April 2008

Garden

The garden is growing! Despite the wacky weather we’ve been having, our salad mix and spinach are going to be providing us with our first (admittedly very small) salad of the season in a week or two!

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The peas are coming on nicely too.

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We also have fava beans, chard, kale (that was overwintered), onions, radishes, and potatoes planted. The potatoes are the only ones not doing anything yet.

Soon we’ll be planting some more of the long season stuff, and then we’ll be planting warm-weather crops: tomatoes and corn and zucchini and things. The salad and spinach we’ll be planting more of every few weeks, so we have a fresh supply all summer long.

gardening

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Hammock

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photos

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New boots

Pink. And flowery.

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I love ’em.

I guess I’m getting more girly in reaction to all the boys in the house. 🙂

gardening

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Quilt, first quarter

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Well, almost a quarter. This is 8 squares of 17 across. There’ll be one strip down and across the center that is almost black except for the center square, which may be the same purple as the outside corner, or may be something as yet undetermined.

sewing

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Hole in the Patio

There’s this hole in the concrete patio. We have no idea why it’s there, how long it’s been there, if it was for a reason or due to an accident. It was there when we moved in.

I keep wanting to fill it in. But then we wonder if it’s useful in some way.

Certainly, it’s fun.

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And messy. It’s just down-slope from the outside water faucet, so even if it hasn’t been raining, it is often filled with water.

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Yes, he has shoes on. And is standing shoe-deep in the water.

And boys will play in it. Drop things in it. Stand in it. Splash in it. And even (and this is what convinces me we need to fill it in) try to drink from it. Timothy, with a sandpit shovel, tries to scoop up water and mud and feed it to himself. I know he’s working on using utensils, but I’d really rather he kept it to the table. And, you know, preferably food.

gardening

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Wet Felting

Inspired by the book The Creative Family, which I received last week, I decided to try wet felting with the boys. I already had loads of colored wool from my recent adventures in needle felting, so we got out some bowls of warm soapy water, lots of towels, and started dipping and rubbing balls of wool.

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It was much harder to actually make balls than I expected, but we had fun anyway. Even Timothy enjoyed playing with the warm water and eventually, bored with the wool, he found some of his plastic spoons somewhere and before I knew it, it had turned into a dishwashing game…

kids' art & craft

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The Quilt

The quilt is (almost) 1/8th done. At least (almost) 1/8th of the pattern part of the top. That’s not counting borders and quilting and binding.

The whole pieced part is 17 squares by 17 squares, and I’m doing them in batches of 4 x 4 squares. Then I’ll have to do one row for the center each direction to join it all together. Two 4×4 bits are done.

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The first section took me three evenings, a couple hours each time. Last night I completed the second section. It’s looking good, I’m very happy with it so far.

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The Color of Spring

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gardening
seasons

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Signs of Spring

On the last day of March, we had sun, then snow, then sun, then snow….. It was cold and wet and what was that about March going out like a lamb?

We got outside for a little while before dinner in one of the sunny spells, and there are definite signs of life in the garden, finally!

One of our new apple trees is showing green. (So are the plums and cherries!)

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The raspberries are really getting leafy.

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The salad greens are coming up already, despite the snow! You can just see the tiny green leaves there.

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There are salmonberry flowers appearing all over the place! Thank goodness they have such bright flowers, because we’d never have known we have so many of them if they didn’t stand out so distinctly.

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Today, it was warm outside. Warm from the sun! No chill in the air, we spent the whole afternoon outside, playing, working, tidying up. It was delightful and I can’t wait for the weather to be more reliably like that.

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I’ve been working on the quilt, I will have photos to share soon. I’m sort of piecing blocks in chunks as I go to make sure it’s working before I have 289 blocks ready to put together all at once. The top is 1/16th done. 🙂

seasons
sewing

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