March Winds, April Showers, Soon Brings, May...

Mold.

WTF is this?

I've asked the gardening guru, my mom. She didn't know what to do. So she went to her go-to guy...Jerry Baker. Whose website is commercial and awful. Whose books are GREAT. Jerry had nothing. So, in the hope that I have friends who know something about molds - the Mulch Mold, up close:

It lifts off, so that's nice, but I am not touching it. Nope. I found this helpful site, but it involves a few things that don't make sense for the area. We also have mushrooms aplenty and I discovered, while outside taking a picture of the mold, a new critter in the garden.

I assume he should not be there. He does look rather nice, though. For the most part, other than the assorted fungi and leaf munching critters, the garden seems to be doing rather well. I think the rain has made everything very happy. The petunias are going bizonkers:

and the jade (at least parts of it) appears to like its new home outside:

The part that used to be the kitchen jade...not so happy.

And to summarize my garden ups and downs, may I present to you, dear reader(s), the following:

This is a finally flowering geranium. I have waited weeks and weeks for this - since the first week Sharon was here, helping us garden, which was the last week in April.

Notice the jade looks a mite happier in that photo. It went through a bit of a shock, but it has lots of new growth on it. We are optimistic that it will pull through. I can't tell you how many Jades and other heirloom plants that have been in Gene's family for 100 years or so I have managed to kill. I come from a gardening family. I should be able to at least keep the stuff alive! *sigh*

Back to the geranium.

So it's finally flowering - but in the back, where no one can see. Turn the pot! you say. I say, that defeats the purpose of having the hanging things in the front. Vinca vines they are called, I think. Hopefully, the rest of the plant will get the idea, and flowers will start popping out everywhere.

No knitting news.

The office is painted. I tried - really I did! - to get a picture of the color, but it's so pale, it looks exactly like the trim. Gene (who did his duty - haha, I said duty - by painting some)

said it looks like a 6 year old girl's room. I think it looks like a slightly fresher version of the wall color one might imagine in a mental hospital in the 1960s. But I like it. :) My Polish Mafia husband, notwithstanding. It's still a work in progress, and when I finish up this blogging thing, I shall make the curtains. The fabric is cut and ironed (*shudder* I hate ironing).

While I was getting the curtains ready, I decided to try to organize my sewing room a little. It has a path, now. But I did manage to clean off enough workspace to make the curtains. That is, until I remembered that I had to make the Thank You basket we decided to make for our next door neighbors. (They watched the dogs for us while we were in Connecticut and New Jersey.)

Gene said it looks Martha Stewart-ish. I think that was a complement, haha, but I just tried to make it cute with what I had on hand. I couldn't find any white tissue paper, so I had to improvise. I used paper bags and some of the leftover white fabric from the curtains I will someday sew. I got cute puppy paw ribbon, and some black ribbon with white dashes, and made it all work somehow. Truely, this is not what I had in mind when I started - but I like the way it turned out. The paws are punches, and my favorite part is the part from our dogs - Pelli, Sasha and Emma - to Cody, the neighbor's dog.

The tag is around a bag of homemade dog cookies. I thought that would be cute, you know? The box said just add water. How hard could that be? Well, the just adding water was sticky and messy, but not horrible. The rolling out of the dough wasn't all that bad. The cutting through the oats and whatever else is in these things was awful! I had dents in my hands, and I eventually had to use the rolling pin to try to cut through the dough. But in the end, they turned out very cute and my dogs, at least, love them.

Well, that's enough for now. I must get ready for Travis, Kat and Taylor to come this weekend. There will be a baby in this house! Eeek!

J