huddle inside

We're having one of those see-saw events: very cold today, with a promise of a very warm weekend ahead. I like that! I need time to huddle inside and finish my planting maps. 

I'm thinking that I went about it the wrong way. I purchased plants I wanted to see in the garden in more or less quantities I could accommodate. I didn't think too much about what would go where. It always sort of works out. But the quantities turned out to be, well, not small and I did not want to be overwhelmed so I decided to do these flower bed maps. This may have been a good idea if I remembered every single plant that I'd already put in. I can't say that this is the case. At least not to the centimeter, or to the meter. Where are the old plants, where are the gaps?? And of course, I lose about 5% of last year's growth but I don't know yet which 5%. All this means that drawing maps is only easy for empty beds. I only have one empty bed. (Lookin' at you, bed number 11!)  The rest? My maps are an exercise in inexactitude.

Compounding the difficulties, I no longer remember why I thought, for example, that buying a 3 pack of Pyncnanthemum Verticillatum var. Pilosum from the Prairie Moon Nursery was a good idea. Moreover, this is the first time that I am working with that nursery (I'm trying very hard to introduce even more plants that will be compatible with the bugs and birds that live in south central Wisconsin), so I do not know if I can count on their, for example Blephilia Ciliata to spread as advertised. You have to know your growers and I don't know these growers yet.

So, on this cool day, this very cool day, I huddle inside and give my very best effort to the job of placing every new plant in a farmette flower field. At least on paper.

After breakfast of course.

The urgency here is obvious. Planting will start exactly three weeks from today. And in these three weeks, I have to keep up with weeds and here's another thing -- I have to draw out a tree plan! What tree plan? Well, I'm easily influenced by upbeat articles about planting beneficials and today, I read the piece in the NYTimes on how everyone should plant acorns and encourage oak trees to grow in their back yard. Now, this is a silly proposition, because oaks just never stop growing: they are huge! What suburban garden can accommodate a massive oak? And of course, it is just a short leap from there to my next thought: we should go back to our tree planting project! 

Ed is on board. And so some time in the afternoon, we list the trees we want to grow Maples, chestnuts, hickory, walnut, pecans. About 100 of them. Maybe more. Only now I'm dealing with a different gardener: Ed. He doesn't first buy, then adjust the purchases to the land. He plans. And does research. And reads everything. And so we have my quick to act style mixing in with his slow to decide demeanor and we have ourselves an interesting afternoon.

And speaking of growing things, out of the millions (or so) of tulips I planted, I now have almost none left. The groundhog did his job well, returning to the crime scene last night, before we had a chance to spray anything with habanero peppers. But, today the pack of peppers arrived in the mail and we set to work, grinding them up with water, milk, and oil. In the cold, cold evening, we spray all the tips that the groundhog left behind. 

A full enough day, you say? Oh, we also dealt with the chicks. I told Ed their room was beginning to smell of... chickens, so we dumped out old wood shavings and refreshed their box with new stuff. (We let them run wild during the cleaning process.)

(And gave them a treat: parsley.)

The day's not done. I must now produce a plan of our tree planting project. Ed will not go through with the tree purchase (we're talking saplings, less than a foot tall, at about a dollar or two a shot) before I produce a planting plan. 

Huddling inside never felt so... busy!

(And the daffodils keep on blooming and they're lovely.)

(And Dance finds a new place to find comfort inside.)

hot peppers

Brazen. Audaciously brazen. I've no better word for it.

It happened during the night. I'd had hints that it may take place. Here and there, little clues. And Ed had suggested maybe taking precautions. He floated ideas, I was mulling them over, and then boom! Too late. Battle lost (though the war is definitely not over).

This is the problem when you have shared your residence with those whose main purpose is to reap benefits through the destruction of your labor. This morning, I step outside and right away I see the damage. Two robust coral bell plants with mounds of colorful leaves: completely decapitated. Day liliy tips -- sawed off, as if by a sharp knife. Tulips, carefully planted along the new path -- mowed down to the ground, with some bulbs dug out for emphasis. And so on. 

The groundhogs danced by the light of the moon in my flower beds last night, feasting on all that's green and bountiful.

You cannot blame him (and probably his extended family). There's so little for them to eat right now. The flower beds offer hope. An appetizer of foods before summer gives them a full bounty of tasty delights. Still, it hurts.

Ed and I eat breakfast and discuss possible solutions going forward. The internet is full of strategies you can employ, even as I know most of them wont work. But, how about mixing the hottest of hot peppers (habanero) with other distasteful ingredients (maybe garlic? onion?), along with water and a bit of oil, and spraying at least some of the emerging plants with that potent mist? 

We order some habaneros from Amazon. Tomorrow, we fight back! Or at least redirect the woodchuck to more appropriate feeding venues. I mean, go eat the weeds already!!

(Breakfast)

It's a stunning day, albeit windy once again. No matter -- I have two Zoom calls today. One to help Ed, so more work than pleasure, and the other -- total pleasure, as I connect with my friend in Warsaw (though the COVID news there is not good, so I just listen and hope that she and so many others can hang in there before the vaccinations reach them).

(Ed takes a photo, possibly because Dance is there, lounging next to me.)

 

 

 

Eventually I do go out, shovel in hand. Such glorious weather! And of course, once you get the first daffodil, others come running to join the band!

(Another bloomer: my Hellebore plant, sometimes called the Lenten Rose, even though it is no relation to a rose.)

I try to ignore the groundhog damage. These animals are, after all, an integral part of farmette life. Groundhogs, hawks, possum. They take what's theirs, we replace what we can, with the hope that they'll be satisfied and leave plenty behind for us to enjoy.

how can you not be thrilled with them...

I know what you're thinking: here comes another grandmotherly post about those magnificent grandkids! Well yes, they are that, and yes, I'll say a word on them in a bit, but they aren't in my immediate field of vision when I first go outside this morning. And I'm not thinking about the chicks either, except that soon I wont be calling them chicks because they are getting plump and feathery. More and more like pullets (in case you are not a chicken person -- a pullet is a hen that's not quite an adult, but without the down of a baby chick).

I am thinking, when I step outside today, how thrilling the flowers of spring are when they do finally blossom. Even though one that is indeed blossoming massively (not because I planted it, but because someone once did), has this habit of spreading and squeezing out others, which makes it actually an invasive.  I'm thinking of you, scilla siberica! Pretty and bluebell-like, introduced here in the Midwest as an ornamental and now taking over many a wooded area. Including at the farmette. You really should not plant it. Still, it is, well, very pretty. 

I do take full responsibility for the crocuses. They are not natives, but they cause no harm. And they're gorgeous.

Similarly, I'll take responsibility for planting daffodils. Again, it's not a native, but not invasive either -- so no harm done and lots of beauty in its first appearance. Last year my first daffodil bloomed on April 1st. This year -- today! So three days earlier.

It's no surprise, really. By afternoon, we reach 65F (that's 18C). It's terribly windy, but who cares! It's 65F! (Well, Sparrow cares. As I help him navigate the great outdoors, he tells me -- I hate the wind. I list some of it's virtues and he does an about face -- okay. I like the wind. Kids are so impressionable.)

The early morning though is still a bit nippy. Breakfast in the kitchen.

The kids come soon after. I love how they find their own paths to the front door!

These days, Sparrow often begins his time here with a man-to-man chat with Ed. 

Snowdrop, on the other hand, almost always begins with a bowl of fruit and book time on the orange couch. I'd dug out some books on Jane Goodall. Snowdrop, who had had some exposure to Goodall previous to this, has a spirited discussion, also with Ed, about whether a chimpanzee is an ape or a monkey. (Happy to report that indeed, chimpanzees are apes. No tails, stand upright. Like us.)

And speaking of Ed, I'll put in this photo, because I don't think there's been a year where there hasn't been a photo of Ed pulling garlic mustard out of the raspberry patch while Snowdrop (and now Sparrow) romps.

Is it still windy? Yes it is!

Evening. We have some gizmo failures today -- my Fitbit battery is draining like a speed demon, to the point of making the movement tracking device useless, and Ed's little solenoid on the chicken coop overheated and died. Terrible news! How will I know my step count? And how will the cheepers get out in the morning? (The solenoid is set on a timer to spring the door open. Since it's dead, a real human being has to be there to let them out.) But by the end of the day, replacement parts for both gizmos are in place to arrive soon-ish. Once again I marvel at how easy it is to work through problems from home. All this and spring daffodils too. How thrilling is that!

the primrose

The English Primrose can surely withstand Wisconsin winters, but you have to mulch it, and care for the roots since they detest hot summers or very cold winters, and watch the water saturation of the soil, and kick any early plant loving animal out of your yard when the first shoots emerge. In other words -- it's not an easy flower for me to grow here. Some people prefer to put a primrose into a container. In that typical trilogy of spiller-thriller-filler (where you often see in a pot a trailing flower, a tall showcase bloom, and a low growing dense filler), the primrose takes on that "filler" role. But personally, I prefer to see a primrose where it does so well -- in her natural habitat, wild, in the English countryside. (Or, carefully planted and tended in the Luxembourg Gardens in Paris!)

In the alternative, I'll snatch one from a shop in early spring and put it on my table, where it will perform nicely for a little while.

Such a pretty flower! As you may remember, it's also Ocean's name for my little grandgirl. She turns three today!

 

We are adhering to virus precautions and so I cannot zip down to Chicago to be there for her grand day, but I know the little one is in for a spirited time, extending her celebration from school on Friday through
the weekend with her Chicago family. She is happy and so I am happy!

 

It's a bright and cheerful day, full of that wonderful spring sunshine. And wind! We hear it all day long -- like the sound of a train speeding through the farmette lands...

Breakfast, in the kitchen. I'm exasperated with Dance, our on and off feral cat who these days chooses breakfast time as the moment when she absolutely has to be petted or else. There goes my quiet morning meal!

We work outside  -- a little in the yards, but mostly on the porch. Spring cleaning time!!

And of course, I break for Primrose.

Such a perceptive, playful and affectionate little girl! Big observant eyes, big heart. And a big voice, too -- she is my one enthusiastically singing grandchild! And today she is three. How awesome is that! (And yes, she loves to dance. Put on Coppelia and she's off!)

I can't believe it: three!

 

Evening. A sunny evening! The young family comes for dinner and for the hundredth time I smile to myself about the grandness of having daylight with us the whole time they are here.

(Predinner munchies: yeah, she's the family beet thief)

 

(He stays with cheese and crackers...)

The day ends, the sun sets. At 7:20! I remember all too well when it set at 4:25 in December. Short winter days call for patience. The reward? Days like this one. 

Happy birthday, little Primrose. Happy evening everyone else!

With love.

expected rain

It was slated to be a rainy day and for the most part, it delivered. What would you do on a wet Saturday? Fine, read a book! The ubiquitous answer to everything. But besides that?

Here's my Saturday. Yes, it does have a book in it, but there's more.

Breakfast, no surprise, in the kitchen. Ed is barely awake. Rainy days bring out the sleepiness in him.

 

Then I celebrate the arrival of my tea pot. Stimulus check (well, part of it) put to good use! I've waited a long time to buy one and I am tickled that it is finally part of my kitchen pack of essentials. (I don't go overboard: I don't, for instance, give it a name. Though I am tempted!)

And the tea pot leads me to spend not a small amount of time thinking about where I will travel when I finally do resume traveling. I know it will feel weirder than weird. And that I will have some trepidation about going off on a solo adventure, because I've had so much time without the company of others this last year! In the past, I never minded sitting over a dinner in a restaurant alone. So much to observe and take in! But somehow these days I think I'd mind just a tiny bit. 

So I thought about all this. Where would I go? Hill climbing in a familiar place? Try something altogether new? I don't have a clear idea about any of it!

As is our new Saturday habit, in the late morning, my daughter comes with the two kids for a visit. 

A few snapshots tell the story of how kids take in a rainy day:

And in the afternoon, the steady sound of rain patter ceases, and Ed and I look at each other, and he notes that weeds are easy to pull out of wet soil, and I mumble that there sure are plenty of them out there after the rain, and so yes, we do go out, right into the mud.

Dedicated gardeners, aren't we? Pulling mustard garlic out of wet, muddy soil, roots and all, every last one of them. And then the next rainy day will come, and new weeds will sprout and we'll have to go at it all over again.

Evening quiet. All is still. Except for the chicks, who cat nap (forgive the pun) all day long, then chirp and peck their way late into the night hours.

 

March days

There are days when you get impatient with March. You step outside and mutter -- I don't want to work out here today. Your grandkid says -- let's go outside, you say -- let's not. You want the return of the warmer days where the jacket stayed on the hook in the farmhouse. You want progress in the flowering department. 

This is the moment where you have to remind yourself of all that you've gained already. Of the greening of the landscape. Of the fattening of the daffodil heads. Of the plumping of the cherry buds.

Of cheepers laying again. Sometimes in the strangest places!

Too, I think about northern countries that I love -- Scotland comes to mind. Days like this one (cloudy, quite cool, jacket definitely in demand) are commonplace there. People pay them no heed. You don't talk or even think about the weather when it changes on you, usually for the worse, many times in the space of a day.

We have many warm months here, in south central Wisconsin. March just doesn't happen to be one of them.

 

In the meantime, the three chicks are growing. We can't let them spend time outside yet -- that wont happen for at least another month. Still, they do get their adventuring time in the sun room.

And they clamor for it. You can tell that they are bored in their coop. But, it's an unfriendly world that awaits them. We wont let them out until they're ready for the challenge.

Breakfast, with spring flowers inside.

Periods of rain always make the weeds grow faster and sure enough, our weeded flower fields have sprouted stuff that needs to come out. I can't say that I enthusiastically attacked the new invasives, but I do go out with a shovel for at least a little while.

And then I break for a Zoom visit with my Polish friends.

Poland, like many countries in Europe, is experiencing a virus surge. It's the all too familiar pattern: rates go down, you relax too much, rates go way up. My friends are mostly in the age category where vaccines are now becoming available to them and so at least they have some security in the near future. Still, Wisconsin had those astronomical, highest in the land numbers back in the Fall. I know how worrisome it is to live through that.

I have to stop the call to run out and pick up Snowdrop at school. Her teacher insists that the girl clip her outgrowing bangs back. Possibly it's to keep her from constantly touching her face with her hands. She complies, but takes the clips right off the minute she gets in the car.

Now here's a girl who is truly looking forward to even more outdoor time! Starting yesterday!

Inside, she wants to write love notes. She writes some, I write some. I try to be creative, but still, I think we both agree that hers are that much sweeter...

Evening. Primrose calls and I find out all about her school birthday celebration! How good it is to have school kids around you! Last year we were at the beginning of the pandemic and the little girl had only her parents. This year, as she turns three, she will have had others to share in the grand event.

 

 

 

And so ends Friday. This weekday always feels different, even if you no longer work: it's a marker of a week gone by. A good week for us: kids are well, parents are well. And spring -- it's here, in its own blustery way it has made its presence known and we are grateful for it.