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.