A statement? about what? and to whom?

As I was driving down the highway to the annual Walk On The Wild Side at Stone Lakes, I spotted this trash by the side of the road, directly under the $1000 fine for littering sign.  Is this some kind of redneck protest, a political statement or what?   And you're probably thinking, maybe some dummy just happened to dump here and didn't even notice the sign.  To that I say, possibly, but there was really nothing, and I mean nothing around for miles, so I think it was deliberate.  I just don't understand people who will go to this length to mess up a perfectly nice nature area just to tweak the nose of some government official (who's probably the poor Caltrans person who has the clean this s*&t up).  I mean, what's the logical alternative; to remove the sign so anyone can just throw their trash out of the window anywhere??  That's surely not the city I want to live in.

The walk through the Stonelakes National Wildlife refuge was great, this is the 2nd time I've gone.  They have all sorts of interesting vendors, but it's not too commercial, most of the table/tents were organizations devoted to environmental causes and the proceeds of sales are donated toward the cause.    There were also wildlife education/demonstrations on bats, local and invasive water species (hyacinth and sport fish), and the local flora and fauna.  The guy from Wild Things, Inc, pictured below does a wildlife demonstration annually, bringing rehabilitated but still "too damaged to release" critters like a turkey vulture, horned owl, beaver and rattlesnake. 

This year he has the cutest juvenile red fox. Which we learned they will have to keep forever as it is illegal to release red fox back into the wild in this part of California.  While there are some native red fox in California, the ones around here are thought to be fur farm escapees who have "gone native".  According to a 1993 Fish and Game study, the non-native fur farm red foxes are a predatory threat to several endangered bird species, but the newest information published in the Sacramento Bee this year indicates that there is a particular subspecies of red fox that IS native, so who knows?  Native or not this guy was one foxy little pup!

Caution!! Not for the squimish!

This weekend I was out enjoying another fine morning in the backyard.

and as I was feeding the birds, I noticed a lizard near the food dish.

I've actually seen this one a few times before and recognized him by the short tail, it looked like he lost part of it a while ago.  Last year he scared the bejesus out of our friend who was building the pergola, the guy turned to get his lunch pail and this 6" lizard was sitting on it.  He thought it was our pet, I guess because it's pretty big for around here.  I was a little worried he was stuck in the aviary, so I was keeping an eye out for him from the kitchen and he was keeping his eye on me too.

I'm was pretty sure he lived underneath the bench across the walkway from the aviary, so I figured he would eventually head back that way on his own. After some time I heard a slight commotion coming from the yard and came upon this tragic little scene.

and the culprit was still at the scene of the crime chewing on the evidence, ughh.

Life's too short to use bent pins

Now that I've got my sewing mojo back on, another project has been released from purgatory (AKA the sewing room closet).

I picked this pattern and fabric up in the lovely tropical paradise of Kauai at the Kapaia Stitchery in 2008.  The store was great, in a little red schoolhouse type building.  It was an explosion of colors inside with lots of beautiful examples of Hawaiian quilts.  Craig didn't find the store quite as interesting as I did....

It's sort of weird that quilting is popular enough in Hawaii that it would have even developed it's own style.  They are typically symmetrical applique patterns with echo quilting (sewing around the appliques so has a "ripple in the pond" effect).

Cutting out the intricate shapes brought back fond memories of Arts & Crafts projects in elementary school. Remember the nervous excitement the first time you get to use the blunt-tip safety scissors to white knuckle the pattern from the folded construction paper?  The pure wonder and delight of opening the paper to reveal that long chain of dolls holding hands.  So here is today's chain of turtles and dolphins holding flippers and fins.

Literally hundreds of pins later (and several annoying bent ones I finally threw away), it's ready for the next step, the slightly more nerve-wracking step of actually sewing these 2 enormous doilies onto the backing without bunches and creases.  Lunch might be in order first.

Minor Trouble In Paradise

It's not all sunshine and flowers in the Dauch household this week.  Tex ran into some trouble out on the range (park).  He took a bad tumble in the weeds and caught his dewclaw on a root.  It was bleeding quite a bit and pointing the wrong way, but the little trooper let me put a temporary bandage on it until he could go to the pet hospital.  Our veterinarian recommended that we let him remove both of Tex's dewclaws as this is a common injury for active dogs and the dewclaw seems to be a vestigial digit with no perceivable function. Now Tex has a new nickname around the house, "Conehead".

he looks very sad, but rest assured he is milking this experience for all the laptime and cookies he can get.

On my daily strolls through our backyard, I have been noticing something is eating the leaves on the butterfly bush.  I closely inspected the bush yesterday and could not see any actual critters, so I'm wondering if the culprit is some kind of night flying snacker?   Maybe the local nursery will know.  Not that it really matters as I apply a pretty brutal "survival of the fittest" philosophy with respect to the landscape. I don't like to use pesticides as the dogs actually nibble on the plant leaves and I also don't want to hurt the bees, hummingbirds and praying mantis.

Mama's got a brand new bag

I finished it, yah!  The pretty in pink knitting bag is complete and actually came out just as I expected it. 

Bag

I would like to report that I finished the knitting bag, sadly that is not the case.  Progress continues, but oh so slowly.

 I did some light, wavy quilting across the bottom to keep the layers together; I am still loving this explosion of girly, pink flowers!










I also just cast on for a light weight wrap type sweater, the pattern is called Odelia.  I bought the pattern and the yarn at the Stitches event this year.  The yarn came from a company called A Verb For Keeping Warm and it feels so nice, it's got a little cashmere in the blend.  The pattern is Odelia from Cocoknits. Below is my knitting swatch (the little practice piece to measure how many stitches per inch and row, this allows each person to size their own garment based on their actual yarn and needles), which shows that I am getting 5.5 stitches/inch using size 7 needles.