Happy Father's Day!

It's a day to celebrate fathers, and we'll be honoring the father of my children in a big way. When I'm finished here, I'll be making his favorite breakfast of Eggs Benedict. Erik and Mae are smoking a pork shoulder today, and we'll have dinner at their place this evening. It rained more than expected yesterday, and it's still very gray this morning. We're hoping it will dry up and warm up for our celebration this evening. Erik and Mae have done so much work on their yard, and it's very nice spending time outside when we're at their place.

The kitties were chomping at the bit to get outside yesterday. Disappointingly, it was a little too wet for hunting, or much of anything else. Smitty spent a little time sitting under the eaves on our wood box, but then came back inside, disgusted with his world.

In the sewing room, I was making the next row of blocks for the City Bank quilt. So far, I'm using just blues and greens for this quilt. I may decide to add a couple of lavender blocks, as the pattern suggests.

It was started to use some of the blue and green scraps, but if I run out of pieces large enough, I could add the lavender. For now, this is what I have. 

There are 7 rows of 6 blocks...42 blocks in all. I have 18 now. 

Next on the list was to make the third cat for the Ties & Tails quilt. This time around, I'm making the "fat cat."

And when I start doing anything cat-related in the sewing room, the crew shows up to help.

Sadie, Mom's making a cat quilt. She's going to need our expurrtise for this.

Okay, Smitty. I'm turning on my lasers now. I want to be laser focused for this kind of work.

Stay there, Sadie. We need to have a secret confurrence about our strategy. You know how she is. She'll just keep sewing and ignoring our expurrt counsel and go her own way. And you've seen how things end up. There are blue cats and pink cats. It's truly grotesque sometimes.

How should we appurroach this purroblem, Smitty? Pawssibly, we could just sit on her sewing table, and she could use one of us as her living purrototype.

While they were talking, I did the cutting. It takes almost as long to do the cutting as it does to make the whole quilt block.

When I was ready to start sewing things together, Smitty returned with his recommendations.

Sadie thought she could encourage me to use blacks and oranges.

Is she doing it, Smitty? Is she making one that looks like me?

One would think with furs as beautiful as mine, it would be hard to withstand temptation. And besides #blackfurmatters.

But no...I resisted the urge and went with browns and golds. I first had to make the cat's head and attach the collar. This is a tricky step. Having done it once already, it was easier than the first time around.

When I had that finished, I added the tie section. The tie section is paper-pieced.

And I'm gonna go out on a limb and say that's a tie any father cat could wear with purride.

I was kind of tired of sewing when I had it that far, and the weather had dried up some. It seemed like a good time to get outside and fill the bird feeders. Along the way, I checked on the hydrangeas. They just need some sunshine and they'll pop open.

I might have thought the poppies were finished blooming, but I noticed a new one had opened up.

With some warmth, this Garden Treasures peony should open today. The petals were peeling back as I looked at it yesterday.

Speaking of the peonies, I received a response from Leon at peonies.org about the Rosy Prospects peony that went straight to seed without blooming. Here's what he said:

"I think your plants will be ok in the future.  Peony plants bloom each year from the energy stored in the roots through the prior years growth. If your plants kept leaves on them through this summer then you should see bloom in the future.  The first year the plant has to put down roots which also expends energy.  

You might also check with Carol Adelman on this.  Perhaps there was something in your weather that could have affected bloom. Cold and wet can cause mold to be prevalent and this can cause some buds to not bloom."

I've already written to Carol Adelman at Adelman Peony Gardens, the growers I purchased from last year. I'm still hoping I'll hear from her, but I was reassured by Leon's answer.

As I was out wandering around, Smitty was following close behind. He paused to check on the hole where squirrels go in and out of their little squirrely neighborhood. 

He caught his 7th squirrel a few days ago, and we trapped our 5th. We're seeing a few less. We're getting less mischief in the greenhouse, but they're still getting in. Our trap is set up inside the greenhouse, and we'll just leave it and catch the little marauding buggers as they come in. With less work for him to do, Smitty can pause to smell the dead daffodil heads.  It's important to appurreciate the beauty in one's life, don't you think?

Yesterday morning, I finished up the section of embroidery I was working for Dancing Chickens and Flying Pigs. I started in the middle of the block because I wanted to do the lacings on the shoes first. 

Now I've moved my hoop to the left, and I'll start there this morning. 

My stomach is growling, and I imagine Mike's is too. It's time to get Father's Day 2020 off to a start with a breakfast of Eggs Benedict. Happy Father's Day to all you fathers out there.