First harvest

The spinach starts that I planted at the beginning of April are already ready to start feeding us. I harvested the first of it today, just taking the outer leaves to (according to my gardening books) encourage more growth. We're having it for dinner tonight. Well, we're having it as a small side dish for dinner tonight, since that amount of spinach cooks down to not all that much. But I suspect it will be the most rewarding side dish I've eaten in a while--the very first thing we'll be eating from our garden.

After a few weeks when the asparagus crowns just looked sad and dead and I was afraid I'd planted them wrong or too soon, there's finally some activity starting in the asparagus bed. Strange little things, those asparagus crowns. They won't be ready to harvest until next year.

Then we've got the plants I started from seeds. Please forgive the shots that look like the plants are in jail. I started off taking the photos with the anti-cat chicken wire in place, then thought better of it and rolled it back for the later shots:

Winterbor kale

Early Dividend broccoli

Early Wonder beets

The spinach I harvested today, pre-harvest, and to the left of it Swiss chard

Tyee spinach (and behind it, garlic)

The strawberry plants in the pot are quite happy.

As are the strawberries planted in the ground on the other side of the yard. (Beside the also-happy blueberry bush. I forgot to snap photos of that side of the yard. Sorry! Next time!)

Oh...and do you remember the strawberry plant that looked like an alien from this post? Take a look at that alien now.

That's kind of magical, isn't it? I'm hoping the asparagus crowns grow similarly more attractive with time. They're kinda freaky right now.

Not pictured, but also coming up, Napa and Merida carrots.

*Post inspired by Norma's State of the Food Garden address. She's my gardening hero

And so...

...yes. The blog will be renamed. I know what the new name will be, but don't want to reveal that just yet. Full disclosure: I decided on the new name about five minutes after I posted the entry about maybe changing it. So I guess my mind really was made up already.

I'm going to combine the name-change with the redesign and migration to WordPress that I've been threatening for ages and ages. I won't be starting a new blog--all the old Dogs Steal Yarn entries will go with us.

The new banner Xina made for me (which then sat in a digital closet while I put off the migration) now needs to be updated with the new name, and then David can move everything over. I'm not sure when all of that can happen, but I'll keep you posted.

In the meantime, I have my hands full. Toddler with a "touch of bronchitis," per the pediatrician. Have a great weekend. I'm off to baby my baby a bit more.

identity shift?

I'm thinking--just toying with the idea, mind you--of changing the name of the blog. Since there's now one dog, not two, and the one dog doesn't steal yarn. Since that one dog is a little old man who doesn't much care for posing for pictures these days. Since I don't talk about knitting much at all anymore...

I don't know what I'd change the name to. Or if maybe it's a terrible idea to change the name 5 years into a blog with a decent regular readership established... I don't know. What do you, oh regular readers, think?

So maybe I've got the blog blahs

...because I keep thinking I should post here and then keep putting it off. I don't have much to say. Thumper's terrific. The garden is growing. I've got a huge crush on Billy. All the usual stuff. It's rather quiet around here.

Trilce II, the sweater that was to be finished months ago, is still unfinished. I guess that's what happens when you knit all of ten or eleven stitches a week. But no worries. It'll look great with flip flops in August. Or maybe not. But I can put it away for the fall, so...

So yeah. Not so much with the knitting these days.

I'm reading this and loving it.

My friend Emily is up for an award tonight and I'm 97% happy for her. (Okay. 95%. No...maybe 93%. Whatever. Redheads look good in green.)

I'm stalking patio furniture on Craigslist.

Considering getting my mom a worm bin for Mother's Day.

That's about it. Quiet. On the outside, anyway.