Valerean

Our resident pair of sandhill cranes are expecting; Mama just built herself a nest in our neighbor's horse pasture. This species of bird has been around on the planet for about 2.5 million years, according to the fossil record. I shot these pics on zoom from the car; one does not mess with sandhill cranes, as even when they're not nesting they can be very aggressive. This is probably the third or forth brood this pair hatches; we've seen them before with youngsters a couple of times over the years. Fortunately this pasture is fenced off to keep any gawkers from getting too close to Mama. Her mate is also standing guard 24/7. Hopefully in a few weeks I'll get some pics of the babies. Final bit of trivia: sandhill crane babies are called colts, like horses. :)

We're about halfway through our only bottle of hand sanitizer, and there is still none at the stores, so I looked into what I need to make my own. I actually have everything I need according to this Wired article with a quick recipe for making your own . Okay, I don't have the essential oil, but we don't care how it smells. My guy was looking for a small bottle we could use to put some hand sanitizer in his truck, and I wanted one for my purse. While scrounging around my bathroom drawers I found four of these (one is now in his truck): I honestly forgot I had these; my daughter liked them so I'd always buy a couple extra whenever I went to Bath & Body Works. Problem solved. :)

While rearranging my office I found a bunch of journals tucked away in a drawer. I think I pulled these from my collection (huge) because I was looking for an old photo. It was fun looking through them, so I'll share some peeks inside: Back in 1986 I was writing a lot of sonnets. Also some pretty savage stuff that I might end up tearing out and burning, as it turns out. Kind of startling to see how pretty my handwriting used to be, too. I'm naturally a leftie, but the year after I wrote this journal I had two surgeries that basically destroyed that hand. Shopping for dresses in 2015 so Katherine could go to her boyfriend's prom. She didn't get this one, but it was my favorite. I thought it made her look like a Monet painting. 2011, and at the time I was writing Nightbred and having trouble getting into the head of the female protagonist. The last time I wrote her she was just a kid, which is how she stayed in my memory. Ageing up former characte...

This is the journal I was referring to as my plague journal. I renamed it today: Sojourn, as in the noun form: a short stay in a place that is different for me. I've been keeping track of the pandemic in it and how it's affecting us daily since March 6th. When I'm too emotional to write (which is often) I use word stickers to compose short poems (the right page is blurred in this pic because of content I'd rather keep private.) I also tape in things like Chinese fortunes and other little fragments from my daily life. Adding calming images recycled from my old Zen calendars to some of the pages prompts me not to write in anger. That's helping a lot, too.

I'm rearranging my quilt closet this week, and deciding what I want to keep and what I can donate. Among the keepers are three I'd like to restore, and there's no time like the present. Here they are: This one is a hand-pieced and embroidered tumbling blocks quilt with crazy quilt border, all silk. I'm not sure of the age on this one because it has a very new red velvet backing, but I'm going to guess early 20th century. Several patches need replacing. I love the border: Late 19th century attic windows quilt, all silk including the ruffle and backing: The ruffle has shattered and torn in several places and can't be repaired, so that has to go. The blocks are repairable, but the quilt is extremely fragile so I'd have to be really careful. It's a beautiful piece, though: Cotton Dresden plate quilt, maybe about twenty to thirty years old. This is an old practice piece I started to restore, and then set aside for another project and nev...

Just a heads-up, Bluprint.com (formerly Craftsy) is making all of their 1420 online class videos free for anyone to watch until 4/9; all you have to do is register an account with the site, which only requires an e-mail. These are the class categories: Quilt (208) Sew (198) Cake (193) Knit (164) Cook (121) Photo (83) Bake (78) Paint (75) Draw (75) Embroidery (58) Paper Craft (55) Crochet (52) Jewelry (50) Wood (24) Garden (23) Other (21) Family (14) Weave (12) Spin (9) I made this quilt from a kit I bought from them back in 2018 when they were still Craftsy, and I have watched a couple of their free shows in the past. Definitely worth it for free.

I found this free online pattern designed by nurse via Angela Clayton's YouTube channel . To quote the designer: "This pattern is designed to fit in two ways. First, directly over the face, similar to a surgical mask. Second, the pleats expand, allowing the mask to fit over many models of N-95 to provide a protective barrier, in the hope of extending the lifetime of the respirator." Angela tweaked the pattern, but here's her video on how she's making them so you can get the general idea:

This morning I woke up to discover I had run out of pre-written posts for the blog, having burned through all the ones I had saved while dealing with the new reality. I haven't been quilting or sewing, either. I have been writing a lot in what I'm now calling my plague journal, but that's my emergency emotional valve. Basically all of my creativity and the outlets I use for it are in lock down, and because I'm diverting my energy into things that don't inspire me, the well is emptying fast and on the verge turning into an abyss. Result: I'm miserable. Today I'm going to start refilling the well. I started by getting up earlier and going for a walk with the dogs. Being outside in the sunlight gave me a chance to look at the sky, which is pretty today, and be surrounded by the loveliness of spring. Everything is green here, and I'm lucky to live in such a beautiful spot. I'm also going back to what always floods the well: writing. I have a...

It's going to be one of those days when I need to write something about the pandemic. I checked the current population of the US this morning, which the internet says is 327,700,000. Three percent (the mostly frequently touted mortality rate of Covid-19) of that is 9,831,000, but it's possible that it's as low as 1%, which would be 3,277,000. I think it's safe to say that if this highly infectious virus spreads unchecked, somewhere between three and ten million people in this country will die. About three million people die every year in the US anyway, so the best case scenario is that we'll double the average annual death rate -- if nothing else factors in. If the virus doesn't mutate. If our healthcare system is not overwhelmed by the number of cases and more people die because they couldn't get care. If the people who initially survive the virus don't relapse or experience complications that shorten their lives. In other words, if we're ve...

Fun fact: Mr. Oliver can trace his half ancestry back to Scotland, thanks to his Mom. On his Dad's side the DNA is French and German (we don't know what I am, but I might get one of those ethnicity tests one day to find out.) I was looking up some Scottish jokes the other day to send to Oliver's Mom, and found these: What's That A shifty-looking guy in a kilt walks into a London pub. He orders a pint, and very very carefully puts down the duffle bag he is carrying. The bartender asks, "What's that?" The guy leans forward, and in a whisper says, "6 pounds of explosives." "Thank Christ for that," says the bartender, looking relieved now. "I thought it might be bagpipes." Sorted A Scottish dad calls his son in London the day before Christmas Eve: “I hate to ruin your holidays, son, but I have to tell you that your mother and I are divorcing. Forty-five years of misery is enough.” "Dad, what are...

While sorting through yet another pile of stuff I collected during my spring cleaning, I found these two watercolors tucked away in a folder: I painted these eight years ago when I took an online class in metallic watercolors. On a whim I went to see if my slideshow of the work I did for the class was still on Flickr, and it is ( click here if you want to watch it.) I'm never going to set the art world on fire, of course, but I enjoyed it for the most part, and I learned some tricks. While taking the class I also came up with my own technique to transfer the pattern of an abstract lace with the watercolor, which is what made the background for this piece: Once I finished the class and did my final project I went back to doing my own thing art-wise. I find I'm happier learning on my own from books. I also found these stashed away in another closet: Ice Cathedrals, 1996 Jax (character painting), 2004 Mattias (character painting), 2004 What I realized when I ...

Flowers are blooming in our new little garden in the front yard: Hello, Spring.

There is a lot of buzz going around about making masks to help during the pandemic, especially from the fashion industry, which I think is amazing, frankly. This is a way those of us who sew can really help. I just have to see if I have interfacing and elastic (cotton fabric isn't a problem), and then I'll start making them. Important note: cloth face masks are not protective enough for medical staff to use alone against the virus, but they can be used with face shields to help get them by during critical shortages. They can also be used by support staff that don't have close contact with patients to free up the more protective masks for medical staff. If you are in a position to make cloth face masks, have the materials and a sewing machine, check in your community to see if you have a mask-making effort going on. I know JoAnn stores are accepting donations of finished masks; here's the page with all the details.

Library Thing is now free for everyone , which I must say is pretty cool. I've been a lifetime member since LT's early days, and while my catalog there is sadly out of date, it's nice to see them do this in response to the pandemic. Now book lovers all over the world can use the service and keep track of their books. Image by jarmoluk on Pixabay

My grandson even sleeps adorably: We set up this makeshift bassinet the last time Oliver stayed overnight with us. I'm hunting for something else now in case he has to come stay with us for any length of time. He's rolling around and getting ready to crawl. Anyway, does anyone have a rec for a sturdy, safe, not too enormous crib or something similar?

I finished and turned in my latest book on Tuesday. Yesterday was a beautiful day, sunny but cool, so my guy and I decided to get out of the house and take a long drive. The roads were virtually deserted until we got into the city, but we didn't plan to get out or stop anywhere. We just drove east until we hit the ocean. This is Ormond Beach, a little north of Daytona: Ormond is more of a locals' beach, but still, I've never seen it so deserted on a nice day. There are usually hundreds of people at this beach. I kept looking at these two chairs and wondering if I was in the Twilight Zone. We then drove back home the long way, via a scenic highway route we like to take through the marshes and woods. My guy spotted something we'd never noticed before -- an old pair of brick smoke stacks in the woods, so he decided to stop there to check it out. That was how we found this: We love old buildings, so we walked back to have a look. Colonel Dummitt is bett...

My tea cups aren't as pretty as this -- actually, all of mine are mugs -- but I get a lot of inspiration out of them. Tea is a big part of my life, thanks to books from my childhood. P.L. Travers wrote about tea in her Mary Poppins novels, and Laura Ingalls Wilder's father was always drinking it in the Little House books. Alice in Wonderland had that wild Mad Hatter tea party, which still is my favorite part of that story. When I grew older I read about it in Jane Austen's novels, where it always seemed to be part of the setting, but also helped with the action: "Mr. Woodhouse was soon ready for his tea; and when he had drank his tea he was quite ready to go home" -- Emma "Mr. Tilney drank tea with us, and I always thought him a great addition" -- Northanger Abbey "some of them did decide on going in quest of tea" -- Persuasion "When the tea-things were removed, and the card-tables placed" -- Pride and Prejudice In...

Happy St. Patrick's Day from Valerean. Image by Kathleen Bergmann from Pixabay

From a hike my guy and I took last month: