Between quilting and rainy days, I have not been in the gardens enough this spring. I had the pleasure of shopping for plants today, and hope to get some “dirt therapy” tomorrow.
The NW corner of the herb garden needs to be weeded and then I can plant the lemon verbena and scented geraniums. I’ll check on the seeds that I planted a few weeks ago. From the kitchen window I can see zinnias coming up, but I need to walk out to check the things I’ve planted in the veggie beds. I wasn’t good about keeping them watered, so I might have wasted seeds and time there.
I need more Homestead Purple verbena. I’d like carpets of it in two more parts of the gardens. I want to line the sidewalk with alyssum, and set out pots with lantana and ivy and ornamental peppers in a deep purple shade. I need to get a purple sweet potato vine, too.
I have TONS of weeding to do. Thank goodness we got a lot of rain this week. It will make things easier to pull. It’s time to begin working in the gardens between 5:30 and 7:30 in the morning. The heat will drive me inside, as it did earlier this week. Still, it’s nice to be able to play in the dirt again!
Daily Archives: June 11, 2011
Rain!
We’ve had a couple of rainy days this week. We have had LOTS of gray days, but not a lot of precipitation. We live in this tiny dry micro-climate, and storms frequently slide just north or south of us. I’m sure that I80 and I88 direct the rain away from us.
I live in an area where a subdivision can not be built unless there is room for a retention pond to collect run-off from heavy storms. Whoever designed the ponds immediately to the east of us clearly needs to go back to school and take those lessons again.
The first year the ponds were created it became obvious rather quickly that the series of ponds, which interconnect, do not drain fast enough. Their response to it was to increase the size of the middle pond. All along the northern shoreline of the pond are homes with walk out basements, just waiting to flood.
So, with just two days of occasional heavy rain, the ponds have filled up to the point where you can no longer see the concrete culvert connecting two of the ponds, and with just a little more rain the last two ponds might overflow, and meet each other on the road between them. The homeowners must have interesting conversations with the developer when we finally get rain!
I think the developer might luck out this week. As I came home today, I could see from a ring of trash on the grass that one of the ponds has actually dropped eight inches or more. We’ve had gray skies, but no rain today, so perhaps it will drop some more.
I’m very surprised that they haven’t had to increase the size of the tiles to allow for better drainage. Perhaps something downstream prevents them from opening up the flow. Dear Husband wondered if they have ever cleaned out the drains.
We’re not in any danger. Our house sits almost at the top of a rise, and we are higher than the area that will flood. I’m just fascinated at the ineptness of designer of the pond, and the fact that the building department wasn’t able to determine that the design was inappropriate. It ticks me off that my taxes pay for a department that allows problems like this to slide by.
Scraps on a Mission June 7, 2011
Scraps on a Mission met for the first time in 2011 last Tuesday. I had been making kits all winter, putting together pieces for blocks to make the first session easy. I thought if I could present a non-threatening situation to the beginning quilters, we might be able to ease them into a positive experience.
My co-coordinator had called ladies from the church whom we thought might be interested in participating, and she expected five to attend, in addition to the two of us. And, one of my quilting friends has volunteered to join us on occasion, so that brought the total to eight. It was not the rousing turnout that I had hoped for, but it wasn’t a bad start.
The reality was something else. We were supposed to begin at 10:00. By 10:30 there were three of us. My quilting friend joined us at 11:00 and one more member from church arrived at noon. The session was to run from 10:00 to 2:00. We stopped for lunch at noon. After lunch, I gave a brief lesson on the basics of piecing to the one lady who arrived at noon. She is the least experienced at piecing of the group.
I was distressed about the lack of turn out, but at the end of the session, we had three tops finished, backings chosen, and batting cut to size. I’ve spent half my day today working on kits, and I have two more tops completed, and backings cut and pieced for four of tops. I’ve also cut batting, so that the kits are ready to be basted.
I haven’t totaled them up, but I’m fairly sure that we have easily 15 tops done. Our next meeting is at the end of the month, and we will work on basting the quilt packages. I’ve seen a video of a new way to baste them, to eliminate wrinkles, and I hope to try it before Scraps on a Mission meets again.
If we should have more members attend next time, I will teach a beginning class on assembling the blocks. If not, I’ll work on basting the quilt tops. I’m eager to try my hand at quilting with my new sewing machine.
I think we are off to a good start!