A Day in the Sunshine

Good morning, my friends, and welcome to Wednesday. I'm telling you, it couldn't have been a nicer day yesterday. It's only going to get better as the week continues. We're not finished with rain, but we have a nice stretch of warm and sunny days ahead. To say it felt good to be outside in the garden would be a colossal understatement.

Of course, I started my day with some slow-stitching. That running bunny whetted my appetite for sinking my fingers into some potting soil.

As I mentioned in yesterday's post, it was National Zucchini Bread Day yesterday, and so I mixed up and started baking a loaf. It was fortuitous that the day fell just now because I knew I had one more portion of shredded zucchini in the freezer. I'd already thought about baking it off last week. It seems whoever controls the calendar can also read my mind. It had to bake for 1 hour and 15 minutes, and so that left me plenty of time to spend in the greenhouse while I waited.

Once there, I repotted the new tomato starts. They were in small pots and without much soil around their roots. Now they have a pot about twice the size, and they're well packed with potting soil. I'll probably have to move them to larger pots within a couple of weeks.

I used those smaller pots to start some lunaria seeds. Lunaria grows wild all over on our hill. Some of you helped me to identify it when I noticed the seed pods on a recent walk. It makes flowers in the spring, and those mature into these beautiful silvery seed pods in the fall. I couldn't find the picture I took of it recently, but here's one I found online.

I'm hoping I can get it growing outside our board fence near the driveway we share with our neighbors. So I'm starting the seeds in these little pots. Once I see greenery, I'll take it down and plant it along the fence line. Then, I'll keep my fingers crossed it will establish itself there.

Also yesterday, I started three kinds of lettuce. I tried to grow lettuce last year, but the squirrels were invading the greenhouse, and they ate it as fast as it could sprout. Now, we've defeated those rat bastards, hopefully, and so I'm trying again. Here, I have a red leaf, a green leaf, and a butterhead lettuce. I can fit five heads in each of these planter boxes. When I start picking leaves from it, I'll start another round in three more boxes. Also, I keep it covered with plastic until it sprouts. Lettuce seeds are planted very close to the surface, and they need to be kept moist.

The cherry tomato I picked up at the farmer's market a few weeks ago is now in its whiskey barrel. It's hard to get a very good picture of it when it's ensconced in its suit of armor. The armor is to protect it from deer, but the squirrels will happily eat it too.

Okay, and by then, the zucchini bread was done. Mmm, mmm, mmm. 

That was the last of the zucchini from our 2021 garden. Time to grow more, I guess. I'm also using up my last jar of zucchini relish, and so you can see that we're at a critical juncture. Zucchini starvation is imminent.

There was one more thing I wanted to do outside before calling it a day. I wandered down into our woods to see if the trilliums were blooming, and they are!!! It's my favorite wildflower. They are so delicate and pretty.

We had one at our previous residence. They are hard to cultivate, but the previous owner had managed to dig one up and get it going beneath one of the tall Douglas fir trees. When we moved to this house, I was sad to leave the trillium behind. So imagine my delight when I walked down into our woods the first spring to see them growing in abundance.

There are so many, I have to watch my step to avoid trampling them. I'll keep an eye on these. As they mature, they turn purple.

This next one is a mountain violet.

This is miner's lettuce.

Back up nearer the house, I've noticed these bulb flowers growing in an area I don't remember planting anything. Finally, they have bloomed, and I can see they are grape hyacinths. I'm not a great fan of this particular flower, and so I know I didn't plant these here. The squirrels must have left them as compensation for eating all the crocus and tulip bulbs.

Oh, but there was one more thing to do. While I was in the greenhouse and wandering around in the woods, Mike was filling the new planters with potting soil. I went to work planting the dahlia bulbs. They were surprisingly easy, and with brand new potting soil, digging holes for them was a snap.

Mike covered the pots with fencing to keep the squirrels from digging around. Now, we're keeping our fingers crossed the deer won't eat the greenery when it emerges.

Just before coming inside, I put our sundial back out. I have to bring it in during winter because heavy snow will break the gnomon. It says "The time to be happy is now. The place to be happy is here." 

My dad was a watchmaker by trade, and he used to read a little "Golden book" about time pieces to me. I think it might have been this one:

 I've always had a fascination with sundials as a result. And I took one more shot before coming inside. It's the first goldfinch I've seen this spring.

In the sewing room, Smitty was none too happy about doing yet more paper-piecing.

He felt better when I told him there were just two more sections.

It didn't take long to finish Tiny House #15. 

There are still 21 Tiny Houses to go. Here are the 15 I have so far.

And that brought me to the end of the day. I found the kitties enjoying an evening sunbath.

So, I'm hoping to get a little more done in the garden today. We're going to head out early for our beloved Egg McMuffins. After that, we'll head over to the local Home Depot (or "Home Desperado," as Mike calls it), to see if we can score some new whiskey barrels to replace the ones that are rotting away. We can also pick up some annuals there. If I can get the annuals planted in the flower pots, I'll feel like the gardening is well under way. Mike is going to mow the area where the "bee garden" is located, and I'll throw out some more wildflower seed there. Probably we'll wait until the weekend because we're expecting more rain Sunday or Monday. If the wildflower seed can get a good watering right away, we should be able to see some results in a few weeks.

If there's time for sewing today, I'll get busy on the donation quilt for Quilts for Kids. What's keeping you busy right now?