Oops

I did mean to come back sooner and time got away from me.

When I went out to take these pictures, they weren't in full sun, it was shaded. However the sun was shining brilliantly. I was getting pictures that were full of white because of the sun. Over exposure I think. I also wanted to play with the macro settings and once I started with that, I found that I could control some other settings that filtered out the extra light. These are the final results.

Trees

Thank you!! I think this is it. The Western Redbud. Wikipdia has more pictures.

It isn't the Butterfly Bush, but that was a good idea. I had heard last year that those are invasive species in Oregon, and when I looked on this site, there are states that they won't ship to, so it must be non-native or invasive in other states as well. Thank you MotherGoose and Becky.

Once in a while I will get emails about the Arbor Day Foundation and their specials when you become a member. They offer Redbud trees, and I have often thought they were pretty and would like one. Hmm, we have two empty tree spaces now..........

Signs of Spring

My gray yarn came on Saturday!! I can start my afghan as soon as I finish two little projects.


The first project is this little bag. Kim has been wanting a felted carrying bag for her CD/MP3 player. I did this on Saturday, there are two little button holes on the ends where we will thread through straps, which happens to be the purple below this picture. I am still working on it. We want the strap to be approximately 48 inches once it is felted, so I am making it about 1/3 longer.

The second project is resizing John's cable hat from Christmas. It was a tad too big and it was letting cold air in under it. I am to the decreases. Both of these projects could be done in an evening.









Signs of Spring at my house., regardless of what the hedgehogs said on Friday. I went out to get the mail yesterday and noticed the crocus are blooming. Usually we see them coming up, then just barely starting to bloom. It usually takes a week or so once we first notice them. This year it happened all at once.

The roses are starting to sprout before we have even trimmed them down. Supposedly we are not to trim them until President's weekend, but I am considering trimming them down this weekend.
And this guy, we saw in our backyard this afternoon. All of a sudden John said, hey, there's a woodpecker on our maple tree. So, I grabbed the camera in hopes he wouldn't leave before I was able to get a picture. He climbed all the way up into to y of the tree, then around to the other side.