A Day in the Life

Now that the [mostly] good weather has arrived here at the Three Cats Ranch, mornings start pretty much the same every day...with kitties sitting at the glass door saying, "Open, open, open." We don't let them out until there's some activity outdoors.

They've worked out a pretty good routine for themselves. Out the door around 8:00 a.m., in for the day at around 1:30 p.m. They could stay out longer, but they usually come in for naps. After that, we shut the door. We don't want them heading out again after their naps, or we'll have trouble getting them in later in the day. At first, they whined about the early end to their day. Now, they seem almost relieved when it's time to come in.

Once the door is open, it's cats on a mission! They always head first to where the RV is parked. That's where most of the squirrels reside. So far this summer, neither has caught a squirrel, but it isn't for lack of trying.

Yesterday morning, I filled my hoop and then moved it to the next position.

When I'm ready to move it again, it will be very nearly finished.

Then, I went for a walk around. The purple iris are blooming now.

Mike got the drip irrigation set up for the tomatoes yesterday. It's always a relief when I can stop worrying about keeping them watered.

The poppies are going great guns. They're still a little too small to plant outside, but soon enough I'll be moving them.

We've cleared out a space in one of the whiskey barrels for them. They'll have all new dirt. We're going to make some sort of "cage" for the top of the whiskey barrel until they're well-established. I'm afraid the squirrels will dig them up. Also, two cats think this would make a lovely litter box.

The lettuce had a puny showing this year. I planted 15 seeds in 3 varieties, 5 seeds each. Only three seeds of two varieties came up. One variety was a complete bust. My seeds are several years old. It's probably time for some new ones.

On the other hand, we get a lot of lettuce in our CSA share. Possibly, we don't need much lettuce. I'm still deciding.

Here's my wimpy basil plant. It would be larger except I keep cutting things off of it.

The squirrels have thoughtfully planted sunflowers next to the catnip. This has potential. I'm going to let these grow.

Whatever ate the top of the cherry tomato plant didn't succeed in killing it. It seems to be making a comeback, and it's put out a lot of new leaves.

The new hanging cherry tomato has two tomatoes on it! This thrilled me beyond measure.

After my tour of the garden, I made a tour of the grocery store. With Mike at home, I can have him pick up little items on his many trips to the hardware or auto parts stores. It means I'm making fewer trips. Which also means the trips I take tend to be big ones, and yesterday's trip took most of the morning. When I got home, we had lunch, and then naps. Then it was time to get sewing.

The Quiltmaker's Garden has me dragging my feet. I'm really so tired of working on it. Getting it quilted and bound is my May OMG, but my commitment is waning. Possibly it won't get finished until June. It's supposed to be fun, right? Yesterday's quilting was rather uninspired. I'm at the top of the gazebo, and I've struggled with ideas about how to quilt it. For this section, I did some insy-outsy, swoopty-doopty things. (These are technical quilting terms, so try to keep up.)

Then I went for the low-hanging fruit. I've already done most of these little yellow-centered flowers, and so I continued with what I've done before.

Here's how it looks from the back.

I quilted feathers into the butterfly wings, as I did with the other butterfly. Then I tried this sort of braided leaf thing on one of the gazebo cross beams. It isn't very even, and I'm considering taking it out and trying again.

The idea of taking it out makes me feel even less like working on it, if such a thing is even possible. Here's how it looks from the back. I'm going to quilt all around it and then see how I feel about it. It's possible, this less-than-perfect motif will just get lost in the quilting shuffle.

So, yeah...as I've been writing this post, I've been thinking I'll forget about it as the May OMG and recommit in June. There are other things I'd rather work on, and I'll probably do a better job if I take a break from it.

This morning Sue and I are walking the Fanno Creek Trail. It's been many moons since we've walked there, and so I'm looking forward to seeing how things are growing. Usually, we see ducklings along the trail, but it might be too soon for them. It's time to eat breakfast and be on my way. Oh yes, and we're celebrating 43 years of wedded bliss today! This might surprise you, but I wasn't even born when we got married! Mike literally robbed the cradle. We're having dinner out tonight. The month of May is murder on our diets.