Morning Walk

I took my walk first thing in the morning, before it gets hot.

(Now, I know the people who live where it gets really hot are laughing at me, but mid-80's F. at the end of May feels hot in SW Michigan. Just remember when it gets up to 40 degrees F. at the end of winter, I'm walking around without my coat because it feels so warm.)

My Siberian irises are in bloom. I love these flowers with their long slender grassy leaves. The only problem is that in the spring, the grassy leaves look just like grass! And I have accidentally mowed or sheared them off more than once.

Worse, a couple of years ago over the winter, some little rodent-y vermin ate a large patch of the rhizomes. I was pretty upset when I found the nest and no shoots sprouting up. Those roots are very tough. I was surprised that anything found them tasty.
My peonies are popping out, too. I was just realizing that we've lived here for over sixteen years now, and many of the perennial flowers are plants I dug up and moved from our house up in Grand Rapids.

Wow! These are long-lived plants!

What a reality shot: the beautiful, not-yet-chewed-by-bugs peony flower. With a fly perched on it.

One more before I relent and show the knitting.

If this is not a reason to take a walk, I don't know what is: the first of the wild strawberries are already ripe!

We don't do anything to these, other than search them out and eat them. We don't weed, transplant, spray, or fertilize them. We also don't freeze or preserve them. We just crouch down in the scattered spots where they grow, eat as many as we can find, and swat mosquitoes.

And now that you've waded patiently through all the dewy flowers, here is yesterday's knitting:
Ha! It's flowery, too. I forgot to put the ruler in the picture, but it's almost five inches wide so far, say four-and-three-quarters. If you can make out the graph paper underneath it on your monitor, it has four squares to the inch.

The tentative plan is to quit increasing and knit around so it takes on a bag shape. I'll probably knit plain until I get bored, then throw a little figure in there to keep myself awake.

Originally I had knitted little diamond-shape patterns beyond the central flower, but I decided that in size 30 crochet thread, they were too small and "busy", and I wanted something more smooth and plain. After the base of the bag is knitted, I'll probably rib the top.

This is knitting up much faster than it used to, so I am also thinking about a doily for the county fair in the fall. I just had a happy ramble through the free patterns on YarnOver yesterday, so I have lots of lace knitting ideas simmering away in my head.