Snowshoes & Cookbooks

In yesterday's blog post I mentioned how I think that I control the weather by putting winter things away too soon thereby bringing cold air, wind, and rain (or snow, ack!) down upon us.  So I wrote that I planned to leave my snowshoes leaning by the cookbooks which was a picture that Aunt B couldn't conjure up.  I have enough cookbooks that they have their own bookshelf in the corner of the dinette and between the side of the shelf and the wall my snowshoes lean.  See?


This morning I went over to the community room at Goodwill to knit on my sock with the Guild-ers and found a floor stand of seed packets.  I was happy to see zinnia seeds.  I bought some because I planted them in a couple planters last summer and was thrilled to see that butterflies and goldfinches like them.  A lot.  So I'm planting them again this year.



As I was leaving to go sock knitting a Downy Woodpecker showed up on the tattered seed wreath and gave me such a look when I snapped her picture.  Excuse me!


DS made ham spread with part of his Easter ham with Harbin dill pickles (they have tiny hot peppers in them, yum), Dijon mustard, and mayo.  He toasted slices of homemade whole wheat bread to spread it on.  I had mine open-face.  My Great-grandpa Gerst ate open-face sandwiches so I called them "Grandpa Gerst sandwiches" when I was little.  I forget how much I like sandwiches with no lid.  I took along some of my lemon-beet hummus with a bag of jicama sticks, cauliflower florets, and mini cucumber spears for dipping.  It was an excellent repast.

After lunch I went over to CS's garage sale because she'd texted me pictures of the die-cast cars, etc. that she had for sale.  She's a manufacturer's rep and has samples to sell at her neighborhood's annual sale weekend.  See what I got!  Lots of fun to play with, lots of "just because" presents for not a lot of money.  She didn't have any girly stuff but LC likes to play with trucks and diggers too so it's all good.




Tomorrow KW and I are going to hear author William Kent Krueger speak so I cast on April Preemie Hat #4 tonight when I got home from Friday Night Knitting because I'm certain that we'll get to the venue with plenty of knitting time before he speaks.  Besides I've only got 5 days of April left to finish the last of the four hats I like to knit in a month.  Our friend AP will be there too but she's got tickets to the next speaker so she's not riding with us.  Krueger writes a series of thrillers about Cork O'Connor who starts as the sheriff of a small, northern Minnesota town and ends up as a private detective.  The scenery is excellent, the relationships are mostly normal seeming, and, well, I find them engrossing.  I'm really looking forward to hearing him speak.  We're going out to breakfast first.  Because we want to.

26 April--Juan Gris, Landscape and Houses at Ceret.

Sunlight slams down
stark colors rage
houses fry
fields simmer
black holes of shadow
midsummer
midday
sizzles
~~~~~

I could have looked at that painting for hours.  It's very Cubist in style painted in colors not found in nature, not my usual type of art, but that one caught my interest and won't let go.  Too bad it's in a private collection or I'd think about going to see it in person.  Time to hit the sack.
--Barbara