First things first

My yard and garden have been busy these past couple of weeks…

We spent the Friday before Easter at one of our favorite places, Winterthur. In early spring, it is even more amazing than usual.

Signs of spring are everywhere! I know I’ve posted lots of flower photos lately, but I just can’t help it: the arrival of spring is just so awesome!

We walked (or ran) the labyrinth…

…built a fairy house…

…looked at magnolia buds (and this is right about the time Sylvia decided to remove her shoes for the rest of the day)…

…marveled at the flowering trees and shrubs (that magnolia in the distance is at least 60 feet tall, by the way)…

…delighted in daffodils…

…and peeked at some fiddleheads.

I love their happy song! Do you have them where you live?

Actually, I think we may have skipped spring and headed straight for summer: today’s high was 92 degrees. In the first week of April.

It’s been so warm and sunny the past two weeks that the trees and flowers are all freaking out. Instead of a springtime blossom show that rolls out over six weeks or so, everything is in flower right now. I’m happy to see spring flowers again, but a little bummed that we’re getting everything all at once. The dogwoods are just about ready to pop–about three weeks ahead of schedule.

Here’s the first crocus that appeared in my yard, on 10 March (not even one full month ago):

Ten days later, it had been joined by about 200 more:

Five days later, the first daffodil had opened up:

That was a week and a half ago. Today the hyacinths and daffodils are in full bloom, the forsythias are nearly spent, and the tulips are just about ready to step into the limelight. Usually the dogwoods and azaleas flower in early May. This year, we might start seeing their blooms next week.

Guess what happened again yesterday?

(I love how rhododendron leaves curl up when it’s really cold outside.) Fortunately, only about an inch fell this time.

We’ve been busy with crafty stuff around here, partly because of being snowbound. We do go out to play in the snow, but after a while it’s time to come inside to get warm and enjoy some hot chocolate and do some inside stuff for a while. The other day, Sylvia and I build a nest: I hot-glued together some pieces of craft felt into a bowl-ish shape, and she filled it with lengths of yarn. Then she asked me to make a bird for her, so I made up this one:

I’m in the home stretch of the Wonderful Wallaby I’m knitting for myself–working on the neck placket now (woot!). I’ve decided not to knit the hood. The result won’t be an exact match to the hooded Wallabies I’ve knit for Sylvia and Jan, but I know I will never wear the hood, so there’s no point in wasting yarn and time on it. I expect to finish up this sweater in the next few days. In the meantime, I’ve been wearing a sweater that I finished during the summer…and just now realize that I never wrote about here.

It’s a simple bottom-up in-the-round raglan knit in Wool of the Woods. It’s very toasty and has a buttoned opening on the front-left raglan seam. (Because the neckline is so wide, I don’t ever need to unbutton the sweater to get it on or off.) My favorite part? The buttons:

I bought these buttons when Sylvia was maybe a year old. They are pewter, and I bought two of each of the five designs, thinking they would be so adorable on a sweater for her. Unfortunately, they are rather heavy–too heavy for a fine knit. They work well on this raglan seam, though; because it’s on an angle, I think that helps prevent the buttons from sagging.

For all that we have about three feet of snow on the ground (it was more, but it’s settled over the past few days), it’s not particularly sticky stuff. I really wanted to make a snowman today, so I had to wing it.

First I made a huge mound for the body. Then I got lucky and found a very compacted chunk for the head. Jan and Sylvia helped with the decorations: an old scarf, gloves from the 2002 NYC Marathon (no, I wasn’t in it, but I was there to watch my brother-in-law race, and Nike reps handed these gloves out to spectators), a wool hat that was made in Afghanistan but bought in Oregon twelve years ago, gumball buttons, and an acorn smile. They raided the recycling bin in the garage for the eyes and nose.

I like to imagine that he’s standing in our front yard yelling, “I’m number one! I’m number one!” to all passersby.

(Project 365 | 2010: 14 February)

I have long known that I cannot draw a straight line with a ruler. In recent years I’ve learned that whenever I mow my lawn, it looks like I went on a bender with my lawnmower. Today I discovered that I cannot shovel in a straight line, either.

(Project 365 | 2010: 11 February)

Stupid groundhog.

We had an epic leaf-fall this autumn. Or maybe it just seemed epic because I did nearly all of the raking and bagging myself. Where we live, yard waste is picked up only eight times a year (four Saturday mornings in the fall, and four Saturday mornings in the spring). That’s it. Anything that isn’t out by the curb on those days has to go out with the regular trash, straight to the landfill.

(I have contacted my township administration about this, suggesting that perhaps they could arrange for once-monthly pickups year round. I was told that “people won’t want to save their yard waste for those pickups,” and when I pointed out that they would if putting it in the trash cost them more money, I was told that this just wasn’t an option. And then, in her next breath, the woman I spoke with said, “Yeah, the township has been fined by the county for putting too much green material into the country landfill.” Grrrr.)

In our backyard, we have a three-bin composter that we built ourselves shortly after we bought this house. Kitchen scraps and yard waste go in there, but it can hold only so much leaf material. So once we fill the bins we rake and bag the rest and send it off to the county’s composting facility.

We had a lot of leaves. A lot. This is what our curb looked on four Saturday mornings this fall.

Fortunately we got all the leaves up before winter weather arrived. We got our first big snow last weekend, and because it started while we were at my mother-in-law’s place (about three hours away, just north of NYC), we ended up driving home in it. We had clear sailing the first half of our trip, but once the snow started around Newark International Airport (which is always fun to drive past, because the NJ Turnpike runs parallel to the landing runway, and we usually see at least one plane land), we had to slow down considerably.

The rest of the way home, the roads were a mess. Here’s an iPhone photo snapped through our front windshield as we drove on the PA Turnpike.

At some points, the roads were so deserted (and visibility so poor) that we couldn’t see any other cars around us in any direction.

We made it home safely, though. Just in time to unload the car and enjoy some homemade hot chocolate!

I see you shiver with antici…

…pation.