When I had the lawn re-landscaped a few years ago, one of the front areas has always struggled keeping the grass green - the sprinklers just don't get enough water to parts of it.  I decided that "I can fix that!" and, with AJ's help, started on the project yesterday!  We dug out the existing bender board and repositioned it, dug out the rest of the grass area behind it, and put in weed block cloth.  Now I just need to put in gravel in that area!

This corner is next on my list.  I ran out of time yesterday (and cooperation from AJ - he had other plans for the day...)

 

I took a photo of the moonset the other night - the camera on my cellphone did a pretty decent job of capturing it!

 

Spring flowers are blooming!

 

And allergy season is set to begin. This is my sycamore tree getting ready to turn everything yellow/green.....

 

And the latest quilt top - Dinner Plates - is done!  I need to find the backing fabric for it, but one project has been moved to the next step!

 

And a new Ryobi product has been added to the stable!  The latest addition (and hopefully the last!) is a battery operated lawn mower.  AJ put it together while my back was turned (it was that fast - pretty much open the box and put batteries in...) and then mowed the lawn for me after charging the batteries.  It worked pretty well.  We had a major concern when it wasn't handling the front lawn very well - it  kept choking out on the grass clippings and had to be cleaned and restarted.  Turns out it was user error - the blades were on the lowest setting possible.  When I took a look at the lawn, and heard it starting hitting tree roots in the yard, I figured it was the setting, and luckily that is all it was.  It handled the back yard just fine at a higher setting.

 

We had a huge thunderstorm come through last night - complete with rain and hail.  It was also very, very loud (did I say loud???) when all the hail was hitting!

We still have piles of hail this morning in the yard.

 

I was getting ready for work yesterday morning, and I heard an odd creaking in my closet.   When I checked, I had a very fat cat sitting on a shoe box.  That will teach me to leave the closet door open....that poor box will never recover....

 

 

What a difference a day makes!  I planted some lettuce and spinach seeds the 10th of March in the garden and in a planter.  Though the dogs did dig in both areas, I have sprouts coming up!  And it's fun to watch them grow one day at a time! This is from Monday:

And Tuesday:

Monday:

Tuesday:

 

Speaking on on-going (AKA unfinished) projects, I have a few underway....This one is waiting for the binding to be put on.

This one is a quarter of the way to being quilted.

And this one is just waiting to be quilted.

 

One of my on-going projects is a block a month through Annie's Attic.  I get the fabric and pattern for two blocks a month - quite manageable, right?  Not when you lose the instructions for two of the blocks!  I had them in my hand, was talking with Alli's helper that day, did not leave the room, and can't find them!  I put them down somewhere, and will probably run across them in a couple of years, because they have not show up yet, and it's been a couple of months since I lost them.  Luckily I did not lose the fabric, just the instructions, so I was able to reverse engineer one of the blocks from the cover photo of the quilt. The other is much more intricate. I worked out the pattern, but not the dimensions (it came out too small).  I replaced that block with another pattern, and I doubt that you can tell which one is mine in the over all scheme of things!

 

Finally!  The mower is out of the shop!  Almost $200 later, it runs, but is no longer self-propelled...the drive train is out, and not worth fixing per the shop (I'm glad they told me that rather than bill me a gazillion dollars....)  The back lawn was easily a foot tall in some areas.  AJ weed-eated while I mowed the front (much shorter) and then I started the back.  You know it's tall when the bottom layer is yellow from lack of sunlight....

AJ took over mowing from me when he finished weed-eating.  Since the mower is now a push mower, I was quite happy to let him take it!  Due to the height of the grass, the mower died every few seconds/inches.  What is usually a 45 minute job for one of us to weed-eat and mow turned into a 2 hour job with both of us working it.  Now to shop for a new mower.....this one will be great for heavy-duty jobs like this, but I don't want to mow all summer this way.

With a break in the weather, AJ and I took the dogs out for a walk and I grabbed some shots of the local flowers - my neighbors have some beautiful flowers!  The first shot is from the field, the rest are from my neighborhood.

 

Rain, rain and more rain - that's what last weekend was, so no fun outing for me!  I did have plans to go to the play at the local theater with Meredith, Robin and Leona, but the matinee performance was cancelled due to the illness of a cast member.  We decided to go out to lunch together anyway, since it was cancelled at 11:00, and after lunch found out that the cast member was Malorie!  She's still in the hospital, but is recovering.  Poor thing!

Since I didn't get out much, I was able to get all the blocks made for the new quilt, but not put together.  I was arranging and rearranging on the floor, since it's too big for my design board on the wall.

 

What is is about cats and boxes?  I use this to hold my scissors, cut thread, etc. when I'm quilting the quilt tops, and I turned around, and it's full.....somebody had thread stuck on their tail when they jumped out....

 

Finally!  The sun is out!  Yesterday was a beautiful day in the valley - lots of snow on the surrounding mountains, and a few geese hanging out in the field when we walked the dogs.  We have sun for two days, and then back to rain, but I'll take the sunshine when I can!

 

Jeff sent me this picture of a double rainbow yesterday - beautiful!!!

 

And I have half the blocks done for the quilt.  This one is going together quickly.  If I managed to cut the fabric correctly, it would go even faster, but I cut the next set of fabric wrong and had to re-cut a bunch.....not a good way to spend the afternoon!

 

Another new toy for the kittens - gotta love Amazon boxes....

 

A few more spring flowers - with all the rain we've had, it's so nice to see a bit of spring poking through. I'm ready for some sunshine!!

 

Speaking of new quilts, here's another "block a month" quilt I have started - it won't be finished until October - two blocks a month....