California Snow

No snow here! But all the flowers are confused with a week of warmer weather in the 60s in between two rain storms, they don't know what they are doing! My white azalea is in full bloom and looks like snow! The pink one is mostly in bud but will be beautiful in another couple days. Yesterday I took advantage of the cold, but clear day and worked in the yard. I do mostly container gardening because 1) the clay soil is like cement and 2) the 99-105+ degree heat in the summer is not conducive to growing a lot of pretty things. People who have yards with shade do okay, but we don't have an ounce of it. So, I've quite fighting it and have temporarily laid aside my dream of having an English cottage garden, and I go with the flow. Roses do well and other plants like Geraniums that crave full sun. I have a small window of time in the spring before the heat raises and in the fall after it begins cooling down, that other flowers grow well. So I plant and enjoy annuals in the spring. I don't have those yet...but I did get my bulbs planted finally! It rained so much in November and December that I did not get them planted sooner. They are already sprouting. In another month, expect to see tulip pictures on the blog...they are one of my favorites! I spent several hours, cleaning about ten flower boxes, planting bulbs, weeding and dead heading and pruning roses. It felt so good to accomplish something.

Continue to the next post to see some real California snow!

On the knitting front...well, even though I have been a bad blogger, I have been getting quite a lot of knitting done. I finished the Irish Hiking sock from Hello Yarns, I started a sock with Trekking XXL and I have about 8" done on my Creatures of the Reef shawl from Fiddlesticks. I'm working on starfish now. I'll have to post some more pictures later. The gals on my Christian Artisans list have been tempting me to start an EZ Pi shawl, but I haven't given in yet! :o)

I have been itching to do some spinning but have not yet. Over the holidays a lot of stuff got stuffed in the area where my spinning wheel is. I did purchase some non-detergent motor oil to oil her up and get her running and I have been contemplating a name for her. Next on the agenda, after pay day, is to do some investigating on finishing her (an Ashford Traditional). I left the wood natural with an oil finish when I bought her about 1993, but she has been in storage and neglected a long. The wood has aged a beautiful medium red color and so I don't want to stain it and I am a bit wary of varnishing...thinking of drips and imperfections. So I am going to go to the unfinished furniture store near me and ask some questions and see what other options there are. I have seen some furniture on tv shows that were done with some type of a wax so that the natural wood came out, but it had a little bit nicer finish than just oil. I don't really know anything more than what I just saw though.

Well, I have to go to watch Sarah Hughes and Friends, ice skating. I have been watching all the competitions leading up to the Olympics. I have been following figure skating as much as possible ever since I lived near the Canadian border and could watch both the US and Canadian stations' coverage. It gives me a good excuse to knit too!