Another multi-purpose post (or, what I've learned lately)

Lesson 1: check out your property before you buy a blueberry bush. All of 2 of the blueberries in that picture are from my purchased bush. The others are from the wild ones growing between us and our neighbors (sigh).



Powdered milk may or may not be a good deer and bunny deterrent, but ants LOVE it! The exterminator came by about 3 hours after I took that picture, and watched streams of ants carrying away grains of powdered milk.



Spiders can be cool



Onions can overwinter, even when it gets to be brutally cold in PA.




Taking a chance on a mildly difficult knitting project can pay off.

I'm famous! (sorta)

A gal I know on one of the many internet chat rooms I frequent started a crochet blog with how-tos, patterns, crochet-a-longs, and the like. She's looking for an interactive blog experience, so I offered to show off some left handed versions of the things she does (yes, I"m a leftie).

So check out her blog. Maybe get some patterns, and see my hand (my famous hand ;) showing off my yellow granny square!

More roses, and a knitting update

My pink roses are popping!







And for the first time in a long while, I finished a knitting pattern! It's called the meandering rib scarf from Lion Brand Yarn.



I used this yummy yarn I bought at the Maryland Sheep and Wool Festival.



It's a luscious merino wool, but it's has a nice heavy cotton feel. And the color--the pictures don't do it justice. I still have one ball left, so I'm searching for another good pattern.

Cherry pie, and random musings from the kitchen

I bought a big bag of cherries yesterday. This will make my mom nostalgic, as she says I have always been a big cherry fan, and I guess she's right. I made a pie with fresh cherries last year and J really liked it, so I dusted off the recipe to give it another go.

There's something wonderful about using fresh cherries instead of that sticky stuff from a can. Even J noticed the difference last year. He even bought me a cherry pitter to make the prep work a bit easier. He really likes this pie.

I have discovered that it is sinfully easy to make a pie crust. I was secretly hoping we had a frozen crust (or 2) lying around, but after throwing together some flour, butter (OK, SmartBalance) and water and making a perfect crust and lattice topping, I forgot why I was looking forward to the frozen stuff. I even called my grandma (who wasn't home) because she first taught me to make a pie crust in leftover chicken pot pie tins. I had no idea what I was doing at the time--I was maybe 7 or so. I'm a little better at it now.

The pie turned out great. J ate his warm with some ice cream, I had mine au naturel. We have the rest portioned into Tupperware to take to work this week. We have no actual meals for work lunches this week, just dessert. Sounds good to me.

To market, to market

I'll admit it, I'm jealous of my sister in law. Because she lives in southern California, gets to visit multiple farmer's markets in her area, and post yummy blog posts like this. I, on the other hand, live in the Poconos and had a rough, rough winter.

But the farmer's market finally opened here in May, and I look forward to Saturday mornings. Here's what I got today. The plastic bag holds a big ol' bunch of spinach, and the paper bag is full of home-grown snap peas. And I got a batch of yummy looking scallions.

Bon apetit!

A rose by any other name

Way back when, I posted about receiving new roses for the yard. I planted them, treated them with tender loving care (and a lot of rose spray), and hoped for the best. They didn't bloom much the first year, but I was confident they would overwinter and come back strong.

And then we had a winter from hell. I'm still waiting for consistently warm temperatures. We had a frost warning on June 1. June 1!

But the roses survived, and then some!

Here are the first blooms of the year.

Even Hobbes got in on the act. For a cat who usually begs to go outside, this little adventure required a lot of coaxing. This was his first stop on the way to check out grass.

All quiet on the eastern front

Now that I"m back from TX, things are pretty quiet around here. Work is back to a manageable pace (although performance reviews are around the corner). We have a couple of weekends with no major commitments (as yet). All is well.

Stay tuned...