What Are Quilters Blogging About Today?

Anybody have cabin fever, yet?  One way to fight that feeling is to get outside, especially with spring making our temperatures warmer.  Digging in the dirt is a cure for the inside blues, isn’t it?  I feel for those of you stuck in city apartments, or in cold weather, where there are no gardens nearby.  We are so fortunate to live on our beautiful mountainside, with forest all around us.  So, I hope you enjoy a walk around our place today, with some pictures taken over the past couple of weeks.  My bulbs have bloomed beautifully, at least the ...

A month ago none of us would have known that we were going to be where we are today.  If you had known, what would YOU have done differently (besides stock up on toilet paper...LOL)?  How are you doing right now?  My prayer is that you are all doing well.  I have watched the sometimes funny social media memes depicting everything from how parents are handling new-to-them homeschooling to concerns about grocery shortages.  Would you have lived your life the same way?

I never knew how to 100% explain the rationale why Hubs and I live the way we ...

Yesterday, I sat on the back porch reading and watching the birds feeding in the rain. All of a sudden there was a whoosh and mourning doves, finches, and sparrows  all took off at once.  I looked around to see what had startled them and saw this Cooper's (?) hawk settle on the fence.

(Now I can't get that song out of my head!)

I told you I was going to need an intervention, but you didn't believe me.  The thing about being a gardener is you sit all winter and wish it was spring/summer.  You plan for all the things you will grow.  You plan for all the new things you have never tried.  You think about past successes and failures.  Then those seed catalogs start coming.  You envision your garden somewhat like this:

In the garden this month, there has been an interesting contrast of dull days and bright color, sunny mornings and then snow followed by days of rain.  Just the day before our QOV sew day, it snowed.  As I watched the snow fall, it seemed that every bird in the neighborhood needed a bit of extra fuel to deal with the cold.

Fat flakes came down all morning.

A bluebird showed up to share the bounty.

The red bellied woodpecker shares the buffet with a titmouse.

On the snow covered ground, a flock of juncos was looking for seeds dropped ...

with very little being done by me.  Oh dear, I shall be hoping to get a lot better so there can be some progress made soon.
Had a  most fabulous visit to Wellington for the 5th birthday of Marceline Moore.  A schoolgirl now, oh my!  Where has this last five years gone I wonder, with so many major changes.  We managed to navigate the 29 steps up to Richard & Kea's house, twice I might add, lol, but it was maybe a bit much.  Should have used the brain and had a bigger rest gap between trips, but I was ...

...but I'm close!

January in the garden is not really very colorful, but here and there we find some things to make us smile.  The geranium didn’t know it was winter when it bloomed in December.

And it still didn’t know in January, as it is still blooming.  I have high hopes of overwintering these again.  They are the same ones that I successfully kept alive over the winter last year.

I whacked off the parsley to harvest the last of it in October.  It is putting out new growth again, so I’ll have some fresh leaves for cooking over ...

Seed magazines have started piling up at our house.  The temptation is strong and I am weak!  Many of my YT friends are doing a collaboration of 5 Gardening Tips in 5 Minutes.  This will somewhat be my contribution.  :)

I'm trying to keep this roll going after the Sunflower quilt.  I managed to put two baby quilts together for Shala's newest grandchildren and enjoyed making something that was small and simple. The little pink quilt has an embroidered centre that I did while re-familiarising myself with the Janome MC500e Embroidery machine.  It was totally from my stash.  The boy's quilt is a little range of fabric I fell in love with in a quilt shop after Lucas was born.  Couldn't resist of course.

Now I have Kea's Star Wars quilt up on my design ...

Autumn color is slow to develop this year, and it will be well into November before we can say we are seeing the peak.  Rain this past week should help some leaves stay on the trees, and freezing temps overnight may bring out some color before they all fall off.  At least I hope so.  Still, there are things to do in the garden before it gets into winter.

The hydrangeas continue to bloom, last week the shrub was covered in these pink and green blooms.

Here and there, a beautiful lavendar one will appear.

The dahlias are going crazy ...

On Oct. 4, we finally got rain!  And a little cooler weather (low 90's) that has refreshed the garden.  Soon I'll have to pull up annuals that have continued to bloom with zest, but while they continue to bloom, I resist.  The low, bushy zinnias I planted this year have been such a delight of color, and I'm collecting a few seeds to try next year.  Not that I have a problem with buying the plants, because the way they spread out was so fast, covering more area than I anticipated.  While tall zinnias are still a ...