a maple staple

 Let there be life!

I thought they were goners, but these anemones and ranunculus have really taken off.  I planted these in the ground yesterday and only one was rotten.  I love seeing the green...

...and in probably a month, I'll have this!

It's been pretty chilly, but we have a few bulbs blooming.  Hyacinth and daffodils make a great pair and bring a really cheerful spring feel to the mantle.  I've planted many different types of daffodils, so while the really tiny golden ones are dying now, other patches haven't even bloomed yet!

I love delicate scilla in the tiniest vases.

I'm even making small bouquets with the scant new growth outside...mint, dead nettle, daffodils, and vinca.  Nothing fancy, just something nice to see on the kitchen counter.

I re-hydrated one of my favorite geraniums and it's blooming on a low table in our dining room.  Geraniums are pretty easy to overwinter...just bring them inside, water them maybe once a month, but increase in the spring.  I've had this one for years.

Peonies are starting to pop outside, too!  It won't be long now until beautiful color everywhere!  

Other signs of spring:  these bags are appearing on maple trees all over town.  It's sap-collecting time!  To make syrup, all you have to do is boil down the sap...and the syrup is not just for pancakes. As a child, I fell in love with the description of using fresh-made maple syrup to make candy in Laura Ingalls Wilder's Little Girl in the Big Woods:

“They could eat all they wanted, for maple syrup never hurt anybody. There was plenty of syrup in the kettle, and plenty of snow outdoors. As soon as they ate one plateful, they filled their plates with snow again, and Grandma poured more syrup on it. When they had eaten the soft maple candy until they could eat no more of it, then they helped themselves from the long table loaded with pumpkin pies and dried berry pies and cookies and cakes.”

Who could resist?  Not me!  Todd and I purchased some of this homemade syrup at our local town's Maple Sugar Festival a couple of weeks ago.  Now all we need is a little bit of snow!  :)  

More spring things:  deer are everywhere, eating up those tender spring shoots.

Birds are building nests.  This nest on our front porch has been used by different birds for four consecutive years!

Rabbits are out and about, too.  This one hopped up the steps onto our front porch to nibble at the pumpkin leftovers from last fall! (not-great cell phone capture)

Speaking of rabbits, I decided to use them as the subject in my next embroidery project.  I traced Happy Rabbits by Yumiko Higuchi...

...used a light box to illuminate the pattern...and then traced it onto light green fabric.  I selected my colors and will be ready to start soon!  

More rain is expected this week...

...but I'll be out working in the garden when weather permits.  

Have a great week!  

reptile style

 Even though it's been bitterly cold, we've still enjoyed a little bit of outside beauty.

Unusual for this time of year, deer have been flocking to our front yard in droves.  

I noticed that several of them had what I thought were bloody spots on their hind legs.

When I started doing some research, though, I discovered that this was the tarsal gland, present on both bucks and does.  They urinate on this gland and then rub it so that the gland absorbs certain components of the urine.  The gland then emits a powerful scent, telling others about the dominance of the males and the mating readiness of the females.  Pretty interesting stuff!

St. Patrick's Day was on the 17th, and I made my usual roll-and-cut rainbow cookies.

They're kind of a pain to make, because you have to separate and color the vanilla dough before combining it in a "rainbow log," then encasing that log in chocolate dough.  The proportions were a little off this year, making them look more like peacock feather eyes...

...but they still felt festive and tasted great!

I've been working on a few other projects.  I planted lots of sweet pea seeds in yogurt containers and left them in the attic to sprout.  We've got liftoff! 

The sprouts are pale when they first emerge, but I expect them to green up after a few days under the lights.  Then they'll go out in the garden...in maybe 2-3 weeks?  Ditto these anemone and ranunculus, which I've been pre-sprouting in the attic for the past few weeks.  I thought they might be goners, but they sent up anemic fingers this weekend.  Bingo!

I finished the front panel on my Shadow sweater.  I'm measuring it against a sweater that fits in the way that I want Shadow to fit, and I think it's a pretty good match so far, especially considering that Shadow will grow a bit when I block it.

Phew, that's a lot of cables!  Now I will make an identical panel for the front.  It's coming along nicely!

I saw a really interesting woodcut of a snake last week.  I'm not a huge snake fan, but I love seeing them depicted in relief printings, like woodcuts and linocuts.  After all, I grew up with a pretty famous one:

I've found some beautiful ones online, although the internet being what it is, it's not always easy to find the original artist:

Tyler Krasowski

artist unknown

artist unknown

artist unknown

I think they're really beautiful, and I decided to try stitching one.  I chose a chain stitch for the scales, to give them a bit more detail, and a simple stem stitch for the outline.  I went with a monochromatic color scheme.

I need more practice with "fill stitches," so I'm especially pleased with how the tail and head turned out.  It's not my favorite, but it was an enjoyable-enough small project.

Another small project...I was so pleased with how my Darth Vader Scrabble bag turned out...

...that I practiced another lined bag this week, too.  Not as scary as I'd expected...practice makes perfect!

Looks like we have a cool, wet week coming up...more time for indoor projects, I guess.

Have a great week!  

grass mass

The frogs singing, the days warming, the buds popping...all have been arrested by our recent cold spell.  Typical cold, grey March weather.

We had a brief snow shower yesterday that had melted off by noon.  

Heavy, wet snow, made up of crooked bars instead of the normal soft flakes.

Good thing we were able to squeeze in a hike before this cold weather came!

The brief flare of warmth brought out some spring ephemerals.  Old favorites, like Cut-Leaf Toothwort...

...and Trillium.

The Hepatica were a new discovery!

Some promising mysteries...

Borga's not as light on her feet as she used to be and slid right off the boardwalk!

It was 74 degrees that day, and today won't climb out of the 30s.  I like to save cat grass for these cold, grey days.  Cat grass isn't grass, exactly.  It's a mix of wheat, barley, rye, oats, and/or other grains.  It grows more rapidly than anything I've ever planted.  If you plant cat grass, you'll see green in two days.  It grows for several days and doesn't start looking sad for close to two weeks.

I bought cat grass for Bosewichte years ago.

Our kittens have never eaten grass, though, so presumably aren't as susceptible to temptation.  Besides, they're a lot sleepier during these overcast days, so there are more opportunities to sneak something new into their environment!

Cat grass is shallow-rooted, so it can be grown in almost anything.  I'd seen it sprouted in eggshells for a nice Easter/spring centerpiece and decided to try it.

I can't believe how easy it was.  I saved eggshells for a week, rinsed them out, and let them air dry.  I used my glue gun to hot-glue the shells together in a pleasing configuration.  The glue dries almost instantly, so it was a breeze to pop them together.  I spooned in damp soil, sprinkled my seeds, and topped off with a bit more soil.  I placed them on a heat pad for a couple of days (you could use a hot water bottle or even a sunny window sill), and boom:  instant spring!

I spritz in some water every couple of days and they're fine...even in a fairly dim room.  I think they're so festive!

I'm going to start some "singles" in white egg cups.  Beautiful on a window sill or next to your computer...as long as you don't have curious cats!  

It's a nice progression from the paperwhites I like to grow in the winter.  It's hard to go very long without a little bit of green in the house!

Another chilly week ahead, but hopefully we'll be able to do some exploring again soon.

Have a great week!

this bud's for you

 Things are slowly starting to pop here!

Our lilacs are slowly starting to bud out.

Roses, too!

I like to celebrate the beginning of March with a little spring celebration.  I pull out our robin dishes and we enjoy a spring-themed snack on the porch, rain or shine.  This year I made strawberry cookies.  They didn't quite turn out as I'd planned, but it felt good to be outside in the soft breeze!  

Better late than never...I started my sweet pea seeds this weekend.  I should be seeing some green in a couple of weeks.  I also found an older package of ranunculus and anemone corms.  They really should've been planted last year, but I figured that it wouldn't hurt to try to force some roots.

First a soak...

...then planted and placed in our cool attic.  I'll know in a couple of weeks if these are viable!

I also decided to start winter sowing.  It's late...really late.  In years past, I would've had these completed in January and I'd already be seeing some green...but it doesn't really matter.  We've got a cold spell coming up.  I planted my cool weather favorites:  foxgloves, snapdragons, corn cockle, bachelor buttons, etc.  Late April, I'll start the hot weather stuff.

We've been taking advantage of this warm spell by hiking when we're able to get away.

The wood frogs have been going crazy!  Their chorus is almost deafening, even during the day.  We saw plenty of them in the water...

But more exciting, we saw eggs...so many eggs.

This mass of eggs was at least 3' long!

They'll hatch in a few weeks, and I can't wait to see the tadpoles.  

At home, I've been knitting away on my Shadow cardigan.  This is the back panel, halfway done:

It's a miracle that I complete any sweater, because the sizing is so confusing to me.  You're not just knitting a S/M/L/XL/XXL.  You're technically supposed to take specific measurements at multiple places on your body, not possible if you're knitting for someone else, or a smaller size for future you.  You start at the bust.  When you're measuring yourself for a bra, you measure your under bust and across the fullest part of the bust.  I'd assumed that the same applied for a sweater, but no.  Apparently you measure your high bust, which means that you run a measuring tape under your armpits and using that number in your calculations.  That's a few inches less than your full bust, of course, so this sweater I've been knitting was actually the wrong size.  ARGH!!  Thankfully, there was only a six-stitch difference in the two sizes, so I was able to eat up those extra stitches in the side panels.  It still looks a bit big, but I'm hoping that it won't grow much when I block it at the end.  Learning experience, right?!?

Anyway, we're going to continue to get outside as much as we can, getting a cat-level of enjoyment out of it!  :)

Have a great week!