The garden is (almost) in, and I replaced all the drip this year - a new skill for me!!  Of course, it started raining (again) yesterday, so I don't need to use the irrigation system for a while, but....it's ready!!

I have 5 tomato plants (I planted 6, but there were very large foot prints around one plant the next day, and the stem was broken...Ripley!!!)

I have snap peas, Japanese eggplants, sweet peppers and hot peppers.....

and lemon cucumbers....

I also have bok choy that's flowering.  I was going to tear it out, but the bees were enjoying it too much, so it can stay until I get seeds to plant there.

The chicks have arrived!!  They are almost 8 weeks old, so aren't "babies" now - big enough to be out in the coop - no heat lamp.  I have two Golden Wyandotte and one Silver Wyandotte - so pretty!!  Cindy's daughter raised them for me up to this point and Cindy delivered them yesterday, and is staying for a visit - a double win!!)

AJ and I put up a chicken wire fence around part of the side yard....

I started taking the kittens out with me to work, and sometimes it just doesn’t work, right?  My typing skills are not improved by a butt plant on the keyboard.

 

Another work-in-progress quilt - the Do the Funky Chicken quilt panel expanded into a quilt.  I won the panel at the Quilt Club's annual Christmas meeting, along with a dozen fat quarters of coordination fabric.  I love the chickens, but had a hard time deciding how to put it all together.  I found some blck fabric with white chicken tracks as the final piece I needed to get it all together.  I like the final design, and have everything ready to put together into a quilt top.  

My "design"....the stars represent quilt blocks made with the fat quarters, and sorry looking chickens represent the clocks from the panel.

 

More kitten pictures while I was trying to make Alli's bed....they are NOT helpers!

 

I started working on the garden this weekend - the weather is still dropping below freezing this week, so no plants are going in, but next week we are supposed to be in the 80's...

Currently, my bok choy and swiss chard are going to seed, so they are ready to come out.  

I need to re-do the irrigation to the garden - everything is 10+ years old, I think.  I decided this year I would put it directly from a hose, with a timer, rather than run it through the sprinkler system.  I got started on the plan, buying a new hose, a timer, new tubing, etc., but....still need more parts.

I did pick up some plants for the garden though....just waiting until it warms up, and I have water to it.

I'm hoping it was an April Fools joke, but I could NOT get my new sewing machine to play nice yesterday ~  I spent a couple of hours fussing with it (most of that was ripping out what went wrong....)  It's the bobbin that I was having problems with - the bottom of my quilt looked like this:

I did finally get it going, but by then I had switched to a smaller quilt - easier to move around (and rip out the bad stitches...).  I'll try the Bar Star quilt after a bit more practice!!  I also was volunteering at the North State Cancer League fund raiser, so had to quit early.

I did have a few other issues as I was working. I'd be sewing along and then not be able to move the machine.  When I looked behind and beneath it, I could see the problem.....they are NOT helping!!!

You turn your back for a minute.....and someone destroys a bed!  Luckily it was the smaller bed I had tossed on top of another bed, but still.....

 

I got a new machine last weekend!!  It's a Baby Lock Allegro, which has 12 inches of throat room - the space between the needle and the back of the machine.  My Bernina 430 (that I love!!!) only has about 5 inches of throat room, so this expands the area I can quilt before I have to move the quilt on the frame.  I've barely had a chance to use it yet though...I loaded up my Barn Star quilt on the frame, so am ready to start quilting....as soon as I have time.

Here's the machine set up in the frame.

The Barn Star quilt is getting loaded on the frame - this is a huge quilt!!!

And then the quilt all nicely loaded, ready to quilt!

I found out something else I didn't know - where the covers for the septic tank were....I had to have the tank pumped, but first, I had to have someone come in and find and dig out the covers for me. Now that I know where they are, I'm going to have risers put on them so they aren't buried quite as deep.  It wasn't a big deal to dig them out when our ground was saturated and soft, but it's a whole different thing to dig them out in August, when our ground is rock hard....

 

And the quilt is all put together!

And I had help getting it sandwiched together..... 

Someone seems to have made themselves very comfy.....