Getting my hands dirty

On today's never ending list is the garden, more specifically the container gardens.  Every summer I create a series of container gardens to cover the driveway between the house and the nominal one car garden shed, known to the county auditor as a garage.  (Never mind that I've never had a vehicle in there, I don't think one would fit even if it were empty.)  The container garden is where I get to try all the plants that we tend to label as weird.  They may be unusual textures or shapes, many are definitely tropical and uncommon in the northern US.  This year's color theme seems to be trending towards red, white and blue.  Mainly because I love black and blue salvia and the hummingbirds that it attracts, then I started adding red wave petunias or true red geraniums and complementing them with silvery textured foliage or white flowers.  And interspersed with elephant ears of various types. 

But all of the containers have to be planted and there are getting close to 20 or so.  The planting "bench"/ staging area is also on the driveway and I have literally been shoveling potting mix into containers from the 25 gallon bins of potting mix and compost that overwinter on the drive every year.  I believe I counted 13 or 14 bins before I started filling containers and I've only emptied about 6 as of last night.  I fill a container, plant it and if it is small enough to be easily moved, set it to one side to be arranged in the final grouping.  If the container is large and there are several that I could actually curl up in, they are set on pot feet in what I hope will be their location for the summer.  All of this takes time, and when I have a large enough chunk of it, I can get a rhythm going and really make progress. 

Hopefully I can get the containers planted over the next couple of nights and move on to infilling the small areas available in the perennial beds with annuals for summer long color.  The theme in the front yard appears to be leaning towards yellow and black/purple with the bicolored petunia baskets on the porch and the chartreuse gladiolas in the new planting bed.  I'm thinking that yellow snaps and maybe purple petunias will fill in the holes nicely.  The backyard is a riot of colors from the perennials, so I think that I'll fill in the few gaps with something that will attract more hummingbirds or butterflies.  I also need to rehang a couple of hooks on the fence and deck posts so I can rehang the baskets that are supposed to be there.

What part of NO don't you get....

I was moving cars around and unloading my latest plant purchases this evening when an older woman stopped my and gestured the yard waste piled against the curb in front of my house and asked if she could had some of it.  I shrugged and replied that while I didn't know what she would want with the limbs from my lilac that I didn't care, but that the evergreen branches were not mine.  To my shock she wanted to dump my yard waste bins and take them with her.  When I said NO, absolutely not, she informed me that she needed them as she had to plant some sort of veggie on her patio and she needed the pots. 

Again I said sorry, but no.  I need them. 

Didn't I have extras?

No, I have no extras.  I use all of the ones I have.

I will pay you for them.

I'm  sorry but they are not for sale.

But I want them.

No, they are not for sale.  I have no extras and I'm not giving them away.

She was most unhappy when she drove away. 

Understand that my yard waste containers are black 25 gallon pots that were originally used to hold trees.  Generally trees that cost a couple hundred dollars if you are buying them retail.  I just have recycled them into weed/yard waste/recycling bins because they are large enough to hold a significant amount of materials, yet small enough that generally they are easy to handle.   I don't have easy access to containers this size any longer and I don't want to go looking for more.

I called my sister, to tell her this strange episode and her response was "Well you know she's just going to come back and steal them.  You did write your house number on them with a Sharpie?"  I reminded her that they were black and a Sharpie would be useless. 

So I went out in the garage and looked for some lurid spray paint left over from an old construction job.  Bright hot yellow is what I found. 

So my once plain, simple and I thought kind of elegant black yard waste pots now have my address scrawled  on them in a high contrast spray paint.  Tacky tacky tacky.  And my formerly neat stack of containers that used to reside next to my chimney on the driveway have been relocated to my work/staging area in front of the garage. 

All because some woman doesn't seem to understand the concept of NO.

Hugs from the past

My grandma was one of those women who seemed to know how to do just about anything, she sewed clothes for herself and her family members. She knit for them. She crocheted. She could do embroidery and heedlepoint. She cooked and she made mouth watering baked goods, especially cookies. But her most beloved activity was probably quilting.

When we were small we slept under quilts that she made for us. My sisters and I shared a room and we each had a Flower Garden quilt that she made for us. Each with it's individual colorway in the recipient's favorite colors, mine happened to be blues and reds. And I actually remember that there was a different set of quilts, in a different pattern, in reds and pinks before that.

She was an award winning quilter, winning ribbons for her work when my aunts would enter her quilts in shows far from home. For the entire time that I knew her there was always a quilt in a quilting frame some where in her house, and in the summer that quilt would go back and forth to their weekend cottage up on Lake Erie.

At some point, she decided that she would make a quilt as a wedding present for each of her 13 grandchildren. And we knew that somewhere in the house she had a hidden stash of these quilts. (Personally I always suspected they were hidden upstairs in the attic. But I knew better than to go looking.) It was a huge deal and one of the highlights of each wedding reception to open the box from Grandma to see which quilt she had chosen for you. I understand that couples today consider opening gifts at the wedding to be tacky, but we always opened at least the quilt at the reception. And she wouldn't give it to you early either, something about not breaking it in before the wedding was her reasoning.

As time passed more and more of my cousins, both older and younger got married and received their quilts. Being an independent young woman with a college degree and three years out in the working world, I had the goal of owning my own home. However, I veered from the traditional path of marriage and went out and bought it on my own. I sort of hinted around that I wasn't waiting a Mr. Right to show up and provide for me, and what would happen to my quilt if I didn't get married. At that point there were three of us still single. She told me that if she passed away before we got married that she had made provisions for each of us to receive our quilt.

Grandma passed away in March 1995. Later that year my aunts found the quilts and decided which ones would go to each of the three of us who were still single, my cousin Eddie, my brother David and myself. I don't know what the other two did, but my quilt went into my cedar chest where it has spent the last almost sixteen years.

I sleep in a queen size bed and the quilt is for a full, and until this winter I always slept under a very warm, very weighty, down comforter. But last year's surgery left my internal thermostat set slightly warmer, and the heavy down that had kept me comfortable in a cold house for more than a decade is now warm enough to make me sweat. So after a winter of experimenting to find a combination of bed coverings to keep me comfortable, yet be heavy enough to lull me to sleep, I dug the quilt out of the cedar chest.

The pattern is a pieced pattern known as Brides Bouquet, which I'm finding rather ironic as it belongs to the one granddaughter who was never a bride. It just fits across the top of my queen size mattress. Yet it provides just the right amount of warmth and weight to allow me to get a good night's sleep again. It still smells of the cedar and reminds me of Grandma. So now, sixteen years after her passing, it's like getting a loving hug from my grandma again.

It's a good day

I'm weaving in ends and working on the duplicate stitching on Whistler. Working on my lunch breaks I might be done by the end of the week. At 60 plus it's not like I can wear it any how.

The bulbs are opening up like crazy. The usual early birds in the front and south side yard have been blooming since Friday, but the bulbs on the mound in the back started opening up in mass today. I noticed that the lilac leaves are unfurling as well as the gooseberry canes and roses. I planted three rows of garlic tonight so we'll see how that does. The witch hazel has been blooming for a while now, but it makes the whole backyard smell so good.

It was a good day at work. I'm getting more familiar/comfortable with the computer system and managed to input some rather large orders. I sold some sizable orders too and made one contractor so happy that 1. he told me how grateful he was and 2. he stood in line to tell my boss how happy he was. And he told me he'd be back tomorrow. Then as I was getting ready to wrap up for the day another customer came in with questions about deck design and construction. They were hoping for brochures but were happy enough with what I could show them that they said they would come back later in the week when I had more time so that I could put it together for them. A three level deck with a paver patio will be a really nice size project to sell.

I want, I want

More Dale of Norway sweaters.  Yes it's the first day of spring, and I sat down this afternoon and plotted and planned and almost ordered yarn for these

Lake Louise

Notre Dame

Whiteface Mountain - I want his sweater

Mt. Rose

   I want this sweater in these colors. 
            

Aubergine

Northern Green

I also spent some time surfing and found additional DON pattern books to add to my collection. I'm sure there will be more added to the list when they arrive.

ooh ooh ooh

Sounds vaguely pornographic ehh?

Finally after hearing that it was on the way for more than 10 years it's going to be released. What? The Principles of Knitting by June Hemmons Hiatt.  The ultimate knitting bible for hand knitters especially.  Copies of the original have sold for hundreds of dollars in all of the time I've known about the book.  Amazon has it listed for pre-ordering and the the publisher says that it will be released on November 1.  Why yes I have ordered my copy, thanks for asking.  Now go order yours.

Whistler to date

A short post of my progress.

 

The front, back and one sleeve are complete and joined together. The front and back have been steamed because it makes seaming easier.