The Old Road in Spring

I was out on the old road with my husband this past Saturday. It doesn't look much like spring yet, other than that the snow is all gone. But that's how it starts, and it will take a good rain to green things up.



But the pond is open. We've had frequent duck and goose visitors, and the turtles just emerged to sun themselves on the old fence posts that hang over the pond. I've got to get a picture of them; I think they're adorable.



And there are buds about to open.



But most of what's green is weeds.



And moss.



The moss is cool, though. I'm just waiting for some violets.

Spring Delicacies

Not for me. For my lovely neighbors, the deer. Oh, they're lovely. I love to see them. I don't love for them to eat my plants, although I know it's bound to happen. How can it not, when there are so few green plants up yet and here come my green sprouts?

They found my tulips, despite the fact that we'd put hair clippings in the garden (supposed to help deter them).




There were dainty little hoof prints leading right to them, so no mystery there.

So my husband put a fence up around them. And then they found some other plants that weren't in the fence. So I sprayed deer and rabbit repellent on what I have left. We'll see what happens. I'll be happy to hear your suggestions.

Thing 29 - Google Tools

My next library learning topic is Google Tools.

I have just set up a couple of Google Alerts to try out that application. It could be a useful way to see what's new on a topic or what people are saying out in the blogosphere, depending on what you set it up to search. I've set up one on peanut allergy as a news search and another on More Things on a Stick as a blog search. I'm just curious to see what and how much comes up, and then I plan to edit my searches. And what do you know - I just got a batch of alerts while I was writing this, and they have nothing to do with More Things on a Stick. I need a phrase search. Can I put my search terms in quotation marks? (Update 4/14/09: Yes, putting a phrase in quotation marks seems to work. I tried it with "More Things on a Stick" and now I'm getting only blog updates that mention this project.)

Google Alerts could be a useful way to search things on the Internet that wouldn't be included in more traditional periodical alerts. If you didn't only want to find published information, but instead you wanted to see what was being discussed anywhere on the Internet, it would be useful for that. It's a little difficult to see how it would be useful to a library, since our job is to give people reliable information from good sources. But if you still sort that out, there are good things put out there on the Web. And if a patron wanted to see what was being said about their business on an ongoing basis, Google Alerts would be an excellent suggestion.

I took a look at the other alert services. Twilert was not working anymore. I would really like a Twitter alert service. I have not used the other alerts, but Alerts.com looks intriguing. In certain situations, it would be really nice to have alerts on Ebay or Craigslist items up for sale, price drops on something you want to buy, or product recalls (coming soon).

The other Google Tool I worked on was Gmail. I've had a Gmail account for about a year, because I wanted an e-mail account that I could hang onto when I was between Internet providers because of moving. I have kept it because it's nice to have an e-mail address that I can give out to companies and such without worrying about getting too much spam in my regular e-mail box. But I don't check it as often. I learned from More Things on a Stick that I can forward all or selected messages from my Gmail account to my other e-mail. That's handy, because some people have never switched to using my new e-mail address. Really, I'd never found the "Settings" section of Gmail to explore at all before. I did find that I don't have access to the Themes or the Labs because I have Internet Explorer 6, not 7 or above.

Easter's On Its Way

Today we colored eggs. I like to do it the basic, old-fashioned way: food coloring with vinegar and boiling water. I've never used a Paas kit and I have no inclination to. This year we got slightly adventurous and tried putting rubber bands on a couple of the eggs.



But mostly, it's just a pleasure for kids to set the eggs in the cups of colored water and baste them and turn them until they reach the desired color.




Sometimes it's fun to make them two-toned:





However you do it, and even if it's a little messy, coloring eggs is so fun.



Thanks to Jo for being our photographer today!

Stretching Pumpkin

Last fall, I roasted two of the pumpkins I grew in my garden. I pureed them and froze them in two-cup portions. So that's what I used to bake pumpkin pies for holidays. Most recipes call for two cups - that's equivalent to a can. But I had one cup left over and didn't know what to do with it. I saw that you can turn pumpkin bars into applesauce bars by just substituting applesauce in the recipe. So I did 50-50: pumpkin-applesauce bars. They didn't look orange, and they basically tasted like spice bars without a particular fruit taste. But they were good.

Peonies!

My peonies are up!



Yes, I mean the teensy red sprout. I have a few of them.

The cold winter didn't kill them. Hallelujah. They were transplanted from my sister-in-law's garden. We had transplanted some of them to our old place years ago and loved them, but left those behind. We're going to be so glad to have some familiar flowers. It will probably take a few years for them to bloom, but I am really glad they survived that first winter.

My chives are also up:


They look a bit anemic because they were entirely covered with mulch. And, wow, I already need to weed!

The tulips are coming along nicely:

Teapots

I love teapots and teacups. And china in general.

I finally arranged my teapot collection on top of my kitchen cabinets. They've been just kind of sitting up there for, oh, 11 months now....



Okay, strictly speaking, it's not just teapots. That first one is a coffee pot. It's part of my set of china.

In the next picture, the one on the left is a teapot. The one on the right is a pitcher my sister painted to match my kitchen curtain (which has not yet gone up in this house).


Then another teapot, then another pitcher:


Then two more teapots:


I still need to come up with a way to raise them up higher. I didn't have crown molding in my old kitchen, so you could see them much better. But I love the crown molding! I think if I just stuck the pots up on blocks of wood, they'd be in danger of falling off. The kids' bedrooms are directly above, and when they run and jump, things vibrate. My husband thinks he could put little sides on blocks of wood so that they'd stay in place. But that's hardly his highest priority now that spring is here. Someday they'll be set up perfectly.

I also want probably two more teapots - they're kind of spread out now that I have such a nice big bank of cabinets. My sister-in-law said she's making me one, which is so awesome. She makes beautiful ceramics.