Quilts and Weddings and an Excess of Roosters

The Noon and Night blocks have all been sashed and sewn into rows. Tera stopped by Sunday afternoon and took a look at what I had done so far. She says we can custom quilt this quilt on her longarm. I am going to send her the EQ8 files and she’ll play around with some layouts.

I may take a break from that quilt today, though, to make masks. Also, I need to begin a thorough deep-clean of the house. DD#1 and her fiancé still plan to get married in October, but the event has been scaled back to just family, or what is being called a “microwedding” these days. The husband’s father and brother are planning to stay with us. I don’t think they want to sleep in the middle of a Joann Fabrics store. I have to do some cleaning and rearranging and I need to start soon.

With all of the disruptions and uncertainty, wedding planning got put on hold and we’ve spent the last couple of weeks trying to get things back on track. DD#1’s fiancé was in the middle of his last clinical dental rotation in March when everything shut down and he had to go back to Seattle. The university graduated his class despite the interruption, but then there was an issue with the students taking their board exams. They finally got that straightened out and he received his dental license last week. He has taken a position with the Coast Guard/Public Health Service. The two of them will be moving to Ketchikan, Alaska, after the wedding. I am excited about this—Ketchikan was one of the stops on the knitting cruise JC Briar and I did some years ago and I am eager to go back.

Another one of our employees gave his two weeks’ notice yesterday. I was expecting this, as he didn’t really seem to be into the work and we hired him mostly because he was a friend of our other employee, the one who left to get a desk job. So now we’re down to one reliable employee and one kid who works three days a week but is going into the service this fall.

We’ll see if this guy hangs around for the full two weeks or not. Sometimes these employees give their two weeks’ notice, leave that day, and never come back.

It is what it is. All of the builders are in the same boat.

My friend Susan gifted me with some apricots on Sunday. She doesn’t get apricots from her trees every year, but when she does, she shares generously. I made a batch of apricot chutney with them yesterday. I love Indian food and a little bit of chutney is a great addition.

And I finally bought one of these:

It’s a silicone egg mold for the Instant Pot. I confess to a love of Starbucks Sous Vide Egg Bites. They are usually my breakfast choice when I am traveling. I’m going to experiment with making them here.

I think we’re going to have to integrate the chicks with the rest of the flock soon. The baby roos all had a recent growth spurt and now look (and sound) like real roos. We have six. The pullets are also big enough now to hold their own with the other hens. We’ll have to see how it works having one big flock with eight roosters. The husband reminds me that we’ve had this situation before, but I also know that having that much testosterone in a confined space is a recipe for trouble. The roosters have a hierarchy just like the hens do; the difference is that hens very rarely go full gladiator on each other. I am steeling myself for possible bloodshed.