garden update

  As I read my various usual blogs, I notice that many of us seem to be having trouble with allergies this year.  Yup, me too.  I love looking at all the blooming things, but breathing seems less joyful.   We've had a lot of rain over the past few days.  I hope this will wash much of the pollen out of the air, but I fear it will  just encourage more blooming and sneezing!

   The days before the rains came in my husband and I managed to trim the lawn and rake out dead things from the front growth area.  We also purchased a small raised bed unit and I put a coat of marine varnish on the boards for a bespoke custom-made herb bed I ordered last year.  They need two more coats for exterior use, so it will be another week before that can be assembled, filled and planted.

   It all seems to take so much time.

A dirty world

Today, there is  topsoil, mulch and compost.   Somehow, this doesn't look like as much as it sounded like it would be.  It's supposed to be 3 cubic yards.  I've also got a cubic yard each of the mulch and compost, and that pile is about the same size as this.  Good thing it was cheap.
  Time to put on my shoes and go move some of this stuff around a bit.  It will be interesting to see how much I get done as I've not slept since yesterday morning.

  Answer: not much.  As suspected, the base soil, aka "the yard" is about 1/2 inch of poor clay soil on top of fill dirt and gravel.  I can't even get a garden fork in more than a couple of inches.  It's off to the hardware store for some landscape picks so I can pin down black plastic to kill off weeds and grass, and some shallow pots to plant flowers in until the soil loosens up some.

  Today I took cat #3, Kali, to the vet.  She usually runs as far as possible when she sees the cat carrier come out, but today she just made a token escape effort, then sat down in patient resignation.  Poor kitty.
   She lucked out.  Our vet doesn't give cats boosters will-he nil-he, so she didn't need a Feline Leukemia, parvo or distemper shot.  (She's strictly an indoor cat).   We also discussed how the 'old' cats aren't integrating well with the addition of Bes, the 'new' cat.  We've had him for 14 months now, and Kali still can't stand him.  The past few weeks, though, she's been venturing downstairs more often, and has even come up onto my lap when Bes is also on the sofa.  It seems that our using the same brush on all three of their faces serves to spread the pheromones around and sort of acclimate the cats to each other's smells, according to a recent study.  
  Another study has shown that if you put cats in separate areas for 8 hours (such as overnight), they have to sort of re-familiarize themselves with each other at the end of the separation, and some degree of aggression may lessen.  I think I may encourage Bes to sleep on a t-shirt or the like which I'll then put down near where Kali likes to nest at night.

  In sewing  news, there isn't any.  I've hardly been up to the sewing room for a month other than to sort some books and magazines.  I haven't even been tempted by any new patterns or kits recently!

Good Reads

  Today I received my copy of Trish Burr's  Colour Confidence in Embroidery.  It's a gift from my father-in-law.
  Pity I don't have a lot of time to sit and read it today, but I'll get into it soon and post a review later.

Book Review - Home Sweet Home

  I love projects!  I love to plan them, to pick out the materials and threads and find the frames.  If I had as much enthusiasm for stitching the things as I do for buying them, I would have no empty wall space!

  A few weeks ago I purchased a new project book from Country Bumpkin.  It's called Home Sweet Home
and is a delightful sewing box in the shape of a country cottage.  Worked in various threads and stitches on linen and lined with a pretty print, the box's roof opens to reveal a treasury of handworked tools including an emery, a needlebook and a tape measure cover among others.  (The second link will take you to the catalog page which has a link to a video slideshow of the box and most of the tools.)
   The author, Carolyn Pearce, has done a good job with the instructions for both the box and the embroidery.  As is usual with Country Bumpkin publications, the photographs are wonderful.  Small illustrations of related motifs such as strawberry plants, insects and animals are scattered among the pages as well, which makes the book a pretty one to page through even if one is not an embroiderer.

   What's that I hear you asking?  What about the Gentleman's Nightcap?  Well, I've been involved in painting rooms and just haven't got up to the sewing room lately.  The tiny  motifs of the cap are difficult to stitch with the rather thick Gilt Sylke Twist, and this has made me a bit wary.  I shall, however, get back to it soon.  Now that we're getting a bit more sunny weather I'll be able to stitch without having to fiddle with lighting and I'm hoping that makes things go a bit easier.

Two colors?

  Got going on the painting yesterday.  I got all the hardware removed from the bathroom walls, wiped down the baseboards and trim edges to prevent cat hair (sort of) and masked off the edges and the division between upper and lower colors.
   The aqua went on wonderfully.  I will be using this Behr Premium Plus again.  It's a little spendy, but it goes on very smoothly and really does cover in just one coat.  Once that was dried a bit I started painting with the not-quite-white.  I spent ages sorting through various whites at the paint store, looking for one that was pretty much white, but not completely titanium white, with a little bit of warmth to it.  The one I decided on turns out to be the exact same shade as the primer coat the builders used!  I wish I could have that sort of luck when I'm actually trying to match colors.

Here you can see the aqua paint and both colors on the upper wall.  (the one on the right is the new application.)

              

Seriously, how close is this match?  There's no way I'd have been able to do this if I'd actually needed to!

Today's project will be the front foyer, followed by giving the master bathroom a good scrubdown before I slather those walls with paint.  (It will not match the primer coat already on the walls.)

It's looking fishy

  The teenager made it through the night in the general population, but I'm not seeing any sign of the new
fry in the tank.  This, of course, doesn't mean much.  It's probably hiding from all those big fish with big appetites (especially the betta).
  We're having some high winds here today.  I guess there's a front moving in from the upper midwest as we're supposed to drop about 20 degrees and get some snow this evening.  No wonder I haven't seen any more robins around.
  The exercises I did at the gym yesterday have given me a muscle tension "migraine".  I don't know if wielding a paint roller is going to help stretch them out, or if it will exacerbate things. I guess I'll know tomorrow!