Better Late Than...(Sutherlin, OR)

I know!  I'm running late.  November has come and gone.  All I can say is that I have spent most of the last six weeks quilting, walking, and watching too many Hallmark movies or holiday baking shows.  For me, not the most productive use of my time, but Dan has accomplished quite a bit.  

Hitch - whatcha doin'?

Dan finished his radiology treatments.  Now, he waits to see what the results will be.  Hopefully, all cancer will be gone and there is no damage from the treatments in other areas.  Now he is working on getting healthy and getting his energy back.  In the meantime, he sold our 2012 Honda Fit and the buyer agreed to wait on picking it up until we had our new car.

Yep, we have a new 2021 Grand Cherokee.  I feel like we are driving a computer.  There's so much to learn.  Dan did all the research and decided that only a few came close to what we needed.  First being automatic and towable.  He is installing the tow package now.  The jeep is so quiet and smooth on the highway compared to our old car, not to mention, it has more power.  Oh, and heated seats!  I am in heaven especially when we go grocery shopping in the cold foggy mornings at 7 am.

Dan found our window-mounting hummingbird feeder, so I filled it up and installed it on the window right behind our couch.  There are two hummingbirds hanging out in the tree that's in the photo.  Our neighbor has a feeder as well and they certainly spend a lot of time flying back and forth between the two of feeders usually right over our heads.    Hitch has been the most entertained.

Max, on the other hand, keeps falling asleep when the hummingbirds show up.

Here's a blow-up so you can see the hummingbird watching Max while he sleeps.  Well, he is getting old.  He turned 15 this year.  He is probably just as happy to have sunshine to warm his ol' bones than to watch for fast-moving birds.

Hummer hoovering above Max's head to the right.

November must have been our month for birds.  A couple of weeks ago, Dan and I were walking the back storage area inside the RV park for something different.  It is a great place to pick blackberries during the summer or take your dog for a walk.  There is also a path that connects there to take walkers up the hill and into the woods.  This time we were just looking around the field when Dan saw this guy watching us and slowly strolling towards us.

Mikado Pheasant

He wasn't skittish when we started talking to him.  If anything he seemed to be used to humans which had us wondering if he was someone's pet.  As we started walking back the way we came, he started following us and sometimes running ahead of us, but we worried a little about how he kept jumping at Dan.  We were not sure if he wanted to be picked up or was looking for a fight.  We did not feel threatened, but other residents have felt threatened and one woman managed to hurt herself while trying to get away from the bird.  We have a feeling that the park will be calling someone soon to capture the bird.  I hope they find him a good home.

We found out that the bird is a Mikado Pheasant from Taiwan so not a native bird to North or South America.  Dan posted photos to a local group on FB.  There have been several sightings of this bird or of several others in the Sutherlin area, but no one seems to know who owned them or where they came from.  One theory is that he escaped from his home during the wildfires.  Possible, but he had to travel over 8 miles over rough terrain to get to this location and pheasants are short distance flyers about 150 feet.  That's a lot of short flights to get here.

Kevin??

I decided to call him Kevin from the movie "UP".  He is just like the bird in the movie.  Sneaking up on people, not wanting to leave them alone, and making funny noises.  When you shoo him away, you almost feel like he is shooing you right back!  But, we haven't fed him chocolate like Russell did in the movie.  Heaven forbid he follows us all the way back to the coach.  Our cats would never forgive us!

And then there was the day I was out walking around the park before Thanksgiving and I saw a flock of turkeys sitting in this tree.  

What a bunch of Turkeys!

Hmm, an impending feeling of doom?  Who knows.

On The Cutting Board

I'm the first to admit that the last six weeks have been stressful.  And the more stressed I get, the more I quilt.  Between the election and now another lockdown...sorry....we are in a "pause" due to COVID spiking.  Still, I'm not sure how much longer some of our small businesses are going to survive if this one goes past the two-week due date.  

I am working on the last set of blocks on the big quilt so I did make quite a bit of progress during the summer.  I just could not focus on this one project any longer.   I was more than ready for a distraction from sitting at my hoop.

Hitch is such a good helper

I did try to ignore starting another project by working on the last row.  Good excuse, right?  I thought it would help with my wandering quilt-eye.  I needed to add length and it was the same project.    Plus, I have found that I really like making the Delectable Mountains block.  Hmmm, could be another quilt to add to my list....and I digress.  It did not work.

By mid-October, I was working on this Monster Mash-up quilt by FatCat Patterns.  I'm hoping Dusty is giving me the raspberry for telling him to move and that it is not his opinion about the quilt. 

I finally got him off the quilt so I could get a photo of all the blocks.  Psst--the black cat is my favorite one, of course!

This top was done last winter, but I felt it was time to get it out for quilting.  This pattern is called "Follow the Stars" by Marlous Designs at QuiltWoman.com.

Hitch thought it was his turn to photobomb a quilt

I decided to wait on layering and quilting the above quilts until I finished the Llama quilt.  I know...now I sound like I'm going around in circles.  There is a method to my madness and in the end, they will all be quilted.  Anyway, this pattern of the Llama is from "Native Flair" by FatCat Patterns.  It is the same pattern that I used for my southwest quilt.  I just wanted to make the Llama block into its own quilt with some fabric I found in a cute quilt shop in Texas.

Quilting wasn't the only thing I have been doing.  I made the mistake of spending time on Missouri Star Quilt Company's site. Big mistake!  My wish list got big fast!  I ended up buying a couple of fat quarter bundles that I just could not live without.  The best part was receiving a hand-written Thank you note from the shop.  So sweet!

I'm not sure what I will do with the first bundle, but the second bundle was already marked for a Hedgehog quilt.

Yep, number four is now on my *WIPs list.  My list just keeps on growing and to think that I started the list to keep me on some kind of schedule.  I refuse to admit how many new projects are on my list right now.  I can only hope that I will start slowing down before I start on a fifth project.

*WIP - works in progress

This is the beginning of "Happy Hedgehogs" by Melly and Me and hopefully the last of starting so many projects for the past two months! Ha!

Happy Quilting!