Still Creative and Still Warm Here

Indeed, summer is still here, with temperatures soaring over 100 degrees for a few more days. This past week saw numerous record-high days, including one that reached 107 degrees. Thankfully, the nights have cooled down enough for us to enjoy early morning walks. The featured image is one I captured yesterday of a coyote; it was observing us while we watched it. I appreciated how it stood still, allowing me to snap a great picture. It looks quite well-fed! However, we haven’t spotted any bunnies on our last couple of walks. On a positive note, the waterfowl are starting to return, and I’ll share pictures of them later.

I’ve put up my Halloween decorations, and I’m pleased with how the witch pillow cover turned out—it’s adorable!

Now, I’ve begun working on a Christmas set. I’m uncertain how the next two pieces will turn out, but for this one, I already had the fabric strips for the tree ready, so it was easy to get started.

Here are some Halloween crafts I’ve made in the past. One of them is a door hanging, which has two additional panels that couldn’t fit in the photo.

These are my table placemats.

And here are the three completed pillow covers. Notice that the one on the right shares a color theme with the placemats.

These are some crafts I made quite a while ago. It was challenging to capture a good photo due to the light behind them.

Things have been relatively quiet around here. Unfortunately, it seems our air conditioning unit has lost all of its refrigerant again, as it’s not functioning properly. The energy company that installed our thermostat keeps sending alerts about an overheating house. No surprise there—it’s just been an exceptionally hot summer. I’ll reach out to the home warranty company tomorrow. Ugh.

Additionally, the back wall is still not constructed, but progress is being made. Here’s a photo of the old wall that was damaged in the flood. While part of the wall was knocked down in the back of the community, the section near us only had its foundation compromised on the wetlands side, necessitating a complete replacement. They also removed the section of the drainage ditch wall directly under the cinder blocks.

This photo was taken yesterday from the wetlands. You can see our dead or dying pine tree on the right. It’s just one thing after another.

About four houses down from us, they are beginning to construct the new wall, which will match the height, color, and structure of the old one.

I still haven’t received any updates from “Jimmie” regarding the rocks they knocked into the ditch or the section they damaged in our retaining wall during the cleanup.

I just took these photos; the new wall is about two houses away from us. I’ve noticed they’ve moved the porta-potty closer to us, but the rocks remain in the ditch.

These images show the view just behind our house. Columns should be up by tomorrow afternoon. The lines in the ditch are shadows from the rebar.

Currently, all that’s laid is rough cement for the wall foundation, and our rocks along with a significant amount of other debris are still in the ditch.

That’s about all for now.