Warmer

We've been keeping busy doing what we do.  I'm still working on my first sock project...I'm stuck right now and have another lesson in a couple of days.  

We are still doing our smoothies...we switched to doing our veggie/greens in the morning and the fruit/greens in the afternoon.  It is working much better for us, we were wanting to really increase our raw veggies and some afternoons we just wouldn't get them in because they aren't as yummy as the fruit.  I like that we aren't starting the day with the sugary fruits and getting them in the afternoon when we need the boost more.  

Roses are sprouting like crazy.

This weekend on Larry's hike he ran into a couple of people who warned him that a mountain lion had crossed the trail in front of them.  Monday we went to Roseville and boy was it pretty, the trees are blooming and flowers were planted all around the malls.  

Roses getting busy.

Today I had Gracie micro-chipped.  I have a delicate flower and drama queen with four legs and fur.  I'm sure it hurt, a grain of rice sized piece of plastic was injected under her skin between her shoulders, but after a few hours she was clearly sore and not feeling well.  She stood looking at me and shivered as pathetically as she could and moved like she was 20 instead of 2.  She was/is very lethargic and not her usual crazy self.  I called the Vet and of course it is highly unusual, but as I really feel like she is just in pain, they recommended some aspirin.  She's eating and going outside to do her business, so I expect she'll feel better tomorrow.  My little Princess.

Asian pear getting ready to bust out.

We spent a couple hours in the lovely sun yesterday spreading manure in the flower beds. I am always excited seeing what has wintered over and thinking about the possibilities for this years plantings.  I transplanted some daylilies, have some strawberries to move, a spirea to move and my new camellia to plant in a pot to hang out under the pistache trees.  The daffodils I planted mid winter are coming up and I can't wait to get their pictures in a week or two.

AND...woo hoo!!!  Only a week now until my sister gets here!  We have quite a lot of fun planned.

They get so far and then just hang out waiting for whatever
tells them to bloom

These grew like crazy last fall and I can't wait
to see them bloom this year.

COLD, COLD, COLD

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Wow, nearly 70 a couple days ago and today barely 40 and mostly in the 30's, rain and at one point white fluffy stuff was mixed with the rain.  We can always use the rain, but we could do without this ridiculous cold!  

Just yesterday for the first time this season I saw the lizards were out, now they are back to hibernating for sure...I hope they enjoyed their sunbathing on the rocks.

Today I toddled off to pilates and came back feeling so much better.  I was really challenged this weekend with something in my right hip hitting me like a cattle prod.  I tweaked or squished something doing yard work on Friday, but didn't feel it until late the next day.  Oh well, such is life.

Knitting my first sock ever on circular needles, easy
once my brain could get itself around push this needle
back through these stitches, pull this needle through these, rub your tummy three times and
hop up and down on one foot....hahaha!

Planted two David Austen roses...a pink climber for a pole in the garden and a small shrub for a large pot on the deck.  Can't wait to see how they do.  

Being a cold gloomy day meant it was a great day for making a large pot of turkey soup from the frozen Christmas dinner bones.  Scrumptious!

Most of my orchids are getting ready to bloom soon,
sending up their shoots, some with two this year.  That big
spiky leafed plant on the right is my pineapple plant,
started a couple of years ago from the top of a pineapple
we bought at the supermarket.

Happy Heart Day

These are some of the oddest fungi I've seen.  Larry discovered them
under the deck.  They look like the undersides of mushrooms cupped up.  

This grouping of daffodils is happy looking and  letting us
know spring is getting closer!

This was a discarded bulb that was floating around in the soil
when I was planting this shrub.  It wasn't planted deliberately but was the first to bloom.

Gracie does not look comfortable but was sleeping and
with her eyes open.

We had a few days of nice weather, but this afternoon it clouded up and we have rain and cold nights predicted for this week.  A couple of days ago while we were outside planting a couple of new rosebushes we heard the first flock of pelicans flying north.

My pretty Valentine bouquet.  

Cold again

Earth shakes in Cool, pigs fly!!!  Woke me up enough to blog.....hahahaha.

Not much new here, but thought I would check in.  We've just been doing the usual stuff. Larry is putting in some irrigation for the trees we planted last year.  I've been taking care of things in the house...translation:  house cleaning, laundry...necessary stuff, but boring.  I will say it is good exercise, I try to make it go by faster by putting in stuff I've learned at pilates.  We are still doing our two smoothies a day, fruit in the morning with greens and veggies with greens in the afternoon.

I'm still going to pilates three times a week and I've been knitting more in the evenings.  I am doing a mystery square afghan with a friend.  Her friend sends us a pattern once a month.  No picture of the finished pattern.  So each square is a mystery until we get it going and each is giving us challenging new stitches to learn.  At the end of the year we'll have a dozen 12" X 12" squares and after we put them together we'll each have a finished blanket.  I am on square number two and it is fun, even though I ripped this one out and started over after being 16 rows in...I had made a mistake and couldn't find it which would have thrown off the whole thing.  I knew I had made a mistake because I had counted my stitches and I was short one, so I missed something somewhere.  I am also working on a shawl with some really soft yarn that I have never used, it should be really pretty when its finished.

I have also decided to try being...oops, I mean be a writer so I make time for that every day.  

Gracie is doing really well, we love her, just wish her fur would stay on her.  Being pet-less for ten years got us liking a pet hair free existence.  Oh well.  I don't like dust either, but I'm happy to have a home and furniture to dust so it all works out in the end.

We've had another cold weather spell, back below freezing at night and breezy cold days.  We had one rainy/hail day.  We are ready for the warmth to come back and stay.

A cold day but sunny had Larry soaking up some warmth.
Gracie had been in the sun, she follows it as it moves, here she looks rather disgusted  that someone
is in HER sun.

Oh, you all probably don't remember what the heck I'm talking about here, but in past postings I've put up some pictures of bushes with red berries around here and have called them coffeeberry shrubs/bushes.  When I was researching them a year or so ago I must have found the one picture that had them named wrong.  I was out with a friend a couple of weeks ago and she set me straight...they are Toyon bushes.  Now you know the rest of the story.   I doubt I'll be able to remember where the pictures are but someday maybe I'll go through the archives and edit the pictures.