A Beautiful Day Off
well, sorta……I did work on the weekly newsletter early this morning, then ran some errands, came back to the house and shot several of the pictures you’ll see below, ran some errands with Matt, went by the shop, hit the grocery store, fixed dinner, relaxed, and now I’m blogging. Yup–the perfect day!
The weather has been perfect, and there’s a beautiful flowering plant out in front of the house. Unfortunately, I have no clue what it is. HELP!
It has just exploded with blooms in the past couple days, and they’re really pretty.
I described it as being like a daffodil for the flower part, with comet tails coming off the back
If you know what it is, please leave that info in the comments. THANKS!
Michigan’s “Warm Winter” has started
and there was some accumulation this morning
I’ve seen traces of the stuff flying through the air for the past couple days, but it got thicker today. Check out the mess, floating down the river
Here’s your culprit
the cottonwood tree! The river is lined with them and every year around this time, they bloom and float everywhere, accumulating like snow, floating down the river, and building up along the riverbank. That stuff is EVERYWHERE right now.
And a sure sign of summer’s impending arrival. From what my digging around online reveals, we probably have Eastern Cottonwood trees here, as the bark is gnarly and they grow very well along rivers, especially those with fluctuating water levels.
The “thing” is out in full force these days,
and all I have is this crappy picture of it darting back into the brush. Matt swears it is a woodchuck, and basic research on the web looks to confirm that. I threw some overripe bananas over the railing yesterday and I saw the thing sitting up and gnawing on one just before I snapped the picture. It was cute to watch him (or her) enjoying something they’ve probably never eaten before. Very fun!
I have been making some serious progress on “Yank”, the pea coat style cardi found in “Mason-Dixon Knitting Outside The Lines”, a design by Bonne Marie Burns of ChicKnits fame. We stock her patterns at the shop and I’m a big fan of her designs, and better yet I’m happy to call her a friend. Unfortunatly, I haven’t shot a photo of the finished project from the book……but here’s my swatch
Yup–just seconds after tearing it out, I remembered I hadn’t taken a photo of the swatch. So I’ll just have to show you progress as of this morning
and the extreme close-up of the back
I love, LOVE this project–the stitch pattern is awesome and goes quickly (I’m actually about half done with the second front at the time of this writing). Here’s just the back, spread out on the hood of Matt’s car like Tawny Kitaen in a Whitesnake video.
I’m in love with the yarn I’m using, which is Soft Spun from Cascade. There’s 198 yards in a 100g skein, and it knits up around 4 sts/inch on a US 9 (5.5mm) needle, but the best part is that it’s only $7.50 a hank! Oh, and it comes in an amazing range of shades
That’s about half of the color palette, with the other half arriving in a few weeks. It’s been wildly popular so far, with good reason. And oh, the possibilities! We’re very excited about this one for the upcoming cool-weather season.
OK–that’s enough for one evening. More shortly, maybe even Wednesday if time permits! Thanks for reading, and have a GREAT week! Oh, and I’ve been swatching again…………and you’ve not seen it yet!
June 3rd, 2009 at 4:01 am
That is a Columbine! I have them in many different colors – they’re one of my favorite flowers. It should keep coming back every year.
June 3rd, 2009 at 6:25 am
Yes, it’s columbine. Also one of my favorite flowers. It will reseed and spread. Enjoy it!
June 3rd, 2009 at 6:26 am
Pretty Columbine. The wild version is usually blue with a white cup, but they come in all sorts of colors. It’s perennial, so will come back every year unless you pull it up. It’s also very hardy, so you could move it if you wanted — wait until it’s done flowering, though.
June 3rd, 2009 at 7:35 am
. . . and they are usually fairly good self-seeders. I started out with ONE pink one in back, moved it to the front and now have umpteen in both locations — feel free to pull them up if they are not where you want them, they will come back again!
June 3rd, 2009 at 9:57 am
Love your yellow columbine! Columbine is the state flower of Colorado! I have single and double purple columbines at my house, but I wish some of your yellow ones would come seed themselves here!
June 3rd, 2009 at 11:39 am
I’ve got columbines all over my perennial garden. I started with one purple one, and after dropping seeds over the years I now have a couple generations, some of them with lighter purple flowers, and also white flowers, all from one parent plant. I don’t think I’ve seen yellow columbine though. Very pretty!
June 3rd, 2009 at 6:20 pm
Love Columbines. Unfortunately, so do the furry bunnies! I think mine got chowed big time early spring.
We have tons of groundhogs in our area, and before we knew for sure what they were we called them ‘George’. 16 years later were still call them George
June 3rd, 2009 at 6:23 pm
I love columbine. Unfortunately, so do the bunnies. I think mine got chowed big time early spring.
We have a lot of groundhogs in our area, but befroe we knew what they were, we called them ‘George’. 16 years later we still call them George:)
June 3rd, 2009 at 9:37 pm
cOLUMBINE, WHAT A GLORIOUS FLOWER. i LOVE THE YELLOW ONE THAT YOU HAVE. I HAVE ABOUT 8 VARIETIES IN THE YARD, THE COLORS ARE GLORIOUS. ISN’T MOTHER NATURE AMAZING! I WOULD LOVE A YELLOW ONE! ENJOY!
June 4th, 2009 at 11:27 am
“…spread out on the hood of Matt’s car like Tawny Kitaen”
yeah baby ;p
June 4th, 2009 at 1:14 pm
OMG, Rob — I’ve been listening to that Whitesnake song on my iPod a lot lately (”Is This Love?”). Did you ever notice that Tawny was a bit, um, overexposed in that video? Guess I was at an impressionable age when I saw it, cause I’ve never forgotten it. Weird, huh? (Ok, where’s a shrink when you need one?)
June 9th, 2009 at 5:51 pm
I typing to say thank-you because Ive been wondering for 10 years what those white floating things in the air are and now I know. I always mean to call the extension service and ask them but I never get around to it.