I'm back and it looks like spring around here

It's been ten days since my last post.  During those ten days I got another chemo treatment and spent another  46 hours wearing the portable pump. It seems to take longer to  snap back after a treatment now, and I am perpetually tired.  Which is a shame because the weather had been glorious and I would love to be messing about in the dirt and pulling weeds. As it is, I've managed to keep the plants in the greenhouse and the little seedlings  that have now moved outside watered, and to keep the bird feeders filled.  I've even managed to take the dogs for a walk a few times, and cleaned up my very messy study, banishing the dust bunnies that had multiplied...well, like rabbits! And the kitchen floor- I  had to mop it- it had   gotten in such a state I feared the  board of health would be out to  close down the kitchen any day now if I didn't get some of the dog hair, tracked-in  dirt, splattered grease and other unidentifiable nastiness  swept up and mopped.

I've also  gotten outside to snap a few  pics  to  show that spring is finally on  its way. 

A welcome sign of spring!

The sun was shining this morning!  The beautiful azure sky  provided a lovely backdrop for the  skeletal tree branches gently swaying in the wind. But it was cold!  After  nice warm temperatures a few days ago, the rain and wind blew in  cold weather again.   Except for  checking on the seedlings in the greenhouse and  re-filling the bird feeders I didn't venture out today.

But when I did venture out to fill the feeders I was greeted by our first daffodil bloom of the year! There she was,  a lovely golden beauty, "fluttering and dancing in the breeze."  She kept her head down so as  not to lose her  hat, I  think. She was alone, but  was surrounded by several fat buds  ready to burst open and join her any day now. On this date last year we had snow, and we  may get some more this year, but for right now, I'll take any sign of spring I can get, so am very grateful to the daffodil.

 

Energized by the beautiful weather

Today was another beautiful day.  The temperature  got up to seventy degrees Fahrenheit and it truly felt like spring.  I got some more seeds planted, then Mr. G and I did a little yard work.  Mostly  it was Mr. G. doing he work, trimming shrubs and raking up pine cones and branches that had fallen in the wind and rain, although I served as consultant on the pruning and   bagged up  my fair share of pine cones. Then  the girls and I went for a little walk enjoying the  weather and the scents and sights, which included   some  flowers  blooming and some about to burst into bloom.

 The spring-like weather  must have energized me because I wasn't the  least bit tired   when it was time to cook supper. I  used a menu and recipes from the Pollan Family cookbook: Easy chicken Parmesan with fresh mozzarella, roasted asparagus with frizzled shallots and for dessert, raspberry pudding cake.

I began with the pudding cake, greasing a square pan and heating the oven.   I mixed up the  batter, then cooked the raspberries in a syrup along with some raspberry preserves. Here you can see the batter ready to go in the pan, and the syrup  cooking on the stove in the two top pictures. The botton pictures show the raspberry syrup poured on top of the batter in the pan, ready to go in the oven, then the  finished pudding cake.  Which, if I do say so myself, was quite delicious! 

  The chicken Parmesan with the roast asparagus  was supposed to look like this photo from the cookbook:

 But mine looked like this. Definitley  in need of a beauty makeover or a food stylist! It may not have looked beautiful  but the chicken was  very tender, and quite spicy, but not too spicy, while the asparagus, although it looks a little overcooked was very good-  a little crisp but not at all tough or stringy and very easy to chew.  i cooked some extra cutlets, so we'll probably have them again tomorrow night, along with some more  freshly roasted asparagus.

Sproutage! We Have Sproutage!

The last few days have been rainy, windy,  gray days with no sunshine to brighten things up. So it was a lovely surprise to be greeted by the sight of  little green plants popping up in the trays I seeded last week.

You can barely see them, but that's the Swiss Chard on the left and some basil on the right.  I seeded the basil a bit more thickly than I would have liked.  Well, actually, I shook the packet a little too vigorously and the seeds are so tiny that there was no way to fish them out of the vermiculite, so I'll have  more little  seedlings of basil to pot up and may have to  make a much larger area for basil in the herb garden.But, really, can one have too much basil?  I think not ;-)

There is something so exciting about  those first seeds emerging. Like the jonquils that  pop up, sometimes through the snow, they are little messengers from Mother Nature, sent to let us know that winter will end soon and Spring is on its way.  I'm excited about the prospect of having  the tomatoes and eggplants emerge soon, and sowing more seeds.  I've already set the  fluorescent lights over these two sprouting babies to make sure they get about 15 hours of light  a day. I was able to turn the lights off  for most of the day today because we had beautiful glorious sunshine streaming in the greenhouse, making  artificial light necessary only when the sun faded.

Yes, Spring is on the way! There may be  more dull, gray days of winter before us,  maybe even some snowy days, but there will be  more sunny days, too, and Spring WILL come!

Spring Sprigs and Shuttles

Spring is a season of gifts from Mother Nature, as trees and plants awaken from their winter sleep, unfurl their leaves and petals, then burst forth in glorious riots of color against the brilliant spring sky. The redbud out front woke up a few weeks ago. In fact, it burst awake suddenly,its empty limbs suddenly awash in deep pink blooms.

We've been watching the dogwood outside the window for a week now. It's been a little groggy and slow to fully wake, but this morning it greeted the day with a mass of white blossoms bobbing in the breeze.

I've always thought of dogwood as only an ornamental tree because of its small size and delicate features. I was surprised to learn that it was once widely used in industry, where its hard, strong, smooth wood was used to make weaving shuttles and spools for textile mills, as well as small pulleys, mallet heads, jeweler’s blocks, and turnpins for shaping the ends of lead pipes. In earlier times, according to a 1973 pamphlet from the USDA Forestry Service, dogwood root bark was used to treat fevers and a scarlet dye was made from its roots.

I now have a new appreciation for this beautiful little tree, and wonder how many early settlers wore clothes fashioned from fabric woven with help from a dogwood shuttle then dyed with dogwood root dye.