Every Blooming Thing

It's a glorious day of sunshine here at the Three Cats Ranch today. The rain will be back tomorrow, and so we've been out enjoying it while it lasts. As I mentioned yesterday, I spent some time weeding the culinary herb garden. Yesterday's weather was not as nice, although there were a few sun breaks mixed in with the rain showers. I spent a couple of hours weeding and cleaning things up a little. There is still more to do, but the weeds are controlled for at least another 15 minutes. It isn't much to look at this time of year, since it's barely getting its new growth. Mainly, I spent time ripping things out and cleaning things up.

In the image above, you can see all the new chives coming up. They can be invasive, but I can never get enough of them. I like to make chive blossom vinegar from the flowers. Recently, I read an article about making jelly from things like dandelion blossoms and lavender blossoms. I'd like to give that a try. It occurs to me that chive blossoms also might be used for making jelly. How different can it be from pepper jelly?

In the image below is the rosemary, which looks a little worse for wear after our cold winter. It needs to have some of the dead stuff cut out of it, but that will need to wait for another day. The lavender plants also need their dead blossoms cut.

Below you can see the new sorrel coming up among the dead runners from last year. I planted this in the garden along with all of the other herbs, maybe as much as 10 years ago. I've never used the sorrel, although I keep threatening to make pesto from it. Maybe this year. It does grow into a nice bushy plant, and so I let it stay just to take up space.

Smitty was out with me, in search of the big game. I don't think he caught anything on this excursion.

Also in my wanderings to the compost pile, I managed to get an in-focus shot of the buds on the cherry trees. A couple of sunny days, and these will be blooming in profusion.

Also, more white daffodils. Haven't seen any of the yellow ones yet.

The daylilies are making a comeback.

It was cloudy most of the day yesterday, but by day's end, the sky was blue and the sun was shining. Smitty is discovering the fine art of sun bathing.

Sue and I walked for the first time in over a month this morning. It was cloudy and a little chilly, but things are blooming like crazy. The Oregon Grape is blooming in abundance. This is Oregon's state flower. Eventually, these will get purple berry clusters, which are not grapes, nor are they good for eating.

The flowering plums are blooming. There are pink ones...

and white ones.

Here is the Red Flowering Currant...an Oregon native.

This pink one has an identical leaf, but the flowers are a little different.

This isn't a flowering thing, but the bark on this cedar was so pretty, and so I included it too.

This is the first rhododendron I've seen blooming anywhere, and it was the only one we saw today.

This next one is a type of jasmine. We have one growing in our yard too, but ours is at least a couple of weeks away from blooming. It's one of my favorites.

We saw a couple of tuxedo cats along our walk. This one was rather put out at us blowing his cover.

On our way back, we saw these flowering plums lining one side of a parking lot. Gorgeous.

And that was pretty much our walk for the morning. Nary a raindrop in sight.

There was a little progress made on the latest block for It's Raining Cats and Dogs. Most of the top-stitching is finished now.

The details have been machine embroidered into the umbrella...

and the lamp post.

There's still a little more detail to stitch into the windows, and then I'll add a couple of hot fix nailheads for the dog's eye and the doorknob. After that, this one will be finished, and I'll move on to the Hobo quilt.

My day is laid out now, and it's well past time to get to it.