All the News That's Fit to Print

It was an action-packed day yesterday from start to finish, so let's get started.

As we were making our way to the greenhouse, we stopped to admire our Bing cherry tree, which is looking really great. We planted two cherry trees somewhere around nine years ago, and this one is finally getting some real size.

It's blossoms are truly beautiful.

This Black Tartarian below has done less well. The first tree died, and this is the replacement. Last year, one half of this tree died, and we had to cut a good portion of it from the main trunk. You can see about a foot off the ground where the cut off limb was. It was painful to watch the leaves shrivel and die. The flowers are just opening on this one now, and what remains of the tree is doing well.

After I'd thoroughly taken in the cherry trees (my favorite fruit, by the way), I headed into the greenhouse and repotted the tomatoes into their medium-sized pots. They'll be in these for a month or so, and then I'll put them in their largest pots for the remainder of the season. Those two left in the solo cups are my puny little dill and basil plants. I haven't had much luck starting either from seeds, and I'm probably going to end up buying starts.

Also, I planted the lettuce. I always plant Red Sails red leaf lettuce and Buttercrunch, which is a large butter lettuce.

I've grown to think that this is the best way for me to grow lettuce. These are planter boxes intended for window boxes, but they each hold five heads of lettuce very nicely. When the plants get large enough to start picking leaves, I'll plant another box of each. The lettuce does very well in the greenhouse, and growing it there avoids all the bugs and slugs and other nasties that like to live among the leaves. Gardening is great, but I don't like bugs, slugs, and other nasties. 

While I was working in the greenhouse, Smitty was expressing his undying devotion to the catnip.

Love is messy.

We walked around the yard a little longer, and then I did a little bit of housework. It was still fairly early in the afternoon, and so I had some time to sew. The "We Are the World" quilt is next on my list of things to do. Yesterday, I trimmed all the blocks, and cut the sashings and cornerstones.

Before I finished up for the day, I had the bottom two rows sewn together.

There should be time today to get all of the blocks sewn together. Then I'm going to add a narrow border from the polka-dot fabric and finish it off with a wider border of the floral. I'll probably use the floral for the binding as well. This being a "Rainbow Scrap" quilt, I'm considering using some rainbow fabric from my stash.

After that, it was time to get ready to celebrate Matthew's 30th birthday at a downtown Portland restaurant. We had such a lovely time, and we all ate too much. The service at the Portland City Grill was excellent, and of course, it's always great to get the whole fam together. Here are Matthew and his main squeeze, Valerie.

And here are Erik and Mae.

And here is the whole gang!

Matthew brought along the newest iteration of his poi ball project. He's been working on this for quite some time, and it keeps moving closer to completion. Click on that link to read more about it, and there is a short video right here.

Here is a video I made last night. Listen carefully, and Matthew will explain what you're seeing.

If you can't see the video, click right here to see it on YouTube.

And that was our day. My little helper cat has taken to sitting in my office window while I type these blog posts. He gives me tips on grammar and spelling, and we discuss our plans for the day. You know...catching mice, digging...that sort of thing. We're also going to try to catch Gracie in the act of doing something other than sleeping. She's old, and not much for photography.

As for me, it's a Zumba day. I didn't go either day last week, and so I'm pretty determined. My best bet is to stay out of the sewing room this morning because it seems something always happens there that ruins my resolve. There is a little housework to do, but not much.

Our nice weather is supposed to hold until Thursday, and so I'm going to get to work planting my annuals in pots this week. One of my terra cotta pots didn't survive the winter. They don't do well, in general, and so I'm afraid its replacement is going to be plastic. Terra cotta is too expensive to keep replacing them every couple of years, while the plastic pots seem indestructible.

So that's the plan for Monday and beyond. What's on your week's agenda?