Thursday, March 28, 2013

Easter's around the corner

...but winter is still hanging in there. On Tuesday, snowflakes were swirling around when I left my office. Urgh!

We haven't been able to do anything outside in our garden, but I did manage to get some seeds into some dirt this past weekend. Amazingly, the hokkaido pumpkin seeds I threw in an empty pot (RIP, poinsettia) have already started coming up gangbusters. After one of the cats (ahem, Eliza) chewed up most of the potted Callas my friend had given me, I realized I needed to protect my fledgling pumpkins, so I brought up the cage Hannah used to keep her mouse in from the cellar and banged it down over the pot. It fits perfectly, with room to spare, so I hope I can keep them alive and uneaten until it is warm enough to get them into the ground.

I had a bit of a shock when I went to plant my geranium seeds, though. Apparently, the farmers are growing them in gold-plated pots and watering them with Evian, because a package of 10 seeds cost me 4.50! I hadn't even noticed in the store when I bought them with a bunch of other stuff. I put them in peat pots in my windowsill greenhouse because I wanted to give them the best possible chance to sprout, so of course the damn peat pots sprouted mold all over. So irritated. Luckily, the mold dried up when I took the clear plastic cover off. The cats haven't made a habit of getting up on that windowsill, so I have my fingers crossed that the open greenhouse remains unmolested. Today I saw that I have about 3 geranium seeds sprouting. Go me! So far that is 3 bucks a plant (since I bought 2 packages of seeds).

On further thought, I'm not going to post a picture of my Easter wreath, because it looks rather crappy. Instead, I'll post a picture of my most successful wreath to date: Halloween!

I think next year I'll stock up on some Easter chocolate and attach it to the wreath like I did with the Halloween chocolate.

If we get out of the house tomorrow, I want to take a picture of the little fountain down the street decorate for Easter. John was going to try to get us reservations to eat Easter fish, but no one answered the phone at lunch.

--Nee in Germany forgot to buy white eggs for dying