Not Another Dishcloth!

Sorry,yes, one more dishcloth. I had a few yards of the green crochet thread from the Pi doily left on the cardboard tube, so I thought I'd use up all the odds and ends and remnants I could find. I have thrown out three of those cardboard centers so far.

Look at all those knitting needles. When Hobby Lobby had their latest half price sale on knitting needles, I bought another set each of size 0's and size 1's. With the 0's and 1's from the Susan Bates sock set, that meant I had nine of each, so if I get that brave, I can knit two socks at once on four needles each!

The sock set comes with five each in size 000, 00, 0 and 1. Last night I used my Joann's 40% off coupon and bought a second sock set. Now I have ten each of size 000 and 00, and fourteen each of size 0 and 1!

Visions of very fine knitting are dancing in my head.

Outdoors, spring is rolling on like a big green bulldozer. Yesterday I noticed that my lilacs are blooming. I heard the indigo buntings singing, and the orioles whistling "sweet sweet sweetie bird". (I am always amazed that such a tropical-looking bird as the bright orange and black oriole lives in a relatively northern place like Michigan.) When I took a walk out to the south end of the property, I saw that the jack-in-the-pulpits and trilliums are blooming.

When we bought this property 15 years ago, it was an old, farmed-out farm, starting to grow brush. It came complete with a farmhouse with the roof caved in, and a barn with the floor rotting out. We filled the big dumpster that is delivered on the back of a semi-trailer at least three times, and the small one more times than that.

Over the years, trees have been growing back. The property had a few odd-shaped steep-sloped places where the farm tractors had not been able to reach, and in those grew beech seedlings from a tree that blew over in a windstorm, wild ginger, trout lilies, blue violets and yellow ones, and even a stray morel mushroom or two.

Spring and early summer are great times to take walks on the paths we keep mowed. So many plants are coming into bloom, and so many birds are out. When we first moved here, I had my binoculars and field guides out constantly. These days I don't do as much birdwatching as "bird-listening". I can pick out most of our birds by song. By spring, my skills are a little rusty, and it's back to the bird books until I have the songs identified again. The US Geological Survey's Patuxent Wildlife Research Center
maintains a list of bird songs as .wav files in its migratory bird research section.

(The resources of the web are indeed vast!)