Invasion of the Forest Animals, Spring 2019 Edition

The husband and I spent half an hour yesterday morning re-baiting all the trap lines after a mouse ran out from under the refrigerator as I was making my way to the coffeemaker. The husband was upstairs sleeping at the time. “Did you scream?” he asked. “I exclaimed loudly,” I replied. “You would have heard me if I had screamed.”

It seems that twice a year, in the spring and the fall, all the forest animals decide that my house should be their house. Last August, we caught 10 mice in traps over the course of three days. The ants are marching through my kitchen again. And the robins have been busy. Last week, I found an old nest knocked down onto the porch. A few days later, this McMansion was in its place with a mama robin patiently sitting on eggs:

Every spring, like clockwork.

I was cleaning up the kitchen before leaving for church yesterday, and I looked out the kitchen window to see a chipmunk scampering around the woodshed, three deer in the yard, and a flock of turkeys rounding the chicken yard looking for scratch grains. The husband says that all we need now is the bear to come back.

Oh well, it’s nice to hear birdsong in the morning. I cleaned and filled the hummingbird feeders yesterday, too.

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I pruned fruit trees on Saturday. This is one of those jobs that always sinks to the bottom of the to-do list and doesn’t get done. It felt very satisfying to cross it off the list. We lost a peach tree, but I talked to Susan at church yesterday and she said some of her peaches weren’t looking too good, either. Our healthiest and most vigorous trees are the ones I bought from Costco about 8-9 years ago. Unfortunately, Costco hasn’t had them since or I would buy more. Also, the store tends to stock plants the first week of March, when it’s still cold and snowy, not the second week of May when it would be appropriate to plant. I am not thinking about buying fruit trees in March.

The husband asked me if I were going to prune the grapes. I am undecided. Pruning them last year had the unexpected effect of making them go nuts. Do I want that again?

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I am in a sewing funk, most likely post-project induced. When that happens, I turn to other tasks like organizing and prepping for future projects. I think today is going to be devoted to cutting. I am going to lose my cutting room soon; DD#2 will be here for a couple of weeks between graduation and moving to Seattle, and her bedroom is where I keep the cutting table.

I’m not sure what I want to make next. I took a break from quilts but I am feeling the itch again, especially as I ran across this new pattern from Cluck Cluck Sew this morning:

I’m not usually attracted to cutesy quilts like this—I tend to stick to more traditional patterns—but this is adorable and has so much potential for using up scraps and making each chicken unique. Also, it uses regular piecing methods. I don’t have the patience (or spatial ability) for paper piecing.