Be Careful What You Wish For

I learned a valuable lesson in the last few days. I was concerned about the house next door which has been empty for nearly a year and was gutted last fall for renovations. Then it sat, hollow and forlorn, with its back door refusing to stay shut. I was worried that someone would shelter in its dubious but dry interior or set it on fire or something equally nasty until finally they started working on it again the other day. Now I’m wishing it was abandoned again. The banging and crashing and hammering and sawing are driving me nuts! And they’ve only just begun the rebuilding which, according to rumours, will make it much larger than my house. What will I be looking out my study window into, I wonder? And how much light will I have? Bet I won’t be able to catch the lovely sunsets over the roofs any more.

Well, I spent a good part of the morning working on the Cherry Leaf Shawl edging. I’m now past the bottom corner:


I kind of fudged it twice until it looked more-or-less even around the corner. The pattern repeat on either side was mostly worked twice into every edge stitch while the one right at the corner was worked three times into the bottom stitches. Now I’m back to the normal join of every right-side row to one edge stitch. It should block out nicely. I’m quite pleased with it so far.

We’re back to dumping rain here though we haven’t set any records. It’s getting rather tedious however. Some of the seeds I planted under the grow lights are coming up. I have baby lettuce, arugula, and tah tsai (Chinese greens) and I think I saw a baby tomato or two. These will all go into the greenhouse when they’re big enough and then the salad greens and leeks will go in the main garden. The tomatoes will stay in the house until they are too large to fit under the lights! By then it should be warm enough at night since there’s no heat in the greenhouse. I’m going a little more low-key on the veggie garden this year. There’s no point in trying to grow things that don’t produce well so I’m not going to bother with peppers, eggplants, some squashes (maybe still zucchini). We usually get some peas and lots of beans. I know the peas should be planted already but they would practically be under water at the moment. Trying to dig in the mud is not good for seeds or me. I do have some overwintering leeks and the sprouting broccoli and multiplier onions are getting big enough to pick. There’s parsley and chives and even the asparagus is starting to come up. Next I should plant some flower seeds or we’ll be hitting the nursery for annuals again. I’ve got the seeds so I should use ’em. Meanwhile I’ve relegated the buggy coleus (yes, they’re still alive!) to my desk where they can get natural light. When it promises not to freeze at night then I can trust putting them in the greenhouse. Don’t want to lose them after I worked so hard dragging their roots through the whole winter.