Six weeks after the quake ... the new normal

One can not sing in a church choir and not know Easter is coming. That thought reminded me of Easters long past when the kids and I made batik eggs and I remembered a dish my daughter made in High School that we displayed those eggs in. I have few places to store such stuff and over the years things as delicate as eggs are easily broken but I was able to locate the dish and a few hardy eggs to set the mood.

I have yet to figure out how to arrange pictures and words on this blog other than last in means on top.

I wanted to show some quilting progress. The wedding quilt will soon be done. The binding is on and the outer border is finished. I was not happy with the spaces around the applique leaves. I quilted in extra leaves to fill some of the spaces but not all the empty places were big enough to hold a leaf so I decided to add tendrils in those spaces that look a bit too puffy. I think I an liking this inner border better now. One side down, four to go.

Yesterday I spent most of the day in my "garden".

I know this might not count as a garden for most but this is what I have squeezed between two three story buildings.

As you can see, even a one meter garden can look like a jungle, perhaps more so because of the lack of space. Somewhere beyond that greenery is my garden door. The bars on the right are for hanging laundry. The yellow thing is a guide wire for the electric pole outside the gate. (the city decides who gets those. I may get the whole pole next quake. There was another clock-stopper last night).

I got out the folding ladder, shears and saw and filled two garbage bags with trimmings.

The kerria is just too pretty to whack off. I brought a cutting here from my last house.

I tied it behind the wire and will trim it a bit after the flowers are finished.

The rest of the garden is hanging on the walls. A hardy cyclamen usually blooms all winter but was not too happy with this years weather and has saved the major blooming for spring. An early orchid also had a difficult winter and I was afraid it had given up but after all, it blooms too.

Primroses usually also bloom throughout the winter but only one made it through. This one is making up for lost time.

The forget-me-nots were given me by my number one son many years ago. I dug them up and moved them to my last home and when I moved back to where I am now, I dug them up again and put them in the hanging pot. During last summer when I was away doing Scouting things, they were not watered and I came home to find a pot of brown leaves too far gone to revive. Luckily they had seeded themselves because in the fall they began to put up sprouts. Even surviving snow piled high they are making me smile.