My newest project (not like I needed a new one, but...)  This will hopefully go together quickly.  I'm planning it for a 'retirement' present for Alli's one-on-one aide.  Alli will be leaving the program in June, and she's had Karen for at least the last 6 years to take care of her.

Here's how the garden is going - 6 tomato plants in...

Sugar snap peas in the back (grown from seed in the garden bed), asparagus beans and tomatillas (grown from seed) in the next row, green beans in the next row (just seeds right now) and a ton of lemon cucumber plants (most grown from seed in the greenhouse).

Eggplants in the back (the ones on the left are grown from seed), green peppers, jalapeno peppers,  lettuce seeds, and lettuce, chard and kale in the front.

The family is in for Easter weekend - 4 extra dogs, 1 extra cat and 5 extra people.  Whew!  We took most of the dogs on a long walk yesterday, and the wildflowers are blooming in the field.

Yesterday was a perfect Spring day - and I played hooky from work (just a couple hours though....) and picked up some tomatoes and peppers.  

I had a whole bed of volunteer tomatoes this year...

My sweet peas are still doing good.

And the lettuce, spinach and chard that I planted earlier this Spring.

We lost a good friend last night....We had Jasper put down.  She was 14 1/2 years old....RIP Jasper

Finished!  I (finally) finished hand-sewing the binding on this quilt.  I think it took less time for me to make the quilt top than it did for me to sew the binding.  This is for AJ's friend Wes that is getting married in June - the first of his buddies to get married.  AJ is in the wedding, and his friend Jeff is the best man.  AJ helped pick out the quilt pattern and the fabric.

We had actual Spring last weekend!  Sunny weather, around 75 degrees...perfect!  We are now, once again, back in the 'real Spring' of Shasta County - wind and rain, but last weekend was perfect!  

Dave came down, and and I put him to work.  He and Alex did a green-waste run for me. I have at least two more runs to do, but it took forever for them to do just one run - the dump was backed up because everyone else was doing the same thing.  There is still a lot of clean-up from our 'snow-mageddon' that we had in February, so the green-waste area is a hopping place.

My peas are popping up too!  The seeds I planted in the greenhouse aren't doing that great, but I will have some lemon cucumbers I can plant, I think.  Most of the seeds didn't germinate (bad seeds??? some of them were pretty old....)

The trees are blooming....

And my lavender plant is starting to bloom - the bees were all over it!

Alex and I painted the heads again

And our big project on Sunday was gluing rocks in the fountain.  The rocks under the waterfall had all fallen down over the last couple of years, so Alex waded into the pond, and I put glue on rocks and handed them to him (after hauling all the rock over.....good thing I'm working out!)  The fountain looks much better now!

New haircut!!!

More progress on the garage!  Alex and I were at a standstill in the garage - waiting for Ralph to go through a pile of items we weren't sure of, so....we hit the pool house!  I want to turn it into a gardening shed, so we pulled out all the odds and ends stored in there (almost everything in there went to the dump....), swept it out, and moved some of my yard equipment in.  I have more to go in, but we ran out of time and energy.....  I also want to get a shelving unit in there if I can....Dave is coming down this weekend, so I may be able to put him to work for me.  We'll see!

Book club was Wednesday - fun night - lots of discussion of the book even!  Here's the final bookmarks.

Last weekend I babysat Nicholas, and I had crocheted around a fleece blanket for him - he seemed to enjoy it...

Here's my progress on the quilt - the pieces laid out.....lots of little tiny pieces....

And the finished blocks.  Not bad!  Most of the corners match up and everything!!!  The red block has a flower and basket handle to applique on, but Paula promised applique lessons at the next club meeting, so I'll save those to put on after that!

To off-set the time I spent inside sewing, AJ and I did a ton of yard work this weekend.  We have the trailer full of leaves, and two trailer loads of branches to go to the dump.  We cleaned out the pool area - taking out most of one bush.  I'm planning on putting a seating area there.  We pulled out the potting table that was there and moved it to the side yard.  

Book club this month is The Storied Life of AJ Fikry - I don't recommend it, it's bit boring.  Not bad, but not exciting either.  The pattern for the flower is here.  In the book, AJ tells Amy she reminds him of a dandelion - his favorite flower.  That was pretty much the best I could come up with for an idea for a bookmark.  As I said, it was a bit boring.  So boring, that I figured out I had actually read it once before, but didn't remember much of it.

AJ and I took the dogs for a run - and Luna found some geese to chase.....she was absolutely soaked from running after them.

The quilt club is starting up again - here's the new quilt I will be attempting:

15 inch blocks - which means each of these little blocks is just 3 inches - tiny little blocks this time!

And more applique - not a ton of it, thank goodness!

I got the greenhouse all set up, and winter came back - again....Heavy sigh.  We are back to torrential rain (I stayed late at work last night because it was raining so hard.....) and wind.  I went out yesterday and strapped the greenhouse to the infrastructure behind it - hopefully it stays where I put it.  Especially since it has all the shelves full of seeds now!  The temps are not low, so it should still germinate the seeds - if they don't blow over!

Before I strapped it down - and put in one more shelf of seed pots.....

Since it was nasty weather last weekend, I got one section of my latest quilt put together:

And during one break in the rain, AJ and I ran the dogs out in the field:

And Spring is coming - one of the trees in the field is blooming!