the future. That request came out of the clear blue sky. I mentioned it to the husband, who asked me if he was supposed to hit me upside the head with a 2 x 4.

It is humbling that my name came up as a potential candidate for this position. The organization does important work for this community. However, I came home and looked at my calendar and reminded myself that I need to stop allowing the tail to wag the dog. I just finished four days at a fundraising auction. I have to chair a meeting for the homestead foundation fundraising committee this evening, which means organizing the agenda and getting reports sent out some time today. Susan and I need to copy and fold the quarterly homestead foundation newsletter this week—and it has to be done this week because I am teaching two serger classes next week. I have a few updates to make to the homestead foundation website. As soon as I sew the label on the quilt that the Ladies Club made for the annual homestead foundation raffle, I need to take it over to the church, hang it up, and take photos for the website.

And this is Holy Week and I have to play at our Maundy Thursday service.

I am the one who committed to these activities and I will follow through with them, but when I say that sometimes I feel like unpaid staff for these organizations, I am not kidding. I am handing off my auction duties. I plan to cut down my homestead foundation involvement next year to managing the website and being chairman of the plant sale. I only took over chairing the fundraising committee because our pastor, who retired last fall, also retired from his homestead foundation duties and I didn’t want us to lose the momentum we had built. I can’t keep spinning these plates, though, at the expense of shoving aside the things I want to do, like teach.

April is a wash, sewing-wise. I have to finish my class samples and bind the last baby quilt—which I finished quilting last week—but beyond that, not much else will be happening. Tomato seedlings are popping up and will need to be transplanted, and it’s time to start the next round of plants.

Sadly, I think our little deer got hit by a car. I saw a deer by the side of the road Thursday morning that had similar markings. She never went more than a day or two without coming by for a snack. I haven’t seen her since the middle of last week. I’ll be pleasantly surprised if she shows up, but I’m not holding out much hope.

The 57th Annual Creston Auction

We were fortunate enough to settle in an area that has a long tradition of community coming together to get things done. And not just little things, either. Some of our schools, fire stations, and even roads were built with donations and volunteer labor. Sadly, that community-driven mindset is disappearing as people now expect to be taken care of by the government.

This weekend is our fire department’s 57th annual Creston Auction. This event raises money for our department to buy gear and equipment. Whereas most fire districts go to their residents, hat in hand, our fire chief is committed to making as many improvements as possible without raising taxes. The auction is our big money-maker, but we also have smaller fundraisers throughout the year. We are raising money to build a new station.

The husband and I have been working at the auction since he joined the fire department in 1994. When the girls were little, my mother-in-law would come out and take care of them so he and I could have the week free. I started out helping my friend Pat, who ran the food section of the auction for many years. When I became treasurer of the firefighters’ association, I ran Finance, which was a huge job but one that I loved. (I really like keeping track of pennies.) The husband was head of Logistics for most of that time. A few years ago, he moved over to run the Sunday equipment sale, so I moved there to help him.

We snagged a young woman, Amanda, to help us at the equipment sale last year. She is part of the large family that helped start the Mennonite church here in 1913 and I’ve known her since she was a toddler because she and DD#2 took dance lessons together. She is a sharp cookie. I decided that 2023 would be my last year of being in charge of anything at the auction, so we’re training her to take over for me. Another young couple, Nick and Brittany, are also helping out. The husband would like Nick to take over for him, and Amanda and Brittany would run the administrative end of the sale.

Yesterday was our intake day—people bring items from 7 am to 7 pm and consign them to the sale. The equipment sale requires having a notary on hand to inspect titles and notarize them if necessary. Linda, who was the secretary at the elementary school my kids attended, was our notary for the first half of the day. We had a new notary helping us yesterday afternoon—a friend of Elysian’s—and she and I discovered within the first five minutes that we had grown up a few miles from each other in Ohio.

[Cue It’s a Small World, After All]

I mostly supervised and served as institutional memory. Amanda and Brittany did a great job and I have no worries about them taking over next year.

Today is the general merchandise sale so we get a break. Tomorrow will be our big day.

These are the kinds of events that undergird a strong community. There was a lot of catching up happening yesterday as people emerged from their homes after a long winter—which is not over yet—and talked to neighbors and friends they hadn’t seen for a while.

We’ll have to see what the buying crowds are like today as the weather is supposed to be cold and windy. I’ll be all bundled up in my long underwear, wool pants, wool socks, and Carhartt jacket. (There is no such thing as bad weather, just poor clothing choices.) Maybe we’ll come home with some goodies.

Lunch With the Ladies

On Monday, six of us met at a local assisted living facility to have lunch with one of the women from our church who lives there now. We’re hoping to make this a monthly occurrence. We used to do this about 20 years ago—DD#2 was in kindergarten at the time—when a group of us met monthly at another facility to have lunch with the mother of one of our members. Margaret probably remembers, as she was part of that group. The assisted living centers are quite happy to accommodate us.

We had a lovely time. The facility set us up in a private dining room and for $5, each of us got to have lunch. We chose our menus ahead of time. I had glazed ham. We visited and caught up with each other. I love these women. They are a wealth of knowledge and encouragement and they are the ones who taught me to quilt.

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I spent most of yesterday morning working on Mountain Brook Homestead Foundation stuff. I had to add information to the website and also send out a few administrative-type e-mails. I am chairman of the plant sale that will be held in May. We have our spring pie social at the beginning of May, and Sunnie is coordinating the Community Yard Sale that will be held at the end of June.

For the past two years, the Homestead Foundation has hosted a Garden Tour fundraiser, but we were having trouble getting people to agree to participate in a third one. Not everyone is willing to have strangers tromping through their property. I suggested that we contact Kim and Dave, owners of a nearby property, to see if we could partner with them for an event. Kim—who has a wealth of nonprofit fundraising experience and is a delight to work with—responded enthusiastically. We are planning a “Picnic at the Plaid Swan” for August 5.

Locals may recognize Plaid Swan as the former Avalanche Ranch. The 60-acre property is located about half a mile up the road from us and has an interesting history. Back in 1999, the husband and his then-business partner got the contract to build a guest house, a caretaker’s house, two guest cabins, and a barn on the property. They worked on that job for almost two years. The main house was built by another contractor. A few years later, the owners divorced. The wife got the property as part of the settlement but had trouble maintaining it. It went onto the market for 26 million dollars, then sat. Eventually, everything down to the HVAC system was sold and the property reverted to the bank. I went there with Cathy and her husband and a real estate agent sometime in 2017 or so and saw first-hand how the property had deteriorated.

A few years ago, a woman called our number and said she and her husband were thinking about buying the property and could they ask some questions? They talked to the husband, who filled them in on the history. By then, the price had dropped considerably. That woman turned out to be Kim. She and her husband did indeed buy the property and have been working on it for about three years. They have brought it back to its former beauty and then some. Dave raises llamas and alpacas. The guest houses are rented out as Airbnbs.

We will be selling tickets for a picnic lunch and an afternoon at the Plaid Swan that will include the opportunity to stroll the many gardens—Kim planted 500 lavender plants last year (!)—pet the animals, enjoy demonstrations by our local spinner’s guild, shop vendor booths, and visit with local artists who will be set up throughout the property.

You can take a look at the properties and see some of the amazing transformation by visiting the websites at https://plaidswanranch.com and https://redryderllamas.com. We are very excited about this event and hope it becomes an annual tradition.

Symptoms of Decline

The husband had my car up on the lift Saturday to change the oil. He found this:

He said to me, “Did you run over something?”

No. I know exactly how this happened. (It’s a bit of a convoluted story, so bear with me.) Some years ago, all of our mail began being shipped to Missoula to be processed. This was explained to us as being “more efficient,” (?) and because we care about climate change, if I want to send a piece of mail to someone in Kalispell, that piece of mail now makes a 240-mile round trip to Missoula and back. The only way to avoid that nonsense is to take it town and deposit it in the “local mail” box at the post office on Meridian.

Ever since then, if I have local mail—and yes, I do pay bills online, but sometimes contractors need to send hard copies of items to each other—I will make a special trip to the local deposit box at the post office and put it in the box.

I’ve been going through that mailbox drive-through for 20+ years. A few weeks ago, I went through and deposited some mail, then maneuvered out to the street to continue on my way. Unbeknownst to me—I had to drive around the block and come back and look at it to see what had happened—the street has sunk to a level several inches below the drive-through lane.

My car rides low to the ground to begin with. That is rarely an issue, even with all the snow we get here. But that difference in road levels was enough of a precipice, at the correct angle, that I hit it. And I forgot to mention it to the husband.

He assures me it is not structural. Of course, no one would be accountable for the damage even if it were. An apartment complex went up across the street from that post office about four years ago. I wonder if in the process of building it, something happened that caused the road to sink. As the husband noted, that’s usually because water is flowing somewhere that it shouldn’t be.

And now you get a mini-sermon on the decline of empires—and the decline of the American empire, specifically. This sermon has been building for a while.

Nothing works anymore, including people. The economy is a house of cards waiting for a gust of wind. Stuff breaks much sooner than it should. Infrastructure is crumbling, literally. The entire government is corrupt—and don’t tell me that your side is holier than the other, because it isn’t. The president is obviously senile. No one is held accountable for anything. Kids aren’t learning how to read and write, and heaven help us when those kids become the adults in charge. The USPS, certainly no model of fiscal responsibility, thinks that sending our mail to another city to be processed is somehow more efficient than processing it here.

I am constantly surprised at the capacity of human beings to ignore what is right in front of them. (You would think I would have gotten over that surprise, but apparently not.)

Nelsonian Knowledge: The phrase, first referenced as ‘blind-eye knowledge,’ is attributable to Vice-Admiral Horatio Nelson, 1st Viscount Nelson, 1st Duke of Bronté (better known simply as Lord Nelson) holding a telescope to his blind eye and claiming to see no ships. —Engineering News

All around me, people are claiming not to see any ships and it is absolutely maddening. Just because you choose to ignore something doesn’t mean that it doesn’t exist or isn’t happening. On the other hand, I understand that for many people, acknowledging the current state of affairs would send them around the bend. Denial is a coping mechanism.

The Self-Reliance Festival was held this past weekend in Camden, Tennessee. Nicole Sauce, who hosts the Living Free in Tennessee podcast, posted a clip from SRF on her channel. The speaker is CJ Kilmer, former college professor-turned podcaster. (His Dangerous History podcast is now his full-time means of support.) There is nothing inflammatory or subversive in this clip; he simply lays out historical parallels to what we are seeing now. His talk is about 30 minutes long and well worth watching.

And if you need me, I’ll be over here polishing my tinfoil hat and making sure I can see clearly out of my telescope, because I prefer to be prepared for what is coming at us.

A Couple of Fun Laundry Day Tees

Life is too short to wear boring clothes. These are two recent Laundry Day Tees. The first is my fruit and vegetable one:

The fabric is a rib-knit rayon blend from the Walmart mystery rack. I plan to wear this at the plant sale. I might take that neckband off, though, and re-do it. I made it wider and I’ve since decided I don’t like them that wide.

This second one is my favorite:

I prefer that narrower neckband. This fabric is a double-brushed polyester, also from the Walmart mystery rack. The lighting washed out the green; it is even more intense than it appears here.

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I spent a couple of hours out in the greenhouse yesterday afternoon and got the rest of the tomatoes and peppers planted, as well as broccoli, cauliflower, and cabbage. I’ll start the cucumbers and squash after the auction. Seedlings have popped up in the tray of tomatoes I planted last week. The trays have plastic covers, and I laid some boards on top just to make sure that no mice could get into them. We have a heater running and a backup heater just in case.

I also made up another prototype for one of my classes this summer and it turned out very well. I need to pick up some thread at the quilt store today because I want to try a few variations.

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I’m not sure what it is this year, but I am feeling weight of responsibility more than usual. I said to the husband last night that I know I am overwhelmed when I fantasize about running away—taking a road trip—and ignoring all the demands on my time for a while.

One of my friends came up to me after church and said that she wanted to thank me for playing the piano. We’ve had more than the usual amount of music in our services recently, including some new songs that require extra work on my part to learn. I was touched that she noticed and said something to me. The song leader also thanked me before the service, but I suspect that to most people, I’m mostly invisible unless something goes horribly wrong.

I’m working on divesting myself of some obligations. I’ve said no to several recent requests for help. I’m training someone to take over my responsibilities for the equipment sale at the fire department auction so I can retire after this year. We’re going to have to find a few more people to head up some of the homestead foundation fundraising events. This is a process, though, and right now, I just need to get through the month of April.

[I recently ran across the phrase performance punishment. In a nutshell, it’s when people who do a good job tend to get loaded down with even more work while everyone else skates. I think it’s why the phrase, “If you want something done, ask a busy person to do it” annoys me so much. I see this happening a bit with my girls—those apples did not fall far from the tree—and I’d like to help them avoid it.]

The husband changed the oil in the BMW yesterday. It’s also throwing another fault code. I have to call Kevin this morning because the issue might be related to the part they replaced last fall and thus under warranty. The husband also fixed a brake light issue. The car has some damage underneath, and I’m a bit more than irritated about it because the damage wasn’t my fault. I’ll get the picture he took from his phone and post it tomorrow. He assures me the damage is not structural (it’s a “battle scar”), but it annoys me nonetheless.

A Baby Shower and Another Sunbonnet Sue

One of the young families in our church is about to welcome their second child. We had a baby shower for them yesterday. Jessica, who organized the event, had the Sunbonnet Sue quilt made by her grandmother on display:

This is a different setting than the one I used; each block is bordered by one of the fabrics that is in the appliqué, and each Sunbonnet Sue is outlined in blanket stitch in black thread. I love the two off-kilter blocks at the bottom.

The shower was lovely. We haven’t had families with kids in our congregation for a long time, and now we have almost a dozen littles running around. I love the chaos. It reminds me of growing up with all of my cousins.

My shower gift was one of the bear paw quilts.

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After several days of sunny weather and temps in the high 40s, we got 4” of heavy, wet snow on Friday and flurries again yesterday. The new snow melted quickly, but I haven’t been back out to the greenhouse. I’m going to try again this afternoon. I’m not panicking yet, but I do need to get the rest of the tomatoes and peppers planted this week. Everything else can wait until after the fire department auction.

The chicks are starting to get their big chicken feathers and are eating like there is no tomorrow. For the first week, they were on a probiotic solution—which helps considerably—but it has a lot of sugar in it. I’ve been cutting back the concentration and they’ll be on plain water starting today.

I worked on class samples all day Friday and ran up three tops yesterday. I made two Laundry Day Tees and another Lark Tee. Before I cut them out, I compared my bodice sloper to each and re-traced the front pieces so I could adjust the position of the boob bump slightly. I’ll post pictures of the tops tomorrow.

Itch to Stitch released a new pattern this week, the Zakopane Top:

This is a knot-front top, one of my favorite styles, but I am undecided about buying the pattern. I’ve got three knot-front top patterns, two of which I reverse engineered from favorite Liz Claiborne tops. I don’t know that this pattern is going to provide anything I don’t already have. I’d also have to lengthen it right off the bat as it is drafted for a shorter person.

Karina, at Lifting Pins and Needles, did a nice video recap of the two tops she made from the Zakopane pattern.

I may have solved the industrial sewing machine dilemma. The sew & vac store in Kalispell—which I do not frequent for a variety of reasons—has a used Consew 118 for sale. (I was in there last week to get binding fabric for one of the bear paw quilts.) The 118 is a walking foot machine and will handle the heavier UV-coated fabric that the husband likes for generator covers. I did some research to determine a reasonable asking price, because I know from previous dealings with this store that I will have to bargain hard. This store tends to overprice used machines and push customers toward buying new, but I am trying to avoid spending lots of money on a machine I likely won’t use that often.

As the husband says, the key to successful negotiation is being willing to walk away.

More Serger Classes, Please

I will be sewing today. I have spent most of this week attending to other projects and I need a day alone, in my sewing room, to process and plan. I stopped in at the quilt store north of town yesterday morning and was asked by a customer when I was going to offer more serger classes there. I had classes on the schedule in January, February, and March, but none of them filled. I told the staff person that I would look at my calendar and schedule additional classes.

I am working hard to keep boundaries in place. My volunteer activities are important, but I have learned over the years that if I am not vigilant, some of these organizations will begin to treat me as unpaid staff, and I don’t want the road to hell to turn into an eight-lane expressway. Teaching sewing is what I am doing these days and that needs to be my focus.

Part of our Starlink order arrived yesterday:

I think the box with the mounting hardware will be delivered today. I’m not sure if we’ll be able to install it this weekend or not. We’ll need to use the forklift and we still have quite a bit of snow in the yard. I am sure the husband has this all planned out, though. Being married to the man who built the house has its advantages.

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I’ve been meaning to mention this book, which I read the week Tera and I were at Sew Expo:

This is the story of Jenny Doan’s life and how Missouri Star Quilt Company came into being. I had trouble putting this down. I knew the basic history, but to hear Jenny talk about growing up in California and everything in her life that led to the founding of one of the most successful quilting businesses in the country was riveting. I was lucky enough to see her in person in 2021 at the Garden of Quilts in Salt Lake City (another trip with Tera). Five stars, highly recommend.

I got fabric yesterday for the binding on the third bear paw quilt. I’d love to start quilting the fourth one—I am still hoping to meet my self-imposed deadline of finishing all of these by the end of March—but I had to order thread and that order hasn’t come yet. If the thread doesn’t arrive by Monday, quilting the last bear paw top will have to wait until after the fire department auction.

Friends Are Special

My college roommate sent me a large envelope full of goodies. I told her I did not want to be paid to finish her grandmother’s quilt, so she gave me a gift card to Spoonflower and sent a few other gifts with a long note. Everything was tucked into this fun pouch:

One can never have enough zipper pouches.

She also does cross-stitch, and included these:

The quilt square one had been stitched by her grandmother, but she added the lettering around the outside. I will hang these near my sewing machine.

And she included a couple of these “bonnets,” which she said her grandmother was fond of making. She thinks they were sold at a local craft sale. I tried the bigger one out on a jar of my tomato sauce.

It fits perfectly!

Friends are special. I love all of mine.

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The greenhouse got a thorough cleaning yesterday. I went through all the pots, now organized by size, and tossed any supplies that were beyond repair. The sun was shining and it was warm enough inside that I had to open the doors.

The husband put the diesel heater out there after dinner last night. We have a propane heater hooked up to the tank outside, but that heater has the unfortunate tendency to turn itself off unexpectedly. We almost lost a whole season’s worth of seedlings a few years ago, so we don’t rely on it until later in the spring. The diesel heater is bigger but it has a thermostat.

I’m trying something slightly different with the tomatoes. I usually direct seed them into 3” pots, but I am planting them into nine-packs in trays and putting them downstairs on the lettuce system until they sprout. Once the seedlings get their true leaves, I’ll transplant them. I also bought clear plastic covers for our trays in hopes that we can avoid having to booby trap the entire greenhouse with mousetraps.

The chicks are doing very well. I had one escapee yesterday, who flew out when I lifted up the lid to put their waterer back in. She landed on the table next to the brooder box and froze, so I scooped her up and put her back. Leghorns are so flighty.

And even though I know I’ll have to do it again once mud season starts in earnest, I cleaned the kitchen on Tuesday. I couldn’t stand it any longer. The floor was a mess. I moved everything, vacuumed, mopped, wiped down baseboards, washed the curtains and the wallhanging over the table, and washed the windows and French doors. The laundry room needs the same treatment soon.

‘Tis that time of year. I’m not getting a lot of sewing done this week, although I did finish bear paw quilt #3 yesterday. I need to check in town for the color Kona I need for the binding because—shockingly—I did not have it in my stash.

I’m trying to reconcile myself to the fact that there may not be any (clothing) sewing in April. How ironic, just when I feel like I’ve cracked the code with my bodice sloper. Next month’s schedule is nuts, to put it mildly, and class samples for my summer classes are at the top of the to-do list when I do get time to sew. Maybe I can get a few things cut out and stacked up next to the serger this weekend.

Time to Plant

We’re going to be off to the races here shortly. The fire department auction is next weekend and will consume four days of our time. The husband and I are in charge of the equipment sale. It is not as involved as running all of Finance—which I did for several years—but it is still a big responsibility as it brings in most of the revenue.

The week after the auction is Holy Week and Easter and that’s always a busy time for church pianists. And Susan and I have to produce the homestead foundation newsletter that week, too.

I had WS here yesterday. After lunch, we went out to assess the situation in the garden. There is still at least a foot of snow on the ground:

I have to use all of my imagination to envision what it’s going to look like in another month or so:

We’ll get there.

WS helped me sort through the pots to see what we need.

Some of the trays are falling apart after 12 years so I put in an order for new ones. The husband brought home six bags of potting soil and I will get tomatoes and peppers planted this week. Not only am I planting what we need, I am also planting inventory for the fundraising plant sale in May.

The greenhouse is a bit of a mess. We store a lot of supplies in there over the winter and also collect boxes and cardboard and other items we’ll need. WS and I put the tomato cages out in the garden. Yesterday was overcast, so it wasn’t exactly toasty inside, but it was warm enough that we could work in shirtsleeves. I plan to spend this afternoon out there doing more cleaning and organizing.

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I finished messing around with the Butterick 6754 shell pattern. I am happy with my third and final muslin. There are no egregious wrinkles, the sleeves hang perfectly (I had to adjust the sleeve cap shaping slightly), the side seams are straight, and the darts are where they are supposed to be. Zede Donahue cautions against “overfitting”—trying to eliminate all wrinkles—so I am stopping with what looks good to me. And my personal yardstick has always been, “Does this look better than what’s coming out of China?”

I knew I had issues with tops and blouses being too short, but seeing the differences between commercial patterns and my bodice sloper has been an eye-opener for me. From now on, the first step in tracing anything will be to see how the pattern compares to my bodice sloper. The information in that Threads article was so helpful, as was the bodice sloper class we took at Sew Expo.

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The husband—the man who never met a tool he didn’t like—told me the other day that I should buy myself a good heavy-duty industrial sewing machine. My Necchi industrial is really a lighter tailoring machine and balks at sewing Sunbrella. He says I could sell plenty of generator covers (all made in my copious spare time, of course). I’ve been looking for a good used vintage industrial machine for several years, but those are hard to come by in our part of the country.

I talked to our friend Tommy, who does auto upholstery. He said I was welcome to use his machines any time. We’ll see. I am still in the research phase. I’ve narrowed my choices down to the Sailrite Fabricator, a Juki 1541, or a Consew 206. They are all about the same price and have similar features. C.H. Holderby is an industrial sewing machine supplier in Seattle, so if I could find a time to get over there and try sewing on a few different models, that would be helpful. They might also have a nice used machine.

Sunbonnet Sue Safe and Sound

My college roommate messaged me on Friday afternoon that the quilt had made it to her house in Maryland:

It fits the bed perfectly. That was a happy accident, LOL.

I had a worship team meeting at church yesterday morning. Afterward, I headed into town to run a few errands. The husband was at a concrete cutting job with his crew and planned to work most of the day.

I remembered why I don’t go to town on Saturdays. Ugh. I stopped at Joann Fabrics to pick up a few items, then headed to Hobby Lobby. I am still working on class samples and I also needed to do some research. I get tons of ideas just walking around the store.

After leaving Hobby Lobby, I went to the quilt store south of town to pick up some thread. I need some 50wt thread in a baby pink color for one of the bear paw quilts. The quilt store north of town did not have the correct shade of Aurifil. I found some Wonderfil at the quilt store south of town. The store was quite busy. While waiting to check out, I visited with one of the students from my January serger class on presser feet. She has a Bernina L460 and brought it in to the store for some warranty work. She also thought some presser feet had been ordered for her after the class, but they hadn’t come in yet and there was some confusion about the correct feet for her model. The owner’s son—who is the sewing machine tech—came out to the floor and the three of us figured out what feet she needed and got them onto the list for the next order.

I stopped at the grocery store on the way home and was delighted to find that ground beef was on sale for $1.98 a pound. (It’s been running $4.98 a pound.) I offered to make some of the chili for our spring pie social in May, so I bought everything I needed yesterday. I’ll make up a roaster pan of chili today and put it in ice cream buckets in the freezer.

It was 2:00 pm by the time I got home. I checked on chicks, fed the big chickens, fed the deer, sorted through a bag of potatoes that was starting to go south, and finished binding the second bear paw quilt. The third one is on the Q20 right now and I’ve been working on it here and there.

I’m hoping to put some time in on my bodice fitting issues again today. I ran across this fantastic Threads article about comparing a bodice sloper to commercial pattern and it has been very helpful. I’m comparing my bodice sloper to the Butterick 6754 basic shell pattern. I did widen the back bodice piece slightly and now I am tweaking the front bodice piece. After watching this Minvera YouTube video, I dropped the darts another 1/2”. I also dropped the waistline. I wasn’t kidding when I said I had a long torso. When I compared my bodice sloper from the Sew Expo class to the Butterick pattern, I realized I had to drop the waistline by almost 2”. This is why I never buy ready-to-wear clothing with waist ties or belts.

[I hate that it has taken me so long, and so much work, to solve my clothing-fitting issues, but it’s nice to know that I might be able to make some of the things I see in stores that have never fit me properly. I’m also starting to feel more prepared to tackle an Upton Dress.]

Once I get all these tweaks done, I’ll make up one more—hopefully the last?—muslin and see how close I am.

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We are supposed to get close to 50 degrees today. It has been warm and sunny lately and the snow is starting to melt, but at our house, at least, the snow will be here for a while. I’m always happy when the day comes that the driveway is clear and I don’t need my ice cleats to get back and forth to the garage.

I have WS with me tomorrow—his mom is working and he doesn’t have school. I think it will be a good day for the two of us to go out to the greenhouse and assess the situation. It is time to get tomatoes and peppers started.

Goodbye, CenturyLink

I came downstairs this morning to find a very welcome e-mail in my inbox—our Starlink order is ready! I confirmed the invoice and ordered the additional hardware that the husband said we needed for the installation. Hopefully, we should be able to tell CenturyLink to go pound sand soon. After that debacle at Christmas when we were without internet for two weeks, I am ready to be done with them.

I’m also more than a bit annoyed with Intuit, which is forcing me into QuickBooks Online as of May, to the tune of $1000 a year. This whole “software as a service” business model is a greedy scam. I’m already paying $600 a year for Adobe Creative Suite. (Yes, I know there are open source models out there, but either they don’t work as well or they are not backward-compatible.) I’m also not thrilled about having my financial information in the cloud.

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The peeps are doing well. They are busy running around the brooder box and stuffing themselves full of food. The little deer shows up every afternoon for its ration of sweet feed, usually when I am out in the chicken coop. I wait to feed her until I see her so the turkeys don’t swoop in and hoover up the snacks.

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I made up another muslin yesterday. I still can’t figure out exactly what fitting issue I am having. The front of the muslin fits well. The darts are positioned properly, the sleeve seamlines sit where they should, I’ve got plenty of fabric over my chest, and there are no odd wrinkles, but something is off. I’m wondering, now, if the fit of the back is the issue. I looked at that fitting book, which was helpful, but I really need a comprehensive set of accurate measurements so I know exactly where mine deviate from average. The husband, for all that he knows how to lay out foundations and build houses, doesn’t know enough about clothing construction to know what measurements I need him to take or how to take them. Maybe Tera and I can get together some time for a fitting session. Or I’ll take my tape measure and book with me the next time I visit DD#1’s in-laws, because DSIL’s mom has a lot of sewing and fitting experience.

The easy way out would be to stick to sewing with knits. I’ve got half a dozen tried and true patterns that fit me well, but I’m too stubborn to let this go and I’m so close. I might adjust the back pattern piece for the muslin I made yesterday and run up another one this afternoon if I get time.

Raglans seem to be a trend this spring. I’m seeing lots of raglans with gathered necklines, Gathers at the neckline effectively do the same thing as bust darts—they provide extra room on the front of the garment. That old See & Sew raglan pattern fits me well for a similar reason, but instead of gathers, it has a pleat at the center front. Gathers at the shoulders work, too. The trick is finding styles that don’t end up looking like maternity tops. I really wish I had bought that too-short blouse at Kohls in Spokane. It fit me well. I could have reverse-engineered it and made it longer. (I checked the website and it’s no longer available.)

I bought this book at the quilt store yesterday:

I love books like this that have all the math done for lots of different blocks in a range of sizes. I’m not averse to doing math, but if someone has already done it for me, so much the better.

Playing the Peep Lottery

The farm store puts out a chick schedule every February. The schedule lists all of the chicken breeds they expect to get from the hatchery, by week and number of chicks. I always grab a copy of the schedule as soon as it comes out so I will be able to time my chick purchases. Historically, getting chicks has not been an issue. In 2020, however, when everyone and his brother decided to take up farming, chicks were selling out within a few minutes of arriving at the store, so I bought an incubator. I incubated 25 eggs that year. Of the 25 eggs, 17 hatched, and we ended up with eight hens and nine roosters. If it weren’t for the excess roosters, I’d do that every year, but having that many teenage roosters hassling the hens by the time fall rolls around is a major pain.

[Dave came from that 2020 hatch. At some point, I will have to incubate some eggs because I’ll have to replace him and I want to keep his genetics. He is a stellar rooster.]

I used to have a system where I would get a different breed of chicken every year. I would know which hens belonged to which year, and the oldest ones would get butchered in the fall, on a three-year rotation. My 2020 chicks were all mixed breeds. The next year, I had to do half of one breed and half of another because I couldn’t get enough of the same breed. The husband also brought home some cast-off hens from a customer of his who raises show chickens. Thus, my tracking system has been completely shot to hell. I am trying to get it back in place. I think we’re feeding a lot of chickens who are no longer laying. We usually butcher in the fall, but I suggested to the husband that we might do some this spring if we can find a time.

Because of egg prices, and because everyone thinks that it’s possible to go from 0 to 60 in one farming season, the farm stores have been selling out of chicks quickly again. Tera’s husband had to wait in line a few weeks ago, so I knew I had to be at the store early. I arrived yesterday at 7:20. The store didn’t officially open until 7:30, but just as I pulled up, a couple of employees were unlocking the door. All of us in the parking lot jumped out of our cars and went inside. The woman handling the chick sales was handing out cards with numbers. Initially, I got #6, but she came back a few minutes later and said her numbers were messed up. She traded me #4 for #6.

We had to wait another half an hour for them to start selling the chicks, but that gave me time to check out the available breeds and eavesdrop on the conversations around me. (This is serious business. You bet I am going to gather intelligence.) The guy at the head of the line was there to get chicks for his daughter. He had a “Beginning Poultry Kit” in his cart. Given that and the number of questions he was firing at the employee, it was obvious this was his first rodeo.

Also ahead of me was a couple about my age and a father with a young boy. The father and son looked at every single breed of chicken and debated the merits of each. I had my eye on the Pearl White Leghorns, not because I like them—Leghorns are absolute divas in the chicken department—but because I wanted either a white breed or a red breed and there were no red ones. I also checked to make sure the store hadn’t put limits on sales.

At 8:00 am, the young woman in charge invited the first guy in line to choose his chicks. He took five. The next couple got two. (I suspect all of those chickens are going to be pets, not livestock.) The father and son took 10 of the Leghorns. The store only got 25 in the shipment, so that left 15. I took those. I would have liked 20, but I was happy to get the ones I got.

The husband had turned on the heat lamp before he left so the brooder box would be warm when I got home. The chicks moved right in:

I checked on them several times during the day yesterday. The brooder box is in the old garage, and it’s much easier to raise chicks in there than in the coop like we used to do.

I am glad to have that off the list.

After the chicks were settled, I finished quilting bear paw baby quilt #2 of 4. It’s trimmed and awaiting binding. I redid the top zipper on the Ravenwood bag—the one I screwed up last week—and added the D-rings to the side gussets. I also traced the Allie Olson Coram Top:

I’ve had this pattern for over a year. I thought I had already traced it, but apparently not. The Allie Olson patterns come in cup sizes. I want to see how this compares to the Burda raglan top I made a muslin for a few weeks ago. I am no fan of the hi-lo hem, however, and I need the additional length, so I extended the front to be the same length as the back.

I also talked to the class coordinator at the quilt store south of town. We’ve got dates on the calendar through the end of 2023. Now I need to make up all my class samples and put together supply lists for the website.

Beans and Bear Paws

I’ve cleared a pile of stuff off my desk this week and that feels so good. The taxes are all done and filed, both construction company and personal. I am caught up on website work for the homestead foundation. All of my class ideas for the summer have been submitted. I did a big Costco run yesterday. The farm store did not have chicks on Monday but I am going to try again today. If dealing with excess roosters weren’t such a hassle—I suspect Dave would go on a murdering rampage and pick them off one by one—I’d pop two dozen eggs into the incubator and hatch chicks out here.

I canned up 19 pints of white beans yesterday afternoon:

They started out as a five-pound bag of dry beans from Azure Standard. My All-American canner holds 19 pints, so this amount works out perfectly. Beans need 90 minutes of processing at 15 pounds pressure here. I need to can up some batches of red beans and black beans, too. If I do them this week and next, we should have enough beans for a couple of months.

I tore down and washed all the jars from the indoor lettuce-growing operation. I’ll plant one more run of lettuce and that should keep us supplied until it’s warm enough to grow some out in the greenhouse or in the garden.

While the beans were processing, I worked on another Bear Paw Baby quilt.

These are fun to quilt. The light beige section has some free motion swirls. Everything else is done with rulers. I’ve got a little bit more quilting to finish up and then I can attach the binding. I’ve got two more waiting to be quilted.

I want to spend some time over the next couple of days cutting out patterns. I have three or four new ones that need muslins. I struggle with what appears on the surface to be excess clothing production—I don’t need twenty tops and fifteen pairs of pants—but I have to remember that I am teaching myself fitting and sewing techniques and in order to do that, I have to make clothing. I do finish as many of my muslins as I can. If I don’t wear them, I put them in the pile to donate.

In particular, I want to compare my bodice sloper to some of the blouse patterns I’ve earmarked. I think I know what adjustments I need to make and I’d like to have a few more patterns for wovens. Sewing with knits would be the easy way out, because they require a lot less fitting, but nice rayon challis and rayon batik fabrics are seductive.

[I watch a YouTuber who insists on pronouncing “challis” as chalice rather than shallee and it drives me absolutely up a wall.]

As I suspected might happen, more warm-weather fabrics are beginning to show up on the Walmart mystery remnant rack. I picked up three yards of a white rayon woven with a surface texture of white thread yesterday. I don’t normally wear a lot of white—it doesn’t stay white around here for very long—but I bought that one because I liked the fabric so much. It’s going to be one of my muslins, I think.

We’re supposed to have weather in the 40s for the next couple of days. Things are beginning to melt, albeit slowly. I am going to be optimistic and plan to start seeds in the greenhouse next week.