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Have you heard of the beautiful yarns from the new company Juniper Moon Farm?  If you haven't before, you have now!  What is more we are carrying some of their yarns.  The yarn pictured here is Sabine--a beautiful blend of royal llama (30%), merino wool (30%) and cotton (40%).  Working on the store model was a treat!  The yarn is soft (feels like cotton, but works like wool).  Even on those hot March days, it didn't itch or scratch, but felt very pleasant to work with.  I loved it and I love the shell I made with it.  I love it so much we are having a special on it--buy 5 skeins of the yarn ($18.00 a skein) and get the book free.  There are 12 lovely colors. 
We also have Findley, one of the best feeling lace yarns ever, in white.  Come in and touch it and I feel sure you will agree!'

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The first of the geese are hatched!  When I went out Wednesday  morning, April 11, there was one cute little goose lying in the nest with 10 eggs.  By yesterday afternoon there were 8 goslings--7 little gray girls and one yellow boy. (We have Pilgrim geese, which are sex linked--meaning that the sexes are different colors so you can tell sex from the time they hatch.  The girls are gray with brown eyes; the boys are yellow with blue eyes.)  They were typical little ones-- jumping out of the nest and into the water bowl, running around and driving their distracted mother crazy.  She was still trying to hatch out the last three eggs.  By this morning she had given in to the needs of the 8 little hatchlings and moved off the nest.  Our 11 ganders who have been whiling away the time in a great bachelor party  all jumped in like proud fathers, each one boasting about how much his little ones could do.  Our domestic geese always surprise me  because the fathers don't seem to care if the babies are theirs or not--babies are babies and they claim them.  This morning the proud mama (with about 5 fathers) took her babies out of their enclosure and walked around to show them off to every other mother.  (Remember from a previous blog:  there were 9 goose nests.)  At first I thought Mmma was just showing off, trying to make the other geese jealous, but then I realized she was introducing her babies to the rest of the gaggle.  After the introductions she took them down to the pond and coaxed them in.  I was frantic because the pond has steep sides and I couldn't see how they could get out again--but they did.  She walked them around in the shallow water to the place where a little stream runs in and then she and the fathers brought the babies out, sometimes by carrying them on their backs.  When we left they were all up by the barn resting in the sun.  It is a good thing I am at the store, because if I weren't, I would be at home frantically watching and worrying about those baby geese ALL DAY!   (Hmmm, I will be worried about them all day!  I worried about them all night last night, especially after we saw a giant o'possum trying to raid nests before we went to bed.)

The diamond, signifying everlasting love, is the birthstone for April and when in the sun it radiates all the colors of the prism.  It also comes in many colors, blue, yellow, green, pink, etc, although the clear diamond is the stone for April.  The brilliance, radiance and many colors of the diamond, makes it difficult to choose a color of the month, so once again we are deviating to the flower of the month.  Research turned up several sources with different flowers all vying for April.  Some references preferred the tulip in either red or yellow.  However, most lists named  the sweet pea and daisy as the flowers for April.  The daisy is white and yellow and since we featured yellow for daffodils last month I decided we needed something different.  So, I chose sweet peas as the source for the April color of the month.  A quick look at pictures of sweet peas shows that they also come in a wide variety of colors from white to royal purple with all sorts of pinks, lavendar, lilac, magenta, and bright reds thrown in.  The 40% discount bin has pinks to purple  and reds this month.  The colors are vibrant and bright (although the sweet pea can also be quite subtle and pale in its color and shading). 
The history of flowers of the month and birthstones is linked to the Romans.  The Romans liked to give gifts and flowers and gemstones were some of the favorites.  In the past, it was not always acceptable to be frank or express feelings the way we do today.  Gemstones and flowers were given symbolic meanings which carried with them when they were given as gifts.  During the Victorian era a gift of sweet peas carried the hidden message "Thank you for a lovely time."  They could also signify blissful pleasure or in some cases mean good bye.