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March 23, 2012

Crazy Early Spring

We've had delightful, unseasonably warm weather.  It's felt like summer, day after day.  The ground has dried up, much yard work has been accomplished and some gardening.  I've gotten some of the peas planted.  Even if the weather turns cold, they'll be fine as they prefer cooler weather and are quite hardy.  The lettuces in the cold frame are starting to germinate.   With the long range forecast for a warmer than normal spring, I broke down and started many of my garden seeds a week early.  It doesn't seem like a lot, but it can mean the difference between leggy, overgrown seedlings or having to re-pot them before planting. I checked and I've enough larger pots should I need to go the second route but even getting plants in the ground a week early could make a huge difference to garden results.   I've still a few things to plant.  Curcurbits (cucumbers, squash etc) only need to be started a few weeks before plant out date, so I'll wait until my normal time for those.   

In this crazy weather, flowers which should be blooming a month from now, have graced us with their beauty.  I popped out to do some errands this morning and came back to this show in the front of the house.  So pretty.  The flower beds in the back have dried out and the sandy soil has been a hit with the chooks.  They've sunbathed in a good portion of the back beds, decimating most of the perennial flowers there.    I'll be fencing in my gardens soon enough I suppose, just to keep the chooks at bay.  Yes, it might be easier to fence the chooks, but they'd be unhappy about it for sure!


I've had a few false starts on projects lately.  I wanted to have a not quite plain pair of socks on the needles.  However the patterns I chose, turned out to need more concentration than I was willing to put into them.  First the colour I chose didn't show the pattern up and I couldn't easily follow it.  The same pattern in a different colour showed up fine, but required me to constantly think about it.  When outside, trying to keep the chickens from drinking my tea, while I was knitting, proved to be too much of a distraction to keep up with that pattern.   These pretty orange socks are using Cookie A's BFF.  I've done it before.  It's an easy 6 row pattern with only a couple of odd pattern rows at changing points.  It makes a lovely sock, pretty and useful everyday type pattern.  The only slow row is the cable row, every 6 rows.  Not so bad and suitable for dragging to meetings and knitting outside while shooing chooks from one's tea!

2 comments:

  1. Hopefully winter is over! All I need is for the garden to dry out! Love the cheerful colors of your sock.

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  2. I always try to have something mindless to knit on, comfort knitting. It's not winter here and its not spring either. I'm not worried anymore since we'll get veggies from our CSA subscription, starting next month.

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