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Sheep-Intensive Weekends
In between looking at apartment listings, trying to arrange tours with realtors who have only a passing interest in doing their jobs, packing, and dealing with the rest of day to day life, it has been yarn show season here in the NE. Last weekend I went with a friend and one of the kids to New Hampshire Sheep and Wool.
Weeding and… More Weeding
Having spent four or five hours this week getting the new garden bed into shape, this morning I went volunteering with the Friends of the Fells and weeded in the woods — pulling up invasive garlic mustard. This has the salutary characteristic of shallow roots, so it’s easy to pull, but the stuff is seriously prolific. Our group made a respectable dent in the patch, but we could have spent all day at it.
My new garden is much bigger than last year’s, and had gone a while without attention. The previous caretaker left me with mint (yay…?), sage, loads of opportunistic garlic, which I tried to leave in place, and what might be some marigolds. The before and after:
Now for the fun part!
One Week In…
We’ve looked at four places, and I’ve contacted so many realty companies that I’ll probably have to change my phone number and email address after all of this is done. Most of my energy has gone into packing, cleaning, and setting aside things to get rid of. I look forward to spending a few hours at the community garden today, to help tidy up after the winter.
April Wrap-Up
Life is interesting in these parts. Means I don’t always have time to get to things I would like to, but at least I’m never bored. The kids were on break last week, and we took a couple of days in New York to see friends and get a break from routine. We visited the aquarium and Central Park, and did a little shopping. The botanical garden is amazing! The photos are in no particular order.
Writing – Got a half-hearted start on Camp NaNo and immediately stalled out again. I think I have figured out why this plot isn’t working, so now I get to start over again. Writing is like that.
Knitting – I am close to done with the current project (which is going to be a gift, so no pictures yet). Not quite sure what will be next in the queue, but there will definitely be something.
Reading – I basically abandoned my goals for the month in favor of continuing to read about Welsh monks. I am up through #7 in the Cadfael series. On one of our spring break outings we went to a lovely bookstore in Newburyport, so now my TBR pile has new additions.
My creative project for the month was photography. While I would love to learn more about it and should continue doing so, I confirmed that I default to using my phone even when I have my other camera with me, so it would be silly to buy anything better at this point.
The garden is prepped, but it’s raining today, so plant shopping will have to wait another week. In the driveway the peas and Swiss chard are popping up.
We’re going to be moving this summer, so things might get even more sporadic for a little while as we figure out a plan for that. At least the weather should be nice. Onward into May!
R Jean Stevenson 