CHRISTMAS 2020 WAS ONE OF A KIND BUT WE SURVIVED

Just a short post today.

George and I went to church on Christmas Eve and I felt very lucky that our church was allowed to be open. I sang solo without music because of Covid and everything went well.

All the preparations for Christmas dinner have been just like when the family was here. I baked tourtieres (meat pies) fruit cakes, cranberry cookies, pecan snowballs. A small turkey, dressing, mashed garlic potatoes with sour cream,  broccoli, carrots, and gravy. Broken glass torte for dessert and wine.

I shared some of the food with the family, delivered gifts, before dinner, and  George and I sat down to fill our bellies. After dinner, we went to work on a nice puzzle that Jackie, my daughter gave us.  It was a 500 pieces puzzle and George was glad because he could find the pieces easier. It was a nice way to wound down.

It was a really fun puzzle to do and pretty easy. 

I have taken photos of some of my decorations with my cell phone before Christmas but when I came to upload them on my computer, the cell phone did some binging sounds and the device did not want to show on my computer. I may need to do some updating on my computer.  It's the least of my worries right now. 

The tree and decorations will stay up till Epiphany at the feast of the Three Kings. 

Today I vacuum my bedroom and put everything in order and, ordered my garden seeds from Veseys Seeds from PEI. Of course, I wanted to buy more seeds but realized that I'll never be able to manage it all and pared down my order. Last year, I did not order seeds as I had no soil to plant them in because all the plant nurseries were closed to the public because of Covid. I bought some plants that were mislabeled and instead of having 12 broccoli plants I had 12 kale plants. There was something else that was mislabeled and I was very disappointed. 

I hope that you had a lovely Christmas but I know at least three families who had either were alone for Christmas because of losing a loved one, and one was ill and the other is in palliative care. My heart went out to them. Wishing everyone a better year for 2021.

Thanks for visiting and leaving a comment.

SPRING RITUAL FOR AN OLD GARDNER & RUG HOOKING

Every year for as long as I can remember, I bought seeds and started to plant them to get an early start on those that needed a longer season to grow. We have a large plant nursery only a few minutes from where I live but being on a tight budget when I first started gardening made me conscious of spending my money wisely. I must confess that I enjoyed seeing the seeds sprouting and seeing the miracle of growing plants blooming with a little care.

I get more satisfaction from doing it myself and I can read about how every variety behaves and I make my choice accordingly. Seeds used to be very cheap but not anymore.

There is over $133. worth of seeds on the table. Hard to believe how expensive seeds are but if I was to buy the plants, it would be so much more.

In January, I look through the seed catalogs and I make my selection then in March I take my selection to our local Feed and Need store and gave them my order and in a few days, I got my seed order shipped from Vesey's Seeds for free. I got a call that my order is ready and I just went to pick them up at Feed and Needs and paid for them. I love this arrangement. My favorite seed catalog is Vesey's Seeds from PEI.

Many years ago, my husband George made me a grow light stand. I have it in my basement and I also have a grow mat that I use to keep some seedlings that need heat to sprout. I have to turn my lights on in the morning before I go to the barn and I turn them off at night before going to bed. I can put a timer on but I like to go check up on how they are doing.

So far I only have Geraniums growing but I planted my begonia seeds yesterday... My geranium are getting their second sets of leaves but I didn't take photos, but I have 11 seedlings growing.

My new scrappy rug using leftover small pieces of wool from other projects.

I've been hooking a chairpad as a challenge from our hooking group on Rug Hooking Daily, an online forum for fibre artists and I'm using little pieces of leftover wool from other hooking projects. Our group is called GREAT STASH DEWORMING MARATHON and we're always having so much fun. The worms I refer to are thin strips of wool that we use to hook with as seen on my new worm holder. 

As you can see I took out several rows of hoops to make his neck slimmer.  This is George the Rooster, by the way...  I'm debating on changing some too bright colors or over dying them. I'm just having fun with this. I can do that later if I decide to do it. As you can tell, not too much effort and thoughts went into designing the feathers.

The turquoise color you see on the breast feathers come from a piece of wool I marbelized not long ago. You can see it drying on the left. It's always fun to find a use for a strange piece of marbelized wool. I had no idea what I would use it for as I was experimenting  marbelizing for the first time

Thanks for visiting and leaving a comment. Have a great weekend and stay safe.
Julia