Mornings

Not sure if I've mentioned this before on the blog or not, but I am a morning person.  As my mother can attest to, I have always been an early riser and would blithely eat cereal and watch cartoons at hours considered uncivilized by some.  As a kid, this talent didn't serve me very well because it also meant I was rather happy to go to bed at a reasonable hour.  I'd be the first asleep at slumber parties and normally the victim of several pranks because of this.  Mom would give me permission to stay up and watch Saturday Night Live and sleep on the sofa bed which I thought was the height of luxury, but rarely if ever did I make it past the opening sketch.  I have found as an adult that while I'm not as chipper in the morning I still feel fairly ready to face the day by 7 am at the latest.  When I'm up, I'm up and I want to start doing things like cooking, straightening, getting things out of the way I don't like doing so I can enjoy the afternoon.

Now, I married a NOT morning person.  Josh is at best barely functional after a cup of morning coffee and at worst incoherent.  Woe betide he who suggests cleaning before 10 am.  This has been the source of many a spat in our relationship, but if that is the worst we ever have to deal with I think we're ok.  Apparently my child shares a similar penchant for sleeping in.  Maegwin is a bear to wake up and wants to just sit and watch some songs and eat her yogurt like a little robot in the morning.  If one deviates from this routine, there will be hell to pay.

All this is my long-winded way of saying that I've found new joy in mornings.  Since both my little sleepy heads like catching late morning Z's, I get up and brew some coffee and enjoy some me time.  For these glorious few hours my coffee is hot, I can watch what I want, and knit without interruption.  I save my more delicate knitting maneuvers or anything that involves scissors for this time.  This morning I wove in the ends on my latest project and sauntered out to get some well lit photos.

I give you-Spring Garden Tee!


I knit it in Rowan Panama yarn in the Hibiscus colorway. I loved everything about this little knit and Maegwin loves the yarn. She tried it on last night and kept petting her belly and saying it was so soft and purple. Best compliment one can get from a two-year-old I'd say!  Now it goes to hang out at the yarn store for a month as a sample and then it is ours.  I made a size 3 so I anticipate getting some good wear out of it.  I think it will look cute with a sweater over it as well.

I haven't done a garden update in a while but things are going nicely.  If you recall, last year I put tons of cone flower seedlings around the tree up by our stone retaining wall.  This year they have filled in nicely and the bee balm really expanded so that section is quite full and we're happy with it.  We get many hummingbirds, finches, and bees.


In the background you can see how bad the fire was next door. The flames were shooting out of the roof in the place where it is gone. We also have a little chipmunk that lives in our stone wall and comes out each morning to sun himself on the rock by the lungwort prior to finding his food.
I love watching him. He's so cute!  We had a hummingbird come by while we were watering the vegetable garden and it darted in and out of the hose spray for about ten minutes.  We were both too afraid to move to go get the camera but it was pretty amazing.  It was a very hot day so I'm thinking he must have been taking a little shower.

I've started reclaiming the pond area.  It got overgrown with weeds last year and we sort of picked our battles and let it alone.  Just too much work to do with our limited outside time.  Now each time we can get Maegwin to play in her sandbox (thanks, Mom & John), I go hack down a little more and leave it to dry out in the sun before I rake it away.  I've almost made it through and then we're going to put down that black weed suppressing stuff and add perennials slowly.


Here's what I've raked out of it so far.


Here's the start of our beans we planted a few weeks ago.  Maegwin was a great helper and diligently placed just a few seeds in each hole.

We also put out sunflowers but only a few have come up so far.  We've had two mini harvests of peas which was nice but they are probably winding down at this point.  Next year we will definitely plant more.  We only did about a third of a bed this year.

We got a zoo membership and have gone once on it so far.


We had a great time but have decided that we need a wagon so we can haul some stuff.  We took drinks and snacks for Mae and my shoulders were aching by the end from the backpack.  Josh had to haul her around on his shoulders once she got tired.


My dad said he had an old one he used to use for my nieces and nephew when they were young so we're going to check that out and see if it will work.  We look forward to many more forays to the zoo though.  I love that we feel no pressure to stay.  If she's tired and we've only been there for an hour, no big deal.  We can bring two unnamed guests on our pass too so come visit us, family.  We can go to the zoo!