Lamb's ear in March.

This volunteer plant is unusual. I don't know whether to cut it back or just leave it alone. No other plant stays this green this long. Except for evergreens of course.

Curious cat behavior.

Every morning we find wool sweaters and blankets in the kitchen. Oliver, not the cat shown in this picture, drags them out of a bedroom where I keep them in a basket (just for him). We've never known what message he's sending, but we assume it's some sort of "look what I killed and am delivering to my food area" message. I gave Oliver all of these woolen garments and blankets a few years ago when it became obvious that he considered them his own. (Note: that old nasty kitchen floor will be replaced with newer, fresher flooring when I get myself in gear.)

Ohboyohboyohboy!

I ordered some bamboo from Oregon. My hope is that it will grow fast and tall and thick and eventually become a screen between my yard and a neighbor's yard. This is the clumping kind of bamboo and isn't supposed to be invasive. We'll see. Oh yeah, it's totally non-native which is a big no-no in much of the horticultural world. Oh well.

Tomorrow I dig holes and plant these babies.

Skeptical.

"The average gardener spends nearly five hours a week grubbing in the dirt and often contends with failure early on." (http://www.comcast.net/articles/finance/20090316/Recession.Gardening/)

This is a quote from an article about how vegetable gardening is undergoing a huge resurgence this year because of the economy. I'm a very skeptical person (I learned how to be so skeptical from he-shall-go-unnamed-but-he-knows-who-he-is. He who questions everything). Last year I had a smallish veggie garden, about 5 by 5 feet, plus tomatoes, peppers, and herbs tucked into my flower beds here and there. There's NO WAY I spent 5 hours a week "grubbing in the dirt" of my veggie garden. Simply no way. Maybe if you include all the time (over the winter) that I dug up the turf AND the time I spent driving to a nursery to buy seeds AND all the time I spent taking pictures and blogging about gardening and cooking the food. But folks, there just isn't any reason to "grub" in the dirt after the seeds or seedlings are planted. A few weeds here and there but that's it. I say that if you have a smallish garden, let's say 10' by 20' or smaller, you simply couldn't spend 5 hours a week tending to it. So there.

Picture taken in November 2008. I enlarged my 5 by 5' to a 5 x 10'.

Mushrooms from the Takoma Park Farmers Market.

Letter E in the Tchotchke Challenge: Eyeglass cases.

Yes, that's it. A pile, and not a large pile at that, of unused eyeglass cases.

But inspired by God Bless Y'All's entry, I'm posting a picture of my one Ukrainian Egg in a bed of Eucalyptus petals.

The first seeds.

I'll start the tomatoes and the buttercrunch lettuce indoors in the toilet paper recycling pots. I'll move them into the garden in May.

Tomorrow I'll plant directly in the garden: bok choy, peas, green onions, and those cute little carrots. Parisian carrots they're called.

Black cotton Amish scarf.

I'll probably plant pieces of this potato but I've read bad stuff, now forgotten, about mass-produced potatoes.

Look at how ugly that tile is. Just like the over-the-hill potato. I've been procrastinating on replacing the kitchen floor tile. I'll have this hallway tile replaced at the same time, probably. Why do I procrastinate?

At a local hardware store. A $3.29 head massager. "Great for home or office use."

I've pulled out pounds of this stuff. I don't know what it is.

My first spring plants! All the other lettuce will be from seeds. This was too pretty to pass up.

Wha'!?

I spent a good part of the weekend fortifying the deer fencing around the back yard. Last night, I looked down from the deck to find this guy. Inside the fence. He's one of the twins born last spring. His mom and sister/brother are next door, in the unfenced yard. When I told him to leave, and started down the steps to enforce my command, he skittered under a big rhododendron to rejoin his mom and sibling. There is fencing behind the rhodo, just not enough apparently. Boy-deer just nosed his way down, under the fencing and zipped up to join the others. As they ambled away to the yard across the street, the twins did a bit of that youthful sparring I saw them do last summer. They're still not really adults yet. Bastards.

Tulips. Supposed to be dark dark purple, almost black. Can't wait!

My dying snake plant. I've heard that it's hard to kill a snake plant. I disagree. It was easy. Too much TLC?

Ready for seeds.

I got the idea from Ms. Nyack, NY. Everything here is recycled: the Clemintine box, the toilet paper rolls, the worm castings mixed with regular leaf compost, and the plastic cookie container. Yes, I admit that I eat, and really enjoy, Giant brand sugar cookies. Zero nutritive value.

Invitations from Corcoran graduating seniors.

Good luck to all graduating seniors, especially these two!

I know how Oliver does this but I don't know why.

Hellebores and crocuses.

I don't remember who alerted me to this book but thank you.

Corn bread in a skillet.

Very good. And not that many calories.

Spring can not be stopped!

The twins arrived today. A boy and a girl!

Speaking for myself, there is nothing, nothing more adorable than an infant. And to have two just makes my heart beat a little faster. Everyone healthy and safe.

They aren't so ugly up close. I like his beak.

My first focaccia. So easy. So good.

My friend Stephanie mentioned that she bakes using her cast iron skillets, so that's what I did too. Worked perfectly. Recipe is just flour, water, yeast, salt. Plus a brushing of olive oil before baking. Before baking below, after baking above.

What are blogs for if not to alert people to The Artfull (sic) Bra Project?

Here.

Quilt for a twin.

My friend Shannon and I made matching quilts for our friend Natalie who will have twins any day now. Good luck Natalie (and Adam and Sarah too)! (Clarification: Shannon and I each made twelve 12" blocks using the same pattern but different fabrics from our fabric stashes. Then we exchanged blocks: six of hers went with six of mine. So each quilt is half pieced by each of us. We each quilted one quilt, using different patterns.)

I've been reading this novel for 3 months. Can't wait to finish. I think I'll read some short stories by Russell Banks next.

I had the next to last chocolate yesterday. The port one, lower left.

It was the best so far, I think. Although the rosemary one was really different and tasty.

Newspapers may be dying but magazines seem to be doing OK.

Kitt in Denver posted about a magazine called Cowboys and Indians. It reminded me of this magazine.

Praying mantis egg-pod.

I found it in one of my short ornamental grasses, ones I haven't cut back yet. If I do cut the grass back I won't disturb the pod. I've read (online) that they can be moved but I don't want to interfere.

Letter D Tchotchke Challenge: Drums

There may be more drums around this house but these were the ones close at hand. When Anne, of God Bless Y'All Read Good, suggested this Tchotchke Challenge she envisioned that we might post our pictures and add a little information on why we had so many of the Tchotchkes in question. I'm not too keen, yet, on long explanations (although this post is going that way I'm afraid...) but one reason drums have significance in this house is that my first-born child --- a "masculine child" (as Luco Brazi would say), and a musician, geographer, student, midnight-shift UPS employee, and occasional caregiver to the Alzheimer's lady next door; in other words an all-around great kid (just like his sister about whom I'll kavel in another post), was never baptized because his parents are basically heathens. BUT this masculine child was, at the age of 13, given a quite elaborate ceremony of introduction into the adult world by his Takoma Park Dance and Drum group, led by a very spiritual guy named, what else?, Stream. In those days, The Child and His Dad attended these weekly Dance and Drum meetings which were open to all and featured a couple of hours of drum banging, chanting, free-form dancing, and general good feelings in a church basement. When The Child turned 13, the group decided that he needed a kind of alternative bar mitzvah/baptism. It was great. To my eyes and ears (I attended the ceremony but was not a regular member of the group) it seemed like a Native American-style ritual; lots of references to Earth, Moon, Stars, Nature. The Child was painted up Indian-style, blindfolded, and guided through a maze of adults who were also drumming and chanting. Stream read passages from I-don't-know-what-but-wish-I'd-asked, and in the final act of the ceremony the women lined up to create a corridor for The Child to pass through. We each helped push him through the corridor and when he reached the end the blindfold was removed and he was now officially part of the adult community. I always thought of that female-corridor as the birth canal. We pushed this blind child into the light, just like the mothers among us pushed our blind infants down our birth canals ...am I getting too graphic? Forgive me. I get like that when thinking about the miracle of my kids.