Flowers, Felines, and a Finish

There's some awesome alliteration in the title of this post for your Monday morning, my friends. We're back to our usual routine here at the Three Cats Ranch. Mike made it home safe and tired yesterday evening. He was home in time for dinner. Good thing I'd taken some leftovers out of the freezer for that possibility. We might have gone out, but I knew he'd want to stay home. 

The kitties and I still had the whole of Sunday to ourselves. We got outside right away. The kitties were on the hunt for the best blades of grass. This is a good in-between-mowing time for them. The grass is long and luscious.

Follow me, and we'll see what's going on in the garden. This peony is ready to pop. If the peonies all bloom together, it's going to be a sight to behold.

This is the cruel peony...cruel because it is tantalizing in its buds, but cruel in its failure to produce a flower. The variety is "Rosy Prospects." Maybe this will be its year, but it isn't giving me any reason to be optimistic.

Around front, I'm thrilled at how well the clematis survived the winter. I was so worried about this one, but it is thriving.

It even has several flower buds. It probably won't bloom for a few weeks.

Now that the one near the hot tub has a protective shield, it's having its best year ever. It's tall enough to start climbing its trellis, and it has several flower buds too. When this one blooms, it will be a deep blue.

Inside the greenhouse, the tomatoes are thriving after being transplanted. Look at the flowers on this one, and they are all similarly budded out. I hope that means I'll get lots of tomatoes this year. The windows and roof-top vents are open to allow the wind and bugs to blow through. Nevertheless, I'll probably fondle them with the soft make-up brush I keep in the greenhouse for that purpose.

The lettuce has been slow. This is the green loose leaf lettuce.

The red leaf lettuce is just barely getting going.

The butter head lettuce is even slower.

It'll be a while before we get any salad from that crop.

So, let's just take another look at the dappled willow. It certainly is "poofy." It has the whitish-pinkish foliage at the end of all of its branches, and so I suppose I can say it's doing the thing we planted it to do. Somehow it isn't fulfilling my expectations, but it is healthy. That's worth something.

Across the driveway, the golden chain tree is blooming. I'm hopeful this one will put on some size this year. It hasn't grown much since we planted it, but it is alive. That's something, given our history of killing these.

More flowers have opened on the driveway rhododendron.

Across the sidewalk, some flowers have opened on the dark purple rhododendron. Soon, I'll be claiming this one as my favorite among the rhodies.

The lithodora is blooming. This will turn into a solid blue carpet in front of the house. It's hard to keep it weed free. Vetch becomes entangled in it, and it's almost impossible to eradicate it. In fact, I'm just going to say it is impossible. Every year I try, and so far I've been unsuccessful.

With trepidation, I ventured into the vegetable garden. This can be a heart-breaking place when the critters get in and bite the tops off everything. So far, our gopher stakes are doing their job. Nearly all the beans have sprouted. Yesterday I noticed there are beets coming up.

I believe the carrots are also making an appearance. I've never grown carrots before, and so I'm not exactly sure what they look like. 

On the other hand, I do recognize corn when I see it. One whole row has sprouted. The other two rows are planted with different and slower-to-ripen varieties. Those have not yet shown themselves.

Checking the weedy section of the garden, the section known affectionately as the "bee garden," I noticed the first flowers.

 

 

And let's just get one thing straight: the wildflowers are just cultivated weeds, and so we're happy with whatever will grow here. The bees are not picky. This section always starts out with nothing but white flowers. Later in the season, we'll start seeing more color.

 

Okay, so I'd covered the whole of the outdoors by that time. I'd come outside to harvest chive blossoms for chive blossom vinegar. I cut the flowers, run them through my salad spinner to get rid of any little bugs, drop them into a jug, and then add distilled white vinegar to cover. Now, the jug is in a dim room where it will sit for two weeks. After two weeks, I'll strain out the blossoms, and I'll have fragrant and pretty red chive blossom vinegar. Please mark your calendars for the exciting conclusion of this process.

Okay, and then earlier, I'd finished June's block for the Joyful Journey quilt. This is the "Nest" block. I trimmed it and pressed it for its picture.

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

It was time to make up Block #8 for the Domestic Affairs quilt. Sadie was doing a "How to be Adorable" demonstration for the kitties on the quilt behind her.

Smitty was in his office in HR (He Rests) keeping a laser-eye focus on her work ethic. After her appawlling purrformance last week, he's not going to put up with any funny business.

It was time to make up Block #8 for the Domestic Affairs quilt. Okay, so this one has quite a bit of applique. Also, the pattern confused me a little, and I ended up with a mirror image of the original design. No problem, and I know I can count on you to keep my secret.

When I had it fused and traced, it was time to do the top-stitching. This seemingly took forever.

And now, it's ready for stitching. I'll get started on it this morning.

Even though this is Monday, I've promised Mike his Sunday morning blueberry oatmeal pancakes. It's been several weeks since we've had them. First, it was his birthday, and he wanted his Eggs Benedict for that. Then, he made me Mother's Day waffles on Mother's Day. Then he was gone yesterday. So, you can see there's been a dearth of pancake breakfasts here. It's time to set things right.

I have a long list of to-do's for today, after spending my free weekend binge-watching Netflix. Now it's time to pay the piper and get some stuff done around the house. Cover me...I'm going in.