What Happened to Spring?

Yep. Friday it was 79 degrees. Today it is 42. Go figure. It's been raining and raining and raining. Should be good for us, but the rain is light enough to not be doing a whole lot of good, and dreary enough to not be fun to play outdoors.

My plants are coming up fast and greening up really well. Here are my lavendar and rosemary bushes, which stays green year-round, but is really taking off now. The rosemary bush literally creeps around the backyard, sending new runners and moving into them. Click on the photo to see a larger version. You can see my praying mantis on the right that Steve gave me for Valentine's Day. It's pretty cool for garden art.

FIRE

The rain is not even doing much for the 400 acre fire on Sauratown Mountain. The cloud cover is preventing the plane from flying and seeing where the hot spots are and from letting the helicopter drop water over it. It's not raining hard enough to penetrate the tree canopy and soak the fire. It's raining hard enough to make it messy for the tractors to dig the lines around the fire and for the vehicles to get to the area - muddy outside the fire. Steve spent 14-17 hrs/day Thurs., Fri. & Sat. On Sun. he came home in the morning with "camp crud" - head full of congestion from the weather and smoke. It will likely be the end of the week or longer before the fire is completely out.



My good friend, Zoe Nelson, is a wonderful jewelry artist near Boone, N.C. I hope you will check out her website: http://www.zoemanybeadz.com/

"This heirloom jewelry will give joy to the wearer for years to come and is easy to care for. They can be immersed in liquid jewelry cleaner or wiped clean with a polishing cloth. "This is "statement" jewelry. It will get noticed," says one of her customers. "It's ornamentation that's unusual and distinctive."

And here are some examples of her work:

On Sunday I will be going to Durham, NC to take Hollis Chatelain's drawing class. The class is three days long, once a year, for five years. I am so excited! I'll post some of what I do if it's not too embarrassing. Hollis says that if you can hold a pencil, she can teach you to draw. I sure hope so!