springtime follies

That's Bob the chimney sweep up on top of the house yesterday afternoon.  Not actually cleaning the chimney of soot, but cleaning out the animal that fell in there!  We could hear something moving around in the stovepipe that hooks to the woodstove, but haven't yet removed the critter.  The hope was that dropping the chimney sweeper thing down would force the animal to the bottom of the chimney where there is a cleanout hatch in the basement.  But the plan failed when the sweeper thing got hung up partway down.  Then all was quiet for a long time, until this afternoon when I am alone in the house and I can hear some movement in there again.  At this point, there's not much more we can do except check the hatch periodically.  This is not the first time we have had creatures in the chimney.  And see right next to the stones, there is a little board that looks like a patch on the overhang?  That's where the squirrels created their main entrance last spring.

This morning I have been working on the longarm (and not accomplishing much due to thread problems and way too much time with the seam ripper) and listening to some past programs on American Patchwork and Quilting radio.  There is a lot of good information shared there and it's all available for free to anyone who is interested.  Just now I listened to the program from 2/27 and learned a lot about hand dyed fabrics and how to handle problems with fabric dyes that run.  This is a good reference article on colorfastness.

I'm feeling bad for local baseball fans this afternoon, it is the home opener for the Twins and it is 45 degrees and windy!  Brrr!  I am really hoping for some heat soon to get my rhubarb growing faster, I have found a good recipe for rhubarb bread pudding that I want to try.  We have enjoyed some asparagus from the garden already, too.