My gardenia is all abloom at the moment, so I took some photos of it. It smells SO GOOD.



I also had some photos that I haven't managed to post recently. One is that I saw my first Durham Pedicab outside of Bull McCabe's a couple of weeks ago:



Finally, I've taken pictures of all the artwork I've done over the years that's currently hanging in my house. I'm not a great artist by any stretch, but these pieces still mean something to me. I need to take another class sometime soon.

Ok, so there's a rose blooming in my yard already, as of Saturday:



This seems awfully early for roses to be blooming. But this year has been consistently early on all things green.

I meant to get my tomatos and basil in the ground this weekend, but I never got to it. I'll need to get a move on.

I'm still totally in love with my irises:

My new Canon PowerShot S3 IS just arrived in the mail yesterday. It's pretty frakking awesome. I took a few shots with it from the roof of the ATC south deck parking garage this morning:


American Tobacco Campus

Also, I had wanted to capture some more of the blooming things in my yard, so I added to the Sprung flickr stream with some irises and azaleas:



Purple Iris

I swear I'm going to need to take a photography course to learn how to use this thing properly. Also, I thought the memory card from my old camera would fit into this one, but it doesn't, so I can only take 6 or 7 pictures before the 16MB memory card fills up. :P

This will be nice for the trips I'm taking soon to San Francisco and Portland.

So, everything has been absolutely beautiful around here for the past few days, so I promised myself I would get up a little early and take some photos around town of the lovely blossoms that will disappear all too quickly.



Click on the photo for the entire set.

I do so love springtime around here. It's earlier than I'm used to from having lived in Maryland, so it feels like a special treat every time. I could deal with nice warm winters and early spring like this every year - I hate cold.

The only unpleasant thing about this time of year is the Bradford Pears, which have these awful, smelly blossoms. That, and it's time to mow the yard already.

So this is what happens when you try to pick up a heavy, slippery pot to move it inside so that the sudden frost doesn't kill your recently-planted herbs:



Only the pot broke in my foyer all over my hardwood floors, not on the porch. I will be forever pulling potting soil out of the house. And I'm afraid my neighbors heard a rather loud cuss word when this happened.

Fortunately, I had a couple of spare pots into which I put the rosemary and the chives, which otherwise would have been homeless. Still, not a great start to the weekend.

So, after the colonoscopy on Wednesday, I ended up taking Thursday off, as well. I wanted some time to recuperate and rehydrate. But it was such a lovely day outside that I couldn't resist going outside and doing some long-overdue pruning, and letting the cats get some outdoor time.



I used to let the cats out on the deck at my old apartment, and they just love getting some fresh air. I bought a house with a fenced yard so that they could safely explore a bit, but I watch them very closely when they're outside. They really enjoyed getting some sunshine, and so did I. See the Flickr stream for pictures of the catzas.

As I learn more about gardening, I hope that eventually I will be good at taking care of this yard. I am really fortunate to have a yard that has clearly had a lot of loving care in past years, and I have some lovely large bushes in the yard. More pictures as more things bloom.

I was inspired by cec to do some spring planting today, partially because I have the day off while I do prep for my colonoscopy tomorrow and I needed something to distract myself. And also partly because I'm not much of a gardener, but I do love herbs.

I usually go to Barnes Supply Company on Ninth Street. They usually have a nice selection of herbs and vegetable plants, including the sage that cec didn't find elsewhere. I got some cilantro, sage, chives, rosemary, and spearmint. They also had some lettuce and cabbage. Unfortunately, I don't have a good spot in my yard for a full-on garden, or I'd be tempted to do some lettuce. I think the bunnies around here would like that.

I'd like to do some tomatoes actually in the yard this year - my container tomatoes last year didn't do very well. There is a small place in the back yard that gets enough sun where I could probably do a couple of plants. We'll see.