52/365 - "Late" Freeze

It wasn't really late for a freeze, but it felt late to the plants that had already put out new growth during the unseasonable warmth.  It was a sneak attack! ;o)

52 Weeks of Happy (6/52)

Four Things That Made Me Happy This Week: 

1.  Getting "stuff" done in the yard.
There's still tons more to do, but we're making some progress.  We've dealt with the drainage for the sink in the garage.  We did a little more leveling of the soil around the garage-- which also involved hauling it around in the wheelbarrow and filling in holes and dips around the property.  I pulled out a couple of shrubs that didn't survive a transplant last year-- and then replaced one of them.  We made a few plans for what needs to happen next.  ...And more.  I need to keep the momentum going into next week, if possible.


2.  Waking to the sound of rain on the roof.
Not a heavy, stormy, please-don't-blow-the-roof-off rain.  No thunder that requires getting out of bed to unplug things.  And at an early enough hour that you don't have to get up and go about the day, yet, but can wake just enough to enjoy that cozy sound, snuggle deeper under the covers, and drift back to sleep.


3.  Flowers opening up.
As much as I complain about summer, no-one's complete immune to those first signs of summer.  Flowers and new green leaves popping up around the garden are things to enjoy.  (I only wish the weeds and wasps wouldn't be coming back, too.)


4.  Homemade chicken soup.
I could probably make it even better, next time, but it was still pretty good, I thought, and certainly healthier and more frugal than the store-bought, canned kind. 

37/365 - Early Spring Sky

It may be early February, but the sky looks (and the day feels) like spring.  It was 73°F (nearly 23°C) when I took this photo.  Won't be long before there are leaves on these trees again!

20/365 - Bare

Most branches are still bare.  It won't be much longer, though... Must get outside and work in the yard more often!  These cool days are in limited supply.

After the Storm

This weather report brought to you by my genuine interest in such things, despite the generally held views of the subject. ;o)

Tropical Storm Lee came through late last week / early this week and brought with it lots and lots of rain.  Top-secret confession:  I didn't really mind.  Well, I was sorry for the animals and people who had to be out in it or who suffered from flooding, fallen trees, etc., but it didn't bother me, personally.  Especially considering what a very dry spring and summer we've had, a few gloomy days were no trouble at all.  I even like them, sometimes.  More so when we don't lose power.  We did this time, but not for too long, at least.  And if the rain knocks a few degrees off the temperature, so much the better.  All told, we got just over 13 inches of rain from Lee (if our rain gauge is to be believed).

Monday afternoon, we noticed the wind shift directions.  Instead of clouds scudding by from the south, they were scudding by from the north, then dissipating altogether.  What a blissful change!  The steamy air replaced with dry (or at least drier)-- the trees across the way crisp, sharp, precise.  (Over the summer, I almost forget how clear the air can be.  You get used to a slight haze across any distance.) 

We've slept with the windows open, the past couple of nights, and woken to temperatures in the 50s.  Our windows were open all day yesterday.  True, it was almost too warm in the middle of the afternoon, but all through the morning, it was practically perfect.  Though the heat and humidity will be creeping back in by the end of the week (summer's not completely vanquished, yet), this brief interlude of autumn has been delightful.  Ahhhh, feel that cool air!  Summer's beginning to come to an end, finally.  (Or will be SOON.)  I know many people across the northern hemisphere are desperately hanging on to these last warm(ish) days, and I sympathize... but for my own sake, I'm glad the seasons are on the verge of changing.  Thank goodness, this summer does have an end, after all, and won't just keep on going forever.

Changing Seasons? One Can Only Hope...

It seems like everywhere I look, lately, there's someone writing about how it's starting to feel like the very earliest beginning of autumn.  Usually, this opinion is presented with a twinge of sadness and a wish to hold on to summer a little bit longer. 

Obviously, those people do not live around here.  Sure, we're enjoying some temporary relief from the humidity and very highest temperatures, but it's only at my most unrealistically wishful that I can think autumn will be here soon.  "Soon" is relative, of course; if you think a month and a half are soon, then yes, we may get a taste of autumn "soon".  The way time goes whooshing by, yes, I guess it's fairly "soon"-- we're closer to summer's end than summer's beginning, thank goodness-- but it can't get here soon enough for me. 

Dry air.  Cool nights.  Open windows and fresh air streaming through the house.  Falling asleep to the sound of a nighttime breeze-- sleeping well in the natural coolness-- and waking to find the morning air beyond the cozy bed bracingly chilled.  Slanting, golden sunlight in the afternoon.  Feeling like going on daily walks again.  Snakes and insects slowly retreating from the world for a time.  Leaves crunching underfoot.  Plenty of things to photograph-- all changing from day to day.  Beautifully just-spooky-enough-to-be-fun late-October magic in the air.  A bonfire crackling and gleaming through the fading twilight.  Long-pants weather.  Maybe even (dare I say it?) long sleeves weather.  An excuse to finally dig out and wear scarves and hats.

...Basically it's just a whole bunch of the things that make life sweet-- and it means an end to the months of feeling like nature hates me.  Being outdoors can finally stop feeling like a punishment, for a few weeks at least. ;o)  Yes, I'm ready for that.

Beginning to Feel Like Autumn

Ok, not really.  It's about six o'clock and it's still 90 outside, so (in my opinion) it still feels decidedly summery (though not as H-O-T as it was for a while).  Still, the calendar assures me it's September.  Every week I see more and more comments from people elsewhere in the world referring to the changing seasons (often regretfully).  Kids have started a new school year.  I even see people wearing sweaters and jackets on TV (not the local news, it should be noted).   It's enough to give me hope that cooler weather is truly on its way.  It's enough to help me at least pretend that there's already a taste of autumn in the air. 

I am so looking forward to fall this year (as every year). 

I want crisp, clear air!   Windows open!  Breezes teasing the curtains!  Long, slanting, honey-hued rays of late-afternoon sunshine!  Red and gold and orange and brown everywhere!  I want to go on comfortable walks around the pond!  Goodbye mosquitoes!  Go to sleep, snakes!  I want evenings cool enough that the warmth thrown from a little bonfire is pleasant!  Let's hear the crunch of dry leaves underfoot!  Let's go on a photo "expedition" around the yard and see what we turn up!  I want to take out and wear my favorite jeans and sweaters!  Give me an excuse to use my crocheted scarves!  Make the evenings just cool enough that we'll want to cuddle up under our afghans to read a good book!  Bring on the new season of my favorite TV programs!  (I've been waiting months to see how those cliff-hanger endings turn out!) 

Sweet autumn, there's no need to be shy.  Come on down!

Autumn, Swing, Snakes, Crochet, & Music

Unless the meteorologists on all the local news shows have colluded to play an elaborate (and unspeakably cruel) prank on us (hey, it could happen), we are poised on the precipice of sweet, blessed relief from heat and humidity. Yes, tomorrow it will finally feel like autumn!! Highs in the low 80s instead of at or near 90! Humidity plummeting down to 30-50% (in the afternoon, at least)! I'm almost getting choked up just thinking about it! ;o)

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Donald put most of the swing together over the weekend. There are only a couple of things left to do before it's ready to hang. We're putting it by the kitchen door, on the covered patio. I'll post a photo or two once it's in place.

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Saturday, I found yet another snake (this one a barely living corn snake) caught in the caulk around one of our windows (the bay window seems to be the most popular), and while Donald sprayed it with water to release it, he found a very, very dead one (type undetermined) that I didn't know about. That makes two living and three dead (that we know of...).

I've tried googling it with no results, but surely we can't be the only ones to have this happen. Whatever caulk they used around the exterior edges of our windows-- something clear-- silicone?-- gets very sticky on hot summer days, and I guess the little snake slithers up along the sides of the windows (either to use the friction of the brick edging or to keep hidden), where it then gets stuck along the whole length of its body. However or why ever it's happening, it's creepy and yucky, and I'd be happier if I didn't keep coming across dead snakes glued to our house-- even if they are small.

- - - - - - -

A while ago, in an effort to re-acquaint myself with basic crochet, I crocheted several dishcloths. I still haven't woven in the ends and given them a whirl in the sink, but making them did the trick of getting me interested in crochet, again.

I spent part of the weekend (ok, way too much of the weekend) looking through free patterns online (and hoarding them away for future use), and I found a few that looked especially interesting. Now I just have to match the yarn in my stash to the patterns. Oh, and figure out how to translate the patterns into finished objects. My crochet know-how is still very limited, but the only way I'll learn new stitches is to try them.

I think I'm going to start with this scarf-- or this one, which is basically the same thing-- but that's only if I can figure out the "love knot" (aka "lover's knot" or "Solomon's knot"). I gave it a quick try last night, but I didn't quite get it. What I saw before me on my hook didn't resemble the illustrations in the pattern. However, after finding a video and that second pattern, which has more detailed instructions and photos instead of drawings, I feel more confident. I'm going to give it another try, tonight.

I hope I can get it to work. It looks like a fun, quick project, and it would be nice to get some instant gratification, after spending so much time researching patterns.

This is the yarn I'm thinking of using-- Yarn Bee's Sweet Delight Pomp in the Ladybug colorway:

That's the closest I got to representing the colors faithfully (on this monitor, at least). It's a mixture of pale pink, watermelon pink, powder blue, and dark grey.

I'm hoping I'll be able to see soon whether or not this yarn suits the pattern. I get the feeling that variegated yarn has limited uses, since so much of it doesn't look great in crochet (from what I've seen so far). Too much variation just distracts from the pattern. At least if this combination isn't satisfactory, I have an even simpler pattern I can try with it.

- - - - - - -

Musical musings that came up over our weekend:

• I think it's odd when a song that, melodically speaking, sounds charming and lilting has incongruously violent lyrics. Example: "Arthur McBride". This Irish folk song starts out with a couple of cousins taking a walk on Christmas morning. According to the song (sung in the first person), they come upon some members of the English military, which ends badly, with the bashing in of heads and so forth. It's just a very strange combination of gentle melody and shocking words.
  
• Donald introduced me to "The Elephant Song", which is in one of his Swedish books of guitar sheet music. (I suspect this was more popular in Europe than in the U.S. At least, I didn't recognize it. A word of warning, if you haven't already clicked and listened: It has a certain degree of earworminess.) I'm amazed by how many people seem to take this song seriously, considering the ridiculousness of some of the lyrics. For instance: "People kill without regret / Although they fly by jumbo-jet"-- and "Gentle is the elephant /Pulling loads and everything". It feels like it was written by a kid, but then again, a lot of lyrics look silly when you take away their melodies.
  
• Wooster's version of "Puttin' on the Ritz" is always good for a laugh. (For optimum amusement, you should first know how the song is supposed to sound. Ok, or like this. (g))
  

Held Hostage by Lightning

Yesterday, we spent part of the morning going through and making extensive lists of exactly what we think we'll need to build our little shaded patio and a small pump house (it's really about time, I think!). We'll probably have the riding mower delivered, and Donald figured we might as well save gas, time, and wear on a borrowed truck by having them deliver the other big, heavy stuff, too. (If we understand correctly, adding more items to the list shouldn't change the flat rate delivery fee. We'll see. . .)

So, after making our list, we went to scope out the two major competitors in our area-- mainly to see what they have in the way of mowers-- so that we can make the final decision of what to buy and where. It went well enough, but we were held hostage for quite some time by torrential rain and lightning.

Fortunately, we were in a store when the storm hit, so we didn't have to sit in the car, but by that time, we were just getting ready to leave for the last stop of the day. I wasn't about to walk through that, though. We'd have been soaked instantly, not to mention potentially struck by lightning. So we (along with most of the people in the store) just milled around for a while, looking at things we had no plans of buying. (They have so many nice things in those home improvement stores! Can you imagine winning a shopping spree? I wouldn't know where to start. . .) Finally, we took a rest on one of the covered swings set up for display. (A couple other groups of people had the same idea. I'm sure those displays had never had so many people testing them at one time.)

That was probably the worst storm I've seen so far this year. And when we finally decided that it had slackened off enough that we dared risk going out, it was still raining, with lightning not far off. According to the local news, an air show at a local beach was postponed because of (separate) thunderstorms, and some people who had assembled to watch the show were struck by lightning.

Oh, the joys of summer in the South!
It definitely beats being so dry that we have out-of-control fires, but I could still do without some of the lightning.

On a happier note, Donald has Monday off, so this will be a nice, long weekend for us. :o)
I hope you're all enjoying a restful Sunday!

Take5 Tuesday

Prompt from Take5 Tuesday:

1. 5 things you like about spring.

• The first days of warm sunshine. (It's one of the few times of the year when I actually enjoy sunshine, because it's not yet too hot.)
  
• The smell of freshly cut grass and honeysuckle.
• Feeling excited (for a few weeks, maybe?) about the yard. (This is when I make big plans that I later fail to carry through to completion. ;o))
• Gentle springtime breezes.
• Birds building nests all over the place (even on our back porch).
  

2. 5 things you plan to do this summer.

• Work on at least a couple of yard projects. (Pump house, patio, maybe more. . .)
• Keep alive the tomato plants we've purchased. (I hope!)
• Keep an eye open for an ad for Eskie puppies. (There aren't many available, but I'd really love to have another Eskie, one of these days.)
• Do a better job than last year at keeping the yard in order.
• Avoid snakes.
  

3. 5 of your favorite sports to play.
Ha ha ha. You're joking, right? I'm not that sporty.

• Badminton
  
• Bowling (It's been a while. . .)
  
• Bocce (Just the two of us, around the yard-- nothing fancy.)
  
• Volleyball? (It's been so many years, though!)
• Softball (Again, years and years and years!)
  

4. 5 board games you like to play, (or played as a kid.)
I don't play that many board games these days. Not because I don't like to, but because most of the time it's just the two of us, and there aren't many board games (that we like) that work with two people. We need to invite some people over to play board games, sometime. . .

• Scrabble (We do play this one fairly often. Neither of us are champion level, but it's nice for a change from the other games we play.)
  
• Trivial Pursuit (Another one the just the two of us can play.)
  
• Clue (I used to play this a lot as a kid.)
• Pay Day (Same as above. . .)
• Parcheesi (Just to name one more-- we had a lot of games I liked just about as much as this one. I think I like Pit better, but I don't think of that as a board game. . .)

5. 5 sites you visited today.

• Flickr (More specifically, I visited my "home" on the site, with recent photos from my contacts, recent activity on my own photos, etc.)
  
• Google Reader (which helps me keep track of blogs I read)
• Blogger (this blog and my clay blog)
• Google (Almost every search starts with the little Google search bar built into my browser. I end up here several times a day, usually.)
• The Daily Meme's list of Tuesday memes (where I found this one)
  

Old pickle relish, anyone? ;o)

Snippets are on the menu today. . .

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

I cleaned out the fridge a few days ago. (Anyone want some old pickle relish or past-its-prime ranch dressing? ;o) Okay, not seriously. It's already in the trash. . . . Of course, some of you may be freegans. . .)

It was a long time coming, because (brace yourselves-- a real shocker's comin'!) it's not one of my favorite things to do. All those nooks and crannies-- having to take out drawers and shelves to wash them-- said drawers and shelves all being too big to fit in the sink and therefore taking much more effort to wash without getting the whole room wet-- and all this under a certain time limit, since I don't want to leave the food without refrigeration for too long. Whew! It's a job, but it sure does look nice and fresh, now! (Next up, the freezer!)

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Potential button-makers (and/or liaisons with other potential button-makers), I've been researching and making polymer clay buttons over the past couple of weeks. (Since I was researching it, anyway, I put up some related links on my other blog, if you're interested.)

I've put a handful of my buttons through the washer and dryer a few times, and so far, the results are promising. No broken buttons-- not yet, anyway. :o) Next up (I guess?)-- figuring out when's a good time for everyone to get together, if anyone would still like to have a polymer clay/button day.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

The other day, I started cleaning the guest room, which had turned into a storage area. We're going to a have a guest for a while, sometime soon, and I thought the bed might be more comfortable if it wasn't covered in picture frames, "raw" quilt batting, artificial flowers, etc. ;o)

I had only the best of intentions, but the flowers, which I bought on a super-duper sale back before Christmas, grabbed my attention. Because I had many other, more pressing issues to attend to, I of course ended up reworking our existing floral arrangements.

I'm making an effort to keep only the flowers and arrangements that I like best, which means that I'm going to have some left over bits and pieces. Actually, while cleaning lately, I've found several things that I want to get out of the house. See if anyone else in the family wants them-- sell them in a yard sale-- donate them to charity-- something. I'm tired of keeping things I no longer want or need. There's more than enough to keep clean without that extra burden.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

I recently spied a small green lizard drinking from Molly's water bowl on the porch. I don't know why I'm telling you all this, though. It just struck me as funny. . .

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Spring is in such full swing here that it's hard for me to comprehend that elsewhere in the country (not to mention the world) there are people still longing for the first daffodil. The lawn, which was fine a week ago, is now showing signs that it needs to be mown. Ah, the joys of the growing season!! :oP

Of course, on the plus side, the days are growing longer again, and there are new things to photograph, here and there around the yard.

Back to the negative side-- I somehow managed to let the whole lovely cool season pass without doing much yard work at all. This means that I now will have to do it in the warmer weather. For another month or so that shouldn't be too bad, but I know those sweltering summer days will be here all too soon. . .

Back to the positive side (to end on a brighter note)-- at least a little outside work will be good exercise. Maybe my waistline can even be persuaded to shrink an inch or two.

Things that have been happening lately:

• Daisy's slowly recovering from another bout of seizures. At least we think we know what brought it on this time. The dosage on her medicine was off, due to a mistake at the vet's office. It's pretty frustrating that we'll have to watch them more carefully from now on-- but at least she's getting better again.
  
• Highs today will be in the mid-70s, followed by a chance of rain and maybe thunderstorms tonight and tomorrow. It doesn't feel much like February! It's nice to be warm for a day or two, but I'm glad the temperature will be going down again, soon. I don't mind spring, but I'm not ready for summer, yet. (Ok, I'm not ever ready for summer. It simply has to be endured.)
  
• Yesterday, I noticed new leaves on our hydrangeas and the beginnings of daffodils poking up here and there. I guess spring is on its way. (Today, it feels like it's already here!) I need to get into gear and do some yard work before it's sweltering again.
  
• Donald and I watched the extended versions of The Two Towers and The Return of the King over the weekend. I think that might have been the first time we say the latter since we watched it in the theater.
  
• I still can't see why Tolkien chose two names ("Sauron" and "Sarumon") that look and sound so similar. I remember being a bit confused when I read the books, too. Two of the very few women in the books also have similar-sounding names-- "Arwen" and "Eowyn". They're not identical, but they're pretty close, considering that he had his choice of all the names in the world (or out of it, since this is fantasy).
  
• I can barely remember the books. Of course, I was in middle school when I read them, so it's been a while. (g) I might try re-reading them, sometime. I'm not generally a big reader of fantasy, but a little variety can be nice.
  

Basking in the sun. . .

A couple of nights ago we had our first frost. Somehow, I forget the extremes of each season until it rolls around again. This time, I'd forgotten how my hands tend to stay cold all day on chilly winter days. (And it wasn't even that cold outside.) Maybe I need some of those fingerless gloves so that I can stay warm without the clumsiness that regular gloves create. Or maybe I should just turn up the heater a degree or two. ;o)

Today's warmer, but the past two chillier days have reminded me of why people from colder climates reverence the sun more than I usually do. A sheltered pool of sunlight when you're shivery endows the sun a glow of benevolence. I'm more used to thinking of it as something harsh and relentless. But that's my summer persona's point of view, and she's not due out again for a few months, at least. In the meantime, I'm going to enjoy a few moments of basking-- not baking.