Plans. What plans?

When I got home I was greeted by a pile of sweet peat mulch - 4 yards.

After loading and spreading 10 wheelbarrows of sweet peat in two beds, I was close to calling it a night.

I decided to first spread and tamp in some marigold seeds on the far side of this bed. I had planted some here last year and they did really well.

Oh one more thing. Rain was forecasted so I need to cover the mulch before I called it a night. The tarp the mulch was on wasn't big enough, but I had another one so most of the pile got covered.

Here is the mom and fawn. The fawn was born Wednesday or Thrusday.

Saturday I had to take the car in for some scheduled maintenance. While I waited I walked over the the grocery store and the to a home improvement store. I got in a bit more than a mile by the time I got back to the car shop. I ran to a different home improvement store and bought a landscapers rake and a yard cart. My wheelbarrow is hard to handle anymore and I have to constantly fight with it to keep a braket at the front wheel from rubbing on the wheel.

I sat and rested for a few hours before I had to head out to go to a musical that some family members were in. I had totally forgotten about this so I am glad someone called to remind me! It was Sponge Bob the Musical and it was pretty strange. The kids did a good job and I could tell they were having fun pretending to be cartoon charaters.

The cool thing they did at the end of the show was to shoot bubbles out of the ceiling.

I got home late and I was beat. Sunday I decided to put together the landscapers rake and the yard cart. I hate assembling stuff! I figured out the rake after a bit of trial and error. This rake is wide and will help me level out all the bumps I have from the skid steer running thru the yard. The yard cart came with good picture directions and after an hour and a half I had one wheel left to attach and the handle. I could not get that last wheel on because of the way a bracket was not flat against the axle. I was trying to bend it with a hammer when my neightbor came over to get his mail. He helped bend the bracket and we finally got the last wheel on. That was exhausing! The bed of the cart can dump, but I haven't figured out how that works yet.

The rake - yes there were just two fasteners, but they proved a challenge to get in and tighten up.  

I needed to do dishes, cook food and do laundry which took up a good part of Sunday afternoon. When I did sit down I got started on a little cross stitch for a birthday card. The person's birthday is in a couple weeks so I needed to get this going.

I got a second wind, so about 6:00 p.m. I trimmed and mowed the front and one side yard. So, no work on the baby quilt or Harley quilt happened. The woman that runs the poker run which the Harley quilt is for might be coming to my nephew's show on the 30th for Ohio Bike Week. That will be my next effort to try and have the quilt done so I can hand it over to her.

Getting ready for the weekend

I had an appointment after work and had to stop and buy a tarp after that so it was later then usual when I got home. I am having 4 yards of sweet peat delivered today so before I left for work I had to get the tarp laid out. So much of this weekend will be moving mulch.

I was up in the kitchen cooking chicken for meals today and saw this huge raccoon waddle thru the yard. City racoons get big since there is always lots of garbage bins to raid year-round!  That blue tarp is where I keep the extra sweet peat. 

I walked by my big table in the sewing room and what a mess! It seems to be a landing place for everything! LOL!! I spent some time clearing it off so I could actually have a place to work this weekend. Much better!

So the list this weekend is mulching the flower beds and relocating the remaining mulch to the back yard storage area, fuel filter cleaning for the car, the Harley quilt, and maybe the baby quilt. That's a pretty good list, but I am sure something else will pop up. Have a great weekend!

Where have I been?

I have been busy and my computer wouldn't accept my new password so no internet access. It got my computer straightened out so now I'm back in business so let's catch up. There was a training session in the parking lot for Stand Down week. This is a safety week for fall protection. I helped with setting up the food and drinks. Last week I had bought the drinks and the safety guy had ordered the boxed lunches.

Everyone came up to the office from the job site and I was so surprised how many people we have out on site! Several people pitched in to help with the cleanup which was nice.

I have been working in the back yard filling in the ruts and three of the big ruts are almost filled in. I will throw some topsoil and seed on the light brown fill maybe this weekend. I know this looks the same as the last pictures I posted, but I did extend the fill about another 2 feet in each of the three rows and raked the areas smooth. There are some rocks at the end of the rows I still need to pick up.

When I got home from work yesterday there was a big box sitting at the door. I knew what was in it and was interested to see how the contents faired in its trip to my house.

I bought a new cutting mat.

It is slightly bigger than my old mats. It is actually 36" plus a little border not 35" with a border like the gray one.  Here I laid my gray one on top of the new one.

Look at how much thicker the new one is compared to the old one.

I was getting frustrated with rotary cutting because I wasn't getting clean cuts. My old gray mat was so scared, and the green mat had a hole in it that was from repeated cutting in the same spot when I made all those masks for the pandemic. The green one was my mother's so it was over 30 years old and the gray one was at least that old.

I had to try the new mat out so I cut some fabric for more project bags.

I may have to get another one of these mats. I like to butt the mats end to end when I cut long pieces or trim a border, but with the thickness difference I can't do that with the two smaller mats I still have. The old green mat and gray mat are in the trash.  When I carried the mats out to the trash bin the green one snapped in half.  It was brittle!  

It was a busy weekend

I kept busy this weekend. I finished up another shirt for the Harley quilt

Friday evenings I usually don't get much accomplished, but I sat down at the machine and got a bunch of 9 patch blocks sewn together. They went together quickly and it was hard to stop. I have a few more to make before I decided the final layout.

Saturday I headed out to the yard at 7 A.M. to start weeding. After 3 1/2 hours, a wheelbarrow full of mugo pine trimmings, and 8 - 5 gallon buckets of weeds and leaves, I had two beds looking better.

Let's just say that tired me out! I went inside and stitched a bit. I got another Seize the needle done and started on another one.

It took awhile to get moving on Sunday, but eventually I got back outside and pulled another half a bucket of weeds and trimmed the other mugo pine in the center flower bed. While I was trimming, I came across a bird's nest with three tiny eggs. I will keep my eyes on them to see if they hatch. I have no idea what kind of bird these are from.

I thought I would try and get a start on the bed along the garage.

I didn't know how far I would get with the skies looking like rain.  It never did rain. 

I got a bit more than half weeded and had enough sweet peat to dress the bed before I was just too tired to continue.

One of the cora bells Wanda sent me a couple years ago has really taken off and is about 14" tall. It doesn't have any flowers yet, but some of my other cora bells are starting to shoot up flower stems.

9 patch block progress and the yard

It all takes time. That is what I keep telling myself.  Keep plugging away and eventually you will get it done.  I have made some progress on the 9 patch baby quilt. Most of the strips are sewn together and sliced into the pieces for the blocks. Here are all the sliced ones ready for assembly in to blocks.

I have a couple more strips sets ready to slice, but I want to wait until I get all the blocks sewn together in case I need to rearrange the slices into the correct order I need meaning the darker fabric in the corners and center or the lighter fabric.

I worked an hour in the yard Wednesday and Thursday mowing and trimming. I hadn't mowed the back or one of the side yards yet this year and did they ever need a haircut! The ruts in the yard made it hard. I got about 3/4 of the back yard done before I ran out of steam.

I got the rest mowed last night and the back looks so much better. There were more ruts than I thought so it is going to take more dirt than what I had. I had to run some errands for work so while I was out I stopped and picked up 5 bags of topsoil. I have two bags left from last year, but I don't think this is going to be even close to what I am going to need. I will just keep buying a few bags at a time, fill the ruts and see if I need more.  The pictures don't show how lumpy this area is but believe me it's bad. 

This weekend I plan on staying home. I have some serious weeding that needs to happen besides working on the ruts. I would like to get some quilting done on the Harley quilt. I think I will save the baby quilt blocks to sew during the week when my time is more limited. Have a great weekend!