Critter Incursion

Mike and I were standing at the window this morning when the squirrel kits made an appearance. One by one, they came out of their little hidey hole. When all was said and done, we counted seven for sure, and possibly one more. I couldn't get them all in one frame, but I documented their assault.

These two look as if they're discussing their next mission to take down the snapdragons growing nearby.

These two clearly have their eyes on the poppies.

These two are the girly squirrels, hanging out with their mom.

This one is already on a mission to capture the wily strawberry. Hey, Buddy! You forgot that ripe one in the foreground!

These two are tussling. I imagine they're training for any hand-to-hand combat that might be necessary.

And here's the saddest thing you'll ever want to see. Possibly I should use one of those filters that blocks graphic content. Smitty cannot tolerate the hellscape that has become his life. Squirrels are running roughshod, and he finds himself impotent to do anything to purrtect his propurrty. It's a crying shame, and he yowls loudly in purrtest.

Meanwhile, the coyotes are howling and yipping. One starts up with a lone long howl, like you might hear in a horror flick. Then about half a dozen others chime in with their yipping and yapping. Sometimes they sound very close. At other times, they are farther away, but they are clearly present most of the time. I can only hope that Smitty and Sadie understand that the coyotes are the reason we've clipped their wings. I'm not sure who is grieving more...them or me. Yesterday I yanked out a handful of grass and brought it inside for Smitty, who loves a good salad every now and then. I'll keep doing it because he loves to nibble the grass and the fresh catnip.

A few of you have asked me about the catio, and yes, they can go out on the catio any time they want to. For now, they're staying inside to torture me with their incessant protesting of the change in the conditions of their employment. They insist they absolutely cannot maintain their perfect record of keeping the property cleared of little furry mammals if they are not allowed to roam freely. Certainly, I have no response for that. I hang my head in shame.

Back inside, it was time yesterday to decant the chive blossom vinegar. Pretty, huh? You might remember that I started this two weeks ago and explained how it's done. You can use fancier vinegars, but I just use plain white vinegar. After two weeks, it's turned a pretty pinkish-purple, and it smells beautifully of chives. It can be used like red wine vinegar. It's especially good in vinaigrette.

For my sewing yesterday, I put together the two Charm Stars for this month's Rainbow Scrap Challenge. When I left off on Monday, I had all the squares cut and a line drawn from corner to corner so that I could turn them into half square triangles. When I had them sewn and trimmed to size, it laid them out. It's a bit of a puzzle putting them together and getting all the color values properly placed.

Then I sewed them together. First one...

then the other.

Then I laid them out with their brother and sister blocks from previous months. I love how this is looking. There are still eight blocks to make for the complete quilt, and then I'll add borders. When it's finished, I'm hoping it will be large enough for the bed in the fifth wheel.

They take a long time to sew together, and I was kind of tired of sewing by the time I had them finished. Besides, I needed to love on the kitties and tell them how sorry I am. 

I have one other Rainbow Scrap project in 2019, but I think I'll wait to do the other one until next week. For now, I have a yen to get going on the Chicken Buffet quilt top. I spent some time looking at it yesterday.

When I started this quilt, I was still cutting all the pieces before doing any sewing and so all the sashing and border strips are cut. Also, each block has a black flange surrounding it. There are also a couple of randomly place wonky stars in the sashings. There's quite a bit of sewing still to do to finish this off, but having the cutting already done gives me a good head start.

So that's where I'll spend most of the day. Our family weekend get-together is approaching, and I've been doing some thinking about that. There isn't really anything else I can do before Friday, and so the rest of the week will be taken up mostly with sewing of some kind.