Happy spring 2014

    This has been a winter to end all - snowstorms began in December and came along quite regularly afterwards, at a rate of one or two - occasionally three - a week thereafter. We have a lot of snow piled up around us - a couple of thaws have reduced them a bit, but then more storms come and the levels are restored, or built up even further. The City is in even worse shape - the practice has been to truck snow away from parking lots, but I think this must have gotten steadily more expensive; so this year they are just piling and going on piling. The big WalMart lot has a HyMac earth-mover in the middle of the pile, and it is heaping the snow up even higher than the bulldozers can get it. Parking spaces are becoming more and more limited, and in some lots you dare not go down certain lanes, because there's no exit at the end and you may have to back out.

       Spring has brought no respite - this past two weeks schools were cancelled for five days in a row, making 12 days in all this winter. I seem to remember that, last year, we had garden preparation going on by now, and some vegetables planted by the end of the month. Not so this year. The garden is buried, the polytunnel is collapsed under the snow (as it has been since December) and it never gets thawed out enough to even *try* to clear it off and pop it up again. I *wish* I had  thought to de-skin it last fall - it is the only way it will survive, especially with snow like this.  I just checked with the government weather site and they have recorded 400+ cm of snow from December to the end of March. and 25+ in April - so far. Today is foggy and +2 degrees, so there is melting, but this stuff is going to take a *while* to go away.
    The iPhoto app has a "last 12 months" photo list. Last April 11 I was photographing my very first hellebore, unfurling. This year - it is somewhere under that snowbank, just on the right. Not unfurling, if it knows what's good for it.
    It has been a good year to get work done indoors, however. We got the sink and tub in the laundry/bathroom hooked up and I spent a couple of messy days tiling and grouting. I think they look pretty good now. We still need a tall book-case to put beside the washer, to hide all the plumbing and stuff behind it, and hold a few towels and so on. I have an IKEA one picked out, but IKEA is just too far!

Sink, nearly finished

Tub, in the mudpie phase (grouting)

Tub, complete with "Bathsheba" print

     There are just a couple of things left to do - seal the grout, fill in some cracks around the tub with expanding foam, and then silicone seal between the tile and the tub and sink, and, if I can manage it, a tiny bead between the tile and the wall. Our sink installer suggested a bead around the pedestal and the floor tile too. And I think, once all that is done, I'd like to spray expanding foam around the tub, to insulate it and also to firm it up a bit. Oh, and build the cupboard doors for the linen closet, and the panels for under the tub. How many years did this project take? I really love it, though.
     But I would love Spring more.

It's Spring at last!

    Still haven't cut the grass, though lots of our neighbours have done. Much progress has been made in the flower beds, including some splitting up and moving things.

Bush cherries: Back: Romeo, front left Juliet, right: Crimson Romance.

     I received the long-awaited package from Veseys last week, and put the cherry trees into pots in the greenhouse, but I foolishly decided to plant the hydrangeas into the shrub border right away. It's been quite cold at the nights, so I have had to cover them up. I should have hardened them off - but I was so excited, I didn't think of it. There were three - of the 'Hardy Hydrangea" variety. I planted the first, Hydrangea paniculata 'DVPpinky', on the east side of the central shrub bed, and the second, Hydrangea aborescens 'Abetwo' on the west side of the same bed. The third I put in front of the rugosa roses in the west bed. It is Hydrangea aborescens 'NCHAI', ppaf, cbraf. Common names in order, with sizes at maturity, are "Pinky Winky", 6 - 8 feet tall & wide; "Incrediball", 4-5 feet tall & wide, and "Invincibelle Spirit", 3-4 feet tall & wide. Hope they survive.

Blueberries, mulched with sawdust

      I took the truck up the Black Creek Road last week and dug up some lowbush blueberries - easy peasy, as the road machine had been and they were hanging out over the road, with almost no soil underneath them. I had started a bed for them, and when I got back with the plants I Googled and found what they need - basically, manure and sawdust to increase acidity, so that was easy to provide. I think it must be acidic there already, as I have put them near the ones that have been in our garden for years. After I got them planted, I mulched with more sawdust and watered well. I'm not expecting a lot of fruit this year, but I know they are a late and sweet variety because they performed well on the road last year. Apparently I am to let them fruit one year and cut them back the next - or maybe every three years. The pros do every two. The ones we have haven't ever been cut back, of course.

     In knitting news, I have started a spiral scarf using black Kroy and a long-repeat multicolour - Elann's Sock it to Me dankai. It's short-row wedges between black borders which really set off the colour changes well.  I had gotten a bit obsessed with the pattern after seeing it on Ravelry, and went to Owl's Hollow looking for a long-repeat colour. All they had was the Noro cotton-and nylon in a couple of truly ugly colours, so I bought the Kroy and came home, and ordered some Chroma from Knit Picks. And then I was looking for something else in my stash page on Ravelry, and saw the two skeins of dankai I'd bought some time ago, and I was off! TGFR!

       I have completed the linen closet (but for the doors), and today I dry-fitted the cradle for the bathtub. I have to wait for Fred to come home to help me lift the tub on to the cradle, and then probably take it all apart to nail it into place, and then together. The tub needs a bit of sawing to make the holes for the water attachments and I'll have to cut the cradle as well, just not sure where yet.This will have to come after the dry-fitting. And then it's the plumber again to fit the drains and attach the water supply, and we will have a bathtub again after - seven years?
     I painted the walls around the tub space, as I thought it would be easier without the tub in place. Of course I still haven't decided on a colour for the walls, but at least the gyproc is primed. 

       I have plans to tile the walls around the tub, just up 9 inches or so - as I am hoping the days of splashing in the tub are behind us. I am surprised how finished it looks, I think because I put a bit of pine along the front, rather than the rough 2 x 4s. I will probably put tile there as well - at least,  I do have the tile for it, and if it looks good I'll go for it.

     The end is in sight. Then I can spend ALL my time in the garden.

More activity, of a scattered sort.

    I'm working too many hours this week to make a proper start on anything. I did get the greenhouse tidied up a bit, although it's not yet reinforced with new strapping. I moved the southern-most 'feet' inwards about 30 cm. and that makes it taller - and also gives me a bit more room on the edge of the strawberry and cranberry beds. I hope that it will shed snow more readily as well. Today the weather is not conducive to being out, so I am doing some domestic engineering this morning, as I have to go to work for 1 pm.
     I think the cherries - when they come - will go nicely where the blue tarp has been sitting since last year, discouraging the grass and weeds a bit. That is South of the greenhouse and East of the raspberries. I still have to figure out the fruit cage to keep the birds off the cherries. Surely I can find an old fishing net or two down at the wharf?
    I have been working on a little booklet of bead and sequin techniques, based on one of my favourite books from the library - Bead and Sequin Embroidery Stitches by Stanley Levy.

     I must see if I can get a used copy somewhere. I have borrowed it a lot! Anyway, I am trying out some of the techniques in my little booklet, to see if I can do them, firstly, and secondly, in case I can't find the book, I shall have a record of the techniques. Luckily, Fabricville has been going out of beads at the same time, so they have been really cheap. Now I have many colours of flat sequins and quite a few of the cupped ones - they didn't have many of those. Of course I already have lots of beads.

The bathroom continues, sluggishly. I painted the closet inside - two coats yesterday alone - because it's 90 cm. deep and I don't think it will be much fun to paint once the frame and the doors are on. I cut some of the face frame, it looks good, but I think I need a longer drill-bit - it needs to go through the 1 x 3 edgewise, and into the cross pieces a bit. I have decking screws long enough to fasten them together once the drilling is done.
     In any case, it is coming up to completion (if only I could get some time at it) and then it's on to the cradle for the tub, which is a bit terrifying at the moment but which will turn out to be possible once I get started on it. The tub has been sitting in the living-room since I started on the closet. It looks a bit Bohemian in there at the moment, I have to say.

Easter in Halifax again

We're off with quite a big group of our set dancers to see Pat Murphy in Halifax http://www.setdancingns.com/easterweekend.htm for the Easter weekend. I must remember to google Pat and see if we can guess which dances are "hot" at the workshops he's given recently - I promised I would do that in time for class tonight.
I was quite right about the plants in the cold frame - dead as door-nails. Ah, well -plenty of time to start again. I bought Burpee seeds for peppers yesterday - two kinds of hot (Jalapeno and mixed) and sweet, mixed colours. I hope *they* survive.
I've begun to fix up the greenhouse again - bought two pieces of conduit to replace the broken one and the one that's bent the worst - and I have strapping to brace them more thoroughly this time. I may be back in the greenhouse business again! But the weather is *not* conducive to being out - we are having the "March" winds in April this year - the horrible cold northerly ones that keep the temperature just above freezing. Brrr.  It's not fit to be out!
In the bathroom I have finished the seam-filling in the closet and put up the shelf supports - carefully measured and level as I can make them. I bought the 1x3 oak to make the frame for the doors, and decided to build it into a face frame - cutting carefully first and then drilling and screwing it together before fastening it to the shelf supports and the shelves. This should take care of the problem of there being nothing to nail the frame to at the top. I think the table in the garage will be big enough to assemble and screw it together - I could even glue it! I'm just paranoid that I'll make it and it won't fit ;-(.
But I'll go slowly and carefully and perhaps the worst won't happen!!