Busting through the stash...

I'm happy to finally be joining my fellow YOPers again with a yarny post.  This past week, I finished the Granny Goes Large blanket I started in late February.  It was a super easy make.  But as it grew larger, it did start to become a bit of a drag with each round increasing the whole thing in length and width by about 2 inches.  At some point, I realized it was just too big and cumbersome, so I ripped back probably 8 to 10 rounds.  But at that point, knowing I wanted to finish it off with a bright color, I thought I should strategize the colors leading up to the border so the bold finish would look intentional.  And that meant I needed to re-crochet some rounds.  At this point I truly just wanted to be done already. 

But I took a deep breath, held steady, and stuck with it.

I'm not sure it needed so much thought, but you know...  it's what I do.  

And I was so happy when I finally finished it.  Happy to be done, for sure.  But also happy with how it turned out.

My inspiration for the bright green border came from a fellow Raveler.  I wish I was clever or brave enough to have thought of it myself.  But when I saw another blanket finished similarly (with a bit different shade), I knew that bright green was the color I was going to make my border in.

Finishing with such a fun color was a nice reward after pushing through all my frogging and re-crocheting.

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With that project finished, for some irrational reason I felt the urge to start another many-colored, hundreds-of-ends-to-weave-in project.  Lucy's Hexagon blanket at Attic 24 fit the bill.  And before I knew it, I had made four hexagons, joined them, and just like that...  another blanket was begun.

This project will likely take me a much longer time to finish than my large granny square blanket did.  I picture myself making hexagons as the spirit leads, and some day, some year, I'll have enough joined that it will be a whole blanket.  

Wish me well!

The promise of produce...

Almost two weeks since my last post, rain has prevented me from doing much outside - which has been fine by me.  But now that the temperatures look more consistently warm, and the rains seems to be drying up a bit, there is no more putting off outdoor work.  I'm not ready for it, but feeling thankful all the same.

It's good exercise.  My muscles are both telling me how out of shape they still are, and at the same time showing me they are stronger than they were a year ago.  For example, I am able to (fairly) easily get up and down from a kneeling position, which, while it may not be the prettiest of pictures, it sure feels good to recognize I'm more limber than I was last spring.  Remembering the scenario last year, where I was weak (though determined) in the spring, and undeniably stronger by summer and autumn, I'm looking forward to seeing how much stronger I may be come summer and fall this time around.  

Yesterday, I cleaned up the straw mulch I had laid last autumn to protect the strawberry plants from harsh winter weather.  

While I uncovered the plants, I decided to leave some straw under and around the plants this year to see if that improves weed control throughout the summer. 

I originally thought I'd dig up one of three sections in this strawberry bed and replace old plants with new, so I left that section uncovered all winter. I expected to see brown crispy plants destroyed by winter's freezes, but it appears that most of the plants survived not being covered at all.  That said, a large number of weeds also survived and sprang up in that section compared to the mulched sections.  I wish I'd taken a picture before I started working on it - you would have been impressed by the number and size of the dandelion plants I pulled and bagged.  So... going forward, regardless of any future plans I may think I have for the strawberry beds, I will aim to cover it all up with straw mulch to lesson the weed clean-up in the spring.

The bottom posts of the border are all rotting, and they've gotten out of kilter.  Greg bought some more posts yesterday for us to try to neaten things up.  And that front section (that I intended to let die off and replant) it needs some work still, but that's for another day.

The asparagus bed has me feeling a little hesitant about what to do.  We covered it with shredded leaves last autumn, and this spring the shoots seem slower to appear.  But we do have some: 

While these shoots give me hope there will soon be asparagus on the dinner plate, I want very much to rid the bed of weeds that will soon overtake it:  

The problem is, I can't see where most of the asparagus will shoot up, and I'm afraid of walking all over the bed, digging weeds, out of fear that I'll destroy some perfectly good asparagus shoots trying to make their way through all that leaf mulch.  

Every autumn since moving here I've put the asparagus bed to rest for the winter, hoping I haven't ruined the patch, and every spring the shoots appear (though last spring's were skinnier and not quite as prolific).  My hope with the thick leaf mulch is that the asparagus plants will receive nourishment and will produce better than last year.  At the moment, I'm a little concerned they might be smothered.  I'm thinking another week will either relieve my mind or confirm my fears.

Moving around the yard, I see we'll likely have a bumper crop of sour cherries.

And the Red Bud tree is gorgeous again.

I hope April is beautiful where you are!

Spring...

 

I didn't keep close track of online weather maps this week, but I'm thinking most of the Midwest saw spring storms on Wednesday.  High temperatures here made for instability in the weather when the winds finally blew in the rain. Tornadoes were sighted all around the Indianapolis area, and south of us, but on our little spot on the map we woke up yesterday morning to a freshly washed landscape and hardly any tree debris on the ground.

Bradford Pear blossoms

While the forecast predicts a welcomed cool down though most of next week, it is undeniably spring here.  White-blossomed Bradford Pear (which is, I'm sad to say, an invasive at this point) now dot the landscape along the highways.  Sprinkled amongst them are redbud trees, and all kinds of other trees just beginning to leaf out.  

Everything here is growing fast! Sedum, daylilies, irises, clematis, daffodils, forsythia, garlic, onions...  

Sedum, last week🠝 and today🠟

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Daylilies a week ago🠝 and today🠟

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Iris growth a week ago🠝

Irises today🠟

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This Clematis will soon be looking gorgeous.

Forsythia's bloom is about finished, though.

As are the daffodils, I suspect.

Garlic planted in the fall is looking good!

And walking onions planted from the 

bulbils of last year's onions are thriving.

And it looks like we'll have peaches again this year!

Once this rain is over (early next week) I plan to uncover the strawberry plants and take stock of that situation.  I am eager to see if my thinning them out last autumn will have an impact on their production and strawberry size in a couple of months.

I'm not quite ready to throw myself into spring's outdoor work, but hopefully that's just inertia tugging at me to be lazy.  I still have time to think about it. With all the rain we've had, it will take a while for the soil to dry enough to work it, anyway.

Meanwhile, with more consistently warmer temps, I've set myself up again in the sunroom to stitch on my never-ending cross stitch sampler.  It's a great front-row seat for the annual spring show accompanied by birdsong.