Viney, viney

Imagine my shock, dear reader, after my rainy blog post when I went out and discovered every plant sitting in scads of water----EXCEPT for my butternut sqash, wilting away in a DRY pot. I thought sure I would lose it then, yanno? I soaked it, but I thought sure I would lose it.

Guess what?

The garden yesterday, July 14th. That squash wilts every day from the intense sunlight, and comes back every evening... and to think I wondered fretfully if it would get any sun at all!! No more doubts about that, sheesh!

I fertilized again yesterday, along with the daily water. Everything seems to be pretty happy.

Especially this...

Sorry for the blurry pics, btw, twas windy enough that I'm lucky I got any pics. Anyhow, this is a pic of the weeds in perspective, zooming out of their four inch pot next to a tall 12 inch pot. I guess it's time to screw up all my courage and my taste buds too, and find out what amaranth tastes like. Or maybe I'll let it bloom and set seed--I already know I like the seeds, since I've bought them at a health food store in the past.

I'm thinking that might be the smart way to go, since I am not certain sure this really IS amaranth. Where the heck would it have come from? I haven't seen it anywhere around here, and that was brand new potting soil in that pot... was it in my herb seed packet? The herbs certainly didn't bother to sprout in that pot... but amaranth in bloom is unmistakable, so when it blooms I will know for certain what it is.

Alas, alas, this is what's left of the mulberry at the back fence after the city scalped it. Tis only knee high now and is sure to bush out even more now, ripe for future scalping. I bought some pruning shears and will have to gradually prune it back into a tree--taller this time, so no one is tempted to reduce it again.

Of course, I don't have much room to talk.....

.......scalpmint....... it is now sitting under a butternut leaf. A new pot is planned for this one over the weekend... but um, seems hardly necessary, eh? *wry smile* Hard to believe that plant was a good ten inches high and ever so lush when I bought it...

Lil punkin and the big bully! In this pic you can see the purslane is filling the pot nicely, the basil is taking hold and expanding a lil at the right hand side of the pot, and the punkin seedlings are reeeeeeeeaching for the sunlight--but will the butternut share? Or is it a big, big bully? Stay tuned, for the saga will surely be documented in breathlessly annoying detail; I'm worse than a grandmother with new grandbabies! *snaps open wallet and scads of pics unfold* lol! Okay, not really, but I feel that way! *grin*

Viney exuberance... ahhhh, life is good! *wink* We'll see if the eggplant can out-compete the butternuts, lol...

I really DO need more pots. Tis time for the next batch of green beans, and those snake gourd seeds are whispering my name... they LIKED the books I've been reading.... *eyebrow waggle* Plus yanno, the mint will need more water than it can get in a four inch pot if I want it to thrive.

On the art/crafting front, I'm still reading library books, but last night I spent a little time working on that crocheted Starwheel motif. I'm through the worst of it and back into the fast and interesting part, so I'm hoping to have a pic of it by the weekend. I still cannot spend much time on it because of the fineness of the thread; it taxes my eyes and my hands alike now, but I am determined to persevere!

I also spent some time working on Gryph's amulet bag. I closed up the bottom of it and am putting on the first of the fringe. It still has thread ends dangling everywhere and I'm not certain they're long enough to hold much in the way of fringe beads, but it's okay because I'm pretty wild with my fringe anyhow--here! I can show you an example of my fringes, and you might see why it takes me so long to finish one bag. *wink*

I made this bag several years ago for a friend and it's pretty typical of the way I work. The fringe on Gryph's bag might not be quite so full, but it will have the same kind of exuberant look to it.

That bag always has been one of my favorites; I designed it from scratch.

Happy summering, and here's hoping you find great joy and beauty in little things today, like the vine on a squash or the fringe on a bag--or even in your memories of things you've done.

Just in time

I woke up before five this morning, not much sleep but hurting enough (and hungry enough, lol) to need to get up. I took the doglet out right away and am I EVER glad that I did! Cuz yanno, it's been raining for the past two hours... and just in time, too! Today was "water that squash before it wilts again!" day. *grin* Now I don't have to.

I spent an amazing amount of money on one plant the other day, $4 on a spearmint plant. I wanted to make tabouli, a Lebanese salad that is mainly parsley, mint, and wheat, and I couldn't buy enough mint in the produce section for less than $6. But there was this lonesome mint plant, bright green and lush, just huge in the pot. I meant to take a before pic but well... um... I got carried away and scalped it. *blush* The tabouli was good! *blushes again* Anyhow, when it stops raining, I'll take the poor scalped thing out with the rest of my lil garden. *sheepish look* I need to get it a bigger pot but I think that has to wait a while, at least until next payday.

In the meantime, I am ALLLLLL inspired by a new library book. Paper + Pixels is a scrapbooking book that comes with a CD of papers, tags, and frames, but the reason I loved it? It has GREAT tips for using both Microsoft Word and Adobe Photoshop Elements!!! These are what amounts to tutorials for using both programs to work with pictures, backgrounds, and text, and I learned a LOT from them. I had no idea that you could do so much with photos in Word!

I have an older version of Photoshop (not Elements, but the whole Photoshop program) and it so far hasn't loaded on this puter... but I am truly inspired to try it again. I loved what they did with photos and since I've always been interested in desktop publishing, plus now I have the blog, well, I've always wanted to be able to do what they've done!

So, this morning's rainy agenda? Load that program on the puter. *eyebrow waggling grin* here's hoping it takes!

Cath