Solar Power

This hasn't happened in a long time. A first of the season, really. I spent the whole, entire, bright, beautiful, sunny, warm weekend outside — except for the time i spent making a quilt sandwich in our basement. Yes, you read that right, "quilt sandwich" (hold the mayo). Didn't turn my computer on once. Not once! I feel solar-ly recharged, ready to start the week, but achy all over from working out in our garden. The nicer it gets outside, the harder it is to stay inside. You know how it is.

Our garden is really small, but we've managed to make use of every square inch of it (well, almost). A couple years ago, we built raised beds to extend the growing season for our veggies by a few weeks — in fact the lettuce, spinach and beets are coming up already! Here's my new bumper sticker:
Anyone have any good kale recipes?? (eh hem...Jocelyn?)

Most of our garden is dedicated to flowers...oh, and raspberries — wow do they ever spread fast! Something we really like to do is to grow native species plants because they're the most sustainable and don't require using fertilizer or pesticides, and they're not invasive. But some of the best benefits are that they attract birds and butterflies and help maintain small-scale biodiversity (like keeping the honey bees and ladybugs happy!). Here's a great site if you're interested in finding plants that are native to your area. Ok, stepping down from my compost pile...

So while we certainly did plan on which flowers we wanted to grow, we didn't know that we would also be planting magic and inspiration, but it blooms prolifically! Over the weekend, I was reminded of this. You see, some of the patterns from Verna were inspired out there. Here are two that are blooming right now. This is our magnolia tree:
That inspired this:
And this is our hellebore (also known as Lenten Rose):
That inspired this:
Wonder what will catch my eye this year?
Hope you had a very Happy Easter!