Garden

Warning-- there are going to lots of pictures of plants and dead-looking plants. So skip if you are not into gardening.

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The weather is warming up (reluctantly). And my garden is waking up from its slumber. With minimal casualties, I might add (Dumb beginner's luck)

The daffodils are always the first to pop their heads up (in my then unraked garden bed) - they were planted by the previous owners and have been coming up for the past 5 years now. These cheerful ladies are a sight for sore eyes in March/April when one is completely sick of the cold and is tempted to sell everything and move down to Mexico so that one is warm all year long.

The muscari (also known as bluebells, but not those kind of bluebells) are back in full force

And the tulips are getting encouraged by the warmth that we had this past Saturday and have grown quite a bit by Sunday.

Amazing how much difference a day of warmth can positively affect living things.

My precious hydrangeas have all returned (with the exception of two that are still showing no signs of activity -- they probably breathed their last breath sometime in the summer last year, but I shall give it a few more weeks....just in case.)

Endless Summer by Grandma's Corner -- it's her 2nd spring and doing very well indeed

Sun-tolerant Little Lambs by the front of the house -- they were looking like dried up sticks for a long while and I was worried that they weren't coming back. But this weekend was warm enough to encourage them to start waking up --

If you look closer, you'll see that there are buds growing, Being a sun-tolerant variety, it makes sense that it started to bloom later than the other shade-preferring varieties -- I assume it was waiting for the temperature to stabilize a little more.

Also happy to see that my Mother's day gift from Izzy last year is making a come-back.(There's sign of new growth at the bottom right of the plant)

It is really hard to see all these dead looking twigs and not think "Crap, they are done for". But hydrangeas bloom on old wood, so it is imperative to not remove those unsightly spindly twigs during fall/winter.

I am moving on to the back garden this year, behind the garage.
The plan is to convert it into a vegetable garden with raised beds and pea gravel paths. 

Since it really is technically still too nippy out to transplant stuff, I started the only vegetable that I was going to plant directly from seed

And after a week and a half of waiting, they are FINALLY sprouting! 

Do you see them??

How about now?

It is quite sad how excited I get over 5 little baby leaves (that was Saturday...by Sunday, they have doubled!)

But there you go.

My little baby carrots =)

Things I've learned from last year:

1) Always...and I mean, ALWAYS...wear gloves. ESPECIALLY when you have neighbourhood cats roaming the land. Do you see where I am going here? Said cats have a tendency to release their bowels when they feel the need to, and sometimes, it is right in your garden bed.

2) I like clearly defined boundaries. Pavers, planters, rocks..my garden beds HAVE to be clearly defined

3) I am still hopeless at growing keeping grass alive. Perhaps I shall set a statement and say, haven't you heard, weed-patches for front yards are the latest "in" thing now, 

I Can See Clearly Now...A Carnival!

I regret to say that Isabel has about as little chance of making it on American Idol as I do. There goes my dreams of living vicariously through her super stardom

Dash it all!

Art, Or Lack Thereof

I don't know squat about art.

However, I am quite picky over what I do choose to go on my walls (and trying not to go with commercialized, cookie cutter prints that one finds in big box stores) which explains why they are all still pretty bare 6 years later...For example, I completely do not understand the allure of abstract paintings. To me, it is pretty much equivalent to what my 4 year-old can produce, and I prefer her work over those thousand-dollar pieces.

However, those walls must be filled and I am trying to do it with the very limited categories that I do love - two which stand above all others are equine and ballet

In one of the random (but now staple!) blogs that I stumbled upon, the Etsy seller Eye Poetry Photography was highlighted in one post.

And I am in love.

And just to throw some variety into the mix, this owl....

  

Has rendered me completely speechless

The wonder of God in creating such beauty. 

Now the question is....do I pick just one and have a massive print of it, or do a collage?

I Was Waiting in the Dumpster

 

Cracked me up!