Can you believe it's June already? This year has simply flown by, but then I don't mind because June is my favorite month. It's my birthday in a few days, and my garden is in full bloom, and the weather is warm but not intolerable yet, and June is just so much fun! I updated my knitting with pictures yesterday so today it's the garden. Today's featured selections include the "Spicy Delight" rose (the dark pink one that looks like it's been "spotlighted" by the sun), a pale lavender clematis, the fiery orange-pink "Tropicana" rose, and a beautiful pink Calla Lily. Did you know that Calla Lilies came in many colors? I have white, pink, and dark raspberry pink Calla lilies in my garden. The funny thing is they grow from a tuber that looks like a russet potato. Who knew?
My garden has had a rough spring, what with the unusually warm March followed by the awful Easter deep freeze and complicated by neglect from the dissertation-distracted gardener. But the good news is my rose garden has never looked better. The bushes have finally matured beyond the "will it survive" stage and the floribunda roses are getting quite tall. I have more blooms this week that I've ever had in TN--more like the blooming i had in my roses in Utah where they thrive on benign neglect! Neglected hybrid tea roses in Tennessee die of black spot, fungus, aphids, and Japanese beetle infestations. In Utah all you *had* to do was water, and that's what sprinkler systems are for :-)
On the knitting front, the new clues for the Bugs KAL are up! It looks like I'll be knitting some praying mantis' and earthworms for this section. Now that's will be an adventure! This chart covers 80 of the 96 rows in this section of the Pi shawl. Yup, this is the section that goes on forever! But I've already knit 4 rows and have set a goal to knit at least 6 rows a day. It would be very cool to be finished by the end of June, but that's pretty ambitious.
I have one more exciting bit of knitting news--I finally placed my order for the 1st two Barbara Walker Knitting Treasuries. I had intended to get them from KnitPicks as they always sold them for a little less money than everyone else, but they are no longer listed on their website. The only book KnitPicks had from Walker was the Mosaic Knitting book. So I went to the next best place that I know I can rely on--Amazon! Not only did Amazon have all the Walker books for sale, but 3 of the 4 treasuries had been discounted a tiny bit ($1.50). Hopefully the books will be shipped on schedule and I'll have them in 1-2 weeks. It's been a long wait, but I just can't survive without them any more. I'll buy the other 2 books as soon as the budget allows. It's always a tough choice--do I buy yarn, lace needles, books, magazines, or patterns? It's always a carefully thought out choice for me and I've put off buying the $$$ books, but now the time has come to add to my library instead of my stash :-)
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