First is Last

Good morning, my friends. We had four stops to make yesterday, but we were still home before lunch time. It left plenty of time in the day to finish off the other things I was hoping to do. Of course, I had to do my slow-stitching before anything else could happen. I’m working on the 2nd Santa now. I stitched his boots first, and now I’ve moved my hoop to encompass the rest of him.

Our first stop was to pick up some medicine at the pharmacy. After that, we went to the feed store to get more birdseed and some slug bait. (We refer to slug bait as slug "candy" around here.) While there, I got a chuckle out of this display.

After that, we dropped off our ballots at the ballot box. We're vote by mail in Oregon, and we love it. Finally, we could get busy purchasing groceries to get us through the week.

We had lunch and naps, and then we got busy outside. We wanted to get my little poppy starts into their forever barrel home.

The squirrels like to dig around in my pots, and so we erected a fence to keep them out at least until the poppies are large enough to fend for themselves.

And…wouldn’t you know it? It rained hard all night long. I haven’t been outside to survey the damage yet, but I’m worried about these little guys.

After that, I took a little walk around. I am beyond excited about the blueberries. We are going to have a bumper crop. I’m already plotting what I’ll be able to do with them.

The Joker peony has fully opened now.

There are lots more flowers coming. There are lots of flowers coming on all five peonies. If they all bloom together, it’s going to be gorgeous. And, after so much rain last night, I’m worried about how these did. I’ll get out early this morning and see if I can help them by emptying any water out of the flowers. If not…well…here are still lots of buds.

There is still one lush poppy barrel on our patio. I’ve been sad not to find any buds on it…until today. Even after inspecting it, I missed this big bud off to my right side. When I watered the other annuals, I noticed it. Yay!

Just below it, there’s another bud. I’m hoping we’ll see more, but two is better than none.

The dark purple rhododendron is starting to open.

It’s neighbor across the sidewalk is in full bloom now.

While I was inspecting the rhodies, I noticed Smitty stalking one of the oscillating sprinklers. You have to watch those things every second of every day.

Back in the greenhouse, I watered the seedlings. I was excited to see sprouts in 11 of the sunflower pots. They’re hard to see in the image below, so I’ve circled the ones I can find.

Also, two of three pickling cucumbers.

We spent some time sitting on our garden bench and drinking our Mike’s lemonades. We reward ourselves with Mike’s lemonade when we’ve worked out in the yard. 

It was late in the day by the time I was able to do any more quilting. This is Block 2 of the nine in the quilt.

There is just one block left, and then the borders. I left it needle down in Block 1. The borders will be for another day.

There was still time in the day, and so I trimmed the Hawksbill Honu piece to a manageable size.

When I purchased the Sashiko kit, I bought this fabric to finish it off at the same time.

I wanted to give it a stop border, and so I settled on this mottled purple from my stash.

When the two borders were added, it looked like this. It ends up at 21 x 24 inches.

I’ll use that same turtle fabric for the back, and I cut binding strips from the mottled purple.

Now that will move to the “Small Quilts to be Quilted” portion of my white board. It won’t have to wait long because it’s the only thing listed in that section. From here, I’ll start working on my list of WIPs again, starting with the Stair Steps project. These are the blocks I have for that project so far.

I’m making this quilt one row at a time. I’ll be working on the fifth of six rows this time around.

Okay, so Mike is having his first cataract surgery today. They’ve scheduled it at a civilized 12:40 p.m. You can be thinking about him at that time if you’re of a mind. We’re expecting to be at the doctor’s office for about two hours, and hopefully everything will go smoothly. We’ve heard from many, many, many people that they’re happy with the results of their own cataract surgery, and we’re confident Mike will be equally happy with his. We’ll have to return for a post-op appointment early tomorrow morning, and so it’s unlikely that I’ll blog tomorrow. If I can accomplish anything today, then I’ll be back tomorrow. If not, you can expect to hear from me again on Friday morning.

And with that, I’m off. But then, you probably already knew that. Have a good day, Everybody.