So many hobbies!

I got a package today...

Lambs!

Sheri and I drove to a friend's Saturday to hang out and to visit this year's lambs.  The lambs were uber soft and extremely curious.  They would chew on just about everything:  my shirt, pants, shoelaces, my camera. 

We missed seeing them when they were first born but a month and a half later, they're still pretty cute.

As you can see, they really love Rhonda.  Of course, she's the one who gives all the lovin' and, for one lamb, the bottles.  One of the lambs was rejected by the ewe so Rhonda feeds her every four hours.

Saturday was also a craft day for the three of us.  I was planning on warping my rigid heddle loom but managed to leave the heddle at home.  Fortunately, I brought the silk with me and finished spinning my first ounce of hankies.  Sheri worked on the bookmarks she was weaving:

These are the first two she's woven.  I think they're gorgeous and she's got enough warp left for a couple more.  I'm really impressed with these bookmarks.

What I'm reading

Little House in the Suburbs:  Backyard Farming and Home Skills for Self-sufficient Living

I still haven't given up the idea of having my own house, either in the country or in the 'burbs.  This book holds basic info on gardening, keeping chickens and home skills, like soapmaking.  The writing is entertaining and very approachable.  It gives me ideas of what I want, and frankly, how much land I'm going to need as a bare minimum.  I still want an asparagus bed, a few fruit trees, a couple rhubarb plants, bees, a garden, some blueberry and raspberry bushes... hmm, the suburbs might now have enough land for me now that I think about it.  Oh, I have such dreams...

You would think, after so many Christmases with my dad under the kitchen sink, that I would know not to put too much down the garbage disposal.  Yeah, apparently not.  Thirteen and a half years in my condo and I've plugged the kitchen sink for the first time.  I tried plunging and that only got me soaked, and let me tell you, it was truly disgusting.  Then I tried Liquid Plummer.  Nothing.  And now I can't plunge because the darn stuff in sitting in my sink and I'd rather not burn myself.  <sigh>  I have an appointment with Roto Rooter tomorrow to have my drain snaked.  I really wish I would have watched when Dad did it so all those Christmases ago so I could do it myself now.

It's strawberry season and I'll be picking on Sunday.  We're supposed to have a sunny, warm weekend so the berries should be beautiful.  Sunday afternoon, I'll be making Strawberry jam.  Since it's also rhubarb season, I'm thinking of making Ginger Rhubarb jam, too.  So much jam, so few opportunities to eat it.  I always end up with far more jam than I can possibly eat.  Guess the family and friends will be getting jam for Christmas this year.

Spinning silk

I've got 3 ounces of silk hankies that I started spinning Saturday.  There's a woman in my Guild that spins silk and knits shirts/sweaters on the fly.  She starts with a drawing and then pretty much makes up the pattern as she goes along.  She's promised to teach me to do the same.  So, I started spinning the silk hankies, which is slow going.

If you're not careful, attenuating the silk can be very rough on your hands.  Silk is extremely strong and stretching out the hankies can hurt if your not careful.  It's going to take me a while to spin up those three ounces of hankies and even then, it probably won't be enough to finish the simple summer shirt I plan on knitting.

I have so many projects that I need/want to work on right now.  There just isn't enough time in the day.  There's the silk hankies to spin, a quilt design to sew, strawberries to pick, jam to make and berries to dry.  Not to mention a house to clean.  I love having lots of projects to keep me busy.

While relaxing after work yesterday, I saw a Ruby-throated hummingbird.  He was beautiful.  Galen just thought he looked tasty. 

Peonies and spinning

I just love this time of year!

Per my mom's request, here's a shot of my front garden, happily mulched and planted:

The potato boxes are now planted with black beans.  There won't be enough for more than a meal but I wanted to play a little.  The three pots next to the potato boxes have green beans.  The far raised bed holds the zucchini and the closer bed now has the 4 grape tomatoes, an Ugly tomato, the basil my sister gave me and 2 of the Sweet Chocolate peppers.  I need/want to pick up a bale of straw both to mulch the veggies beds and to feed the compost bin.  I really don't want to do any weeding this summer.

I did a little spinning last weekend but never got around to showing the pics:

I also started spinning some silk hankies over the weekend.  It's slow going because opening up the hankies is a bit tough on the hands.  Silk is an extremely strong fiber and the constant pulling on my fingers has left them pretty sore.  So, the spinning will be slow until I build up some calluses.  Pictures will be coming as soon as I have something to show

Fantastic!

As weekends go, this one was pretty great.  I finished mulching my front garden and planted my new peppers and zuchini:

The left one is the red pepper I bought on Thursday and the right is the purple pepper.  The Sweet Chocolate peppers and grape tomatoes are on the front porch in their little greenhouse hardening off until I can plant them.

During this past week, I made batts from a batt kit I bought on Etsy.  I've started spinning them but I'm not done spinning yet.

My neighbor has a purple poppy growing happily in the garden outside my livingroom window.  This morning, it bloomed:

Gorgeous!

And growing against the side of the house, a purple Clematis in full bloom:

While I took pictures and talked to my neighbor, Galen watched from his bench at the window:

When I wasn't working in the garden, I was spinning and watching movies.  I saw "Now You See Me" today and quite enjoyed it.  I also started watching Doctor Who from the beginning of Eccleston's Doctor.  Oh, and I ordered some Doctor Who cookie cutters off of Etsy:

I can't wait to make cookies with them.  For those of you who aren't Doctor Who fans, clockwise from the right are, a weeping angel, the TARDIS and a Dalek.  I'd explain all of them but it would take too much time.  Watch the show instead.  It'll be much more fun.

Spring planting

At this time of year, I kind of go a little crazy with plants and seeds.  I already have 5 chocolate peppers and 4 grape tomatoes that I started from seed.  After deciding I needed more peppers, my friend and I stopped at a little nursery and I bought more.  I now have a red bell pepper and a purple bell pepper to add to the list.  Also, a zuchini (actually 3 but 1 will be plenty) and, in the perennial category, an Iceland poppy.  The flower has a beautiful yellow-orange color.



My sister gave me a slicing tomato and two basils over the weekend to add to my growing - pun intended - list of veggie plants.  (Yes, I know the potting mix is dry.  I watered them right after I took this picture.)  So I have 7 peppers, 5 tomatoes, 2 basil and 1 zuchini.  So, do I plant green beans, too?  I think I'll have room for them.  I have one 3x3 raised beds that will house the zuchini, one 3x4 bed that will hold the tomatoes and some of the peppers.  There are 4 large pots for the rest of the peppers, 5 or so smaller pots for the beans and the two potato boxes that I'm thinking of using to grow black turtle beans.  If all grows well, that's lots of produce from one little garden. 

This weekend I'll be finishing up mulching the heck out of the rest of my flower garden.  I also need to clean up my raised beds and the pots for the veggies.  I'll be picking up some compost at Lowe's along with the mulch.  (Please let there be more of the mulch I need left at the store!)  I'm thinking I'll get my plants into the ground this weekend.  Get everything growing and producing.  The two peppers I bought have flower buds just waiting to pop.  Man, I love this time of year!

Do you put in a garden or plant up some pots on the porch?  What will you be growing this season? 

Sorry I've been gone

I spent the Memorial weekend at my sister's in Pennsylvania.  These pics are a pretty good summation of the weekend. 

My sister loves to garden.

This is Snookums.

She's been completely spoiled

and is a very happy kitty.

 

Sadly, Snooky's brother, Tuxedo, had to be put to sleep Thursday morning.  Tuxey had been sick for about a week and was very uncomfortable.  Going to PA, I was looking forward to seeing Tuxey as much as my sister.  He was a special boy.  I miss him.

With the exception of a little spinning, I spent most of the weekend working in my front garden.  I weeded Friday afternoon and Saturday, pulling out 4 garden refuse bags worth of weeds.  Friday I also bought 15 bags of mulch.  Saturday was the flower giveaway that my condo association does every year.  I got a flat of 1/2 Marigolds and 1/2 Snapdragons:

And a flower box kit for my front window:

Sunday, for about 4 hours, I mulched.  I'm terrible at taking care of my garden when it gets hot outside, which happens during Michigan summers.  The garden usually looks terrible; choked with weeds.  This year I thought I'd do a preemptive strike on the weeds.  So, I in the open areas of my garden, I laid down 4 layers of newpaper and covered that with 3 or so inches of mulch.

You can see some newspaper peeking out from the far side of the mulched area.  Oh, before I mulched, I planted the flowers I got Saturday:

I also planted the red Dianthus I bought during a quick run to Lowe's for potting mix for the flowerbox.  I have a gorgeous red lilly that I planted 2 years ago and some Correopsis that come back every year so that let me to planting a red/yellow color scheme.  You can't see them very well, but there are Snapdragons behind the Marigolds.  Hopefully, they'll be either red or yellow.

I didn't get the whole thing mulched because I ran out of newspaper, plus I need another 3 or 4 bags of mulch to finish it off.  The tricky part of future weeding will be around the plants since I couldn't easily get newspaper in there before the mulch went down.  We shall see later this summer how the weeding goes.

Still, it looks pretty good with its fresh coat of mulch.  I'll need more plants to fill in the holes once all the daffodils die back.  My neighbor gave me a volunteer Foxglove that you can see in the lower left corner of the picture above.  Now I just need more newspapers...

Batty

I felt the urge to make art batts tonight.  I have no idea what to do with them.

They sure are pretty.

What would you do with them?