beautiful day

Any morning starting with freshly ground coffee has a good start but today . . .

The girls and I rode our bicycles up Victory Memorial Parkway to Webber Park. Round trip is about 10 miles. We did it leisurely, as Juju has but a single speed and Mesha is on a tag-a-long style attached to my own cruiser style bike. I love the parkway. Since it is Monday most of the people out were older folks without headphones and so the smiles and good mornings were a welcome change to the usual curt nod one gets.

When we got home we had lunch and while Mesha napped with Hubby, Juju and I went outside.

While she took pictures, I cleaned up the landscape beds. I have always done much of my vegetable gardening in containers, but this year I am going to put my faith in the 5 years of mulch and compost and *gasp* garden in the ground. I dumped old potting soil onto the leaf mulch (now raked up into it's proper place) and stacked up most of the pots by the garage to be posted in the free section of Craigslist later this week. I cleaned up Hubby's attempt at earthworm farming - now a container of mud and stagnant water that smelled like a pigsty - pouring that on the beds also.

I see that the PM rhoderdendron and also the hazelnut shrub I bought at the Friends School Plant Sale last year are budding (WOO HOO!) AND there are alpine strawberries putting out fresh leaves!

Then I went inside for a spell and read.

The rest of the day was spent that way. Work a little, read a little. The sun was shining and the birds were singing.

Only the hens are not thrilled. They have been regulated to their yard (a mere 16x20 ft mind you) to give the plants a chance to grow before they destroy them. There got a little extra scratch for their inconvenience. For a little while, at least, they are content.

Now on to knitting. Mesha's shrug is 1/2 done and due by Easter.