Wild kingdom at the Condo

Sometimes it's like wild kingdom outside my living room window where my desk is. Deer, heron, Mallards, rabbits, hawks, fox. I heard a crow making an awful ruckus and stepped outside to the deck to see what was going on. I looked and looked and followed the crow hopping from branch to branch by the creek. Then I saw it. Another animal, brown and black, not a bird was probably 30-40 ft up in a tree. I went back to my desk and grabbed the binoculars. I searched and searched. The crow was quiet. And then I saw it again. The largest raccoon I'd ever seen. In our 22 years here I'd never seen a raccoon, and now one was in a tree. He was probably hoping for an evening snack of a bird egg or two. That big old crow better get back on duty quick.

The deck has shed its winter coat.  Our friend Rod came over today and power washed it, the furniture and the stairs.  It was ghastly hot so he said he'd do the patio (where all the crud fell) another day and move the bush and trim the trees. As he had the chairs flipped over I noticed some of the legs had lost the little plastic disks that keep them from scraping the planks.  I'll have to look for some replacements. This set has held up well--probably got it about 20 years ago.

More Spring cleaning

I cleaned out the hall coat closet yesterday (see photo). It’s a small closet, and all of that was on one shelf.  I decided I would just dump it all on the floor and sort into piles.  Now there’s actually room in there. I moved the winter coats to the down stairs shower, which is our “extra out of season" storage, since we don’t shower down there. I found one umbrella and four umbrella sheaths—I got rid of all four, I don’t think they actually work after you remove the umbrella. I also found a large cat design umbrella I thought was lost.  I took a large sack of hats, scarves, and gloves to the church donation box, although they really prefer seasonal stuff. I have no place to put it until fall. I tackled my clothes closet in the afternoon, refolding everything and taking all the sweats and sweaters down to the laundry. Then I took a nap. When I woke up I learned Prince had died--the kids' favorite from their teen years. He really was a talented musician.

Now I'm down to the hard stuff.  Time to get rid of all the sewing scraps.  Some are large pieces with a straight skirt in mind maybe 30 years ago when I was working at the Vet Med library. Also large pieces of muslin (was I doing pillows, making dolls?) Not sure if I was expecting a burst of sewing desire to return. I had started to make quilt squares out of my daughter's clothing, but abandoned that idea maybe 40 years ago.  They sat there for years waiting for me to return.  Then mother's 1950s and 1960s table cloths. Sigh. Colors and designs no one would use today except to cut up for an apron or pillows. They don't fit any of our tables, not here or the lake.  I remember eating on them, and her wonderful meals. Home made pickles and fresh corn and wonderful pies.  But stored on the top shelf of the guest room closet certainly wasn't a good place.

The final pieces are the hardest.  My grandmother's sister Martha died in child birth with baby daughter Grace in 1888.  She was a quilter.  I did finally find a descendant of hers living in Dixon, Illinois to give the quilts to, but she also had a lot of "pieced squares" left over.  Everything is hand stitched.  I can tell by looking at them that these were not her best effort, so they weren't included in the quilts. But still, they are 150 years old and you can't just throw them out, especially since she probably pieced by kerosene light after the little boys were in bed. Show some respect!  So I'm cooking up a plan to have my sister help me out.

Spring cleaning

These are not my bags, but close enough

I'm cleaning the laundry room.  I decided I'd do a massive Spring cleaning. I'm so pooped, I may not get much further. I'm having a glass of wine. I did get one huge bag dropped off at Volunteers of America, and have another one in the car.  Some nice craft stuff, and this batch has a huge container of cookie cutters. I didn't even know I still had them. If I'd wanted to bake Neno's cut out sugar cookies, I would have never guessed second cabinet to right of washing machine in a Tupperware container. 

I found a sack of stuff on the art cabinet, opened it and found about 5 pair of my husband's glasses, old prescriptions, with the lens cleaner (4-5 bottles) and cloths. I scrubbed the shelves and the notebooks, because some sort of brown mold seems to grow on things in the lower level. I had a huge amount of blue-green polished glass pieces.  I think I used to keep them in a bowl, but hadn't seen them in years, so first I washed and dried them then put them in a glass jar with a lid.  See why this takes so much time.  Washing things before giving them away.

Everyone my age seems to be doing this--sort of the opposite of nest building.  We're un-building. We know our kids don't want this stuff and don't want them pawing through it saying, "Good Lord, why did she save this?"