It's Alive!

Yes we are alive. I've been so busy with work and Tony keeps me busy with gardening when I'm home. Plus I was in a bit of a knitting slump for a few weeks so I didn't have much to blog about even if I had the time.


So what are we up to? A lot of this!

Here's Tony taking a bucket full of water to the recently planted veggie patch. We have plans to build two more raised beds, but time keeps kicking us in the ass. At least we finally got the first one planted. We planted: carrots, baby spinach, mixed salad greens, rosemary, sage, basil, parsley, two tomatoes, corn and a few bell peppers. mmmm.

We've done lots of other building projects, including:

A Canna bed! It's the dirt patch left of the Crepe Myrtle and in front of the fence. That involved taking out the dirt that was there -- mostly clay (seriously, I should start making pottery) and replacing it with a good quality soil/sand/manure/organic material mixture.

I wouldn't go so far as to say putting up this bird feeder was "construction" but it was still work. We had to plan exactly where to put it. I know that it is next to a bush and we do have two cats that roam the yard. Hey, cats gotta eat too. No, that's really not been a problem. The cats are too fat to chase birds.

We built a 5'x5' stone porch for the Shed. Hopefully those plantings will take off and fill-in between all the stones. Building that thing was a real pain. We had to excavate the site, compact layers of clay, pebbles, sand and earth to create a foundation. Then place the rocks (more than 400 pounds worth transported in the trunk of Tony's Cavalier) and level them. Add more earth and plantings. Ugh. So worth it though.

Of course, there has been plenty of tending to plants new and old. Here is an old Orchid newly in bloom.

And bulbs are coming up. The Crocus are already finished, but the Grape Hyacinth is still going strong

And the Regular Hyacinth too!

There are also Tulips and Daffodils in the yard. I'll try to get some good pics of those next time.

This is the first of numerous planned hanging baskets. This one has a scented Geranium (smells like soap or citronella) and has pretty pink flowers. It's combined with petunias (both blue and white).

We have done some knitting too.

Tony is trying his first bit of lace. He started the Branching Out scarf pattern in KnitPicks Alpaca Cloud. After a few repeats, he decided he'd rather do it in a heavier weight. So he restarted it this morning.

I started a new blanket -- just in time for warm weather. Lol. I really love my Hemlock Ring Blanket and have been wanting another. Then we bought "A Gathering of Lace" and the Feather and Fan pattern really caught my eye. So I'm doing a HRB version of that pattern. The Yarn is Cascade Eco + that I originally purchased to do another HRB. Yes it is Greeeeeeen! But I love it and it's for me so there. I should be done with this pretty soon. It has been a super fast knit -- maybe because I love love love working on it.

That's all for today.

Later,

Eric