Open Season on Rodents

I walked out to the garden yesterday morning to check on vegetables. Something had munched on a few pea shoots but did not get very far—scared off by the solar light? Then I heard chirping. I know that sound. I turned around to see a ground squirrel standing up at the entrance to its tunnel, right next to the fake owl.

Bad words were said.

I marched back to the house for munitions. The husband got the 20-gauge shotgun and came out with me. The ground squirrel in the garden had disappeared, but we saw several of them in the woods next to the house. (I am pretty sure there is a highway system of tunnels from the woods to the garden.) By the time I left for church, he had shot four. He got another three while I was gone and a few more after dinner. Thankfully, the neighbors all know what we’re doing—these things are everywhere—although one of our neighbors said it sounded like WWIII over here yesterday morning.

I doubt we’ve even put a dent in the total population, but maybe they’ve got the fear of God in them now. My work in the garden is not intended to keep their tummies full. And they are doing a lot of damage in the yard:

I need some practice with the shotgun so I can take over rodent control from the husband. I am pretty good with my .22 but the shotgun is more effective.

“How much do you hate ground squirrels?” the husband asked me yesterday morning. I hate them a lot. Where are the coyotes?

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I’ve got a stack of about two dozen grocery bags ready to feed through the 1541. Our friend, Tommy, came by yesterday afternoon. He was out riding his new motorcycle and stopped by to deliver an invitation to a memorial service for a mutual friend of ours who died over the winter. Tommy does auto upholstery and has the Singer 78-1 that I borrowed from time to time. I showed him the 1541 and he sat down and sewed a bit on it.

I am hoping my needle order and the brown twill tape order arrive today. I’d like to get the curtains hemmed and back to my neighbor.

I have been enjoying Lindsey’s recent pattern review videos at Inside the Hem. She calls them as she sees them and I appreciate her honesty. The Big 4 pattern companies—although Lindsey notes that maybe they should be called the Big 7 (?) now because Simplicity, McCall’s, Butterick, Vogue, Know Me, New Look, and Burda Style are now under the umbrella of one website—have released their spring and summer pattern collections. In these videos, Lindsey goes through each new design and evaluates it from both fashion and construction standpoints.

[Shorts are big this summer. I prefer skirts in hot weather and will continue to wear them.]

A lot of Lindsey’s criticisms have to do with poor design, although she admits that the test garments weren’t made for each specific fit model, so some garments don’t fit perfectly. Still, she calls it out when she sees wonkiness. One of my major complaints (and hers) about pattern grading is that a lot of manufacturers make garments proprtionally larger all over as the size range goes up, which is not how to grade properly. The shoulders should not increase at the same rate as the bust, for example. Pattern companies seem to be as prone to this as ready-to-wear.

My sense is that a lot of the indie pattern designers got it right, and the Big 4/7 are now trying to catch up with their sizing and grading. We shall see.