7 Quick Takes (Vol 164)

The sky is cloudless and blue. The wind is soft. The frost has melted (yes we had scattered frost last night). And it is time to blather. You know the deal. After you have come down from the natural high that is my 7 Quick Takes you need to click on the picture to be whisked, at the speed of John Edward’s downfall from Presidential hopeful to scum of the Earth, over to Betty Beguiles to see what everyone else has been doing.

May the Blather be ever at your back.

1.
The spreading of the mulch is finally done! I finished yesterday afternoon after a 4 hour battle with the pile.

That is always such a nice feeling to scrap up the last of the stuff and then blow any mulch dust off the driveway. And then look at the huge stain on the driveway that will take weeks of rain to finally wash away.

And no, I am not getting out there to scrub the driveway.

Although I thought briefly about it. But I restrained myself.

Spring mulching is one of those tasks that I always start with such enthusiasm and end with loathing and a sigh of relief.

2.
I cast off the first tee-shirt yarn rug last night and oh it is so cute. I am not putting a picture up yet because I will post a “how to” next week. What I will say is that it is a bit harder to knit with this yarn than I had anticipated and the rug, the smaller of the two that I am going to do at the moment, really weighs a lot more that I thought it would.

But they are so cute.

And I am now going to be obsessed with tee-shirt yarn for a bit so be prepared.

3.
It is the little things in life that make us happy.

My Hoya is blooming. There is rejoicing here at Chez Knit. Or at least I am rejoicing.

If you have never grown a Hoya then you might think that the fact that it has flowered would not be a big deal….but you would be wrong. Hoyas are tricky plants. They like to be root bound, they don’t like to be repotted into a bigger pot if at all possible. In fact, they have a hard time blooming if you do. And it takes a long time for a new plant to bloom. My current Hoya is an off shoot of my first Hoya (which inexplicably died about 5 years ago). My first Hoya came from cuttings from Mimi’s Hoya which came from cuttings from Grandma Pringle’s Hoya. My first Hoya took 10 YEARS before it bloomed for the first time.

Yes, I said 10 YEARS. This time it was only 5 years and that was most likely because I was able to save a cutting that already had a flower peduncle on it. Once the plant flowers it will continue to flower in the same place every time as well as adding new places.

And how did I actually know that the Hoya was blooming, considering the fact that I wasn’t looking for it to bloom for several more years?

I could smell the blooms from two rooms away.

HHBL was most startled when I got up, ran into the sunroom and danced around in joy.

Like I said, it is the little things.

4.

Mrs. Robin has made a nest way high up under the eaves of the house right outside my office window. I am hoping to be able to hear baby birds soon.

She gives me the evil bird stink eye every time I go out there to check. Trust me momma bird you are 20 feet up and I am not going to disturb the nest.

At least she isn’t dive bombing me when I am out there.

5.
And speaking of birds…..

The hummingbirds are back. Squeeeeeeee! They showed up all of a sudden around Sunday or Monday. Thank goodness I already had the feeders out for them.

This is a picture that I took last year and it is fuzzy because of the darn light filtering screens on the windows. But I am sure that I will be putting up more hummingbird photos as the season goes by.

I am totally obsessed with them.

6.
Why is it when Spring and Summer roll around that I want to just sit around and read all day. The library looks so inviting and smells so full of books. And I just don’t care about going outside to weed.

Perhaps it is because I used to spend all summer reading when I was growing up.

I worked very hard yesterday spreading the rest of the mulch. I think I deserve some extended reading time.

At least that is my story and I am sticking to it.

7.
The usual end of the week “camera dump” from the little camera.