eucalyptus fuss

The freakish cold snap we had recently was perfect for attacking the overgrown garden at the house.  I delayed painting for two days while I dug up most of the invasive vines (there's still a 2' x 2' patch that I haven't quite gotten to yet).  Then I dragged all of the sun-loving perennials around and stacked them around the edge of the bed while I contemplated placement.

True to my Type A roots, I'd made a spreadsheet detailing height, bloom time, color, light needs, and spread.  Armed with this formidable document, I placed the pots around the bed...

...and started digging.  A side note:  every time I do something scary like this, my mind goes back to a passage from one of the Little House books by Laura Ingalls Wilder.  Laura hated sewing, and fabric was expensive.  She splurged on several yards of lawn cotton, a very nice but thin fabric that's harder to work with because of its delicate nature.  She shrunk back from the pile, afraid to make a mistake and ruin the fabric.  But Ma "made the pattern for the waist and fearlessly cut the lawn."  I always think of Ma seizing her cutting shears whenever I have to do a scary project like this, where there's potential for major loss of time and money from my ineptitude (height/color proportions totally off, spacing too close/far, holes not deep/wide enough, plants wither and die after so much time and money spent). Funny how those books have been so influential.

Back to the plants.  At least they're in the ground!

 
The shade section too.  Columbines, transplanted bleeding hearts, solomon's seal, ferns, fall anemones...it could be beautiful in a couple of years.

Meanwhile, Todd has been ripping out carpet from upstairs and taking it to the barn, where it will be stored until I drag it out into the fields to kill down weeds for another garden. 

He has good company back there.  In one of the many fence post nesting boxes, a tree swallow couple has set up house!

And a family of woodchucks is living under the chicken coop!

They are fairly tame: if I stand quietly for a few minutes, they'll come out for food.  Now, woodchucks are fairly damaging.  They make big underground tunnels, which will undermine the foundation of buildings they've made dens beneath, and they eat vegetables and fruit, which is bad for the garden I'm planning in the area.  As I've mentioned, we're planning to tear down and rebuild this chicken coop.  Since these woodchucks are 'teenagers' and will 'fly the coop' soon, we'll time our rebuild so that we don't disturb any young nestlings, and give the oldsters plenty of time to make a new den before winter.  When we build, we'll sink wire into the ground around the foundation to keep out groundhogs and predators like foxes and raccoons.  Someone on a nature forum gave me a good tip:  "Put a radio in the coop and dial it to NPR.  Woodchucks don't like the sound of human voices and won't try to re-nest in the area."  That's our plan!

I love walking out there...

...but house demands have kept me inside.  I've been painting for 2 weeks.  Two rooms need a final coat, plus trim, so the end is in sight.  But I'm still obsessing over kitchen wallpaper.

The one that Todd and I like the best has also been a top-rated selection by a couple of visitors:  a watercolor rendition of eucalyptus sprigs.  It is a PERFECT match to the trim/cabinets and feels fresh and light.

I had no idea that wallpaper was so expensive, though!  It will cost SIX HUNDRED DOLLARS to wallpaper our tiny kitchen.  Worse, I've read terrible reviews about Spoonflower, the company selling this particular design:  that they basically print designs on cheap fabric and low-quality wallpaper, and customer service is a nightmare.  They do have an equal amount of rave reviews, though, and the sample I received seemed really nice, so I will continue to wrestle with this decision for a little while longer. 

At least we've purchased the bathroom wallpaper and will get started on hanging in the next couple of weeks.  Anthropologie has amazing wallpaper and it's actually less expensive than you'd think.  I got this roll on sale for around $60 and it's enough to cover 3 walls, which is just what I wanted. 

The cooler weather has been nice for doing my work this week:  clearing beds, planting perennials, and painting with all windows open. Borga likes the work, too - mainly because she makes nests in the carpet pad that we're dragging away.

The cats love it, because I've brought the quilts back out, and there's nothing they love more than a quilt snuggle.

Hopefully they'll be snuggling up at the new house pretty soon.

Have a nice week! 

quilting zen and woodchuck den

My Farm Girl Vintage Sampler quilt is coming along nicely!

I'm nearly halfway done.  I organized my scraps into "rainbow order" and the bright, bright, bright is now coming more naturally! 

I'm not sure how I will feel about the finished quilt.  There's a part of me that wants to order a few mixed fabric bundles in the beautiful muted, earthy colors I love from Fig Tree and make another version of this quilt which is more suited to my color preference.  I have enjoyed making this so much, though, that I don't think I'll mind making another. 

I've also been knitting, although not nearly as much, since knitting still hurts my hands.  I'm making a pair of gingham-checkered socks and I've just started the second one.

Another fun project!  I heard about "half birthdays" earlier this year - celebrating the halfway point between your last birthday and your next one.  I definitely don't need a real reason to have a celebration, so I scheduled it on Google Calendar.  When it popped up this weekend for Todd, I had a great idea.  I didn't want to make a whole cake (to be cut in half), and a half cupcake seemed like a bit of a stretch for a celebration.  I decided to take a small-batch chocolate cookie recipe (which made 12 cookies) and press the dough into half of an 8" cake pan.  I made a foil "wall" and used pie weights as a buttress. 

The resulting cookie was a perfect half-cookie cake size.  Livened up with a little almond-tinted frosting and festooned with sprinkles, it made a very cheerful half birthday surprise!

Around the house this week we've had a lot of interesting creatures.  A wheel bug was resting in one of our ferns.  They're pretty aggressive and have a nasty bite (said to be much more painful than a bee sting), but I've found that the general wildlife rule applies:  leave them alone and they'll leave you alone.

Check out that spiky wheel!  Both males and females have them and its general purpose is unknown...perhaps an intimidation tactic?

Can you see that long, pointy rostrum?  They're in the assassin bug family.

I saw some wood ducks a week or so ago, but they're very flighty (no pun intended) and I've been unable to get close.  These ducks, though, don't seem to mind. 

I was gratified to see the growing flock.  Last year, we only had four!

Our little woodchuck has been very active too.

He's got a den under a fallen tree stump in our back yard.

I don't see him very much, but I'm always keeping an eye out!

For weeks, spiders everywhere.  Then, boom!  Nothing.  I did find a nice web in the back yard, where this yellow jacket had just been tidily wrapped up for later consumption.

I couldn't catch the spider, though...he was too fast for me!

Lots of flowers still blooming.

Our orange ginger lilies, which I transplanted around the front of the house, are blooming.  I wouldn't plant them again, though. The flowers are too short-lived and the plants themselves remind me of corn stalks.  While they last, though...

A few random gardenias are still opening up, and the japonica bushes are starting to sprout the funny 'puffballs' that will eventually become bright black berries.

Some leaves are falling...

...but I miss the bold, varied displays of the Midwest.  At least it's a little cooler this week.  Last week we hit 90 degrees again!  I dreamed about a snow storm last night.  I think it's back to winter-scene puzzles for me!

Have a great week! 

Woolly Bullies

This is the magic time...when every day is sunny and the temperature is in the 70s, when the trees are leafing out and the azaleas are all ablaze, when we have birds and butterflies but no mosquitoes yet.  Todd and I sit by the pond after supper and watch for frogs.  Windows are open and bouquets grace every available surface.

Azaleas!!

Squirrels are sunning themselves on branches...

Birds are singing...

Our woodchuck, Irving, is frolicking at the edge of the woods in the late afternoon sun...

Turtles are getting every bit of warmth possible...

Cats are sniffing the breeze at every chance.

In short...magic!

Progress is being made on the fence...

...and even though I'm running behind on many things and was unable to pull together an Easter craft in time to mail out, I did manage a pretty Easter cake.

One item of interest:  when walking around the property last week, I noticed these fuzzy things on one of our hemlock trees.

 

I'd remembered reading about woolly something-or-other in my Master Gardener class, and when I looked it up, sure enough:  we have woolly adelgids.  They're an invasive pest that feeds on the starch reserves of trees.  They'll kill all of our hemlocks in a few years if we don't take action now.  Spraying horticultural soap or insecticidal oils on the branches will smother the adelgids without killing any other insect that might be living there.  We also need to treat the soil around the trees.  Hopefully we've caught them in time and our beautiful hemlocks will continue to thrive.

Have a great week!