Silently Falling

This morning it is curiously warm, probably because there isn't a breath of wind.

The white spots in the picture are enormous snowflakes, falling straight down.

I was amused by Boysie snapping at snowflakes landing on his back as if they were flies. Little things please little minds! Since the snow was literally hock deep for him at a little over 6" on my measuring stick, he didn't waste a lot of time before asking to go back inside. That dog hates wet feet.

My plans for today are simple:

• finish sewing rows together on my Domiciles quilt,
• find a border & binding fabric,
• make a narrow border & bias binding,
• catch up on some friends blogs, and,
• finish reading (re-reading) The Far Pavilions by MM Kaye while curled up in my chair, drinking tea.

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My Little Helper & Friends

Bella is very attached, and needy. She was very ill when I found her but physically fine now. She positions herself strategically between both computers. She seems to like the fact that my mouse hand is constantly touching her.

Dottie is much more independent. Her main concern is that the food bowl is kept full. She is much older than the other two who are still kittens.

Boysie is a Jack Russell Terrier, also a rescuee, we adopted him and a cat when his previous owner had an ultimatum from her employer/landlord... He will be three years old May 1st. Sandy is exploring the vacuum cleaner box and Boysie would dearly like to get in there too but he is just too big, or the box is too small, or something. Bummer.

Bella and Dottie share a deep appreciation of quilts, especially when they are on a bed. This is a scientific nap test.

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Snowy Saturday Houses

I woke this morning to a dusting of snow. It is quite lovely. Being from the islands I am thrilled by the snow. Boysie, not so much. He is thin coated and I think his toes get cold, but you know, everything is bearable when you have a red ball.

I have been avoiding new projects and plan to actually finish some of the things I started since getting here.

First step to accomplishing this was to find them all, there are rather a lot!

I cleared off the design wall, made a list and noted what needed to be done to each one. Then I sorted and bagged the pieces, the fabric and the pattern with my "to do" note.

Number One was the project which required the least effort. The blue and green batik kit quilt. Finishing it only involved one corner, trimming to square, piecing a backing and making bias binding. "Done" is a virtuous feel good moment. Onward

Next on the piecing list is the Domiciles red houses quilt. When I started it I thought the pattern size of 48" x 60" was pretty wimpy and useless for anything other than a wall hanging or baby quilt. Mine was going to be bigger! Much BIGGER! Then I got tired of it, the butterfly brain went "Oh look" and found another project. The house quilt languished and sulked in a pile of fabric. So sad.

My method for small block scrappy quilts is to start making blocks and stop when I run out of fabric or enthusiasm. I had made 66 blocks plus one four house block. The pattern supplies a paper piecing template for the teeny houses but I do not enjoy paper piecing so I winged it on mine, the houses are a little wonky (but charmingly so) and I prefer wonky to picking bits of paper off the block any day of the week.

My get it done plan is to make a total of 99 blocks, set 9 x 11 and add a 3" border to yield a 60" x 72" top. Not a lot bigger than the pattern but a good size for a snuggle up to read quilt or a bed topper.

Goal for the week:

• make at least 16 house blocks
• start laying them out in rows on the design wall
• paw through my stash and probably Lori's stash too for the backing, binding and border fabric

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Boysie's Toys

Today I put Boysie's toy basket up out of his reach for a few hours.

My husband and I created a monster.

Twice a month we go grocery shopping. On these days Boysie is left home for five or six hours. Because my husband is a softy he always buys Boysie a toy. Always. The dog has this figured out, left alone = new toy.

This is a policy that has not changed here in South Dakota. If I leave for more than a few hours a toy is expected. Treats do not count.

Boysie is not at all shy about looking for his present, he wants it "right now" and will go through the grocery sacks to get it.

Like a small child he has favorites and knows when one is missing. On the right are the "queekymans", naturally they no longer squeak.

The blue one is the favorite although the orange will do in an emergency if the  blue one has been mislaid. Also like a small child, the best place to keep your toys is everywhere, including my bed. I spend a lot of time picking them up, they are quite hazardous underfoot, under seat too. A Nylabone underbum will make you sit up quite smartly.



This advertisement is one of Lori's favorites, I wonder if Boysie would agree with the beagle?


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Iggy

This is Iggy. He was added to our family in May. I would estimate his age at about ten months then. He was very thin and appeared to have been existing on a diet of grass snakes.

He is quite a character, chatty and very friendly except to Boysie. Boysie is the enemy.

Although Iggy is quite a bit larger than Blue and looks to have had a much tougher life he is quite content to be number two in the katten pecking order. Blue pesters him and bullies without mercy.

Iggy has been neutered and vaccinated, neither of which bothered him at all. 90% of his focus is on the next meal, the other 10% on getting outside, although he doesn't actually go anywhere when he succeeds. Favorite hangout is on the shelf where the cat food bowl lives, second favorite is in the basement, both he and Blue spent a great deal of time down there.

Iggy was very fortunate in that Janet, who adopted Blue agreed to take him too.


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My Boy

Boysie likes to lie in a patch of sunlight on the living room carpet. In the nice air conditioning of course. Sunbathing with all mod cons.

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There Is An Alley Behind My House

Most blocks in this little town have an alley way that runs behind the houses for the length of the block.

Boysie and I like to walk the alleys. I prefer them to the sidewalks, and he is very busy sniffing all the interesting smells.

I love the look of these bright yellow metal chairs against the white paint. Very minimalist and almost Scandinavian.

Click any image to enlarge

A bit farther down the alley is a delightful playhouse, complete with tiny rain gutters on both sides. I think the child it was built for is probably long grown, but the planting of bright orange day-lilies and Sweet Williams are charming.



This person is ready for winter!
I find beauty in the meticulous way he has cut, split and stacked.

It looks engineered, and I admire it each time I pass.

I notice Boysie gets struttier when there are dogs confined behind their fences, almost like he is saying " I'm going for a walk and you're not!" but then, he is a terrier and they are sometimes a bit rude.


Just a few more steps and we will be back on the street.

Boysie is learning to "sit" at the intersections. I am sure he thinks it is perfectly pointless, but I insist. He sighs, and complies. It's the price a fella has to pay for a walk.

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The Dog Gets a Cat

Do you remember the nursery song about the Farmer in the Dell? He got a wife, the wife got a dog etc.

Boysie is a rescue dog, all of our current dogs are rescued and living with us because they are, for one reason or another, unadoptable. My husband and I had decided a couple of years ago that it was time to allow natural attrition to lower our dog population. We were afraid that a new young dog would outlive us.

When I got the call about Boysie it was a life or death decision for him and the carefully reasoned plan went kablooie, he was five months old and going to the pound the next morning.

Our local pound has a 24 hour rule. If you lose your dog on Saturday afternoon and he ends up at the pound he will be killed on Sunday, even though you couldn't pick him up because they are closed and do not answer phones at the weekend.

Boysie came with a (very sick) cat, Kenny was his bestest friend and I was unable to turn him away. $300 in vet bills and 18 months later he is a gorgeous and healthy cat although not as keen as he used to be to wrestle and be covered in dog saliva.

I had not realized how much Boysie missed his kitty friends until this adolescent tea drinking kitten 'followed him home'. The kitten is between 7 and 9 months old and totally unafraid of rambunctious little dogs. He is very friendly, thin, has had an injury to one back leg, has not stopped eating for two days and uses the litter box copiously.

I have placed an ad in the local paper and am hoping nobody responds.

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Joy is a Big Stick

The move to South Dakota has been hard on the little guy in many ways. Click to enlarge image.

Boysie was born in nice warm Hawaii and lived all his life in a fairly isolated spot. He misses his kitty friends and his Daddy. There is no way to tell him it is not forever.

Now he lives in a little house in the middle of town, strangers walk and drive past his house all the time and he is not allowed to bark at them. To add insult to injury there is all this nasty white stuff on the ground and it is cold.

Today we found a big stick.

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The Cozy Little House

This picture was taken four years ago, the summer I bought my cozy little house. It doesn't look like this now. Look at that intense blue South Dakota sky!

It is the middle of winter so everything is brown, the trees are naked and the sparkling new paint job Lori and I did is weathered and peeling.

This is almost certainly a kit home built about 100 years ago. The plans and components would have cost less than $500. The original building had two windows in the front, back and right side, one on the left side

The front door opens directly into the approximately 12' by 12' living room or parlor which is separated from the 12' x 14' kitchen by a half wall.

The 'wallpaper' in the kitchen (visible in the second picture) is some kind of panel board that came with that vinyl surface on it. Other walls in the house are plaster.

I think the half wall and the indoor bathroom are probably not original. The remaining 200 square foot of house is two bedrooms, one of which is now the size of a walk in closet, and the bathroom. An enclosed porch 8' x 20 has been added down the right side of the house and contains the stairs to the basement.

My last tenant paid his rent on time but turned the house into a dump. The beautiful pink quartz landscaping rocks you can see in the picture are buried in two year's worth of pop bottle caps, bits of broken toys, bindweed, dead leaves and weeds.

My friend Janet came and did some cleaning before I got here, thank goodness. It was a herculean task but I have a sparkling bathroom. I will be spending a lot of time in the next few months de-greasing, pulling out nails, filling holes in the plaster walls and painting the inside.

I have a pretty twin bed borrowed from Lori. Two chests of drawers and my little TV from the apartment. A table I bought at a sale for $2. I had to pay $1.25 each for the chairs.

I also brought over a Singer 99K in a cabinet so I can play. I will post on that later.

Later this week Lori and I will go to Mitchell in the truck so I can buy an 8' x 4' sheet of foam insulating board for a design wall. Two filing cabinets and a half sheet of plywood will make a desk, and some paint will keep me busy for a while. I am thinking raspberry for my desk but will most likely go with a soft sage green. Maybe blue. Hmm, what do you think?

As I look out my front window I see large snowflakes drifting down mixed with rain, very strange for someone who has lived in the tropics most of their life. Boysie is underwhelmed, he thinks this is good snoozing weather.

It is an adventure!

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Nineteen Degrees

That was the temperature this morning after the sun rose enough to see the outdoor thermometer on my front porch. Everyone keeps telling me what beautiful, warm and unseasonable weather we are having. I nod madly, trying to convey my enthusiasm and honestly I am grateful but I am even more grateful for my huge bulky jacket and LL Bean snow boots. Naturally I caught a cold on the plane. You may laugh now.

On the left is the label I put on Boysie's airline crate. It was successful, nobody got bitten, that I know of.

I brought two bags, one contained nothing but fabric, the other my 36 x 24 cutting mat, two phones, a telephone modem and a very modest assortment of clothes.

Boyzel Dog's very chic winter coat, an assortment of toys and treats, my laptop and two cameras plus various specialty rulers, none of which could I bear to be without for a moment, filled my carry on.


Lori and her dear husband braved snow, ice, rain, fog and high winds (but not all at the same time) to drive the ninety miles to pick Boysie and I up at Sioux Falls airport.

Boysie dog had to come with on this trip, nobody home to take care of him. I would have liked to stay in the upstairs apartment at 200 West Main, but there is a slight plumbing problem, no water. So, I will be staying in another little house I own that fortunately came empty at exactly the right time.

After we arrived Lori made herself comfortable in my over-furnished (NOT! it is totally empty) living room to examine the contents of the important bag. Next week we will go look for a chair and a piece of foam insulation board for a design wall, and pins and ...

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