In my Garden

 It seems like everything in my garden is a weed.  That isn't entirely true. of course, but after spending a few hours outdoors, I couldn't find a lot of things that weren't weeds.  

There is a lovely white columbine.  I found a yellow one too, amidst the weeds, but it wasn't in bloom this morning.  I don't know if you can see the large green leaves in the columbine photo.  They are milkweed plants.  I have been keeping a few in my flower bed in the hopes of attracting some monarch butterflies.  So far nothing, but the plants are forming buds. They are doing well, but are weeds of course.

While pulling weeds and digging stuff out, I came across this crazy crane.  I thought I had lost him.  But there he was!  All covered in mud and dirt.  I cleaned him off and I think I am going to give him a fresh coat of black paint and a more prominent place in the garden.  I really like him.

Another plant that is not a weed, but closely resembles one is my maggi plant, also known as lovage.  It grows 6 to 8 feet tall and has large umbels at the top that look amazing against a clear blue sky during the summer months.  This plant can be used in soups and stews.  I have never cooked with it, but it tastes a bit like celery, parsley and anise.  In The Netherlands, it is used extensively because the flavour closely resembles maggi. A seasoning that is very popular.

Wildflower Wednesday

Let me introduce Yellow Cress.  It is a weed that is growing in my vegetable garden at the moment.  Actually, it is coming up everywhere in other parts of the garden and even in between the patio stones.    Yellow Cress is in the mustard family.  Like all mustard plants, it has flowers with four petals.  This one is a lovely bright yellow. The seeds are borne in long brown pods.  There can be hundreds of them.   It is a biennial.  The first year it appears as small, insignificant rosettes.  The second year it grows into this huge plant that tries to strangle everything around it.  Another common name is Yellow Rocket.  I have to pull it all out, hopefully before the seed pods open.  If I don't, I will have this plant forever and not much else in my garden.

Family: Brassicaceae.  Genus: Barbarea.  Species: B. vulgaris

Common Names:  Yellow Cress, Rocket Cress, Wintercress

A Temperature Blanket.

 BBBrrrrrr!  It was cold yesterday!   The Weather Network said the high temperature was 11.1 degrees Celsius.  But to me it felt much colder.  Who would have thought it could be so cold?  A couple of days ago it was over 30 degrees Celsius.  I've already planted my tomato plants,

Why would I care how cold it is?  We are still under a lockdown order.  I can't go out anyway.  But many of you know that I am a temperature junkie.  Over the years I have made many temperature quilts using hexagons.  Unfortunately my hexie days are over.  The handwork and the tiny stitches are too difficult to see.

A year or so ago I learned of something called a temperature blanket.  Here's how it works:  the method of construction is crochet.  That's big enough for me to see.  Daily high temperatures are assigned specific colours.  Each day a row is crocheted following this colour chart.  The blanket should be completed in one year.

I had never done one of these before.  But the concept sounded intriguing.  I decided to start mine on the first of this year.  I had no idea how to do it.  How many stitches?  What size crochet hook?  So I played around with it.  My first attempt did not work.  I liked the pattern.  It was a sort of wave.  But it puckered so I 'frogged' it.  Rip it rip it.  Get it?

I started a new one using a larger hook and single crochets across the rows.  After almost 5 months it now looks like this.

Seven months to go.  

Wow!  

Unbelievable.  

Only seven months and the year will be over. 

 But frankly, between you and me, it's been a crazy year.

I'm not going to miss it.

A Little of This and a Little of That

I have been busy,  Busy doing a lot of nothing.  But that is about to change.

My camera stopped working.  OMG!  What a dilemma!  How does one write a blog without pictures?  I asked my DD to take some photos for me, but she is much too busy.  Online teaching and a hyper William dancing around demanding her attention.  It was all too much.  

I told her I wanted to buy a new camera.  She said, "Just use your cell phone and mail the photos to yourself".  Easy for her to say.  It was quite a learning experience for me.  First my cell phone was dead and needed to be re-charged - all night.  Then I wasn't able to send the photos because gmail blocked all my attempts.   Making the task even harder was the fact that I have to read everything with a magnifying glass.  My eyesight is still not great.  I spent the better part of the afternoon trying to figure things out.  I guess I'm just not a computer geek.  It was damned hard.  Lots of trial and error.  Mostly error.  But eventually I was able to do it. Notice my header?  Columbine, Scarborough's official flower.

I have been trying to do a bit of sewing each day.  Some days nothing gets done.  And some days I can sew for 15 to 20 minutes or so. 

 I had a whole box full of 2.5 inch scraps.  Plus some 2.5 inch strips.  So this is what I have been working on,  They are called keyhole blocks.

I still have a long way to go.  These blocks measure 6.5 by 10.5 inches unfinished.  But I am not trying to see how many I can get done.  I may only do a wall hanging or lap quilt.  This is just a bit of mindless sewing each day to keep me sane.

My garden is doing well.  Lots of colour.  My tomato plants are in the ground, but that's about all.  It will take a lot of work.  I figure if I pull a few weeds each day it will only take me till next spring to finish the job.  And then I can start over.  Oh, well.  

But for now let me show you a few more wisteria views.

 This one is of the whole shrub seen as you come into the back yard.

And this is on the garden side.

Wednesday Wisteria

 

My Wisteria is in full bloom.

It has never looked this beautiful.

World Turtle Day

Today we celebrate turtles.  I love turtles.

+

Turtles are reptiles.  They belong to the order: Reptilia.  

Species: Testudines. This includes both extinct and living species.

(All tortoises are turtles, but not all turtles are tortoises.  Can you figure that out?  For the purpose of this post I will refer to turtles, but include all tortoises as well.)

Testudines are reptiles with a body encased in a bony shell.  The top part is called the carapace.  The bottom part is the plastron.  The two parts are joined along the sides of the body.  The shell is an integral part of the turtle.  It cannot leave it.  The shell is not shed like the skins of other reptiles.  

There are 356 species of turtles around the world.  Both fresh water and salt water.

The turtle's shell protects them.  They are slow and can easily be caught by predators.  Turtles don't have teeth.  They eat by cutting pieces of flesh or vegetation by using their sharp beaks.

Turtles are ectotherms.  That means they are cold blooded.   They do not have an internal mechanism for regulating body temperature.  Turtles rely on the sun for warmth.  They will often sun themselves on rocks to absorb heat.  

Turtles breathe air and lay their eggs on land.  Female sea turtles scrape nests with their hind legs, lay their eggs and cover them up.  Then they return to the sea, leaving the hatchlings to fend for themselves.

As a result their habitats around the world are being destroyed.  Turtles and their eggs are eaten in many parts of the world.  In some areas local populations and even entire species have been hunted to extinction.  They need our protection.

While wilderness camping in Algonquin Park some years ago we came upon a lovely camping spot at the end of a long peninsula.  Right in the middle of the site sat a gigantic tortoise.  It was a fantastic  wildlife sighting!  We set up camp on that site trying not to interfere with the reptile.  It slowly moved away into the forest.  What an honor and privilege to have been able to see this wonderful creature so up close and wild.  We share the earth with these animals.  It was an exciting experience and I will never forget it.

So Happy World Turtle Day!

I love turtles.  Or did I mention that already?

Cherry Blossoms in my Back Yard

Hope for spring.

Lovely white blossoms on my sour cherry tree.