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Is Spring really, really here?!?

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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:

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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:

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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…

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More seedlings & a brand new garden bed!

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The tomato seedlings are getting big enough to be moved into larger containers:

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Cute!

And the peppers are soon to follow:

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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.

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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!

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Big deer & cabbage seedlings

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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?

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Here is a closer view. There are 3 deer in this photo. Should be fairly easy to see them all.

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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:

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It is still pretty amazing to me that these will one day become FOOD!

Spring is just around the corner :)

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Early seeds planted

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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!

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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!!

 

 

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A kitchen-y kind of day

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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:

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And nicely tucked in:

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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:

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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):

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I’ll let ya know how it goes.

From last year’s plantings, here is our lonely surviving herb plant (sweet basil):

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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!

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Way back when

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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.

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Hope you’re staying warm and seeing the sun every once in a while.

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Avoiding cabin fever

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We are getting more snow this winter than I remember in a long time; same with the cold temperatures. I don’t know the stats, but we don’t often get temps in the negatives for so many days in the season.

Hoping my outdoor plants are making it through and harboring some potted ‘shrublings’ in the basement until it warms up some and stabilizes.

It’s not so bad to hunker down and stay warm. There are plenty of things to do, such as get back to sewing and drawing. These are some small art quilts I’m working on (6″ x 8″):

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And drawing the old-fashioned way again, with pencil, ink and paper:

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And dreaming of having my own beautiful greenhouse, like those I saw in an HGTV photo gallery (or any greenhouse really):

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The whole gallery is here, if you’re interested:

http://www.hgtv.com/gardening/well-loved-and-used-greenhouses/pictures/index.html?i=1

Hope it is warmer and sunnier in your neck of the woods!

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Winter arrived today

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Winter is here all of a sudden.

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And the Thanksgiving things get put away tomorrow.

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Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday, so I’m a bit sad.

However, winter and Christmas bring their own delights. I love the sound of Christmas carols throughout the house and crackling fires in the fireplace and drinking eggnog out of snowman mugs. And maybe the chance of zinging a few good snowballs on the sly, until Eric and Trixie gang up on me :)

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OSU 2013 Festival of Cartoon Art

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I was fortunate to attend this event over the weekend. It’s a triennial event held at The Ohio State University. This year it coincided with the grand opening of the expanded Billy Ireland Cartoon Library & Museum , now the largest and most comprehensive academic research facility documenting printed cartoon art. Getting to participate in a 2-day academic conference dedicated to the study of cartoon art, followed by 2 days of presentations from professional cartoonists, was very cool. These folks come from all over to present at the conference, covering such topics as:

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The museum itself was simply wonderful:

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The exhibits included prints and originals from legendary cartoonists such as Walt Kelly and Will Eisner, to modern-day favorites like Bill Watterson and Lynn Johnston. Congratulations to OSU for such a fine accomplishment!

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Roanoke Marshes Lighthouse

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A short walk from Roanoke Island Festival Park, lies the Roanoke Marshes Lighthouse. Lying at the end of a pier in the waterfront harbor, this was the third lighthouse we got to see close-up on our trip.

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Very charming!

From http://www.townofmanteo.com:

The Town of Manteo dedicated the Roanoke Marshes Lighthouse on Saturday, September 25, 2004. The lighthouse is on the Manteo waterfront, on the east side of Roanoke Island.The Roanoke Marshes Light  is an exterior reconstruction of the square cottage-style screw-pile lighthouse which stood at the southern entrance to Croatan Sound, near Wanchese. It was decommissioned in 1955, and lost in the Sound during an attempt to move it to private property.

Near the lighthouse, is a Weather Tower. The US Weather Bureau once used Coastal Warning Display towers such as this one to fly signal flags to warn mariners of wind shifts or approaching storms.

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The Manteo Weather Tower is believed to be one of only five towers still in use, and may be the only one with all of its original signal lights affixed.

While the lighthouse and the weather tower were undeniably the best sights to see in the harbor, we did see something else that was very cool!

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This guy was using a water jet pack to cruise around the harbor! Maybe this is not new to the average joe, but we had never seen one and were enthralled. I wanted to try this so bad, but it just wasn’t in the cards that day.

All in all, our impromptu trip to Roanoke Island was one of the best days of our trip. We left the island, picked the dogs up from the kennel and ended our day back on Hatteras, just in time to view a beautiful sunset.

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