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Volunteer indigo seedlings between the bricks,

 I'll try transplanting some of these

 The madder patch is waking up.

 The bloodroot surprised me yesterday afternon.

 How amazing the way the flower buds push right through the earth!

Each wrapped in a leaf.

 The snowdrops are almost done.

 These seem like early spring colors.

A visiting lady.

 On Friday it was 80 degrees, sunny and very windy.

 I spent the day clearing out old dried up branches, stems and leaves  from the awakening garden.

I practiced felting a scarf made from Navajo Churro fleece with a base of merino wool. These pictures are bad, but the fleece scarf is shaggy, curly and beautiful.

Today is cold, snowy and fresh.

 Yesterday evening's moon, rising softly in the east.

 A little later there was a ring around it with snow clouds moving in.

This morning the clematis is furred with flakes.

 The geese are visiting the schoolyard.

 Overdyeing some marigold yellow threads with indigo.

 Shaking out the vegetable matter.

Fantastic shagginess!

 Indigo dyed Merino fleece

Carded into batts

 The Japanese indigo is flowering.

 I've been experimenting with the Japanese indigo in a few ways. I love the beautiful teals of an ice water blender bath, but a few days ago, decided to extract some pigment for later use, before the indigo content of the leaves decreases too much.

The temperature has been around 90. This is after 1 day.

After 2 days, here is the beautiful metallic sheen!

After beating and adding some lime.

Now to wait for the indigo the settle down to the bottom...

The finches love the sunflowers.  If you look closely, you'll see him.  Every spring I say there's not enough room for sunflowers, but a few plant themselves anyway.  They're great! I really have to plant some on purpose next year.

I've been working on dyeing more silk threads, though it's really too hot for much outdoor activity.

These madder roots were dug up last fall.

This is a very precious day.

 The whole garden is early this year. Usually, the catalpa trees are just starting to bloom and the feverfew is opening.

Every year is different.

One rainy morning we discovered this little guy in the kitchen. He was hiding in a corner, surrounded by the cats!  Luckily, they seemed pretty puzzled by him. We shooed the cats out of the room, and It was pretty easy to coax him into a cat carrier with nuts and peanut butter on bread.

I put the carrier outside under the cherry tree,  but he finished the rest of his trearts  before scampering up.

Spring arrived soon this year. Peonies, delphiniums and roses are blooming about 3 weeks early.