The newest quilt has been started!  (You know I couldn't go for very long without a new one, right?)  This one is very simple piecing, relying on the fabric and placement to make it sing.

 

More Spring flowers - tinted by the setting sun.

 

It's official!  All four hens are laying! Yesterday was the first day that I got four eggs in one day.  I've known that they were all laying, but they all haven't laid an egg on the same day before.

 

On my walk this weekend, I noticed a flock of egrets across the creek. They were just hanging out so I took a couple of pictures. Then I noticed a red tail hawk up in the tree, also just hanging out, so I took a couple of pictures.  Then the hawk flew down and hung out with the egrets...weird!  No one seemed too excited about it either.

I stopped on our after-work walk to get a picture of the sunset and reflection, and just managed to get one before the dogs jumped into the picture.

 

More Spring flowers!

 

I got the quilt top put together, ready to quilt, but not without a lot of "help" from my friends.... Hard to tell from here, but this is Jessie under the quilt as I tried to smooth it out.

And James inspecting it for wrinkles - she also likes to pull off the masking tape I use to tape the backing to the floor - not a big help....

I was actively basting the quilt sandwich together on the sewing machine when James jumped up and settled in for a nap.  She was rudely disappointed when she got dumped on the floor.

 

And the newest quilt top is done!  I really like how it turned out, especially since I didn't work from a pattern - just changing and adding things as I went, starting with the disappearing 9-patch block.

 

The last storm wasn't kind to my poor pop-up tent. This is the one that was originally over the chicken coop and didn't do well in the rain.  I had the front legs raised so I could get in and out of the area easier, and that trapped the rain water, which caused more issues, etc., and was why I got the larger chicken run to replace it.  I left it in the chicken pen so there was more dry-ish area for the chickens, but...it has to go, there's no saving it now.  The poor chickens will just have to settle for a smaller dry area.  Even the other pop-up tent has a hole in the cover.  I'll leave it in for what protection it does provide from the rain and the sun this summer.

 

Spring is coming! Some of the trees are beginning to bud out.

 

I inadvertently got a new toy for the cats - I unloaded a cardboard box and left it sitting empty for maybe 30 seconds....and it was no longer empty.

 

The only thing that Jessie loves more than the pellet stove is a nice warm basket of towels fresh from the dryer.

And James is just too cute curled up on my chair...

 

The Cheshire Cat would disappear until you could only see his smile (unless you're a Peanuts fan, and it's the Cheshire Beagle.....).  Jessie is the opposite - she disappears until you see her eyes.  She's found a nice warm spot to sleep - on top of the pellet stove - and unless she opens her eyes, she's tough to spot!

 

Another post-work walk, and another sunset.  The dogs love these walks, and start bugging me at 5:00 (I'm off at 5:15) so it's hard to "forget" to take them.  

I love this tree out in the field.  The puddle from the recent rains was perfectly still. Luckily I got the shot before Luna and Ripley went wading in it.

 

While I was sewing down all the applique on my blocks, I had a helper.....

 

I did get my quilt top finished this weekend, and made good headway in my next project.  Here's the finished top:

And my next project - another new to me technique - a disappearing 9 patch.  First you make a 9 patch block, and then cut it up and flip the pieces around - repositioning the pieces. Since the original block is very simple, it goes together pretty quickly. The original 9 patch:

The 9 patch with three pieces flipped around:

A before and after look:

And the quilt top loosely put together. I got as far as getting the pieces cut out and put up on the design wall, but I didn't get them sewn together yet.  Maybe next weekend will see the finished quilt top??

 

AJ and I went for a walk with the dogs after work yesterday, and the sunset was amazing!

 

I did get the blocks put together on the quilt on Sunday though, and whoever did this pattern as a "learn to quilt" project was mean!  There were a lot of tough techniques in this quilt!  Applique, paper piecing, and Y seams were included - not the easiest of techniques.  Then they added partial seams to the skills needed when putting the quilt together - it would be enough to put a new quilter off of quilting! I still need a couple of borders added to it, but I need to take it to the store to pick out fabric for them, along with the backing and binding.

I got all the blocks finished for my sampler quilt and got ready to put it together on Sunday morning and...remembered I hadn't actually finished some of the blocks.  The applique one needed to have the applique sewn down (I had just ironed it on).  Sigh....that's still a lot of sewing to do.  That will teach me to procrastinate!  (Applique is still not one of my favorite techniques is all I can say....)

 

Not too much wind damage from Sunday night, but the pop-ups that I had in the chicken pen got tossed and ripped.  Luckily I don't rely on them now to fully protect the chickens, they just provide a bit more dry and/or shaded ground. In the photo they are upside down, and you can see some of the legs are no longer straight.....The wind also tossed some things around on the patio, including my large fan.

 

I think the "atmospheric river" hit us last night....we got almost an inch of rain yesterday, and it came with high winds.  Alli woke me up just before 2:00 this morning and I had a hard time going back to sleep while listening to the wind howl and bang things around.  I need to walk the property this morning to see what was doing all the banging....wind gust up to 47 MPH. Luckily, no power outages for us (yet).

 

I was able to get a lot of the yard cleaned up last weekend - before the forecasted "atmospheric river" hit California this weekend.  (Redding has gotten rain, but NOT an "atmospheric river" amount...)  I got new dirt added to the gardens along with some fertilizer, sprayed the weeds that were beginning to show up, and cleaned up the area off the patio.  Yesterday was the dump run to drop off all the leaves/branches/rose trimmings, etc. at the green waste facility. Much better!  I still have some work to do before true spring hits.