It’s snowing again, although I’m not sure how much accumulation we will get.
I have to say that it’s hard to be too disgruntled about snowy weather when your dogs love nothing more than the back yard being a winter wonderland.
Month: March 2013
Weaving Wednesday 2
Last night I finished weaving my X’s and O’s after fixing a threading issue that was messing up the X’s. With my OCD with perfection it HAD to be done! I moved on to using 3 shuttles to do columns, two with complimentary colors and the cotton tabby. It was a little confusing at first but once I got into a rhythm of what to do with the shuttles that weren’t being thrown it was fine. I had some issues with my selvages but I think it was because I was concentrating on the pattern. Too much was going on at the same time!
Not shown was a mistake I made that turned into the most wonderful tweed like pattern. I only did it for about an inch when we realized I was reading the draft totally wrong. Now I think I want to weave something with that mistake alone.
I finished the class with Atwater Bronson lace. It’s very easy to treadle BUT I beat everything to death so the lace part didn’t actually show very well. I’ll have to work on loosening up. Pam said I won’t be weaving gauze any time soon. Ha!
Little Dogs and Snow
It’s difficult not to love snow when you have dogs that are crazy about it. Sophie is especially obsessed with it. I don’t know where it came from or how it started but if she sees you with a shovel she’s there. This is what she lives for in the winter.
All she wants you to do is throw shovels full of snow into the air so she can jump into it.
And she doesn’t stop. She will jump and jump every single time.
She’s quite the acrobat.
And more entertaining than anything I can possibly think of indoors.
Of course she really appreciates it when we go indoors and there’s a fire in the fireplace. Unlike Chester, all of the snow sticks to her fur in little snowballs. She waits in front of the fire until she is standing in a puddle of melted snow. Now if she would only learn to stand on a towel.
Seeds Ordered
I did it. I ordered my seeds yesterday. A commitment has been made. Now all that’s left is the layout.
My favorite gardens have been potagers. They are functional and beautiful. They are interesting enough so I want to weed them and keep them clean (alright, sorta weeded and clean). One of the real reasons I love potagers so much is the look on Russell’s face when he sees it. He’s a straight row kind of guy and he always looks at my garden with scepticism. It makes me laugh. My garden has rows, just not all rows. I like things to have a certain whimsy about them yet be functional at the same time. I always plant things for the birds, bees and butterflies. I like color. Consequently I plant things that other people don’t. I love Scarlet Runner Beans. They are beautiful to grow. Hummingbirds and butterflies love them. I love picking the beans at the end of the season and marveling at their bright purple and pink spots. I can’t say that I like eating them so I plant them with another pole bean that I will eat and put up.
Each year I look through my past garden plans to see where the potatoes or tomatoes were planted in the past few years so I can rotate them around. The potatoes are always planted in rows because of the ease in hilling but I plant the tomatoes in all different configurations. This year I may plant blocks or circles of separate varieties instead of in rows. I also will be planting fewer varieties, but maybe more yellows. My new seed for the year will be Tom Thumb popcorn. I always try something totally different. Corn isn’t a do or die for me so when I plant it I do it totally out of curiosity. I figure it’ll probably turn into fodder for raccoons but you don’t know until you try.
Things to remember this year is to add a lot of compost before I till. Stake the tomatoes early (so they don’t get away from me). Get more caution tape for fencing – yes, works better than anything I’ve found although it isn’t all that pretty. Sharpen the weeding tools.
Best of all I will be cleaning off the Adirondack chairs in preparation for relaxing and enjoying the view.
Fort Pelham Farm 