Weekending 6/1/26

 Good Morning and Whew!

There goes May!  I hope your weekend was a good one.  Unlike Memorial Day weekend, this past weekend was just perfection in the weather department.  Blue, blue skies with lots of sunshine and temps in the mid 70's.  For me that is perfection.  It did get a bit windy, but overall was just wonderful.  

Our weekend was filled with resting, catching up on chores, cooking...the usual.  Damon left on Thursday after being here for a week and what a lot of wonderful things he did for us.  In addition to all the pruning I mentioned last week, he repaired a crack in our basement floor and re-did the entire end of our patio (cement) where it had been peeling, cracking, crumbling.  What a job!

On Saturday I baked a strawberry-rhubarb-peach crostata.  This is definitely something I'll be making again and I think (so far) the peaches are wonderful this year!

I'll be taking half of it over to Colin & Mailing today.

I also made something really yummy for lunch.  Take some sliced Italian bread and brush it with EVOO.  Then put it in a hot oven (400 or so) to crisp up and start to brown.  Then add a layer of bruschetta and then a pile of sautéed spinach with shallots and top with a little bit of shredded sharp cheese.  Stick it back in the oven to melt the cheese.  YUM!!

I also made quesadillas using turkey taco meat, peppers, onions, and black beans.  I forgot to take a picture, but they were really good.  We do love to eat!!

While I was doing chores and cooking, Fletch managed to plant some seedlings and seeds in the garden.  Cuke and cantaloup seedlings are in the ground and yellow beans have been planted.  My parsley came back in the garden which was a nice surprise.

Yesterday was our anniversary (46 years!!).  Fletch and I sat on the patio in the late afternoon with glasses of Prosecco.  The scent of honeysuckle was very strong and we noticed the first apples in our tree!

I'm surprised to see red on the apples already!  It seems early.  And they are still so tiny.  And see that blue, blue sky!

Anyway, the weekend was full of good things (and chores).  I even snuck in some knitting and stitching and reading!  Now it's back to routine.  I'll be caring for Iris today and am anxious to see her again.

Happy June Everyone!

Weekending 4/24/23

 Good Morning!

Fickle Spring...after soaring temps (into the 80's), like so many of you, it is chilly here this morning.  Chilly enough that I nudged the heat on.  Even in a sweatshirt, I am feeling the nip inside and my hands are cold as I type.  Grrrrr

Oh well, nothing I can do about it.  This roller coaster weather seems to be good for some things though.  The lilac outside my front office window has more blooms than ever!  I've been cutting some to bring inside and I wish you could catch a whiff of the perfume through your computer.  Just heavenly.

And our Iris are getting ready to bloom.  After some very spotty years where we only had a couple of blooms, they are back in force this year.  Within a couple of days I should be cutting some of those too.

How was your weekend?  Mine was very nice.  After missing my get together with Dee while we were on vacation, the two of us met up again Saturday morning.  It was so nice to sit and sip and chat together while we worked on our knitting (both of us knitting on socks).  I feel so fortunate that Dee lives close by and that we can get together regularly.

Yesterday Fletch and I headed out to get some more plants since our local greenhouse had not had so many things out yet.  We headed to Otts Nursery in Schwenksville and boy were they busy!  It's a fun and wonderful place to wander around.  Fletch picked out some red romaine, I found several types of basil and they had snapdragons too.  We could not resist some new houseplants as well.

A Flaming Sword Bromeliad - if you click to enlarge you can see the yellow beginning to emerge in the bloom.  This is fabulous!

And a lemon cyprus!  This has the prettiest foliage and when you brush against it, you can get a scent of lemon.  We will prune this to keep it on the small side, but we just could not resist it!

Fletch has already planted the basil for me in a pot that will stay by the patio - within easy reach when I am cooking.

I made Brunswick Stew and cornbread for dinner.  It was chilly enough to be a perfect night for that.  Later in the evening we settled in to watch Bob Dylan - Live in Newport 1963 - 1965 which we both enjoyed a lot (could have done without all the fundraising breaks though).  Of course, Dylan looked to be about 15 in some of those early shots!

Now it's back to Monday and the start of another work week - the last one in April and we will be a third of the way through the year!  That does not seem possible.

Hope your weekend was a good one and cheers to the week ahead!

Weekending and a Mabel Update!

Hello and good Morning!

First of all, Mabel is ok!  Woo-Hoo!!  Thank you all for your well wishes, healing juju, care and concern.  So many of you reached out over the weekend to see how Mabel was and I can't tell you how much I appreciated those notes.  Our blogging community is just wonderful!

I ended up taking Mabel to a new vet on Friday afternoon.  We had been going to a cat-only vet (one we have used for years), but I just had not been pleased with the doctor for some time.  Nothing specific, but a general dislike is how I felt.  Anyway, I found a full service (all animals) vet that is actually closer to home with 4 vets on staff, long hours (8-8 M-F plus Saturday hours) and a better equipped place with both X-ray and ultra sound equipment on site as well as a lab for blood work right there.  And, Mabel wasn't stressed there!  Not sure why, but she was stressed at the old vet's and this one was much better.  Turns out she has an upper respiratory infection.   She is now on an antibiotic (liquid - pink - smells like bubblegum - just like a child's! - lol) for 10 days and is already much improved.  She is eating and going out again.

That shot was taken yesterday - staring longingly up at the trailer birdhouse where young chickadees are getting ready to fledge.  The poor parent chickadee kept flying around with food in its beak for the youngsters, but he would not go into the birdhouse while Mabel was on the table.

The balance of the weekend was nice, though very, very HOT (90).  Saturday morning Dee and I got together for our normal session of sipping coffee, knitting and chatting.  I cut our sesssion a little short as I was anxious to get home and check on Mabel (who was, of course, fine).  Other than laundry, I didn't do much around the house, but I was able to do some knitting and stitching and reading - so that for me is a good weekend!

Due to the heat, dinners this weekend were cool.  I made a macaroni and shrimp salad for Saturday along with a pinto bean and corn salad with a lime dressing.  Yesterday we just had deviled eggs and cucumber salad.  As of this morning the temps have moderated (we had some storms yesterday late) and I believe today's high is only supposed to be around 75.

Do you remember when I showed the lemon tree that we have as a house plant?  And a tiny lemon appeared after the plant bloomed.  That was a surprise.  What is even more of a surprise is that the same lemon is still there.  It has grown a bit larger though.

It is still pretty hard, but it is also beginning to turn yellow!!

The plant is blooming again, so I'm curious to see if we get any more lemons.

In other plant news, my African violet is going gangbusters!

For years I grew African violets and always had them on a kitchen windowsill and they always thrived.  Then they stopped doing well.  Fletch bought this one for me as an early Valentine's Day present and it was gorgeous.  Lately it has looked as though it were dying, but then one morning I noticed a few buds and now it is simply lovely.

Today and tomorrow are both office days for me - the last of the budget meetings.  Last week I was successful in going to the office in the morning and leaving by 12:30 or 1:00.  Hopefully that will be the case again this week.  And, I'm back to physical therapy on Wednesday & Thursday...so a busy week!

Unraveled Wednesday 5/6/20

Good Morning!  Happy Wednesday!

If it's Wednesday, that means it must be Unraveled Wednesday.  Joining in with Kat and others to talk about what we are making and reading (though in my case, once again the books I've started are not holding my attention...).

First of all though, thank you Val and Kym for identifying our mystery plant.  As soon as I showed Fletch the link you had provided Val, he remembered the name!  And Kym, you are correct, there is a faint almost cinnamon scent from the blooms.  Very nice.  I cut one small piece of it yesterday along with some lily of the valley and a piece of another plant (once again, the name escapes me) and I have them in a little bud vase on the kitchen windowsill over our sink.  The scent from the lily of the valley is so strong!

I did make it into the office yesterday and ended up staying much longer than I anticipated!  It was like old home day or something.  My boss Bill had come in, my other boss Bruce was in (my other boss, Kevin, lives in Atlanta, so he was not in!).  A few people from accounting; Dan (our CFO) and Heather (she comes in Tuesdays and Thursdays to go through the mail and FedEx and UPS packages).  So, there was a lot of catching up to do with people and it was nice to see them all.

When I first was walking up to the office I heard a noice and looked up and one of the hawks was perched on the edge of the nest and squawking away!  Really, loudly.  I hoped to see little baby beaks poking over the edge of something, but I didn't.  What a mess though!  The entranceway to the building is covered in bird shit and sticks that have been dropped from the nest.  Bruce said the hawk flew at him when he came into the building!!

On to the making!  Tutti Fruitty sock #2 is now more than halfway down the leg and moving right along.

This is just such a cheerful piece to knit!

Granny square #12 was completed last night.  Here the the most recent 3 I've made.

Each square is 9 rounds and typically I use 3 different yarns.  The latest square though (the one in the back with the pink center) is from one little ball of yarn.  I just decided to keep going since the colors kept changing.  I still have a ton of leftover scraps from knitting socks and shawls, so there are still plenty of squares to be made.  It's fun to just stick my hand into the pile of bits and bobs and see what I pull out and then start crocheting.

One last picture for the day.  Cozy Tyg - curled up tight (it really got chilly), covering his eyes and also holding his tail down (his tail is almost constantly moving back & forth).  So cute.

He is out of the box and onto the chair at the head of the table!

Hoping your week is going well.  Be sure to visit Kat's blog to see what she and others are doing.

Growth!

Hi There!

Good Morning.  I never got to walk yesterday.  I was slammed work-wise all day long...into the evening even, but as Colin reminds me, it is good to be employed.  And it is.  I'm grateful and thankful that I can do my job from home.  Yesterday I came downstairs at 6 for coffee, opened e-mail and then never got back upstairs till Noon!  That's when I did my workout and got dressed.  Then it was right back at work.  Still...hoping today will find it easier to break away and get a walk in.  It is chilly right now (35), but I can see blue sky and it does not seem to be windy.

I did find a few minutes yesterday late afternoon (while dinner was cooking and there was a lull in the email traffic) to wander outside and I saw a bunch of growth!  So, that's what I'm sharing with you today.  The pictures are pretty poor, and a bit blury, but they still make me happy and hopeful for what is to come.

First up our Asian Pear Tree: 

Do you see ALL the buds?  We do have this delicate tree enclosed in a wire fence to protect it from the deer (who have chomped on it in the past).

Next up is our Red Bud.

The branches are just loaded with buds and they will be opening soon.  I love these trees.

This next one is difficult to really see

That is a branch on our apple tree.  Like our weeping cherry, this tree did not do very well for the past few years.  We used to get scores of apples - more than enough for us AND the deer (who often stood on their hind legs to pull branches down - so fun to watch).  But there were very few blossoms and almost no apples last year.  I thought the tree was dying (and it is now covered with lichen).  But there are buds on it for leaves.  So...I am hopeful.

Last up is this

That is the first radish seedling popping through the soil.  I can taste a garden radish as I write this.  Radish greens are also tasty in a salad.

Other things that are happening:  sugar snap peas are up and growing in the garden.  The rhubarb is once again coming back strong and there are lots of red stalks emerging.  Garlic is thriving, though not nearly ready to harvest.

All of these things make me happy and give me something to think about besides what is going on day-by-day.

OK, time to pour another cup of coffee and then start pulling financial reports I run on Thursdays.  Wishing you all a wonderful day - enjoy!

A Mid-Week Post

Hi All,

 

Mid-Week!  And August!! 

 

Not much to show today as not much knitting and no stitching has taken place this week.  I did manage to start another square on the blanket, but I only got about 8 rows done yesterday.

 

So, how about some lovely vegetation photos?  Here are my eggplants!  I have two plants in this small, old cast iron kettle and they are thriving.  I’m excited.  Can’t wait to use some of these on pizza (I grill or broil sliced eggplant with EVOO and S&P and then put on pizza – heavenly.

 

 

And here is my fig tree, or as I call it, Figgy.  I love figs.  A few years back Fletch gave me a fig tree at Christmas.  Our climate here isn’t warm enough to keep a fig tree outside year round (unless we wrapped it, etc. which I am not going to do).  We thought this one would be perfect as it was supposed to start producing fruit once it got to be a foot high.  3 or so years later and definitely more than a foot high, but no fruitL  And, it is getting big/heavy to move outside in the Spring and back inside once the temps cool.  But, it is a pretty plant.

 

 

That’s about it for me.  It has been a crazy morning at work, and our internet was down until just a few minutes ago.  I’d best get cracking as I’ve got things to do.  Hope everyone is having a good week.