Monday morning's view from our dining room window.
When we left off last week, I was head down, working furiously to prepare for the rose volunteer work day at Hollywood Cemetery. This winter's cold and snow delayed my visits there to evaluate the roses till the very last minute (stressful). In a matter of two days, I wrote up my notes, updated my rose map, divided the cemetery's roses into ten sections for the ten teams of volunteers, and made assignment sheets for each team ... and I crossed my fingers, hoping that I hadn't forgotten to do something important.
My sweet husband, clearing off my Jeep ... in case we needed to go anywhere (which we didn't)
I needn't have worried because the work day itself went off perfectly. Twenty volunteers divided into the ten teams made quick work of the pruning and training that the roses required. We started at 10am, and everyone was finished and on their way home by 3pm. You will be surprised to hear that I didn't take a single photo that day. Instead of supervising and photographing, I was a member of the crew with my own set of roses to work on. I hope to get photos from other people that were there and share them with you soon.
Snow sure is pretty.
On Sunday, The Husband and I went to an event called "Treasures From the Attic", sponsored by our county's historical society. The object of the event was for residents to bring items for the historians to see, so their stories and images could be recorded and preserved. We brought the cannon ball that I found while planting roses in the garden back by our barn. No one could say for sure what weapon it was made for, but they did agree that it probably dated from before than the Civil War.
That's The Husband's Jeep under all that snow.
For the rest of the time, I have been doing things around the house ... you know, important stuff like laundry. I also am continuing to excavate the hoarder's paradise that I call my sewing room, and I'm making real progress up there. One day I will show it to you. Today is not that day.
Our front yard, looking toward the southwest.
I have been bringing pieces of furniture up from the basement and working on them in the dining room. In the last few days, I have painted and am almost finished with two end tables, two round tables, and a small nightstand. This clears out space in the basement, but my dining room is trashed from using it as work space, and the living room isn't much better with the finished pieces stored in there. It feels great, though, to have so many things almost ready to take to the Lucketts Spring Market in May.
Front yard, northwest.
The calendar now says Spring, but the weather for us has been all over the place. We had beautiful weather and temperatures in the 70s for the Saturday of our workday at Hollywood Cemetery (yay!!!!). Two days later, on Monday, we had 8 inches of snow on the ground. Today, the snow is all gone and it is a sunny spring-like day ... but the weather guessers are saying that we have a very good chance of another snow storm early next week. Temperatures up -- temperatures down. Snow, rain, sun, fog, wind ... we have had it all this month.
This is our across-the-street neighbor.
Now that the work day at Hollywood Cemetery is behind me, I can now set my sights on continuing the reclamation of my own neglected garden. Our unusually cold winter has undoubtedly caused considerable damage to my roses, but I'm okay with that. Any losses provide opportunities. The cycle of the seasons is something that gardeners have to accept. This spring, I am excited to get outside and get to work ... staying indoors for most of the winter has been making me nuts!
It's weird having been away from here for so long ... gotta get back into the habit of writing and sharing again. I missed you guys!!