Little Green Sprouts

There were just a few sun breaks yesterday. Most of the day was spent inside. I did some housework, and then sewed the binding onto Hearts A-Plenty. And that's a finish!

It finished up at 24 x 34 inches. I haven't decided whether to keep it as a table runner or whether to hang it on the wall in my sewing room. If I decide to hang it, I'll need to add a hanging sleeve. That's the direction I'm leaning. Here's how it looks from the back.

The heart embroidery patterns were created by Nancy Buck Huggins of Basket Case Needlework. You can find her Etsy shop right here. The patterns are available individually in her shop, or you can check out the used patterns at my Yard Sale in my right side bar. Arlene, I received your comment about the patterns, but you are set at no-reply. I have no way to contact you. You will need to email me if you are still interested.

Aside from housework, that was pretty much all I accomplished during the day. Matthew did the cooking last night, so I was free to slug around at will. Mike was busy outside planting the new clematis. He drove into town to get a trellis and had to go to four different stores to find one. Now it's up on the wall and the clematis is planted. As I said before, it's a scrawny little thing. They generally grow pretty fast, and so I expect it will fill the trellis in a year or two if all goes well.

The other plants at the nursery had already bloomed, but this one still has buds. We should be able to enjoy the flowers within the next week or so.

I checked the vegetable garden and found some more activity there. Some of the beans have sprouted. This is a good thing because I've been avoiding weeding those areas until I can tell bean from weed.

They come up as tiny little shoots, and so I'm being very careful with my hoe.

Also, the replanted zucchini is above ground now. You might recall the deer trampled one of the three that I planted earlier.

Also, some of the giant sunflowers are coming up. 

I don't know what it is about the sunflowers, but I've planted dozens of seeds. They come up, they're doing fine, and then something either eats them, or steps on them, or digs them up. It's been very frustrating. For all the seeds I've planted, I'm hoping to get a good crop of sunflowers, but nothing seems certain about these. The medicated body powder seems to help, but with so much rain, it has to be reapplied frequently. It needs to be reapplied right now, but with rain in the forecast, that seems a waste of effort and body powder.

Oh yes, and we haven't caught any squirrels for several days, and the bait has been undisturbed. We may have caught the real offenders. Mike is going to cover up the tunnel they dug into the greenhouse and we'll look for any new signs of digging. If there is none, we can probably safely assume the problem of squirrels in the greenhouse is solved...for now. Oh yes, and we can't forget the invaluable contribution of the brave and powerful Smitty, who caught three squirrels and three gophers on his own. He's a keeper, for sure.

Today I need to make a quick trip into town. I need to stop at the post office. We're out of eggs, and so I'll make a short trip to the grocery store. Also, I'm going to get going on the week's laundry. In the sewing room, I'll get back to work on my challenge piece. It's ready for top-stitching/quilting. Yesterday I laid out some threads and circled it a few times. I think I know where it's going next. 

It's the first day of a new week. Let's hope for less division in the world than we saw last week.