JessaLu Knits (and Spins!)

Seriously, this week flew by way too fast. Good thing I already had a picture all ready for ECF:

Now, I’ve been gardening in some form or another since I could walk - my grandmother was a firm believer that children were put on this earth for free labor so I learned at a very young age the difference between a weed and a bean plant. Another early lesson was how good peas taste right off the vine - and that when you are eating those peas and grandma starts screeching your full name for all the world to hear, it does NOT mean she wants you to come over to see her so she can give you a hug.

You would think that in my 30+ years of gardening that I’m not as easily impressed as, say, a first-year newbie. However, this would be wrong. I am just as excited when my seedlings pop through the soil to see the light of day for the first time (YAY! I didn’t kill them!!) and I had never, ever, encountered a purple pea blossom before this year. There’s a first for everything - and they still taste just as good, though I do miss grandma’s screeching just a bit. ;o)

p.s. If anyone is looking for something fibery to do this weekend and they’re in the Catskill, NY area on Saturday, this shindig is looking very promising. ;o)

…how about some gardening?

Last year I didn’t do much with the veg patch, I threw in some peas, some tomatoes, some peppers and some squash and sat back to see what happened. I didn’t do a whole lot of weeding and I didn’t do a whole lot of planning - however, I did do a lot of picking since, thankfully, everything but the peppers produced. (You kind of have to baby the peppers up here in the frigid north - they get chilly)

This year, I decided to do a bit of planning and a bit of gambling. You see, if you put tomatoes in the ground before Memorial Day in my neighborhood, people sit up and take notice. They start paying attention to what’s going on in your yard - and they start checking the temperature at night. They do this so they can point and laugh when the temp dips and you’re the only idiot in the neighborhood with frosty ‘maters.

Well, I outsmarted Mother Nature (and the neighbors) this year. I went all fancy and got the water teepees and guess what? They work. We had a ‘hard’ frost about two weeks ago that almost killed the tulips that were shivering on the front lawn (don’t worry, they perked back up) but these babies were nice and snug all toasty under their (somewhat expensive) water-filled houses.

I’m hoping for salsa around the end of June. Possibly earlier if I play my cards right.  ;o)

…brought to you by summer, camping and the fact I’m hungry and considering making a s’more in the microwave. Also, there’s nothing photogenic around the house right now (I’m pissed at Jazz, she chewed my FREAKING LL Bean slipper so it’s unwearable which makes her WAY far from cute to me right now):

I also can’t see very well right this second since, for reasons unbeknownst to my conscious mind, my subconscious mind decided it would be a good idea to ram a mascara wand into my right eye about five minutes ago. Maybe it’s trying to tell me something, like my eyelashes shouldn’t be brown. What the hell is it about mascara application, anyway? You’re hovering millimeters from your eyeball with a pointy stick thinking, “must…be…careful…” and then WHAM your internal wiring has a hiccup and you have Maybelline black/brown on your cornea, your eye is watering all over the place and you have to re-do the whole freaking concealer process.

ouch.