Tree Farm

Last year after Poppa cleaned the eavestrough at Great-Grandma Duffy's house, he salvaged several little maple trees that were threatening to grow there. At the time they were about two inches tall. He brought them home and carefully planted them in little pots. He tended them carefully until snow fly and then he set the pots into the soil in our front flower bed, up close to the house where the snow doesn't get toooo deep. As soon as the snow was gone, and the soil started to dry up, he re-planted them in bigger pots, and resumed his vigil to keep them growing. Well, about half of them didn't survive the winter, but the other half seem to be thriving in their pots. Here they are all lined up along the back of the house. This is a shadier spot than most of our yard, so they don't dry up as quickly. As you can see, they are all turning into trees and he is quite pleased with them.


I recently went on a mission to Auntie Colleen's house to deliver some trees to her house. OK - they weren't really trees, but Great-Grandma Duffy seems to have a way with house plants, and these two plants were almost as tall as me, if not taller. Anyway, there was a package waiting there for me. It contained a birthday card for Kev-Inn and a lovely surprise for me! So - first some background. On my birthday I received a card from Great-Grandma Duffy which was a Monkey & Boo creation. It had Pooh Bear on it along with some of his friends from the Hundred-Acre Wood. Of course, Pooh is a favourite of mine, since he is a teddy bear of some considerable fame and fortune, as well as being just plain - well - cute and adorable like all teddy bears everywhere. Back to now, in my surprise bag was a most wonderful bookmark - which matched that birthday card. So, here is a picture of the card (front and back) with the bookmark. Aren't they wonderful??!!!??


As you may have guessed, we were down to visit Munchie on Thursday. He appears to be thriving. When he smiles widely, we can peek in and see his three teeth. I anticipate that he will have four shortly, but right now we can see three. We had a lovely visit. I will post more pictures in a separate entry. For now, here is a hint as to some of the things we did that day. Poppa got this shot - and did a fine job for someone who doesn't usually wield the camera.

For those of you who are intrigued with my bookmark - here is a photo of the bookmark inside a very interesting book. See how pretty it looks and imagine how effective it is at - well - marking the spot in the current book. How wonderful! Thank you Auntie Colleen!

One last thought. I finished the second circle sweater. I mused at some length as to what I should do with the sleeves. I wanted to use the burgundy yarn, since it was nice and soft and would feel nice. I also, thought that stripes of the various colours would be effective. So, after some consideration I decided to do both. I used the burgundy as the main sleeve colour and just below the elbow I added some narrow stripes in random order just to keep it interesting. This picture was taken near the end of the first sleeve. As you can see, Taffy was helping with that project, while Poppa and Squeegie were working on the lawn tractor. The problem is that when I got all finished I discovered that I didn't have enough 1" elastic to finish off the sleeves at the cuff. So, since Munchie is coming today and bringing his parents with him (Hee), I thought perhaps Mummum and I would have time to check out Wal-Mart and maybe I could find some of that elastic. Once I get the sleeves finished, I will post a finished project picture. I'm convinced that there will be a picture of that first circle sweater very "soon"......its new owner said there would be!