Budding

Chances are most of my posts in the next months will contain garden pics.  It is greening here and buds are everywhere.  There is still a good chance of a cold snap and freeze, but Spring is most definitely in the air.

I took a walk through the front and back gardens and just snapped a few photos.  The most distressing is that ant bed.  There are many that have appeared and I must get poison on them quickly. They spread rapidly here.

As I take these walks, it is not lost on me the glory of this creation we are privilege to live in.  And it is also not lost on me the gratefulness I have for where I am.  Although many have bigger homes and fancier yards, God has blessed us with so much.  These walls are saturated with love.  God is so good.

Yarn Along with a dose of sewing and the August garden

~ Two of my favorite things are knitting and reading, and the evidence of this often shows up in my photographs.  I love seeing what other people are knitting and reading as well. So, what are you knitting or crocheting right now? What are you reading?


This month of August has bestowed upon North Texas 100+ temps every day.  It is the time of melting here.  You don't venture outside for very long, which makes it hard on the little ones. So I find myself winding yarn and planning future projects all while readying the house for a baby shower this weekend ( more on that later).

I am making swift progress on the Haruni Shawl.  There are a couple of places in the pattern that if you don't read just right you are doomed.  More than once I have had to frog a row or two.  But it has a rhythm to it that is comforting, so I knit on.

This is my first fingering weight shawl and I wasn't prepared for how much it scrunches during the knitting. My oldest daughter assures me the blocking will make the pattern pop out. :)

I have just begun this and am captivated.  First, the setting is the Bay of Fundy where we just returned from and secondly, because my nursing career was centered around Labor and Delivery, I enjoy reading birthing stories.  Also, I love history and this book puts all three together.

I decided today to make use of the quiet and wind up some skeins.  They are all different companies, but all fingering.

The top skein really faded out in the picture, but it is actually next in the queue.  I have had the pattern for  Quill for quite some time.  I had enough fingering cotton to begin it, but really wanted something warmer.  While playing around in the Knit Picks website, I came across Bare Stroll.  This is a dyeable yarn, but I wanted it in its bare state.  The color and the content are perfect for the project.  It arrived today and I wound up one skein so it would be ready to go.

The garden is in full meltdown mode. 

Only the window boxes under the porch roof are surviving the heat.

Or if you hang from a very large tree.

But... wait!  On second look. What did I find?

Of course!  A yellow rose of Texas!  You can't keep some things down!

Thanks again to sweet Ginny for linking us all together.  Wednesday is my favorite day!

Kingsbrae Gardens

One of the biggest highlights of our trip to New Brunswick was a visit to Kingsbrae Gardens. " This 27 acre site was created over two years and opened to visitors in 1998.  The garden features a cedar maze, two ponds, streams, a fully-functional one-third scale windmill, a wide array of birds, butterflies and insects, a woodland trail through an old-growth Acadian forest , and more.  The garden has more than 2500 different varieties of trees, shrubs and plants for you to enjoy, and many pathways to stroll along."

 

I cannot tell you again how much I enjoyed this!  Had it not been for the heat, I would have stayed all day.  I spent quite a bit of time in the above building which is the tea room and gift shop just cooling off.
I recommend that if you are ever anywhere in the vicinity that you make time to stroll through.  You will not be disappointed!