Today I continue my quest in creating and posting one block a day of the fabulous That Town And Country Quilt by the lovely Susan Claire. This is day eighty-four of that project.

This quilt block depicts an pretty detailed orange excavator. On the side of the excavator door are the words, — Click To Enlarge

Here is the “Big Boy” on the construction site.

Excavators do a lot of heavy lifting at a construction site. An excavator can do the work of 20 manual laborers. It arrives on a big trailer because it has tracks instead of wheels. It can rotate on its base, much like a lazy-susan.

The grandfather of the excavator was a steam shovel. A man named Mr. Otis received a patent on the steam shovel design in 1839. Different versions had been in use as far back as the 1700s. It was initially used on rail tracks in mining.

When I saw this block, my first thought was back to a book I read to my children and still read to my grandchildren called, Are You My Mother?

It’s about a baby bird that hatches in his nest while his mother is away, and he sets out to find her. He asks various animals if they are his mother and finally comes to a steam shovel.

The machine makes a SNORT sound when he asks if the excavator is his mother. The baby bird says, “You are not my mother; you are a Snort!” For whatever reason, this has always sent them into fits of giggles.

No matter how many times I read it.