testing my nettle

A double holiday!  Todd's birthday and Easter, back to back.  I decided to have an "Easter After Dark" egg hunt with glow-in-the-dark eggs.

Inspired by glorious egg hunts of days past...

...I used plastic eggs with tiny glow sticks inside, as well as a folded-up joke.  The prize for finding all eggs?  Easter candy, of course!  I also made a small coconut cake with a lemon curd layer for earlier in the day.  Todd's birthday needed a special cake, too.  I used a photo from an old Star Wars gathering and had an edible icing sheet made.  Just perfect!

It's really brightening up outside.  Redbuds are just getting ready to open up.

Our maple is finally leafing out...

...and the apple tree is showing promise.  Not long now!

Hostas are unfurling...

All bulbs are awakening.  Daffodils have been up for a couple of weeks...

...but now we have hyacinths...

...and one of my favorites, grape muscari.

Everywhere I've ever lived, I've planted these cheerful little bells.

Claudia is loving our cool, sunny afternoons.

She loves to come down to the pond with us when we take a stroll.

Borga, too, is sniffing the wind.  Spring is here!

Finally (almost) free of invasive weeds, the fields are starting to fill up with dead nettle.  It's a beautiful little wildflower whose green leaves slowly darken to purple at its tip.  The flowers are like tiny orchids.

En masse, they are beautiful!

My little winter sow greenhouses are slowly filling with green.

I'm not sure how the garden will be this year, though.  Between my sore elbow and shoulder, and busy prep for a work convention in May, it's just going to be really tough to weed, augment the soil, pot up the seedlings, and then get them planted and nurtured until they take off.  I might let one whole plot go to grass and just focus on a smaller area.  I'll at least have several of my favorites, somewhere.

Have a great week!  

smashing pumpkins

What a beautiful pop of color!

I've left our fall pumpkins out because they're so pretty, and for the animals, but they're slowly starting to decay.  One after another, Todd tosses them into the garden, where they split and reveal their fantastically vivid guts.  A new usefulness: birds steal the seeds and possums scoop out the flesh, and we admire the saturated color against the barren ground.  What a treat in January!

We had thirty stingy minutes of snow yesterday, and the remaining pumpkins, even those in a dejected slump, looked cheerful.

Snow!

It's been so warm here, in the sixties just a few days ago.  Everything is confused.  My bulbs were starting to sprout.

Bee balm was making a low carpet under a bird feeder.

German chamomile peeked between stepping stones.

Our muskrats have loved the warm days, making frequent laps around the pond with their beloved cattails.

Spring peepers, feeling the warmth, have burrowed out of the mud and begun making their spring song.  Our nesting pair of herons have been by to take advantage of the bounty.

Turkey vultures keep a vigilant watch from above, observing the uncharacteristic January activity and waiting for an opportunity for a good meal.  

We've been living in a long, delayed autumn with the warmth and frequent fog.  The dark days make it feel more wonderfully cozy inside.  

Now the weather is turning decidedly colder.  The spiderwebs that were hastily spun in late December's warmth are filled with snow.

Claudia, now positively fat on late-season voles and canned cat food discarded by our haughty girls, will be coming into the garage this week when the temperature dips.  She's used to this and seems happy enough to have an occasional glimpse at the frozen landscape.

The cats will be warm and fed...the bird feeders will be filled...and every so often, when we need a lift, we'll smash another pumpkin.

Have a great week!

my best friend's ghoul-friend

 Woo hoo!  Another Halloween is successfully in the books!  Halloween socks were donned.  Halloween decorations were hung.  Halloween cards were mailed.  Thirty-one scary movies were watched.  

And then there was the baking.

One mini pie pan + store-bought cherry pie filling + leftover pie dough (thanks, half birthday!) = perfect mini ghoul pies.

Once baked, the red cherry filling added a delightful affect.

Leftover filling was stirred into oatmeal to make a "Hearts of Newts" breakfast.

I used a zombie cookie cutter and my handy mini pancake maker to make a zombie pancake chasing after 'brains.'

I made 'brain' cupcakes, too!

The cupcakes and the ghoul hand pies were made last week, for our Small Group meeting, but I had some leftover frosting...so on Halloween, I utilized my "perfect vanilla cupcakes for two!" recipe to make two tasty Halloween-themed cupcakes.

After a multi-week frenzy of scares (and sugar), I'm ready to look forward to a more peaceful November. The weather has been cool, and I've still been seeing bees napping on the few remaining flowers.

There's even the odd weevil still kicking around in my front porch plants.

I've continued to spot a turkey or two from my office window - just a glimpse as they head across the field and into the trees.

There's a huge double telephone post right in the middle of our barnyard - annoyingly - but it does draw birds!  It seems to be a favorite of turkey vultures.

They are massive!

With the weather getting colder, I hurried to plant my bulbs last week...fifty grape muscari and twenty large ruffled parrot tulips.  After I'd planted everything, I noticed about twenty "bulbettes" - tiny tulip bulbs about the size of a Chapstick lid - in the bottom of the bag.  Viable?

I decided to plant them in a leftover pot, which I placed under the front juniper bush.  

We'll see what happens in the spring!  

We've been getting some seriously hard frosts lately...

...and the fall color is nearly finished.  We had one last glimpse of it as we drove through Morgan-Monroe State Forest this week.

The annual flower garden is completely done.  Only a few persistent perennials remain in front.  Since that seed supply is gone, we're faithfully filling the feeders.

The cats are letting us know that they know about the cooling temperatures.  We've got cats in windows, seeking the sun...

Cats in laps...

...and cats on heat mats.

Claudia is soaking up every last bit of sun, too.

We've got at least another couple of weeks of blue skies and cool temperatures before the real bite of winter has the potential to arrive.

Perfect for cleaning up the garden beds and a few brisk walks. 

Have a great week!