Monday, May 3, 2010

Osprey's Cumberland County

These Osprey's were located near Heislerville.

Heislerville, Cumberland County

Last week I went Heislerville to the impoundments. I arrived about 2 hours after high tide but the viewing was still great. I saw lots of shore birds including a large flock of Glossy Ibis, Great and Snowy Egrets, more Lesser and Greater Yellow Legs, Short-billed Dowitchers among the birds. I also stopped along one of the other roads that goes out to the bay where I found 6 Osprey with 2 of them nesting. I really do wonder how I have lived here for 25 years and not appreciated the nature around me.

Birding Cape May County

The past 10 days have been fun as the spring bird migration is going happening. On April 20th I went out birding in the morning over to the Meadows in West Cape May. I saw a Greater Yellow Legs(1) and a Killdeer feeding in one of the ponds. Then across the way was a pair of nesting Mallards. I decided to snap a pictures of them and when I downloaded the pictures I found that there were 3 Wilson Snipe(2) in the background. What a cool surprise! Then along the side of the path a Glossy Ibis(3) also came out to feed. I went home for a while and in my back yard was a Brown Thrasher(4). Later in the afternoon I decided to go up to the Wetlands Institute in Stone Harbor. I had heard there was a path that you could walk along to view the marshes. My sister Jenny was visiting so she went along with me. Before we arrived we saw a Little Blue Heron(5), Osprey, Great Egret and Snowy Egret. Walking the path we saw many Greater and Lesser Yellow Legs(6), Willets(7), more Egrets, Forster's Terns (and some birds I couldn't ID) feeding in the wetlands. At the end of the path is a viewing platform where a couple from Vermont were scoping out some birds. They showed us some Whimbrel(8) and some female Boat-tailed Grackles(9). Nest we checked out the beach in Stone Harbor but the wind had picked up and it was really getting cool. We ended the day driving along the causeway by Nummy Island and seeing yet more great birds. The weather was great & the day was wonderful because I saw 9 new species of birds I had never seen before.

Sunday, May 2, 2010

Making the Quilt Blocks

Here the the steps to what I did to make a block. First I took 2 squares 8.5" and drew a grid on them. The first line was down 1/4" from the diagonal middle on one side to make large triangle with the second line 3/4" down on the same side. The third line goes halfway across the block 1/4" on either side of the diagonal middle of the square. These are all sewing lines.

Second I drew the cutting lines -shown in red and cut the block apart on those lines. After you make a few of the blocks you won't need to put the cutting lines on the blocks.


Pictures 3 & 4 show the square being cut apart into 1 large and 4 smaller triangles.


Picture 5 shows the blocks being trimmed with a bias square ruler. The large triangle will be trimmed to 6.5 inches with the 4 smaller blocks being trimmed to 3.5 inches.

The last picture shows the block sewn together. To get there I sewed the 4 smaller triangle squares together repeating this step twice. Then I laid out the 4 blocks together into the pattern and did the final block piecing.