A Morning Walk

My doctor's appointment went quickly yesterday morning. I think it took me longer to find the correct building and a parking space than it did for the whole appointment. She remains skeptical about the rheumatoid arthritis scare, and I am too. What I really wanted from her was a prescription for a compounded ointment that I know to be effective. For whatever reason, my PCP didn't want to prescribe it. She seems to have a bias against compounded medication given her abrupt dismissal of the idea. Both the specialist and I wondered why. In any case, that's done, and we're none the wiser, but I am going to get my prescription, so I'm happy with the outcome.

With that annoyance out of the way, I met up with Sue and we walked for the first time in over a year. Sue's sharp eyes caught this red tailed hawk off in the distance...far off in the distance. It's not a very good picture because I was zoomed in a long way to capture it. It seems to be looking in the other direction.

As I've mentioned before, there are beavers inhabiting Fanno Creek, where we were walking. We've seen their dams, but we've never seen any beavers. Still, the evidence is clear. I didn't notice whether they'd ringed the tree in the image below. The fence will protect it, but if they've ringed it, that tree will not survive.

Also in the "won't survive" category...this one:

Isn't that amazing what they can do with their teeth? I read a book some time back about beavers, entitled Eager, by Ben Goldfarb. 

It was fascinating to learn more about them, how they've been hunted and scorned, and the possibilities for curing flooding problems (yes, you read that right) by working cooperatively with the beavers. I can recommend it.

Farther along, the ducks were still in their little duck pond where we usually see them. We were talking to some on the other side of the trail when these three made a beeline for us.

As we visited with them, more showed up to greet us. I think they were just glad to see us.

Oh and then there was this:

Ichabod Crane must have ridden through here at some point.

The chickens now sport a sign requesting no feeding. Below the sign were their pictures and their names...mugshots, you might say.

This one is named Nugget.

This one is "The Great One Who Shall Not Be Named." Obviously, she doesn't want her picture posted on the internet.

So we had a nice walk, and we exchanged small gifts for Christmas. Sue gave me my annual cat slippers. I love these. They keep my feet warm, and they're great for RVing...light packers, don't you know.

It was around 2:00 when I got home, and I was able to finish tracing the rest of Calendula Patterdrip's Cottage sections 2, 3, and 4. It's nearly impossible to photograph the brown pen tracing on this mottled fabric, but there you go. By the time I took this picture, I had it backed with its muslin backing.

I've liberally spray basted to hold it in place, and then I took the largest machine stitch I could to baste all around the edges and a couple of rows of vertical stitches in the middle of the piece. These big stitches are easy enough to remove, and so I'll take them out as I need to while I'm doing the embroidery. Now this one is ready for travel.

While I was working on that, Sadie was making herself comfortable on the quilts to be quilted pile.

Okay, so next up I'm going to start sewing the Snowflakes together. I found this free pattern on Pinterest. You can find the free pdf right here. I like those pieced snowflakes, but I'm going to do them a little differently. I'll put an embroidered snowflake where the pieced ones are on this pattern. Then I'll used the pieced ones in the center setting squares. I'll do something different for the setting triangles. The blocks are 10-1/2 inches unfinished. My snowflakes are already trimmed to 10 inches, and so I'll need to put some kind of border on each one to bring it to size. (I'll probably trim them smaller first.)

These are the fabrics I've pulled from my stash. I'm not sure if I'll use all of them, and I might change my mind about it as I go. I expect I'll use the fabric on the left as the outer border. The one second from right will probably be for the setting triangles. The two tree fabrics in the center can be a border or a binding. The one to their right is a silver fairy frost. The one to the extreme right was the backing for the snow globes quilt. It might make a good border for the embroidered snowflakes. I'll just have to see how it goes as I'm sewing it together.

As much as one can be sure about this sort of thing, I'm pretty sure the two below will be used for the pieced snowflakes. The one on the right is a pale blue fairy frost, and the one on the left has silver metallic stars.

So...I was kind of surprised at how many fabrics I already had in my stash for this. Maybe this quilt has always been in my future, and I just didn't know it. Now I'm kind of excited to sew it into a finished top.

Mike and I are planning to take our new bikes down to the Fanno Creek Trail today and go for a longer ride. The weather will be chilly, but sunny, and so it should be a fun way to spend the day. Also, I'm going to give another try to the Tunnel of Fudge Cake for Two. The last try was overbaked, and so it lost the "tunnel of fudge" in the middle. This time, I'll bake it for less time, and in a different oven. Fingers crossed I can achieve the texture I'm looking for. Also, I'm trying a new slow cooker recipe that looked delicious. I'll tell you all about all of it in tomorrow's post.

For now, stay safe and healthy. I hope you have a good day planned at your end.