In bloom: irises

Last year in the spring we had tulips, daffodils, and one lonely iris cheering up the front of our house. The tulips and daffodils took a nosedive this year (I've since learned that you apparently do need to replant them each year if they're to look impressive), but thankfully the irises are picking up the slack. The other day I counted eighteen (EIGHTEEN) buds, and now they're starting to open.



Man, I do hate those house shingles (which is a story for another day and a project for another year). To avoid them, I walked in behind the plants and took some photos facing away from the house.



Annnd, this angle shows off our lovely sandy beach. I mean lawn. Awesome!







I thought I'd go out on a high note with the power lines there. At least the irises are pretty!

puppy update: tear-your-heart-right-out edition

Cecil has two more weeks of forced serenity (an elusive goal, to be sure) before he can start returning to his normal level of activity. Yesterday and today he had the last two of his total three treatments. Each one is a shot of poison, essentially, injected into the muscles next to his spine, which kills the heartworms in his system and makes him hurt a whole lot for a few days.

The vet also prescribed a sedative for him, because if a puppy's going to be in pain, at least he can be a zonked-out puppy in pain. On the one hand, yes, of course it's helpful to know that something is taking the edge off for him... but on the other hand, seeing his poor little bloodshot eyes and watching him hobble across the kitchen floor, stopping to get his balance every few inches, is simply heartbreaking.

Here he is in the morning, before the evil humans made him all hurty and hopped up on meds:

Perked-up ears. Bright eyes. Happy puppy.

And here he is several hours after the vet left (yes, our vet is a housecall vet, which is one of the many reasons she's awesome):

Definitely not a happy puppy.

For now he's sleeping in his crate. I opened a can of artichokes a little while ago and he didn't make any attempt at bouncing over to investigate whether there might be food involved for him, which -- let me assure you -- is an indisputable sign that he's out like a light. Tomorrow morning, I know he'll be back to his energetic self and we'll get frustrated trying to keep him as callllm as he needs be, but for now it's tough to keep that in mind.

I do know this: if he lives to a ripe old age, he's going to be SO SPOILED at the end of his life. I have very little difficulty being strict and expecting good behavior from Adorable Pup, but ooof, I seem to be powerless in the face of Feeble Pup.

Strawberries-in-waiting

Spring is finally, officially, and indisputably upon us. You know what that means, don't you? When nothing much of interest is going on in my life, I'll at least have garden pictures to post.

For those of you not in New England, we've had a lot of rain this month. I haven't watered at all, and everything's doing just fine. In the backyard we have peas, lettuce, and spinach that are sufficiently hydrated and will likely grow like gangbusters once the sun comes out, and I planted beets and string beans this afternoon. In the course of turning the soil in the raised beds for approximately 20 minutes, I found eight grubs. Wish me luck on getting a good night's sleep, nightmare-free, ok?

The front of the house, where we tried to grow most of our wedding flowers last year, is the site of decidedly less high-stakes gardening this year. We had a pretty poor showing of tulips and daffodils in April, so we took some time today and improved the soil with several shovelfuls of black gold from our compost bin. Moving black gold, I should say: the stuff was positively writhing with earthworms. If I didn't remind myself repeatedly how good they are for the soil, that image certainly would have been another candidate for nightmare fodder.

Anyway, the front garden is home to asparagus, azaleas, anemones, sedum, irises, and strawberries. The strawberries in particular are having a banner year so far. If half the flowers turn into berries, we should be set for several breakfasts' worth. I snapped some photos, none of which really capture the extent to which the strawberry plants are thriving, but on a whim I decided to try out some photo effects via Picasa's Piknik program. I left one photo unchanged for the sake of comparison (three guesses which one). I thought I was doing pretty well with my little point-and-shoot, but man, do the original images look disappointing next to their doctored counterparts!






Happy spring, everyone!

Puppy update

We're officially half way through Cecil's heartworm treatment recovery period, which means we have three weeks left to go.  Three more weeks of keeping a not-yet-three-year-old dog "as calm as possible" cannot end soon enough, folks.  He's visibly frustrated with not being able to expend all his puppy energy (and three guesses how us humans feel about that).

Thankfully the rainy, dreary weather seems to be keeping him a bit more chilled out this week. Senor Stupendous sent me the above photographic proof this morning; I'm thankful for that, too.

Now, based on that picture, who else is jealous of his existence?  Forced confinement and inactivity aside, of course...

Where's my gold star?

Mr. Fantastic and I ran in a 5k road race over the weekend (not the gold star moment).  Between my knee issues, traveling to Germany, and battling a cold, there wasn't a whole heck of a lot of training going on.  To be more precise, we did exactly two training runs in the two weeks before the race, and each involved about a mile of actual running.  Given the circumstances, I'm fairly surprised that I finished the race in 36 minutes (still not the gold star moment).

For about a day and half after I crossed the finish line, I was all motivated to to back to running several times a week, focus on speedwork, and see what kind of time I can pull off at the next race we're signed up for.  By 48 hours out, my grand plans were starting to fade in the face of after-work plans and stressful days, with their "you'll have a better day if you sleep an extra half hour" siren song.  Not good, folks. Not good.

By yesterday evening, I'd spiraled into complete grumpiness, barely able to acknowledge what I knew rationally: I wouldn't feel reliably better unless I bit the bullet and made time for running, and getting seven instead of eight hours of sleep might be worth that.  I set the alarm clock for Scary Early and kept the option of hitting snooze repeatedly in the back of my head.

This morning, though, I forced myself to get out of my cozy bed when the alarm first went off (if I hit snooze once, it's all over).  I didn't run far, but I ran.

Gold. Star. Moment.

Branching out (yarn-wise)

I think I need to find a complicated project to cast on soon.  There's been a lot of TV knitting around here lately, and all that stockinette is catching up with me.  I definitely have a case of knitting ennui.

My go-to knitting interest element is lace, but I'm thinking I might try to learn fair isle stranded colorwork.  I used to focus on picking projects that would force me to learn new techniques, but I've gotten out of the habit in the last couple years.

Anyone have a favorite fair isle pattern to recommend?  Any tips to make the first few rows go smoothly?

Challenge accepted, self!

It sort of looked like I left the country again, didn't it?  Nope. I've just been super busy.  And the month of May is about to get even crazier.  So, in light of the fact that nothing interesting has happened to me lately, and the fact that I'll need to steel myself for an unpleasant next few weeks (work-wise only, don't worry), I think it's a good day for a Second String Gratitude List. 

- Excel
- intermittently rainy weeks that mean the garden won't need to be watered
- peanut butter banana smoothies
- a short commute
- Pandora and earbuds