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Saturday, March 25, 2017

A Blue Spring In the Foothills

 Hello from the foothills where Spring is in full swing.  The seed clusters in this maple tree provided just enough dappled shade to darken the color of our resident Eastern Bluebird.  Love the color.

 He and his mate have been preparing the bluebird box just outside my kitchen window for nesting.  She watched me closely while he waited his turn at the birdbath.

You can leave anytime now, Mr. Robin....

 Finally in...

Is there anything better than a long splash in cool water?

I hope your Spring (or Autumn) is filled with lots of gorgeous color.

Linking with Eileen at: Saturday's Critters


Sunday, March 12, 2017

Hello There

Hello from the foothills!
Wow, is this an early spring or what?  Our daffodils have come and gone, and our pear tree is in bloom... just in time for the frost tonight. Ah well, some blooms may not have opened yet.  This is an Eastern Towhee below. 

I've been making our soap for more than twenty years so a lot of my soap molds have cracked and become useless.  I found some zinnia flower molds on Amazon very reasonably priced and snapped them up.  This is a sampling of the different batches I've done.
  
Each color was part of a 4-5 lb. batch.  We're pretty much set on the soap front for quite a while.  


This light orange one smells delicious as I grated orange peel and added it to the soap mixture. Remember Creamsicle ice cream bars?  Oh yeah, that's what this soap reminds me of every time I use it.

You may remember this little guy from my last blog post.  He's part of the knitting pattern String-Along-Toys by Susan B. Anderson.

I got the pattern when it first came out and was on sale for a limited time, but it's $10 (ouch) now. 

Personally, I think that's too much for a pattern you have to knit yourself, but nobody asked me.

I'm obviously enthralled with the critters, though, and I think I'm going to knit up some bunnies using the mouse directions.

What child wouldn't want a set of these?  I sure did. o.O

There was a bit of a snafu among these birds over the feeder after I snapped this photo, but all's well that ends well.   Hope you're enjoying these warmer days.