And this is why I don't start seeds earlier...

Yesterday, dear hubby and I were out de-thatching the lawn... in the pelting hail! What kind of world do we live in when Mother's day is sprinkled with snow? Needless to say, our weird weather and late frosts (...calling for frost tonight...) are the main reason I don't aim for early vegetable harvests.

Also, I'm still in the process of refining my indoor planting schedule. For instance, my tomatoes have been stunted at the small seedling stage because of the sudden loss of sunlight. Whereas I have an especially ambitious cucumber that has broken its soil block and is threatening to invade its neighbours.

And speaking of invasions, one of the local rabbits was bold enough to come explore my empty gardens while we were raking yesterday. It was lucky that I didn't have the garden spade in hand because the only thing that stopped me from launching my rake spear-style at said rabbit was the non-lethality of my weapon. You won't be so lucky next time rabbit...

Potting On and on and on...

Man, I wish I had planned my planting better so that I could have potted on about a week and a half ago... that would have been awesome. But as it happens, I didn't do that kind of pot on that day.

We had a sunny day...

We had a sunny day yesterday and now my arms and back ache from the raking and seeding and other various outdoor chores that are the price we pay for sunny days. Our whole front yard is seeing a makeover courtesy of my even-more-back-sore hubby. A season of leatherjackets and skunks digging for the leatherjackets left our front yard looking a lot like an old minefield with craters and upturned soil everywhere. So no pictures of the gardens this year, even though we've had the pleasure of seeing the galanthus bloom and fade and are enjoying the first of the crocuses now, because I'd have to wade through grass seed and top soil to get to them.

Inside the house, we've done some planting as well...

Look at my new toys!

Went to Lee Valley last week and picked myself up some new toys. While my egg shell seedlings worked very well last year, I decided that I could improve my yield and variety by not wasting valuable  sunny window space on eggshells that didn't germinate.

Now I just need to get to the garden centre and pick up some supplies to make my soil blocks. Can't wait to get started...

A Girly Easter Basket

I hope everyone enjoyed their Easter/holiday weekend and did not mess up as royally as this mommy did. What happened, you say? Well, in typical "plan ahead but still end up doing it at the last minute" fashion, I started designing my daughter's egg basket about two weeks ago and ended up finishing it 10 minutes before we had to leave for our egg hunt.

Baby Qipao Tutorial, Part 2

Had a brief intermission to wax nostalgic about my mom's cookie cutters and the era they hail from and now I'm back to part two of this qipao photo tutorial (you can find Part One here).

Like a 50's Housewife...

... I made some cookies for St. Patrick's day this week.

My motivation was partly wanting to eat some iced sugar cookies but mostly wanting to use these great cookie cutters (passed on to me from my mom when it became evident that I actually enjoy being in the kitchen).