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The first part of today looked so sunny and lovely that I couldn't help myself. I had to get outside to do some yard work. Of course, as soon as I got out there, a nippy wind picked up and it started to . . . okay, you get three guesses . . . yup, it started to snow. No, it wasn't anything resembling a blizzard. Just lots of ditzy little snowflakes coming down and blowing this way and that.
All I accomplished was to rake the debris from the flower beds around the front deck and cart it away. Next will be to prune the Nine Bark hedge that is right up against the deck and then get down on my hands and knees to do a little more detailed cleaning and take out a few green weeds that are already popping up.
I quit for today because I was getting frozen around the exposed edges, but sweaty inside the hooded sweatshirt and down jacket I needed because of the wind.
So that you can have a good laugh at how far behind you we are way up north here, I'm including a few pictures.
The delphiniums.
A Bleeding Heart bush.
And a clump of day lilies (which will be divided this year).
Cooool temps forecast for us for the rest of the week. Lows at night of 27, 27, 30, 33 and 38 through Friday. Highs? Forty, 43, 42, 45, and 47. But if we get sunshine (and forget that wind, please), I'll be back out there doing what I can.
For some reason, the Easter holiday kind of snuck up on me this year. I think it had something to do with our early spring weather being warm way too soon, then back to more normal temps and then more days of more warmth than we usually see for another 6 to 8 weeks. So what does that have to do with feeling like Easter came too soon? Probably not a thing, except I feel all out of kilter this spring.
At any rate, I got myself in gear today and made some sugar cookies in the shape of eggs and decorated them.
They'll be slipped into Easter baskets and a few will be given away. As you know, I'm not a detailed, fussy cookie decorator whether it be for Christmas or Easter or any other holiday. I like to claim my style is "rustic." Oh well, they are colorful at least.
Since my egg-shaped cookie cutter is over 4" in length, I didn't get very many cookies out of the single batch of dough. Maybe I need to seek out a smaller cutter? Nah, then the smaller "eggs" would only be harder to decorate.
Our Easter Sunday may include a visit with friends in the morning and then our daughter will join us here at home in the afternoon. Whatever your plans may be, I hope you have a very pleasant day.
The reason for the insulation in the living room ceiling is for a first layer of sound-proofing material. Papa Pea's office is directly above the living room where our TV will be. Not a lot of TV watching will be done there but an occasional movie may be viewed by yours truly. The two people in this household don't very often agree on a movie to watch together (ahem) so most likely if I were to snuggle in on the living room couch and watch a movie of my choice, my better half might well be up above in his office. And since he's sensitive to sound (my, what big ears you have) we wanted to take what precautions we could to keep sounds in the living room from traveling up through the ceiling to his sanctuary. I mean office.
Today we installed the sound board on the ceiling.
We had (foolishly?) thought we would get a good start on the beadboard, too, which goes on top of the sound board as the finishing material, but we had visitors drop in mid-afternoon and we ran out of time.
What with Easter Weekend coming up and some other things that need to be done the first of the coming week, it looks like we won't get back to finishing the ceiling until the later part of next week. That's okay. We'll find something else to do to keep ourselves out of trouble.
Tonight after dinner we're going to do a little clean up work and put the living room back together (take the furniture out of my quilting room and the kitchen) so we'll have a comfortable spot to plop our backsides in the coming several days. It won't take long and will be worth having somewhere to sit besides the kitchen table.
We've noticed mild-mannered Father Goose being a little cranky for the last couple of weeks. We thought our unusually warm spell a short while back was perhaps fooling the geese into believing it was time to start thinking about fat, little, fuzzy yellow goslings, if you know what I mean. It's actually a little early for that sort of thing up here near the tundra, but the weather has been so wacky, we blamed our gander going into quasi-attack mode on that.
Sunday morning when Papa Pea opened the geese enclosure to let them out for the day, he spotted one big old goose egg right in the middle of their area. He stood looking at it thinking it was strange Mother Goose hadn't made a nest as she usually does before starting to lay eggs.
Well, apparently Father Goose felt threatened by that big guy standing there because he grabbed Papa Pea's left calf muscle and wasn't about to let go.
I asked hubby what he did. He said, "I grabbed him by the neck with one hand and hit him over the head with the plastic bucket I had in my other hand while sharing a few chosen words about his inappropriate behavior."
The goose bite broke the skin and was painful for only a short time but, surprisingly, never produced the big bruised area I thought it would.
I know one thing for sure. No way am I going in that enclosure for a long time . . . unless I can find a baseball bat at an early spring garage sale.
As of this morning, Mother Goose has indeed built a big, cozy nest and has four eggs in it. She still goes out grazing every day, but while she's gone the eggs are totally hidden with a layer of straw. I wonder how many she'll lay before she starts incubating them?
We've been so pleased with the Light Sussex and Black Australorp chickens we got last spring. I don't remember any breeds we've ever had that were such good foragers.
It doesn't seem to matter how cold it is out, as long as they don't have snow to complain about, they're out there looking for good things to eat all day long.
I took these pictures yesterday when the temperature never hit 40 all day. And, yes, there are a couple of our older gals in that grouping, too. Also our little banty rooster on the right.
The zoom lens on the camera was needed to get a shot of almost the whole flock way the heck over on the other side of the pond checking things out. They roam as far and wide as they can within their good-sized fenced in pasture.
I think I'll have a very colorful picture to post of Papa's leg in a day or two. When he was out doing morning chores today, Father Goose grabbed him on the calf, went right through the heavy work pants he had on (Papa Pea, not Father Goose) and broke the skin. I predict a very large, colorful bruise marking the spot. Ouch. Hurts to think of what that must have felt like.
The delphiniums.
A Bleeding Heart bush.
And a clump of day lilies (which will be divided this year).
