Cindy’s Blog

The wisteria is blooming. Here are some shots of it.

But the wisteria pics are really an excuse to try out a new technique I learned for rounding image corners.

Here’s our ridiculous ground cover, winter wheat and hairy vetch. The passages through it were made by the rabbit, Fred. He’s constructed his own maze so he can hide from hawks and eat at the same time. Its so cute.

Here’s the broccoli and kale crop. All that survived is the few plants that were protected inside fencing.

Here’s the compost pile, bursting forth with pumpkins. The compost isn’t at all like compost sold in garden centers. I’m not sure what I did wrong. It might be that as the rabbits dug a hole into their palace, lots of horrible clay soil was shoveled into the compost. You’re not supposed to add soil to compost. I imagine adding horrible soil is even worse.

Since it’s so warm, we cut down and dug in a section of clover. It wasn’t easy, but this is the section of the yard where we didn’t amend the soil. This is Garrison’s experiment with growing pumpkins and melons in unamended clay soil.

I spent hours and hours digging up the rest of the yard too. I’m so sore today.

In the front yard we have our first calla lilly bloom. I thought they had completely died after the freeze. It was just an act.

We let Fred out to see if his time in prison had reformed him. It only hardened him. He wasted no time starting another reign of terror. Here he is guarding the bunny palace. He won’t let his brother Ed leave. But if Fred wants to eat he has to leave his post. Ed is then free to leave and Fred chases him around the yard. We have tried multiple times to capture Fred, but he’s on to us now. He’s too fast. Since Ed now refuses to fight and they aren’t seriously injuring themselves, we’re leaving them to work it out themselves for now.

Here’s a closeup of the backyard terrorist.

His mouth fur looks greenish. No doubt from engorging on the lettuce and clover that he’d like to keep his brother from eating.

The task of decorating our bulletin board at work is now a competition and is being rotated from group to group. My team was first up. Here’s our entry.

It’s very 3D. Look at it from the side. Who else has a bulletin board with a windowsill and curtains?

I wish I could say it was my idea, but all I contributed was the origami butterflies and bird which are almost not visible here.

Since we’re at work, here’s the rest of the tour. My cube…

And the view of my new building from across the street.

The tomatoes are growing faster now that the weather is warming up.

Here Ed and Lucy eat what they can reach of the crimson clover. Look how tall its getting.

I was so happy to see on a local garden store website that it’s time to start plants from seed. I’ve wasted no time buying them.

Watermelon, chocolate cherry sunflowers, marigolds, brandywine tomatoes, cucumbers, scarlet runner beans, torpedo onions, sugar pumpkins (for the front yard) and atlantic giant pumpkins. This year I hope to be more organized and have my own starts ready so I don’t have to buy any.

I found a copy of Rodale’s “Feed Your Soil” booklet, which gives wonderful discussions of how to improve your soil. One technique I’m trying now is crimson clover cover crop.

Now that it’s getting warmer, the clover is growing much faster. I’m hoping it will be as good as adding compost. The bricks are to block the hole the rabbits dug to get into the restricted clover feasting area. I pulled weeds out of it today and gave those to them - such good little weed eaters.

Fred’s attacks on Ed have been relentless. In their last battle, he ripped a piece of Ed’s ear off. That was the last straw. He earned himself a place in the hutch for that. I hate to do it, but I can’t have them killing each other one body part at a time.

One of my coworkers suggested that we rename Fred, Mike. Actually she suggested I name him George after George Foreman. Neither of us knows much about boxers. Garrison provided enlightenment about who bit off his opponent’s ear.

The odd thing about this is that ever since Fred took up residence in the hutch, Ed has been climbing up onto the box that’s next to it and looking in. What is he thinking? That he’s glad it’s Fred and not him in there? Is he wondering how his brother is doing? Does he miss him? He does this quite frequently.

See what the bunnies are doing to the basil? They’re turning it into basil trees. They’re nuts. They’re attacking everything, even the garlic, onions and mint they’re supposed to hate. It’s not like they don’t receive huge and varied amounts of food from me. Not good enough, apparently.

Behind this you can see the start of a fence that now surrounds the red clover field. There’s no other way to keep them out of it.

Here they are enjoying the clover field before it was fenced off. Do they look underfed to you?

Ed comes in for a snuggle with Lucy while Fred relaxes.

Aren’t they cute…

…as little buttons?

These photos were all taken through a window, thus the poor quality. If I had gone outside they would have moved.

Socks
Here are the latest finished socks. They were made using a random cable pattern. I created an excel spreadsheet with the cell’s height and width adjusted so that each cell was square. Then I copied a random number generating formula into each cell so it displayed a random number between 1 and 4. 1 - cable front. 2 - cable behind. 3 and 4 - knit two stiches straight. This is a a cable with two stitches crossing over another two.

Here they are in action. Nothing makes calves and ankles look bigger than socks photographed at this angle.

And here’s a closeup.