March in the garden

We have hardly had more than a few drops of rain lately, but have had many sunny days, and some blustering spring delta breezes.    They call them breezes, I call them   wind.     There is pollen everywhere, and I have had to water several times.  This is not the normal for this month.  Well, the pollen is.    And allergies.   The garden is looking pretty good, as it starts into the spring season.   I will soon need to transplant the swiss chard.     You will have the first peek at the little storage/display unit I retired from the studio into the garden for starting succulents.     I decided to sacrifice it to the will of the weather.    I like how they look in it.      My blue bottle garden is waiting for the blue borage to bloom there with them.     Here are some pics.   

Mid March

We have been blessed with a glorious early March weather system here in Northern California's Central Valley.    Trees blossoming all around us, everything green and springing to new life.     The lilacs are starting to bloom.  The French ones start first and always surprise me because the buds do not swell big like the white ones do.    They just seem to go from dead branch to blooms in the blink of an eye.     Trevor helped cut them way back this past winter.   I didn't want them touching the back of the studio and I got tired of ducking under them to go around the studio on the pathway.   

Beside the house and on the Eastern side of the garden are the white lilacs.   The newer ones bloom first and they are sending up new shoots all the time.   I'll have a lilac hedge if I'm not careful.      They take a lot of tending with the pruning back, and raking leaves but it's worth it to have these few weeks of glorious blooms.  

I have a cold.   Old fashioned drippy, sneezy, sore throat kind of cold.     I can't smell the lilacs.   Or anything else.   The cinnamon bread I baked yesterday wasted it's fragrence on me.     I could not detect it at all.   How disappointing.    I froze half of it, and when my nose works again I'll enjoy the smell as I toast it.   

In the family news department, Candis was in a school concert last Monday.   Before my cold started.   So I got to see the performance.     I look forward to these, and with the visiting with son and DIL as we stand in line for an hour to get good seats.

Trevor turned 21.     How did that happen?     Good gosh.    This pic was taken about 10 years ago with Matt and Chris.
DIL Chris is reading my friend Pat Henshaw's newly released novel "Vampires: The FoodChain".    Hope she will soon be writing a review for Pat.      It's available on Amazon.com as a download to Kindle.
Matt's truck was out of commission for over 4 days, which means he was home stewing - unable to make the runs he had on  his schedule.   Good news is the truck is up and running again and so is Matt.
Nathan went to a Celtic Faire with friends - a new experience for him. 
Dogs are fine, they like me being home so they get  more naps.  They are not sitting on the back of the big chair in the window watching for my car to turn the corner and pull into the driveway.   

March 5th

Hello, long lost friends and family.      I have not given up the blog, FYI, just too busy to give it any thought.   I plan to pick it up again soon.     There is something about being in your 70s.  All your friends start falling apart, one by one, or someone in their family, so it seems like this precious life is even more precarious.     Very best friend for over 3o years had massive aneurysm in January.   She is recovering nicely, but is in the slow track for now.    Other friends have experienced broken feet, wrists, legs, etc.     Flu bugs and surgeries are the normal topic of conversations.     Now we are approaching tax season so that is on everyone's minds.    Don't think I'll burden you all with the details of all these things, just know that they are keeping me busy.... along with my  normal gardening and art activities.     And then there is family.   Thank goodness.   Job hunting for grandsons, chorus schedule for granddaugter, a variety of work schedules for DIL and son, keep things humming on the home front.   And then there are these crazy sweet little doggie companions!  

We have had a most unusual  year weatherwise.    We started with a super rainy winter season, switched to cold snaps and recently have had nothing more than dry and sunny with occasional high fog.   None of that deep dense wet fogs that we usually have this time of year.      I sure like the sunshine.       I guess this was the driest Feb since the 1920s.     And New England is having heavy snow storms, one after another.   I think of my family members there and wish I could send them some sunshine.    

I've redone a lot of things in the garden.  Partly to route out a pack of mice or rats that moved into space under the studio.    lulu soon found she could scoot in on her belly to give them a piece of her mind but never got close enough to catch them.     She now has a permanently stained belly from lying in the dirt so much.   LOL    I loved her soft pink tummy and hope it comes back.      Lots of baths and scrubbing may help.  LOL    Nikki has long legs even though she's a small dog, her legs just do not fold up in a way that she can maneuver the way a little short legged terrier can.   So she runs around the perimeter of the studio to make sure they don't get away if they come out.       The last week or so, the dogs are much less interested, so perhaps the little critters have moved to another yard without pets. That's what I'm hoping.

I'll be posting again soon.       Hope you are all well and having a good winter.     It feels like Spring is right around the corner in this part of the world.        Trees are all  in blossom around town.   Looks like a blizzard under some of the flowering trees.    Pink blossoms, white blossoms, they abound.