T Stands for Mother's Day and 3 Drinks

    Hi everyone. Happy new week to you. Since it's the start of the new week, it's time for T day again also over at Bleubeard's and Elizabeth's blog .

   Last week we had one warm day and then some cool weather. It was the kind of weather when I was a teacher we used to love, because it didn't remind the kids of a beach day so we could all be productive. 😏 However, now that I am retired,  I wouldn't have minded a bit more sun and warmth, but at least with the cooler weather I didn't mind staying inside to avoid the black flies. 🪰😉

    I hope everyone who celebrates Mother's Day had a lovely day. I celebrated on Saturday, a day early, but it ended up being a wonderful way to spend a rainy day. ❤

   Originally my daughter and I were going to meet in Concord (New Hampshire) and go see a movie. Since it was raining, my husband decided to join us, which made it even better because I could spend a family day with my 2 favorite people.

  We all enjoyed the film, even my husband. How could you not with those 4 stars? It may be about fashion (which believe me my husband is one of the most un-fashion conscience people on the planet), but it's still a good story. And luckily for my husband, I forced (grin) him to watch the first one  from 2006 on TV earlier in the week so he didn't go into the film blind. (And he liked the first film too.)

    Here's my first drink for T day this week. Lunch was popcorn and Diet Coke at the movies.

    We didn't know how crowded it was going to be, so we arrived a bit in the early side. That worked out better because we could chat. And although not sold out, I'm glad we got there early since the theater was mostly full.

   Before we went into the theater my daughter handed me a package of hot dogs for Mother's Day.

    Hot dogs you say? (And yes, they went into a cooler before the film.) Of course there's a story behind them.

    Earlier in the week when we were on the phone I said I was craving a hot dog, which is something that occasionally tastes good in warm weather. (I like them grilled nice and black with mustard, onion and pickle relish- typical New England style.)  She mentioned how she always buys these McKenzie hot dogs, and I said I'd never heard of them.

   In her snarky way she went on and practically accused me of not looking properly at the grocery store. OK, so  when I then went to the grocery store, I spent so much time in front of the hot dog packages looking for McKenzie hot dogs, and no I did not see any.

 

   When we next spoke on the phone and I told her I couldn't find any, she told me I should have gone to Hannafords (a local grocery chain) because that's where they sell them, not Market Basket (the local grocery chain where I had been). She then decided she was going to look up these hot dogs on her phone. She's reading to me what it says on the website where they are sold. Then she says 'Oh I didn't know these come from Vermont and they are not sold everywhere."  She also added "Oh, they are sold at the Hannafords in my area (Keene), but no one in your area sells them." 

   She gave me a weak apology 😉, and I replied that next time I went to her house I was going to find some of these McKenzie hot dogs because now I HAD to try them.

   When my daughter pulled up next to me in the parking lot before the movie, she smiled and held up this package of hot dogs which she stopped and bought me for Mother's Day.  Ha ha. So on the actual Mother's Day I had 2 McKenzie hot dogs in the delicious brioche buns I had bought. They were black and served typical New England style. And yes, they were delicious hot dogs. 

   You also see my drink #2 for T day, my glass of milk.

    She also gave me one of these fun pop up cards.

    

Which will spend the summer sitting on my fireplace mantel.

       After the movie the three of us went out to dinner. My daughter suggested we go to a restaurant that I had never been to, but she and my husband had, called the Red Blazer, also in Concord. They served a variety of food, and all 3 of us opted for burgers. And another round of Diet Cokes. Here's drink #3.

    Plus I was happy to try out this restaurant. It made a really lovely day.

   I hope everyone has a really lovely week ahead too. And happy T day too.

The Bird and The Bees

     Hi everyone. Happy Sunday to you. I hope the new month is going well for you.

    Today I am joining Nicole for her Sunday in the Art Room and I'm also joining Gillena for her Sunday Smiles.  I'll also be linking  up my art piece to Mia's Birds challenge at Art Journal Journey.

   On this page I used various colored paints in the background. I also stenciled some leaves and added some black dots with a Sharpie. There's also some white paint pen and Sharpie dots too.  Then I added a tissue paper image, which I did not like.  But that  was an easy fix. I have my very old bird book from a college Vertebrate Zoology lab where one of the things we had to do was identify some birds. It's quite outdated in some ways (since I graduated from college in the early 1980's), so I am chopping it up for art when I need bird pictures. It seems a shame to chop up a good book, but it is now getting some use at least. 👍

   I cut out the crow and covered up the misfortune with the tissue paper. I added a piece of painted lace to give him a place to stand. And then I cut apart a paper frame and used 2 corners of it to finish off my page. I'm quite happy with the results now. 😏

   Last week one day I set up a second beehive since later this week I have another box of bees being shipped. I wanted to air out the unused  hive.  I've tried for 4 years to get a second box going, and for several various reasons, I have never had any luck or success. One year those bees in the second hive even combined with the bees I already had.

   This year I'm hoping things will work out. 👍🤞🤞🤞

  When I set up the new hive box the other day, I went into my old hive to give it a good go through.  I was surprised to find the top box was really loaded with honey. 

   Look at the capped (the white) honey on this frame.  The other side was just as full.  All 10 frames in this box were like this. Either the bees ignore this honey all winter (which I doubt) or they have been very very busy lately.

   You can also see below that the bees were expanding their combs upward. It was time for another box.

    I added another smaller honey super on top. I hope it fills up with honey so I can remove it and take the honey, and then, since it is still very early in the season, I can put another box on top for the bees. I haven't had this situation before because usually at this time of year the hive is pretty depleted. That's one thing I love about beekeeping, the bees keep throwing new situations at me, and I am always learning new things.

   Plus you might think I'm weird, but I find watching the bees very interesting and very relaxing. I don't usually even suit up anymore, but I do have to really relax completely. If I'm relaxed, the bees basically ignore me, and I can stand there and watch them for a while too.

   I'll let you know how the second box goes. Until then, I hope you have a honey of a day- grin. 

   

T Stands for In The Yard (Mostly) This Early Spring

    Hi everyone. Happy new week to you. And hello to everyone who stops by for T from Bleubeard's and Elizabeth's blog.

   Last week we had a stretch of some cold weather along with some wind. One day it was cold enough for winter jackets. 😒 Besides a couple of walks and getting together with a friend one afternoon, I spent much of my week working outside in the yard. I wanted/want to get some things finished before the black flies come out and drive me back into the house. 😬

     I know spring in my area arrives slower than many people's. There's no leaves on the trees yet. But I do finally have quite a few spring blooms like a few small hyacinths.

    And lots of daffodils. 

 This morning (Monday) I finished my big spring raking projects. I had hoped to finish this up sooner, but with all the wind last week, it would have been a losing proposition to even try to clean up the leaves. 🍃

    I'm enjoying a neat almost empty flower garden because it won't be long until it's full of returning perennials. 

   Elsewhere in the yard both of my rhubarb plants have popped up.

   My lawn also needs some TLC. This year I'm filling in some of the bare spots with some lawn clover.  I've been putting it down in small batches, 

 and you can see my early batches have started to sprout.

   Some onions that didn't sprout by last fall and were left in the ground have sprouted too.

   I also planted some early season seeds. I have kale, arugula rocket and some garden peas. They are all coming up. 😏

    My other latest project is doing a bit of bark mulching. Only a couple of gardens, the ones right along the house,  get mulched. This is my rose garden, and every day the little tiny leaf buds and now little tiny leaves are getting bigger.

    One of the best signs all year is when the green house down the road announces their opening day.

    My husband has also been busy putting up a new deck railing on the back deck. 

    He's not done yet because he ran out of the clips you need for construction. He ordered some and they should be here this week. He's got it half done, so hopefully next weekend the weather will cooperate and he'll get it finished.

If you look carefully at the hole of my bluebird house, you can just make out Mama's head. 

 And I need a drink for tea. The other morning my husband and I went out to run a few errands; he needed some screws, and I needed the bark mulch. When I got home it was going to be bark mulch spreading time, so to keep me from getting hungry during the job, I took the hubby out for a late breakfast/early lunch first.  We stopped at our local favorite hole in the wall breakfast and lunch place. You can see our diet Pepsi's . 

   I had a cheese omelet, some baked beans and a grilled English muffin that tasted great but looked like pancakes. 

  I still have a few more yard chores to get done before the rain arrives later in the week. We need rain though. The weather people on the news keep telling us we're still in a drought from last summer.   It doesn't seem possible with the snow we had this winter, but since it is pretty dry,   lets hope the forecast for rain actually produces rain  and not just light drops and lots of grey skies.

   Sorry for the long post. Have a super T day and week ahead.

T Stands for Winter to Spring

      Hi everyone. Happy new week to you. And hello to everyone who stops by Bleubeard's and Elizabeth's blog for T day.

    Last week I started some of my spring chores like taking out some warm weather clothes from the deep recesses of the closet and putting the heavy winter ones away in their place.  I even started  a bit of yard clean up. 😏

    Other than this past Tuesday which was the day we got an inch of snow, 

we had some beautiful weather last week. It felt like spring-finally! ❤❤❤❤❤

    The door even came off the screen porch and we brought a few chairs outside. Of course, in our one-day little snow event they didn't look very inviting. 😒

  It didn't take long for most of the snow to melt, and hopefully that is it for winter weather.  Last week I went out walking several times. One day I went with friends and then we grabbed lunch but of course I forgot to take any photos. 😉A couple of times I went up to my mother-in-law's home and walked the dogs.

  The previous time I had been there ( to my mother-in-law's home) was 3 weeks before, and the lake looked like this.

    Last Monday I went walking and it looked like this.

   The water still looks cold, but at least the ice is gone.  😏

  Besides the usual spring clean up around my now empty mother-in-law's home, part of this tree came down. I think the rest needs to be taken down too.  It is the one is missing a lot of bark to the right of the lamppost.

    When I went back later in the week (after the little snow event we had) I decided to walk the snowmobile trail because it gets more sun than the road. There were still a few slightly snowy, slightly muddy parts on the road, but I only hit one snow patch on the trail. 

   It was a lovely walk because I didn't meet a single person. I really enjoyed some peaceful time with only some birds singing and the wind slightly  rustling the dried ash leaves still dangling from their branches. 

   At home we have more signs of spring too.  The crocuses are starting to bloom and

lilies and irises are popping up.

   I decided to give a quick rake to this wildflower garden because I do have some daffodils growing there, and last year I never cleaned it out.  It scared Mama Bluebird out of her nest for a few minutes.  I saw her watching me from a nearby tree, and as soon as I walked away, she flew back in. It's not a good photo, but you can just see the base of the bluebird house at the top of the white post.  I also know it's not a great raking job, but in another month or so the plants will have filled in this whole area and I didn't want to keep Mama Bluebird from her nesting business for  too long.

    If you didn't see yesterday's post, the bees' winter enclosure is down, and the bees are living their best bee lives. 

   The other event we always wait for is when the local ice cream window opens up for the season. 😀

  I didn't get a sundae, but for our Sunday lunch the hubby and I each got a dish of ice cream. ❤

   I need a drink for T day this week. Last Friday night the hubby and I had a shopping date night. 😉 We went over to Costco in Maine to get a few things, and we ended up having dinner there too. I had a slice of pizza, and you can see my cup with my Diet Coke in it.

 Plus the spring peepers (a type of frog) are peeping me to sleep at night now, and there are more birds coming back. After the way this past winter went, I had  a very exciting week.

   How about you? Have a super start to the new week and Happy T day too.

     

   

Spring Views

   Hi everyone. It's Friday again. Today I am joining Nicole  for Friday Face Off and also Gillena for Friday Lunch Break.  

   Today I have some recent photos to share, Many of them are signs of spring. When you live where you have a longer winter (and that was especially true this year), these little signs of a new season are very exciting. 😏 Especially since it was just yesterday the last of snow in my yard disappeared!

   Let me start with the face of the almost full moon. During the actual full moon  we had lots of clouds and even some light rain so the moon wasn't visible.

   I always know the weather is about to change for the better once the phoebes arrive.My husband thinks I'm nuts but when I hear their scratchy call "Phoebe" I get excited. They arrived in my area on Monday (3/30), and since they are insect eaters, there must be enough food for them to come back. (Although I have seen them grab some meal worms from the bird feeder.)

Plus Mommy bluebird was bringing grass and twigs to the bluebird house to build herself a nest.

       I moved some dried leaves out of a growing bag where I planted some rhubarb last spring and look, it's sprouting.

Some of the tree buds are getting big.

   Plus the bees are out. Hurrah ❤👍😀 The hive made it through a really tough and cold winter. I have been slowly unwrapping the hive so the bees  can adjust to the still cooler spring temperatures, but I think if the weather stays as it is or even gets warmer by next weekend the winter coverings will be put away.

    Plus there's some green peeking out in the gardens.

   You can tell it's still early spring because the temperatures in the greenhouse have been all over the place. The high is at the top, the low at the bottom. I can open the vent to help cool off the high, but there is no heater to warm up the cold. If the nights stay a bit warmer I should be able to start some plants very very soon. 

    I can't wait for that. 😏

   Wishing everyone a great start to the weekend.