Showing posts with label gardening. Show all posts
Showing posts with label gardening. Show all posts

Tuesday, May 4, 2010

The Accidental Gardener Strikes Again....

Saw this happy little sign of spring the other day:



The significance? Well, I thought we lost the passionflower that we enjoyed all of last year. It bloomed and bloomed and bloomed some more. It also attracted a mess of butterflies, so we literally had continuing cycles of caterpillars turning into chrysalises (or chrysalides, according to dictionary.com -- who knew?) turning into butterflies. We even took some of the chrysalises to school for our favorite teacher, Mrs. K. (She teaches the children in the gifted program and kept a butterfly house in her room.)

Anyway, we ended up with a pretty harsh winter for South Texas and the passionflower appeared to have suffered the worst for it. But now, it has three little sprouts coming up from the ground! Can't wait to see the blooms and the butterflies again!

No news on the afghan front for now. I did take a break from the three (yes, three!) different blankets that I have in various stages of completion to make something for me -- a top designed by my fave designer (and crochet genius!) Doris Chan in one of my favorite yarns ever -- Spa, an acrylic/bamboo blend.



DS2 took this photo of some stranger posing in my top. Ok, I confess, it's really me, but I think he must have had a dozen cameras pointed in my direction. You know, because one camera adds 10 pounds. Anyway, I love, love, love this top and thank you, Doris, for such a terrific pattern. (The pattern is available free on NaturallyCaron.com)

I'm planning on making a second top in yellow. The only change I'll be making is fewer rows on the body. Because the yarn is so drapey, it turned out longer than I thought it would. I may even get up the courage to make this gorgeous top, another Doris Chan design:

Tuesday, May 12, 2009

The Accidental Gardener and the Return of Boomer

I wish I spent more time gardening, as I really do enjoy it. But I've let the yard go and do it's own thing. Luckily, some things still bloom whether I pay attention to them or not.

Here's a lily that originally came from my parents' home in Dallas:


They have been uprooted and moved a couple of times, and I'm always happy to see them bloom each spring.

This is a blue plumbago that I thought I lost a couple of winters ago:


Now it's bigger than ever!

We used to have a wild rabbit that visited us nearly every day at dinner time 2 summers ago. We named him Boomer (short for Boomerang because he always came back). DS2 and DS3 were outside a couple of days ago looking for bugs (for an icky school project), and DS3 ran in to tell me that Boomer was back.

Well, there was a bunny in the backyard, and he does look like Boomer, but given his size (he could fit in the palm of my hand!) there's no way this is the original Boomer! Maybe he's Boomer's great grandson. Either way, he's adorable and he posed for me in the blue plumbago:


Welcome back, Boomer!