Surely spring is coming

 

It's 45° here this afternoon. That's better than 15°, I suppose, but it's not as good as 70°. Seventy degrees is what I'm dreaming of. Maybe we'll see it in another week or so. There are signs of spring, nonetheless:

Today, for instance, a large flock (25-30) of Bohemian waxwings arrived in our crabapple tree. They've spent the day grabbing leftover crabapples, flying elsewhere to eat them, then flying back for more.  I always enjoy seeing the waxwings arrive, even though they stay only briefly to strip our crabapple tree of fruit, refuse to say so much as a thank-you, and move on.

My little pots of basil at the kitchen window are doing well. I took this photo two weeks ago. Today the seedlings are looking a little more plentiful and healthy. That's cinnamon you see sprinkled on the top of the soil. Cinnamon, I've read, will help protect the tender seedlings from damping off.

More basil. These cuttings I'm rooting from my basil of last summer. It wintered well on my kitchen window ledge, so I took some cuttings to root, just in case the seedlings above are a disappointment.

Coleus! Last late spring I bought a coleus plant at a nursery and kept it on the back deck all summer. I hadn't had a coleus for years, and I enjoyed it so much. It grew into a large, lush plant. I wintered it over in our front hallway, and recently took cuttings of it. The first cuttings I placed in water to root, but then I read that coleus plants root well directly in the soil, so the remaining cuttings are sitting in soil and seem to be doing well.

I can't wait to see the back deck alive with all kinds of plants in a little over one more month.

While waiting for spring to arrive, I've been knitting a couple of "Tamarugo" hats. This first one I shared with you in my last blog post. The pattern is quick and super easy. For both hats I used odds and ends of leftover yarn. I guess (I hope) that's not too obvious in the finished products.

Spring will get here, I'm sure. The daffodils are budded; the forsythia is coming into bloom; and, as I said, the Bohemian waxwings arrived today. Things are looking up.