Progress

I think I have turned the corner on feeling punk. I have managed to stay up later than 7:30, this evening, so that is great progress! Sleep is very restorative, but it takes up a lot of time when you do it 12 hours a day!

I have still not unpacked my carry on, or taken the photos out of the camera, but I am looking forward to doing it, so that is progress, too. Our weekend plans for a short road trip were cancelled at the last minute, so I hope to have time (and energy) this weekend to do a bit more than eat and sleep. Maybe even check some things off the list. (There is always a list...)

I brought home way too many bulbs from the Philadelphia Flower Show. I had to leave a sweater and a pair of shoes behind with our hostess to make room for them in my bag. (They were winter shoes and my heaviest sweater and we are past that point in our desert winter, so I needed the bulbs more than the clothes.) I have two different amaryllis, three hyacinths and about a dozen paper whites for growing in the kitchen. It is a good thing I don't use that counter space for cooking!

Spring is bursting out, here. Some of the flowering trees are done with the flowering and are on with the leafing out. My iris are looking like they are just a couple of weeks away from blooming and daylight savings time is almost upon us.

Spending a week in the Eastern time zone, plus my recovery sleeping habits this week may turn out to be just the thing for easing into the time change. I hope so, because I am really looking forward to some longer evenings. Living on the far Eastern edge of the time zone, means early sunrise, but early sunset. Even on the longest days in the summer, the sun is down by 8:30.

Next week, I hope to have the sunlight and the energy to walk the 'long way' home from work! Here I go, dreaming big!

Two Beautiful Bargains

As we have been sorting through things over the past several weeks, I came across this quilt that I found on a trip to Prescott, AZ a couple of years ago. It was in one of the many antique stores off the historic and quaint town square. I think if I had to choose a place in the southwest to live, it would be Prescott. It is just high enough in elevation to have four seasons and a really lovely town.

When we got home, this quilt was put away and I really hadn't thought much about it, until we started sorting through things in the past couple of weeks. It is a good sized quilt, shown here on a queen sized bed, and it is hand pieced and hand quilted.

And it was sold to me for $50, as a 'cutter' quilt!

I love the color combinations in the blocks and the color pattern in the block placement. (The jade greens look grey in the photo, but in person, they are lovely!)

The reds are very bright! I love red and white in quilts!

I think that I have some reproduction fabric that is almost identical to the star point fabric in this block.

The back is a bright green and may have been a sheet. It has that wonderful smoothness of vintage cotton sheets. The bright red binding is also in good condition.

What makes it a cutter?

This block. This red print has not held up over time.

And in this pink block, the fabric of the star, is very faded.

Admittedly, the lightest colors in the center are not as bright as the rest of the quilt, but truly, these are the only two blocks that are not in what I consider good condition. I am thinking that I might try to repair the red block, at least. I have lots of red and white fabric, so I think I can find a good 'fit'. I am not sure about the pink one.

This quilt may not be an heirloom quilt, but it has lots of mileage still in it!

On another topic -

This is my Harry and David, after Christmas clearance, amaryllis!

Also, a beautiful bargain!

I have no projects to share today...

This week has had some breaks in the routine. The Mister and I decided to see if we could refinance our home and take advantage of low rates and get rid of the specter of an adjustable rate mortgage that looms down the road a few years. The only problem - we are upside down, underwater, possessing of negative equity, or whatever term you want to use for "we owe more than our house is worth"! (remember, we live in the lowest pointy point of the national foreclosure morass and bought our home at the tippy top peak of the market run-up in 2006...)

But, we decided to see how much underwater/upside down we are.

In order to do that, we had an appraiser come.

Before that, we had to make our house looks it's very best.

Not quite "on the market, looking for buyer, best", but we had to give some attention. So, for the last several days, we have been tidying, organizing, cleaning, stashing and sprucing up the place. Then, after the appraiser came and did her looking around, measuring and taking notes, I have been looking for all the things that were stashed in drawers, under the beds and in the car (yes, in the car!)

Anyway that is to say that I have not been able to work on any stitching projects, because I have been busy pretty-ing the house.

And, I have been driving to work, instead of walking as a security measure after a discharged employee exhibited some erratic behavior. (The downside of the "HR" business!)

I have been trying to get 30-40 minutes of walking in each day, so this week, I have been walking in the evening. The Mister goes with me on his scooter and we explore the neighborhoods surrounding ours, on foot.

Many neighborhoods nearby are walled and we just have never had the occasion to drive through them. On foot, we are able to pay more attention to details that we would miss in a car, anyway.

I am fascinated with the variety of cacti in the local landscapes. Many are blooming, or beginning to bud and some are really stunning.

I began carrying my camera with me on our walks and this evening we saw these:

I don't know the varietal names of this one, but I see it blooming in this yellow and sometimes a very hot pink.

This is a little cluster of buds that I will have to check on in a couple of days!

This yard caught my attention after I investigated the iris in the yard next door. (right side of the photo)

Love the purple in this one!

Lots of folks have replaced grass lawns for desert landscape to save water (and because the water company will pay you $10 per square foot of grass that is removed....)

I don't think the folks that live in this house have ever had a grass lawn!This cactus is the whole yard! I would guess it has been growing for 10 or 15 years to get this big!

They never have to mow, but I hope the delivery guy never throws the newspaper in the middle of it!

Two of the last three...

These two iris are the last ones to bloom, except one.

This one is "Ruth Raymond Blue". It is not an officially registered iris. It is a spontaneous hybrid that my mother found in my Grandmother's garden, after the garden had been neglected for decades. Mother named it in honor of my Great Aunt Ruth. It is not a "points winner", but it is very hardy and vigorous and the color is really lovely. It is one of the family iris heirlooms.

This one we call "Purple Splash". It was an unregistered seedling that Mother and I grew for display in our garden. Our garden was on tour during the American Iris Society regional convention in 1999 and this variety was sent to us by the hybridizer to grow for two years before the garden tours. The hybridizer decided not to introduce it as a registered cultivar, but we continued to grow it. It is not a 'great' iris - the flowers bloom on stalks that are a little short and the flowers are a bit out of proportion to the plant, but the foliage is dark purple at the base, which adds a lot of interest after the bloom season.

I have one more iris with an unopened bud. It is either "Grape" or "Quaker Lady". Both are historic iris that have very small distinctive bud shapes and the traditional "flag" form. Grape smells exactly like grape Kool-aid! Quaker lady is a very graceful iris in shades of grey and violet. Not very showy, but it is beautiful in its own way and I love it.

This is my iris garden this week. Quite a change from last November!

I realize the climate here is very different from my Kansas garden, but having over 80% of my transplanted iris bloom the next season, especially after such a late planting was such a wonderful surprise!

Now, I just have to be sure to keep them alive through the summer heat!

More like meatballs than drumsticks...

My hyacinths are blooming!


Not quite as I had envisioned with very thick stalks and perfectly arranged tiny trumpet florets. No, these are squatty, malformed, stuffed down in the foliage blooms. But they are bright and their fragrance is wonderful.

Fortunately, I discovered that the lack of proper form has nothing to do with my gardening technique!

This weekend, I was sorting through a festering pile of paper that had gathered on the counter and came across a pamphlet that I picked up when I bought the bulbs. (So now you know that the pile has been "gathering" since October!) I decided to look through it for any ideas for next year's crop, and it turns out that some bulbs have to have a winter. Not just a cold spell, but a looooong cold spell. Although my hyacinths had been labeled as "prepared for forcing", they had not been prepared long enough. The pamphlet said so!

Too short cold preparation = short stalks.

Too long preparation = long spindly stalks.

Naturally, my hyacinths began to bloom at the same time as the grocery store began to display pots of perfectly formed hyacinths in full bloom! So much for "forcing"! Apparently, they bloom on their schedule, not mine! Oh well, it has been fun to be able to watch the progress.

And the kitchen smells divine!

"You like me, you really like me!"

I want to thank my wonderful mechanic (The Mister), the fabulous artists at the paint shop, of course I have to thank DuPont for making the wonderful color (pure fire) and all the fans who voted for me!

Okay, it's not a gold statuette, but it is fun to get an award!

This is one of the projects that moved forward on the completion timeline.

I guess I could have pressed it before I took the photo!!

For some reason, this teapot was a tough one to get through. I think that I did not press the transfer long enough and the stitch lines were not as distinct as they should have been. It was difficult to make progress. I carried it all the way to The Frozen North and back, last month, with about 10 hours of airplane time which is usually prime for stitching. I am glad to say it is complete!

Garden update!

This is my kitchen garden today. The paperwhites are my second crop, the bulbs are my souvenirs from The Frozen North. The others are making sloooooow progress, but progress all the same.

I am looking forward to a weekend at home. I hope I am able to find suitable fabric and motifs for the next Grandbebe quilt from the stash!

I will let you know what I find!!

"When the days begin to lengthen...

...winter begins to strengthen" is a saying that my mother attributed to her mother (or maybe her grandmother). It certainly did apply in south central Kansas, but not so much for me in my current environment - "Desert Crazy Town".

I have been trying to think of a variation that might fit my current situation:"When the daylight has more hours, I can cut pretty flowers" or "December chilly noses, give way to January roses" or "January roses can't be beat! They will wither in July heat!"

The Mister and I were doing a bit of post holiday re-organization in the storage shed and I noticed that we had blooms on almost all of the rose bushes. I use the term "bushes" loosely - The Mister prunes the landscape (and I use the term "prune" loosely) without the benefit of research or arboreal knowledge. (Our first summer, he hated the fruit dropping from the plum tree, so he "pruned" all the fruit bearing branches. Read: all the branches!) His motto is "It will come back". Most things do, perhaps not in the ideal shape, but they do come back.

Usually, I do not bring flowers into the house, because the cats consider them night toys and pull them out of the vases. By morning, they are usually past reviving. The roses, though, were all bending down on their spindly stems, so I decided to cut some of the canes back so they would be sturdier for the next flowering.

I am not an expert on pruning, either, as I always prefer to grow species plants that take care of themselves. I have been reading the garden column over the past 30 months and trying to remember all the guidance from the Master Gardeners, though. I may not have done the plants any good, but I hope I didn't do them any harm!

Most all of our roses are hidden away in the side yard, where I only go if we are shuffling cars/trailers/camper, etc. so it is nice to enjoy them in the house. I just have to remember to shut them in the bathroom at night to keep them safe!

We are home from the frozen north...

This was our view of Mother Nature on Sunday morning. The first snowfall of the year is always exciting - but this was about the third or fourth snowfall in the North!




Monday, we made the first leg of our return trip - heading south. On the way, we stopped for an early lunch. This was on the side of the diner. It had warmed up a little since it was close to noon...




This is what Mother Nature had to show us on our arrival home!




Poor things were leaning toward the sun, trying to get some sun food! I am sure they will straighten up again with some rotating.







This is how they look in "full bloom". I wish you could smell them - they are divine!



And look at my amaryllis sticking out it's tongue!

Even though I really didn't have room for souvenirs (trying to avoid the check bag fee, don't you know..) I did buy another paper white kit! I threw away the bulky pot, growing medium and the box and tucked the bulbs into a corner of my bag. Now I can have a second crop!!

Blooms!

I have a bloom!





The first paperwhite bud to open. It is not completely open yet, but the fragrance is lovely. I really should have either started them as soon as we got home from the Adventure. Then we would have had blooms at Thanksgiving. Or, if I had waited until this week, the blooms would have been open for Christmas.

Perhaps the hyacinths will show off at Christmas. I have never grown them indoors before, so I am not really sure how long they take. I can see little green points coming up from the center and the roots are certainly growing well, but they are slackers when compared to the paperwhites!

I have planted another section of my kitchen farm.

Well, not really a section... more like a quarter... or maybe just the north forty.

This is a gift from a Thanksgiving guest. They had no idea that I am cultivating bulbs this fall, but I was so excited to open it up! It is a red amaryllis. I have forgotten the name of the variety and I threw away the package, but it was something important. Maybe Imperial Something, or Peacock Something, or Lion Something.... Well, it doesn't matter.

My past efforts with Amaryllis were not successful, perhaps due to neglect and abuse by animals.

This year will be different.

I read the instructions and followed them to a "t". It is sitting in the sunniest place in the house to get started.

It was actually difficult to find a sunny spot, since houses in the desert are designed to not allow the sun in, what with the sun screens on the windows and the awnings. The kitchen window does get a little sun, though.

After it gets started, then I can move it to another spot. I can't wait to see it start to grow!

This is my entire crop! The paperwhites are very close to having their first open bloom (The photo does not show the tallest bud, so you will have to take my word for it!) and I can see the first bit of green coming up from the center of the hyacinths. I am looking forward to many weeks of flowering enjoyment! I just hope the cats don't mistake it for a salad bar!

This is how long its been...

since I have posted!

I don't know if I will have blooms by Thanksgiving, but they are well on the way!

I love the way the roots just insist on growing like crazy, once they get started.

This is my "new" garden. I bought three hyacinth bulbs at the same time and decided to use this ceramic bowl. It is the one I usually use for paperwhites. The hyacinths are not going gangbusters, yet. I confess that I did "peek" by picking one up to see if the roots were started. I did not have enough pebbles for both groups, so I am using some flower arranging marbles.

I never had success with them in a vase with cut flowers. The water always got cloudy and stinky when I tried. If they don't work for this project, then I will bag them up and put them in the charity box. I am sure they would be perfect for artificial flowers, but I don't do artificial arranging. Without the power of nature to add beauty, I am afraid of dismally lame results.

I have been very busy with the distraction of commerce this past week. In preparing for Dearest Sister's Thanksgiving visit I have been trying to de-clutter. I decided to list some vintage estate sale/auction goodies on ebay that I had set aside over a year ago.

I also picked up a Lenox nativity set at a garage sale that I thought I could turn for a profit. The Mary figure was missing, but I looked on ebay and it seemed there was quite a lively "secondary market" for this set.

Oh my goodness! One man's trash is certainly another man's treasure! (I am not suggesting that a scene depicting the birth of Christ is trash, mind you!) I am often surprised at the prices folks sometimes pay for something that is not worth nearly so much to me! Suffice to say, my "investment" was returned many times over!

Anyway that is what my computer time has been spent on. I have gathered momentum for the de-clutter process. A little success is a powerful motivator!

My Winter Garden...

I love paperwhites! To me, they are the ultimate in instant gratification (relatively speaking) in the plant world!

During the Adventure to the Midwest, Ms A and I were driving from one of our favorite haunts to the next and she commented that we were passing a garden center that had the same name as the one near our former home. I swung into the parking lot! I had intended to put paperwhites on the list of "things to buy that are not available in the desert" (along with Maple Nut Creams from Russell Stover, Gravy from Stroud's, salad dressing from Pizza Shoppe for Dear Niece M, who was kitty sitting, chocolate/vanilla twist ice cream cone). Luckily, Ms A reminded me!

We bought paperwhites and hyacinth bulbs for forcing. They were even on sale!! It was hard not to get carried away and get crocus and bulb iris, but there are only so many containers that I can protect from "cat grazing".

Usually I start paperwhites in January, but this year, I decided to plant early and perhaps have a live Thanksgiving centerpiece. I may have delayed too long for Thanksgiving blooms, but it we will see...

This is my recipe:

Ingredients - five paperwhite bulbs, lovely bowl and small pebbles.

This is the first year that I have used a crystal bowl. In the past I have used a ceramic bowl, but I thought the crystal would look a little "fancy" for the holidays.

Next, put the rocks in the bowl.

I bought these rocks about five years ago. Each year, I wash them and let them dry on newspapers and paper towels. (The first time, The Mister was very puzzled as to why I was washing rocks!)

Next, nestle the paperwhite bulbs into the rocks. The rocks need to be about half way up the sides of the bulbs for stability. The flower stalks will get to be about 12" to 15" tall.

Add water up to the top of the rocks and wait for the magic to happen!

Gardening in the Desert (in November!)

I believe that I have mentioned that I am an iris "fancier". I brought a small number of iris with me to the desert and The Mister built me two "boxes" for them to live in.

The first year, we did not have the watering schedule quite right, but the second year, I had some lovely blooms.

The problem was, though, that I could only see the blooms if I went out the backdoor, around to the side parking area and walked behind whatever was parked there.
This is the view from beside the car trailer looking back between the pick-up camper and the cinder block wall. Not exactly a "garden setting"....


You can see that they look a little neglected. That is because they have been neglected!

The other bed looked worse!

That is because these guys have been eating the rhizomes (the fleshy part of the plant that stores all the energy for next years growth).

After the initial surprise of being thrown out of their comfy flower bed, they are pretty fast!

These two guys were racing back to the dirt.... for a minute...

Anyway, The Mister volunteered to move the boxes to the front yard.

Any gardening in the desert begins with this:

Once I saw an article in the paper about putting in a lawn. It began with, "First dig up your yard and take it to the land fill. Then buy some good dirt."

This is the new location. You can see that there is a large trailer parked cheek by jowl with the flower bed. In order to bring the plants, plant markers,the dirt, shovel, the soil amendments etc, it was necessary to put the ramp of the trailer down and open the side door. Then, I walked through the trailer and out the side door with each load. (The other option was through the kitchen and living room and out the front door.)

After another trip to the garden center for more soil, I got the plants in the ground.

It is still an odd feeling for me to be planting in November. In my Kansas garden, if the plants were not in the ground by Labor Day, or at the very least Columbus Day, it was iffy that they would make it through the winter. Here, they still have a couple of months for the roots to get established before winter.

Another thing that is different is that in my previous garden, I only watered once a week, or so, to get plants established. Then, if they couldn't make do with what mother nature provided, they couldn't stay in my garden.

Now, every plant gets its own little sprinkler!

I am really excited to have my flowers in the front yard where I can see them easily and share them with passers-by! I hope I have some photos of lovely blooms to share next year!

In my garden

Before I moved to the desert, I had a garden with lots of flowers, but mainly iris. (actually, hundreds of iris) When we prepared to move I tried to find homes for them with my neighbor, my garden club friends and, for the favorites, with Dearest Sister.

I brought a few (20 or so) with me, but our yard does not have much room to plant things. Most of it is covered with concrete, or rock with specimen plantings of shrubs and palm trees.

The Mister built a couple of planter boxes in the RV Parking side of the yard for the iris. Nothing like the place of honor along the front walk of our old yard, but a place for my old friends.

Our back "yard" and I use the term loosely, has a wall that separates our yard from the yard behind us has a lovely vine growing on it.

Our first spring, we were delighted to see the flowers that appeared!




After the flowers, there were little green berries! Imagine our surprise when we returned from a fall vacation to this!




They turned a bright red-orange in the ten days or so that we were away.

I still miss the plants and flowers of the mid-west, but I am learning the flowers and plants in this dry, harsh environment and learning to appreciate them more as each season passes.