Christmas!!?? It isn't even July.

Monday we made borscht for dinner. It hardly seems like a spring menu item but it tasted good. It went with the project I was working on. I cannot show you the front but I can show you the back. :-D

I finished this ornament for a designer for the Just Cross Stitch Ornaments 2010 issue. I wanted to use a funky Christmas print for the back but I was against a deadline and could find nothing locally. I used this print that I had. When the ornament issue is out, I can show you the front.

The other two pictures show the cording that I made for the edge.

More Signs of Spring

Yesterday I saw these early peony shoots in the garden. They are the first. The temperature is warm. We have had no snow during March; the last time that happened was in 1887. Yes, that is supposed to be 18 and not 19. Hmmmm, is this an indication of global warming? We did have rain at the beginning of the month but it is dry. Generally we have rain in April, you know April showers bring May flowers.

Yes, there will be four star flowers in the Quaker motif. All of the elements are in multiples of four. Yesterday I surprised myself with the progress I made and I stitched no longer than usual. It is just that I seemed to have an electric needle for the day.

Springtime Tulip Quaker

The lighting is a little dark but I think you can see the design, another Quaker motif. The lattice in the center is in white to look like a garden. Because this is spring, I am using an overdye with spring colors. There are lots of flowers in this motif. I have a short deadline by which to finish it and am a little undecided about the finishing.

At last, Trace- ability Final -

When we Geocache, we just look for the cache and sign the log that is in it. Then we replace the cache the way we found it. Larger caches may have things in them. If it contains little trinkets, protocol is that if you take one, you leave one. A cache may have a trackable Travel Bug (TB) or a trackable Geocoin. They may have a specific mission which one can find in their logs. There was a Geocoin in the final cache which I took. I took it because I had put a TB in one of the four Trackabilities with the clues.

We were caching right under these huge dishes. I was not certain it would be a good idea to take a picture of them because the entire area seems to be a little secretive. There is no name posted on the building. I assume it is something involved with telecommunications but who knows? I wondered if someone would come out, take the camera, and chase us away. But nothing happened. We were not even fried by microwaves.

Yesterday our new freezer was delivered. They brought it out quite a bit earlier than we were expecting it. That worked well because the hard part was putting all the frozen food into it. As it was, we worked until it was late. The best thing to do was to bring home some take-out Chinese. My hands became so cold that they still were not warm to eat dinner.

Today we took a bulk mailing to the post office for our church. On the way home we checked out an estate sale as a treat. There were some nice things: clocks, pocket watches, depression glass. I would have been happy to bring several things home but the prices seemed high and they were firm prices. From there on the way home, I found another cache without my GPSr. I knew in general where it was and there it was.

After lunch we treated ourselves to another local estate sale. This one had lots of books. I found four cookbooks.
Focaccia - This book has a different cover but I am certain the insides are the same.
Olive Oil Cookery
Olive Oil Cookbook
Flavored Breads
And the best part was that we were able to negotiate a total price lower than the total of the marked prices. The cookbooks were all marked with individual prices higher than the prices of the non-cookbooks so the lower price seemed more fair to me.

It seemed a little chilly this morning. It was not so much the temper- ature but the wind, a very strong wind. It seems a little strange to talk about wind chill in the spring but that is what was a work. It was hard to walk when I had to walk into the wind. There never was a time or place that I could walk with the wind squarely to my back.

This is Traceability #4. As you can see this is where we took the picture of the Canada geese. It is the only place in the area that has water in which they can swim. We now have all the clues we need to be able to find the final cache. Because we know the co-ordinates of where we parked the car, we know the final cache is very close to the car.

More Signs of Spring

Yesterday I walked to an appoint- ment in the morning and was greeting by the strange call of the redwing blackbirds. More than anything else, the return of the redwings is a sign of spring. The receptionist at the office said they first saw redwings a week ago.

This is the site of Traceability #2. Its hiding place is inside the hollow at the base of the tree on my right. We had to walk around a marshy area to get to this spot. The direct route definitely was not the best way to go.

Woooohooooooo, yesterday hung the sheets outside to dry for the first time this year. I do not know why I did not think of it sooner in the day.

Here is Traceability 3. Yes, I know but this is the order in which we found the caches. We were actually looking for #2. We were trying to find a dry way around the swamp to it when the GPS gave an indication we were close to the location of another cache; I was gingerly edging my way down to the swamp to see what the terrain looked like. The GPS beeped out just as a wild turkey ran into the swamp and took flight. The message indicated we were within steps of #3. Actually all I had to do was reach out my hand to touch the tree it was hiding in. Can you see the cache in the second picture? In the series, each cache has a plastic template with holes in it. The idea is to trace through the holes and like magic, the numbers to complete the co-ordinates of the final cache will appear. In the first picture, I am holding the template for Part 3.

Drum Roll, Please

Ta-daaaaaaaahhhhhhhhh!! Here is the completed baby sampler. I am hoping that the details are not distinct enough for someone to chart the design from this picture. If they are not, I will work on it a little more. Isn't it a shame that we must worry so much about protecting copyrights? I like the way this little sampler turned out. As I have pointed out several times, this is one of Christine's designs. Just in case you are curious about it, Christine, I have a clearer picture I can send to you. I made the hanger too.

I found those cute little finials in a craft supply store and then went to the building supply store to find a dowel they would fit on. I was going to pick up white enamel spray paint at the building supply store but they would not check me out without my birthdate. I though, "Well now!!" I guess that we can no longer buy spray paint if we are underage. I went over to Jo-Ann's which is a short walk away and got some white paint. It turned out to be a very good thing because it was much easier and much less messy to apply paint with a brush than to spray it on. It is, I think, more environmentally friendly too.

In the other picture, I am obviously preparing to sign the log of one of the caches we found on Saturday. This is the first one we found, Traceability 1. The location will be more difficult to find after the leaves are out and plants have grown up. I understand there are a lot of nettles here. Last fall, we discovered that there are a lot of tall cattails. As we hiked to this location, my cap was getting caught on the branches. The branches also were catching my hair. I think that I look like the Wild Woman from the Wilderness.

The cache, the dark container from which I am shaking out the contents was lodged in the tree that is next me. It was not very obvious and will be even less so when the leaves are out.

To celebrate spring, we went caching yesterday afternoon. It took longer than we would have liked but we were not surprised by the length of time. It is a series of five caches which we tried to find last fall but could not because the water level was too high and the cattails were too tall for us to feel comfortable about it. We took pictures which I hope to share with you a little later. I have included this one to show you the Canada geese that were celebrating spring. You may be surprised by our urban wilderness. This is less than ten minutes drive from our home and we drive it at the speed limit of 35 miles per hour.

For someone who claims to stitch, I certainly have been stingy about showing you my stitching. Yesterday I finally finished the baby sampler into a bellpull hanging. I still need to make a cord for the hanger and a tassel for the bottom. Pictures will follow when that is done.

Welcome to spring. Although we could easily still have below freezing temperatures and snow, just getting past the middle of March seems good enough. We do know that the bone-shattering temperatures are over and if they are not we are all in serious trouble.

The chipmunks are scampering through the yard. They must at least semi-hibernate if they do not really hibernate. Maybe they sleep in the PVC piping that we use for conduits; they have not forgotten about it over the winter. We use the pipes to carry electrical cords under ground and to give the hose a channel under the driveway. The chipmunks seem to like all of the pipes and do not prefer any one to another.

Yesterday and Today

Yesterday it was warm for the time of year and very sunny. My little crocus and the regular crocus were basking in the warmth and light.

Today it is a different story. The sun is behind the clouds and the temperature is low. We are supposed to have lower temperatures for the next couple days. Actually, in March and April, our temperatures could be below freezing and we could easily have snow.

Enjoying these past lovely sunny, warm days, it seems like we are waiting for the shoe to fall because it could turn around so quickly.

Today we are watching the University of Minnesota Gophers play Xavier. At the half, the score was tied; as Gopher alums, we want them to win, Go Gophers!!!

Yesterday was gorgeous and sunny. When I went out to bring in the pillows that I had aired, I discovered this little crocus in bloom. It is always the earliest one to bloom and is easily the smallest one. The flower you see is about the size of my thumb nail.

I pulled back some of the leaves from the Dutch bulbs so the stems would grow straight. I looked again for the fritillaria but could not find a sign of them. It appears that the iris are beginning to grow under the leaves too. It is going to be the great guessing game to decide when to take the leaf cover off the iris. If I take it off too soon and there is a frost, I will loose the flower buds. If I wait too long, the leaves and stems that grow under the leaves will be brittle and break when I do take the leaf cover off; I will loose a lot of flowers. It is so difficult to balance the pros and cons.

It's dark out!!

It is 7:00 a.m. and it is dark out. Yesterday it was light at 7:00 a.m. We are experiencing the shortest day in 2010 in the US. We have lost an hour overnight and are now on daylight saving time. My computer doesn't seem to know what it is doing; it jumped ahead two hours. I just wish I was still on standard time.

Chipmunk Sighting

We just saw a chipmunk running along the garden fence. If there is one chipmunk out, there are more. Our little cat Moochie is very excited; I wonder if he has seen the chipmunk.

For us, in Minnesota, it is still a little early to think about spring but my Dutch bulbs are not worried about the calendar. As fast and the snow retreats across the yard and gardens, the gardens have begun to show off and trumpet grand promises of flowers.

Should we see some below freezing temperatures, and it is a very real possibility, I will have to go out to cover all the tender shoots. Oh but that is such a small price to pay for such a glorious reminder of spring.

The raspberries are almost completely uncovered, again. The problem is not how vigorously the raspberries spread and multiply. They have already advanced into the neighbor's yard and the park. The problem is how much the rabbits eat. Last spring, they girdled almost every cane they did not completely chew down. I think it is true that all raspberries bear on old growth. The rabbits left us precious little old growth last spring; consequently, we had a meager harvest. We had hoped to have a better harvest this year but that is in doubt now. Only time will tell how many raspberries we will have this year.

This continues to be a very hectic week. Life will not settle down until sometime next week.

We went out to try to rabbit proof the raspberries. Instead of fencing them, we dug out snow and threw it on top of the raspberries completely covering them. On top of that we tried to arrange the compacted snow, think thick ice, we scraped off the garden path. We hope the ice acts to keep the snow from melting soon.

When we checked the raspberries, we discovered that the rabbits did not dig below the surface of the snow. I wonder if they do not realize that the stems go down through the snow. After dealing with the squirrels, we just assumed that the rabbits would be a little more clever. That gave us the idea that if we took snow from the remainder of the garden and yard, we might be able to keep the raspberry canes under cover for a little longer.

The raspberries are planted on the south side of a six-foot basketweave privacy fence. Consequently. it is the first part of the garden to defrost, maybe even the first garden in the neighborhood to defrost. We just thought that if we piled it with snow and ice, it might be the last garden to defrost and the rabbits might have discovered the other gardens.

We may have been foiled by Mother Nature. You know that it is not nice to fool Mother Nature. For the past two days, we have had intermittent rain which is washing away the snow. We just might have to go out and fence the rabbits out of the raspberries with chicken wire.

Rabbit-proofing the Raspberries

The snow has melted to the ground around the raspberries. The rabbit damage does not look as bad as we originally thought because the snow protected the lower portions of the canes. Although it is not a good idea to work in the garden while it is still muddy, we will be busy in it today. To protect the raspberry plants, we will put a row of chicken wire around them. I am certain that as soon as the rabbits discover that more of the canes are exposed they will be out to eat them. So we have to be as quick as a you-know-what.

This is strange. I tried to upload two pictures but the detail of the ribbon rose is the vertical mirror image of the original and the corner motif is the horizontal mirror image of the original picture. What is happening here? Is Blogger editing the site or has someone hacked into it?

For these two pictures it does not make much difference but I am very curious about what is happening here.

Yesterday I finished the stitching on the baby sampler when I made the ribbon roses. After looking at the finished sampler, I decided to add lazy daisy leaves in white pearl cotton. Picture time turned out to be experiment and play time.

In December we got a new lens for the camera . It works much better for close-ups and can still take very nice mid-distance pictures. Actually this is the first time I have used it since the day we tried it in the store. I have been hesitant because it requires a tripod for nice close-ups. I can never remember what the individual knobs and cranks on the tripod do so I do not like to use it. Besides, it is a major undertaking to get it out and put it away again. It was so much fun taking these pictures that the tripod may become a design element in the living room.

As you can see, I have stitched in the name and date. I will press it and then make the three ribbon roses before I back it. As I finish the stitching, I am making the hanger. Hopefully both will be finished at the same time. Then hopefully I will take a better picture of it.

The sun continues to show its authority. It has melted a lot of snow and ice but a lot still remains. There is still enough snow that it keeps the temperature a little low even though it is going above freezing in the day.

We did not see it happen but the evidence indicates a squirrel got into the bird feeder and dumped the seed out. The birds have not been coming to the feeder as much now. The fact that it is empty is a contributing factor but they had already stopped coming as frequently before the squirrel dumped the seed out. I suppose that they are claiming and defending their territory. I guess that has a higher priority right now.

Mum decided which sampler she likes. I charted the name and date. Yesterday I stitched in the name and date and then discovered that I had miscounted the date. It was too far to the right to look good so I will have to take the stitching out and redo it. Complain complain complain

Yesterday my son informed me that we will go to Daylight Saving Time on the 14th. I told him that I thought it was not nice because we will loose the little bit of light that we are now getting just before 6:30 a.m. I thought it was in April and then this morning I realized the 14th is on a Sunday in M-A-R-C-H. I suppose that means we will be going to DST in a little more than a week. Complain complain complain

I wonder what else I can complain about.

Not a complaint but an observation, and a neat one at that. As we left the grocery store yesterday, a peregrine falcon flew by the front of the car. Was it gliding in for a landing or did it see something of interest? It flew right up to a parked car and was mere inches above the pavement. It looked like it flew under the car and out the other side. I suppose it could have flown under the car, walked to the other side and then flown out but it was almost instantaneous so I want to think it flew through the distance under the car. I cannot imagine what it did with its wings if it flew under the car. From there it flew into a tree and looked none the worse for the experience.