Catching Up

Sick cat, spinning, knitting, farming.... that's what has kept me away for awhile.

Yes - Ayashe (Cherokee??? for "Little One") our 5-pounder was SICK with pancreatitis. Within 24 hours of being her normal, nasty self, she stopped eating. We took her to the vet and were promptly told she was on death's door. She spent two days at the vet hospital, had every test known to mankind done, and then we were given the ugly diagnosis. The short story is that it is a mystery why she got sick, but now that she has had this, there is a 70% chance of her getting it again. So we will be keeping our eyes peeled for any odd behavior and rush her in the next time we suspect anything. We will also open up a saving account for vet bills. 2 days of unexpected vet bills really put us back.

On the sewing front, I have a little word of wisdom for you. YOUR FIRST QUILT SHOULD NOT BE A QUEEN-SIZE ONE. My quilt is on a time out. The top is done, it is pinned together to the batting and the back, and I just need to do the machine quilting part. Nothing fancy, just stitching in the ditch - in the lines where I sewed the pieces together. Sounds easy enough. I mean, getting to this point was long. Not hard, but long. And now I'm in the home stretch, right? Well, my work area is small, the the quilt is SO big and heavy. When I try to sew it, the poor sewing foot goes nowhere. It doesn't move. I need space to distribute the weight. I am frustrated and I just want to walk away. Maybe the magical quilt faeries will finish it in the night while I'm not looking? I'll figure it out, but it will just take time.

And lastly, we began farming the Mayor of Main Street's backyard! He has a nice little plot where he has planted things in the past, so we took advantage of that already prepared area and planted 180 onions - red, white and yellow ones. We also took better measurements of the total land that we are farming. 931 square feet! It needs to be cleaned up, double dug, enhanced with compost, etc. We have our work cut out for us, but I am so excited about the year to come. I am looking at seed catalogs and remembering the taste of fresh green beans, tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers, ....... yum.

In our backyard, we planted 60+ leeks. I think we'll be have enough onions to last us through the year, assuming that all the onions do well. We're having a hot streak, so I need to remember to water both plots sometime this week-end.