April Showers

This has certainly been a dismal spring weatherwise, rain and clouds almost every day. But of course we are lucky here considering the terrible and deadly storms that have swept across so many parts of the country this month.
We are way behind, only the early daffodils are blooming and the grass is just beginning to turn green. I hope these April showers will bring the promised May flowers.
Meanwhile perhaps some bright orange will add a little cheer to the day.

Daffodil Days

The little crocus have passed but the daffodils are coming into their glory. In my garden the daffodil season lasts through much of April and May - I have very early varieties, many midseason blooms and then the old daffodil poeticus and its hybrids for late in the season. I am particularly fond of the late flat cupped daffodils but love them all, the classic yellows, the split cups, the frilly doubles and all the little miniatures.
And of course I can't resist the jonquillas with their spicy aroma.
Unlike the fussy tulips, these are truly a full proof flower. They are poisonous so the little animals never eat them. Once planted they will come back year after year without any fuss or bother. The only trick to getting flowers every year is to leave the foliage to die off naturally. The foliage is necessary to feed the bulb to make next year's flower so if you cut it off you will get nothing but foliage the next spring. Once it begins to yellow you can cut it off to make the garden neater.
Happy Spring!

Big Skys

Early this week we learned that my friends little granddaughter, who just celebrated her first birthday, is dying of Tay-Sachs disease.
I have been paralyzed with anquish for the family and shocked by the unrelenting cruelty of the universe.
Perhaps it is simply the human condition to react more strongly to the close and personal than to the horror of earthquakes and tsunamis and war, far away and hence less real.
It is hard to find solace, hard to even imagine how the parents of this child can cope and survive the anguish they face.
I have no answers but look to the sky, nature may be cruel but she is also astonishingly beautiful

Eco-Tawashi

Despite yesterdays snow, yes it did snow here yesterday, there are signs of spring. The lovely little crocus in the lawn are my favorite. Despite their tiny size they are probably the most welcome of all my flowers each year. I call this photograph Do You Believe in Magic?
But it is still too cold and wet to do much work in the garden and I am thrilled to have received a much anticipated shipment of Eco-tawashi yarn from Japan.
I ordered this yarn right at the time of the devasting earthquake and tsunami so had little hope that it would ever arrive. But my supplier was not injured and shipped the yarn as soon as she was able to return to Tokyo
This is a very special yarn unique to Japan and used to make traditional eco-tawashis, magic pot scrubbers. It is an abrasive acrylic yarn with deoderizing and anit-bacterical properties.
The Japanese crochet this yarn into lovely scrubbers in gorgeous pattterns.
They are called eco-tawashi because they are used to clean pots, casseroles, dishes glasses etc. without soaps or detergents so are great for the environment.
And they do work like magic. I gave the first tawashi I crocheted to my husband and he has been raving about it ever since. Our glass casseroles look like new and our glasses and pots shine.
I have crocheted them into flowers: roses and chrysanthemums, since tawashis must be beautiful and well as effective. They are available for purchase in my Beadedwire Etsy shop.