Hoedown

Not as much happened in the vegetable garden as I'd hoped yesterday, but there was a little bit of progress. Mike had a stump grinder rented for a day, and he spent about three-fourths of the day grinding stumps. It all looks good now. I didn't take any pictures of the large holes in the ground, but they're covered over now. He wants to rototill the area where the butterfly bushes were to make way for the blueberries we'll plant, probably next week. We're also on the hunt for a few more plants to fill in where others have died. Also, we didn't catch any more squirrels. You'll be amused to know they've figured out a way to defeat the trap. Hm. We might have to take more drastic measures.

The first thing I did yesterday was to start some bread dough rising. I made up the dough the day before, and then it was refrigerated overnight. It needed about four hours in its banneton before it was ready for baking.

With that finished, I went outside and hoed down all the weeds that had sprung up in the vegetable garden. It was about an hour-long task, but it needed to be done before sowing any seeds. I was dismayed to find a deer had strolled through during the night and eaten one of the zucchini plants. (Sigh.) When I saw that, I checked on our one rose bush and found they'd had a little snack there too. (Sigh, again.) And that kind of killed any push on my part to plant vegetable seeds yesterday. Mike needs to finish putting the ends of the fence back up, and that will happen today. I'll be planting seeds, no matter what.

When that was finished, I took another stroll around. I know you're sitting on pins and needles wondering if the peony has bloomed. The answer is a hard and fast "no."

But now there's another one to watch. Can you see the reddish petals inside this one? 

Already this morning I've been outside to check on it. Still nothing. I'm telling you, it's the cruelest plant in the garden. We have at least three warm days in a row, and I'm really hoping that will get it going. 

When I'd finished all my gardening, it was time to bake off the bread. I've been working on my scoring technique. This one didn't turn out quite like I'd planned. You can see where I was trying to do some stalks of wheat (or maybe you can't), but the bread cracked there and ruined the whole thing.

Nevertheless, this gives me an opportunity to tell you there's an Instagram account called Brooklyn Sourdough where she does some quick demonstrations of her own bread scores. It's kind of fun and interesting to watch. Then, she bakes the bread and shows a picture. She bakes the most beautiful breads I've ever seen.

When that was finished, it was time to get sewing. I needed to finish up the top-stitching on the Salsa block.

Then, I needed to hand embroider some "little bits" into the salsa.

Then, I added the borders and it was finished.

These are the two blocks I have for this quilt so far.

When I work on this quilt again, I'll be doing the enchilada block.

Today's push will be to sow seeds in the vegetable garden. If there's time left over for sewing, I'll be making another six blocks for the City Bank quilt started back in March.

We're venturing out to a restaurant tonight to celebrate our 45th wedding anniversary. We'll have a nice warm night for sitting outside. Our county is still in Phase 1 of reopening, and so restaurants have certain rules in place to keep everyone safe. We're hopeful it will all work out, but we won't stay if their social distancing measures don't seem adequate.