As you know, some of the cats love to be involved with whatever I’m doing. Mostly Burton and Lemmy – but of the two, Lemmy is definitely the MOST interested. And he absolutely LOVES it when I’m doing something in the catio.

Especially weeding. Weeding is like party time to Lemmy. He bounces all over the place, and loves to come and sit on whatever patch of weeds I’m trying to pull up. It makes the job take twice as long, but he does not care.

This past weekend I was in there weeding, and relocating/splitting some of the perennials that are just starting to bush out. As such, I had a pile of small pots in there with me. Can you guess where this is going…

The pots were just the perfect new addition to his game. Every time I turned around he was shooting one around. And yes… he loves to pick things up and run away with them. If he can fit it in his mouth, chances are he’ll take off with it! He really is a little brat.

It’s a good thing he’s so darn-tooting cute!!!

I did a little painting on the weekend… though not the painting I planned.

I had planned to paint the new raised beds I put together a few weeks ago, and maybe even get a good chunk of the sun porch painted. But the weekend ended up being much cooler than predicted. It stayed above zero, but below 10 C.. so a little too cool to paint.

So Saturday, I spent a chunk of the morning in the garden weeding and moving plants around until I broke my small garden spade (don’t get me started on how things just aren’t made as good as they used to be).

Then I came in and decided to pull out my craft paints, and maybe get a little work done on those decorative planters I got from Michaels a while ago…

And speaking of things not like they used to be…. When I first got back into painting pots a few years ago, I’d bought a pile of Martha Stewart craft acrylics. By last year, I’d used up most of my supply and went to buy more. But it turns out, they aren’t made any more. So… I bought a pile from Michaels from brand called CraftSmart. I didn’t get to use them much until this weekend…

And boy was I disappointed!!!! I’ve gotten better craft paint from the dollar store. The pigments are so weak, you’d need about eleventy billion coats to get any sort of even coverage on your project. I was not a happy camper.

In the end, I gave up after finishing my mushroom planter.

It was done with red and white from the Martha Stewart paints (the two colours I still had left), and the beige base mixed from the crappy paints and the MS white.

I have a collection of good-ole fashioned Folk-Art brand paints in an online shopping basket. I’m just waiting for payday to hit the by button. They were the best brand when I was a teenager, and I hope that hasn’t changed.

If it has, I may just have to suck it up, spring for a few tubs of expensive artist-quality acrylics from the art store, and go back to mixing my own colours!

I am happy to share that I finished the first sock, and have a start on the second..

It’s not much of a start, but a start none-the-less. I am a little dubious about whether I will be able to finish the second one by the end of the month. It’s creeping up awfully fast. And I have our taxes to do this weekend… as well as a tonne of garden/yard stuff. April may be a bust for finishing a knit project, but maybe I’ll be able to double up in one of the other months to come!

With the help of my ginger assistant….

I got a fair bit of stitching accomplished on the weekend.

As you can see, we made some nice progress on the greenery in the little time we had. I didn’t have much of that lighter green left, but Dave needed to make a trip to Home Depot, so I popped next door to Michaels to get another skein of it.

But the skeins were only .79 cents. And I felt silly putting just .79 cents on my card. But I didn’t really need anything else… so I just grabbed a few other colours that tickled my fancy.

You can never have too many colours of floss!

I’d said there’s been no time for sewing lately, but that wasn’t entirely true. I took Wednesday off to take Dave to a medical appointment. It wasn’t until the early afternoon, so Burton and I took the few morning hours we had to bang out another Blockhead block.

We’re still a couple blocks behind on the sew-along, but Burton is pretty pleased with this one, none-the less.

I believe I said, a while back, that I wasn’t going to buy anything more for the garden this year. I already have a pile of perrenials I need to find home for, AND of course, all the seeds I’m planting.

But you knew I wasn’t really going to keep my word, didn’t you?

In my defence, it’s just a small box. AND, I only ordered because they had a coneflower colour I REALLY wanted (Sunseekers Salmon). It was sold out everywhere else so I jumped at the chance.

I did want to try growing potatoes this year, so I bought a bag of seed potatoes. And then I was reading that shallots are sweeter and milder than most onions… and Dave likes’ sweet onions… so I thought why not try some of them.

Then I saw a few other things…

Top left – a pretty red False Sunflower called Luna Rojas (Red Moon?). I have several yellow ones, and I’d love to have a red one

Top middle – Atlantis Sedum. I’ve bought this before, but haven’t been able to get it to grow. This is my last try

Top Right – A gorgeous daylily called Vintage Ruffles because just look at it!!! Stunning!

And bottom – two beautiful irises called Wine & Roses, and Hissy Fit.

Oh… and that coneflower that started it all? They cancelled it and refunded just before the whole box shipped… apparently they were actually out of stock after all! Sigh…

The daffodils are just spectacular this year and I couldn’t be more pleased! Several of the new ones I planted last fall are blooming beautifully. And many of the ones from previous years have obviously multiplied. The spring garden is really starting to look how I imagined it in my head.

If I could only have one spring flower, it would be the daffodil. But I’m not limited so we also have tulips!!!

And Snake-Head Fritillaria

And Crown Imperials

And giant hyacinths

And grape hyacinths.

And so much more to come! More of all of the above, and also alliums, irises, and Spanish bells. Oh how I love spring!

Mom and Dad stopped by last Saturday, as Dad needed to borrow a tool from Dave. Mom brought me some baskets she no longer had need of. I have a bit of a thing for baskets. I love them… and would have far too many if I had my way.

But I’m not the only one in the house who appreciates a good basket….

He had to give each one a thorough inspection before I was allowed to put them in the sewing room.

Up there, they will hold fabric… not cats! Who am I kidding – up there they will hold both!

And speaking of cats and fabric… check out this quilt Mom just finished and put in the shop!

Since there was no sewing this weekend, you’re going to see a lot of my gardens this week, lol!

The garden, as ever, is full of weird and wonderful, unplanned things.

Like this lone little grape hyacinth growing up inside a ring of irises. No idea how it got there – I certainly didn’t plant it there – but there it is!

Or this Allium. It’s sprouted up in the lawn under the hose. In fact – there are three alliums coming up there. I absolutely did NOT plant them there. Nor where they left behind from the previous owner, because they didn’t come up there the past two years since we moved in. My best guess is the squirrels were playing hide-and-seek with my bulbs over winter. I wonder what else they moved around…

I’m not entirely sure what these are. I think they might be ground-cover tulips. I planted some in fall 2022…but not in that particular garden. They were planted in the driveway garden – these ones are a good distance across the yard in the front garden.

I know what these are. They are a double bloom grape-hyacinth. When they bloom, they are just a mess of petals. But “in bud” they are just these weird fuzzy mushroom looking things!

And these are obviously forget-me-nots. Except…. they were supposed to be a perennial bachelor button. I bought them last year from a local gardener who was selling some of her plant divisions. Obviously, things got a little mixed up.

I’m not mad though. I love forget-me-nots – In fact, I have a pack of seeds I planned to plant in the woodland garden this year.

I’m sure the garden will bring many more surprises in the coming weeks. Anything curious happening in your gardens?

There was no sewing this weekend. The weather was perfect so I spent almost all of it outside. The front beds were in a bad need of a good cleaning. I’d done all the dead stems and stuff in the back gardens, but hadn’t gotten to the front yet.

And with the rain we had mid-week, followed by beautiful warm weather, the weeds had just exploded. My two main foes this time of year are Purple Dead Nettle, and Creeping Charlie.

Both have pretty little purple flowers, and the pollinators do love them. But if you let them go, they just take over. The dead nettle is pretty easy to pull. The Creeping Charlie is a little more tenacious, but not too bad.

The thing is, I quite enjoy weeding. I find it very meditative, and it allows me to get right down on level with the gardens. I don’t bend or kneel when I’m weeding – I sit down on my butt and pull everything in reach.

And it gives you a lovely perspective.

You get a good view of all the little garden denizens. The garden is a very busy place, but it’s easy to miss all the activity if you’re not looking closely.

And I love how clean and happy everything looks when the weeding is done!

The bulb show is really impressive this year so far! I am just thrilled!

After weeding, it was time to take care of some seeding. Outside in Potager Parlour, I got some lettuce planted, and checked in on my spinach.

I’ve got spinach sprouts!!!!

Inside, I some of the seeds I started last week have started to sprout too!

On the left are my yellow cherry tomatoes, and on the right, an annual flower called Venidium (or Cape Daisy). It’s a big bold, orange daisy-type flower and it will probably be planted in the cutting bed.

I’ve got quite a few other things started from seeds, but nothing else is sprouting yet. I need to move my little greenhouse out of the catio and into a warm, sunny spot, so I can start some more seeds out there – as I just don’t have enough room in the house for all I want to do!