Wednesday, May 26, 2010

Wordless Wednesday #21 (Captions added 5/27)

Black Swallowtail butterfly caterpillar on my parsley.

Same caterpillar and parsley in a plastic container on my washing machine. I'm now an excited caterpillar parent!

Daylily "Pure & Simple"

Some of the flowers in my flower bed. Purple coneflowers, Monarda (bee balm), and coreopsis.

My carrot harvest!

Sunday, May 23, 2010

For the Kitty Lovers

I stumbled across this site a few weeks ago. If you love kitties and all their kitten playfulness, then you'll love this site! I'm warning you, though, it is VERY addicting! Watch at your own risk!

Live Broadcast by Ustream.TV

The kittens in front of this camera are available for adoption in the Raleigh-Durham area of North Carolina. They originally came into rescue sick, sneezy, wheezy, and flea infested. They have gotten tons better and are almost ready for adoption. Actually, three of the kittens have forever homes lined up already! They'll be going home in the next week or two.

Enjoy!

Wednesday, May 19, 2010

Wordless Wednesday #20 (captions added)

Blackberries ripening.

Wando peas. We harvested some of these on Saturday. They didn't make it into the house. :)

Maters, baby!

Rudbeckia Hirta (Black-eyed Susan) and an opening Gaillardia (blanket flower)

Fused stem and buds on one of my Black-eyed Susans. This happens at least once a growing season to at least one of my plants. It's crazy!

Purple oxalis and Pink Skullcap.

My first daylily bloom of 2010, Siloam Double Classic.

Sunday, May 16, 2010

Catching Up

Another crazy week has ended. Hooray! I don't think I've had a "normal" work in over a month. As someone who thrives on consistency and predictability, it's been stressful. I was looking forward to returning to a normal work schedule next week, however when my boss arrived at work yesterday he told me that he & his family would be leaving that afternoon to drive to Delaware because his mother-in-law's condition had deteriorated and she wasn't expected to live through the weekend. I felt so bad for him. So this coming week's going to be just as crazy as the last 2 or 3 weeks. At least my hormones won't be out of whack this go 'round! LOL

As you can see from the pics posted Wednesday, the gardens are looking good. We got about 1.25" of rain on Friday which will help tremendously. Now, though, we've got such horribly high humidity! Blech!

This is just gorgeous! I don't remember seeing this Mealy Blue Sage in such glory last season.

This little Blue Bedder Sage went dormant over the winter, but has come back nicely. It's such a vibrant blue and very striking in the flower bed.

In the veggie garden, the okra I planted is coming along nicely. We've had some germination issues on one end of the row, but I'll plant some more seeds today to hopefully help that. These poor little babies got whipped around in the winds the other day pretty good, but they have recovered and are growing well.

Most of the onions are starting to really bulb. These 1015s are doing great! As they get bigger around, I pull back the soil to give them some growing room.

The cucumber plants are finally taking off. This is a lemon cucumber plant that had a rough time getting started. It's doing great now.

I will be sending off my exchange piece this week, so hopefully I'll be able to post some stitching pics soon!

Sunday, May 09, 2010

Some Early Works

I recently reconnected with an old college roommate on Facebook. I was also her notetaker (she is deaf) for many of our classes, too, so we had a unique relationship. We'd kept in touch for many years after college, but then in 1998, I moved here to Fort Worth and she moved to Georgia due to some illness and health challenges. After that, we lost contact, but with the creation of Facebook, we've been reunited. A couple of weeks ago, she shared pics with me of some of the things I'd stitched for her while we in college. These are about 20 years old and Carla has these hanging in her guest room.




I have no idea the designers of these are, but I do know they're stitched on aida (Fiddler's it looks like) with DMC threads, cuz that's just about all there was back then.

The other day, I went into the living room and I found Her Royal Highness Hannah Grace sleeping atop a stack of moving pads. I've dubbed this shot, "The Princess and the Pea".



Thursday, May 06, 2010

Picture Captions and Other Stuff

Since I can't share of picture of my current stitching project, I'll bore you with pics of my garden and flowers.

Last week, the husband and I planted seeds for our veggie garden. This is an okra seedling. At maturity, okra is a tall plant. Hard to believe it starts out so tiny. This year, we're growing Green Emerald Velvet okra.

We also planted watermelon. These are planted in "hills", 4 per mound. So far, we have a total of 4 sprouts out of the 12 seeds we planted. The husband planted a few more seeds in each hill today. This is Crimson Sweet watermelon.

This is a little watermelon seedling just bursting through the dirt.

We'll be growing cowpeas, or black-eyed peas, this year as well. I'm not sure if these are grown in the north, but they're pretty much a staple down here. This is the first year for these in our garden as well.

We will again be growing bush beans. The plants only get about 2' tall. They start off pretty large as compared to the okra seedlings.

This daylily has 2 bloom scapes on it! Can't wait for it to flower this year!

These are some of the plants I brought home with my from the plant swap last Sunday. I have most of them planted, but there are some still waiting to go in the ground.

Monday, May 03, 2010

I Have Been Remiss in Stitching and Posting

I've been so busy with outside stuff that I've neglected to update my blog. I've still not done any stitching to speak of, but the day is coming.

Prairie Phlox (phlox pilosa) is the lavender blooming plant in this picture. It's accompanied by a blanketflower. The phlox has a very nice soft smell to it that's heavenly in the early mornings and late evenings.

Blanketflowers in the late evening sun.

Coneflower (& spider web) preparing to bloom.

View of the flower bed along the driveway. I just love that vibrant pink Sweet William!

First buds on one of my volunteer mater plants!