Greening and s%#*

APRIL 18TH

We dipped down to 30 last night, a nice nip in the air to keep us honest. Heartened by the sun and the mid-60 degree weather, I planted sweet peas yesterday along with a little lettuce, spinach, and potatoes. I was jumping the gun a bit for Vermont, but the vegetables were all labeled “hardy” on the back of the High Mowing Seeds packets, “can withstand frost” “begin planting in early spring” so I felt protected, justified.. However, I did feel a bit sheepish later when I overheard a very emphatic Vermonter gardener up by the checkout counter with his wife in J & M’s landscaping yesterday.

“They just never learn. All these people who went and planted their gardens when we had that 80 degree weather in March.”

“mmm” (This was either the checkout counter person or his wife)

“You have to be patient, you have to wait.”

“That’s right.” (This was definitely his wife, very agreeable.)

“You have to wait until after Memorial Day if you really want to be safe. There’ve been times we’ve waited until the second week of June.”

“You just have to wait.”

“They’ll never learn.”

“Have a good day then.” (This the counter person to whom I confessed my planting craze earlier that day. She shrugged “it doesn’t matter.”)

A general sprucing up yesterday while planting: weeding the witchgrass out before laying a new layer of newspaper and straw down on the walkways between the raised beds. I may “chance it” and lay in some kale and beets today too. I love this rush of enthusiasm after a bout of spring fever reluctance. A reluctance to do anything having to do with growing things, feeling I’d be fooled by nature. But caution be damned. I can’t wait any longer, I won’t wait. I cracked open the Vermont Gardener’s bible in whose pages resided my sketchy plans for this year’s garden, taking into consideration rotations and what goes best with what, what matchings should be avoided, etcetera. Now to give me my due, I do have some transplants going inside so I haven’t been completely inactive. I think I drenched out one container, but they’re coming through despite my deluge, twiggy serpentines of broccoli and brussel sprouts, sprouty stretches of pumpkins and other winter squashes, apologetic delicate tomatoes. I can’t get over the miraculousness of seeds. Every year I feel a bit like a 4th grader planting my first seed in some school experiment and marveling how from this tiny nothing springs a huge, prolific plant. That renews faith in me. Faith in resilence and renewal, in nature, in life. It’s its own resurrection.

And man oh man, all the daffodils I planted last fall are blossoming, this incredible blast of yellow trumpets all over the place, along the bank in front of our stone wall, a little patch by the pond’s edge, as well as wherever I took a fancy to plant some more, in front of the house by the kitchen, dotted around our spruce. And this added to the slew of bulbs we planted the autumn before with our visiting friend Jean all along our side of the stone wall so we can admire them first thing in the morning from the kitchen. And this added still to the daffodils Royce’s mother planted ages ago in the far field by our birch and firs, their coming heralded by scores of multi-colored croci. Daffodils make me smile. They’re like hearing a chickadee song, this little chest of joy opens up inside me. I love it.

Green is coming through on everything. All the trees have tender little buds and the grass transforms incrementally everyday. It’s like a slow motion magic trick. The entire orchard carpet has changed. Not anywhere close to the show off green it’ll get soon, more a timid, stretching, waking up. The flute music I’m listening to right now on VPR is a perfect accompaniment. Inside we have blossoming buds on apple branches we brought in last week for our Easter feast. Oh, that’s 2 weeks already. Hmmm. And speaking of death and resurrection, I see outside that a goodly sized maple on our pond’s side has uprooted itself and toppled over, a bit of its top branches reaching out into the water, as if it were a dehydrated prospector reaching out its last gasp for a drink of pond water. Once we get our chain saw working again, that’ll cut up into some good firewood.

The pond is completely under the domain of our visiting Canada Goose “soon-to-be” family. And they are already impressive parents. The father is on constant pond watch, a decisive V trailing behind his patrols through the waters. The mother is on almost constant maternity duty, scrunched down over her nest so as not to be seen, blending in to the bare cover she has on “goose island.” Our geese, as expected, have been banned from the pond, so we’ve brought out their blue plastic kiddie pool and filled it for them out back and they are like little children, splashing around in it, flapping their wings, ducking under, shaking themselves silly, and using it as a general sprucing up about once an hour. I find myself frozen still watching them, marveling, again with a big goofey smile on my face, another chest of joy opened.

Goslings are due on Saturday so think of your shower gifts. Richard has 3 eggs in prime health, you can hear one of them cheaping from within their shell. He or she sounds very healthy. It’s broken into its little air sac at the end of the inner egg and sounds as if it’s more than ready to pip through soon. Also getting ready for birth are 6 duck eggs and 5 chicks. It’s a lively household.

That’s about it for today. Our septic tank guy should be by any moment to give our tank a once every 3 years or so drain. I’ll saunter on out and look “in charge” and see if it gets a laugh from any of our poultry. The septic tank guy is kin to what my dad used to call “honey dippers” when he was growing. They were the fellows who would come through the country and empty out the outhouses. Thus his expression of frustration “Well, I’ll be dipped!” when I was growing up. And speaking of septic and to end with a little Vermont lore (pardon me if I’m repeating myself), about 3 years back we had a “septic” problem which entailed digging up a long trough and then hole in our front yard. But we couldn’t really determine whether it was a “septic” problem or just a water leak. Well, Royce, our neighbor who grew up in our house, sauntered over one afternoon in the midst of this unearthing and overheard a discussion of our dilemma as I stood down in the trough digging, and he blithely bent over, dipped his finger into the moist dirt piled along the trough, then stood back up, touched it to his tongue, tasting it, and announced “It’s septic.”

Speak of the devil, the septic tank truck just rumbled up.

Bye.