Matchsticks

The Deputy Chief of Fire Operations and I spent our Thanksgiving Day out in the woods burning slash piles.

This is ongoing cleanup from that horrendous windstorm last March. He had cut up some of the trees last spring and piled brush, but we can only burn at certain times of the year. We’d like to get as much of this done before burning season ends on Monday.

The husband put a propane torch to each pile to get it burning, but once it was going, this brush burned hot despite being soaked with moisture. It’s a sobering thought to imagine how it would burn in the middle of a hot, dry summer. Slash piles that are burned in the spring can smolder until a stiff breeze re-ignites them in hot weather. It’s better to burn now.

My job is to collect branches and put them on the piles, and then monitor each pile and rake it into a smaller pile as it burns down. I like the physical activity. I don’t feel 55 and I want to keep it that way.

We were taking a break on the porch mid-afternoon when the husband said, “Look, here come your turkeys,” and sure enough, a flock of about a dozen of them came running over to get their daily ration of scratch grains.

I told them they were lucky they weren’t on someone’s dinner table.

We’ll be back at this project today. The woods—what is left of them, anyway—look better, but there are still a few more dead and dying trees that need to come down, and hopefully not in another windstorm.

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I wasn’t feeling well on my actual birthday—some mild stomach complaint—but the universe made up for it when I ran errands on Wednesday. My first stop was Joann Fabrics, where all the knits were on sale for 60% off. I picked up enough for three more tops AND I found another length of knit fabric in the clearance bin for 80% off AND all the thread was Buy 3, Get 2 Free. I stocked up on more neutral serger thread.

I went to the quilt store north of town and picked up a spool of black Aurifil to use in the bobbin when we quilt the Noon and Night top.

Hobby Lobby is in that same area north of town. I was wandering through the bolts of fabric, waiting for the line at the cutting table to go down, when I spotted some Essex Yarn-Dyed Linen! This is produced by Robert Kaufman—the same lovely company that brings you Kona—and either I have to order it online or buy it when I go to Spokane. Granted, there were only a couple of bolts and they were mostly neutrals, but there was a bolt of the prettiest light green (a color called “Seafoam”), so I bought a couple of yards, destined to be at least one apron.

[That line has 147 colors, half of which are the yarn-dyed fabrics that look almost heathery. It’s a shame that whenever I see it in stores, the only colors offered are the neutrals. Some of the jewel tone colors are just gorgeous.]

Say what you will about Hobby Lobby—and I respect the fact that people won’t shop there for various reasons—but if Hobby Lobby provides me a way to buy Essex Linen locally, I’m going to buy it.

One of my last stops Wednesday was the quilt store south of town. I am now committed to a Bernina Q20. The store owner gave me a great deal—so great that I actually asked her if she was making any money on the transaction. (She assured me she was.) I am not sure yet when I am going to pick up the machine, but it should be some time within the next month or so. I am excited! I’ll be able to blast through the stack of quilt tops that have piled up, and that will make room for the quilt ideas in my head that are clamoring to get out.