May pause

It's not all garden work this month! (Although it is true that not a day passes where I don't reach down and pull out a few weeds.) Sometimes it's good just to take a prolonged break -- say on the porch, over breakfast, listening to the birds. Sparrows, Blue Jays, Catbirds, Robins, Goldfinch, Starling, Thrush, Orioles, Warblers and birds with the unfortunate name of Killdeer (so named for their piercing cry). They are all out, claiming their airspace this morning.

Ed is on a long morning call again and so I eat alone, listening, reading. And looking! I'd done my morning walk to the barn, took in the lilacs and the fields around the courtyard and along the path.

(I planted a stem from the big lilac by the Writer's Shed... and it grew!)

(The big one by the house is having its best year since I've moved here; one more closeup!)

 

 

(And one more look at the daffodils: triplets in yellow...)

 

 

 (Triplets in white.)

 

 

The porch has a splendid view to all but the roadside bed. Here I could stay, for a long time. 

But I do return outside -- the real outside. I have a couple of edging pinks to put in and I do some spot watering of new plants. This kind of watering that I like, quite a bit. I stand with the hose and hum to myself and my mind clears. Because I am so still, twice today I had a humming bird (one with a beautiful red neck) come over to the plant I was watering, to taste the liquid that had fallen on the leaves. Each time, the bird came to within a foot of me. I could hear his wings -- like a wind up toy going at full speed. I had my phone in my pocket, but I know these birds -- the minute you move unpredictably, they take off. It's not the time to take a photo. Instead, I look at it with great admiration, feeling a little like a birder who has scored a big one.

 

In the afternoon, the kids are here. The day warms up substantially: from just warm to steamy warm. Might there be rain?

No such luck. We speculate if it will be a dry or wet summer. It seems it's either one or the other. I'm not sure which, from a gardener's perspective, does the least damage to a flower field. Maybe we'll get lucky and get a nice balance! Sunshine and light rain. One can hope.

with love...

May summer

First word that comes to mind for this day: it's hot. A high of 84F (29C) is so not May weather and yet, here we are.

The petals from the fruit trees are mostly off now and those that remain are getting to be covered over by the robust leaf growth. The tulips are on their home stretch, the daffodils? Only the late triplets remain. This is what the last third of spring looks like. 

(I start with a look outside from the farmhouse kitchen window...)

(just a few remain...)

(fewer flowers, stronger leaves...)

(the incredible lilac, helped tremendously by a vigorous trim...)

(morning walk...)

(the triplets -- three blooms to a stalk -- are a late daffodil...)

 

I eat breakfast on the porch. Ed is already lost to his work and so I'm there with my book, which is actually okay because I'm on the last chapters of a Tana French novel and I'm completely lost in it, loving her characters, her Irish smarts, her ripe with detail sentences.

And speaking of stories, have you ever experienced something that has absolutely no logical explanation? This weekend we had just such an other-worldly event! Here's what happened: on Saturday, the tree removal service was hauling away fallen limbs from our maple and in picking them up with a bobcat, they dug in too hard and ripped a coaxial cable in half. Instantly, we lost internet service. Ed called our provider -- they said they'd be out the next day. In the meantime, he spliced the broken cable with a temporary fix and our Internet was restored.  On Sunday, the guy came over and began work on putting in a new cable. Ed asked -- why aren't you merely repairing this one? The guy answered -- because I tested it. It's dead.

There followed a prolonged discussion and much further testing of everything. We had internet service. The cable was taken out. It lead to nowhere. The guy shrugged his shoulders and left.

What just happened???

It's obvious that there must be another cable running, one that was not broken. And yet, until Ed fixed this  (turns out) useless one, our reliable-never-fails Internet had come down. A sympathetic outage?? Restored when Ed spliced a useless cable??

Don't you just love the mysteries of life?

After finishing my book, I go out to do what is a very boring chore: I feed the tubs and pots outside with spiked water. Fertilizing tubs really is very helpful if you want your annuals to bloom all summer long. But I have nearly 30 tubs and pots and each one requires nearly a full watering can of water, and filling-mixing-carrying-watering takes a ridiculous amount of time. But it's done!

Did I mention that it is hot out there? I am reminded of why I like to live in the upper Midwest: We don't have year-round heat and that's a good thing! 

And the lilac scent is profound (I'd say it's at its peak today) and the birds are at their loudest.

I go to my daughter's place to deliver the (um, remaining chunk of) cake. I'd bought it at Madison Sourdough for Mother's Day: buckwheat with lemon simple syrup, rhubarb jam and covered with a layer of whipped cream. Both Ed and I loved it, but it's too much cake for us. Besides, it was meant to be shared.

The kids aren't in school today (another teacher in-service day) and so I am free of childcare. It means I have time to grocery shop and then return to my flower fields -- trimming bushes, taking out saplings. 

Yes, it was a shorts and tshirt day. Summer in May, only without the mosquitoes. And a full Flower Moon tonight. Take a look if you can. And celebrate the season of blooms.

with love...

May celebrations

If you are a mother and you like celebrating that fact on this day, then have a wonderful and happy Mother's Day! I am learning, however, that this is a big "if." I am surprised how many women do not want their motherhood honored and would rather steer clear of this holiday. Yes, I know that there are plenty who have an uncomfortable relationship with their own mothers (oh, I surely understand how difficult that can be!), and I know there are those who don't want to be mothers, or wish they could be moms but the stars are not aligned for them and they suffer when reminded of this on a yearly basis, and of course there are those who lost mothers and they miss that relationship profoundly and this whole celebrating thing now makes them sad. I get all that. But there is also a sizable group out there that simply does not like celebrating what they like to call a Hallmark holiday. Who see themselves as somehow beyond the triviality of handing out cards and flowers, or receiving gifts on this day. I read an article by one such mom yesterday in the NYTimes and the comments that followed. People have opinions on this! Mostly scoffing at Mother's Day celebrations.

Chacun a son gout. 

Myself, I like this holiday. And I like that it comes right after my birthday, so that this whole month feels rather joyous. And well it should be -- it's so pretty out there now! 

(morning walk)

But my feelings about this day demand little from the outside world, including from my daughters. Yes, there are small gifts, and I like that because gift giving is not an Ed thing so this becomes the rare moment where I do get to open a nicely wrapped package -- a pleasure in its own right. Otherwise, the joy I feel on this day is sort of personal: I am a mom, I'm proud of my daughters. I am happy to watch them thrive and have fulfilling lives. And today I carry that joy openly, on my sleeve so to speak. That's it.

Oh, and in furtherance of a celebratory mood, I will plant a couple of flowers. What? You're telling me I would do that anyway? True, but today I do it feeling mother-happiness!

Breakfast first though. With more lilies of the valley.

And Ed. 

I work for a short while on those flowers, but I have to quit before noon, because today Snowdrop has her second and final performance with the Young Shakespeare Players and I promised I would attend. Seventeen (!) notable scenes from his plays, with the theme of villains and fools.

(Sparrow and mom are there as well; look who got new glasses this week!)

 

 

(she just finished playing Horatio from Hamlet)

(someone took my camera for this...)

 

 

And because the performance lasts a solid three hours, we nix Sunday dinner at the farmhouse. I miss having them here, but honestly, it would have been a rush to get things ready and then to tidy up and you know my latest take on rushing: avoid it at all costs!

Instead, I (mostly) finish up the front roadside bed. Spreading wood chips and then watering the whole thing. Last year I did (mostly) nothing here. There was a drought, the soil deteriorated, the weeds grew. This year, I rolled up my sleeves and got to it. Well, no sleeves today -- it was a very warm, sunny, beautiful day. 

(weeded, supplemented, composted, chipped and watered)

 

 

Dinner is very very late.

 (May evening at the farmette...)

 

Happy Mother's Day to my daughters, happy, happy May celebrations to you, however you want to think about them!

with so much love... 

May stump

A sad day for Ed: an enormous maple out front, the tallest one of them all, has to come down today and in a way it's my fault. Looking out the window one day I noticed a crack in the trunk. Was it rotting? It seems so healthy. Many inspections later, the decision was made: it has to come down. (In the alternative, it might splinter and fall on its own, hitting either the house or the power lines and the road.)

It pains Ed to witness this. He's not one to mope around when bad news strikes, but I do hear periodic expressions of grief throughout the day.

And what an otherwise beautiful  day it is! Sunny, with the blossoming trees and bushes and a landscape that is practically singing with joyous growth.

(a burst of fragrance)

(our enormous crab apple in full bloom)

(our row of blossoming trees lining the path to the barn)

(the writer's shed, or a Monet painting?)

The tree guys arrive early (Ed went with the cheapest bid and it still will cost him a couple of thousand to bring that tree down). I do a quick dash to Madison Sourdough for baked morning treats (and a secret cake for tomorrow) and then we sit down to breakfast, finally on the porch! 

I would say it's about as heavenly as you could possibly imagine, except for the noise of the sawing and hauling and chipping out front.

(peaking out through the window: they're half done with it)

 

(we get a lot of good maple wood chips thrown on our pile!)

 

By late afternoon, they're done with the maple and, too, they took off the dead branches from the willow that overhangs our parked cars). 

Ed is depressed.

It does look bare out front, not helped by the fact that they butchered the grass with their heavy equipment. I go out to Kopke's and pick up a flower basket for the stump. Ed's idea, though it does not cheer him up.

 

 

And I return to work on the roadside bed. A few plants to put in and more compost to pile on. And of course, more weeds to dig out because naturally, I missed a good many in my mad work yesterday. 

(The roadside bed is very long and impossible to photograph well, but here's a good chunk of it, to give you an idea of where I've been toiling these past two days.)

 

Are you tired yet of my gardening reports? I can understand that. People who have no desire to spend a chunk of their lifetime digging in the dirt could well roll their eyes at the detail included in a gardener's narrative. You will have noticed though that Ocean moves along at its own pace. In winter, repeat photos of a barren landscape could be written off as tediously dull. In the summer, reading about lilies clipped in the morning surely interests almost no one. But I hope it makes you smile just a little to know that this 72 year old person living in central Wisconsin gets really wrapped up in such inconsequential (in the scheme of things) events and milestones. And I especially hope that you are able to fill your days with equally inconsequential details that bring you contentment. Kids bounce around from one playful act to the next never pausing to consider if there is grandness in their day. We seem to aim for more, but in doing so, may we never forget about the pleasure of snipping off a spent lily, or walking to the barn on a misty cold morning. Days are so full of those uniquely beautiful vignettes. Well, beautiful for me.

 

(evening at the farmette)

 

with love...

May toil

In every growing season, there is a day that stands out as being intense. I never intend it to be that, but somehow it happens that I work very very hard, excessively so, for many hours, at tasks that require strength -- beyond what my years would dictate for me. This is what happened today.

Again, I did not start out thinking that I'd be toiling away most of my free hours. Indeed, I got up early, admired the incredibly beautiful landscape...

 

... and then went off for an early appointment with my physical therapist (in the matter of my un-replaced knee). He congratulated me on doing my knee exercises (well, I sort of did them; more importantly, I hiked a hell of a lot back in Europe), proclaimed the knee to be as strong as it's ever going to be and sent me on my way.  

I came back to breakfast with Ed. Still in the kitchen, but with flowers that are so "of the season" that I just want to smile every time I look up at them (daffodils from the yard, lilies of the valley also from the yard, and tulips from a local farmer).

We ate black walnut bread made by a guy that comes each week to the Thursday market, slathered with our home made strawberry jam. Things were looking good!

Ed had loaded the wagon (pulled by the tractor mower) with compost and I knew that if I am going to do anything about the front roadside flower field it has to be done today. (Tomorrow, there will be a lot of activity in that part of the farmette lands -- more on that later, but importantly, my access to those flowers will be restricted.)

The goal was to finish weeding that field and to heap on the compost, because as I've noted many times, the soil there is particularly noxious: full of road debris (think: winter salt) and too full of dense roots from the front yard maples. 

The soil is drying out, the weeds are awful. When was the last time I did this anyway? Surely not last year or the year before?? Truly back breaking work. 

I more or less finished -- at least as much as I can handle for now -- and I did also load on the compost, shoveling it around most every plant that grows there. 

I am sure this will have been my heaviest working day. One, just one like this per year please!

Not much time left after that: just enough to  drink a ton of water and open a couple of granola bars before going out to pick up the kids.

Things are a little unusual today because Snowdrop is performing this evening and Sunday in her next Shakespeare production -- this one a compilation of eleven scenes from a number of his plays. (I'll see her on Sunday.) This means I drop her off promptly there, catch my daughter for a few minutes, leave Sparrow with her, then return to go off with Ed to Natalie's Greenhouse -- he needs a few more watermelon seedlings and I'm going along for the ride and, too, to pick up just a couple of wee plants for the cleared edges of the roadside field.

By the time we get home it is late and I am spent. Totally spent. Couch time! With a smile.

and love...

May work

You think you're done. You're sure you've finished. The planting is behind you. You're ready to move onto flower field maintenance. And then you attack the neglected field. And in doing this, you notice one or two tub annuals aren't thriving. And then you wonder if that lavender bush that has yet to show new growth actually survived. And your sweetie says he has to pick up a few watermelon seedlings. And so you're off to the Greenhouses (Kopke's) and you come back with a few more things and suddenly your morning is shot and by its end, you're not even done with planting what you picked up. 

That's my morning for you.

Of course, all this happens in the beauty of a magnificent day. Cooler, but sunny. And the apple blossoms and the lilac blooms are sublime. 

Their flowers are short-lived so let's be sure to take them in now, from all sides!

Breakfast, inside (because of the cool front passing through), but delightful and with Ed again.

And then, well, you see how things proceeded. 

When I was walking through the Greenhouses, I noticed so many more beautiful plants that I could easily fit into our expansive farmette fields. But I'm staying within a budget and, too, I have to remind myself that aiming for more isn't always such a good thing. For example, I have an extra tub. I could easily fill it with flowers and find a spot for it. But is that really necessary? Will it add something significant to the gardens? 

This is the time when everything looks robust and healthy, but it hasn't yet filled all gardening space. Too, in a few weeks, we will hit the transition period between spring and summer when very few of my flowers sprout blooms. (It's when the tubs become all important.) So the temptation is to preemptively fill every space to capacity. It's something that I have to resist. And I did resist today, even as I allowed myself a few tiny additions!

 

In the afternoon, I pick up the kids and we go over to the local Farmers Market where we meet up with Ed. The kids love this. The market is very small scale and they love running between familiar stalls.  

And yes, picking out treats is equally thrilling!

(Cannot resist a dandelion puff!)

 

(on the drive home, we encounter these guys; I'd never seen a baby sandhill crane before!)

 

 

 

 

After a solid afternoon at the farmhouse, I drop the kids off and return to my flowers. I can't quite finish working on the roadside bed, because, believe it or not, I feel compelled to do some watering. We have a streak of dry days coming up and I dont want the new plantings to suffer for it. 

Maybe I'll get to the roadside weeds tomorrow. Maybe I'll be done with planting too! Unless I spot something else and continue. May is like that. A month of the very best outdoor work.

with love...