lettuce get ready...

 It's crunch time!  Now we're reliably in the 70s and lower 80s, and I'm working just as quickly as I can to weed, mulch, and plant in the beds surrounding the house.  I'm 2/3 of the way through the largest bed.

From winter sowing, I have plenty of bachelor buttons, snapdragons, and nicotiana, and I'm flinging them into bare spaces as I weed.  I'm putting in 3 hours at a time and it's a lot of work.  My body aches, my fingernails are constantly black, my cuticles are dry and splitting from the gloves, and Todd picked the season's first tick off my back yesterday...but the work is moving ahead and I'm really pleased with the progress.

I gathered up my dahlia tubers from last year...cleaned them up...and put them in trays to see if any were viable.

This was a good sign...

After three weeks, several had sprouted. 

I cut the sprout, dipped it in rooting hormone, potted it up, and put it on my heat mat.  Ditto for the rest of the sprouts.  They're looking pretty limp right now, but hopefully they'll perk up soon and root.  I also planted my edible crop yesterday:  cantaloupe, zucchini, watermelon, peppers, 10+ types of tomatoes, and the herbs - all in small plastic containers, put on the heat mats.  Nice to get a head start on these for summer!  

Some nice things popping up outside...my lupine, which I winter-sowed years ago:

The cranesbill that I planted a few years ago in multiple clumps is growing really well too!  Nearly ready to pop!

Makes nice bouquets too.

I'm still seeing our possum every day, but no babies yet.

But we did have babies this week...goz!!  A nesting pair hung around our front pond for a couple of days.

I miss the goz from our South Carolina house - they came back year after year and weren't a bit afraid of us - so this was so nice to see.  After a day or so, they slipped into the stream that runs through the side of the property and headed for a new resting place!  I think that Claudia was watching them a bit too closely for their comfort.  She's the property manager around here!

Speaking of green and growing, I was cooking with cabbage this week and noticing how pretty the leaves were...

I am a HUGE fan of lettuce ware/cabbage ware.  I used to have some, but the pieces got broken with our multiple moves.  I'm dying to get a few pieces from this fancy set:

photo courtesy of Petit Haus

It's Dodie Thayer and costs tens of thousands of dollars...but it's so whimsical! Wouldn't it be fun to eat from these dishes?

photo courtesy of Petit Haus

The next level of affordability (Tory Burch) loses a lot of the whimsy, in my opinion.

photo courtesy of Petit Haus

The most affordable line (Bordallo Pinheiro) is flat-out wrong, from the color to the design...for me, anyway!

photo courtesy of Petit Haus

I'm still hoping to come across a few authentic Dodie Thayer pieces someday.  It would be just perfect for summer dining!

Have a great week!

compost engrossed

 Our unusually warm weather has lulled us into a sense of complacency.  It's hard to believe that we're a little over two weeks from December, especially since we've been experiencing temperatures into the low 80s.  But I know that it can't last, and there's much work to be done before the cold weather hits.  So we've been up with the sun...

...and plotting to take advantage of these last few days of heat.  This past week has been especially productive.  In an effort to locate our main water line, a trench was dug...

...water line located, and frost-free pump installed...right in the back annual garden.  Very convenient!

All of the dead plants and debris had to be removed from this back garden, so I collected the very last bit of seed...

...and pulled up the dead plants.  Claudia helpfully slept in from of the wheelbarrow most of the time.

I think she's going to miss our hang-out times there!

I was amazed to see the size of the celosia stalks.  With a plastic knife for scale, you can see just how thick the 'trunk' of this plant is...and the seed was the size of a grain of sand!

I also found a few garter snake skins...a nice sign in a garden!

It's strange to see the area so flat and brown.  But no time to think about it...so many other things to work on.  Todd cut our old fence...

...since we were having a dump truck full of compost delivered to that space, the garden expansion area.

Loads of mulch and gravel were also delivered.

Not only do we have to spread compost over the new expansion area and then have it tilled in, we have to top-dress the back annual garden with compost and mulch.  That work we will probably hire out...but we had to do the more detail work in the front beds ourselves.  The perennials in all 3 large beds were cut down and hauled away to be burned.

All beds were then top-dressed with a thick layer of compost.  A load of dirt was delivered earlier this week, to build out a new back perennial bed.  This was raked out, and we're slowly adding compost to the top.  As soon as the weather cools, I'll be planting perennial seeds here.

It's exciting to think about...just last year, this was a blank, ugly space.

One half of the perennial garden has already been added:

We're adding a huge wooden bench seat with a pergola for climbing roses that will sit against the house, a bird bath, and bird feeders.  Two mulched paths will meander through this space.  I'm excited to do a same-perspective photo, from 2019 to 2021!

While I've been spreading compost, Todd has been using excess fill dirt to even out ruts and dips on the property.

I had to hurry and dig up my dahlias this week, too.  Even though they were first root-bound and then completely dried out by the drought (my watering was very sporadic), they were gorgeous.

It's too cold in our zone for the dahlia tubers to overwinter in the ground, so they have to be dug up in the fall after a few good frosts, like potatoes:

Dahlia tuber multiply.  From 5 tubers planted, I got this amazing bounty:

Over 50 tubers!  But I learned that these are only the food sources for the plant, and that growth comes from the "eyes" at the base of the stalk.  You have to slice up this mass carefully, since multiple tubers can hang from just one eye.  The problem?  I don't see any eyes, which look like little white bumps.  They become more prominent in spring, apparently, so I'll overwinter these clumps in the garage and hope that I can do a better job of spotting them in the spring.  I'm not getting 50 dahlias from 5, but there's a good chance that I'll end up with 20!

With so much outdoor work, my only indoor activity has been collapsing on the couch at the end of the day.  I haven't had the time nor energy for working on my quilt, although it remains in the sewing machine, ready at a moment's notice.  Apparently it's a well-loved item, even before being finished!

They heartily approve of this hobby.  :)

Have a great week!

Not-red tail and the quilt, all hail!

We're rushing to get the yard stuff done before the real heat of summer hits, so we've both been out working in the yard.  Mulch, gravel, and sand delivered, and we both have lots of blisters on our hands from hoeing and raking.

Lots of blisters, and lots of bites!  I was bitten by a fire ant again.  Thankfully it was just one bite, on the top of my foot, but there was a 4" diameter of swelling around the bite.  No hives, no ER, just a super stiff and sore foot.  Poor Todd was bitten/stung over fifty times by fire ants, working in that same bed where I was bitten.  We haven't seen a nest mound, and the ants were so small that Todd didn't even see the swarm on his ankles.  Thankfully he didn't have a reaction...just pain and itching. He was standing up, weeding...and his wrists and ankles are still peppered with welts.  This is why I'm afraid to get into those beds now!

From my "safety zone," I was still able to get some good observations in.  Love all the mushrooms that are coming up.

All sorts of flies are attracted to the mulch.  These tiny grey flies are everywhere.

I thought this was a hornet at first.

I was totally fooled because of his markings.  I realized, though, that it's a type of fly that uses protective coloration to fool predators.  I think he's a kind of syphid fly, although they're normally about a quarter inch long, like this one:

This fly was about 1 1/2 inches long.  His coloring really gives him a LEG UP on the competition (bada BOOM!).

First came the ladybug larvae, and now...the ladybugs.

Ladybugs are beetles, but they look a lot different from this black beetle on our driveway!

Love seeing the wide variety of leaf hoppers.

They're so tiny...no more than a quarter inch long...but have such an amazing variety of colors.  I love their "Muppet" eyes, too!

We've had a bit of a nature mystery around here.  There's a hawk that has been shrieking from dawn 'til dark almost every day for weeks.  It's maddening.  At the same time, I've been seeing a hawk that looks like a red-tailed hawk, except for the conspicuously not-red tail feathers.

He looked so much like a red-tailed hawk, though.

What a beauty!

I consulted some on-line forums and discovered that despite his size, he is a juvenile red-tailed hawk. And I was finally able to find a recording of the non-stop shrieking (fast forward to second 21).  Lord have mercy, I hope he matures quickly!  That shriek!

Incidentally...my personal observation has been that most birds defecate immediately before flying, although I can't seem to find any internet confirmation.  Still, when I saw this hawk lift his tail, I knew he was getting ready to take off...and I was right!

Finally, in crafty news...I finished my quilt!  I love it.

I think the half inch quilting makes it look kind of contemporary...and I love the texture.

Here's a picture of the whole thing, although the light is harsh and it's not a very good representation of how it actually looks.

Quilting is kind of amazing to me.  With knitting, I critique my work pretty harshly, and I'm never fully satisfied with the finished project.  But with quilting, I easily overlook the imperfections.  It's a long run-on sentence in my head:  "I picked the colors...picked the fabric...sewed each line...those margins!...did the block layout...managed to sew the top together...made the quilt sandwich...then quilted every inch of it...all of the disparate elements and little mistakes came together to make something beautiful!"  I try not to romanticize it by saying that quilting is a metaphor for life, but I have discovered that if I'm patient and don't become crushed by discouragement, little steps forward really do tend to culminate in something surprisingly good.  Hey, I'll take encouraging metaphors wherever I can find them!  :)

Have a great week!