Food, Flowers, Stitching, Planting

It was one of those days for a little of everything yesterday. I was out early checking the flowers and watering the flower pots. The rhododendrons are the stars of the garden right now, and the dark purple is beginning to bloom.

I'm hard pressed to say which is my favorite when I'm choosing between the dark purple, and this lighter purple that looks like an orchid.

Across the sidewalk from the dark purple, this lighter purple is opening too.

The golden chain tree is fully in bloom now. I'm hoping it will add some foliage this year. We planted this tree a couple of years ago. It suffered a setback when a deer came along and scratched its antlers, knocking it over. We discovered it after our return from a rather long trip.

The squirrels have managed to leave the geranium alone so that it can put on another flower. There are lots more buds waiting their turn too.

Catnip likes to spring up in our yard in all kinds of strange places. There was some near the original location of the Gracie Memorial Catnip Garden. I decided to dig it up and see if I could move it to the original spot. Gracie loved the catnip, and I had to surround it with rocks to keep her from rolling in it and killing it. So, I dug up this little "weed" of catnip and planted it in among the rocks. I'm hoping it will make a go of it there, and then I'll relocate the stake and marker for the other memorial garden.

After I moved it, it looked a little wilted for about an hour, but it seemed to be perking up yesterday evening. And if it doesn't go...oh well.

When I was finished watering the flower pots, I got started on my latest slow-stitching piece.

There were a few housekeeping chores to do, and so I set a timer for one hour and worked on the top-stitching for the taco salad block. When the timer went off, I took a break and did some housework. By the end of the day, the top-stitching was finished, but not the housework. (Shakes head disapprovingly, then laughs it off.)

All the pieces are stitched with blanket stitch, but the little bits of cheese and the olives were so small, I did a short straight stitch there. Today I'll be adding a black flange and a hot pink border (as pictured on the pattern cover), and then it will be finished.

The weather was lovely and warm. We had in mind to eat dinner outside. Mike had a serious yen for some gazpacho, and so he drove into town to pick up the fresh vegetables I'd need. While he was there, he picked up a free-standing trellis for the bleeding heart. We purchased the bleeding heart at the Portland Farmer's Market several years ago. I don't think we really expected it to live and thrive, and so we just stuck it in the ground where there was an open spot. When it grew fairly tall, we put a tomato cage around it to stake it up. It's done so well in this spot, we decided it deserved a proper trellis, and it looks so much nicer now. Those are volunteer pansies worshipping at its feet.

Mike tilled the garden yesterday. Today he'll flatten it out and it will be ready for planting. I have a bunch of starts that need to get into the ground badly, and so I'll probably work on that today.

He needs to pick up some lumber to rebuild our bean poles. We grow them on four-pole teepee-type structures. Two legs got broken over the winter, and so we need two to replace them. I'm not sure how far we'll get with the planting today, but we'll probably at least get a start on it.

My afternoon was spent making the gazpacho. Often I add fresh crab to this, but there was none available yesterday, so we had shrimp instead. You can find my recipe for this right here. It's a nice dinner to eat outside on a warm day. The soup is served cold. I like to top it with croutons.

We had some old boxes from wine shipments lying around, and so Mike decided to burn them in this "pop-up pit" we bought on one of our RV trips. When we're boondocking, there aren't any fire pits, and so this little portable fire pit can fill in the gap if we want a fire. We bought it two years ago, and we haven't ever used it. So, what the heck? Seemed like a good time to try it out.

As you might guess, we ran the wheels off the kitties again. They've been outside a lot the past several days. When the weather is nice and especially when we're outside, they want to be out with us.

So today will be a lot like yesterday. I'm really hoping to get the starts planted, and I'll be planting seeds no later than tomorrow. There should be plenty of time to finish off the taco salad quilt block, and I'll do a little more on my slow-stitching piece. Our good weather should last at least through Tuesday, and so we're making the proverbial hay while the sun shines.