Isn’t this an interesting flower? I especially like the pattern on the part of the flower beneath the petals. I think this flower was labeled as a pincushion flower when I bought it last year.

This flower looks a lot like a thistle. There are problems here with wild thistles running wild in the landscape, choking out native plants. But this one appears to be OK – it’s not spreading from seed (yet).

Many of my early spring flowers are purple. This is a clematis that stubbornly comes back every year. I’m thankful for that.

I grow a lot of lavender. The individual flowers are not showy but the bees love it!

Jeff, our youngest, is working on a PhD in biostatistics at Johns Hopkins. The first paper on which he is lead author has been posted! It is part of a collection of working papers, and it has been submitted to the annals of applied statistics. As he says, “fun times!”

That’s Jeff, thinking deep thoughts, with Sugar the cat.

The current issue of Martha Stewart Living (May 2009) has an interesting article about color trends and what causes them. These 25 are what a lot of us are currently loving. The colors in my house are well represented here. Does that mean that I’m current and trendy?

I did some shopping when I wasn’t busy teaching last weekend. Der Kuchen Laden is a well-stocked kitchen shop in Fredericksburg, TX. I got all sorts of little doo-dads. The notched triangular tool for leaving lines in icing should be lots of fun to use on cakes.

Down the street Linens-N-More was about to close so I wasn’t able to shop long. Probably a good thing. I got this wonderful silk screened “America” dish towel made by Catstudio. I don’t know that I’m going to be able to let anyone get it wet – it may have to be a pillow. It could also be good in a quilt or garment.

In Kerrville, I found my way to Creations – one of the best quilt shops I’ve ever visited! This is the fabric I came home with. I also bought some wool for Linda, a linen jacket (for me), and upholstery fabric for my dining room chairs – oh happy day! It’s probably good for my wallet that I’m home now.

I found fences made from freshly cut cedar too! I want to put a fence like this around my backyard so it was exciting to find these.
This fence was “doubled” – there were cedar posts on both sides of the iron rebar supports.

The “single” fence had cedar posts wired to only one side of the rebar. The posts that hold the fence up are iron pipe filled with concrete. It looks like they used galvanized wire to tie the cedar to the rebar.

I wonder how long these fences will last before the iron parts rust through? Have any of you constructed similar fences?