Spring is here!

I've been out surveying the overgrown mass that used to be my gardens. I used to garden a lot before I started quilting. And before the "Great Freeze." The freeze came after a winter very much like this last one. We had no lasting cold weather, and all of my plants, trees, and flowers were in their spring growth phase with everything that could bloom, blooming. It was beautiful. then, on February 4, we had a terrible freeze. It killed nearly everything in all of my gardens. The freeze only lasted two days, but that was enough. I was so depressed that I completely gave up gardening. That's one of the reasons my husband wanted me to have the sunroom - so I could have indoor plants. The gardens didn't exactly go away completely - they've just got very overgrown.

Here's my iris garden again. You can see a few of my free-range chickens in the background.

They're a little hard to see, but these buds will be beautiful, large pink blossoms in a few days. The bush is already loaded with buds.

The remnants of my rose garden. These buds will be a riot of red blossoms soon. I still have three or four rose bushes that force their way through the vinca every year.

This is what happens when vinca and creeping ivy take over a garden. The blue blooms of the vinca are very pretty in the spring, but this stuff is impossible to get rid of!

Even the tiny buds of a wild rose are getting ready to burst open. Unfortunately, all of the wild roses on my property are white. My neighbor got the pink wild roses. I'm jealous! I'll probably wind up digging out this wild rose after it blooms. Wild roses are another pest that are very difficult to get rid of.

This little rose, however, isn't wild. It's my tiny yellow rose. The blossoms are already opening (there's an open blossom at the top of the photo). I took this photo yesterday, and today there are several blossoms totally open.

And, of course, there's Maxie. She meowed out the window the entire time I was playing in the garden. She thought it was very unfair that I wouldn't let her out to play as well!

Yep, there's there she is, complaining loudly.

And I just had to show you this. I bought a king-sized litter box! The kitties LOVE it. They have forsaken all others. I have 50 pounds of litter in here, but the cats don't kick it out of this box because of the high sides. I left two of the smaller boxes in the photo to show you just how big it is. It could easily be a child's sandbox! I still have the five smaller boxes throughout the house, but they really only use this one. They like it well enough to take turns! I have to clean it out every time I pass it.

Tomorrow I'll go back to talking about quilting, but I had to share some other aspects of my life today.

'Til then...

Debbi