you've got to mole with it, baby

 Some of my ranuculus have gorgeous blooms.

They're a lovely little lot spot of color in the garden...

...and a favorite in bouquets, paired with silvery artemisia.

Unfortunately, they're being assaulted from all sides.  As soon I had finished laboriously weeding, digging, and depositing seedlings in the side garden, I started to see this:

Moles.  Moles, drawn by the disturbed earth, decimated the area, raising big tunnels beneath the prepared earth, eating the delicate plant roots.  I don't want to poison them, so I'm stuck.  And attacks from above:

Deer don't eat coneflowers.  This was done by RABBITS...and we've got a lot of them here.  As tempting as it is to just throw up my hands and forget the whole thing, I've decided to just seed the space with sunflowers.  I'll use Liquid Fence (and Claudia) to try to keep the rabbits away, just until the seedlings are tall enough to to evade their grasp.  

Thankfully, I have many flowers that deer and rabbits aren't interested in...

golden loosestrife

yarrow

clematis

roses

phlox

foxgloves

If I don't have as many flowers this year, at least I'm fairly certain to have a nice amount of insects.  Gnat swarms are starting to form as individuals look for mates.  They're a swirling tornado of dots from a distance...

...but if you look closer, you can see the little bodies that make up the clusters.

These crane flies have already found their partners!

Syrphid flies are everywhere.  They are bee mimics...

...but don't sting.  They are true flies.  Aren't they beautiful?

A tiny praying mantis, less than two inches long, hunts for a meal amid the feathery leaves of the yarrow...

...and both dragonflies and damselflies hover constantly as I'm working.

The kittens, too, are constantly watching and learning...

...when they aren't playing...

...or sleeping.

Growing up is definitely hard work.

Have a great week!  

ranuculus plus

Although we had a wintry mix this weekend, the season is progressing.  Birds are flooding back...

The herons are out almost daily.

A wood duck pair visited our front pond.  I hope they're nesting nearby!

I picked the first bouquets of the year...

Claudia is loving the warmth of the sun.

I haven't felt like working outside, and it's been awfully cold, but the ranuculus had to get into the ground.  From just 20ish corms 2 years ago, I planted 60 thriving plants this week!

My Icelandic poppies are bursting out of their containers, too. If I don't want to lose them, I'll need to get them planted this week.  It's a nice, rainy forecast, with spring asserting itself all around us.

Inside, Calliope is positively loving her status as the only cat.

Todd and I are both missing Tabitha a lot this week, though.

One of her last photos, snuggling on my lap

But we have to keep moving forward. 

I've been working away on my Tilda postage stamp quilt.  The long paired rows...

...were sewn together to make units of four, and then sub-cut into 1 3/4" sections.

These will be sewn into groups of four (sixteen squares per block).  I'm excited to start putting it together!  I've been knitting a bit, too.  A new yarn for me this time is Lopi, spun from Icelandic sheep.  It's very hairy and rough, but the colors are so beautiful!  

Hopefully I'll have more time to work on this soon.  

Otherwise, work work work and enjoying the changing season!  We love our spring hikes, even if there's not a lot of color in the woods yet.  Soon!  

Have a great week!

Goldblum Boom

Although it will be 70 degrees here by Wednesday, it's been cold, and we recently had snow flurries.  Very light...just enough to fill up the spiderwebs that have started appearing in the garden.

The flakes were so light that they themselves were caught suspended in the debris, looking like a tiny snowstorm frozen in time.  

Even with a couple of deep-freeze days, I wasn't worried about our bulbs, and they're continuing to grow with no issues.  Inside, growth has been even better.  I have to pull out my old Jeff Goldblum meme...

...because despite my many mistakes, my ranuculus are doing just fine.  Last year, I left them in the field too long.  Then, after finally digging them up, I left them out to dry for FAR too long...weeks!...and in a freezing cold barn.  I finally brought them in, soaked them, but without much hope.  They were desiccated and gnarled, but I went ahead and stuck them in my cold, dark attic anyway.  Two weeks later...LIFE!!

Ditto with my sweet peas.  After a couple of weeks in the attic, they're up and looking great!  

My little indoor grow area is quite crowded now.

Soon it will be warm enough to move out to my barn potting area!

I'm seeing so much more activity outside now, too.  Every day, herons stalk the bank of our front pond, looking for (and catching!) small fish and frogs.

A group of turkey vultures played a game of tag on a nearby hill.

After a mini-hibernation in February, the muskrats are bustling about, repairing their eroded roof.

I, too, have been gathering materials.  As my physical therapy draws to a close, I'm starting to dabble in quilting again.  I cut my Tilda fabric, layered with Kona Cotton Snow, into 1 3/4" strips.

The next step is sewing these colored strips into rows, alternating with white...

...and then cross-cutting these strips into 1 3/4" sections.

These will be mixed up in a random assortment (more random than this!) and sewn into blocks...

...and then the blocks will be joined and make up the final quilt top, like this one from Red Pepper Quilts.

This method is SO much quicker and easier than sewing each tiny square together.  In just a few minutes, I have a finished block!

I love the scrappiness of of the Red Pepper quilt, and I've worried that there's not enough color variety in my Tilda fabric...but I've got plenty of scrappy quilts, and I love the cohesiveness of this color line.  We'll see how it goes!  

I'll continue to work on this as the season progresses and time allows.  It's going to be very busy here soon between work and the growing season duties.  In just one month, the garden will be fully awake!  I like to look to past years for clues...

photo from mid-April 2019

photo from mid-April 2020

photo from mid-April 2021

I can't wait.  Have a great week!