Off to a Wet Start

Happy Monday, friends! After a weekend that felt more like July than mid-May, today it is dark and very rainy. We knew that the rain was coming, and that why Rainbow and I spent a couple of hours yesterday afternoon planting in the garden. It doesn't look like much yet, but I'm hoping that in a couple of weeks things will be bigger and more colorful.

This is the front yard, where we have a mix of colors of impatiens, and if you look really closely, you might be able to spot two tiny tomato plants and a lavender plant toward the left (you can see a smaller pink hydrangea just behind the row of impatiens -- the lavender is to the left of it and the tomatoes are to the right). You may also notice that around the flowers there's some darker soil. I'm particularly excited about that -- it's compost from my backyard composter! This is the first time I've opened up the sliding door at the bottom of it and pulled out some useful compost, and I'm delighted that after more than a decade of tossing kitchen scraps and yard waste into it, I have something useful! Our soil in the front yard seemed particularly weak, so I was happy to toss some into the planting bed.

In the backyard, we have the herbs -- two basil plants and one each parsley and dill -- surrounded by marigolds. There's still quite a bit of planting space here because we have a bunch of seedlings getting bigger inside: three kids of melons (honeydew, canteloupe, and watermelon), butternut squash, cucumbers, radishes, bell peppers, and sunflowers. I doubt that I'll be successful in getting it all to grow, but I had the seeds and figured it couldn't hurt to try.

I did do some knitting over the weekend (not enough to make progress worthy of a new photo), but my goal for today is to finish spinning this bobbin of singles:

I have maybe and arm's length of fiber left to spin, but it's a slower process because this fiber is actual roving and was minimally processed, so I am pausing frequently to remove VM and nepps. I really want to get this done and plied with the other two bobbins of undyed singles because I am craving some color. These won't be going on the wheel just yet, but look at the two most recent shipments from the Southern Cross Fibre club (which are much prettier when I don't need to use artificial light to snap a photo):

Eventide on Corriedale is on the left and Maple Fantasy on grey Merino is on the right. That grey Merino is really calling my name, but I am committed to spinning older stash first, so these will have to wait. Nevertheless, I am enjoying seeing the colors, especially on this gloomy day.

I hope your week is off to a less-soggy start!