Knitting... and Coyotes

For the past few days I have been doing a lot of knitting. I think its the weather lately that has inspired it. Although the thermometer says 20-25C, it feels much cooler in the house. Maybe that's why I've had the impulse to knit a shawl (Malabrigo lace, Citron shawl), and a shrug knit from 100% alpaca. Unfortunately, I ran out of the alpaca yarn last night, so that project is on hold until I can get some more. Next up on the needles: baby gifts.

As for the coyotes: David and I were in the office the other night, I was browsing Ravelry and David was playing a game, when I thought I heard something from outside. It kind of sounded like a dog, but it was coming from an odd direction. One of our neighbours has a dog that likes to bark, but they live across the road and down a little ways... this barking sound was coming from the property bordering our backyard property line. I went to the back deck to see if it was what I thought it was. Although it was very dark and no moon, I knew what I was hearing was a coyote (you may remember that we saw a pair crossing the back field earlier this year). It sounded like it was communicating with another pack on the other side of the highway. 

I think the sound half way through might be a cat

going through the cat door...

Catching up... again

So far, this month has been pretty crazy... as evidenced by the lack of posts!

On May 4th, I performed in Vanier's 40th anniversary choral concert with the college choir. It was a huge work, very... different...

We still haven't managed to tackle the two remaining gardens that were covered in hay in the fall. The gardeners were supposed to come by in the middle of the week to mow our lawn so we wanted to deal with the hay that had been raked off one of the gardens before the mowers got here. Tuesday evening (May 10th) we raked everything up, and decided since it was decent out, to burn the hay rather than fill countless bags. Needless to say, we got a good roaring fire going!

The following weekend we had some visitors Saturday afternoon, and Sunday my parents came by with lobster for Mother's Day dinner. Boiled lobster, corn-on-the-cob, rice & veggie stir-fry, and cheddar-bay biscuits... topped off by a chocolate-fudge cake... yum!

Last weekend was our busiest and most anticipated weekend! First, it signalized the beginning of our vacation (sort of... we traded 2 days for the following week). Our jobs have a temporary lay-off during the summer, so we'll both be off until mid-August. The weekend kicked off on Friday with alpaca shearing at Magpie Hill Alpacas in North Gower (just south of Ottawa). This is the same farm we helped out last year.

Cria (baby alpaca) with full fleece

Half way through...

 All done!

We had a great time, and we both learned a lot!

Sunday, our nephew was baptized, and I must say I don't think I've ever seen a more quiet baptism... not a squeak from him!

We has a few days to ourselves before we were back to work to help one of our suppliers set up equipment in one of our labs on Thursday, and back for workshops the following day. A great time was had by all, as we learned about ELISA antibody tests and protein analysis through electrophoresis...

That's me pipetting our sample into the gel for electrophoresis

Finally, yesterday we had a beautiful summer day... the thermometer read 25 degrees! David and I managed to finish working on 3 of our gardens: annuals were planted around the deck; our garden by the garage was edged, filled, planted (with dahlias & peonies), and covered with cedar chips; and the garden in front of the barn was edged, filled and planted (with gladiolas) as well! We put some garden lights in the two new gardens, but last night decided that they just didn't fit in there. So, this morning I've moved them to the garden around the deck (the photos were taken yesterday).

Facing driveway                                        Facing Back Yard

Dahlias & Peonies

Gladiolas

We also made another trip for plants this afternoon, and.... Ta Da!

and more gardening...

Yesterday afternoon we managed to finish working one of our English garden beds. Most of the grass removal was done on Saturday, so we only had a small area to work on yesterday. While David was working on teasing the soil out of the grass root (I would have loved to help but the spiders, centipedes, and ants kept me away!) I worked on laying down some mulch for the rock retaining wall, repositioned the rocks, and rebuilt the wall. By the time we were done, we had another reclaimed garden. We managed to keep the daffodils, and another flowering plant (whose name I can't remember)... I can't wait to fill it will colourful flowers!

Another weekend... more gardening projects

 
After a week of wind and rain, the sun finally came out bright and strong this morning. We decided that we would tackle one of the three remaining gardens. The inspiration: the daffodils are starting to come up! After months of looking out the window to our dull landscape, the thought that soon we'll have cheerful yellow flowers out there was enough to get us gardening today. We had several inches of hay to remove, not to mention all that grass to deal with. 

We figured the best course of action was to cut up the "sod" around the flowers we wanted to keep, turn the sod squares over to dry out the soil. David would then shake out the squares to removed as much soils as possible and the grass & roots go to the trash. We're also going to mulch this garden, like the one we did last week, but first we want to plan & plant the garden.

Before: Our Hay-Filled Garden

The De-Constructed Garden

While David was tackling the English garden, I decided it was time to deal with the garden that at one time surrounded the back deck. Of course it's also overrun with grass, but I discovered last weekend that there is already edging in place. So, all that grass got turned over and shaken out. I also managed to plant 5 hosta bulbs (it was a variety pack, so I don't know what ones we'll end up with!). I also planted some morning glory seeds, to climb the deck fencing (purple & deep pink), and we picked up 4 dwarf dahlias (soft pink and white) to go next to the steps. I debated whether or not to plant them, but figured I could wait another week or two to make sure that the risk of frost has passed. 

So, things are starting to look better around here... now I just can't wait for everything to start blooming!

Happy Easter!

What a great weekend we've been having! The weather was absolutely beautiful on Friday, and David and I had a chance to work on some of our gardens. 

We decided on the location for our gladiola garden in front of the barn, and our dahlia garden in front of the shed, facing the road. Since we already knew exactly where we wanted the dahlias, we started with that garden. We removed the grass to create the bed, and our next step (once the "sods" dry out some to recover the soil) will be to lay out the garden edging. 

I was walking around looking at our hay-covered gardens when I decided to check if the spring bulbs were starting to grow. Sure enough, little bits of green were starting to peek through the hay. I decided to start with our garden closest to the garage (it's filled with orange day lillies and purple irises). Last year it was filled with grasses and some weeds, so I tried to pull some of that up... it was pretty much a lost cause. So instead we went off to our local Canadian tire for some dark cedar chips to cover the old grasses (hoping that not allowing them to photosynthesize may result in their 'untimely' death; the lillies are still pushing through!). David came over and hauled up the stone border that became buried in grass last year, and after putting some cedar chips under their previous homes, we rearranged the rocks a bit. The result: a garden that actually looks planned!

While we were at Canadian tire, I spotted a plant that I've been dying to get for a few years now... a corkscrew hazel! We decided the best home for it is by the large rock we have next to the driveway. The plan is to eventually have a decent-sized part-sun/part-shade garden. First we set out to move half of a wild rosebush from in front of the rock to the back, somewhat behind the rock. We then planted the corkscrew hazel behind the newly relocated roses.

The rest of the weekend was pretty quiet. It rained on Saturday, so we had a nice, lazy day, and today I'm preparing a glazed ham for supper.

Happy Easter Everyone!

It's oh, so quiet

Not much has been happening around here lately. Temperatures have been dropping since my last post, including snow, hail and freezing rain on Saturday. Add to that the crazy high winds we get here... we've just been keeping our fingers crossed that we don't lose any trees! 

We had some family & friends over on Saturday to help celebrate my birthday (or as David put's it "another lap around the sun"). We had a great time despite the weather! After years of my cousin (who's more like a sister) trying to blow out my birthday candles, a tradition that has been going on since my 2nd birthday, I decided that we should give up all pretenses and she should just help (especially seeing as the number of candles on the cake will only get larger, right?).

On the crafting front, not much has been going on. The knitting needles were quiet for a quite a while as I recovered from last year's intense knitting (2 stoles for my wedding - maid of honour & bridesmaid; 1 baby blanket that took FOREVER to finish; 2 baby sweaters and a hat (blogged about it here) and that had me knitting until the wee hours of the morning to finish). Well, with 3 more babies expected later this year, needless to say the knitting has recommenced. No photos yet - those will have to wait until another day ;)

Hopefully, with the warmer weather forecast for the weekend, there will be more happening around here!

Painting!

We picked up a gallon on "Sun-dried tomato" a couple of weeks ago, and I've been anxiously waiting for it to get warm enough to paint. I woke up this morning and thought today is the day. It only took 5 hours, but it was sunny and warm... and the end result was well worth it!

Before: Reddish-Brown Doors & Trim:

After: Bold "Sun-Dried Tomato" Red

 I still need to do a second coat and there's two more windows on the other side of the barn that need to be done as well, but they have to wait until the trees next to the barn are removed (I hate to do it, but they're leaning against the roof). Then there will be the garage doors to do... but I think I may need a second gallon of paint for those!

I was hoping to plant the gladiola bulbs along the front, but I was so exhausted after all that painting that it will have to wait for another day.