Planning Ahead

Dazzling sunshine streams through the windows and on the table potted daffodils help to ring in the first day of spring. The sun, the sun has returned. What a blessing! It has a bit of that wonderful radiating fierceness to it too, even though today is crisp and cold. But we have stepped over winter into spring and there's no turning back.

Out in the woods, they are busy at the sugar camp where the maple syrup flows. It's time for a hearty breakfast. (I am thinking tomorrow morning.) I have visions of eggs and pancakes dancing through my head.  Although I rarely have maple syrup, it does have a myriad of health benefits.  I recently read that they are thinking of using it to enhance the potency of antibiotics.

My seed order arrived, so I am making plans for my containers. These seeds are from the amazing floret flower farm. I am expecting great things, especially since I read that the sweet peas will grow from 6 to 8 feet. Wow! They require full sun which I don't have, but I do have morning sun and hopefully that will be enough to spark the process. If not, well I know a few people that might be persuaded to plant a few seeds in their garden. After all, who could resist?
Love-In-A Mist looks like another wonder, along with Icelandic and Shirley poppies and malope.

Currently reading floret's wonderful book. I'd love to take the gardening course, but then I would need at least an acre of land to cultivate that dream.

The pottery: a flea market find from the weekend.

                                                Along with these salt dishes or, salt cellars.

                                              As you can see, I've been working with paperclay again. I've made a few small dishes and these will be needle minders.

    I love to draw on small cards. I may get a few of these printed. I am slowly planning my order.

'Til next time... Enjoy your early spring or fall weekend. . .  
 
                                                                        Cultivate your Dreams.
                        

A few things

Hi everyone!

Painted by the best painter.

Crab Apples

 Time to harvest the lemon balm on the left that I grew from seed.  It makes lovely tea. My smiling bee buddy, a flea market find for a tuppence ~ 25 cents.

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Finished the bookmarks that I had a pic of in the last post. This is the back.  Definitely a trial run because I had a problem with the laminating sheets. Overnight the backing fell off, so I attached     another sticky side to the back, but it was hard to cut out properly.  Obviously, a laminating machine would work better.

Darker ink would help too, I reckon. Perhaps a heavier 005 Micron pen instead of the finer point, or, better yet, a Rapidograph pen.  Black ink does show up better than my favourite blue. 
*Squinting eyes.*

A fit? Not sure but a lot of tea does go well with a good book.

 * * *

Shawl progress. . . finished the nupps section.  In a you tube video, I recently saw someone use a crochet hook to pick up the five stands of the nupp on the knit side. The pattern says to pick the nupps up on the purl side. I found that a smaller needle worked well for that.  For you knitters out there, in hindsight, if you haven't made nupps before, I am sure the crochet hook method on the knit side would have been easier.

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Slowly putting my container gardens to bed, although, luckily, there are thriving bright spots left.

Pretty Verbena

Impatiens

Elegant Fuchsias

Begonia. Absolutely love this colour!

Mixing paint to match the begonia. I think the pink is straight from the tube. It's difficult to see colour correctly, so an easier way is to fashion a cut out 1/2 inch and a 1 inch frame out of heavy paper to hold against the flower, or even a photograph so that you can isolate the colour. ( Not sure where I saw that, but it's from those who know.)

 

After I said that there wasn't a bird in sight, a flock of Starlings arrived to feast on seeds in the trees. I was trying to follow them and I missed so the video trails off in the end. Do forgive.

Have a lovely week...

Cultivate a Dream

Garden Oasis

I love to garden.  And I find it liberating to pitch the gloves and just dig in.  For me, planting seeds and watching them grow lifts and nurtures the spirit, enhances my sense of wonder; promotes peace and satisfaction, and when I planted vegetables there was the added bonus of pure freshness. These days I only start Nasturtiums and Morning Glories from seed, but I am still enthusiastic about gardening.

 I keep saying that I am going to limited the number of containers I plant. After all, if I plant too many, the water brigade usually falters.  Perhaps I am a slow learner, but in recent years I've discovered that if I live in a area with good ventilation the best time to water is in the early evening. Then as I walk through the door in the morning, while taking that furtive glance over my shoulder at the pots outside, I catch a glimpse of quilt free beauty. The flowers, instead of giving me that droopy fatalistic look that emphatically states it's all over but the crying, sing halleluiahs. And the grateful Sweet Alyssum sings the loudest. Preferring cool temperatures, Alyssum craves extra water in the summer. It's a prissy plant that needs grooming, too, but if I treat it especially well, this year, the new variegated leafed variety just might bloom all summer.  Time will tell.

P.S.  I caved and bought more plants today ~ so much for the manicure and something called limits...

"To forget how to dig the earth and to tend the soil is to forget ourselves."

Mahatma Gandhi