Springtime Shall Find Us

Today's title is brought to you by "The Promise of Spring," a poem by Edith Nesbit. You can read the whole thing right here. While I was out picking weeds yesterday, I marveled at how spring blossoms go on, even as our own human world seems strange and foreign right now. This morning I was musing with my friend Wendy that one month ago, we were visiting Kartchner Caverns State Park in southeastern Arizona. Today that seems as if it were lived during a different lifetime.

My weed picking so far has consisted of eradicating the Hairy Bittercress, which seemed hours away from going to seed. It is the scourge of the garden because it broadcasts its seeds far and wide, even as you pull it up. Yesterday I was able to conquer the last of it, and nary a seed was spread...or if it was, I didn't see it. While I was out, I took a few pictures of every blooming thing. (You'd be disappointed if I didn't, wouldn't you?) This first one was the star magnolia. It's one of my favorites in the garden. Sadly, it's a little battered by the rain, but I found at least one flower that was relatively unscathed.

Out front, some tulips have opened. We rarely get tulips that are planted in the ground because the deer love them and they've eaten most of what I planted so many years ago. As I've mentioned before, they don't like the white ones, and so most that remain are white.

There are a few around that are of color, but each year, I expect them to be mowed down before they can bloom. Happily, the deer leave the daffodils alone.

The heather was blooming when we arrived home, but my first picture was blurry, and so I didn't post it. I caught it again yesterday.

The daphne is larger and more spectacular every year. It's flowers are small, but it packs a powerfully fragrant punch.

These tulips are headed up. They are planted in one of the whiskey barrels, and they share their home with the poppies I brought back from Ireland. The poppy plants are lush and green. I searched yesterday, but so far, I've found no buds. It was a prolific bloomer last year, and so I'm hoping it will bloom again this year.

It was a lovely day to be outside, and weed-picking was a productive way to soak up some rays. Smitty came out for a walk and dragged Mike through the trees and brambles to find this excellent patch of grass for nibbling.

A short walk is all he wants, and then he comes inside for a well-deserved nap. Ahhhhhhhhh...the life of a cat.

When I made my way into the sewing room yesterday, I laid out a grouping of the HST's into this little quilt. It's about 36 inches by 50 inches as you see it here. I have in mind to give it an inch-wide black stop border, and then a more colorful border around the outside to bring it to a nice snuggle quilt size.

As I looked through my HST's, I realized I had certain similar-sized groupings of colors in great enough numbers to make whole quilts without getting into the random colors, genres, and sizes. I'll do those first and then work at a random quilt with whatever is left over. It was quite a puzzle laying all those pieces out. Since my only option for a design wall gets walked on by cats, I covered it over with two cutting mats for safe-keeping. This was extremely furrustrating to a certain cat who always has opinions about how blocks should be laid out.

Even with their protective shield, however, they were rearranged a little. I noticed this just as we were heading off to bed.

I knew I couldn't sleep since these blocks would be shouting and moaning about their current state of disorganization, and so I removed the lower cutting mat to put them back in order. In the process, I set the edge of the cutting mat on the carpet, and then allowed it to free-fall to the floor, which created a little gust of wind that further disorganized the blocks. Duh. So, then, I had quite a bit of putting-back-together to do before I could sleep easily.

Today I'll start sewing them together. I'm sure I have some of them oriented incorrectly. It was making me cross-eyed trying to get it all right. As I sew them together, I'm thinking I'll do it in a 16-patch grid, since that will be the easiest way to maintain the zigzag pattern. But first, it's the most horrible day of the week...I must head out to the grocery store, and I have a long list. Hopefully, I won't kill anyone while I'm there, but these days, nothing is certain.