Birthday Week Continues

Today is Mike's birthday. When we got together and decided our little family, anyone who didn't have a birthday the first week of May was automatically excluded. We made exceptions for Erik (October birthday) and Matthew (April birthday). They were kind of cute when they came along, and besides...they couldn't help when their birthdays were assigned to them. Oh yes, and there's Smitty (April birthday), and Sadie (who knows?). So a few outliers. I suppose there are a few in every family.

We took care of business yesterday, loading up on bird seed and groceries. When we got home, we mostly relaxed for the rest of the day. I needed to wet things down in the greenhouse. Take a look at the cat grass. It's looking more lawn-like every day. I'm guessing a week or two, and I'll be able to move this out to the catio for the kitties to nibble.

Also, I'm happy to say there are sprouts in the majority of the little flower pots. Most of these are sunflowers with a couple of zucchini and some poppies thrown in.

And then I turned around to look at the lettuce and found this!!!

 WTF?!?! Squirrels!!!! At some point this winter, they tunneled under the exterior wall of the greenhouse and dug around in my covered potting soil. Yes, I said, "covered." No problem for them, they just removed the boards I had covering it, and dug around in my little seed pots. Well. That was one thing, but now those little suckers have been digging around in two of the lettuce pots AND the potting soil. So, Mike filled in their little tunnel with gravel, poured ammonia into it, and covered it with a heavy rock. That ought to give them something else to think about. Knowing squirrels, it wouldn't surprise me at all if they just tunnel under somewhere else. If that happens, we might have to take more drastic measures. I was going to just leave this lettuce pot until this morning, but then decided to go back and smooth things over and replant the seedlings that disappeared in all this rooting around. Honestly...I'm not someone who goes around killing little animals, but

THOSE SUCKERS BETTER STAY OUT OF MY GREENHOUSE!!!!!

Don't make me bring out the big guns. Oh yes, I will do it!

Okay...moving on.

I needed some sewing after that outrage, and so I got to work on the square-in-a-square blocks. All-in-all, I will need 72 of these. I decided to work with one border at a time, and so I made ten of the lighter red...

and then ten more of the darker red.

When I had them sewn together, I added them to the left side of the quilt top.

Before I finished for the day, I had the right side done too.

Sadie had other ideas about how this quilt should look.

When I headed upstairs for dinner, I found Smitty waiting for his own dinner.

After dinner, I took a little walk around outside to see what's new. The rhododendron in front of the house is beginning to open.

The golden chain tree is sooooo close. It's hard to wait.

Also enticingly close is the dogwood tree.

Today I'll get back to the poppy mosaic. I'm hoping to finish it off today. The top and bottom borders are a little shorter, and then I'll add a narrow green border all around.

Mike is going to spend the afternoon with some friends. They have a remote control airplane club, and today is their day to get together and fly their little airplanes. Mike is going to watch them. Matthew is going to go camping/boondocking in the Mt. Hood National Forest for a day or two. That means I'll have the afternoon to myself here...something that hasn't happened in months. I'm looking forward to it.

This morning I'm making Mike's favorite Eggs Benedict for his birthday, and I'll make him a nice dinner this evening. In between, sewing...and spying on squirrels. I'm telling you, those suckers better mind their manners.