Window Watching

Hmmmmmmmm, I wonder if anything is ever going to walk by that window!

Solitary Man

Benedict always looks so solitary sitting outside in the cold all winter. In the summer he has lots of friends. Birds, squirrels and cats all stop to visit him and Wile E. often stops to chat with him - confused why he does not chat back! In addition to all of that, spiders love to live on Benedict. He has all kinds of nooks and crannies that are perfect for spiders to tuck themselves away into quickly. But in winter he is almost always alone, standing vigil. Except for today! I was out digging. Absolutely outrageous, I know. It is November 27 and I planted lily-of-the-valley underneath the weeping caragana in the sideyard today. This goes down as the latest date I have ever planted but the ground is not yet frozen and as long as that is the case, the littlest lily have a better chance being dropped in than sitting in a plastic bag in the basement. I hope they make it.

Mending Season

Sewing is another activity restricted to winter. I love to sew and always have. What I don't love to do is mend. Mending and sewing are just not the same thing. I have everything I need to make a Stanley Cup Champions quilt for Gordon and his Bruins and have been thinking about exactly what that will look like for months now. As excited as I am to finally get started on it, I have a hard and fast rule about the start of my winter sewing. Mending all gets done first. It is easy to find my motivation when creating something new but mending is a real chore. It takes everything I have to stay motivated to finish. One thing I learned from all my corporate years is that you do the things you hate to do first or they will forever be bumped off the list of things to do. Time for me to get patching.

Spring Cleaning

When I was young, the first nice days of spring were spent cleaning the house from top to bottom. My mother would throw open the windows and the cleaning would start. I actually enjoy cleaning and didn't complain because Mom would let me daydream all I wanted during the process. You could more often find me leaning out a window than dusting something. When I got older and didn't have my mother for motivation, spring cleaning was never something I could manage. I prefer to spend my first nice days of spring in the garden, even if it means poking around in muddy, half-frozen ground. So I do my spring cleaning in the dead of winter when my garden is sleeping. I started it today eventhough it was +4 and melting outside. There is snow so I can't dig and figured I might as well clean. So I did the shelves and thought of my mother and how I think she had the right idea... all this dusting would be more pleasant with the windows open!

It Must Have Been Love

I haven't been watching but this would have made it worth it...

Drew Ryniewicz performs It Must Have Been Love

Winter Passtimes

The forecasted snow did arrive on Saturday night. It started really late and ran all through Sunday. There was a lot of it. It took me all day Monday to get the decks, boardwalk and a path to the main pen gate shovelled. Tuesday was shovelling the path from the main pen gate to Mikaela's gate and another to the winter pit. I was going to shovel a path to the shop door too but the daytime temperatures have been beautiful the last two days and the snow is melting some. It is unlikely it will all melt before more arrives but it is already much less deep to walk through. If we get another warm day tomorrow, I am dropping the bulbs in. Meanwhile, I have been digging out all my winter passtimes. This year I added a new one... or Sean did. All the boys play Smurf's Village and Sean downloaded it to my phone, got the game started and connected it to Facebook. Now I can plant, grow and pick flowers all winter in my Smurf's Village. I can even take a photo of my gardens in the game and use it for wallpaper on my phone. I am actually really enjoying the game. It is the first game in years that I have enjoyed. Good, mindless fun. I think it is just what I needed to perk me up under the threat of -20 for the next several months.

Garden Note

Fall has set in and despite my relaxed timetable for gardening, I am actually closer to ready than I am most years. Must be the extended fall. There are very few plants left in pots and even less bulbs not yet in the ground. Today I planted hens & chicks with blue sedum (from the green pot) next to 'Big Daddy'. Unkown tulips are planted between the speedwell and liatris in the front garden. The sun stone, green pot and blue butterfly metal stake were brought into the house with the sand sun dish. The little girls metal summer pens are packed up and stored in the shop. The red sun pot and all of the plastic pots are in the shop as well. Snow was forecast for today but never arrived. I am really hopeful it will stay away another couple of days.

A Rare Sight

It is a rare sight to see Samantha relaxing on the dog crates during the day. She tends to roam the main floor at night when the dogs are sleeping, rather than when they are running around. She is afraid of dogs, strangers, loud noises, the TV, crumpling paper, the vaccuum, the toilet flushing, anything crunchie, dry leaves blowing in the wind and probably a huge list of other things I have yet to witness. She has dopey eyes, a monkey face and a tiny little meep she tries to pass off as a meow... she is the cutest thing! Perhaps age has mellowed her and we will see this new daytime Samantha more often.