Things happening here, in no particular order:

The cat is sleeping. Well, mostly - sometimes she wakes up and goes "meow". Sometimes she wakes up and has an itchy ear, which results in something like this:


The first seeds from the surprise seed mix have sprouted, and it's cress:


Also green, but a long way beyond being a seedling? My hippeastrum. It's blooming.

And just in case you are wondering what I have been doing, apart from taking photos and annoying the cat by waking her with the camera click - I've been doing some weaving. Proof here:


That is silk and gold thread, and I can tell you right now that the warp is a nasty thing to handle - the silk and gold are quite, quite different in their elasticity, and the gold especially needs careful handling. I did test runs with the materials, but with a shorter, narrower warp, and it does not scale without trouble, so I had some figuring out of solutions to do (and there might have been "aaaargh" sounds along that way).

For now, though, it seems like I've found ways to compensate for the different takeup of the two materials, and should I ever do this again, I'll definitely be smarter. Well, maybe. Hopefully.

Even though we've had some snow in the past days, and it is rather cool outside again, I'm all delighted with the garden and how much is blooming there. The day of planting a few tomato plants into nice, large containers in the wintergarden so we can have early tomatoes is also drawing nearer - just a few more days for the small plants to grow before I'll pick the three strongest and biggest ones to go do their thing.

In spirit with the season of growth, I also had some fun sowing a sort-of-surprise seed package. When we were shopping last weekend, we stumbled across this:


It says "kitchen herb seed mix" and on the bottom, "Sparpreis" means something like "budget price". At 29 cents, it really was - and I took it home with me, expecting to find something like a wild mix of seeds inside. Like when somebody would have swept up the seeds fallen down from regular packing and tossed them into a paper bag.

Which is exactly what the contents look like:


Now, if I were really good with seeds, I'd be able to tell which plants might spring from them. I'm hoping there will be parsley among them; probably there'll be chives, and it looks like something from the aniseed family will also be present. Dill would also be nice.

Well, I tossed a generous amount of the seed mix into a pot with earth, and now... I'll wait for the surprise in green to spring up. I'm already having a lot of fun just anticipating the things to come - which, again, proves that I am really easy to amuse.

I'm away for only a few days, and my return is to a garden in bloom - the tulips are open, and there's spots of colour everywhere:

[caption id="attachment_3036" align="alignnone" width="600"] Yellow tulips, and the willow in the background is going like crazy.


[caption id="attachment_3033" align="alignnone" width="640"] That said, the willow fence is going like crazy everywhere now!


[caption id="attachment_3034" align="alignnone" width="640"] More tulips - these were more yellowish once, but they have sort of migrated towards orangey red over the years. There's also hyacinths in blue and dandelion that snuck in (and is allowed to bloom a bit more).


[caption id="attachment_3035" align="alignnone" width="640"] And the peach tree is also flowering - let's see if there will be peaches this year...

There are two kinds of distaff that I carry in my shop: the one made from straight, smooth, modern round dowels, and the kind made from natural wood. Said wood is either hazel or willow, both grown in our own garden.

Which means that I cut wood for distaffs occasionally, and the biggest cutting action is in late winter, when our willow fence gets set back to its basic structure.

In spring, said fence is working hard to make new branches from the latent buds, and of course sprouting from the buds left on last year's growth:


though these get less and less as the fence is getting nearer to completion of the basic structure.

Now, willows are hardy plants and quite resilient, and if you stick the cut willow shoots into the soil, they will usually take root and grow and prosper.

This year, it seems, I will have unusually vital distaffs to sell, trying to grow and prosper too, even though they've been cut weeks ago:


I'm always amazed at the vitality in plain bits of willow wood - and the enormous power that spring has!

We're obviously into spring now, and softly nearing Easter - the flowers in the garden tell me this:

[caption id="attachment_3006" align="alignnone" width="640"] Snowdrops are through - now coming up for their turn: two-leaf squill...


[caption id="attachment_3008" align="alignnone" width="640"] ...viola (and I'm especially happy that there are more of them in the lawn this year)...


[caption id="attachment_3009" align="alignnone" width="640"] ... and you can see the tulips preparing for their part of the show already, too - just beside the white ones whose name I don't remember just now.


I hope the weather during the weekend will be nice enough to enjoy some gardening - there's quite a bit of garden that is in dire need of some attention, and there's seeds waiting to be tossed out!

I've had a slow day today, time to take a few nice photos of things blooming in the garden:

[caption id="attachment_2980" align="alignnone" width="640"] Crocuses...


[caption id="attachment_2979" align="alignnone" width="640"] ... the hellebore...


[caption id="attachment_2978" align="alignnone" width="640"] ... iris...


[caption id="attachment_2977" align="alignnone" width="600"] ...and, of course, the first heralds of spring - Snowdrops!

Some years ago, when we moved into our current home, I planted a little madder plant in the garden. That little madder plant has since grown... and taught me that madder grows like, well, mad.

It's not a really beautiful plant with its long stalks that are prone to fall and lie flat. It doesn't have spectacular blooms (they are small and yellow, and the madder berries are round and black, so nothing eye-catching either). It has no lovely smell, and it's not nice to touch - quite the opposite, in fact.

What it does, though, is grow. Grow and take over as much of the garden bed as it can, sending out its roots below ground and suddenly sprouting up. This year, it ate at least two of my tomato plants that I, foolishly, set too close to the madder patch. Thus I decided it's time for the madder to be harvested... and the beautiful sunny weather yesterday was just the right invitation to dig some red roots.


I got about one bucket full of roots, and there is still some left to harvest. The roots are brittle, and have colours ranging from bright orange to a deep red inside, the older the darker. They also have a very interesting, kind of sweet-ish smell to them.

[caption id="attachment_2693" align="alignnone" width="368"] Madder root with an orange core...


[caption id="attachment_2694" align="alignnone" width="363"] ...and with a dark red one.


Now they will need to dry, and then they'll be cleaned and shredded into pieces, and then... they will hopefully dye a nice deep red. And my tomatoes will be safe for a few years. Probably.