Silver linings

As much as I love the sunshine (my freckles can testify to that), some of my all time favourite things fall from the clouds.

At the top of the list - watching our crazy cat drink water off the top of our outdoor table during and after a good rainfall. (She also likes sitting in the sprinkler - who said cats don't like water!)

Next - the vibrancy of the grass after the rain. It almost looks like it is glowing.

And following on from that, I love stomping around my vege garden in my flashy gumboots (mine are the Ponga Frond ones) to check on my freshly washed herbs.

And last but most certainly not least - I absolutely love being cuddled up in bed at night listening to the sound of rain fall on a tin roof. It reminds me of those Xmas holidays as a kid - you know the ones - when the days were scorchers and the nights gave way to sudden and heavy downfalls.

It just goes to show - there really are silver linings to those clouds.

Plum Blossom

There is delicate blossom everywhere at the moment. Daisy Ripple sent me a photo of some beautiful plum blossom, both of us having a thing for all white flowers and it reminded me of an antique linen pillow case I found at a village fete when holidaying in England earlier this year. It has intricate lace, a cross between blossom and a snow flake. Irresistible! 

It just needed a tiny amount of stitching to fix it up and I then remembered a remnant of butterfly fabric and put the two together, sewing small squares of butterflies on to the crisp linen. Cream and white, delicious....

Precious Poultry

While we haven't had a lot of sunshine my feathered friends have decided that it is just enough to start up the egg factory. Complete with their shiny black and white speckled feathers they announce the arrival of each and every egg with a loud crowing.




I decided to bring some of their beautiful speckled plumage inside through three projects:

(1) a feather lined cardboard egg tray
(2) a stunning black and white picture frame; and
(3) breadmaker banana bread made with those precious eggs.


                                                                       

The egg tray is full to overflowing and very handy. The old wooden photo frame has been transformed with some gorgeous paper. However the banana bread just hasn't worked despite two attempts. Two out of three is okay... perhaps someone can share a successful breadmaker banana bread recipe?

Spring Intentions

There is something about Spring which encourages new intentions. Today the sideways rain suddenly cleared to blue sky and sunshine and I busied round my kitchen making Pickled Red Cabbage from a recipe passed down from my Grandmother by word of mouth, similar to this one here. The cabbage came from the Organic Garden where I work sometimes.

In a twist of fate I also noticed that the red cabbage seeds I had planted awhile ago had started to sprout! Too small to photograph but big enough to cause excitement.

                                 

Spring is in the air!

Without sounding too cliched, spring really does inspire me to get outdoors and into the garden. It also means a review of what I might try growing from seed and what makes sense to get from the local garden centre. I pulled out my grotty ice cream container of seeds only to discover the kids had been through them and there were packets everywhere.

To get some order into my seeds and to help me find what I need at a glance (and keep them safe from small hands!) I've decorated an old box to store them in. I've used white paint and some beautiful black and white botannical images. Graphically I like to keep things simple so I've used a small amount of green and red on each image.





I've then sealed the box with Modge Podge and it's ready to go.
 
So fingers crossed for this year's garden - it's going to be a race between me and the snails!