Gardening, Riding and Knitting into Spring

Not many pictures to share, so you'll just have to read.

Weather here has been funky to say the least.  We started seedlings indoors, with the exception of peas, onions and three types of carrots which we direct sowed.  Peas are doing great and we eagerly anticipate eating them.  We've had to construct a trellis for them already and they are beginning to climb.

We put the seedlings out Friday to begin hardening for planting, but John is thinking we need to bring them in tonight as evening temperatures are still dipping too low.  Thusly, our tomato plants are dismally small still.

The lettuce we were growing indoors has bolted to seed, so we'll be starting a new batch soon.  We should have foreseen this and started one already... but hey, we haven't been eating much lettuce lately.  The indoor broccoli continues to grow well, but then again, we have never done broccoli before, so we aren't too sure what to expect.

Haley has been giving John fits all Spring since we put the cherry and pear trees in.  Seems she likes to dig for the root ball.  I thought John was going to do her in a couple of times.  Finally caught Chica helping her with the excavation, so now both girls are on watch.  We are still avidly trying to train away this behavior.  So far the cherry tree is growing well, despite the root disturbances.  The pear tree continues to struggle, even with weekly "Root Stim" treatments.

I ride my motorcycle to work on less windy days - which sadly hasn't been as often as I'd like - to save money on gas.  The wind has been unbelievable.  I still contend this is the birthplace of tornadoes.  John and I went for a ride Sunday - 320 miles up to Sipapu Ski Resort / Tres Ritos area and back.  Winds were so awful on the return trip, my bike was gusting all over the place.  I'm still recovering.  It was fun, but exhausting.

I've been knitting like a mad woman.  I designed a new shawl pattern this month, as well as a market bag pattern that I've already made available on Ravelry for free download.  I have a class coming up in June - Knit Research & Rescue - which I'm very excited to teach.  I've also recently started spinning my own yarn.  I put all my "fiber" news on my knitting blog: JesseKnits  Feel free to drop in and discover how obsessed I really am.