Tuesday, May 05, 2009

More Of The Same

Yup, I’m still here! Life has been both too busy and too boring to post about in Damselfly’s Pond these last few days. The weather has been “iffy” – it seems to sprinkle on me every time I step outdoors but remains dry if I stay in. To break that rule it rained like crazy last night so that I didn’t bring in any of the plants from the greenhouse. Hope they didn’t mind! They are like small children that I have to allow out by themselves sometime. They have to be planted in the garden eventually.

I finally pulled out all but two of my last year’s woad. I was too pressed for time (too lazy?) to try to use them to see how much blue they might still contain. They’re adding to my compost instead. The last ones I’m allowing to flower for seeds. See the pretty flower buds?

WoadBuds Those second-year plants are growing like crazy and are nearly as tall as I am now. The new baby woad plants are all planted now though they seem to be getting eaten by something (slugs? snails?) that’s leaving large holes in their leaves. I hope they grow fast enough to outstrip the damage. I gave them lots of compost and mushroom manure to help. They were hardly bothered last year so this is unusual. Every year in my garden is a different story! Some happy and some sad.

I’ve also got lots of coreopsis and marigolds to plant in the front garden as well when we’re finished preparing the space. T-Man cut the poor mostly-dead pyracantha (firethorn) back to a short stump and dug and composted the area underneath where it was growing. Now I have lots of new space for my coreopsis. Hope he doesn’t complain as much this year when I harvest the flowers! I’m so mean, aren’t I?

I’m glad it’s too wet out today to garden since I’m feeling like I need a bit of a break. I only have 5 more repeats on the Papyrine Wrap and the rows are getting steadily shorter as I decrease towards the finish line. Yes, I feel like I’m running a race! I’m determined to get this project off my needles and dyepainted as fast as I can manage because I’m so over it. I want to start something new. for starters, I need a bit of a wardrobe revamping before I head off to the ANWG conference in Spokane on the 27th. Yes, it’s only a few weeks away. Urp.

In other news, we babysat the grand-beasties on Saturday evening while their parents went to the Canucks hockey game with tickets that their mom won through a radio contest. Total worth: nearly $600! Not being a sports fan I would rather have the cash myself, but they had a wonderful time even though their team lost. Stargazer has his nasty cast off now but he’s still limping quite a bit on his poor leg. He even resorted to crawling so that he didn’t have to use it. Hope it feels better soon so he forgets the pain of breaking his leg. He’s a tough little guy but that’s a lot for a two-year-old when he doesn’t quite understand why it hurts. His big sister was pretty gentle with him for once so I think she understands and sympathises. That’s a big leap in her development at just 3 months shy of her 5th birthday. She used to consider her little brother a big annoyance and mostly just took all his toys away instead of trying to play with him. Nice to see her learn to appreciate that there are at least a few good things about having a sibling. Though maybe I’ll have to change her name to Princess Orange which is her new favourite colour! Copycat. It’s been my favourite for a very long time.

If you’re local, you’re welcome to come along to my weavers’ guild’s free slide lecture tomorrow night (Wednesday, May 6, 7:30pm) at VanDusen Garden’s Floral Hall featuring Jane Kenyon, fabulously talented textile artist. I’ve known Jane since she was a weaver and former member of my guild (GVWSG). She took the first City & Guilds Design and Embroidery Course with Gail Harker that was offered in North America and it completely changed her artistic focus. Her thread paintings are amazing up close! Pictures don’t do them justice at all so come see them in person. The topic is Fibre: An Obsession and there will be refreshments afterward plus a chance to chat with Jane and the other attendees. The guild offers a lecture every year and it is open to the interested public in order to share our passion for fibres and textiles.

Happy Cinco de Mayo! My baby sister lives in Mazatlan with her dear Mexican husband and their two handsome boys so I thought I’d throw that in. Though it’s more a celebration of Mexican heritage in other countries particularly the USA. Kind of an Hispanic version of St. Patrick’s Day, aka an excuse for a party!

And speaking of parties – tomorrow is my Fourth Blogiversary! I know I have at least a couple of readers out there, don’t I? Please leave a comment on tomorrow’s post and invite your friends to read my blog. (I’d love to get the stats up.) OK, I guess I’ll need to promise some more interesting posts to keep you reading then, huh?

1 comment:

Suzanne said...

Happy blogversary Louisa!!!! thanks for all the good musing/knitting/gardening info, really look forward to it every week.