Daily Notes- October 10th. Another chilly, cloudy day here in Maine.

 Closing up the garden means putting the old stuff into the compost bins.  I always add shredded junk mail all year long.  I know brown paper is best- I used to save and put the brown paper grocery bags thru the shredder and then into the compost bins but now the paper bags cost 5 cents each.  Worms love brown paper.  And I use my recyclable  grocery bags now and do not purchase bags at the store. 

And I used to buy fresh ground coffee beans and make filtered coffee and the used grounds went into the compost bins.  Worms LOVE coffee grounds. So October is fill the compost bins month.  Stuff from the garden.  The Annual flowers from the containers.  Leaves.  Grass clippings.  Tons of leaves.  I used to have this barrel shaped thing with fishing line that whipped around and shredded dry leaves into leaf dust.  But I don't know what happened to it.  Worms love leaf dust.  The container soil is sifted to removed roots and stored in garbage cans for next year.  It's sterile and will last the rest of my gardening life.

Sigh.  It's been slow and boring here at the house.  The Postal Pony Express did bring me a package yesterday.  Eight Days from Boston to Maine. Blues.  Blue cloth. All of it odd shaped scraps.  It's hard to imagine the happiness one, here in lonely Maine, feels when she gets a package.   I ran my hands over each piece to flatten and press it.  There is one fabric with green leaves.  I have to think of something wonderful for that fabric.

I bought (more) new paddles for winding floss.  I have bags of floss from my days of teaching hand appliqué (I included thread, needles and fabric into the class fees so all the ladies had the right things and could be successful- I hated paying a large amount of money for a class and the teaching materials fell far short of being useful- I also hated paying for a class and then having to help the women seated nearby with their projects as the highly paid teacher dithered about the room being useless). So I have a lot of floss.  And eventually storage boxes for all the floss.  I'm 75. I will never use it all.  But I am working each day to find uses for some of it. I am using it for any and all hand sewing.  Not using spool thread except in the sewing machine.  Mending George's pants.  And my own.  Possibly- all my clothing will be embroidered in the next 10 years?  If my eyes hold out.  And my fingers. They tend to cramp up these days.  Getting old.  It's hard.  When.... inside your head..... you're still 20 or 30 years old.