Awaiting spring's surprises

It seems too early, but who am I to tell mother nature how to do her thing. February is coming to an end and green shoots are erupting. We closed on our home in September (I can't believe it's been 5 months!) so the spring scenery is going to be a pleasant surprise to us. Our offer was accepted in late July, so we had 2 months to watch the property that we hoped would be ours, take its turn into fall. Once we had our key, our attention was pretty much solely on turning the inside of the home inhabitable by the time winter came, and so the yard got slightly neglected. The one thing I got done was to weed the flower bedding that surrounds the entrance steps. A few hardy mums had become leggy reaching for light through the heavy masses of weeds that had taken over. Today I found lots of growth

I forgot to replant this bulb cluster , but it doesn't seem to mind.

Daffodils?

Buds growing in the old Christmas swag I can't wait to see what this one is

Seed starting and winter-sowing

( some seeds I got from wintersown.org last year)

Just thinking about having a garden of my own this year sends butterflies through me. The thought of creating a landscape atmosphere out of barren yard is enthralling. As far as we can tell our newly acquired lot is going to need a lot of amendments. The soil is very poor draining and has gravel from an old driveway scattered throughout. There is no evidence of a previous garden or landscaping of any sort, so we have free will to start from scratch. I usually never have a problem with artistic freedom, but somehow I have managed to stress over the responsibility. I am loving browsing the many seed catalogs that I have received. My favorite being Richters herbs. If you have not heard of them check them out HERE I must say I find their website a little bit simplified, however their catalog has become my go-to catalog for descriptions and uses of herbs of any kind. I also am thoroughly enjoying my Baker creek Heirloom seeds catalog ( Rareseeds.com ) It has almost a picture book quality and is going to find a place on my book shelf. I am going to attempt to do a little winter-sowing as described by the website Wintersown.org, using some milk jugs and such and see how I fare. Also I am going to set up a station in our basement with seed flats to start some seeds using a timed grow light.

New year, New home, New life.

Well we did it. We purchased our first house and we are working hard at making it a home. Time is flying yet standing still at the same time. We have gotten so much accomplished but there is still much, MUCH to be done. We were lucky enough to find a house with a large barn/garage much to our delight. Hopefully this can serve as a release to both of us in the form of both a workshop and studio. Here is a photo of our barn in the freshly fallen snow. It came complete with 3 horse stalls. We look forward to updating its tired look in the spring.

We are moving along one room at a time, and hopefully by spring/summer the majority of the dirty remodeling work is done. Horse-hair and lathe construction can be a real bitch!

I look forward to this new year with a new sense of excitement for what is to come.