Flowers for Easter

We took a drive out in the country to a farm that grows fields of Daffodils and always has a small stand on the yard. That was Tuesday and the buds were slow in opening. I was wondering if they'd be open for Easter Sunday. Here it is Saturday and most have opened.  Yellow loveliness.

                                                  HAPPY EASTER!!


    Granny Marigold

Crokinole Game

After reading some of the comments concerning the Crokinole game in my last post I did a little search and discovered why many of you have no idea what in the world this game is all about. It seems it is uniquely Canadian, first made in Ontario in 1876.


Crokinole was a very common game when I was growing up.
We called it Knips Brat , which loosely translated from Low German, means" Flick board", since the aim is to flick your opponent's discs off with yours.  It takes a lot of dexterity ( which, with my arthritic fingers I don't have) but it's such a fun part of my heritage.

If you're at all interested I've posted some information off the internet.


The standard Crokinole board is a 66 cm (26”) diameter wooden board with a shallow hole in the center. Players flick small wooden discs on the playing surface into valuable positions. The playing area is divided into 3 scoring fields by concentric circles with increasing values towards the center. There are 8 bumpers around the most inner circle to make it more difficult to flick the discs in the center hole. The most outer scoring filed is divided into four quadrants. Players can only shoot discs from their quadrant. The most outer circle is the shooting line.
Discs landing within the scoring circles are worth 15, 10 and 5 points moving out from inside. A disc falling into the center hole is worth immediately 20 points to its player. Discs leaving the playing area are worth 0 point. The shooting line is also the border of the playing area (see image 1). Players count their points at the end of each round .

Spring Break

It's Spring Break for the grands and still colder than usual. Too chilly to play outside. The trees in the park look wintery but at least the grass is green.

                              Snowdrops are blooming...

          .... and so are the Hellebores.

 I wonder if you have a Crokinole game or if you're even familiar with it. This board is old, probably over 40 years since we ordered it through  the Sears catalog. M is really good at aiming his discs; I'm not that good but Grandad is a worthy opponent.

Earlier M and I played a round of Chinese Checkers. Now he and Grandad have gone outside in spite of the weather.  That boy needs some fresh air and Granny needs some time to relax.

I hope your week is off to a great start.

Thanks for visiting,


Granny Marigold

Palm Sunday

                                                                  GRANNY MARIGOLD

First Day of Spring

I Hope the first day of Spring in your area is a mild and lovely day. Here it';s mild but with showers in the forecast. I worked outside today pulling little weeds that were already blooming!! I'm determined to get rid of them before they form seeds.

A SIL is visiting from the prairies and we've had a lot of family get-togethers over the past days. Today we were all together at another SIL's place for a meal. She had huge bunches of  pastel tulips in jars which were set in pretty Easter gift bags. It looked so pretty. The food was tasty...Lasagna and salads and bread with a fantastic chocolate cake for dessert. It had layers of cream in the middle and was beyond decadent.  Wednesday our SIL will fly home and life will resume as it tends to do. I'm okay with ordinary days. I actually prefer them. How about you? Do you prefer the ordinary days or the ones that involve visitors and lots of happenings?  

Thanks for coming to visit today,

                                                                  Granny Marigold                                                                           

New Project

Something that we have talked about for years is closing in our back porch. It already was closed on three sides as you can see on this old picture. The new windows arrived today and were picked up and brought home, installed by DH and two of our sons.  Having the windows will make it possible to use this area earlier in Spring and also later come Fall.

While they were doing the actual installation it looked like such a mess out there!

 I was SO afraid they would drop those heavy windows!

The windows are safely in and all that remains to be done is to put on the shingles both outside and inside.Hopefully in a week or so I can post a pic of the finished project.

Thanks for visiting,


      Granny Marigold  

Springtime Flowers

On Mondays I get an e mail from the nursery letting me know what the specials are for the week.  I've been wanting Pansies because not only are they bright and cheery they also can tolerate a touch of frost. The special this week was  $1.49 for a pack of 6 Pansies.  DH and I went to look and I came home with 4 packs ( X6 makes 24 delightful Pansies). Of course I had to look around and find more pretty plants at good prices. It was hard to choose from so many!!

This Spring arrangement of Primula, Pansies and mini Daffodils ( not yet open) now sits on the sunroom table. 
What flowers are you apt to choose when you go plant shopping?

Thanks for visiting,

   Please leave a comment however short just so I know you were here!!

           Granny Marigold

Mainly Books

I went to the thrift store with the express purpose of getting kid's books that I had either never read and/ or had at some point given away.  All children's books are .50 at this particular thrift store unless for some reason they have a sticker pricing them higher.  You might wonder why, if I went for books I'm showing you a Teddy bear.  I made the mistake of walking past a display of dolls and here with them was this adorable flapper teddy.  Obviously I had to buy her.

              The Helen Forrester, although not a kids book, was in the children's book area .

With the weather turning milder I won't be reading quite as much as I am these days but I have the books and will eventually read them.

I must apologize for Blogger. Once again several comments have disappeared. If you left a comment but don't now see it rest assured I did read it before it disappeared. I find this rather frustrating. Does anyone else have this same issue?

Thanks for visiting,


          Granny Marigold

Food and Flowers

When M. came up to get a chocolate chip cookie for his school lunch this morning he informed me that we were almost out.  That meant it would be baking day. Besides the cookies ( by the time I thought to take this photo I had already put most of them into a container)  I made scones and bread. Although I used the same dough ( made in the breadmaker) the small, cheese-topped loaaves turned out fine but the larger loaf  hardly rose at all. It's destined to be breakfast toast so it isn't a problem but I do wonder why it didn't rise.

Dianna, on her blog Forgiven, posted about a lovely  old jam jar that she recently acquired. She loves old things, as do I. It reminded me of my two old Marmalade jars that I treasure ( and use).

M.K. in her post ( Through a Glass, Darkly) mentioned making a vegetarian pot pie.  I made this one on the weekend and also made a date-cranberry-raisin square ( most of which I put into the freezer for unexpected company. The pot pie had a lot of roasted peppers in it and DH was not at all enthusiastic about the results. Now I know to put in fewer next time.

Just so my whole post isn't about food I made I included this picture of the yellow Crocus blooming in the front yard.

And in the back some very small Winter Aconites are showing their faces. I used to have a nice little patch of them but then one year they disappeared. I'm hoping these will be happy and naturalize.

It's quite a lovely day here. 10 C ( 50F) and I've been outside with a broom and the shop vacuum tidying up the leaves and twigs that the wind blew in. I'm hoping this milder weather will stick around.

Thanks for visiting,

      Granny Marigold

This and That

There were shingles spread out to dry in the sunroom on the weekend. DH has a project in mind which I'll be blogging about eventually. The house smelled like Cedar!

On the subject of projects... here is my finished banner  hanging in front of the bookshelves in my room.  Shelves full of my pretties and my computer where I probably spend too much time.  --grin-

The picture is not very clear but you get the idea.

I was in Walmart yesterday looking for suet ( there wasn't any so I guess the birds will have to manage without it) .  I spied a display of pretty little Cacti. Had a hard time choosing only two but since South facing window space is limited.....
  I put them into these tea cups; I hope they have enough soil.  Does anyone know what kind of Cactus the one behind the grafted yellow one is? It grows much faster than normal Cactus.  The little one to the right, in the terra cotta pot is a "branch" I broke off that one and it's growing too.

It's laundry day and I'm done except for folding and putting away, which is what I'm going to do now.
Have a great week!!


Thanks for visiting,


         Granny Marigold

New Project

I've been making a sort of banner inspired by prayer flags I have been seeing on Pinterest.
They ended up being a hybrid, pretty banner/ prayer flag.
Most of the ones I've made are 5 X 8 although somehow there are bigger ones too. I think I forgot to take into account the wide lace I sewed onto the bottoms of some. I went to the dollar store and bought small clothespins and DH hung a wire across the bookshelves in my room.

 On one of these flags and one in the next picture I glued on very old mirrors... one had the Good Shepherd on the reverse side
and the other  just had a picture of a little girl.

Once I hang these up I'll be able to see how many more I need to make.When I see the projects so many of you make I'm a bit reluctant to show mine but I plan on publishing this post quickly before I change my mind!

Thanks for visiting today,

         Granny Marigold

March First

March came in like a lamb here. We're still below normal temps for this time of year but at least it's kind of sunny and we had a lovely walk around the lake. Red-Winged Blackbirds were sitting in the reeds and singing. Once nests are built no doubt we'll be dive-bombed by these same birds as we walk the path near their nests. They get quite brash and actually make contact with your head if you're not careful.

I found an easy recipe for English Muffins and tried my luck.  I used my biscuit cutter so the muffins are a bit too small but otherwise they're okay. No little holes inside like a proper English muffin ( or maybe those with holes are crumpets??)   I plan on using some of these to make mini pizzas to go with the leftover soup we're having for supper.

 Thanks for visiting today,


          Granny Marigold