My Favorite Getting a Quick Dose of Sun and Other Stuff!

The Lemon Verbena is More Like a Topiary These Days!

George, One of Three Feral Cats The Herbal Husband Treats!

Four Squares Down, Eight To Go!  This Square Are Cornflowers!

Well, we are not having February weather at all!  I do like to be snowed in and Mother Nature is NOT cooperating!  I am not sure that she will.  Today is a beautifully sunny day in the mid to upper 60's.  This is February?  Usually this means we will have a crappy March or jump from spring to summer in a couple of days!  I am only complaining because the bug populations needs to be really really put in the deep freeze and that has not happened this season.  We usually get about two feet of snow per winter.  Sometimes we are wildly over that amount, but this year we are under, but not by much.  Well the one thing about warmer weather that I love are the spring bulbs and they will be popping here soon!  I am sure a lot of herbs will be showing their leaves if this continues.

So the lemon verbena has turned into a topiary which isn't all bad, but hopefully getting it out in the fresh air and sun will stimulate the lower branches to produce!  Your lemon verbenas that are inside should be showing signs of life.  As long as you have been watering them about every two weeks, they should be starting to produce leaves.  Took the cover off the lemon verbena we left in the herb garden and it was very wet.  So while we have about a week of really mild weather, we are going to leave the cover off and let it dry out!  We have had a very mild winter so maybe we will get lucky and it will come back.  Can I just mention that I pulled from the shelf one of my favorite herb books, Mrs. Reppert's Twelve Month Herbal.  I think I talked about this book on many occasions.  It is so much fun to read day by day and in some cases for me, it mirrored the happenings in my herb garden.  Really, really fun to sit and hang out with Mrs. Reppert in her herb garden!  Fortunately, it is still available on The Rosemary House website. 

That second photo is of one of the feral cats called George that The Herbal Husband has become fond of.  I think I mentioned he started "treating" some cats while I was in England one year.  I came home to find treats on the table in the basement where I do laundry!  George has become a wide load and in this photo he was rolling around on the driveway getting the dust off!  I am allergic to cats so they are all his!

The third photo is of my progress on my afghan and the first row is complete.  I need the step stool to get an aerial view.  Oh, maybe I need a drone for that!  Probably not!  The photo is the fourth square in the first row, cornflowers.  I am enjoying this stitch so much.  I have already plotted my path for the next row.

I hope you are enjoying your break from your herb garden.  Many of us in the northern half of the U.S. have not had a normal winter.  I hope that it mostly a good herbal thing!  I will be back out there soon enough.  Actually looking today to see what I could start doing and I may share that in my next post!  Talk to you later!

Raspberry Jam and Grape Jelly Take a Selfie!

This is my life at the moment!  When you grow fruit, it is sometimes hit or miss whether you get anything!  This year despite the very cold winter and the stink bugs, we have had a bumper crop of raspberries.  The jury is still out on the grapes.  They are still being cut and detangled from cat hair.  Yes, we have a feral cat that likes to climb especially the grape arbor and rests up there.  The Herbal Husband was cutting grape bunches the other day and out comes the cat.  Scared the you know what out of him!

So I will be posting sporadically.  The temperatures are starting to drop at night here in southwestern PA, so you should be doing something with your basils in particular.  Everything else should be OK.  I have my list of herbal jellies I will be making.  Just look at my chores list because I will try to change it to keep you thinking about herbs that need to be harvested.

We have been very cool already!  So I have had to scramble to make sure that the herb garden hasn't started to die back!  Lots to think about!  So hope you are having a great day wherever you may be!  Talk to you later!

Something We Haven't Seen For Awhile and the Cat Count!

The Sun Finally Appears!

The Original Kitty Waiting for Lunch!

A New Bigger Cat!

Usually we don't hit our gray days until winter.  This rain is getting to The Herbal Husband and me.  Fortunately we haven't had the flooding rains that other parts of the state have gotten!  Rain did provide time for The Herbal Husband to write an article for an English toy magazine and I got my handouts ready for Seven Springs in two weeks!  Now all I have to do is practice making the jelly!  I can do it in my sleep, but in front of people will be a different experience.  Then there are the cats and we now are into multiples.  We have at least two residents and may be more!  Well, hope you are having a great day.  We are having date night and going to Panera and the Oaks Movie Theater for a foreign film.  Get my glasses cleaned!  Sometimes I'm reading so much at the foreign film, I don't enjoy the film!  Ugh!  OK, enough whining!  Talk to you later.

Kitty and the Canals of Amsterdam

I know you think you are seeing things when you see this cat on the table.  I know it looks like Kitty!  I couldn't believe it and it posed just like Kitty does!  Haven't seen Kitty for awhile maybe Kitty hid out in one of the suitcases to find a new life in Holland!  Enough Kitty tales!

Another one of our Holland hosts had a very charming garden space both in the front and in the back.

There are Very Narrow Canals

And Much Wider Canals

And Lots of Charming Restaurants

Even Found a Lavender in a Flower Box

The Pulley System is Used to Move Furniture In and Out

A Beautiful Sunset

The Lights on The Canals of Amsterdam!

We had a very nice time at our friend's house and then took a candlelight tour of the canals of Amsterdam.  It was nice to see old friends again and to make new ones as well.  Tomorrow the windmills of Holland.  Hope you had a great day.  We are still having the ickys and stickys, but we did get rain finally.  Not enough to end our mini drought, but some.  Talk to you later.

It All Started With This Photo!

I sent this photo into the photo contest for Renee's Garden Seeds.  They are a favorite seed company of mine.  This wasn't quite the photo they wanted, but I thought I would give them a laugh for the day!  Lookie what I got in the mail over the weekend.  I'm not sure that I won, but free seeds at any point makes it feel like I won!

The June e-newsletter will have the winners!  Since my photo wasn't of your kitty eating their cat treat seeds, I sorta think I got a consolation prize, but it was free!  I was correct.  Kitty was only hoping for Cat Treat seeds and thinking about them while sitting in the bush!  Very muggy outside!  It finally rained overnight and some people got flooded!  Can't win!  Hope you are having a great day.  Talk to you later!

A Yippee Kind of Day! An Update to the Kitty and Squirrel Game!

Up and running again with the new computer!  It is going to be trial and a lot of errors until I get familiar with it!  No fighting any more to get time on the computer!  Yippee!  Really Kitty has grown on me even though I'm allergic to it.  It was playing with a squirrel the other day in the front garden.

Here a dog entered the picture and squirrel ducked under the fence line!  You had to be there!  I can't make this stuff up.  They did get bored in the end and no wildlife was hurt in the process.

Then the next day I was going out to the mailbox to get the mail and discovered this.  See these bushes on the left side of the photo.  They had a new edition.

It was like the Cheshire Cat in Alice in Wonderland.  There Kitty was sitting up in this bush!!!  I just can't make this up!  Missed blogging.  Now I have to catch you up on other items, but I have to figure out how to get photos from the computer upstairs to my laptop.  The nephew in Canada said he would help, but we are going out to dinner to celebrate our new Fios!  My computer is so much faster!  Yippee!  It has been raining a lot, almost an inch!  Hope you have had a great day wherever you may be.  Talk to you later.

The Adventures of Kitty and. . .

Again you will just have to take my word for it, (archived photo of Kitty a/k/a Ginger Snap (I think))(Please correct me if I'm wrong.) GS was in the front garden yesterday taking a sunbath.  It spotted a young squirrel on the fence.  The squirrel didn't seem to be aware of GS.  GS had its eyes on the squirrel.  At times it was a game of GS, squirrel and dog in the street being walked.  Squirrel ducking down under the fence line.  We captured it in photos and I will share them later.  Somehow though GS and the squirrel lost interest in the game.  I'm happy to report both survived.  Rainy day here.  Hope you are having a great day wherever you may be.  Talk to you later.

Even Kitty Was Enjoying The Day and Happy Spring!

The cat was on the walk the other day just snoozing away!  Then it was up prowling through the sticks to find dinner. We had two loose dogs roaming the neighborhood yesterday!  We are out of control!  Hope The Herbal Husband gets back soon!  Oh, maybe not, he usually stirs things up!  Always an adventure!

I am still waiting to hear from Rhonda Dobson!  Please Rhonda e-mail me your mailing address and I will send you your prize.  You actually won!  Off to take a walk and then work in the herb garden!  Happy Spring!  It can't come soon enough for me and maybe you as well!  Talk to you later!

An Alien in the Garden!

Oh, no, it's just Kitty with those alien eyes!  I wasn't quick enough.  Kitty brought a friend, brother, sister, cousin, some other relative!  Just looked like Kitty.  I thought I was seeing double!  They are multiplying around us!  If only they could do gardening work!  They take care of the rodents and also some birds!  Don't like that aspect, killing the birdies!  Oh well, just wanted to let you know that gardening work starts soon.  Hopefully if you are in the Northeast, you have your power back and we have turned the corner towards Spring!  Talk to you later.

Visitor in the Garden!

Look who's tracking its breakfast.  Kitty/Ginger Snap was out in the front garden keeping the mole/vole population at bay.  It was chasing squirrels the other day.  Not with great success!  Those moments I wish I had a video.

Came Up With A Name For The Cat!

This is our cat for the moment.  It resides somewhere around our garden.  It is here most every day.  Sometimes chasing birds.  The Herbal Husband does not like that.  The other day I drove down the driveway and it was stalking a squirrel!  The squirrel escaped up into the dogwood tree and flipped its tail at the cat!  Like take that!  It was funny.  So the moles, voles, mices and other vermins, including a few chipmunks are under control.  Which is a good thing!  Oh, my name for the cat is Kitty.  Can't get too attached with that name.  Made some more tea bags yesterday.  Will share them with you tomorrow.

Look Who's Back!

"Our Cat" was out sunning itself yesterday morning! It was enjoying itself until it spotted me taking a photo. Then it split over the fence, but gave me a parting shot!

I Think I Found a Solution for the Leaning Arbor!

The Herbal Husband and I have been chasing the feral cats out of our yard for months now. We know the way to get them is by trapping them, but then there are skunks in the neighborhood also. We had one of those in our garage for Halloween one year, but that's another story! I looked out the window while I was fixing breakfast and there was one half of the solution to my leaning arbor! Did the cat want to play with the squirrel? Was it trying to attack it? It finally gave up, climbed down and ran away. Click on the picture to enlarge it. Never a dull moment!