Happy Cats and Happy Campers

It has been a glorious day of sunshine today, and we're supposed to have beautiful weather all week, with temperatures up into the 80's. That would be unseasonably warm for April/May, but we're not complaining. The kitties and I thoroughly enjoyed our day. It was supposed to be a swimming day, but after being gone from the house all day yesterday, I really just wanted to stay home.

As I was writing my blog post this morning, Smitty was enjoying the morning sunshine in the window next to me.

When I was finished, we went outside to fill the birdfeeders. I was happy to see my potted annuals have perked up after getting too dry just before I repotted them.

Looks like the sweeper man needs to come by...oh yes, I forgot. We don't have a sweeper man.

I noticed the first blossoms appearing on the strawberries. Of course, we never get to eat any of the strawberries because the deer and the squirrels clean them out before we ever get a chance.

The wisteria is sooooooooo close, but it's not quite there. With this warm weather, it should be in full bloom within the next couple of days.

For now, the clematis is still the star of the garden. I take a picture of it every time I go outside.

What about me??? I thought I was the star of the garden. Here, let me strike a pose so you can re-evaluate.

Or how about if I climb this tree?

Dang! Mom! My tail is following me again. You, Tail! You've followed me around for the last time!

I think I got it.

Is it still there?

Miss Gracie decided to enjoy the garden from her window seat.

Only....maybe she'll come outside and have a little nip.

Mind your manners, Smitty. Don't think for a minute that I won't box your ears.

The kitties accompanied me into the greenhouse where we were pleased to see the red leaf lettuce looking more leafy...

As opposed to this butter lettuce that has done nothing at all. Not a speck of lettuce here, which is very surprising since both were planted at the same time.

I can only think the seeds went bad. They were left out in the greenhouse over the winter. They were enclosed in a ziplock bag, and so they stayed dry. Still, I think they must not have liked the extremes of temperature. I'm going to give them exactly two more days (with the weather so warm). If they still haven't germinated, I'll replant with new seeds.

Their neighbors, the tomatoes, are looking great. I had to move some of their little ties up the stakes today.

My dill is getting taller, but it's still so spindly.

This image below is the dill I purchased. See how it grows in multiple stems from the ground up? It's different from my Dukat dill above which seems to grow up in a single spindly stalk. The marker on the purchased dill says "Fern Leaf Dill", and so maybe I'll look for that variety of seed for next year's crop.

I'm not having any luck with the basil at all. Only one of the seeds I planted has survived, and so I purchased the plant in the image below. And now look at it! I don't know what happened to it. It looked fine on Sunday. Now two of the three stalks have died and the third isn't looking very good either.

So after that, we took a walk around the house to see what else was going on. I noticed that a few of the iris are beginning to head up. These will be the stars of the garden in a few weeks.

And what's this? I think our friend the deer has been dining on my sorrel. 

That is very unusual because they have never bothered the herbs in the culinary herb garden before. In fact, we planted the herbs to replace the rose bushes that they would not leave alone at all. I got very tired of caring for roses only to have the deer eat every single bud before it could open. And here are the telltale deer tracks! Scoundrels!

They've been dining on the raspberries too! Raspberries have thorns! But then, so do roses...so I guess they must have mouths of steel.

So then I went back inside to sew. First, I surveyed my sample quilt from yesterday. It still has some open spaces, so this will make a good practice piece.

And yesterday's class was in a (ahem) fabric store. This fabric caught my eye.

I think it will be very cute with this cat fabric that one of you fabric enablers enticed me to buy.

Cat fabric: it's a gateway drug. I think I'm going to have to figure out a pattern to go with these two fabrics. Too cute.

And then I got to work finishing up the top for the Happy Campers quilt. I ended up trimming the blocks to 8 inches and then putting an inch-wide (when finished) border around them.

And then I added the borders and sashings, and voila! One finished quilt top. It ended up at 29 inches square. 

Of course, it still needs quilting and binding, but that shouldn't take long.

So that's our day. I hope you've had a lovely day too.