I was coming home on Wednesday, and I turned onto the road into town. Not far along. I noticed a handful of people standing by the side of the road. And as I got closer, I discovered why – there was a giant snapping turtle!!!

I raced home (about a minute drive), ran in the house and grabbed my camera. I didn’t even say hi to Dave. As I was running out the door again, he asked me what was up. All I said was “Can’t talk. Turtle!!!” and got back in the truck.

And this is why I was sooooo excited!!!

Apparently she had crossed the road and was making her way through the parking lot of the community hall. Right behind the hall is the Sydenham river, so I suspect that’s where she was off to.

She didn’t seem bothered by all the attention. She stayed focused on where she was going, and kept at it one step at a time!

I’m so glad I came by at just the right time to witness part of her journey!

After Hallowe’en, I promptly packed away my skeleton collection and put them in the office closet to away the next year. All but Dr. Bones, my full-size skeleton. He was too big for a bin – even folded up. So, naturally, I plopped him on top of the cat tree in my office, and there he’s sat for the the last several months. (and the cat tree is just behind my left shoulder when I sit at my desk, so let me tell you, that’s been quite the conversation starter in some work meetings!)

I’ve been waiting for Dave to put some ceiling hooks up for several of my hanging plants – I figured we could pop one more in the corner of the office for Dr. Bones. There he could hang out and be out of the way.

Finally, I got fed up with waiting, grabbed the drill and demanded Dave show me what I had to do to put the hooks in. Turns out it was super easy, and with in an hour, I had 8 plants hanging in various rooms, and Dr. Bones was finally at home, out of the way in the corner of the office.

( I can’t wait until we get rid of this ugly wallpaper and re-do this room!)

And of course, that mean the cat tree was free again for the actual cats….

Burton and Lemmy were thrilled to have it accessible again.

They immediately started getting reacquainted with it.

I imagine they are going to lead to some more interesting work meeting discussions!

Ever since we brought the wooden shoe bench home, I’ve had plans to make some sort of cushion/cover for it.

As you know, I’m working with a chicken theme for the kitchen. And I just happened to have a pile of chicken fabrics left over from that chicken quilt I made ages ago.

After I finished up the red blocks on Sunday, Burton and I put our heads together, and in a surprisingly short amount of time…

We’d created a lovely little top! The chicken block is the same one I used for the chicken quilt. The chicks were a bit of a challenge. I looked a couple inspiration pic on the internet, and managed to draft up something that worked. I am definitely getting much better at that!

The background fabric is the same chicken wire fabric I used in the original chicken quilt. And it’s hard to see, but the border is all little chicky footprints. Mom was doing an order at Collecting Threads, and that was on sale so I asked her to order me a yard or two (I got it in an off-white too!)

It still needs to be quilted, but I think it’s going to look amazing as a bench topper!

With some help from Burton

I turned the heel on the Seascape sock just before bed last night.

And I finally feel like I’m making some progress on knitting. I have just two appointments left this month, and Dave has one. There will be follow-up appointments in the months to come, but hopefully the pace will slow a bit.

In the meantime, I’ve decided to frog the silver shawl – I’m not feeling the love for it anymore and having it sitting there part done makes me feel overwhelmed. I do have to get back to Dad’s Christmas sweater, and I’m going to try to commit to working on it after work each evening.

Thanks for all the comments about our basement drama. It is definitely part and parcel of having and old house, and we’ll get it handled.

No surprisingly, there wasn’t a tonne of time for stitching this weekend.

I did manage to finish off that M though, forever putting a rest to Dave’s fart jokes. You can see just the barest bit of black started under the Fresh. That will spell out “Butt Nuggets” which I’m sure will only give Dave some new fodder… but I guess after the basement, it will be good if he can still find something to laugh about.

Before I get into the good stuff… I just want to say… I WANT A WEEKEND DO-OVER!!!

It was setting up to be a pretty good, if busy weekend. Friday’s weather was horrible with a near-constant heavy downpour. Still, after work, we’d picked up Dory from the body shop and left Dave’s Buick there for some much needed work. We ran some errands, got home late and crashed to the sound of a pretty intense thunderstorm.

But Saturday, we awoke to sunshine. I got outside around 10 am, thinking of doing some garden cleaning, and almost as soon as I got out there, the skies started to cloud. I think I got about 20 minutes before it started to rain again.

No biggie… I could always go sew. I packed up my tools and headed in. Dave met me at the door and I knew it was bad. He said five words no woman wants to hear.

“There’s water in the basement.”

We discovered not long after we took possession of the house that the foundation wasn’t quite as solid as we’d first thought. About a month after we’d officially moved in, we got one of those “100-year storms”, and we discovered several leaks in the walls. Dave had the wet basement guys in and they quoted us several thousand dollars for a fix. Which we didn’t have at the time.

Dave did some research, and he came up with a solution he could do and would cost less than 1/4 of what the basement guys wanted (not that their price was high for the work they suggested). We decided it was worth a shot. If it didn’t work, we could always save up for the basement guys and would only be out a few hundred dollars and some hard work.

So Dave went to work. And we watched and waited. Every time it rained, Dave went down to check. No leaks. I fully expected a small leak here or there during the following spring thaw (having previously lived in a house with a leaky basement, I know who notoriously hard they are to plug). But we had nothing. We were high and dry. Spring, summer, fall, winter 2022… and then this year came and it was all good.

Until this weekend. But it wasn’t coming from the walls. Dave’s repairs were holding. No… the water (as it does) had moved along to find another weak spot…. this time the floors! Several spots. The floors can’t be repaired the same way the walls were. So… the basement guys are coming back for another quote sometime this week.

And if that wasn’t enough…. while Dave was down there, counting all the leaks in the floor, he hit his head off the light (it’s a very low ceiling – I’m 5’7″ and I can only stand up in certain spots).. and the fixture shorted out… followed by the switch that controls it.

Thankfully, Sam’s husband Michael helped up troubleshoot it via text, and Dave had enough electrical knowledge to repair it. It did involve a trip to the hardware store but it was fixed in a couple hours. (And while we were out, we got a good idea of just how much rain we’d gotten, and were still getting at the time)

This is the best pic I could find online. But every stream, river, creek has majorly overflowed its banks. We drove by several houses with almost their whole yards under water.

Like the 100-year storm we got back in summer 2021, this one dumped a hell of a lot of rain in a very short period of time. So we know our basement will hold up against all but the most intense, prolonged rains… but we still need a better solution.

So Sunday, while Dave hauled everything up from the basement in prep for the basement guys… I went and sewed. (He needed time to stew by himself.)

I worked on a couple projects, one of which was adding two more blocks to the red quilt.

Working with those pretty fabrics certainly lifted my mood!

And now that I have four done, you can get and idea of how I’m going to lay them out, alternating lights and darks. There are 16 blocks in total (each at 16″), so I have 12 left to do.

But I’m in no real hurry to finish this one. It’s nice to take my time and just bask in those beautiful prints.

One of the things I love about my relationship with Dave is that, while we love spending time with each other, we also have separate hobbies. So when I’m working on a quilt, or stitching, or knitting, or gardening, he’s happy to be off on his own, building a ship model, working on a car, or doing something musical.

The problem arises when he can’t or isn’t in the mood to work on one of his hobbies, because my husband is one of those people who cannot sit still. And if he’s not busy with a hobby – that means he wants to go out and do something. And that would be just fine… but he doesn’t want to go out ALONE!

I made the decision not to head to Mom’s again last weekend because the weekdays have been so busy with work, appointments and chores, I really just wanted a couple days to play with fabric and floss. (Plus I don’t have Dory – she’s in the shop getting a butt-lift – body work on her rear quarters).

Saturday I was in the studio, sewing away on my red quilt, and at around 2 pm, Dave came to me and asked what we were doing for dinner. I told him I had a pork roast out and would pop it in the oven around 4. He then asked if I wanted to go get a sub for lunch…

I was right in the middle of sewing… and I did not.

But I also knew if I said no, he wouldn’t go himself, and then he’d mope and be miserable. I figured the hour break would be worth the lost time because I wouldn’t have to deal with a morose Dave.

So off we went… but as soon as we were out… he played the old switcheroo! He decided instead of getting a sub in Glencoe (15 minute drive), we should go to Strathroy (30 minute drive) because they have more selection of lunch options. And with Dory in the shop – he was the one driving, so I couldn’t just say no.

And once we got to Strathroy…

“Hey – we haven’t been in the used shop in a while…”

Now I saw this was his ploy all along….

So off we went to the used shop. He didn’t find anything but of course, I did.

Someone’s unfinished woodshop project! It’s hard to see in the picture but there are pencil lines where they drew a dace and reins on the horse. I plan to make it a horn, and paint it into a unicorn. I think I’m going plant it up with something edible and put it by the veg garden.

After that, we did get lunch – burgers instead of subs. And then we headed for home. So the one hour jaunt had turned into two hours… not terrible, but definitely more than I planned.

And THEN… as we are driving home, we were passing another antique/used place. We’ve been there a couple times, but their prices are on the high side (and non-negotiable) so we don’t go in often. But of course… Dave just HAD to stop that day.

Now the other thing about this place… the owner is a talker. Now I’m very good at politely extricating myself, but Dave is completely unskilled at this. He’s so terrified of being rude, he not only actively listens… but engages and continues the conversation by asking questions!!!! He promised he wouldn’t this time but I knew it was all lies.

Another hour and a half later… we finally got out of there. And not empty handed either. Dave found some amp tubes, and some other electronic dohickey… and I found…

The Pyrex Spice of Life loaf pan! It was priced a little on the high-side, but I’ve only ever seen this piece online, so I think it’s fairly rare. I decided I better not pass it up

The store has a small craft section with all kinds of bits and bobs from knitting to cross stitching to painting and more. I grabbed two of the pot holders, which I’ll stitch with some sort of chicken motif for the kitchen. And the little hand towel will eventually get some fish or maybe a mermaid, and be put in my bathroom upstairs.

So.. I can’t completely complain about the outing… though it did completely throw my sewing plans out of whack that day!

In some ways, this is the worst time of the year for me. There’s lots of little green bits – lots of promise – but the waiting is KILLING ME!!! It will probably be at least another couple weeks before anything new starts to bloom.

The bees must be feeling the same way. There’s not a lot out there for them right now, so my Winter Aconite has been very popular!!!!

As is the pink (now grey) pussywillow which is starting to turn to pollen. My three different pussy willows by the shed bloom in succession, which is good for the bees – giving them several weeks of food at the start of spring.

My snow drops are still in bloom, though I only have the three (and Lemmy is doing his best to try and break them as he bounds through the catio with no respect for anything in his way)

But I found this little pack in the front lawn! Now I definitely did NOT plant them there. And I don’t recall seeing them there last year (though it’s possible I just missed them – they are quite small). I’m debating on digging them up or leaving them in the lawn. They will be done well before I have to mow, so they won’t get hurt if I leave them there.

Elsewhere, there are signs of life everywhere. Left are my lupins – I love their starry little leaves – especially when they are just getting started. And right is one of the many lilies I planted in the fall. And I have more to plant this spring! It’s going to be lily-mania here!

And you may recall that last fall, I planted some bulbs in the white porch boxes. Well last week, I cleared out the willow and pine branches I had in there for winter…

They’d sprouted, but they were a long way off from providing any blooms- and the box needed something now!!!! So I grabbed some potted & forced bulbs at the grocery store.

Hyacinths and tulips. And I picked out the ones that hadn’t bloomed yet. For $20, I was able to get enough to fill the boxes

Now… this definitely is an experiment – because we are still getting below freezing nights, and these are greenhouse grown. They are used to warmer temps. But they’ve been in there for over a week now, and they seem to be doing ok – nothing has wilted at least!

They probably still won’t bloom fully for another week or two – but at least there’s some green in the boxes. And the bulbs that were already sprouting in there will come up in between and provide some colour after these ones start to fade!

In seed news…

All my seeds are looking good… with the exception of the squash. They were older seeds though, so maybe they’ve gone bad. I’ll give it another week and decided

And check out that broccoli!!! It’s doing AMAZING. I’ve never grown broccoli, even though it’s one of my favourite vegetables. I’m very excited.

Next weekend is Easter, and I have an extra long weekend with both Friday and Monday off. I’m hoping to get a start on laying out the veg garden outside. I won’t be planting anything out there for several weeks yet, but I have a lot of landscaping to do anyway. Hopefully the weather cooperates – I don’t mind it being a bit chilly, but I need it dry!

Just in time for a new month, Burton has a new quilt for his chaise! This one is a little puffier than the others. I’ve been using leftover batting for his quilts, but I didn’t have anything left from our usual, nice stuff big enough for this one. I did have a chunk of the cheap polyester stuff though.

As usual, nothing fancy with the quilting, just some stitch-in-the-ditch around the flowers and the border.

And it certainly adds a nice spring vibe the the corner of the living room.

And it’s 100% Bearbottom approved.

At least… I think that’s his approval face….

After putting it off for eleventy billion other things, I finally started working on the new red and cream quilt for my bed.

It’s just two blocks so far, but it’s a start. All the fabrics are paired, cut and ready to go, so whenever I have a spare hour or so I can sit down and bang out a pair of blocks. There will be 16 in total – 8 opposite pairs.

This one is not a rush, so I’m just going to take my time and enjoy the process.