Cutting Up

Good morning, my friends, and happy Saturday! We had a productive day here yesterday. Of course, it started with slow-stitching. I filled my hoop and moved to the next position. I'll be finishing this piece today.

It was a day for working outside. Smitty was feeling reflective about all the work he needed to do. So many small furry critters to kill...so little time.

When there was no putting it off any longer, we all headed outside. And let me just say that when the whole famdamily goes outside, it's quite a treat for the kitties. Sadie celebrated with her usual salad of grass.

That seemed like a good idea to Smitty.

Mike was out to do concrete repair on our concrete steps. The owner/builder of our home was a concrete contractor. He laid some nice sidewalks and patios on all sides of our house. I expect these concrete steps are at least 30 years old. Over time, they've cracked and crumbled in places, and the problem is only getting worse. 

So Mike can fix most anything he puts his mind to. In preparation for this job, he spent several days on YouTube getting the skinny on how to do it. He told me last night he was dragging his feet about it because it was something he'd never done before. We'll come back toward the end of this post and see how it ended up.

For now, let's just continue on our walk around the garden. The blueberries are starting to color up. 

We're having some new neighbors up for dinner next weekend. I have in mind to make some Lemon Cheesecake Mousse for dessert. Its such a light and tasty dessert, and I've been Jonesing for it. Here's one I've made in the past. They're individual desserts served in ramekins.

Wouldn't it be fun to garnish them with this year's blueberries? Yeah...I'm old. Stuff like that gets me in a veritable frenzy of excitement.

Moving on, the cherries are mostly in the tops of the trees. What I could see within arm's length (or thereabouts) are still green as grass. These are the Black Tartarians:

These are the Bings:

Most of them are in the tippy tops of the trees, and those are starting to turn red.

We generally put Mike into the tractor bucket and then lift him up to pick them. I'm not entirely sure we can get him up high enough even in the tractor bucket, but that will be an adventure for down the road some.

Moving on, the day lilies are getting ready to open. I might find them open when I check this morning.

We now have exactly four cherry tomatoes on our cherry tomato plant. At least the squirrels haven't eaten them.

And I'm seeing more plums on the plum tree. The plum tree bloomed at a bad time, and so there aren't a lot of plums. There are enough for the couple of desserts I like to make with them.

I was happy to see the California poppies are sprouting in the large pot at the front door. I've also planted some of the purple poppy seeds here, but that was only a day earlier. These would be the California poppies planted last week.

And...wow...look at that clematis blooming to beat the band.

This guy was yelling at me the whole time I was out roaming around.

So lettuce talk about the lettuce. (😆) This year's gardening efforts can best be summed up using two words: Try Again. So, I planted some more lettuce seeds in the two boxes on the right. I filled in where the seeds didn't germinate the first time around, and then another seed right beside these little sprouts. Whichever one grows up first gets to live. The other one gets pulled up.

All the lettuce was planted at the same time and treated the same way. As you can see, that on the left is thriving. The others have barely grown past germination stage. I can only think some cold temperatures stunted them. Hopefully these new seeds will get things going.

In other "try again" news, I'm trying for the third time to get some giant sunflowers going. The first round were sprouted like the ones below. The second round of seeds were sown directly into the ground. One or two sprouted, but I still have only a couple of viable giant sunflowers. So, I sprouted more in the greenhouse this past week.

Yesterday, I planted them in the garden and gave each a tall green stake so they are easily seen. I want them along the fence line so that I can stake them to the fence if they need some extra support.

If they don't take this time, then I'm giving up. The rest of the shorter sunflowers are planted at the ends of the rows of vegetables. There are a few near the bee garden, and a few planted between the zucchini plants. I'd still like to get some of the giants going.

From there, I set about hoeing weeds. It's a never-ending battle. The vegetables are gaining some size now. In the image below, the two rows of corn on the left are an early-harvest variety. The corn in the second row from the right is from older seeds, and it is a later-harvest variety. We didn't get much there, but we'll have plenty from the earlier variety.

The far right row in the image above is beets. I expect to harvest some of those within the next couple of weeks. 

Turning directly around, the carrots are making themselves more visible. Between the two rows in the image below is where I buried the seed tape. I'm only beginning to see some little sprouts from that, and so I can't really weed there until things get a little larger and easier to identify.

Also, I believe I'm seeing the first flowers on the zucchini. I NEEDS ME SOME ZUCCHINI SO I CAN MAKE ZUCCHINI RELISH!!!!! The situation is urgent. And, yes, I could buy some zucchini, but that would be cheating. Shame on you for even suggesting it.

Whenever I'm in the vegetable garden, I spend some time gazing out at the bee garden to see if there's anything new. Yesterday, I spotted these tiny little pink flowers. I checked the website for the wildflower seeds, and I wasn't able to identify these from what was in the package. It could be a volunteer.

It's on a tall stalk. There is more growing near the fence. Right now, the bee garden is nearly all daisies.

That reminds me...Mike flew his drone over a clear cut area a few nights ago. We've been absolutely amazed how the area has burst into bloom with these same daisies. The resolution on this video is terrible. Neither of us knows why. I'll post it here anyway for anyone who wants to watch. It pauses in the middle, but keep watching if you'd like to see a view of the surrounding countryside. The video is just short of three minutes. If you can't see it, then click right here.

Okay, so let's check in again with Concrete Man. He did an excellent patch job. It doesn't match the rest just yet. Over time, it will gather dirt and moss and blend in with the rest. And now that he's done this, I half expect him to go around patching every little crack or chip he sees. That's just how he rolls.

Around the front side of the house, I caught this Violet-Green Swallow sitting on top of one of the bird houses. We've seen quite a lot of activity in this house...birds fly in, birds fly out. No doubt there is young inside.

There was some time for sewing yesterday afternoon, but not much to show for it. First, I needed to trace out the next two blocks for The Story of My Day.

Here are the blocks I have for this quilt so far.

The rest of my sewing day was spent doing the cutting for the Happy Scrap Baby Ribbons quilt. It took quite some time, but all the cutting is done. I'll be able to start sewing on this today.

As for the rest of the day, we're trying something new on the grill. Mike is smoking some "burnt ends." We've never actually tried making them ourselves, but we've had them in restaurants many times. I'm going to make a potato salad this morning, and that will be dinner. I need to make a quick trip into town, and then I'll get busy with my sewing. I'm looking forward to making this baby quilt. Having all the cutting done probably means it will go together fast.