While my bisque kiln was cooling today, I decided to head off… into the woods.
So I drove out of the city, with my friend Nancy, and up to Rock Cut State Park in
Rockford, Illinois. As a kid, I spent many a summer weekend camping there with my family.
Now it’s just a great escape from the hectic city – and today was wonderful opportunity to get
away and enjoy the adventure. It felt like a mini-vacation as we hiked around the lake… twice!
The weather was great and spring was popping out everywhere you looked. I love the colors,
the textures and the small surprises throughout the forest. The tiniest of wildflowers.
The vividness of the duckweed. The sprouts of the mosses. The smallest of nature’s details.

And my personal favorite… and old, grown-over sign & fence. Keep off what?… the lake?!!!

For those of you wondering… my seedlings are still growing.
Some better than others.  They’re still indoors…
but have “vacationed” outside on a couple warm days!

I woke up this morning to the “First Day of Spring” here in Chicago!!!

And to think that yesterday I got outside for a nice long bike ride along the lakefront
wearing biking shorts and a sleeveless jersey… enjoying the sun & warm weather!
Hopefully this will be the LAST of the winter “fun” before Spring really shows up.
Only in Chicago…

Not even a week later, my “urban gardening” project has begin to sprout!
And the winner in my “gardening race” is Hollyhock!!!

As the weather is getting warmer in Chicago, today was a wonderful day
to get out and go for a ride. The lakefront was beautiful, the wind a bit gusty,
but the ride was great! I ended up hanging out down at Promontory Point
for a bit enjoying the day. It was nice to see signs of Spring all around me.
Especially some wonderful moss making its first appearance of the year!

Seems like Spring has sprung.
The sun is shining… and one of my orchids bloomed today!

The sun is shining… I’m anxiously awaiting Spring… and getting a head start on the plants.
I’ve never actually done it before, but this morning I planted seeds with the hopes of
having a bounty of “cheap” plants to play with when it warms up enough to start playing
in the garden outside! It’s a test… let’s hope it works!

So what am I hoping for?… I planted two “batches” of gourds (my favorite),
cardinal climber vine, poppies, hollyhocks, paper lanterns and black-eyed susan vines.
Plus… since-my-huge-spider-plant-that-enjoys-the-summer-outside-but-comes-inside-
for-the-Winter-got-little-knocked-down-by-the-freezing-cold-air-coming-in-from-the-
window-that-my-neighbor-left-open… I’m also propagating some sprouts of spider plant.
Coming soon… I’m anticipating a LOT of spiders everywhere! And since they’re one step
away from “weeds”… I may be bequeathing a few of them to friends when they start
to take over?!

Actually, this spider plant originally came from a couple old art fair friends of mine.
Way back in the day when I was first starting out, I did a few “craft” fairs. One of them
was out at the Huntley Outlet Mall. Classy, huh? Anyway, one of my booth-neighbors
was a gardener that made rustic planters & containers filled with plants. At the end
of the show, they were packing up and quickly running out of space in their truck. They
asked if I would want to take any of the plants off their hands to make room in their truck.
Of course I said yes… not knowing that they would give me a full flat of spider plants
and more! They’ve been growing strong ever since… until the freezing air incident!