From the back porch - October 26, 2020

 Yesterday, I was as worthless as tits on a boar hog.  It rained off and on all day, so getting outside was no fun, and I didn't have any projects in progress to keep me occupied inside.  I'd finished (no kidding!) the little cross-stitch embroidery piece I'd been working on, so I scrounged around, looking for something else to do.

I made these hats a couple of weeks ago.

They need decorating, and the white one needs some additional felting (it's too fuzzy).  My intention was to decorate the tan one with felt flowers, but I couldn't find my needle-felting tools.  So I moved on to a partially-finished jewelry kit I found in the craft closet during last weekend's scavenger hunt.  Unfortunately, the instructions were missing from the kit.  They're around here, somewhere, but I was too lazy and too irked to hunt for them.  

Thus went the entire day:  come up with an idea, and nix it when I can't find the stuff to do it.

I did manage to do a couple of loads of laundry and change the bed sheets.  Yay me.

As dinner time approached, I ratted around in the refrigerator for something to cook.  In the meat drawer were two pounds of ground beef that I'd bought last weekend, and various packages of cheese.  The meat was a little gray, but smelled okay.  I decided to use one pound for a meat loaf (thinking ahead to tonight's dinner) and the other for enchiladas.  When I got ready to assemble the enchiladas, I discovered that almost all of the cheese in the refrigerator was furry.  I ended up using multiple slices of American cheese with the enchilada meat, and found a handful of non-furry grated cheddar to sprinkle on top.  The enchiladas were . . . meh.  We ate them, anyway.

For the past three weeks, I have been suffering with seasonal allergies that morphed into bronchitis.  After two rounds of antibiotics, I'm still coughing.  At night, I've been slamming down a capful of cold medicine, but when I lie down, the cough gets worse.  One night last week, The Husband suggested that I try a toddy instead of the decongestant.  I mixed up a shot of whiskey, honey, and lemon juice, and slept all night for the first time in two weeks.  I've looked forward to bed-time every night since.  ;)

 

Paper-Making 2 - October 25, 2020

Yesterday's paper-making experiment was partially successful.  Let's call it a "learning experience."

Here's a quick run-down of the process:  

1. Gather used paper, tear it into bits, and soak it in water until it gets mushy.

2. Put the mushy pulp in a blender with some water and whizz it to break up the lumps.  I'll call the resulting mixture a "slurry."

3.  Put the slurry into a mold, and press out most of the water.  

4.   Dump out the newly-formed slurry, and let it dry.  Ta-daaaaa . . . paper!

There are multiple ways to accomplish each step.   

The very first thing I did was a mistake; I cut up the cut-away stabilizer in my sewing room trash can, intending to incorporate it into my paper sheets, thinking it would strengthen the paper.  Mistake.  Dumb mistake.  Cut-away stabilizer is meant to stay intact when wet.  It would not dissolve in water.  It would not disintegrate in the blender.  Since I had cut it into tiny, tiny bits, picking those bits out of the slurry was out of the question.  But since I had a bucket of stabilizer/paper mix, I decided to go ahead with the whole process, knowing that the resulting paper would not turn out well.  I wanted to experiment with adding things like flower petals and leaves to the paper and thought I might as well do all of the experimenting at once.  

While the paper was soaking, I constructed a mold out of two old 5 x  7 picture frames.  I stapled window screen to the flat side of one frame, and hinged the other frame to the first frame with fabric straps, so that the contraption would open like a door.  This worked fine.  In one of the videos, the mold had a layer of hardware cloth under the window screen.  I did not see the point of that until I got to step 3 (above).  The window screen, by itself, tended to "give" as I pressed down on it.  A layer of hardware cloth (or even plastic needlepoint canvas) would support the window screen better.

Here's a picture of my experiments:

The sheet on the left is the first one I made.  It is a combination of stabilizer and regular paper.  You can see the white bits of stabilizer showing in the paper.  

The top right sheet has a leaf pressed into it.  I poured some slurry into the mold, added the leaf, and poured more slurry on top.  As you can see, there are bare spots.  The other side of the paper has random orange stains.

The lower right sheet was made from paper towels that I'd used to mop up water from the previous two attempts.  It has tiny rose petals pressed into it.  It is, by far, the best-looking of the three attempts.

All three sheets are still pretty wet nearly 24 hours later (it's been raining), but they are holding together.  I expect that none of them are actually usable, except maybe the one with rose petals, but I doubt it could be written on, as I did not put any sizing in the slurry.

I'm going to keep trying.  

Making Paper - October 24, 2020

 I am going to try making paper out of - well, paper.  :)

It all started with a small embroidery kit that I bought to keep my hands busy during long, boring work days.  The design is a canning jar with a few flowers in it.  The whole thing will finish about 4" x 5".  As I was working on it at home a few days ago, The Nugget asked, "What are you going to do with that when you finish it?"  I hadn't really thought about it, but as I continued to work on it, I thought that it would make a nice cover for a journal or a book of poems.

But I didn't want to just go out and buy a journal or a book and cover it.  I've been wanting to try making paper, anyway, so . . . . 

We have a lot of scrap paper around here.  The stabilizer that I use for machine embroidery is made of paper.  My sewing room trash can is full of it.  The Granddaughters draw and write on copy paper and leave it all over the place.  So this morning I gathered up all the stray paper and chopped it into bits.  Those bits are soaking in a tub of water right now.  

I'll need to make a screen of some kind and gather some other supplies.  Time to watch some how-to videos!

Garden Check - October 22, 2020

 

I went down to the garden this afternoon to see if the butterbeans were ready to pick.  According to my earlier posts, I planted them the first week of August, and they sprouted within just few days.  The seed package said 90 days to maturity.  We're getting close.  The pods are beginning to fatten, but they're not ready yet.  There's a big stomped-down trail across the rows where a neighbor's cows escaped their pasture and strolled through the bean rows.  And while I was bending over, feeling the pods, the plants commenced to shaking like there was an earthquake.  I couldn't see what was causing it - my first thought was SNAKE! - and nearly broke my neck trying to back away before a big old rabbit shot out of the garden and headed for the woods.  

The turnip greens are about ready to pick.  The cows tromped through them, too.

We're STILL picking squash.  Got a few tomatoes, too.  

The okra is about 8 feet tall, and still blooming.  I didn't even think about cutting it.

We have three very healthy-looking cabbages.  They're starting to form heads.  The brussels sprouts are coming along, too.  

Tooth Fairy - October 21, 2020

 Yesterday afternoon, when The Granddaughters arrived home from school, The Nugget ran up to me and said, "Grandmama, I lost a tooth today at school!"  

I said, "Show me!"  

She grinned real big, but the poor kid was missing so many teeth that I had to ask her to point to the space where the tooth had been.  

She asked, "Do you want to see my tooth?"  

Thank goodness that I said, "Yes," for if I had not, the Tooth Fairy might have wound up on The Nugget's bad list.

She dug around in her back-pack and came up with a tiny orange plastic treasure chest.  Inside it was a tiny white tooth.  (Do 1st Grade teachers keep a stock of tiny treasure chests for this purpose?)

Fast forward to 10 p.m..  The Nugget had been asleep for an hour by that time.  As I was on my way to bed, I spied the little orange treasure chest on the desk in my office.  I picked it up and shook it, and it rattled; the tooth was still in it.  Nugget had forgotten to put it under her pillow.  Both she and her older sister were asleep on the top bunk bed, with the older sister on the outside.  I had little hope of getting the treasure chest under Nugget's pillow without waking her. 

I went back to the living room and told The Husband about the problem.  Neither of us knew how much money the Tooth Fairy pays for teeth these days.  In any case, I was limited to cash on hand, a whopping $2.00.  I smoothed out the two bills, laid them on the desk, and set the orange treasure chest on top of them.

Fast forward to this morning.  When I came out of my bedroom, Nugget and her older sister were in my office, arguing.  

"Yes, you did," Nugget was insisting.

"NO, I DIDN'T," Lou-Lou said.

When she saw me, Lou-Lou said, "Grandmama, the Tooth Fairy left Nugget some money for her tooth, and she didn't even put it under her pillow!"

I said, "WOW!" and continued my trek toward the coffee pot.

Behind me, I heard Nugget say, "I know it was you.  The Tooth Fairy always takes the tooth."

For me, it was one of those forehead-slapping moments.  It had been a very long time since the Tooth Fairy had visited my house.  ;)

* * * * * * * * 

October 18, 2020 - Addendum

 

Remember the potatoes I planted in the 40-gallon tub?  I harvested them today.

Here's my crop:

From the back porch - October 18, 2020

 It's raining this morning.

I hope it drowns that blasted mole I've been trying to trap for 2 days.  

I found his trail Friday afternoon about 2:00.  It was at least 30 feet long.  I stomped it flat and set the trap - a viscous, scissor contraption.  Two hours later, the mole had re-dug the entire tunnel, somehow managing to avoid the trap.  I pulled up the trap, lubricated it, and re-positioned it in the trail.  Yesterday morning, it looked half-sprung, but when I pulled it up, the scissors were still closed, and there was no mole in it.  It appeared that the mole had dug around it.  I stomped the trail flat again and re-positioned the trap.  From where I sit now, I can see that I still haven't caught the mole.  

Yesterday was an exceptionally beautiful day, trap failures notwithstanding.  Mid-afternoon, we went to a "drive-by" birthday party for Uncle B from across the road.  It was his 90th birthday.  They held his party at his church.  I'm not sure how effective the "drive-by" part was for keeping him safe from covid, for he walked up to every car to visit with each guest.  Hopefully, the occupants of the car were wearing their masks, as we were.

After the drive-by party, The Husband and I drove down to the river (the Mississippi) and through the river bottom farmlands, cotton on one side of the road, soybeans and corn on the other.  It had been years since either of us had taken this drive.  The river was surprisingly low, with sandbars exposed.

Last night, after the kids and granddaughters came home from their excursion, we built a fire in the back yard and listened to the owls and coyotes while the granddaughters played hide-and-seek in the yard.  It was nice.  :)

Sunday dinner - Oct. 11, 2020

 

Cooking Sunday dinner today.  Cooking BIG:  baked ham, hamburger steaks in gravy (brown AND tomato), mashed potatoes, slaw, butterbeans, pineapple casserole, and peach cobbler.  I'm hoping that'll do it for a couple of days.  Most of it is done, already, or on auto-pilot. 

The butterbeans were dried Fordhook beans.  I cooked some for the first time a few months back and was not very impressed with them.  They tasted fine, but had big, tough skins that slipped off the beans during the soaking and the cooking.  If I'd cooked those beans long enough to get the skins tender, the insides of the beans would have been pure mush.  Today, I tried a new tactic:  as the bean skins floated to the top during cooking, I dipped them up into a cup, and when I had a cupful, I whizzed them (with some cooled cooking liquid) in the blender and poured them back into the pot.  Then I just cooked until the beans suited me.  Problem solved.

I was going to tell you about the big dinners I used to have every Sunday, before my children got wheels and while my parents were living, but I am distracted by a battle going on under one of the porch chairs.  This chair has two little spiders living under it.  (I battle spiders every day.)  I just watched one of the little spiders attempt to wrap up a stink bug that's probably 10 times the spider's weight.  I thought for a minute that the spider was actually going to win, despite the stink bug's struggles.  I saw it hurry down the web, do a few spider moves, then hurry back up the web.  The stink bug was cowering between in the space between two floor boards.  The spider came back down the web and approached the stink bug, then it (the spider) suddenly JUMPED BACK, as if the stink bug had blasted it with something caustic.  (Can stink bugs blast?)  The stink bug calmly disentangled itself, and motored away . . . straight toward the other spider's web.  I wonder if the stink bug is stupid or self-confident.

  

Armadillo APB - October 10, 2020

It's raining this morning, courtesy of whatever hurricane is in the Gulf this week (Delta, maybe?).  It was raining - okay, misting - when I came home from work yesterday, so I didn't get any gardening done.  Truth be told, I could've worked a little, but was too lazy.

Instead, I looked for the piano rug.  It wasn't in the top of the craft closet, as I expected.  I'm stumped.

After supper, The Husband and I came out to the porch to chill for a while.  Suddenly, he jumped up, grabbed the spotlight, and started shining it around the back yard.  He's heard something crunching through the fallen leaves.  "There he is!" he exclaimed.  It was a big armadillo, probably the one that has been digging up our yard for the past couple of weeks.  It was hunkered down between the porch and the 4-wheeler, which was parked less than 10 feet from the porch.  

I said, "Shoot it!"

He said he hated to shoot it, especially where it was (he didn't want to hit the 4-wheeler or shoot in the direction of the neighbors' houses).  

I said, "Then club it with something!"

He didn't think that was a good idea.  

As we stood there, deliberating, he armadillo went under the 4-wheeler.

The Husband went inside to get the .22.  

I should have held the spotlight on the armadillo, for it had disappeared by the time The Husband came back out with the rifle.  We went out to patrol the yard, looking for it, but couldn't find it.  He shined the spotlight around the yard several more times before we went inside for the night, but never saw it again.

As we were getting ready to go to bed, The Husband picked up his telephone and saw a text message from Cousin Jamie next door.  (She and The Husband have been playing a texting game for the past couple of months.  Every time one of them hears a gunshot, he/she will text the other, "Did you get it?")  She'd sent the text two hours earlier, while we were out hunting the critter:  "Just a heads up.  Saw a big armadillo.  It's been tearing up my yard.  If I see it again, it's toast."

Looks like that old possum-on-the-half-shell is on everybody's "most wanted list."  

Garden Check - October 9, 2020

 About 4 o'clock yesterday afternoon, I was feeling all out of sorts and didn't know what to do with myself.  I'd already decided that the kitchen was CLOSED for this night; we'd have to eat sandwiches, or rummage around in the refrigerator for left-overs.  I surfed the TV news channels for a few minutes, and that just made my restlessness worse.  So, even though I wasn't planning on cooking dinner, I went to the garden to see what vegetables I could pick.

Three squash.  That was all.  

There wasn't even any okra, except for a couple of big ones that I missed the last time I cut okra.

There were a few turning tomatoes, and some green ones.

Turnip greens are still too little to fool with.

Butterbeans are still flat as pancakes.

Cabbages are just beginning to make heads.  The broccoli and brussels sprouts appear to be a long way from making anything.

There was a good-sized patch of that old foxtail grass in one end of the garden, and it was about to go to seed.  I decided to pull it up, hoping to reduce the grass problem for next year.  I pulled up a wheel-barrow load of the stuff.  If it doesn't rain before I get home from work today, I'm going to run the tiller over that spot and plant more greens.

The purple hull pea vines needed to be pulled up, but by the time I got through pulling up the grass, I was out of the mood to tackle the job.

I laid the three squash on the bench beside Nanny's back door (she wasn't home) and walked back home with my empty bucket.  

We had frozen pizza for supper.

About 8:30, my son and his wife dropped in for a visit.  Their house-sitting job will end this weekend, and they and The Granddaughters will be coming back home.  School is out for fall break next week, and I've been trying to come up with some craft ideas to help them pass the time.  While I was looking for my knitting needle pouch last weekend, I found a rug-hook kit that I'd bought a couple of years ago.  The pattern looks like piano keys, and I thought the oldest granddaughter might enjoy making the rug, so I set the box out so that I would remember to give it to her.  When her parents got here last night, I showed them the kit.  Digging around in the box, I discovered that the mesh (the rug background) was missing from the box.  Evidently, I've already worked on it a little bit - yet another UFO (un-finished object) in my house.

Somewhere in my house.

I did not run across it last weekend when I tore the place up-side down, looking for the knitting needle pouch.  The only place it could be is the top shelf in the craft closet, the one place I did not tackle.  That top shelf is an avalanche waiting to happen.  I'll need reinforcements to help me pull down the heavy tubs.  No telling what I'll find in them.  I just hope the rest of the rug hook kit is there!

A Froggy Day - October 7, 2020

 When I came home from work today and sat down on the back porch to chill, I looked up to find a green tree frog chillin' on an elephant ear leaf.  

After dinner, I came back out to the porch to finish my chillin'.  My rear end had no sooner hit the chair than I realized that I'd forgotten to bring my water glass (and, yes, I was just drinking plain water).  As I stood up to go back in the house, my peripheral vision caught a movement on the cabinet behind my hair.  It 'bout scared the bejeeezus out of me.  Turned out, it was another tree frog, this time a gray speckled one.  It was hard to capture a picture of him; the light wasn't good, and he was leaping around.  (I finally blinded him with the spotlight we keep on the porch to look for armadillos, and he held still for a minute.)

By the time I remembered to go get my water, he appeared to be tucked in for the night.

From the back porch - October 6, 2020

 

How I am going to miss my morning back porch sittin' when the weather gets cooler.  Right now, the sun is peeking through a tiny gap in the trees, shining directly on my face.  The birds are tweeting, the crows are cawing, the woodpeckers are jack-hammering.  I am going to miss all this when cold weather drives me inside.

Last week, I got a Bedazzler in the mail.  I was going to wait to play with it until The Granddaughters get back home (they've been house-sitting with their parents for over a week), but Sunday afternoon, I couldn't stand it any longer, so I plugged it in and bedazzled some masks for the girls (and myself).  Each little jewel has to be heat-set for 10 to 15 seconds.  So, as I sat there counting - one thousand one, one thousand two - I fired up YouTube and watched random craft/art videos.  

Eventually, I came across a video entitled "Neurographic Drawing."  It sounded fun and interesting, so when I got tired of bedazzling masks, I pulled out a sketch pad and some colored pencils and tried the drawing technique.  It was fun, and also relaxing.  The drawing turned out kind of cool (though it resembled a tangled string of Christmas lights), but I wanted to try the technique with some watercolor brush pens that I bought months ago but haven't used.  I also wanted to try a calligraphic pen for the base drawing.  

I knew exactly where the watercolor brush pens were - they've been on a shelf in my home office since they arrived - but it's been a while since I've seen the calligraphic pens.  Thus began yet another turn-the-house-upside-down search.

In the process, I found the knitting needle pouch that I searched for ALL DAY Saturday.  It had fallen behind the watercolor pen box, which was stacked on top of a shoe box full of pencils, which was stacked on top of a box of paints.  

Of course, I had already ordered the knitting needles I needed on Sunday . . . . 

But I did find the calligraphic pens.  

 

Callery Pears - October 4, 2020

 

Over a decade ago, Nanny planted some nectarine pits in a big tub in which Pop-Pop was growing a tomato plant.  The pits sprouted, and she moved them to the yard, where they grew like weeds.  About three years ago, the trees started producing fruit, but the fruit was not nectarines.  It looked more like little brown apples. The skin on the fruit is a bit rough, like Asian pears.

This year, the trees are LOADED with these little brown apples.  When I went to the garden Friday afternoon, Nanny (who has been calling the fruit "crabapples") said she was going to make jelly out of them.  I came home and did some googling and concluded that this fruit is NOT crabapples.  I went back to her yard yesterday morning and snapped some pictures of the foliage and the fruit, intending to post them in a FB gardening group to see if anyone knew what kind of trees these are and if the fruit is edible.

As I passed by the shop on my way home, I heard some banging, and I poked my head inside to see what was going on.  Nanny was in there disassembling a weedeater on wheels - you know, the kind that operates like a lawnmower.  She bought this thing at a yard sale for $20 many years ago, but it played out last year, and she has been grieving over it ever since.  By the time I arrived, she'd removed the pull-crank and was trying to get the hood off.  The bolts wouldn't come loose.  I said, "Nanny, I think you're turning them the wrong way.  'Lefty-Lucy, righty-tighty.'"  She insisted that she was not.  

She was.

We got the hood off and she dusted the inside of the fly wheel with a cosmetic brush.  We sprayed lubricant under the fly wheel and cleaned some other toothy parts.  We dumped out the old oil and reassembled the thing, but we could not test it because she didn't have any new oil.  While she went to the store for oil and gas, I came home and uploaded my pictures to the gardening page.

The Husband was working in our yard by this time, cutting limbs off the trees along the road bank so that we can see how to get out of the driveway.  When he finished, I enlisted his help in weed-eating the phlox beds, which had grown into a thick, scary jungle.  We hauled four or five big wagon-loads of debris to the woods.  

After that, I went back to Nanny's to mow her yard.  I'd finished the yard and was mowing the edges of her long driveway when the lawnmower ran out of gas.  I was closer to my house than to hers, but I wasn't sure if we had any gas in our gas can, so I walked back to the shop to get the big gas can that we keep down there.  Nanny had just filled it, and I wasn't about to lug that heavy thing all the way down the driveway, so I put it on a wagon and pulled it to where the lawnmower was.  As luck would have it, the gas cap on the lawnmower was next to a barbed-wire fence, and I had to push the lawnmower to the center of the driveway to give me enough room to work without being shredded by the barbs.  The gas can was full to the rim, and heavy, and I spilled a good bit of gas onto the lawnmower deck before I finally got some in the tank.  I finished mowing the driveway and towed the wagon back to the shop, where Nanny was about to fill her weedeater with oil and gas.

About this time, my son showed up.  He helped us put the oil and gas in the weedeater and tried to crank it.  Nothing.  He said maybe it was the spark plug, but we didn't have one that would fit.

I finally got back home around 7 p.m., pooped and covered with dust. 

By this time, someone in the gardening group had identified Nanny's trees as "Callery Pears," which I'd never heard of.  The root of this tree is often used to graft other fruit trees, like peaches and nectarines and apples.  The pits that Nanny planted evidently sprouted the root stock instead of the graft.  I did a little more research and learned that the fruit is edible and makes good jelly, but that it needs a good frost to sweeten the fruit. 

I'm for sure going to try to make some jelly after we get a good frost.

Lost and found - October 3, 2020

 

Well, damn.

Now that fall is approaching, I'll be shifting gears from gardening to crafting.  Earlier in the week, when I went to pick up my sewing machine from the repair shop, I had to pass near a Hobby Lobby, and I could not prevent my car from turning in the parking lot.  I came out with canvases for the grandchildren to paint on, and some wool yarn for knitting hats. 

I did not not buy knitting needles because I already own more knitting needles than Carter has liver pills - at least one set in every size known to man.  Months ago, as I was re-organizing, I gathered them all up and put them in a pouch I had made specifically for knitting needles.  That pouch laid on a bookshelf in my office, in plain sight, for months.  Now, it is nowhere to be found.

With kids moving in and out of my house for the past year, and The Husband working from home every other week, I have tried my best to confine my craft stuff to my sewing room and to this craft closet:

This morning, I tore that closet apart.  Looked in every tub, every drawer, every schlepping bag.  Found a lot of stuff I'd forgotten about.  Threw away a lot of stuff that should've been thrown out years ago.  Demolished a lot of cobwebs.

No knitting needle pouch.

I'm about to mail order some for the hat pattern I want to make.  

Watch the pouch turn up the day after the new needles arrive.

We didn't kill the dogs - October 2, 2020

 

It looks like the dogs will survive the mouse bait fiasco.  They seem to be their normal, playful selves today.  

I went to work a little early this morning because I was in charge of a 10 a.m. Zoom conference between two judges and four lawyers, and I was a little nervous about it.  I'd set the thing up with Zoom a couple of days earlier and had emailed everyone the link, but we'd received emailed documents yesterday that needed to be forwarded to everyone who didn't get copied in the emails.  While I was in the middle of emailing the documents, twenty minutes before the conference was supposed to start, THE POWER WENT OUT IN OUR BUILDING.  No phones.  No internet.  No lights.  Jeeeeeeeeez.

I called the other judge's assistant and asked her to email everyone and tell them that the conference might not happen.  Fortunately, about five minutes until 10, the power came back on, and we were able to start the conference on time.

After work, I went to the garden to see what was there.  The purple hull peas have "done their do," as my mother used to say.  I will be pulling up the vines tomorrow.  I picked a few squash, a dozen tomatoes, and enough okra for two armies (not counting what had gotten too big and had to be thrown away).  

The cabbages look marvelous!

The broccoli and brussells sprouts?  Meh.

I brought the vegetables home and made okra & tomatoes.  The Husband and I are both in a funk about what to eat.  I have been taking antibiotics for a sinus infection, and my tummy doesn't appreciate it one bit.  We aren't particularly feeling okra & tomatoes tonight.  I cooked some rice, and cut up some shrimp in the okra & tomatoes.  I wonder if I could turn it into gumbo tomorrow?

From the back porch - October 1, 2020

 

What a lovely, pleasant day it is!  I am killing time on the back porch while the embroidery machine runs, and watching The Granddaughters' dogs make fools of themselves.

I guess you've heard me tell a lizard story or two, and so you already know that we have frequent visits from lizards on the back porch.  The Granddaughters' dogs have not encountered lizards very often in their lives, being house dogs and all, and lately they've had a good bit of entertainment sniffing and chasing them on/around the porch.

Just as I started this post, a lizard ran up the screen on the outside of the porch.  His shadow scurried across the floor.  Both dogs, which had been lazing peacefully in the sunny patches, suddenly jumped to their feet and pounced on the shadow.

And then they both looked around, ears bowed up, like WTF? Where did it go?  Bahahahaaaaaaaa!  :)

But I was going to tell you about my sewing room.

My embroidery machine has been in the shop.  It was sewing
fine, but it had stopped telling me when it was out of bobbin thread, and it would just sew and sew and sew before it realized the stitches weren't locking down.  It's been doing that for a good while, but I've just tried to remember to check the bobbin thread each time I change thread colors.  But I've got a big project to do, so I finally took it to the shop Saturday.  Picked it up Tuesday, and it's been sitting on a table, waiting to be plugged up, ever since.  Today, I decided to put my work area back together again.  

On the sewing table is a wooden thread rack that holds 32 spools of thread.  It sits on the table like a picture frame, with a leg that extends from the back to hold it upright.  It barely - barely - fits on the table.  I have several others just like it that are nailed securely to the wall instead of sitting up like picture frames, but when I first got this thread rack, the wall space where it needed to go had something else in it, and I didn't have the time or the desire to take the stuff down, so I just set it on the table "temporarily."  It's been there at least a year.  I have been sooooooo careful not to knock it over.  

Until today, when I was trying to plug the embroidery machine back in.  As I was leaning over the table, looking for the socket, I must've bumped the thread rack.    

My sewing room floor is hardwood; thread spools went everywhere.  

So today was the day that I took the other stuff off the wall (now I've got to figure out what to do with that mess) and screwed the thread rack in its place.  I found the 32 spools of thread and wound the un-spooled thread back onto the spools, and put all the spools back on the pegs.  Once that was done, I started the embroidery machine and came out to the porch to relax while the machine did its thing.

* * * * * * * *

[Two hours later]

As I was sitting here writing, I heard a crunching sound, and looked over to find both of the dogs gnawing on something.  I yelled and jumped up, and the dogs jumped back from whatever it was they were crunching on.  I picked it up and could not identify it.  It was gray and crumbly.  

Long story short (too late?), we think was a block of mouse poison - or, rather, half a block.  I could not tell which dog had eaten the other half, or if either of them had eaten any of it.  (There could've been only half a block when they found it, if a mouse found it before they did.)  We scooped them both up and headed for the vet clinic.

The vet squirted syringes of peroxide into their mouths to make them puke.  And they did puke.  The vet said he did not see anything but dog food in the puke.  He said he thought they'd be ok, but told us what symptoms to watch for over the next few days.

We've searched the back porch but have not found any more mouse bait.  

Ollie, the bigger dog, puked again - a foaming puddle that appeared to have some grass blades in it.  I guess he's still a big queasy.

Other than that, both dogs seem fine, so far.  

I am a wreck, though.