Warm Glow in Cold Weather

Despite the side effects from Hurricane Patricia we've been experiencing (cold temperatures, strong winds, heavy rain), there is still one rose left on my rose bush going strong.  Nature is amazing.

I now have a miniature garden inside, too, which I purchased from a friend at the dojo.  I adore succulent plants!  She did such an amazing job with this.

To further sustain me in these weather conditions, there is of course my knitting.  My physiotherapist recently commissioned a pair of socks from me.  I used a beautiful ombré yarn for it - Lion Brand Landscapes in colour Tropical.

Reap What You Sow

It's funny; the less hours I work at my paid jobs, the more I am able to fill my hours with other things, which still don't involve cleaning house or taking care of my garden.  I am always very well intentioned to take care of the garden but there always seems to be something else of a higher priority to do.  I am blessed to live in the wonderful climate that I do, so that even if I ignore the weeds for a while, the garden still does fairly well.

We changed the plant mix this year.  For the first time, we didn't plant tomatoes and cucumbers.  We are trying some crop rotation strategy.  The lavender and chives are perennials in the herb patch.  We have added a strawberry mint and a cinnamon curry plant to the patch this year.  In the veggie patch, we are growing potatoes and shallots instead of cucumbers and tomatoes.  The eggplant this year isn't doing as well as last year despite it's rotated location.  We have planted beets this year for fun and my husband always has to have his one chili plant as well.  We are also trying chocolate coloured bell peppers this year, but unfortunately, no fruit.  As usual, I planted yellow marigolds around my patches to try and keep away the pests; works not too bad.  So without further ado, here are some pics of my overgrown herb and veggie patches and some of my flowers.

Chives blooming before lavender at the back right

Lilac doing really well

Ah, clematis

potato plants and shallots on the right

shallots, beets at back, eggplant right front, chili right middle, beets back second from right

lavender back left now blooming, chives front right blooms faded, cinnamon curry front left, strawberry mint back right

Back from - was it a holiday?

Hard to believe.  We've been back almost 3 weeks and this is the first chance I've had to sit down and write.  We've been working like crazy; even through our vacation.  The trunk show in High River went very well and I'm very grateful to my in-laws for giving me that opportunity.  My children were great assistants in the show as well.

It also never fails that while we were away, the garden ran amok.  I had to cut the cucumber vine off the cable wire and garden hose wheel.

Needless to say, I haven't had time for knitting, jewelry making, or much of anything else.  I hope it won't be too long a hiatus before I post again.

In the Garden

We were having dinner in the backyard when one of these beautiful butterflies landed on my lilac bush. In the 14 years we've been in this house, I've never seen these here. Yet today, 2 were in my front yard when I was bringing my daughter home and now one on this bush. It was very cooperative and let me get nice and close to get many pictures, a few of which are posted here. I think it's a male Eastern Tiger Swallowtail from the markings, even though they are not really seen in Ontario. The hubby thinks it's a Canadian Tiger Swallowtail, but I think the markings are too different. We can both agree it's a beautiful butterfly. In other news, our clematis plants have started blooming!

Best Mother's Day Gift Yet

Yesterday was a wonderful Mother's Day.  My amazing children were up at 6:30 (I could hear them puttering about quietly) making me breakfast in bed.  This is a tradition with them.  They do it for us every year for Mother's Day and Father's Day.  They made me cards, too.  This was the first year my son made an animated presentation as an e-card.  Of course, once my daughter saw this, she wanted to do the same although she had already made me a beautiful paper card.  I wish I could share them with you, but it was through my son's school's network.

The pièce de résistance had to be from my husband.  After many years of pleading and waiting, he finally cleaned the garage!  I can actually walk in there without tripping over things.  I might even be able to fit a car in there now.

The weather was gorgeous, at long last!  My husband and the kids worked so hard pretty much all day in the garden and the garage.  They wanted me to relax and not work.  That was a lovely sentiment, but realistically, someone had to do the laundry and cook while they were hard at work outside all day.  I transplanted my eggplant seedlings (I started them indoors 8 weeks ago in pellets) into the newly modified garden patch and started some new seeds in small pots in my little greenhouse outside.  In April, we demolished the children's old swing and slide set which they had outgrown and transformed our old 6 ft. x 12 ft. patch into one 4 ft. x 6 ft. patch and one 6 ft. x 12 ft. patch and this time, they are raised beds.

Since this picture was taken, we've added more soil.  As the weather improves, I hope to have to have pictures with more plants in here.

Timely Vacation – A Month without Knitting

I have absolutely no knitting pictures. It was another 200+ hour month and my daughter’s birthday in between. I haven’t touched the needles since my last posting; pathetic, I know. My garden has run amok. I’ve spent the better part of today trying to tame it again.

Last week-end was the first time we were able to do some harvesting. We dined on some zucchini, buttercrunch lettuce, and green beans that night. My daughter’s Nasturtiums are doing very well, too.

Today is the first day of my two week vacation. We’ll be flying out to Alberta this year as well. I won’t be blogging during that time but I will be spending some of my vacation knitting and catching up on other people’s blogs. I haven’t been deliberately ignoring you. I haven’t lost interest in your blogs. Thank you to readers who haven’t given up on my blog yet. Hopefully, I will get some interesting pictures to write about when we get back. It feels so strange to have free evenings again where I turn on the computer for leisure and not work.

Stake Anyone?

The garden is coming along quite nicely. It was a very rainy week so the garden was happy. I didn’t think it had grown much height wise but boy was I wrong when I went to out to take a closer look. They had just grown along the ground and everything is flowering so I should have some nice veggies pretty soon. My son’s first green bean plant already has 5 beans on it. It seems the marigolds are working for keeping the pests away. Rush visit to Canadian Tire to get some stakes. And voilà!
I don’t think I’ve seen my lavender so lavenderAnd a little unexpected surprise. I've never had a plant growing in a downspout before.

The sweater’s coming along nicely, too. It’s been pretty plain stocking stitch up until now.

Coming Up Roses

I put the buttons on my niece’s sweater today. I went with something pretty neutral – it’s more to my sister-in-law’s taste I think. She tends to go for gender neutral things. She also plans to use it for her forthcoming son so I couldn’t use some cute daisy buttons I found at Michael’s.

The garden is doing quite well. My patio rose tree is blooming nicely.

My daughter’s nasturtiums are emerging.

And the marigolds seem to be keeping the rabbits at bay.

Finally! Fran Gardening?

Knitting taking a back seat? Unthinkable! But true.

I must admit that gardening has taken precedence in my life; sadly, by necessity. It’s that time of year when you have to plant and weed before nature runs amok in your backyard. Well, we were too late so there was a lot to be done. I started my seedlings indoors too early and they died before I got to plant them or maybe I didn’t know how to sustain them properly once they’d sprouted. So, we’ve bought more plants and I’ve done some direct planting of seeds and we’ll see what happens.

We made a nice little vegetable patch, which I hope will get enough sunlight, and hubby put in stepping stones to get to the water faucet. It’s a solid plan, now let’s see if it will work. It’s been one day and the plants seem to be intact so I guess the marigolds are doing their job.

Spring is in the Air – Not!

Last Sunday, I started some seeds with the kids. I couldn’t believe how fast they started sprouting. The kids are so excited. This is the first time I’ve started anything successfully from seeds. Those peat pellets are amazing!

Up until now, the weather has been nice and spring-like. We haven’t had snow since the end of February. So naturally, tomorrow the forecast is calling for some wet snow. They’re forecasting a cold week in general – wee.

In other news, I couldn’t make it to the Yarn Factory Outlet sale in Listowel this year because of the number of hours we’ve had to work the past few months. Luckily, a friend of mine could go and was willing to pick up some goodies for me. There was only one thing of interest to me – Bernat GLOW IN THE DARK yarn. I scored big time!

I really hope they’re not serious about discontinuing this yarn as the website indicates. I haven’t heard any other news supporting that. I want to make more glow-in-the-dark dinosaurs for my niece and nephew. My kids also have some ideas of "other things" they want to see glow in the dark.