Cleaning Up Loose Ends

Every morning I gingerly open the back door and take a big whiff before making coffee.  If there's bad news on the horizon, I want to know it before I let Cooper outside.  Once the sniff test has been completed, we sit on the patio and contemplate how those darn skunks could possibly be getting in.

With nothing on the calendar for this day, I lounged around before finally getting up a little motivation.  The saddle needed to be finished.  Well, half way finished anyway!!  Here is the before picture. 

This is the after, having brushed on liberal amounts of neatsfoot oil.  You can use olive oil, or so they say, but smelling like rancid spaghetti is not my thing.  It's only half done however.  Now comes the conditioner, not a fun job since it actually requires arm muscles.  Gee ... I only have one more entire saddle to go!!  Pictures later.

The next loose end to clean up was this huge bundle of paper towels from Costco.  Good grief ... a dozen rolls in that heavy sack ... enough to last me an entire year!!  Even Cooper was intimidated.  The problem is of course finding space to put them all.

Once that was done, it was back to working on these squares.  Ten done ... only six to go.  Yes I'm definitely getting a little tired of sewing so slow I can count the stitches and more accurately than I ever have.  This one better be amazing when it's done!!!  There is an order, and this is not it.  That part will come later.

Once again not being able to find the binding required for the BROWN quilt, I scrounged around until I found this red.  Perfect ... sort of ... for THIS quilt.  I'm so excited I'm actually going to get the Christmas quilt finished by Christmas!  Now to hand stitch the binding on.  Too bad I don't have the right color thread.  I'm hoping I can pick up something at Hobby Lobby so I'm not tempted by another quilt store!

Finally ... the loose end I've been putting off for a couple of weeks.  A thorough check of the back yard to see where the skunks are accessing my personal space.  I'm confused since I see lots of new holes dug around the corrals.  I'm hoping it's the fox doing this, but you just never know.

I'm definitely NOT confused about THIS!  It's a baby skunk tail.  My guess is maybe the fox duo had a late night date with fresh meat for dinner.  Oh the joys of living in the country.  I never did find any entrance, so I set up the game camera to see who is wandering around.  It could even be a hawk.

I also found what appears to be the play yard of someone.  A big old dog toy, torn to bits and scattered around the entire yard, along with three golf balls and four big white whiffle balls.  Those are the plastic ones with big holes.  Someone has been having a good old time in the dark of night!!  Coyotes actually like to play with things like that, but I know they can't get in.  It's weird.

Anyway, early this morning, I'm putting on my waitress hat and heading out to the Elks Lodge once again.  It's the Fizz Brunch.  I don't "fizz", but I can pour them like a pro.  My services have been requested, so I'll be wearing yet another hat today.