Thursday was a busy day, spent organizing inside, walking outside and clipping bunches of garlic.

Friday, March 30, 2012

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Thursday was a lovely, overcast day.  The rains fell often enough to dissuade me from digging away in the garden, but not enough to keep me away from there!

I must have slept through the windstorms of late Wednesday night .. .and I was surprised to see, yet again, the backyard hummingbird feeder lying on the ground.    I might have to change the location for the summertime, as currently I have the feeder hanging from the little Lee Valley archway, leading into the veggie garden area.

So I rinsed out the feeder, searched for .. and found .. the little yellow baskets that sit in the middle of each of the red “flowers”.  Went to the fridge and brought out the container of 3:1 sugar nectar.  Reassembled the feeder and hung it up again.

Back inside later, I  mixed  another mixture of 3:1 and placed several full containers in the fridge, once they had cooled down from the short cooking process, transforming the sugar/water mixture into a liquid nectar.  That’s it for the 3:1 and when this mix is gone, I’ll resort to the 4:1 for the summer.

Away to the front yard and, my goodness, that feeder was empty too!  So promptly refilled it.  Didn’t take too long for one of the little Anna’s to zero in and settle down on the tiny little perch and start sipping away.

I noticed the beauty of the raindrops on the outer surfaces of the dainty daffodil flowers.  Such grace and natural loveliness.  Pretty as a picture, I thought.

Then of course, I just had to wander around the yard.   Soft raindrops falling in a mist, gently painting a delicate cover of moisture on everything in the yard.  I was very glad that this was happening, since there were several plants that I had dug up a few days ago, still sitting on the soil, waiting to be planted.  They certainly will not dry out.

Looked up to the sky, no aerial shows to see.  The winged creatures must be elsewhere or perhaps they are taking cover from the rain?

So, decided to go inside and tackle a task that I’ve been avoiding.  Drum roll.  My little garden room has been neglected during the last few months.  And disorder had come to visit.  So, ended the procrastination and began moving things around. Trying so hard to be decisive about what leaves and what stays.

I moved my tools, all the paraphernalia, hammers, saws, nails, screws, screwdrivers, all that sort of thing onto the walled shelving unit.   A solidly built set of 3 shelves, installed by a previous owner.  Myself, I would have extended the shelves so that they would have spanned the entire wall, for better storage.  But these are solid enough, so they will stay, for now.  Unless DH decides to change things  .. he is so very creative about these sorts of things, he is quite amazing.

Turned the music up loud, brought out the broom and started sweeping.  It’s quite amazing, the amount of leaves and mud that I’ve been bringing in, via my boots .. but that’s the way it is when I’m gardening.

Decided to create more space taken up by my bunches of dried garlic bulbs, kept finding more bunches strung around the room.  Spent some time trimming the bottoms and clipping the bulbs from their papery  branches.  Found one bulb sprouting so took that outside for planting.  Ended up with a large basket full of the savoury things.

Even had some elephant garlic .. guess I’d dug them up too soon, because there were several that were just one round ball, the size of a golf ball.  Very delicate garlic scent also, not overpowering.

After a few tea breaks and time out to read some chapters of a good mystery .. I’m currently reading one by Marcia Muller “Dead Midnight” (she has the most amazing storylines and her characters are full of life!) and Lisa Jackson “Malice” (same …amazing author).

Sometimes, I just want to be totally decadent and just curl up on an afternoon and just read a book from cover to cover.  This was a habit when I was a teenager and then into my 20’s and 30’s and then I just seemed to have dropped the habit.  And all my time was filled with being “busy”.

Looking over to my fiction book unit I see that I have quite a few more books to read .. so that I can empty the shelves and then visit the next library book sale.   Once I read a book, it goes into a bag, to be given away free to those interested.  I’ve tried keeping track of the books I’ve read, but that project got away from me!  I’ll try to update my list, to avoid picking them up again.  But I must admit, in the frenzied atmosphere of the book sale, I just grab what I can.

Which reminds me of the most amazing luck I had at the last book sale .. for the first time I was able to select quite a number of books on weather, clouds etc. in addition to some fantastic gardening and birding books.  These are treasures and I look through them from time to time. They are the kinds of books to take along on a weekend away .. when I can spend hours looking through them, without feeling guilty about time spent.

The hours just flew by yesterday and soon I had finished organizing my room for the day.  DH was home and time for supper.

Today .. I plan to finish the organizing in my garden room.  And now there are some tough decisions to make.  Should I keep my beading and glass tile hobbies for now or get rid of them?  There are some lovely bright and colourful bobbles that I’ve been accumulating .. planning to make some garden art from them.  They’ve been just sitting there in their containers, not looked at, for a long time.

I think that I will most likely decide to get going and be creative.  Spend some decadent hours with my creative hat on and just assemble all my little treasures out on the table and play around.

I’ll post any pictures of my new artistic endeavours when they are done.  Just writing this out has helped me decide to keep my supplies for another year.  This will be the year that I’ll venture into that special little world of creativity. :)

Today looks to be another overcast day and for that I am glad.  Time to get going .. a little walk, fresh air, and then .. back to organizing.

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