T Stands for Lots of Outside Time

      Hi everyone. Happy new week to you.  If you celebrated any spring holidays recently I hope they were good for you. Also hello to everyone who stops by for T Day over at  Bleubeard's and Elizabeth's        blog.  I want to wish our lovely T Day hostess a happy birthday, or should I say Bearthday since T day this week happens to fall on Earth Day.

     After a snowy week, last week we had some nice spring weather, including some warmer weather too. It was an outside week for me. I did a lot of  yard work ❤ and took a long beach walk one day too.  Plus I got some new glasses. This first photo is of me inside of Costco when I picked up my glasses. They say big glasses are back in.

    Here's a snapshot of me in my new sunglasses in my car before I was going to drive home. My daughter asked me to take photos and send them to her so she could see what I picked out. I thought I would share them with you also. 

     As I mentioned, I also did a lot of outside work. In last week's T day post I wrote about how I was going to move and spread out  some rose bushes. They are all moved now. This week I need to get some bark mulch and mulch the area. You can also see some of my irises coming up on the left too.

    My daffodils are way up but not budding or flowering yet. The little green leaves around them are the sweet woodruff which has spread out nicely in the last few years and the rest of the green is moss. If raking didn't rip up moss, I think I would love a whole lawn full of moss. It's an amazing plant.

 I  have a few crocuses flowering-finally. 😏

The seeds I planted a couple of weeks ago are really growing. First of all here's some kale.

And here's some spinach.

In a big planting bag I put in some beet and carrot seeds. The bigger seedlings in the front are the beets. My carrots are just starting to break the soil.

I also have a little bit of garlic coming up too.

When I picked up my glasses at Costco I bought a new rosemary plant. 

     I need to plant that in a better pot. It's also finally warmed up enough to  start some other plants, but  not outside yet.

  And because it's T day, I need to share a drink photo. I mentioned that I went for a long beach walk last week. I hadn't seen my friend Jo in awhile so instead of taking beach photos we spent 4 .25 miles (6.8 km) catching up. Then we went to lunch at a place called the Airport Cafe. It's at a small airfield, and in the restaurant they have planes that move around the ceiling on a track. 

      If you have a window seat or sit outside, you can watch actual planes take off and land. On the day we went it was fairly windy so I didn't see any planes besides the ones on the track above me.

     This cafe is only open until 2 PM, and they serve breakfast all day. On that day's daily specials they had a pulled pork and cheddar cheese omelette which sounded tasty so we both ended up ordering it.

     That omelette was big enough for 2 meals, but somehow I managed to eat almost all of it. (But I couldn't finish the potatoes or toast.)  I was pretty full by then and since I'd spent a couple hours walking in the morning,  when I got home I took a long (and wonderful)  nap. 😏

    That's all for me. Have a happy T day and week ahead. 

T Stands for Spring Excitement (well only if you like gardening)

 Hi everyone. And hello to all the folks who stop by Bleubeard's and Elizabeth's blog for T day.

     Last week wasn't the most exciting week for me as I was finishing up a few projects which really meant reorganizing and cleaning up a few messes around the house. I'm happy I got them all completed, but I'm sure you don't want to read about them.  😏 I had some garden time too. Everything is getting green  which is very exciting. 

    It's amazing how between morning and evening leaves have popped out more, and the gardens have filled in more. I actually even need to do some dreaded weeding.

     I really had hoped to get this wall painted. This is one side of my  husband's workshop, a structure that was on the property when we bought it.  The garden has grown up so much I'm afraid I'll squish plants if I put a ladder in there right now, so I guess painting it will have to wait until late summer or fall. (I'm not holding my breath my husband will get his shop cleaned up by then however-😬)

     What's also exciting is that we opened up the screen porch this past weekend. Some of you who stop by frequently might know how much I love my screen porch.

     This year I washed all the doors before my husband put them up. That took a while, and I was pretty wet by the time I finished. 

     The 3 screened walls of my  porch are made by using screen doors. In the fall my husband puts up plastic, we put all the yard paraphernalia into the area, and then he puts plastic over the doors and closes it up until spring. 

      Yes, my porch is still a mess. Mostly what's pushed up against the wall is my porch furniture. Cleaning the porch will be one of this week's projects. I want to repaint the floor here also, but I'm going to wait for the weather to (hopefully) dry out a bit before I tackle that project.

     All this work means I need to relax a bit too.  You might remember last Mother's Day weekend I went to Charleston, South Carolina with a friend. We visited the Bigelow Tea Garden, which is the only large scale tea plantation in the United States. During that visit we were told that the first cut of tea leaves for the year made the most delicate black tea. I tried some last year, and I had to agree. A couple of weeks ago  I received an email  that I could pre-order some of this year's first cut tea. I ordered myself a bag. It arrived at the end of last week, and you can see, I was about to make myself an evening cup of tea. 

That's all for me this T day. I hope you have great T day and week ahead. 

Sunday

 Hi everyone. I hope everyone is having or had a super weekend.

     Today I want to share my last page for Valerie's Geometric Forms challenge at Art Journal Journey. Thank you Valerie for hosting. I wish we could continue this challenge longer because it was such fun playing with geometry. Also, I'm sending a big  thank you to everyone who has joined in. 

       Of course there is still time to participate in this challenge since it runs through the end of the month, and that is not until Tuesday 

     My page today started by me tracing some various sized circles. Then I used inks, watercolor paints, acrylic paints,  markers, rubber stamps, die cuts  and a white pen around those circles. I finished by using some cut out words.

I am also linking up to Gillena's Sunday Smiles. 

This past week my daffodils have started to bloom. That is making me smile.

     And my raking is done. 😀Now it is onto the other garden chores. But before I go there, I'm taking a  minute to enjoy how much more green everything has gotten. since last weekend. This next photo is the one from last weekend that I shared this past Monday for T day, and then you can see my garden just 7 days laters in the second photo.

And one more photo for you. The reflection in my gazing  ball is cool.

I just love this time of year when everything is greening, growing and starting to bloom. Enjoy the rest of your weekend and happy start to the new week. 

Folksy

 Hi everyone. Happy weekend to you.

It looks like it's going to be nice weather which is always welcome, even though a quick shower would be nice to help out with all the pollen. I just hope those bees I see flying in and out of the hive are collecting a lot of it (pollen). 

Today I have a fun junk journal spread to share at Aimeslee's challenge at Art Journal Journey. By now you probably know her theme is flowers.

I think I've also finally finished sharing my junk journal with you. 

You can see the roses plus the other flowers in the bunting images.

I used some magazine paper and some images, all from old FLOW magazines. I also used a bit of an old Japanese book as well as some punched out buttons.  Finally I made a border around the page with a white pen. 

And to wrap up my post, let me share some spring views. The other day I went with a friend to Bedrock Gardens, which is my local botanical garden. 

The horses aren't at the garden but at the farm next door.

Have a great start to your weekend.

Planting Seeds

Hi everyone. 

It's garden time over at Rain's Art Date this week with a theme of Planting Seeds. Since I enjoy gardening, I thought today I would share just a few of my spring gardening projects.

I am always on the lookout for a mild pepper plant for my garden that actually gives me a good harvest of peppers. I seem to have great luck with jalapenos, but most years, only so-so luck with bell peppers. Last year I saw some Japanese shishito pepper plants at my local garden center. They said they were sweet peppers, and I'm up for experimenting, so I picked up a 6 pack (of seedlings) and gave them a try.

This is not my photo, but gives you a good view of how these peppers look in case they are new to you, as they were to me last year. They look a lot like jalapenos, don't they?

I had a great crop of these Japanese peppers last year. In fact, I had so many I left 8 of them to dry on my kitchen windowsill all winter. You can see in this next photo ( I took last year),  that the peppers turned yellow and then after that (as you can just see in the right hand side of the photo), they turned red. 

Eventually they dried out and hardened.

This spring I picked up one of those stay-moist little seed starter containers. Most of the time I sow seeds directly into soil, but I was experimenting and if these grew, I wanted to get a head start to becoming some good sized plants for the veggie garden. (Living in the northeast I started these inside in March, but they can't be plant in my garden-for fear of a late frost-until late May.)

I just planted these white seed growth containers  in my garden cold frame earlier this week. I'll have to see how they do.

I did start some colder weather plants in my cold frame. I did lettuce, kale and spinach. I can't wait to have some fresh greens, and I'm happy to see that I have a lot of seedlings just  popping out of the ground. 

My cold frame is not very big, so  now that I put my pepper seeding in it also, there isn't any room for any more seedlings.  When I mentioned to my husband I should get a second cold frame, he rolled his eyes at me in a way that said he thought I was nuts. I didn't buy one this year, but there are still other years if I really get into starting plants. And I know I could start some in milk/water containers, but I have enough other projects right now I am poking away at.

I have one more plant coming up in my veggie garden. 

Years ago I planted some asparagus seeds. Those seeds grew, and every year I get a few stalks to eat. Last year the greenhouse near me was having it's early July closing down sale, which is buy one plant and get one free. They had a couple of asparagus plants, so I picked them up and planted them near my one plant. Both of those plants are shooting up stalks. I'm still waiting to see what my older from seed plant grows this year.

And speaking of seeds, can you see all the bird seed hulls on the ground? In the winter the bird feeders are next to my veggie garden, but I move them further away in the ncie weather so that the chipmunks don't eat away at my garden plants. Or at least I hope moving the feeders helps with that problem. And you can tell I haven't yet cleaned out the ground in my veggie garden. Smile.

That's all for me today. I hope May is treating you well.