Music, Music, Music, and the Best of the Beatles

 March was alive with Music! The Meistersingers presented their spring concert March 2, "The Best of the Beatles." My granddaughters get a chuckle thinking about me learning and singing Beatles songs!

The Best of the Beatles concert

Then the March USM Symphony program featured some outstanding students, winners of the annual William T. Gower Competition. See Daniel Petrocelli, guitarist, after the flower pictures. 

Nick Ciraldo and the Guitar Studio at USM held a Screamin' Eagles Guitarfest with lots of impressive talent on display. Many performers enjoy activities and Wednesday night potluck suppers at University Baptist Church, and these talented students presented a Thank You concert in Back Door Coffeehouse fashion. 

Several students held recitals this month in fulfillment of requirements for degrees. I attend as many of these as I can, and am so grateful for the privilege. 

USM Symphony

The Thank You Concert Team
with David W Walker and Linda Ginn

L-R Joao Vitor Gonzaga, Sofia Araujo, Renata Andrade,
Gabriel Barros, Marcus Silva

L-R Joao Vitor Gonzaga, Sofia Araujo, Renata Andrade,
Gabriel Barros, Marcus Silva

The azaleas are blooming, making any driving in town pure pleasure. My front porch is a great place to read or eat breakfast. We have had a couple of rain days, which beats down the blossoms, but more come to take up the show. 

Daniel Petrocelli (one of the William T. Gower winners) 
at the Thank You Concert at University Baptist

April and Springtime

Azaleas before heavy rains

I'm glad I took pictures of the blooming azaleas because these frequent and heavy rains have really beat them down and shortened their flowering season.

My croton is still alive but very straggly, so I bought a new plant and could not resist this hydrangea while waiting for my bed of them to bloom. The wisteria put on a brief but beautiful show.

New pots of croton and hydrangea

Wisteria

I'm pleased that all three slices of the Cinque Terre fabric collage got to be seen together at the Gulf States Quilting Association (GSQA) show April 8-9, where it won a second place ribbon in the Art-Landscape category. My section is on the left, then pieces by Rita Warnock and Cathy Reininger.

Cinque Terre at GSQA show

Working a 500-piece puzzle of the same scene was so much fun and not nearly the challenge of interpreting it in fabric. I also have a 1,000-piece puzzle that I might try after so much study of this famous photo.

Elizabeth helping 

Cinque Terre 500-piece puzzle

Music has filled my life with joy as we rehearsed and then sang a concert of 25 years of Meistersingers favorites this month. I'm looking forward to preparing the Brahms Requiem for a June 12 concert. More music enjoyment was provided by Marlene Gentile at her senior violin recital and the string quartets and quintets at USM's string honors competition. 

Marlene Gentile and Dario Martin

Alejandro Junco, Marlene Gentile, Ana Sofia Suarez, Franco Galetto

Sewing lately has consisted of making NICU isolette covers with the help of Linda Ginn, Barbara Hartley, and Linda Hudson. When I could not get either of my machines to remember how to make buttonholes to fit over the pegs, Jackie Watkins came to my rescue. 

March Catching Up

My first springtime in Mississippi (1972) I thought, "Everyone should see Mississippi in the spring," and this is still true. The azaleas are so spectacular that we begin to take them for granted--huge blobs of magenta, pink, and fuchsia and an occasional snow-white bush for contrast.

My amaryllis have started blooming, along with some iris, but the azaleas are still the main event. The Bradford Pear trees put on a show when they are covered in white flowers for about a week. These are not native trees and we are advised not to plant them, but they make such a beautiful scene! 

I finished the fourth quilted zinnia pictures; these finish at 19" and are stretched over foam core ready to drop in a frame. It's hard to pick a favorite from the lavender, rosy pink, yellow, and orange.

I made the first of this year's shared fiber art in our Southern Fiber Artists exchange for Michele Martin. This cardinal is shown against a wintery gray sky in aspen trees.

My exciting news is that two of my three pieces I submitted to SAQA's Prism Play Call for Entry were accepted and will be part of Prism Play: A Full Spectrum of Art Quilts, which will be touring from Spring 2022 through 2026. 

Chartreuse and Violet quilts juried into Prism Play

Elizabeth has claimed this large plastic bag as her sleeping spot lately and Rahrah especially likes to be with me on the front porch.

Spring is here

Everything is so green now! The trees are covered in leaves; azaleas are blooming in many yards, and the temperature is perfect for sitting out on porches and patios. Here is the view from my front porch. I even spent several days power washing the paving stones along the front. I may be the only one who sees them, because everyone except the mail carrier and UPS guy use my back driveway. But for springtime it seemed like a neat thing to do.

In my backyard a Lady Banksia rose bush is getting established and I am training it to run along the fence.

We don't have Texas bluebonnets, but this little ground cover, Ajuga, is making a nice substitute.

 My pansy bed was planted in November and I have enjoyed blooms ever since. There is a huge parsley plant (enlarge to see) and lots of oregano; I added basil and a rosemary plant. My "Rosemary Christmas Tree" didn't survive the winter.  You can see it here if you want to look back.

The oxalis (fighting for space with oregano) looks like large clover that I want to pull like weeds. But then it has these lovely little pink blooms that make me realize I shouldn't think of it as a weed after all.

The hostas die down and are covered in pine straw for protection over the winter. It is exciting to see them beginning to fight their way through the straw.

I have only one houseplant--a Christmas cactus. It lives on a table by an east window all year. Even though it is supposed to get a certain amount of dark in order for it to bloom, it forgave me for this neglect and produced a slow but constant blooming period from November through March. Here it is at the end of March with perhaps its last three blooms.

Two blog posts this month! There is hope I will do better next month.

What Happened to Winter?

After two days of weather in the 'teens, we are enjoying spring-like temperatures and a profusion of blooming azaleas, camellias, Japanese magnolias, and quince. I made a trip to Austin, TX in January, and my brother's quince bush made me want to plant one.

We visited a Mexican meat market where there were more varieties of peppers than I'd seen in one place. And customers brought their own shopping bags because plastic bags are forbidden in Austin. This makes me want to remember to bring my own bag here in Hattiesburg.

My azaleas are nearly in full bloom at the end of February.

Speaking of growing things, my experiment of watering paperwhites with a diluted mixture of gin was a total failure--no blooms at all. However, in re-reading the information, I discovered that this was suggested for bulbs planted in water over rocks, not in soil.