A Wish for Simpler Times

Have I mentioned lately how much I hate QuickBooks? I was on the last step on Thursday—literally, entering the last bit of historical payroll data so I could run this week’s payroll—when I encountered an error message. I called the QBO help line and discovered that it’s an error on QB’s end. I am not the only person getting that message. The representative said she would escalate the trouble ticket and QB would let me know when the issue has been resolved. It’s Saturday morning and still no resolution.

I calculated payroll the old-fashioned way yesterday morning so I could write checks. Have I mentioned lately how much I hate QB?

The amount of friction I’ve run into lately just getting simple tasks accomplished has been ridiculous. “Progress” does not always move us in a positive direction. I miss the 1980s.

*******

I went to Missoula yesterday to teach a serger mastery class. The drive down was lovely. Traffic was light and the weather was beautiful. (No rain.) I had two students; three had registered but one didn’t show up. I get paid, regardless, but I find it baffling that people register for classes and ghost them. Oh, well. The two students and I had a great time. The owners of that store are also going to Bernina University next month and I think we’re registered for some of the same classes.

On the way home, I stopped at the Amish store for ice cream, then stopped at the Amish furniture store and ordered the gliders for my garden. (I think both places are owned by the same family as both places have the same name and the Amish store has some Amish furniture available for sale.) I ordered two 5' gliders. The color I want—antique mahogany, which is actually kind of a dark golden oak—isn’t in stock, so it’s going to be a few weeks. They will deliver, though, when the gliders are built.

Traffic was much worse on the way back. I almost went straight up Hwy 93 from Polson, where the Amish furniture store is located, but I decided to backtrack and come up the east side of Flathead Lake as that is the shorter route to my house. Thank goodness, because there was a big accident that shut down Hwy 93 about an hour later and I probably would have been stuck in that backup.

*******

I finished another squash in the Sue Spargo “Squash Squad” series:

This makes three. I think I will take a break and move over to embroidering chickens again.

There is no rain in the forecast today and temps are supposed to be in the mid-60s. The husband is home this weekend—last weekend, he was cutting concrete—and both of us plan to work around the property. I have lots to do in the garden.

I Hate Group Projects

Nicole Sauce talks often about the “My Three Things” system on her podcast. She uses it to drill down on the three most important tasks she needs to get done every day. I use it, too, although sometimes I have more than three items on my list. I’ve found that its usefulness to me isn’t in helping me focus. I don’t have trouble with that. Its usefulness lies in the fact that it allows me to let go of—and not be distracted by—things that aren’t on the list. That’s a hair-splitting distinction, but an important one.

Yesterday, I had two fairly big (non-sewing) tasks on the list and a couple of smaller ones. The problem wasn’t that I couldn’t complete them; the problem was that I had to wait on other people to get me information I needed to complete them. I’ve been playing phone tag for three days with one of those people. I have no trouble being productive when I am the only person in the equation. (I hated group projects in school.) But just when I had given up waiting and thought I might use my time productively to cut the grass again, it started raining. 😑

[Rain wasn’t in the forecast, at least not until it started raining.]

I am hoping to finish up those two big tasks today. We’ll see.

I decided the universe was sending me a message, so I worked on some sewing projects. The “pages” for the Place for Everything Tote have all their pockets attached. I need to trim the corners of the pages and bind them, but that will have to wait.

I also traced a deconstructed Liz Claiborne top. I bought myself a couple of LC knot tops last month and really like them. On a hunch, I stopped in at our JC Penney store and found the same top in my size on the clearance rack for $4.99. I can’t buy a pattern for $4.99. I bought the top, brought it home, and took it apart. The clearance rack top is not a Tall size, so I didn’t feel too bad about taking it apart. The process of deconstructing it also let me see how it was put together.

I have no idea when I’ll get around to making a version of this, but at least I have the pattern ready when inspiration strikes. I traced the original, then lengthened it by 2" and traced it again.

Next week will be devoted to getting ready for the plant sale—and getting some of my own plants into the ground—after which, I need to focus on finishing my Bernina University jacket.

I am teaching a serger class tomorrow in Missoula and really looking forward to it. And it looks like the rain is supposed to end tomorrow, so I’ll be out doing yardwork on Saturday.

The husband says we have two bunnies now, and I think there are at least three or four robins with nests in the porch rafters. I’m waiting for the garter snakes in the garden to show up. I only had one hummingbird for a couple of weeks—a male—but a few days ago, a female arrived.

And our Joann Fabrics has a “countdown until closing” sign on the door. It looks like they’ll be out of business for good by the end of the holiday weekend. RIP Joann Fabrics. You had a good run.

Adventures in Sewing Vinyl

Rain held off until yesterday evening, but the temps never got above 50F. It was overcast and raw outside. I half-heartedly did some string trimming in the garden, then came in and sewed. I need to clear some space to be able to work on my BU jacket, and the best way to do that is to finish up some projects that are in the way.

The byAnnie Place For Everything Tote is far from being finished, but I did move it down the pipeline a ways. I put a nonstick needle in the machine, attached the Teflon zipper foot, and proceeded to sew the first set of vinyl zipper pouches to the quilted “pages.”

The needle and foot worked beautifully together. I had zero sticking issues.

The pouches have to be sewn on in a specific order. I attached the first one and breathed a big sigh of relief. Sewing something like this for the first time is a bit nervewracking. (Apologies for the washed-out photos—it was late afternoon in the sewing room.)

The second pouch was sewn on so that its top covered the line of stitching from the upper pouch. I chose to divide that pouch in two.

The pouches on the other side of the page were sewn on in the same way. Some of the zipper pulls are going the wrong way, but I call this a win.

I have another page to make that will look exactly like this one. Two full-page pouches will be sewn on the reverse sides of each of these pages.

*******

I broke 1000 downloads on the May 6 podcast episode. That’s the first time that has happened, and I’ve been told by more than one person that 1000 seems to be a magic number. We shall see.

On the drive to Seattle, I listened to my backlog of podcast episodes (by other content creators), including an episode of Bernina’s Sew and So podcast that included interviews with Bernina dealers about how their businesses have evolved over the years. I was struck by the fact that two of the dealers, in two different parts of the country, said that they began teaching classes at their local community colleges as a way to get people into their stores.

I’ve been thinking a lot about this. Initially, I found it odd that students didn’t just come to the stores for classes. I suppose, though, that some people want to learn to sew but don’t necessarily want to learn to quilt, and many Bernina dealers are quilt store owners. I’ve been kicking this idea around with the owner of our local store, her daughter, and the class coordinator. They all think I should teach some classes at the college. Unfortunately, I missed the May 1 deadline for the fall term, so any classes proposals I submit to the college will be for next spring term. We may also try having some beginning sewing—not quilting—classes at the store and advertise them more broadly.

At least one of the classes I signed up for at Bernina University is about how to build a base of garment-sewing customers. I’m excited about that one.

It's a Jungle Out There

I woke up to rain yesterday, but by mid-morning, things had dried out enough that I was able to cut the grass. The garden needed attention first as the grass out there was almost knee high. I have to do that area with the push mower. Normally, I enjoy cutting the grass out there because it’s good exercise to walk the perimeter. With such tall grass, though, it was a slog. Each pass around the perimeter filled the bag, so I had to stop and empty it. (The grass clippings make great mulch between the rows of potatoes.) Now that the initial mowing is done, though, I should be able to stay on top of it.

[The husband said he would weed whack the garden for me when he’s out cleaning up the fence around the pig pasture, but we have a 100% chance of rain—up to an inch!—today. He has to keep the grass from getting too tall around the electric fence or the fence won’t work properly. I don’t think he’ll be able to get it done today, though.]

After lunch, I got out my John Deere riding mower and tackled the yard. It looks like a drunk Roomba mowed out there. The robins with nests in the front porch rafters were having absolute conniption fits, so I tried to stay away from the porch. I’ve been strafed by angry mama robins before and don’t care to repeat the experience. The yard is in rough shape. The husband “landscaped” the property last year with the track loader, which smoothed out some areas but brought up a ton of rocks. And when he plows, his primary concern is getting the snow out of the way, but he pushes a lot of the crushed gravel from the driveway into the yard. I did the best I could to get as much of the grass cut without running over rocks and turning the mower blades into hamburger. We will not win any landscaping awards.

We did not lose any fruit trees over the winter. In fact, all of the young apple trees in the front orchard—grafted for me by Susan—look really good. We should have a nice crop of Honeycrisps from the more mature trees this fall.

One of the tasks on my to-do list soon is to visit Stutzman’s Amish Furniture in Polson and choose some pieces for the herb garden. We left an area empty of raised beds in anticipation of putting a seating area out there. I want one of these gliders:

They are made from recycled plastic and can be left outside all year round. I’d also like to put a little fire pit out there so we can make s’mores this summer.

******

I did some field testing with a couple of tops while I was in Seattle. I still really like the one I made from the Burda 6146 pattern, but the upper bodice doesn’t fit as well as the upper bodice from the version I frankenpatterned from the Love Notions Cadence Top and New Look 6543. Something about the way the upper bodice and sleeves were drafted on that Cadence Top are perfect for me. Yesterday, after I finished the yardwork, I frankenpatterned my frankenpatterned top with the Burda 6145 pattern. I think—at this point—I just need to make myself a new sloper from my frankenpatterned pattern.

Any sewing I do this week will be on the Bernina University quilted jacket. I don’t want to leave that until the last possible second.

Bureaucratic Purgatory

Just before I left for Seattle, I had to arrange for a certificate of insurance to be sent to one of the general contractors for whom the husband is doing a foundation. This is a routine matter and requires that I send a request to our insurance agent. We get a copy of the certificate. When the copy of the certificate arrived in my e-mail inbox, it was accompanied by a note saying that our work comp insurance policy had been cancelled as of April 30.

Of course, that sent me into a mild panic. We can’t have employees on a construction site with no work comp coverage. I called the work comp help line and spoke to an representative, who said that the reason the policy had been cancelled was because the quarterly payroll reports hadn’t been filed.

[We have our work comp policy through Montana State Fund. Interestingly, they don’t notify the policyholder when a policy has been cancelled. They notify the person in charge of filing the quarterly payroll reports. 🤔]

I haven’t been doing payroll—until now—because we hired that out to an accountant 25 years ago when I had small kids and was traveling more frequently. The original accountant died five or six years ago and her assistant took over the company. Inertia on my end kept the system in place. However, the assistant-now-owner obviously hasn’t been doing her job.

She never answers the business phone. I sent a couple of pointed text messages and e-mails. By the end of the day, I was able to confirm that she had filed the overdue reports. I also was able to get the policy reinstated with no lapse in coverage. Whew.

My next call was to QuickBooks to set up payroll. If I am doing it, there won’t be a risk of us losing insurance coverage or getting fined by the IRS because the person we hired is too lazy to do her job. Payroll in QBO is fairly straightforward. What has been an absolute nightmare is getting all the payroll deposit accounts under the correct business name and address. The IRS, in particular, has an annoying habit of changing our address of record at random, and good luck getting a human being on the phone who isn’t just reading from a scripted flow chart and actually knows how to fix things. The address of record with the IRS shows our correct street address and city name but the wrong zip code. I have no idea how that happened.

I spent far more time on this project than I wanted to this week. I should be ready to do payroll going forward, though.

People think I am retired with all the time in the world to do what I want. If only.

*******

I was hoping to cut the grass today—this was supposed to be the one day without rain all week—but I woke up to the sound of a fairly steady rain on the metal roof. Perhaps things will dry out enough by this afternoon that I can mow. The grass in the garden is almost knee high.

Our local elementary school had its plant sale on Wednesday and Thursday. For several years, we’ve had an arrangement with them to take any leftover plants at the end of their sale to sell at the homestead foundation plant sale. A group of us went to the school on Thursday evening to pick up plants and bring them to my greenhouse, which effectively doubled our tomato inventory. I spent a couple of hours out there yesterday morning getting trays organized. We have separate displays for cherry tomatoes, paste tomatoes, and slicing tomatoes at our sale, and it’s easier if the plants are sorted ahead of time.

*******

The robins have been very busy getting their nests ready. The porch rafters look like a condominium complex:

A mama robin was sitting on that nest on the right, but she flew away just as I snapped this pic.

Salad Season Has Arrived

I cut lettuce for salad last night. I made a big garden salad for the husband and a smaller one for me, because I like a different kind of salad.

Mine consists of lettuce, bleu cheese, craisins, and walnuts, dressed with a simple vinaigrette of walnut oil and white wine vinegar. It was delicious.

The potatoes are up:

The grass in the garden is ridiculously tall and I would love to mow, but it has been raining all week (which makes the grass grow even taller . . . ). Saturday is supposed to be relatively dry. I am hoping to cut grass then.

The greenhouse also looks like a jungle:

Truly, I think some of the plants doubled in size while I was gone. I need more of those metal racks to increase the growing surface.

I made a test sample of quilting for my BU jacket. I love the thread—the variegated gold Wonderfil Fabulux I bought in Seattle—but I am still undecided about the inner layer. I used a layer of Robert Kaufman Mammoth Flannel on this first sample and I think I would like something just a tad thicker. I will try the silk batting next.

I have to go back to Missoula again next week or the week after. That store sold several sergers recently and those customers want a serger mastery class. We just need to decide on a date. And I need to start thinking about fall classes for both the store there and the store here.

Fabric Prepper

I ran away last week. I was in desperate need of a road trip, so I went to Seattle and saw my kids. DD#1 and her husband came down from Alaska for a few days and stayed with his parents, so I went and spent a day with all of them. The rest of the time, I was bopping around Seattle. I have no trouble entertaining myself there, although DD#2 took Friday off and we did some shopping and sightseeing.

I hit as many of the Joann Fabrics stores—the ones that are still open—as I could along the way. Interfacing is now 50% off and almost all of the stores had full bolts on the shelves, some still wrapped in plastic. I stocked up on Pellon Easy Pattern, which I use for tracing patterns. I also got a bolt of white and a bolt of black knit interfacing.

Issaquah Sewing and Vacuum, a lovely little store just off I-90, started their closing sale last Monday. I stopped there on my way into Seattle on Wednesday. Most of the store had already been cleaned out. I picked up a large spool of Wonderfil Fabulux in a variegated golds because I think I might use that for quilting my Bernina University jacket. I have to make some test samples.

On Thursday, I went to District Fabric in Port Townsend and bought a two-yard piece of a rustic woven fabric in black, green, blue, and purple. This was on the consignment rack so two yards was all I could get:

I wish it were a larger piece because it would make a wonderful jacket, but I will figure out what to do with it. I could serge the edges and make a shawl out of it.

I also hit up Pacific Fabrics in the SODO area of Seattle (SOuth of DOwntown). That is my favorite fabric store in Seattle, bar none. I got some lovely rayon woven fabric for a top:

And this gorgeous William Morris print—Mini Strawberry Thief—for another woven top. I think this will look great with a pair of jeans.

I didn’t go wild on this trip. I am trying to slow down on stash acquisitions, although I pointed out to the husband that my robust stash is going to serve me very well in the coming years, what with Joann Fabrics going out of business. He called me a fabric prepper, which I like better than fabric hoarder. 😇

*****

The weather here in Kalispell was lovely last week. The plants in the greenhouse responded accordingly. I think everything doubled in size while I was gone. The chicks are starting to look like teenagers, and the piglets have attacked the pasture with relish. I’d like to cut the grass soon but we’re getting rain every day. I see Bunny almost every day. The husband said that he saw two rabbits out there last night.

The peas remain unmolested by ground squirrels and we’ll be having salads every night soon.

Wearing Flowers

I love love love this Burda 6146 top. I see several more in my future. I adore basic patterns like this because I can change sleeve styles and necklines for fun variations. No one wants a Flintstones wardrobe. This is probably the most perfect V-neck ever. It’s not so low that I am flashing my bra at everyone.

I lengthened this top so it’s more like a tunic. I’m kicking around the idea of lengthening the pattern into a dress, maybe with a loose self-fabric belt?

******

Saturday was an absolutely stellar day—75F and sunny. You can tell you’re in Montana when it hits the mid-70s and everyone says, “Wow, it’s hot today.”

We moved the chicks from the garage to the nursery room in the coop Saturday morning. Seeing big chickens staring at them through the wire is scary—those Leghorns are very nosy—so they stayed huddled in the corner most of the day. However, the husband reported that they were partying in there by the time he closed up the coop that night.

I moved my car out of the garage and swept the garage floor with the push broom. I could plant another raised bed in the garden with the amount of dirt that comes in on my car every winter. 🫤 I need to vacuum out the car now.

The Homestead Foundation hosted its Spring Pie Social on Saturday evening. I think it was the best one ever in terms of attendance and money raised, and there was no pie left at the end of the evening.

I have made the decision to resign from the Foundation Board on June 1, the day after the plant sale. I want to stay involved and will manage the website and chair future plant sales, but I cannot continue to volunteer the amount of time that I’ve been spending on Foundation activities. There have been times of the year when that board position has been the equivalent of a part-time job. I might be willing to continue if I weren’t also the chairman of the pastor search team for our church, but that is a demanding position and there just isn’t enough of me to go around. I want to have time and energy for the things I want to do.

******

Cali Fabrics is carrying a designer viscose/nylon stretch twill, so I ordered some for a pair of StyleArc Linda pants. I bought it in red, because I never seem to have a pair of red pants when I need them.

I also bought what they had left of some Robert Kaufman ponte, which is the black-and-gray print on top. I wanted three yards, for a dress, but they only had half of that amount left so a pair of pants it will be. (Probably also Linda pants.)

Both fabrics are quite nice.

Dressing Like a Parrot

Burda 6146 floated to the top of my pile of patterns, so I took another look at it:

When I bought this pattern, it was with the plan to make view A, on the left, minus the fussy cuffs. However, I also like view B. I compared the bodice pieces to my perfect (for me) woven tee pieces and they were so similar that I decided to make view B.

I think this will end up being another tried-and-true pattern. I still have to add the second sleeve, finish the cuffs, and hem it, but I’ve already found much to love about this one.

• It fits very much like my woven tee pattern.

• The V-neckline is nice and modest.

• I love the sleeves, and that sleeve cap was drafted so well that no ease stitching was required or even included in the pattern. I followed the instructions to pin in the cap as directed and sewed with the cap on the bottom so that any excess was eased in by the feed dogs. I still think that the sleeves in most patterns, except those on very tailored garments, are drafted with too much ease in the cap. It’s not that there should be no ease; it’s that I shouldn’t have to work so hard to set in a sleeve as I have to with some patterns.

I used a Kaffe Fassett cotton sateen wideback (108"). This is the closest I can get to using Kaffe fabrics for clothing. I believe they may have produced some rayon wovens at one time, but no more. The 44" wide quilting cottons are just that—quilting cottons—but the widebacks are a silky, drapey cotton sateen. I used one yard of a cotton sateen wideback for view B.

I always block fuse the fabric for my facings. There is a bit of fabric waste, but the results are so much better. Block fusing means that I fuse a piece of interfacing to a piece of fabric and then cut out the facings, rather than cutting out the facings and the interfacing and trying to fuse them together:

LOL, my pattern weights just happen to coordinate with the fabric.

And these are the facings:

I need to thank Kaffe Fassett at the workshop in the fall for enabling me to dress like a parrot. I think I have two more Kaffe widebacks in the stash earmarked for tops.

*******

The chicks have reached the Baby Velociraptor stage of their development. They really do look like miniature versions of the velociraptors in Jurassic Park, and they chatter to each other like them, too. We will move them to the coop this morning.

And I think this is the easiest group of piglets we’ve ever had. They come back to the Piggy Palace to sleep at night, they figured out right away how to drink from the nipples on the watering system, and they spend their days rooting around the pasture. “The pigness of pigs,” as Joel Salatin says.

Tire Tango

This was one of those weeks when there was a lot of motion but not a lot to show for it, which is why the blog posts have been rather sparse. Today, I make the twice-yearly visit to the tire dealer to have my snow tires swapped out for summer tires. These places don’t take appointments, as a rule, so I need to be there when they open.

I taught the Scout Tee class on Tuesday. Two women were signed up, but one didn’t feel well the day of the class and stayed home. The other student got individualized instruction. She’s been in my classes before and I enjoy teaching her. She’s fearless and willing to try anything.

And because I was inspired, I did manage to knock out another woven tee on Wednesday afternoon using my custom pattern:

The fabric is a 50% cotton/50% modal by Cloud 9 (Nightfall, by Pip & Lo), purchased at Pacific Fabrics. It feels wonderful.

I’ve got plans for another couple of tops and a few more pairs of Style Arc Linda pants and Free Range Slacks. All of my wovens are in two stacks—one for pants and one for tops—on the table next to my cutting table, so when I have a moment, I grab something and cut it out.

******

The weather has been lovely, and I have been second-guessing my decision to change the date of the plant sale to the end of May. We started out having it in the middle of May, but there were some plant sales where I had to wear a wool coat because it wasn’t exactly warm. Last year, we had such a cold spring that I pushed back the sale to the last weekend of May. This year, I scheduled it for the last weekend in May again. I worry a bit that everyone will have already planted their gardens because of the nice weather, but I also know that it’s entirely possible—and it has happened in the past—that beautiful weather fools people into planting early, and all of their plants die because our last frost date isn’t until the end of May.

I can only make my best guess. Trying to juggle the combination of planting schedules, weather, and keeping the greenhouse at the correct temperature for baby plants is not easy. This is a stressful time of year. Once the plant sale is over, I’ll be able to coast for a bit.

The chicks are getting moved to the separate room in the chicken coop this weekend. They are crowding the brooder box. One of the white chicks I got from WS is a rooster, and he is already trying to lord it over the other chicks. He will be a stunning rooster when he grows up, though, and I don’t think I’ll have trouble finding a home for him.

Bunny is almost completely brown now:

He has plenty of nice grass to eat.

Almost May

I am just tickled with how the plants look this year. We haven’t had any issues with rodents digging up seeds. The sale isn’t for another month yet, and I expect that by the time it rolls around, we will have some really stellar-looking plants to sell.

I finished the black linen Free Range Slacks Sunday afternoon, but not without some angst. I am going to redraft the waistband facing for the next iteration. The facing folds down to the inside of the pants and creates a casing for a length of 1-1/2" wide elastic. I’ve had issues with the casing on both pairs I’ve made. Also, the instructions state to cut a piece of elastic 1/2" longer than the waist measurement. I’ve had to cut my elastic down to 3" less than my waist measurement to get the pants to stay put.

Otherwise, I love the pattern. I am not a huge fan of pockets but the pockets on these pants are fabulous, both front and back.

It’s time to knock out a couple of woven tees.

******

As if Joann Fabrics going out of business wasn’t a big enough shock to the sewing universe, independent fabric stores are beginning to disappear at an alarming rate. On my trips to Seattle, I always stop in Issaquah, just off I-90, to visit Gossypium Quilt Shop and Issaquah Sewing and Vacuum. The two stores were on the same road about a mile apart. Gossypium Quilts closed its brick-and-mortar store some six months ago, although they still sell online. Yesterday, I got an e-mail from Issaquah Sewing and Vac that the owner would like to retire, so they are also closing. They looked for a buyer for two years and were unsuccessful.

I get it. This is a tough economic climate. (Especially in Washington state, which won’t be satisfied until it has taxed all its businesses and residents into the neighboring state of Idaho. The last person out should turn off the lights.) I also understand that owners are getting older. However, fabric—especially garment fabric—is one of those products that is difficult to purchase online unless you know exactly what you’re ordering. If you can identify a couple of trusted suppliers, that helps, but there is no substitute for seeing and feeling fabric in person.

******

I ordered some Liz Caliborne tall tops from the JC Penney website and they arrived yesterday. Two of them have a knot detail on the front that is really flattering. I knew I had seen something similar in a commercial pattern recently, so I went looking and found this one:

I’ll pop into Joanns today to see if they still have it. Some of the Joanns stores are beginning to close. I could hack this into a top pattern without much effort, and it wouldn’t hurt to have some dresses like this.

I’m teaching the Scout Tee class today. I expect it will be fun.

A Big Day for the Piglets

The piglets quarantine in the Piggy Palace for a week after we pick them up. This allows them to settle in and gives us a chance to spot little problems before they become big problems. Yesterday morning, the husband did one last walk of the fence line to make sure it was secure, then let the piglets out to explore:

They had a few unpleasant encounters with the electric fence—the only way to learn—and took a mid-day nap in the Piggy Palace. The rest of the time was spent nosing around. This group came back to the Piggy Palace when it got dark, which is great. We’ve had batches of pigs before that decided that the pasture was their preferred place to sleep. With bears around, though, that isn’t the safest place for them, especially when they are small.

While the pigs were out exploring, the husband and I planted potatoes:

We planted the usual varieties: Red Pontiac, Teton Russet, and German Butterball. We used potatoes left from last year’s crop, augmented by a few pounds of new seed potatoes.

Once the potatoes were in, I finished pruning out the raspberry patch and cut back the lavender hedges. And after those jobs were done, I came back to the herb garden and cleaned and weeded the raised beds. If I don’t stay on top of the quackgrass—it came in with the topsoil for the beds—I’ll have a bigger mess on my hands in a few months.

I was a bit sore by late afternoon, but it was that good kind of sore that means that my body is stretching and working.

Today is the husband’s birthday. No doubt he will celebrate it by working. 😃

I tried to finish the Free Range Slacks yesterday afternoon, but things were not going well so I gave up. I know better than to keep pushing when I am making stupid mistakes. I’d like to finish them today, but I also have one last tray of seedlings to transplant.

Lavender in the Strawberries

I tackled the strawberry bed yesterday morning. I still need to do some thinning, but the paths between the rows are clear. The strawberry bed is right next to the lavender hedge, so this was not a surprise:

It’s a lavender seedling. It can’t stay where it is, so I will dig it up and move it to a better location.

The lavender seeds I planted in a tray in the greenhouse never germinated, but seedlings pop up in all sorts of inappropriate places in the garden. Go figure.

The squash seedlings are looking good.

The garden and the greenhouse are my two favorite places to be right now.

******

I started a pair of long Free Range Slacks from some black linen yesterday. I got as far as cutting them out and attaching the pockets to the fronts. I am trying very hard to get out of the habit of not working on a project unless I can focus on it for hours and hours, because sometimes I only have 30 minutes. Even if all I can do is rethread the serger and finish some edges, that’s forward progress.

******

I bought four more chicks from WS. He incubated eggs last month, including one of our Leghorn eggs. He is keeping that one, but I am curious to see what that chick looks like, with Little Roo as the dad and a white Leghorn as the mom. All of the chicks seem to be getting along. A couple of the chicks might be roosters, but that’s the way genetics works. We will deal with that when the time comes.

I talk to Little Roo several times a day and I think he has learned his name. He stops and looks at me when I call him.

******

Our homestead foundation has a YouTube channel and I posted a new video to it yesterday. This video was produced by Rhianyon Larson for an eighth-grade history project in 2016. She placed at the state level and went on to the national competition. She has graciously shared the video with the foundation. It gives the history of our community—called Mountain Brook—and I thought some of you might like to see it. My friend Arlene Johnson makes an appearance and there are photos of some of the people who were our neighbors when we first moved here in 1994.

We really do love it here. This is a special place.

Bursting at the Seams

I am all registered for my classes at Bernina University. I was able to get into the ones I really wanted to take—a class with Amanda Murphy and a class with Gail Yellen, yay!—as well as a few on machine embroidery, threads, and serging. Someone signed me up for karaoke on Friday night. LOL, we’ll see. I also got into a couple of classes focused on helping customers with garment sewing. My sense is that most Bernina dealers lean more toward quilting, but with the demise of Joanns, some may want to expend their inventories a bit. I think it’s great that Bernina is providing support for that.

I will have a full four days, but I am excited to see what I will learn.

My last ruler class was yesterday. The students want to know what else we’re going to do, so I told them I would try to come up with something for the fall.

I ordered Tim Holtz’s latest Palette collection (green) from Fat Quarter Shop and it came this week:

So pretty.

I am hoping to work on the BU jacket today. I need to make a decision about the inside layer. It’s either going to be the silk batting or a layer of flannel. I have plenty of stars and just need to get the pieces made.

The husband and I were commiserating over dinner last night about keeping plates spinning in the air. Each of us has a lot going on right now. I spend a lot of my time taking care of babies—piglets, chicks, and plants. The greenhouse is filling up:

All of the squash and cucumbers I planted last week have germinated. I need to transplant a few more trays of seedlings today and start the melons. I have high hopes for the plant sale this year. Everything looks really good and I think we will have a wonderful selection of plants.

If I don’t work on the BU jacket today, I am going to cut out a pair (or two) of Free Range Slacks. I like that pattern so much that I lengthened it to full-length pants. I spent an hour going through my closet yesterday morning to organize my warmer-weather clothes. I should not complain—I have clothing and the ability to make what I need—but my wardrobe frustrates me. This time of year, I find myself changing clothes several times a day. I put on my chore clothes in the morning to take care of animals and make breakfast and clean up the kitchen. If a trip to town—or teaching—is on the schedule, I change into something nicer. And when I get home, I have to change back into my chore clothes to take care of chickens and water plants.

The husband wakes up, puts on the same kind of clothing every day, and wears it until he’s ready to go to bed. 🫤

A first-world problem, for sure. Even a pair of coveralls wouldn’t solve the problem, because I just don’t want to risk ruining my nicer clothing.

Rollercoaster Ride

Yesterday was a weird weather day. I had a hard time keeping the greenhouse at a consistent temperature. We’re still dropping into the 20s and 30s overnight, so we keep the propane heater running from dusk to dawn. However, that heater has an annoying tendency to turn itself off, randomly, so we keep a backup diesel heater in the greenhouse as well. That one is on a thermostat. We discovered the need for redundant systems the hard way a few years ago.

The husband turns off the propane heater—if it is still running—during his morning rounds. If it gets too cold in the greenhouse, the diesel heater will come on. Usually, though, the sun has come up by 9 am and the greenhouse starts to get toasty just from the solar radiation. I keep an eye on the thermometer, because beyond 45F or so, I have to begin opening screens and vents to make sure the greenhouse doesn’t overheat.

Yesterday, the weather alternated between sunshine, clouds, rain, thunder, lightning, snow—graupel—and everything in between. When the sun was out, I had to open vents in the greenhouse. When it clouded up and cooled off again, I had to close vents and turn on heaters. Wash, rinse, repeat.

[Michael Snyder, who does the Pacific Northwest Weather Channel on YouTube. hates the term graupel. With a passion. He claims it is not a legitimate weather term.]

This is what it looked like in the yard after one system rolled through with thunder and lightning (the toe of my muck boot for scale).

The rest of this week looks like it will be less chaotic, weather-wise. I see forecasted temps in the high 50s and low 60s with just a few showers on Sunday.

Sarah brought over a few flats of plants in the afternoon. She and Susan start seedlings at their houses, but when plants get too big, they move them to the greenhouse.

While all the weather nonsense was happening, I made the samples for my last ruler class, which is tomorrow afternoon.

The first session covered straight-line quilting with rulers. The second was on circles and ovals. Last month’s class featured stars, hexagons, and flowers. This last session is on borders and sashing.

The Stellar jays have been all over the yard this week. I spotted the pileated woodpecker, too. When the husband and I were out working in the garden on Saturday, about 30 jays were clustered in the trees over our heads, squawking loudly. At one point, I stood outside the greenhouse while a jay sat on the fence post 10 feet away and scolded me roundly. I am not sure what they are so upset over, but they surely are vocal about it.

Garden Cleanup

After a lovely Easter service at church, I spent yesterday afternoon out in the garden and greenhouse. The husband and I got quite a bit done even though it was cool and showery. I transplanted a few more trays of plants while he rototilled the garden. I am not a huge fan of tilling—I think it brings up weed seeds and causes more weeds to grow—but it’s the easiest way to get the soil amendments into the ground. He tilled the area where the potatoes were last year. I had mulched the potatoes with hemp waste from our farmer friend. The hemp worked great as a mulch, but our friend warned us that it might make tilling impossible because the hemp is rather stringy. He thought the hemp fibers would wrap around the tines of the tiller. Thankfully, we did not have any trouble. The hemp mulch had broken down over the winter and tilled in nicely. That area has had a lot of rotted straw and now hemp added to it and it is reasonably free of rocks.

Once the area was tilled—that far section—we put black plastic over it.

The squash and pumpkins will go there this year. I grow them on black plastic anyway, so I’m hoping that putting the plastic over the freshly-tilled soil will keep the weeds to a minimum between now and the end of May. Black plastic does not an asthetically-pleasing garden make, but it works. Weeds in Montana are absolutely relentless.

The tomatoes will go in that middle section. They do well there.

Except for the potatoes and the brassicas, there isn’t much to plant until the end of May. I spotted a couple of emerging pea shoots yesterday. I need to keep pruning out the raspberry patch. The strawberry bed also needs some attention. I still have to prune back the lavender hedge. And I can putter around in the herb garden.

After their big day on Saturday, the piglets have been sleeping a lot. They are still babies.

When they aren’t sleeping, they are eating. We will keep them inside the Piggy Palace for most of the week. When they go out into the pasture, the husband will train them to recognize and respect the electric fence.

Piglets

The local community college had an Earth Day celebration yesterday with activities and seminars. Our church’s communications person—who does a great job of highlighting local events—posted about it on our church’s Facebook page on Friday afternoon with the comment, “For all our gardeners, our homesteaders and our climate care advocates… see you tomorrow?”

Alas, this gardener and homesteader did not have time to attend the Earth Day event. That is sometimes the sad irony—we don’t have time to celebrate because the to-do list is so long. Yesterday was a busy day. The husband moved a dozen wheelbarrows of pig manure from the Piggy Palace over to the garden for me.

Pig manure is like nuclear fuel for plants. Chicken manure works, too, but this is the good stuff. The piles will get raked out and spread around before I put the plastic down.

While he was doing that, I raked up dead vegetation into piles for burning. The potatoes are going to get planted where the tomatoes were last year. I move things around from year to year, as much as I can. It confuses the bugs.

I also planted squash and cucumbers for the plant sale. This year, I am trying Burpee’s Butterbush, a butternut squash variety that ripens in 75 days. I’ve been planting Waltham’s Butternut, but it takes 95 days to ripen and doesn’t always make it before a frost takes it out. I’m also trying Burgess Buttercup this year. Buttercup squash is a favorite of a couple of our gardeners at church and often shows up in potluck dishes. It’s very good.

I am going to try West Indian Gherkins again, too. I started those last year and they did really well until I put them outside and they got snowed on (in June). They never recovered. I’ll give it one more shot.

We were due at the pig supplier’s farm at 2 pm to pick up piglets. She supplies piglets for many of the 4-H kids, too, and they were allowed to choose first. We arrived after most of the kids had left. The piglets were out in a big pen in the yard.

Fortunately, we didn’t have to wrangle them ourselves. Carol and her kids caught them and handed them off to the husband, who put them into large dog crates in the back of the truck. Pigs hate it when their feet leave the ground, so as soon as a piglet got picked up, it started squealing. Loudly.

I forgot to ask Carol what the breed cross was this year, but I can text her today and ask. They are usually Duroc crossed with something else—York, Landrace, etc.

Late in the afternoon, Susan’s grandsons came over (with their parents) to see the chicks and piglets. They always ask if they can play with the wooden trucks, too, so we let them do that for a while. My dad made those trucks when I was pregnant with DD#1, and they have been a huge hit with little boys.

We have rain in the forecast for today and tomorrow, but then things dry out for the rest of the week. I’m teaching a class Wednesday afternoon. Otherwise, I’ll be working out in the garden.

More Stars and Lots of Tomato Seedlings

This end of this post includes a long discussion about my favorite gene mutation. You won’t hurt my feelings if you skip it.

I finally felt better yesterday after being run over by that virus for two days. I spent the morning out in the greenhouse re-potting tomatoes. My conservative count is something like 250-300 tomato plants. I suspect more. These are not all for me. Most of what is out there is inventory for the plant sale at the end of May. What doesn’t sell there gets donated to the local food bank.

I am pleased with how the plants look. (But of course I forgot to take a picture while I was out there.) I need to transplant a few more trays of seedlings into larger pots and it’s also time to begin planting the squash and cucumbers.

Thursday was cold and windy and we lost power for a bit. I started the generator. Had it just been me, I would have puttered around without electricity for an hour or so, but I didn’t want the chicks to get cold without their heat lamps.

Our pig supplier called and said that weaners will be available to pick up on Saturday. I didn’t think we were going to do pigs this year, but the husband changed his mind a few weeks ago. We’re getting four. The 4-H kids get first choice, which is fine. We’re not raising pigs to show. I managed to get a date on the calendar with our processor for late August. He informed me, though, that he’s retiring after this year. ☹️

This hasn’t been the most productive week of my life. At least I got a little forward motion on the Tim Holtz quilted jacket. I think I am just about ready to start sewing blocks together.

We might plant potatoes this weekend or next.

******

I’ve mentioned before that I have done a lot of research on that MTHFR gene mutation that runs rampant on both sides of my family. The last time I saw my naturopath, I said to him that I thought I was mostly dialed in, but it felt like there was still a critical piece of the puzzle missing.

The MTHFR gene is involved in the methylation cycle in the body. The methylation cycle is complicated and affected by more genes than just MTHFR, but that one seems to cause the most issues. I am homozygous—two mutated copies—for that gene, which downregulates the effectiveness of my methylation cycle by something like 80%. The mutation manifests in different ways in different people. My mother has a B12 deficiency. I cannot utilize folate. Other effects can include blood clots and strokes.

[It is also interesting to note that there is a higher incidence of autism in people with this gene mutation. I’m not going to get into that, because it’s a huge topic and the cause/effect is far from clear, but DD#1, who is a pediatric occupational therapist, does a lot of work with kids on the autism spectrum. She and I compare notes periodically on what we’ve found regarding this mutation.]

Because the MTHFR gene codes for an enzyme called methylenetetrahydrofolate reductase, and the mutation reduces the amount and effectiveness of that enzyme, the focus on “fixing” that gene mutation has always been on folate. It is why foods are fortified with added folic acid, except that the folic acid is synthetic and it actually causes more problems than it solves. The irony is that people with the MTHFR gene mutation do better not eating foods fortified with folic acid.

A lot of medical practitioners will prescribe methylfolate to their patients with this gene mutation. That works for some people. The problem is that other people—me included—cannot tolerate methylfolate. My naturopath and I tried several times to see if adding methylfolate would help me. It doesn’t. I get anxious and angry within a few hours of taking it.

I’ve managed to work around the negative effects of this mutation by taking a B complex with a different form of folate (folinic acid) and a few other supplements. And then I ran across the missing piece. My problem isn’t lack of folate per se; virtually all of my issues disappeared when I began taking 400 mg of riboflavin every day. I started that back in December because every so often I get a swollen tongue and redness around my lips. My dentist remarked on it when I was in to see her in December. I knew it could be related to a B vitamin deficiency—possibly riboflavin—but my B complex had 20 mg of riboflavin in it, which is way more than the RDA of 1.1 mg per day for women. (Riboflavin is a water-soluble vitamin so any excess gets eliminated from the body.) I thought I was getting plenty.

Studies have shown that 100-400 mg per day of riboflavin seems to be a therapeutic dose for those who need it. I started taking 400 mg of riboflavin every day. I told my mother to start at 100 mg a day. (The husband asked me why I was running clinical trials on my family members but my mother is used to me floating these weird ideas. I was the one who figured out she had a B12 deficiency in the first place.) The redness around my lips and the tongue swelling disappeared. The problem wasn’t a lack of folate. The problem was a lack of riboflavin, which is required for folate to be effective in the methylation cycle. And while I didn’t feel bad before—I am fairly healthy and have lots of energy—I feel even better taking the riboflavin. 🤯

It is worth noting here that my mother got headaches at dosages above 100 mg per day of riboflavin. Obviously, she doesn’t need as much as I do.

Here’s the sad part about all of this. Right now, the place where I am finding the most information on this mutation is in the MTHFR forum on Reddit. There are a couple of very helpful, very knowledgable people in that group. One of them has come up with a protocol for people who find themselves with this mutation. I’m going to print out the protocol and give it to my naturopath when I see him in July so he has it for future reference. The protocol starts with optimizing riboflavin levels.

The other new tool in the toolbox is ChatGPT. People are using artificial intelligence to come up with personalized “supplement stacks” based on their genetic data. While I have mixed feelings about AI, I understand the desperation that some people feel. This morning, one of the members of the forum said in a post that, “ChatGPT is light years ahead of my doctors. Not because it has more knowledge but [because] it's actually listening to me.”

I can’t blame doctors. The current medical system is set up to optimize profits, not to help people. and when one treatment shows promise—like methylfolate—they prescribe it to everyone whether it helps or not. (Most B-complexes on the market now contain methylfolate and/or methylcobalamin, which is B12.) When you have a hammer, everything looks like a nail.

I’ll keep chipping away at this. I wish I had had this information decades ago, because I think it could have helped several of my family members, but I’ll use as much of it as I can going forward. Thank you for coming to my TED talk.

Slow Sewing

I came down with a cold on Monday and it has rather knocked me for a loop. Because I’ve managed to miss everything else so far this winter and spring, I was feeling somewhat invincible. 💪🏻 I can deal with being punky for a few days; the worst part is that I am moving at about a third of my usual speed and things aren’t getting done.

I’ve been lounging around, drinking hot tea, and reading for two days, although yesterday, I did muster up enough energy to sew a few stars for the BU jacket. The 12-1/2" stars are done. Yesterday, I made eight 3-1/2" stars:

The key to sewing blocks this small is thin thread. I used Wonderfil DecoBob 80wt thread and a 75/11 needle. Thread takes up space, and in a tiny block, space is at a premium. This is also one of the few times I press my seams open.

I got out the jacket pattern and did a dry fit with some of the blocks to see what I think:

Here’s where it gets a little tricky. The Beachcomber Jacket pattern doesn’t call for sashing of any kind between the blocks, but I think I might want sashing. (Those open spaces can be filled in with flying geese or half-square triangle units.) I need to think on that some more.

******

The temperature hit almost 70F yesterday afternoon. We’re supposed to get a back-door cold front this afternoon, however, that will bring E-NE winds and much cooler temps.

The six chicks that are left are doing well. The plants in the greenhouse are also coming along nicely. I’ve transplanted some of the tomatoes but have quite a few still to re-pot. I’m also hoping to get squash and cucumbers planted this weekend. And depending on the weather, we’ll need to get potatoes in soon.

Down to Six

It has been a tough weekend to be a chicken farmer. I came home with 12 chicks on Friday, and we are down to six.

I should note that this is not our first rodeo; the husband and I have had chickens for more than 15 years and we know how to care for baby chicks. We used the exact same setup this year that we have used every year.

The chicks seemed fine when I brought them home on Friday. I popped out to the garage several times during the day to check on them, counting each time to make sure we still had 12. The husband came home for dinner and I left for a meeting. When I returned a few hours later, I looked in on the chicks—and only counted 10. The husband had gone out to check on them while I was gone and found two dead ones.

I had another meeting at church all day Saturday. Before I left, I called the farm store. They were not expecting a shipment of chicks that day, so they offered us a refund on the two dead ones. Their policy is to offer replacements or refund on any chicks that die within 24 hours.

Mid-morning, I texted the husband to ask how the chicks were doing and he texted back, “Nine.”

Yesterday morning, I cooked breakfast while he went out to check on them. He came back and said two more had died.

And when I got home from church, I found another one languishing. It died later in the afternoon.

I just checked on the six that are left and they all seem to be doing fine.

The husband and I talked about trying to get more, but at the rate people are losing chicks this year, there doesn’t seem to be much point. I talked to our UPS driver last week—he and his family have almost as many chickens as we do—and he expressed frustration, too. He got chicks in March and half of them died within the first week.

It is what it is. We chalk this up to circumstances beyond our control and go forward from here.

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I spent a couple of hours in the greenhouse yesterday afternoon transplanting tomatoes. I am pleased with how things are growing out there. Planting squash and cucumbers is on the list for later this week.

My focus for the past five days has been on church stuff. We had an outside consultant come in to help us with some visioning and identity work related to our pastor search. The process was worthwhile, but I was in charge of much of the planning and I’m a bit worn out. I need a few hours this morning to reorganize and get my feet back under me.