Warmer days are here

 Once again, earlier in the day I started kind of doing a blog outline in my head. I was thinking I would go in a direction that is different then the one I'm going. That's all right though.  You'd never know unless I told you. Which I guess I just did. Ha! 

Remember in a previous post I said my son was sick around Easter? My husband got sick.  Then I got sick, but managed to shake it off?  Yeeeeahhhhh .... it came back and got me. 

I took a sick day yesterday and pretty much spent the day on the couch, after tossing supper in the slow cooker. 

The weather wasn't all that great, anyways, so I didn't feel too bad about laying about and taking naps. 

Today was the second day of the year that we had nice weather.  And by nice weather, I mean nice weather all day.  

Blue skies for days. Nary a cloud in the sky. 

I opened all the house windows and they are still open at the time of my writing. The sun was out all day, shining brightly down.  It was almost a bit too warm even.  I'm debating on whether to keep the windows open all the way to almost night time, or close things up in the next hour.  For the record, I'm writing a few hours earlier than I usually do when I post on the blog. 

I keep reminding myself that this type of weather will not last long before the heat of summer descends on us, so enjoy it while I can. 

Just a few patches of snow are left. I cannot wait until it's ALL gone. So long, farewell, auf wiedersehen, adieu. 

Can you believe April is half over? 

All this nice weather made it a bit hard to focus on work, but I was a good girl and stayed focused. 

On my lunch hour I bopped out to the greenhouse, with all the plants, and set them up out there. 

Wait til you see the temperature out there. 

And it most certainly felt like it. 

So I went out of the greenhouse to plant my tomato seeds. 

Thirty-two plants. Do I need more? I'm seriously pondering this one. Last year I planted SO many tomato plants and then it was such an awful garden year.  I still have a bit of time to start seeds. 

The girls enjoying some table scraps. 

This is the spot where my fountain goes. 

Just a bit of snow left. Then we can set the fountain up. 

Woot! Woot! 

Plants!

 Not that ones I bet you are thinking of as soon as you the the word "plants."

Where my son works they have an area were you can buy plants. I strongly suspect no one really takes care of them. That's the area where he got the tulips that he brought home the other day.

Yesterday he brought home a couple more pitiful-looking plants.  He asked if I'd be able to do anything for them. I said I'd try.  

One of the plants was a begonia.  I cheered a little at the thought of having a begonia. 

The other plant is something I don't know.  At first I wanted to say it was a gerbera daisy, but I don't think it is. 

Well, that one felt pretty dry, so I gave it a bit of water. 

Woweee!

This is what it looked like this morning. 

I wish there was a before photo so you could see how sad this plant looked when I got it last night.  The leaves were limp and the stem holding the flower was laying down.  Even the petals had no oomph to them. 

So what did my son do today?  He brought home four more plants. 

One more begona, two cyclamen, and I don't know what that purple flower one is.  I tucked the daisy-looking plant in so they'd all be on the same 1020 tray. 

Amazing. 

Oh, and here's the begonia from yesterday. Just so it doesn't feel left out. 

At this rate, I'm going to have to keep my shelf up year-round!

Here's a photo of my baby garden plants. 

I brought them out to the greenhouse yesterday, for a few hours.  My hubby commented that being out there seemed to agree with them. I forgot to bring them out there today. It was overcast yesterday.  Overcast today. 

Something that I haven't gotten used to yet is how long it stays light out.  This was at 7:30 p.m. 

I was out there, tucking the girls in, when I stopped and looked up at the sky and marveled about the longer days and the snow being almost gone. 

Speaking of the girls ... 

Tonite I brought my phone out to the coop so I could try snapping a few photos of them. 

This girl was so judgey. Like "What are you *doing*? Really?" She had no time for my shenanigans.  

"Get my good side," this one seemed to be saying. 

I tried to get a photo of a few of them snuggled together. 

However, I think the photo of the evening is this one. 

Sometimes I really marvel at the photos you can get with a smart phone. 

Bit by bit I'm learning a little bit about adjusting settings to take photos, and all that jazz.  I didn't do anything special to get this shot.  Just point and shoot. 

I worked on some cross stitch this evening. 

Project Name: USA 250

Designed By: Wrought Iron Stitching

I'll give the rest of the details in an official flosstube shownotes post. 

The February spring fake out

 I meant to write on Friday. Really, I did.  Swearsies. I had the day off from work, since I had put in so much extra time in for the special issue we were working on. I also planned to record a flosstube. I had written notes and everything. 

Then I woke up on Friday feeling terrible. My last blog post I mentioned my hubby picked up a bug from work.  I was unsuccessful in evading this one. I still feel slightly rotten. 

Since I didn't feel up to making a video I decided to do two things and call it a day. 

The first thing was to go haul out my seed collection. 

Have I gone through it yet? No.  I've decided it is still a bit early. 

I picked up the tip to keep a paper calendar like this from a homesteading youtube channel a few years ago.  I marked the weeks leading up to my last frost day. 

I even grabbed my three ring binder. 

And the seeds I already purchased. 

Then I sort of just stared at everything for a minute, contemplating which seeds I'm going to start first. 

I already know I'm not going to repeat what I did for the garden last year, which was focusing on tomatoes and peppers.  I'm going to scale back a bit and add variety back in. 

The other thing I did was spend some time out in the she shed. Things got a little messy out there post-holidays and new year.  I was moving things out there and just setting things down, willy-nilly, and things got a bit out of control. 

So much better! 

I also filed in some floss that needed to be put away. Floss that was picked up for future projects and left over floss from recently completed projects. 

This is my DMC collection. 

The bag of floss? That is floss for every Mudpuppy Stitchery chart I owned, as of last year. I took the time to go through each chart and figure out how much floss I'd need. When I say I'm set, I'm set! 

Friday was the start of some really nice weather. The temperature hit a high in the mid-40s F. It was nice. 

Saturday was more nice weather.  Oh! Such nice weather! 

But let me tell you, the early day weather was a bit ... unusual. The sky was clear out where I live. Then we drove up over to Duluth to do some shopping.  As soon as we hit the outskirts of Superior there was a fog bank. 

As we were coming down the hill I noticed the top of the high bridge was poking out of the top of the fog, and I tried to take a quick photo. 

Never, ever have I seen the bridge like this. The other structure is some sort of elevator, down by the docks. 

When I was moving photos around I had to stop and really look at this photo, because I didn't recognize it.  Then I saw the high bridge and it all started clicking. You can't tell in the photo, but that street is going downhill. 

We made it back home at a decent time in the a.m. and my hubby decided to run the tractor and move some snow around. 

The tractor is so nice to have.  

While he was playing in the snow, I decided to go out to the greenhouse and look for my soil blockers. 

Yes, still buried in snow.  I was able to slide open the door and get in. 

First thing I looked at was the thermometer. I did NOT feel like 110 F. 

It did feel good in there, though.  I stood in there for a few movements, enjoying the solar heat and sun rays. 

*sigh* I'm already picturing those benches full of 1020 trays and starts. 

When I stepped back out of the greenhouse I turned to the garden and was trying to gauge how much snow was left in the garden when I noticed a hole in the snow. 

Very odd. ... what could it be, making that mess and eating acorns? 

The rest of Saturday I rested and cross stitched.  I completed my February Cat piece on Valentine's Day.  I "woo-hooed!" and sent a picture to Patty, who I'm doing the stitch-along with. 

Oh, and before I forget, we did remember it was Valentine's Day.  With both of us sick with The Plague, we didn't pay much attention to it. Not to mention, we've been together for 101 years and we do nice things for each other all the time. 

Sunday did not disappoint, weather-wise.  When the sun hit a certain point in the sky we sat out and basked in it. 

The girls LOVED the sun and the warmer temperatures. They demanded to be let out as soon as it was light out. 

They enjoyed some sunbathing, too. 

Today I woke up still feeling crummy, sneezy, runny, and all the other dwarfs that would be appropriate in describing cold symptoms. Work was quiet.  We have a good start on the next issue. 

I spent some time this evening working on my "A Daily Reminder" by Brenda Gervais before writing this blog post. I hear we are supposed to get some snow last this week. Bah! 

I strongly suspect I'm going to take it easy this week, after two weeks of a decent amount of work stress, and now whatever bug I have. I'm really hoping to be over this bug by the end of the week. 

If we were having coffee ... the quiet time catch up

 

If we were having coffee ... It's been several years since I've sat down and had a "coffee date" on the blog. It's been a while since I've written and I don't have anything framed up, so to speak, so I thought it would be a good time for a coffee date.  I save this type of blog post for when I have a lot of little things, or when I feel the need to catch up. 

If we were having coffee ... I'd say that I felt there wasn't really anything interesting to write about the last month, give or take a week ... We'd been getting outside stuff ready and winterized ... nothing very interesting about yard clean up, making sure the coop is ready for winter, and that everything is in it's place outside.  

It almost looks like I felled a mighty giant and laid it down in the green house.  That's the new fountain. It was too tall to stand up by just a smidge. 

I'm sure there's still things I'm forgetting to do outside. It feels like I'm forgetting something.

So, yeah ... up until more recently, all my extra time was going to prepping for winter.  By the time evening descended I was pretty tired and not much in the mood to do much of anything.  Even go out for a walk on the internet and social media. 

Then the time change happened.  Is it just me, or is anyone else ready for bed at 5:30 p.m.? The chickens have been putting themselves to bed at about 5 p.m. It's crazy how early they put themselves to bed.  They aren't even hanging around out in the run or milling about on the floor of the coop.  Nope, they are up on the roost and waiting for me to tuck them in. I talk to them for a few minutes before shutting the light off. 

Back when I was getting the coop and run ready for winter, I took the solar lights from the garden and put them in the run, so they'd have a little bit of extra light when winter takes hold. 

If you were wondering what was hanging down, those are pine needles. They fall on the coop run and then hang down.  It's too much of a pain to try and keep the roof clear. 

You'd think the girls would appreciate what I did for them and want to hang outside just a little bit longer.  No.  They want to go to bed as soon as the sun starts going down. 

I decided to take the lights I previously had hanging on the run and move them over to the she shed, just to see what it would look like.  

Heh, right? It's something I sort of put up there as a temporary thing. Just to see if the solar panel picked up enough sun to have the lights going for a while.  Then we didn't get any sun for a few days.  I haven't had the opportunity to really see what happens when the sun is out for the entire day. 

If we were having coffee ... I'd share about the Christmas cacti I have.... They are blooming up a storm. 

I brought all the plants in from the greenhouse and they decided it was a good time to start putting out flowers. 

Earlier this year I had rooted some of the pieces that broke off one of the plants when it fell and those are starting to bloom as well. I did not expect that for the first year. I can't kill these plants. I had read they were hardy. I do not do great with house plants.  Christmas cactus, however, is a whole other breed and seeing those bright colors sure brings a smile to my face.  It also reminds me of this lone Christmas cactus my MIL had. In fact, I bought my first one sort of in memory of her. I have no idea what happened to her houseplants. 

Let's see ... what else should I mention .... 

If we were having coffee ... I'd share sky photos from over the last week. 

This was when I was heading out to the back 20 to collect SD cards. 

Photos don't do it justice, of course. 

That brings me back to deer hunting.  I haven't been doing any. I only have a buck tag and all those darn bucks are nocturnal right now. I'm keeping an eye out for anything that looks promising for daytime action.  

I liked the juxtaposition of the clouds and the light in the sky when we were driving to town one morning. 

Speaking of town ... 

If we were having coffee ... I'd share that the Christmas stuff has been up at Menards since before Halloween. 

Christmas will be here before we know it. 

If we were having coffee ... I'd tell you that we have our first snow. 😭

I don't think it will stay.  Temperatures later this week are supposed to hit 40 degrees F (5 degrees C). 

If we were having coffee ... I'd say the time change has been mildly kicking my butt.  Give me another week, or two, and maybe I'll feel like my old self. In the meantime I've been feeling like it's 7:30 p.m. when it's only 5:30 p.m. It's sort of affected my crafting.  However, when I was started writing up shownotes for my next flosstube, I realized I've got a lot more done than I thought. I was thinking I had slowed way down.  Not necessarily. My crafting direction has shifted a bit and I've been crocheting a bit more than anything else. 

I've been working on a granny square crochet-along.  It's mildly kicking my butt. 

If we were having coffee ... I'd mention that today, Nov. 10, 2025, marks the 50th anniversary of the sinking of the Edmund Fitzgerald. My friend Becky did a real nice blog post about it. 

Growing up in the city where the ship last left port, I'm quite familiar with this tragedy. 

As soon as Halloween passed the Fitz took over Instagram.  Or at least it did my Instagram. 

Years ago I came across what I consider to be one of the best Youtube tribute videos made for the Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald. 

Well, that's all for now, I reckon. It's a quiet time for me right now, and I don't quite know what to do with that.