AJ and Chris took Rhyoji to a Giants game.....I think this was his favorite outing so far.

 

I've been busy this week, keeping Rhyoji busy.  We've gone to Whiskeytown Falls, Turtle Bay Museum, been kayaking at Whiskeytown Lake, went to Lower McCloud Falls, Burney Falls, Subway Caves, and Mt. Lassen (all one trip), and then AJ, Rhyoji, and I went to Crescent City yesterday.....busy week!  For the most part, I think Rhyoji has enjoyed most of the trips, but the language barrier made it hard to get as much out of the trips as I would have liked.  Traveling with AJ yesterday made it a lot easier.....

Here's our Whiskeytown Falls trip...I took a picture of the "Danger" sign for his mom.....yes, I'm a bad influence...

I'm having trouble keeping the koi pond chemically in balance (Ph is too high, which helps the algae grow, and the algae keeps the Ph high....) but my water lilies are beautiful!

 

AJ picked up Rhyoji at SFO last weekend, and so far, he seems to be enjoying himself.  He loves the pool, and he's been helping AJ cook a bit.  His first night here I made pizza so he got to make his own.  He also helped shuck corn for dinner, and you should have seen his face when two of the eggs AJ was scrambling for breakfast were double yolked.....I did not have a camera ready for that one!

 

I updated the main bath - the shower curtain I had before had been used one (or two) too many times by the kittens as a ladder or a peek-a-boo shield or ladder, and was pretty shredded.  Now that they are (hopefully) more mature, I changed out the shower curtain and towels.

 

Remember that I used my patio umbrella as shade for the chickens after the oak trees were cut down?  Alex put the umbrella back for me and left it open, and it was a bit windy the other day...I found it in the corner of the yard, caught on the fence.  The poor koi were evidently a bit traumatized - they didn't want to eat, and were hiding at the bottom of the pool after I rescued the umbrella.

 

It was nap time at the office yesterday - Jessie was snoozing in my lap (with her head on my arm - hard to type that way....) and Cooper snoozing next to me....

 

With a wet winter/spring, we've had more frogs than usual this year, and they love to hang out in the outside lights I leave on at night.

 

I decided to take a break from my quilts one day and saw this idea for a "mug-rug" - a large coaster.  Very cute and quick to work up, though after it was done, I think I would ditch the "quick and easy" way they did it and put a bit more work in it.  It isn't as durable as I would like, but it cute, and serves its purpose.

 

I also tried out a new pressure foot I got to sew the binding on with the machine vs. by hand, and it got a bit wonky on one side - my error, not a design issue...practice, practice, practice....

I'm still working on a permanent shade solution for the chickens.  This was our emergency solution - the umbrella from my patio table.  It worked, especially if we moved it around during the day to adjust the shade are, but was definitely not a permanent solution.  

So the next semi-permanent solution is to set up a tarp in the corner for them.  I grabbed a pallet I had stored away, draped a tarp over it, and...it works!  It isn't pretty, but it is also not supposed to be the long-term set up.  I'm waiting to see if the chickens like it, and make any tweaks to the design before I make it "pretty".

Unfortunately, I also came up on the wrong side of the pallet....while I was setting everything up, I leaned the pallet against the fence and turned around....and the pallet didn't stay leaning against the fence.  Luckily it just scraped and bruised my leg, no broken bones....that was a close one!!

When I had my septic tank cleaned out a couple of months ago, the tech mentioned that the trees growing in the chicken pen were encroaching into the tank.....uh oh!!!  I had the three oak trees taken out last week.  While they were here, I also had them trim back the tress on the other side of the property.  They had grown so much my garden wasn't getting getting enough sun.  Here are a few before and after pictures.

The walkway to the chicken pen - before"

After:

The view from the chicken pen to the trees....before:

After (the umbrella is there for shade for the chickens while I figure a more permanent solution):

The storage area before:

After:

The view toward the garden area before:

And after:

The view from the garden area before:

And after:

More examples of my on-going struggles to learn to quilt.....like I didn't have enough problems on my own learning this, I have to have help!

 

My newest quilt is started!!!  This one is for Kirby (and before you ask, no, I have not finished the other quilts...they are still in process....)  I love the colors in this one.

And I had a bit of help cutting it out....