23 Blocks

(photos are clickable)

Hooray!

23 blocks cut out.

Hopefully, I can get at least another 7 blocks

out of the remaining scraps.

It is taking me so long to get these block sewn

that I think I must be doing something wrong.

Before I can start the Japanese quilt

I have to get these scraps out of here!

I am amazed and impressed with all the quilters

I read about (on their blogs)

who seem to whip quilts together with the speed

of making biscuits.

And they make such beautiful quilts!

I'm about a fourth of the way along

the back fence path.

There are a lot of pines along here

which means less oak leaves.

Doesn't this look good!

It was delicious.

My husband got us pizza for dinner

and cake for dessert!

Pretty neat, huh!

He also got a squash for the chickens

because we are going to keep them locked up tomorrow.

Morgan needs a day off.

She ran her little feet sore today chasing around and around

a storage area after something.

I was working and didn't miss her

until she had already run herself sick and tired.

My daughter was warned when she got Morgan

that Border Collies can work themselves

to death so they need to be watched

and stopped if they get too excited about something.

We finally missed her and went out walking the property

looking for her and found her running back and forth

and around and around.

She must have been after the ? for hours.

So, tomorrow Morgan stays in the house

on her bed and rests!

The chickens can stay in their pen and

play with and eat and peck the squash.

That should keep them busy.

No eggs today.

And I will rake some more

and make more blocks.

And maybe I can talk my daughter

into holding some chickens

while I take their pictures

so I can make a post

all about our chickens.

Smiles

Good Morning Lucy!

(all photos clickable)

I hope the elves have been busy last night

and that if I lift the cover

I will find all the scraps sewn together!

I'm chicken, so I don't look.

I leave everything covered and head outside to face the leaves.

But first I check the nest boxes

and find

3 eggs!

Good girls!

They are starting to lay 3 to 4 eggs a day.

I would like to take the wooden eggs out of the nest boxes

but there are still a couple of hens that have bare spots.

They were laying from 8 to 12 eggs a day.

I really don't know if the wooden eggs

have anything to do with slowing egg production

and increasing feather production,

but it seemed to work.

I give the eggs to my daughter to put in the fridge

(the library is closed because of a holiday and

she is home studying for her Japanese class)

so I don't have to take my boots off to go in the house.

Put them on, take them off,

I avoid all that whenever I can.

Then I pick up the rakes and shovel and head off into the woods.

I thought you might like to see the rakes.

It took me a long time

 to find just the right kind of rakes that work for me.

The silver rake is my rock rake.

The round tines grab the leaves but

slip around and over the rocks quite well.

The green rake is my dirt rake.

The flat tines will hold and move a lot

of leaves and dirt.

But, it will lift way too many rocks off my driveway.

See those bare sticks?

They are the reason I started the whole path business.

That is how poison oak looks in the winter.

My dogs would run through the stuff

and I would have the worst cases of poison oak. Yuk!

So, I had the bright idea of clearing away the paths

that the dogs had made around the property.

This worked!

The dogs ran around the paths.

Well, except for the squirrel herding.

And the chicken herding.

Anyway, I was hooked making paths.

Be careful, if you see bare sticks like those

stay away

because you can still get poison oak from them.

I think you have seen enough photos of me raking paths

so here is just one photo of a finished path.

From one corner of the property to the next.

This is a short side.

Three sides to go, but they are easier

because they are really just narrow paths.

I'm quitting for the day

but Morgan is still on the job.

She is one quarter Australian Shepherd

and three quarters Border Collie.

It is hard wired into her to stay on the other side from me

with the chickens in the middle.

See her? Behind the tree.

I am going to have to do a chicken post

and tell you about what breeds of chickens we have.

Also, I have to do a bear post

because my daughter said that I got my facts

about the bear encounters mixed up.

And I'll tell you about

her hitting the bear

in the head with a metal dog food pan.

"You. Hit. The. Bear?"

"You hit the bear with what?"

This year my husband is helping with the leaves

and is using a leaf blower to move them

off the rocks.

(I have to tell you a secret...

I really like to rake the leaves because I enjoy it

and because it is great exercise.

So, I never asked him to help.

He does the roof and the gutters.)

He has got a bunch of the leaves

over here by the chicken coop.

I can use the leaf shovel to scoop these away.

Morgan would like the chickens in the pen

to come out so she can herd them

with the others.

Well, she tries, but the chickens don't all like to stay together

and split up into groups and go their different ways.

Which makes her a bit upset.

Before I went in the house I checked the coop

and found one more egg.

Pretty brown egg!

Boy, are the girls messy eaters or what?

The boards and metal are laid down outside

against the pen 

to slow down any critter

who would try and dig their way inside.

The only time I really worry is when we all leave

and Morgan is in the house

and the chickens are locked up without her protection.

If a large bear really wanted to get into the coop

he could just rip the door off with no problem.

But, the coop is very close to the house

and we have only been bothered by small young bears.

Farther up in the mountains there are larger coyotes

who work in packs and will take dogs as prey.

So far, we just have the smaller variety.

I hope the big guys stay up there.

I heard  a mountain lion up the road,

but I never saw him

and I haven't heard him in years.

Finally,

I get back to the house...

I remove the cover and find

that the elves were not at home last night

and

there are still a lot of bits of fabric

that need to be sewn together.

I don't plan on ever doing this again.

From now on I will cut my scraps into strips and squares

and file them in my new storage drawers.

So far, I have enough fabric sewn for 20 blocks

but I think I will try for 30.

I'll keep sewing.

Smiles!

Good Start

(all photos are clickable!)

These are all the scraps I had left after sewing

them up into what looks like a big mess.

I'm thinking "chicken scratch."

After I took these photos I did find some more fabric bits

to add to this jumble.

I would like to end up with

enough fabric to cut

into about 20 to 30 blocks.

I think they would look good in my chicken quilt.

I left the sewing on the table and went out to get my rake

and check on the chicken roost experiment.

The wood shaving look nice and clean.

I guess the chickens slept on the roosts.

Yay!

The girls are out and about in the leaves.

I finished the raking from the motor home to the gate.

And went to check on Morgan.

She is a versatile dog.

She not only herds chickens,

she also exerts a lot of effort keeping squirrels up in their trees.

She herds the squirrels from tree to tree.

Pretty neat!

OK, back to raking leaves.

Below is the before photo.

And this is 1/3 of the way finished.

If you click the photo,

you can see way down there past the table

are the rakes and a chair.

I take the chair with me

so I can take a rest now and then.

It is hard to tell in the photos

but these trees are very tall.

Some of them are over 100 feet tall.

And they make a lot of leaves!

There are many more leaves

over on this side of the property

so I resort to using what I call my leaf shovel.

It is really a snow shovel

that I push along gathering up leaves

and then push them off to the side.

Then I use the dirt rake

to finish up the job. 

Yep, it's a snow shovel.

Morgan is checking for the coyote.

I think.

Maybe.

Or?

There is something

over there in the woods

that she needs to watch.

A squirrel?

I'm done. For today.

The rake and leaves will be waiting for me

for the next month.

It takes a while to rake around

3 acres plus the driveway,

and around the house and other paths.

I hope it rains soon.

It is much easier to move damp leaves.

This is my "work outside in the woods outfit."

I love my boots!

Morgan wants to come in too! Please...

She has been working very hard

all day keeping the squirrels

up their trees, and keeping the

coyote and other critters

off the property.

My boots live outside next to the wheelbarrow.

The wheelbarrow is full of wood for the wood stove.

No, Morgan,

you know you have to wait

until the chickens go to bed.

Poor doggie.

I'm so mean.

But dusk is when the coyote wants his dinner.

I've let Morgan in the house

before we lock up the chickens

 and we have lost chickens to a hungry critter.

Go on, Morgan, go watch your chickies.

Smiles

PhD?

I read today on a blog

that Phd means

Project half done.

Well, my Japanese quilt isn't even half started.

I'm still working on the layout.

But these scraps are almost going to be done.

After I sew the bits together,

I will cut out some blocks.

I believe it is called stash busting.

Something like that.

After I worked on the bits and pieces,

it was time to go out and rake leaves.

But I was missing my dirt rake.

Ah, I remember I left it in the chicken coop,

where I used it last raking out the coop.

Big mistake!

I should never have gone  to the chicken coop

because I was captured for almost the whole day

doing chicken stuff.

(click the photos)

So, I left the strips and...

Went out to the coop and found

that the chickens had dug themselves a dusting pit.

So I put a good sized rock in the hole

to slow the girls down.

My daughter saw a coyote this morning

walking along next to the house.

The coyote can dig his own holes

and doesn't need any help from the girls.

Then I filled the hole up with dirt

and stomped on it a few times.

I found the rake.

I'm done right?

Wrong...

This is a view of the top of the chicken coop pen

without

a covering of leaves.

I used the hose to squirt off the leaves.

It was kinda fun to see the leaves go flying away.

Now the sun can shine into the coop

and warm the girls bedroom up.

That anchor fencing across the top

keeps the bears and the raccoons

out of the chicken coop at night.

A bear got in once, but that was because

my daughter didn't lock the door.

We were gone and she forgot.

Oops!

The bear story is another post.

Then I noticed that the girls had decided to roost on the edge

of their nest boxes and poo in them.

I have spared you photos of that.

Here is a photo of me cleaning out the boxes

and taking the wood shaving away.

The boxes are empty!

And there is a big bag of nice new wood shavings.

I would rather have straw

but we couldn't get a bale of straw in the car.

Well, we could but it would make a mess of the car.

Nest box full of clean wood shavings.

Now what to do about the poo problem?

I know! I will lower the roosts!

Here you can see the roosts are now lowered.

Thank goodness I used screws when I built this thing.

And thank goodness for power screw drivers.

I also strung wire across the top of the board of the nest box

to try and convince the girls to use the roosts.

We'll see how that works.

The eggs you see in the nest boxes

are wooden eggs.

I put them in there to fool the chickens.

They are not too smart

and I guess they think they have already laid an egg

and so they don't... lay an egg.

The chickens were molting and looked terrible

without feathers but they were still laying.

I wanted them to grow feathers instead of laying eggs.

Hey, it worked!

It is getting late and I'm still out here!

I cleaned the waterer, filled the feeders with lay and corn,

raked out their pen and

put oyster shell in a little pot under the feeder.

This pen would be too small for all the chickens

we have if they had to stay in it,

but they are out running around

most of the day in the woods.

So, it works out OK.

I had a little time left to rake

but I only raked halfway across the driveway

before it was time to quit

and go lock up the girls.

Here are the happy campers!

Good night girls!

Smiles

The Leaves and I

When I went down the driveway 

I heard a lot of noise.

It sounded like 

someone raking leaves into a large pile.

Rustle, Rustle, Rustle!

All these photos are clickable.

I checked!

Wonder what they're looking for?

Over there?

Oh, it's their doggie, Morgan!

Path not raked.

Path raked.

Well, started.

From the gate to the first bend.

Driveway not raked.

Part of the driveway raked.

From the middle out to where the rock stops and the dirt starts.

Part of the driveway to the gate not raked.

Part of the driveway raked.

I have to re-rake this again tomorrow

before I start on the rest of the driveway.

There is still a layer of old leaves stuck to the rock.

I much prefer raking the dirt paths

because raking over the rock

takes a lot of time

while I try not to rake up rock with the leaves.

When I moved here

I could not see the neighbor's house.

But since all the clearing to cut down the fire danger

their house is visible.

I did mull over the quilt design

while I was raking.

But, still no firm ideas yet.

Smiles

What a Difference a Few Weeks Make

The snow is almost all gone

(or is gone)

except for patches.

I filed away all the chicken stuff.

Which leaves me with only a small

pile of scraps to sew up and then cut into 6 1/2 squares.

I made 5 blocks in OmniGraffle.

Today I like this pattern best.

Whenever I make up a block I always think

that the block must have been done before

and already has a name.

I've got that old song

Lavender's Blue

running around in my head.

I remember singing it in school

in the 1940's.

Oh, it would be a lot of fun

to spend time in the quilt shop

picking out fabric for this block.

Or I suppose it could be a quilt...

just add some borders.

The photos below were taken today.

They are pretty much the same views

as the Christmas snow photos

I posted yesterday.

It is amazing how green everything looks.

And, yea! the leaves are out of the trees!

The snow and rain finally knocked them down.

I think I will start raking leaves tomorrow

and making paths

(they also act as fire breaks in the summer)

which will give

me time to meditate about the

Japanese quilt and how I am going to do the piecing.

Right now I think I want to free piece

starting with the carp

since it will be the largest piece.

I have to admit I am a bit afraid

of cutting into the fabric.

So, I want to have the steps all planned out in my head

before I start.

Then I can change stuff as I go along.

Working outside is a good thing

but I realize I am putting off working on the quilt

because I don't have a firm plan.

Maybe the leaves will inspire me?

Or I'm just afraid.

Yeh.

Have fun looking at the photos.

They are all clickable.

Smiles

Eat cookies!

These trees looked so different covered with snow.

The driveway is under the leaves.

I am going to be going up this ladder to get the leaves

off the garage roof.

The roof is not too steep and almost level on the sides.