OH My Frakking Gods!

Facebook finally earned its keep with me. I found my old bestest friend from highschool, probably the only person I would have wanted to find from highschool actually! LOL I'm so happy.
Now I order all my family that visits our hometown to buy lots of goodies at the Canape Cafe on Front Street. Its Cathie's cafe!! I think thats so cool!
I feel a bit giddy...I have also had a lot of caffeine! Therefore I AM giddy and highly caffienated and we all know how that gets me going! Scary.
Ok...what else....
The radishes are up. The Sweet peas are planted and netting hung for them. The swing arrived and awaits assembly. I fell off the yarn diet last night and bought 5 skeins of Berroco's new Peruvia Colours in colour way # 7220. Its not on the website colour chart yet so I couldn't snag a photo. Its pretty..trust.;op I want to make a wrap around shrug for myself with this and probably a contrasting neutral like beige or natural grey.
This will be our little secret, non?

More Gardening

The grass in the back yard is MUCH healthier than that of teh front yard so its really really hard to dig up. Especially with my gimpy groin (strained something). So my darling HusbandMan built me 3 more 4x8 raised-bed frames for our "potager" (vegetable or kitchen garden). That make 4 beds altogether. The previously existing bed was filled and planted with culinary herbs. The other 3 frames are laid out so we have two rows of two. The intersecting spaces for walking will be paved with flagstonesque patio pavers and crushed gravel. Where the 4 paths come together centrally I have planted a sweet cherry tree. YAY! Cherries! This particular variety is self pollinating so colour me happy.
Today I got bagged soil, chicken manure, and compost and filled a frame. Mostly. It coulda used a couple more bags so next bed will get a couple more bags. I am also trying that MYKE growing supplement for veggie gardens for the first time. This first bed is now heavily planted with blocks of carrots, radishes, peas, bush beans, mesclun mix, and swiss chard. I am thinking I will still get another bag of soil and scatter it over top thinly.
Next bed will have the cuke(trellised) and tomato transplants and I am not sure what else. More carrots for sure.
The last bed is held in reserve for my poor over crowded strawberry plants that need moving from their current spot. That over crowded bed can then be dedicated to the raspberries that are taking it over. I have that bed planted with the strawberries but then I was gifted with a raspberry cane that I stuck in the groud in the autumn to over winter it (never got it properly planted. THEN when spring came and we were spending the summer in NS, I popped it into the end of the strawberry bed until I could make a good spot for it. It went BESERK and is now many raspberry canes and is actually escaping the bed. It will be brought to heel this summer for sure and I will also top up that bed with a sack of compost.
Sunflower sprout count: 22. Wowee!
4 oclock sprout count: 10 ? Grrr.
Morning Glory volunteers: I yank a few daily. I only NEED 3 vines for that spot.
HM also built me a planter by his new deck. I need to fill it and Plant my sweet pea seeds. They can then climb trellising and cover the side of the Rubbermaid shed. Pretty AND smell glorious. LOOOOVE sweet peas.
I found a transplant of catnip at Home Depot yesterday and bought it for Miss Kitty. She loves her some home grown 'nip and I have it in a big pot now. Still no mouse scultures though. I gotta draw the line somewhere.
Pictures when I have some.

Stupid things people do......

On the commercials for a news program tonight, a story they will broadcast is about teens buying up Morning Glory seeds at garden centers to use them as a hallucinogenic drug.
I'm filing this under Stupidest Things I Have Ever Heard.
I wonder if you told them that smoking dog shit would make one high, would they come clean up my yard for me? Blossom would be the most popular dog on the street because she goes ALOT.
Does this mean that I could be arrested for growing Morning Glories soon??? I feel so guilty tempting youngsters with my rampant vines right out there in the front yard for the whole world to see. Its like a grow op right under everyone's noses when you think about it. AND they are organically grown....I'm just sayin'...

Continuation........

After much more groin straining work and additional consultations with Miss Kitty, the front yard is more or less complete. There is some mulch to lay on that landscape fabric as soon as my body is up to it and yes I keep buying plants to tuck in here and there. The 4 o'clock seeds are FINALLY sprouting in the long dirt strip at the front of the garden too.

Pictorial

In the beginning, there was a yard with mucho dead grass thanks to white grubs. I worked and I worked and had a meeting with my landscape consultant, Miss Kitty. In the above photo we are discussing the plans: She thinks there is a marked lack of catnip and that the design cries out for mouse sculptures and low lying bird feeders. I think she was being just a little catty with her comments.

This is what I bought....this is what I thought it was...

I accidentally bought a Ligularia 'Britt Marie Crawford'(not a Euphorbia..my memory isn't great) which is yellowy orange. I thought I was buying a Meadow Rue. See the difference? Me no happy but the Ligularia iiiisss kinda innerestin' isn't it? I still want meadow rue tho.

Mother's Day...the day after

Last years tulips but this year they look exactly the same!
Saturday evening sipping drinks on the stoop, I asked HM what his plans were for Sunday. He started blathering about working in the yard etc when I clarified "I mean, what are your plans for Mother's Day?". I am nothing if not subtle.
He laughed and said he didn't have any and besides hadn't I just bought new lip gloss and a lady bug keychain for myself for mother's day and he gave me my rain barrel last weekend? Eye brow raised archly, I stated that I put up with a lot of shit in the run of a year and is being treated like a queen for a day too much to f$cking ask?? Huh? HUH? Is it??!
Apparently it is not. :oD
I awoke to quiet. Yay! I read in bed for awhile and then heard HM return home from somewhere. Hmmm...mysterious. Then when I went downstairs I was sent back up.
After awhile my men arrived in my bedroom with coffee, cards(Ben's stated he was my slave for the day and Cameron's came with a strung beads book mark), flowers, and golf balls. Pink ones and white ones. Uh-oh.....
Down stairs waiting was my very own set of Wilson ladies clubs in the Breast Cancer theme of pink in a navy and cream with hot pink embroidery. ( Walmart $246...I spotted the flyer). Now, I am not a golfer but I had stated in a fit of delusion that I thought I should take it up this year so that we could all go golfing together as a family, with dreamy visions of sunlit meadows and butterflies and us all laughing and happy as we walk the links.. Now I am committed. They are very pretty though and I really like my pale pink Hope balls.
The gifting was followed by smoked salmon for breakfast (YUM) and lazing around reading the paper and drinking my coffee. Fortified, I hit the garden ( or jardin as we call it here). I am making great progress and if I REALLY put myself into it I could be finished today! But its hard on the back so maybe not. We also positioned out former raised bed in a new spot so it can become the herb garden foundation of the planned vegetable pathch in the back yard. I bought 21 bags of black earth, gypsum, and herbs this morning.
After I wore myself out in the garden I headed to the nursery for more plants ( I know I know...small fortune in my yard already). One of the plants I bought is the wrong one. I thought I got Meadow Rue but this is some kind of euphorbia. DOH! Good cause to go back though, non?
I came home, planted, showered, and we headed to the par 3 course as a family for a sunlit evening of 9 holes. I'm not quite as awful as I could have been and even got par on one hole (we were playing best ball anyways but I putted it into the hole when even the two experienced golfers MISSED! Yay me!) and when I drove one time, my ball was the one we played from! Yay me again! And I have never had a lesson and HM landed in the sand trap...again. HA!
You just wait. If I learn how to actually golf I will KICK HIS A$$! Yeah baby.
Then we went out to the chinese buffet for supper because I wanted dumplings.
Yup my mother's day RAWKED the party, man. I am training these guys soooo well.

Sunday I Tidied

On Sunday afternoon I tidied the stash. It was getting to messy behind the chair and I had planned on moving the stash upstairs to the hall landing and into a bureau I have there.
The 3 drawers available for stash are now full, I have a box with JUST Briggs and Little anniversary twist (a sweater's worth), and I still have a zippered blanket storage bag full of yarn. Except for the ziplock hefty bag of worsted for Cully's planned sweater with the Squirrel Nutkin theme. I finally printed off the sizing information that I needed to do my maths for a pattern. I digress....
Holy sh!t. How did this happen??? Ok...we know how this happened... But seriously. There is stuff there that I forgot I had! Its official...my stash has reached a size that I am thinking is plenty big and I am now on a yarn diet. I will only knit from stash for the foreseeable future and will NOT add to the stash until it is reduced. At my rate thats gonna be some time.
Compared to some stashes (Barb) that are known as SABLE ( stash accumulation beyond life expectancy), this its not even a real stash...its a stashlette...a baby stash. Drop in the knitting basket. But for me, who does not want to be like my mother the pack rat, this is plenty frikkin' big. For me its scary. I have many pounds..POUNDS..of yarn. I can no longer lift my stash. Busting is called for and will be done.
I bought yarn for projects that I haven't gotten to, and bought yarn just because it was pretty or scrumptious, and bought yarn because it was on sale. The bulk of the stash is worsted weight 100% wool.
I have a lot of mitten and sock and hat knitting to do I am thinking. I'm glad I found this pattern http://members.home.nl/tdpj/Patronen/Noro_hat/Noro%20hat.htm for a scrap friendly hat and/or tea cozy.

Slacky McSlackerson...

...should be my name. I have been remiss with the blogging and my friend Barb called me on it today.
I have been busy...well...busy for me. Garden creation continues and I am telling you its starting to look hhhhhhawesome!! Its slow though because its been a bit rainy and also, much garden work makes my back hate me. I repeat, its truly looking very nice. When not gardening or doing laundry I have been napping, as per usual.
Knitwise, still slowly slogging on the socks. On the foot now of sock one of the Belle Maman pair. Can I just say again what a great sock this is? Love it. Knitting would go faster with less napping I am sure.
We have been having vehicular misadventures lately. 3 weeks ago I backed into a car's bumper, breaking the bottom of said bumper with my trailer hitch. A week or so ago HM got hit in the windshield with a flying rock on the highway. Friday I scraped the side of his Acura making a right hand turn around what I THOUGHT was a parked taxi at a taxi stand but seems was a non-parked taxi. Sunday HM almost ran into a vehicle while pulling out of a parking lot. Yesterday, he broke MY windshield while loading lumber into the stationwagon at RONA (I think the boards were too long maybe?). I am now afraid to leave my home.
Kidswise: Ben is still having problems with the 4 little motherfrakkers...I mean..naughty boys...in his class. I know I should not want to beat other peoples children? But seriously, I'm getting pissed. Very very pissed. Mama Bear is going to rip off your head pissed. Little f$ckers.
Cameron is fine but going through a whiney "nobody loves me my life is horrible I hate everything" phase. Its great. Fun abounds.
Yup. Life is good.