February This n That

Home in Rocky Point, Oregon Sunshine and 49 degrees, low tonight 27

We returned home from our January travels just in time to get the last of the Christmas lights down and the Valentine decorations up.  I know, I am a little bit crazy that way.  I love to do seasonal decorations. 
Besides, it gave me a chance to get out my first little quilt table topper
that I made last year as a very tentative, brand new quilter.  Funny how the imperfections become a bit endearing after a bit of time has passed.  No one really cares but me anyway, and it is fun to see my progress. 






Leaving sunny California behind, we drove once again into another cloudy inversion over the Rogue Valley.  The little cottage was waiting, all proud and excited to show off her brand new hat.  The roofing job was completed with just a few glitches and a little bit over bid, but Mo is happy with it.  There was a lot of repair involved, and several layers of roofing, dating all the way back to 1926 had to be removed.  Someone asked me to show a photo of the cottage, so here it is again, with the new roof of course.
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We put the MoHo to bed and traveled back over the pass to Rocky Point, relieved that there wasn’t much new snow since we left in mid January.  Everything was in good order, with the driveway accessible, the house warmed to a balmy 55 degrees by the backup electric heaters, and everything in good shape.




It is good to be home, but February is really my least favorite month of winter, and if I didn’t have to be working for a couple of weeks, I think we would have just gone back over the mountain and right on over to the coast!  Ah well, that will come next month when I return from Florida in early March. 
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In the mean time, the sun has been shining daily and the nights are cold.  The snow is still very deep and the driveway is completely frozen into a sheet of solid ice.  I can’t stand up on it, and when I tried to move the truck it just slid sideways for a bit before deciding to go forward.  The only way to get outside and enjoy the sunshine is in the mid afternoon, when I put on the snow pac’s and trudge up an old side road by our place that isn’t completely iced over.  I leave it to Mo to get the mail, which entails walking down the glare ice driveway to the sheet ice road to get to Rocky Point Road, completely bare and dry.


Speaking of mail…it doesn’t seem like there is ever anything in there at all except advertising.  Not sure I would miss it if I didn’t have it at all, but I know I won’t miss Saturday mail. We don’t put anything in the box that is worrisome, mailing from town if we need to, and we don’t get anything troubling either, choosing instead to receive almost everything electronically.  Packages are usually delivered via FedEx or UPS. Lots safer that way, I guess, unless of course everything gets hacked.  UhOh.  I hear the mood of February sifting into this journal.  I have no right to complain at all, I am sitting here with the glare of brilliant sunshine on snow coming through my window and lighting up this room.

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Lots of RV’rs have been talking about mice lately, so I thought I would add my little story to the conversation.  I store bird seed in a big, strong, heavy plastic garbage can.  We seem to only have ground feeders around in the winter, so I thought that maybe they would appreciate a bit of seed scattered over the snow.  Opened the bin to find several very fat, very dead mice in the bottom of the container.  Seems as though they figured out how to chew through the plastic, but then couldn’t get back out of the bin.  ugh.  I don’t do dead things, so whined for Mo to come and fix it.  I would hate to live alone at moments like this. I guess we will have to find something stronger to hold the bird seed when those little guys are winter hungry.



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Within a few days of arriving home, I got a call from Heart to Heart Quilters in Merrill letting me know that my first big project, a queen sized quilt, was ready for pick-up. My daughter Melody had the day off, so I picked her up and we drove the half hour south to Merrill together.  In addition to picking up the quilt, which was quilted beautifully, we spent a long time in the quilt shop looking at fabric and patterns and day dreaming about the day when I will again tackle a big project and make a bed quilt for her.  She let me know that a lap quilt would be nice…but gee Mom, I would really love a big one.  I told her she would be lucky to get it in the next ten years.  This last big one only took me a few months to finish, and in all fairness, I certainly wasn’t working on it all the time.

I also managed to finish the quilting and binding on the baby quilt for Alison’s newborn little boy.  Alison is the wonderful soil scientist who worked for me in California who moved to Florida.  I am tickled about the chance to visit her next week while I am in Ocala with my friend Bel, and to deliver the quilt in person. I thought frogs and bugs and blue and green would be a great theme for a little boy who lives in Florida, right?


I will manage to get in a good 80 hours of work before I leave next Thursday for the Sunshine State.  Of course, the weather there has been fabulous, with temperatures in the 80’s, and as soon as I get there the highs will be 60 or something.  I have no idea why that happens to me when I go to Florida, probably it is because I just don’t get to stay long enough.  Mo and I are still having the conversation about next year and my wish for a Florida winter.  We will see.  In the mean time, we are going to focus this year on getting the cottage in shape and keeping our getaways fairly close to home.
Just thought I would throw in a shot of Jeremy enjoying the lovely new wool hearth rug in front of the fire.  I know he is completely sure that I bought it just for him.  He is getting so skinny, and of course it shows in the photo.  At his prime he was 13 pounds of long limbed lithe beauty and now he is down to less than 8 pounds.  He is on special vet food, limited ingredient diet, with a bit of tuna and fresh meat now and then.  He is such a sweetie, so personable and loving.  At nearly 17, though, it seems that he gets a touch of kitty Alzheimer's now and then.  I read recently about some of the challenges involved with having an “elderly” cat, kind of a bit like an elderly human, I guess.  He gets anxious if he can’t see us and they say that is because old cats lose their vision and hearing and that makes them more fearful.
He still loves nothing more than riding on the dash in the MoHo, and waking me up  at 4:30 am with a loud purr and that sneaky cat claw chin slap that most cat owners will recognize.
I am excited about my upcoming trip, looking forward to seeing how Bel is doing in person, and most of all looking forward to seeing my daughter Deborah in San Antonio on the way home!  I booked a jump flight so I could do both at once, just couldn’t stand the idea of flying over Texas and not getting to see my girl!