Trixie oversees Eric setting in the raised bed. :)
Progress :)
Trixie oversees Eric setting in the raised bed. :)
Category Archives: Blog Update
Seeking Shelter Comic
This is long overdue, but all of you cat lovers should check out Seeking Shelter, which is a comic about “being lost and finding something to make life count, something to give your life meaning and satisfaction. In this case that something is fostering cats”, as described by the creator, Marjorie Skiba. She is over 300 strips in and recently completed a very successful Kickstarter, which funded her first book (soon to be available on amazon.com). I cannot wait to get my copy!
Marjorie was kind enough to include a story about Trixie in a segment of her website entitled ‘Happy Tails’, which contains heart-warming stories about people and their pets.
Whether cat or dog, ya gotta love these wonderful animals and the people whose lives they touch. I recently saw a bumper sticker in the shape of a paw, which said “Who Saved Who?”
Amen.
A cat in the sun
We should all be so lucky, eh?
And you woke me up, because…?
Because I couldn’t resist, beautiful cat.
Closer to a veggie garden
It did appear that spring had arrived, but winter just keeps hanging on. Calling for 2″ of snow tonight, sigh…
More progress was made on the raised bed:
The PVC hoops will support plastic netting which will (hopefully) keep the deer out.
As an aside, if any of you are familiar with Denver, you might recognize the Blue Bear looking out the window. The real Blue Bear is located at the Colorado Convention Center and stands 40 feet tall! I fell in love with him while I was in Denver for business last October and decided to take a mini bear home with me.
Is Spring really, really here?!?
Looks like it – both on the calendar and in the great outdoors. The first day of spring here in the Cincinnati area was beautiful! Sunny, warm(ish) and blue skies.
The daffodils are popping up:
Those leaves on the ground are from a nearby oak tree that keeps its dead leaves attached all winter and then drops them in the spring when the new buds are pushing out. It’s the oddest looking thing – when all the other trees look like barren branches, this oak appears to have a full head of fluffy brown leafy hair.
Some of the baby shrubs that are in leaf. These weigela are going to be beautiful when they grow up:
All this gardening deserves its own blog. I’m soon going to give it its own space, and this blog will go back to being strictly about cartoon Trixie, with occasional sprinkles of real Trixie, and other cartooning related posts.
Til next time…
More seedlings & a brand new garden bed!
The tomato seedlings are getting big enough to be moved into larger containers:
Cute!
And the peppers are soon to follow:
And guess where they will end up – in my brand spanking new raised bed! Expertly constructed by my very talented husband in, oh, 30 minutes this past Sunday, it seemed like.
It is the structure in the front. It measures 3′ by 8′. Still needs to be set into the ground. I’m waiting for the next sunny day that also happens to be an off-work day. That is to say, I’ll need to spend the day monitoring the sun to be sure to get the best position to keep the veggies happy. This is one of the few open spots near the house (which is surrounded by trees). I’m pretty sure this spot gets at least 5-6 hours of sun, and hoping for more than that.
The wooden structure in the back is my compost bin. And beyond that is a leaf bin. The pots to the far right are some of the “shrublings” (hydrangeas, burning bush, forsythia, among others) that I’m growing to sell later this year.
Happy growing to my fellow gardeners!
Big deer & cabbage seedlings
There is a family of deer that kind of hangs out on our property. It has been fun to watch them. One is a lame female. Her front left leg was maybe broken, or otherwise damaged. She gets around pretty well. Each year we are happy to see that she is still with us. This afternoon, we saw some HUGE deer. Man, they have gotten really big.
This photo is looking down the driveway. The deer are pretty far down there, maybe not easily visible. It’s a “Where’s Waldo” thing. Can you spot them?
Here is a closer view. There are 3 deer in this photo. Should be fairly easy to see them all.
Beautiful!
Meanwhile, the seedlings are doing pretty well. The new veggies I’m adding this year are cauliflower and cabbage. Here are the cabbage seedlings:
It is still pretty amazing to me that these will one day become FOOD!
Spring is just around the corner :)
Early seeds planted
Sowed some of the early vegetable seeds today… tomatoes, peppers, broccoli, along with some herbs. We got 5-6 inches more snow dumped on us last night, and it’s kind of funny to seed the seed trays against a backdrop of snow. Here’s to spring!
This is the most south-facing window we have, which is the least obstructed by trees. Good thing the window ledge is deep. :)
I am still fairly new to vegetable gardening (3rd season) and still keeping it kind of small. Each year, I try to add one or two new vegetables. And to date, I’ve only done container gardening, which has worked out just fine. It’s nice to go out onto the deck and pick some food. But this year, I’m planning to do a ‘real’ garden…directly in the ground, that is. We are on 4 wooded acres, but there are some spots that are clear enough to get the needed sun.
If you are a seasoned gardener and have any tips, please feel free to leave them in the comments. Thank you, and stay warm!!
A kitchen-y kind of day
Today, another in a long string of really, really cold days this winter, was spent doing kitchen-y things. My wonderful husband made us some racks to hold our spices. We are both cooking enthusiasts and have built up quite the spice collection. He’s been sorting out the junk in the basement from when we moved in a couple of years ago, and measuring the space, in preparation for remodeling the basement, and he found some extra wood matching the kitchen cabinets and cut a couple of pieces to make some spice shelves.
All the lovely spices eagerly awaiting their new home:
And nicely tucked in:
So nice!
As for me, I’m excited to plan this year’s vegetable garden. There are a lot of seeds leftover from last year which should be fine, and I bought a bunch of new packets today:
I’m going to try starting them in cardboard egg containers, which I’ve heard you can plant right in the ground as they will decompose (reuse, recycle):
I’ll let ya know how it goes.
From last year’s plantings, here is our lonely surviving herb plant (sweet basil):
We have made good use of this plant. It sits right on the kitchen window sill and whenever we are making pasta sauce, it’s easy enough to just pinch a few leaves off…adds so much good, fresh flavor!
Bon appetit!
Way back when
Due to my woefully slow comic updates these days, I thought it might be fun to post some very early sketches of Trixie’s Tales. Please excuse the poor quality as I do not have a working scanner and had to snap a photo of a sketchbook page with my iPhone. Still, very funny to look at now.
Hope you’re staying warm and seeing the sun every once in a while.
Trixie's Tales 