Spring 2022

 Happy Memorial Day, Y'all!

I hope everyone out there is having a fun and safe day.  We spent the weekend in Fairbanks and got back last night.  It was a good weekend - very very busy.  Steph is putting her house up for sale, so we went up there to help her get prepared for that.

On the way home we saw a Mama Grizzly and two cubs.

I know you can't really see the Mama in this picture.  By the time Chuck took the picture for me, she was disappearing through the trees, two cubs following her.

When I got back home, I was worried about my garden that I had left in Justin's care.  The weather has been hot and dry so they really needed to be watered every day.  Our neighbor came and checked on them the day before we came home and said everything looked watered.  To my relief, my plants were still alive when we got home.

We finally bought a nice greenhouse this year!

Then Chuck wanted to add some gravel around it so he wouldn't have all those weeds growing up against it.  I think it adds charm, plus it gives me a place to set some pots, which adds even more charm!

Eventually I want to have the whole greenhouse surrounded by cute pots, but this is the best I can do for this year without spending another chunk of money.  We also bought a couple shepherd's hooks to hang a couple baskets.  I would love to have bird feeders and bird baths!  Maybe next year.

We also bought two apple trees!  I am excited about the apple trees cuz I have been wanting apple trees for so many years now.

So, when we picked our greenhouse, we ordered one that has a shelf on only one side and then we built beds to put on both sides.  I put tomato plants on the left side, and shorter plants on the right side under the shelf (squash and cucumbers).   And then I put all my peppers and some herbs on the shelf.  I also added a few marigolds to help keep aphids away.  When the cucumbers and beans get taller we will have to string them up through the wire shelf.

If you look closely you can see a bell pepper already on that one plant.

Outside in the beds, everything is doing really well.

I already have some clumps of tomatoes growing.

I think this is going to be a better year all around for gardening than last year.  We have more things going for us this year - warmer weather, a greenhouse, and also I had a better head start on everything (started my seeds earlier this year).  Plus I have been more diligent about fertilizing.

I put my pumpkins in the front yard this time just because I didn't have anywhere else to put them.  Chuck built these beds for me. 

 I want to fill them up with perennial flowers, but this year I wasn't very well planned for it, plus I felt guilty spending more money, so I just planted some different flower seeds in them (on both sides of the pumpkins) and now I will just hope that they grow.  Next year I will put more thought as to what perennials I want in there.  I think I want some bleeding hearts and some irises to start with.  Tulips would be cute too.  Chuck says he would rather use the beds for more practical things like more veggies, but I think I would like the front of the house to look pretty with flowers.

I planted some onions seeds in this frog.  I wanna see what it will look like with onions growing in it.

Around the sunroom we have even more beds!

This is where I am growing mint and catnip and some new rhubarb plants.

After I planted all my tomatoes, I had 4 left that I needed to find a home for.  A friend took my last two Polar Beauties.  Another friend said she would take one Sub-Arctic.  I was gonna give the last one to Stephanie but she is too busy now with selling her house, so my neighbor gladly took it.  I kinda felt like I was getting rid of a litter of kittens.  :-(

This is the last one that I am holding for my friend until she gets back from Texas.  She will be pleased that it already has some tomatoes on it.

When I posted last Fall, I wrote that I was going to start making a Halloween quilt.  Well, I finally got the quilt top done!

Now I just need to sandwich it and quilt it.  I am planning on tying it because I want it to have thick batting.  This quilt has sashing with cornerstones, which was a nightmare because my cornerstones weren't matching up, so I had to take in a LOT of seams in order to get them to match up.  It was a pain in the butt and I worried that it would look obvious, but now that I can see the whole thing, you really can't tell where I took the seams in.

The other sewing project I'm working on is English Paper Piecing.  I just learned how to do it and I am finding that it is something that I really enjoy doing.  

I am making a big stack of three different flower designs.  After I get all the flowers made, I will applique them onto some background fabric and make a quilt out of them.  This is just sort of an experiment project before I start trying out some harder designs.

So that's about all for now.  I know I haven't posted in a really long time, but that's because my posts are boring and uninteresting.  I don't know why I thought of posting again today.  Because I miss you??

Peeka and Weeners send their greetings.