Spring Unfurlled

 
This morning the sky looked promising for a sunny day, don't you think?  I did.  Instead the day turned out to be half sunny and half cloudy with sprinkles of rain arriving around 4:30 and hanging around until I closed the drapes at 9:30 and quit looking out.  It was warm, into the upper-70s.  Of course tomorrow it's supposed to only get to the mid-60s.  *sigh*  This upping and downing, hotting and cooling is making me crazy.  Decide already!







The fern is unfurling, more little fronds being brave enough to stretch out.  I noticed that a couple of the other ferns are getting with the program too.  And this lone tulip is ready to open in the middle of the flower bed in the garden patch.  Some lovely squirrel or rabbit nibbled off the bloom of one of the front tulips.  It's lying in one of the pots I plant with coleus.  Can't they just eat the fallen birdseed, corn, and peanuts and leave my flowers alone?  I guess not.







 


I wore the face fabric dress today for Me Made May.  I feel like I'm not fulfilling the true spirit of the challenge but I suppose it's unrealistic to expect that everyone wears a totally me-made wardrobe every day.  I'm working to be satisfied with wearing one me-made item a day--when I'm not in grubs getting all dirty and sweaty in the yard and garden, that is.

 
Speaking of planting things, this is the clay pot I got from LC and OJ for Mother's Day.  They painted a bunch of pots during the blizzard weekend, LC said, and DIL1 tucked in a bag of potting soil and some recycled paper leaf shapes that she had the kids embed wildflower seeds in so I got them planted and watered and can't wait to see something sprout.





I keep adding rounds to the Two-Stripe Packer Hat and it's getting longer.  Imagine that.  This simple hat pattern or crocheting play food is about as complicated as I'm capable of lately.  That's okay, simple things are good too, right?  Right.

May 14--Giovanni Giacometti, Annetta and Alberto.  "Al," she called out the back door.  She could see the white dots of the sheep in the far field that scaled the foot of the mountain.  The black and red shape of Carlo, the sheepdog, darted around the edges of the flock so Daniel must be on his way in for dinner.  She heard Traveller barking somewhere behind the barn but she didn't see her six-year-old son, Al.  She had told him to stay in the yard within sight of the house but Al had a healthy dose of wanderlust and seemed to feel if he could see any part of the house he was okay.  She had visions of him down a well or trapped in a tumbledown outbuilding, but so far Traveller and Al's guardian angel had kept him safe.

I learned a hard lesson this evening.  If you put clothes in the washer while it's filling you have to close the lid for it to go through the cycle.  If you don't close the lid, when you go down to hang up the clothes in the dryer and put the clothes from the washer into the dryer, those clothes are sitting there in what amounts to a deep bucket of water and soap.  *sigh*  So I'll be up for a little while yet so the wash cycle finishes and I can put the clothes in the dryer--and leave myself a note to go down to hang them up first thing in the morning.  I mean it, my brain has turned into a slide area.  For real.
--Barbara