Another rainy morning. I might need to buy some real rain gear if this keeps up. I’m not quite ready mentally for this week. I did prep the science lab for today before I left Friday. All I have to do is pour the grape juice. I did the water and baking soda ahead of time, but thought the ants might have too much fun with the juice. I haven’t seen ants this year, except for the first day after they had all those teachers in our rooms, and they left their lunch remains in my trash cans…I know better than to do that. My school was built on an anthill.
As always, I got a bunch done this weekend, but not enough. C’est la vie. I do what I can.
I spent most of Saturday grading stuff…sitting in here with 2 out of the 3 dogs…
It wasn’t very exciting…but it rained a lot. Not as much as on Friday, despite the warnings, but enough.
A lovely view.
And eventually I went back to the stitchdown…
But I didn’t finish. I wanted to, but I was really tired. Sleep seemed like the best option. It was a good decision, because I got hardly any sleep last night. Brain won’t Shut Up.
Sunday was the same mix of errands and household/work tasks that always fill up my first official day of the week. But I knew I wouldn’t be able to take the dogs out today, so we went yesterday…it was gorgeous out (good choice).
Everything is green…except for the trees that haven’t come into leaf yet. The rain had moved this bridge…most of the dogs jumped across.
Calli just waded over. She likes water…
The boychild tried to move the bridge back, but it’s heavy and I couldn’t help because I was holding three dogs. We don’t usually see water here…
It’s nice to see it occasionally.
Water on the path, draining down into the creek.
Someday I will remember to put a towel in the car…
There was no escaping the mud…although this was one option…
There will be lots of fire danger this summer.
It was a beautiful day for a walk though…lots to smell and explore…
We were going to go up the hill instead of across the bridge, but the stream went across that path and there were no rocks big enough to cross…so this is the view down from the bridge.
There’s usually water there anyway, but not quite this much.
Katie enjoyed this random pool of water.
Apparently she is sort of a water dog. When she chooses…
Then there was this, coming back…listen carefully…
The babies talk…we could see them up on the slope. And then mom and dad answer from the stream bed directly across, right where we’d been before. I’m sure you can imagine that conversation. “I told you not to leave the den.” “Mom, you said to call if someone came near.” “They’re nowhere near you. Get back in the den.” “Moooommm.”
Fun stuff. The only dog that reacted to the coyotes though was the little one. The other two just stood there.
They were all tired last night…a good thing. I stitched during the post-dinner TV moments…and he slept.
Sunday’s project is moons…a place for some handwork to happen.
The beginning of that is making some scenes or places for the moons to occur. Embroidery to follow. Lots of it. That’s the plan anyway. We’ll see what actually happens. That’s what I wanted with this daily project…some projects getting done finally, and some things I’ve wanted to try getting tried. I get tied up in deadlines on the art quilts and I never get to do other stuff. So there are two projects in the rotation that will allow that.
I finally went in to do this…
The last hour and a half of stitchdown. Finally!
Kitten agrees.
Actually mostly she said Pet Me. Loudly and insistently. I did a lot of that.
Then I checked the back, looking for things I missed, like this.
Three snakes. All of them have two eyeballs on the front…only one had two eyeballs on the back. So I fixed that.
The back is pretty fascinating.
And soon to be covered up for good…
I started piecing the backing out of leftover bits from other quilt fronts. I need to use up stuff before buying more. I hate piecing big pieces, but I’ll survive. I didn’t finish though. Stayed up too late, because my brain was racing. Tried to slow it down. Hopefully tonight I’ll finish piecing it and be able to pinbaste. We’ll see if I have time. So far there are 5 different fabrics on the backing, and I’ll need at least one more. Which is fine. I’ve had this pile of leftover pieces just lying around for ages. This is good.
It took 9 1/2 hours to stitch it down…I think I guessed 10. Not bad. I suspect quilting will be over 20 hours, easily. Looking forward to it. This quilt is taking much longer than I expected.
OK, but before that, I’ve got an early meeting, I’m running labs, I have a shitload of grading still, and it’s still raining, I think. Fun stuff.
*The Animals, House of the Rising Sun
Kathy Nida 
Looks like a wonderful walk and your quilt is looking great.
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