shorts weather

After grumbling about last week's snow and cold, today was shorts weather. Yep, the thermometer says it's 16C (60F for those metric-challenged) outside. Woo hoo! I slapped my shorts on and went outside to get grubby. Did I mention that I love gardening? For those of you who don't know, I live on almost a quarter of an acre. The house only takes up a third of the property (we have a smallish house) so the rest of it is for plants (and grass but if I had my way, there would be no grass). Out front, there is a 30 ft Norway maple, a 20 ft Japanese maple, numerous rhodos, and other plants for a total of 3 flower beds. There is a small flower bed on the east side of the house and one by the side of the driveway. And out back there are 4 large flower beds. Plus we have a huge patio filled with lots of pots.

(This is a picture from last year. I love this picture. I love muscari - good thing because there's 15 feet of them.)


I am not a great gardener. I don't make the colours flow or work at getting things to bloom at different times of the year. I'm not that organized. I buy/grow things that I like. Sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't. I'm sure I've spent way, way too much money on the garden over the years. But it's lots of fun and I never regret anything I've done (ok, maybe I'm a little sorry about ripping out the gorgeous 30 year old rhodo last year).

On the seed front, I bought some pink pampas grass and a new columbine (lime sorbet). I am really excited about the columbine. The flowers are shaped like the Nora Barlow columbine but they're white with a hint of green. I think the lime sorbet would look great next to the almost black Nora Barlow

As you can tell, no knitting today. I had to run some errands this morning, ate lunch, and then out into the garden while it was still dry. I did hit the thrift store to look for a possible handle for the Brea bag. I found a leather belt that will work. I'll just have to chop it up and rather than risk breaking my sewing machine, I'll take it to the shoe repair place and have them sew it up. I also bought 2 books - "Folk Art Quilts: 20 unique designs from the American Museum in Britain" by Anne Hulbert (wow! The quilts are just amazing) and "The Darwin Awards: Intelligent Design" by Wendy Northcutt (there are some jewels in this volume).

Oh, I signed up for the Wee Tiny Sock Swap. Click on the button on the left for more info.