Out Side

I love looking outside--to see the clouds in the eastern sky when I open the patio door drapes in the morning, to see what's blooming or sprouting, to see how close I am to being able to make a rhubarb pie--so here's your chance to look too.

I think I almost like sun-behind-cloud more than crack-of-dawn colors in the morning sky.

The grape hyacinths are starting to bloom and the first clump of daffodils I planted here in October 1978, a few months after we finished building the duplex and a month before DS was born, have bloomed.  It makes me so happy to see them.  When Mom and Dad lived here Mom would call to tell me that "her" daffodils were blooming, so pleased that she had flowers before I did.  Well, Mom, they're mine again but they still make me think of you.














I learned that if you leave a plant pot over the spot where a hyacinth wants to grow the hyacinth leans over to send its leaves and flower stalk along the ground because it HAS to bloom no matter the contortions it must go through.




Seemingly overnight the lilies have gone from little green nubbins barely peeking out of the mulch to these 6-inch tall sprouts.  Go, lilies, go!








And I see pie in the near future.  Look at how much those leaves have changed since Thursday!

I don't have a before and after picture but I woke up this morning knowing how to fix the top saucer of the new fountain, so it and the fish spout stay level and the water spills out the spout instead of the edge or dribbles down the water tube, without going to Home Depot.  See, there was an extra brass nut in the box that wasn't mentioned in the assembly directions so it stayed in a tiny baggie in the box--and I woke up today knowing what it was for.  I unhooked the tube, unscrewed the fish bubbler spout, and the nut we used, then I wriggled off the rubber gasket that rests over the hole in the center of the saucer.  I screwed the extra nut down as far as possible on the brass fitting, put it through the hole in the support, put on the saucer, wriggled the rubber gasket down as tight to the saucer as possible, screwed on the other nut until it was finger tight to the gasket, then screwed the fish bubbler spout back on, hooked up the water supply tube and plugged it in.  Fingers crossed... it worked!  The saucer's sitting there level, the fish isn't leaning over like a drunk, and the water's cascading out of the spout to the next lowest saucer like it's supposed to.  I rock!

I knitted on the Red Marl sweater sleeves a bit yesterday but they don't look much longer so I'm not going to force you to look at them.  Trust me, I'm working on them.  Which reminds me I put the front and back pieces of the sweater in a basin of wool wash yesterday and never got back down there to take them out, press most of the water out, and pat them into shape to dry.  I should do that.

April 19--Earl Zubkoff, Fiber Widgets.

I don't understand
how fiber optics work.
How light travels through
the clear fibers
only coming out the end
like water from a hose.
Why doesn't it shine
out the sides?
Hmm?

Do you know?
~~~~~

I'd better go rescue my sweater parts now and, since I zoomed to Walmart this morning for a stack of bins for the yarn and fabric that has no home, I could take care of that while I'm down there too.  See?  Not really lolling today.  I'm just not good at it.
--Barbara