Something to Smile About

Ah, the joys of Spring. The grass is green. The flowers are blooming. And the goats are smiling.

Train Travel Art

I recently bought a used book and inside was a 3x5-inch yellow and green envelope which held two reservation tickets for a passenger who traveled by train in early March 1954. The drawings on the front and the reverse of the envelope are terrific. The front shows a lineup of trains in North Western's 400 Streamliner Fleet.

The reverse shows a map of the Chicago and North Western System. If you enlarge the map, you can see things like the carvings on Mount Rushmore, the geyser of Old Faithful at Yellowstone, and a dairy cow in Madison, Wisconsin. (These two photos are both of the reverse of the envelope, but the second one is a little bit more of a closeup and is in black and blue instead of yellow and green.) 

I love how the railroad took such care to reproduce these clever drawings on something which it probably expected people to throw away once they finished their travels.

The reservations show the passenger went from Martinsburg, West Virginia to Chicago, Illinois, on the B&O Railroad, and from Chicago to Ames, Iowa on the North Western Railroad.

The book also contained a Police Traffic Bureau Warning issued to the train passenger in Des Moines Iowa in September 1954, for being parked at 4:13 p.m. in a place which didn't allow parking between 4:00 and 6:00 p.m. The warning said it was not a summons to appear in court.  Rather, it "is extended to you as a COURTESY and also gives us an opportunity to say HELLO and WELCOME." The capital letters are in the original. 

Zipper Pouch

I was roaming around youtube after watching another episode of The Great British Sewing Bee, and I ran across a Missouri Star Quilt Company tutorial for a zipper pouch. I gave it a whirl and here's the result:

The lining is red and there's a layer of fleece sandwiched between the outside and the lining so the pouch is nice and soft. This one is 9 x 9 inches, but you can make them any size you want. I bought a dozen handbag zippers (assorted colors) from an eBay seller for less than $10 so I can make a few more pouches and use up more of the scraps I have stashed away. If you have any scraps you'd like to put to good use, take a look at the MSQC tutorial and see how easy these are to make. Happy sewing, everyone!

Getting Ready For Spring

The 2014-15 winter threw a lot at us here in the mid-Atlantic region. We had brutally cold temperatures. We had snow. And ice. And freezing rain and sleet. And more snow. And more cold temperatures. We sanded, shoveled, scraped, made lots of chili, and filled the bird feeders hundreds of times. Weeks ago, we ran the white flag up the frozen pole, but Mother Nature refused to accept our surrender. Tomorrow's forecast is for 8+ inches of snow followed by single-digit temperatures.

This morning, we decided to ignore winter and get ready for spring by starting some seeds. We have one of those little cube refrigerators and it's stuffed with seeds. There are flower seeds which my late grandmother gave us decades ago. The hottest of our hot pepper seeds are from my 90-year old aunt's garden. A friend gave me seeds from two varieties of tomatoes she's grown for many years. Some seeds we saved from plants we got at plant exchanges. There are a few packets of “store bought” seeds and some seeds whose origins are a mystery. We sifted through all of them today and decided to start twenty varieties of peppers and four varieties of tomatoes. After we finished tamping the seeds into containers of potting soil, we put the containers into trays, covered the trays with clear tops, put the covered trays on shelves in a little plastic greenhouse, and closed the two zippers in the front. (In the photo, the front is open, so you'll have to imagine it zipped closed.) 

The greenhouse sits in a corner of the dining room which will be sunny the next time we see the sun.  When spring arrives, we'll be ready! 

Bird Strike Deterrent

Hello fellow bird watchers. Once in a while, a bird slams into one of our dining room windows. We always run outside, scoop them up, and hold them until they're ready to fly away. Nearly all of them live, but we still feel awful about it. So, this morning I used some scraps of clear vinyl (approximately .004" thick - bought it at JoAnn's) left over from another project and a black marker and made two of these:

The vinyl is really transparent and I had to take more than one photo to make it show so you could see it. When you're in the dining room, you sort of look through the webs and hardly notice them. The vinyl sticks to the windows by itself, just like a screen protector on an iPad, without any adhesive. Our hope is the birds will see the webs and choose a different route.  I mean, who doesn't hate running into a spider web, right? 

Christmas in January

Nearly two years ago, we planted 2,100 tiny trees which are protected by plastic tree shelters held in place with wooden stakes. Even though some of the trees are now more than six feet tall, we need to keep the shelters in place until they're quite a bit bigger. Unfortunately, the deer and damp weather combine forces to make sure the shelters fall over regularly, which means we have to reinstall them. We've been doing this on foot while carrying all of the equipment we need to get the job done. Juggling the shelters and the stakes while carrying a shovel and a small sledge hammer wasn't a lot of fun. Neither was walking back and forth to the barn when we discovered we needed a cable tie and walking back and forth again when we discovered we needed a length of twine and walking back and forth again . . . . . You get the idea. This is what they looked like in April 2013:

We started looking for a reasonably priced John Deere Gator (or something similar) to carry our “stuff” and to spare us the endless walks to and from the barn, when we found this little guy on craigslist.

The engine, drive train, wheels, and body belonged to a 4x4 John Deer Gator, and the clever guy who sold it to us turned it into what you see in the photos. It runs like a champ. It has headlights and a blindingly bright spot light. There's a windshield wiper and a fan. The prior owner did some nice wood work under the removable dump bed. 

The snow plow is stainless steel. 

The wooden cabin comes off with a few screws. 

It cost less than 20% of what we would have paid for a Gator without a cabin or a snow plow and we are 100% happy.  

Lucky Dog

On December 20, E made a Pilots 'n Paws flight for nine rescued dogs who began the day in North Carolina and ended up with rescue organizations in New Jersey and New York. Let's take a look at the passengers.

This mom and her four puppies were rescued by Pam. One of Pam's co-workers told her a family was planning to take these dogs to the local high-kill shelter the next day, so Pam picked them up and took them home with her and found a rescue group in New Jersey to take them.

These three siblings were rescued by a family who found them dumped in the middle of a road near their farm. The family kept them safe until Pam found a rescue group in New York to take them.

Lucky and his mom were living at an abandoned farm. Mike noticed the dogs and began stopping every day to feed them. As you can see, Lucky had a serious injury to his back. He also had a rip in his tongue. Mike got in touch with Pam, and Pam took Lucky home with her. The same New Jersey rescue group which agreed to take the mom and her puppies also agreed to take Lucky. Mike made arrangements to keep mom safe until she can make it to her rescue group in Connecticut.

Early in the morning on December 20, Pam loaded all nine dogs into her Jeep and headed for the airport in Roanoke Rapids, North Carolina, while Michele and her co-pilot Dennis flew to Roanoke Rapids from their home base in Maryland. All nine dogs boarded Michele's Cessna 172, and Michele and Dennis flew home where E met them. The dogs boarded E's Piper Cherokee and he flew them to New Jersey. The mom and her puppies and Lucky stayed in New Jersey with their rescue group, while the three siblings boarded Charlie's Piper Archer so he could fly them from New Jersey to their rescue group in New York.

In his first few days in New Jersey, Lucky had surgery to repair the rip in his tongue and to graft skin onto the wound on his back which the vet says was caused by a large bird. He is now in a good home where he will stay until his health issues are resolved and he's ready to be adopted. Here's how Lucky spent Christmas Day. A few days earlier, he wasn't able to lie on his back.

If you'd like to get the warm fuzzy reward which comes from helping an animal in need, take a look at the Pilots 'n Paws website.