A storm is sneaking in outside, a light whisper of rain, so gentle. It was building up as the day’s light faded, but the darkening grey had no threat about it. Just a coverlet of clouds come to tuck us in for the night with a big slow drink of water for the parched grass, a good end to a full day.
Richard was right. It is a lost cause trying to save our mountain ash from the sapsuckers. And it breaks my heart. The bark is so acne scarred from past attacks, slathered over with black tree tar to no avail. The sapsuckers drill right into the black as if it’s a shooting range target. They first victimized the tree 3 years ago, the same autumn it was awash with brilliant orange berries, festooned like its very own Christmas celebration. That’s when they chose to swoop in. I fended them off, but even then Richard was a proponent to chop it down. “It’s no use,” he’d say. “You’re going to spend years trying to save it and in the end it will still die.” Then miraculously, it made a come back this year, against all odds. And we’d trimmed it, given it plenty of water and care, it leafed out turning impressively and healthfully green. Then the sapsuckers struck again, riddling the trees thin branches like machine gun fire. “It’s a lost cause,” Richard said from the porch the other day as I stood atop a wooden ladder, once more slathering loads of black tar on new wounds, wounds that dripped sap down its branches like blood in a triage unit. After the tar, I strung twine like garland from branch to branch then hung bits of aluminum foil to dissuade future attacks. I could feel myself getting all thin skinned and defensive at Richard’s remark and I tried to dredge up some snarky riposte, like some Camus quote I thought I'd heard years before, something about the only true causes to devote oneself to ARE lost causes.
“How much time did you spend on the tree yesterday?”
’20 minutes, a half hour tops,’ I said.
“Oh,” he gave in.
“And anyway, it’s my choice.” What a brilliant reply, so Camus-like, so existential. And now today, both this morning and this evening, new wounds. Out came the ladder, more tar, but it is a lost cause. I so love trees. It was very John Muir of me, but I patted the bark on the main trunk and commiserated with it, saying I was doing my best, but I didn’t think it was going to be good enough. It wasn’t exactly fatalistic in its reply. It was stoic, laconic. It was going to take things as they came. It would be fine no matter what happened.
The Canada Goose goslings are almost completely transformed. By tomorrow or the next day, they will look exactly like their folks. Then come the lead up to flying lessons. Quick flapping skirts across the surface of the pond, followed slowly, but surely by hikes up the rise behind our house where, following a trumpeting call from their parents like a starter’s gun, they take flight, airborne, coltish at first, a few clumsy landings, but then grace. It’s a thing to behold.
The garden’s in good shape now. After being downhearted about the devastation of certain plants by some unknown, unseen chomper, I read a piece in a gardening book, accompanied by pictures that looked very much like my riddled vegetables, that pests in certain cases were not such a bad thing. We shouldn’t be all too hasty to rid ourselves of them. And, as the pictures proved in before/after fashion, many plants bounce back admirably from such warfare and provide splendid, prolific harvests. Another lesson in faith. Still keeping my eye out for the Colorado potato beetle, however. Bright orange fellas and gals that lay lots of larvae on the underside of leaves that can devastate a potato patch in pretty short order. But I shall prevail. I shall be on the lookout and squash and squish any interlopers. My fingerling and purple potato plants are looking oh so swell. I’ve hoed them high with surrounding dirt hills and delicate purple blossoms have sprouted on several. I take that as thanks.
And because I invoked his name earlier, here's a swell Camus quote to wrap things up.
"The only way to deal with an unfree world is to be so absolutely free that your very existence is an act of rebellion."
Not bad, Albert, not bad.
Sweet dreams everyone.
Sunday, June 24, 2012
Wednesday, June 20, 2012
First Day of Summer!
Hello Solstice! Hello longest, brightest day of the year! And it's HOT. Sweaty, drippy hot, midwestern humidity hot, change your clothes a couple of times during the day cause they're soaked right through hot!. The geese are under our porch panting, nodding off hot, the chickens are in the garage soothing themselves on the cold concrete hot, the cats are konked out on rockers and chairs, the ducklings are no where to be seen, and the blackbirds give off that quavery, quiver to their songs as if they're trying to imitate cicadas, reminding me of the hot hot, baling hay hot in southern Indiana in my youth. And I am drinking coffee, hot coffee. A clerk at my dad's drugstore always told me that it was the best thing to drink on hot days, it cooled you off. Sounds a little off, but I don't care, I like my joe, hot or not. The pond is calling me from across the road "Take a dip! You know you want to. Carouse with the trout, mingle with the minnows. Shall I? I shall soon, to celebrate summer and sweat and slow, slow, brightly lit HOT days.
Happy SIMMER, Happy SUMMER!
Happy SIMMER, Happy SUMMER!
Thursday, May 24, 2012
Nature's Mini Stings
The rumor is that Irene brought up a whole new slew of mosquito, a tougher, more durable, more tenacious breed. I don’t know if this is true, but my 2 hour walk around 6 last night was teeming with skeeters. It had been a full day of sweaty work, so I’d done a quick wash off of grass and dirt before applying a coat of Skin So Soft which has proven to be a successful barrier against most insects. Not true last night. They swarmed like zeros honing in on Pearl Harbor. SLAP! SMASH! BLAM! CRUNCH! SPLAT! Take that you needle nosed, thread legged, buzzy-buzzy, blood sucking, hovering horde of EVIL!! And they smoosh so easily. A tangled heap of wreckage in amongst the arm hair. I kept thinking of the old boy scout ploy to wait until the mosquito has inserted its hypodermic and then you clench your fist and forearm thus trapping them with their suck pump engaged until they fill so full of your blood that they explode. I never actually tried or witnessed this, but the idea of it brings out the bloodlust in me. It’s like one’s own mini Tarentino movie. But I didn’t have the patience last night. Actually, I did. The mosquitos didn’t discourage me or turn me back; I just took them in stride and walked on, by turns taking in the scenery and sounds, birdsong, or reading the book I was carrying. I wonder if getting all pent up about insects sets off an aroma or vibration that actually attracts them? Hmmm.
It is so stunningly beautiful here. The green has embraced everything so thoroughly that I can’t imagine winter having been here. The long months of grey, beige, and brown help you appreciate the green so much more.
One less Canada goose gosling, but they too are taking nature’s whims in stride.
It is so stunningly beautiful here. The green has embraced everything so thoroughly that I can’t imagine winter having been here. The long months of grey, beige, and brown help you appreciate the green so much more.
One less Canada goose gosling, but they too are taking nature’s whims in stride.
Thursday, May 17, 2012
When did it become so GREEN!!
Amazing. Towering grass in the orchard, begging to be shorn. (And we’d better do it or we’ll need ghost scythers in there soon.) Pockets of violets and wildflowers and, yes, dandelions throughout the lawn. The trees are all in tender leaves. And our redbuds and crabapples are in full blossom for the first time I can remember. So gorgeous. And the sun, harbinger of 10 dry days ahead, is yelling for us to get outside and be a part of this fantasticness – so a few quick catch-ups before Richard and I – tend to our new stream bed, set about finishing up the last stage of our stone wall out front, saw up a maple that uprooted itself right by our pond dam and stack it on a new pile over in our meadow across the road (on palettes c/o Royce), and various gardening, grounds chores. By the by, it is forecoast to go to below freezing tonight, just to keep us honest.
Bird update. The Canada geese have 6 goslings, scruffy grey and yellow, with loads of pluck. They’re probably in the side yard right now, bobbing and chewing through some very tall dandelion stalks. There are also 4 other Canada geese adults hanging around. At first we thought they were trying to nest, but now we think they’re the offspring of last year’s family. We’ve introduced our hatched Pilgrim geese – 2 girls, 1 with a major underbite, and a scrawny gander – to Shmuel, Mary Ann, and Felicity and a new family has been born. They have taken to the pond, claimed goose island, and Shmuel is ruler of the roost around here, bossing all the Canada geese around, showing them whose boss. He’s a good papa, full of hiss and vinegar. We also have 8 small ducklings and 6 new chicks (Have I ever mentioned my husband is a hatch-addict? I believe I have.) So our roosts and coops and hearts are full and I’m going outside.
Bird update. The Canada geese have 6 goslings, scruffy grey and yellow, with loads of pluck. They’re probably in the side yard right now, bobbing and chewing through some very tall dandelion stalks. There are also 4 other Canada geese adults hanging around. At first we thought they were trying to nest, but now we think they’re the offspring of last year’s family. We’ve introduced our hatched Pilgrim geese – 2 girls, 1 with a major underbite, and a scrawny gander – to Shmuel, Mary Ann, and Felicity and a new family has been born. They have taken to the pond, claimed goose island, and Shmuel is ruler of the roost around here, bossing all the Canada geese around, showing them whose boss. He’s a good papa, full of hiss and vinegar. We also have 8 small ducklings and 6 new chicks (Have I ever mentioned my husband is a hatch-addict? I believe I have.) So our roosts and coops and hearts are full and I’m going outside.
Monday, April 23, 2012
A pond situation
Over the past few days we’ve been, once again, wrestling with a pond situation, namely how to fashion a workable stand pipe to keep the level of our pond steady and not have it overflow its side and constantly over soak the soil in a grove of titanic pines as well as surrounding ash, birch, and maple. Our pond is about an acre. It’s beautiful, we love to look at it every morning. It’s home to many creatures during the span of the year, right now, as you’ve probably read, a pair of Canada geese and their soon-to-be-hatched goslings are the main inhabitants. Throughout the year herons, cormorants, owls, as well as beavers, weasels, mink, and moose pay frequent visits. The area used to be swampland until Royce’s dad dug the pond over 40 years ago. It’s 12’ at its deepest and there are 2 drain pipes that were put in at its inception. One of them is at the bottom of the deepest part of the pond, made of an odd compound, half rubber, half hardened tar paper. The pipe elbows up from the bottom, its location marked with a stick, and Royce himself had covered it with a board and a rock before the pond was first filled. The second pipe, closer to the surface, is an 8” culvert pipe that diagonals from a patch of cattails at one edge down through the dam to a site at its base. This had been designed as a run-off pipe, but its exact location had been lost for years and it too had been plugged, but with muck and gunk.
3 years ago our pond started draining. “What’s going on?” “Is there a drought?” The weather had been pretty dry, but “it couldn’t affect the pond like that, could it?” After fretting for about a week at the slowly sinking surface, Royce loped over one day to say “I wondered when that board was going to rot through.” All attempts to find his pipe before the pond drained ended turned futile - Richard was not at all happy about this - and I suggested we view the “draining” as an opportunity to clean the pond and deal with the pipe situation ourselves, up close and personal. First we plugged it, cinching some new pvc pipe onto the old, weird compound pipe. Then we tried 2 different stand pipe attachments. Neither worked, leading to one more draining of the pond. Richard = not too happy again. Finally, last autumn, we really thought we had it licked, a stand pipe in place, very proud of our ingenuity and stick-to-it-iveness, but when the pond was almost completely refilled, something dislodged below and the top of the pipe listed up crazily breaking the surface. I kept waiting for the pond to drain a third time. That, amazingly, didn’t happen, but the listing pipe was frozen in place this past winter amid a crunch of ice, the sight of which drove Richard to distraction. I had no idea how bothered he was by that. Richard can keep things to himself. Even now, still waters run very deep. But I didn’t realize the dramatic depth of his detestation of the sight of said stand pipe until a few days ago when Richard let rip a monologue of his great pain on the shore of our pond which would have put King Lear to shame. Amazing. What really threw me about his “crack winds and blow” oration was that it had been triggered by a solution to the entire imbroglio, namely we had just discovered, uncovered, and unplugged Royce’s hidden surface pipe! Not only did it offer a more convenient and hidden among the bullrushes option for a stand pipe BUT its outflow would form a beautiful stream bed at its outlet near the base of the dam.
Well, some deep inner aquifer of my soul must have been moved by Richard’s outburst, because the next day I donned a neoprene top, bike pants, and flippers and waded out into the frigid drink to take care of the pipe ugliness once and for all. May I just say that the water temperature in a spring fed pond in Vermont in April IS COOOOOOOOOOLLLLLLLLLLLLDDDDDDDD!!!!!!!
AM I CRAZY?!! YES!!
I took my time, pausing every few steps to acclimate myself to the temperature. Luckily Richard sat on shore shouting out supportive things like “Just go for it! Come on! Hop to Hopsing, daylight’s burning!” He’s a prince, and a prince should be king. I finaIly took the “plunge” and quickly assessed the job that lay ahead. My main concern was that last autumn we had put a series of ropes tied to stakes around the bottom of the pipe when we were trying to fix it in place and there was always the possibility of getting tangled up in them. One dive to the bottom, though, alleviated that concern. The ropes had been pulled out and were lying out of harm’s way in the silt. I unhooked the standpipe and it sunk to the bottom, out of sight, out of mind. Of course, now pur pond’s water was coursing out of the pipe. I surfaced and shouted for Richard to toss me a slghtly deflated blue ball we’d gotten to plug it up. It was a little tricky bringing it to the bottom and then, it didn’t hold. Next solution? An old board I found at the bottom. It sort of work, bu still, not a perfect fit. I surfaced once more and yelled for Richard to fashion a plug much like Royce had made for the original pipe - a 4” by 4” board, one side staple gunned with intertubing to cinch it close, with a 2” by 2” by 3” board nailed perpendicular to the tubing side of the board that would fit down the pipe. He raced to the house to cobble it together while I bobbed on the surface, teeth chattering, giving one of the best Leonardo DiCaprio imitations from “Titanic” you’ll ever see. I swear I was beginning to hear Celine Dion singing by the time Richard returned and tossed me the plug. I swam down, plugged the hole, and when I stepped to shore, Richard was singing and dancing “Ding, dong the witch is dead” up and down the shores of the pond in celebration, mind you, with the original “little person” choreography (it’s not too difficult, but very entertaining). We were feeling very victorious. Hoorah and halleluja! It took about 20 minutes for my teeth to stop their clattering.
Today I’d like to say that the pond situation is finito, a thing of the past BUT it’s a work in progress. We thought we had it. We’re very, very close, just a few more kinks to work out. Emotions have run high. It’s been very Captains Courageous on the high seas at times, but with all the unsolvable things swirling around these days, it’s good to deal with something that has a definite beginning, middle, end. Sort of. Back to the drawing board and welcome to a new streambed. I’m out to yank a few more cattails and willows.
3 years ago our pond started draining. “What’s going on?” “Is there a drought?” The weather had been pretty dry, but “it couldn’t affect the pond like that, could it?” After fretting for about a week at the slowly sinking surface, Royce loped over one day to say “I wondered when that board was going to rot through.” All attempts to find his pipe before the pond drained ended turned futile - Richard was not at all happy about this - and I suggested we view the “draining” as an opportunity to clean the pond and deal with the pipe situation ourselves, up close and personal. First we plugged it, cinching some new pvc pipe onto the old, weird compound pipe. Then we tried 2 different stand pipe attachments. Neither worked, leading to one more draining of the pond. Richard = not too happy again. Finally, last autumn, we really thought we had it licked, a stand pipe in place, very proud of our ingenuity and stick-to-it-iveness, but when the pond was almost completely refilled, something dislodged below and the top of the pipe listed up crazily breaking the surface. I kept waiting for the pond to drain a third time. That, amazingly, didn’t happen, but the listing pipe was frozen in place this past winter amid a crunch of ice, the sight of which drove Richard to distraction. I had no idea how bothered he was by that. Richard can keep things to himself. Even now, still waters run very deep. But I didn’t realize the dramatic depth of his detestation of the sight of said stand pipe until a few days ago when Richard let rip a monologue of his great pain on the shore of our pond which would have put King Lear to shame. Amazing. What really threw me about his “crack winds and blow” oration was that it had been triggered by a solution to the entire imbroglio, namely we had just discovered, uncovered, and unplugged Royce’s hidden surface pipe! Not only did it offer a more convenient and hidden among the bullrushes option for a stand pipe BUT its outflow would form a beautiful stream bed at its outlet near the base of the dam.
Well, some deep inner aquifer of my soul must have been moved by Richard’s outburst, because the next day I donned a neoprene top, bike pants, and flippers and waded out into the frigid drink to take care of the pipe ugliness once and for all. May I just say that the water temperature in a spring fed pond in Vermont in April IS COOOOOOOOOOLLLLLLLLLLLLDDDDDDDD!!!!!!!
AM I CRAZY?!! YES!!
I took my time, pausing every few steps to acclimate myself to the temperature. Luckily Richard sat on shore shouting out supportive things like “Just go for it! Come on! Hop to Hopsing, daylight’s burning!” He’s a prince, and a prince should be king. I finaIly took the “plunge” and quickly assessed the job that lay ahead. My main concern was that last autumn we had put a series of ropes tied to stakes around the bottom of the pipe when we were trying to fix it in place and there was always the possibility of getting tangled up in them. One dive to the bottom, though, alleviated that concern. The ropes had been pulled out and were lying out of harm’s way in the silt. I unhooked the standpipe and it sunk to the bottom, out of sight, out of mind. Of course, now pur pond’s water was coursing out of the pipe. I surfaced and shouted for Richard to toss me a slghtly deflated blue ball we’d gotten to plug it up. It was a little tricky bringing it to the bottom and then, it didn’t hold. Next solution? An old board I found at the bottom. It sort of work, bu still, not a perfect fit. I surfaced once more and yelled for Richard to fashion a plug much like Royce had made for the original pipe - a 4” by 4” board, one side staple gunned with intertubing to cinch it close, with a 2” by 2” by 3” board nailed perpendicular to the tubing side of the board that would fit down the pipe. He raced to the house to cobble it together while I bobbed on the surface, teeth chattering, giving one of the best Leonardo DiCaprio imitations from “Titanic” you’ll ever see. I swear I was beginning to hear Celine Dion singing by the time Richard returned and tossed me the plug. I swam down, plugged the hole, and when I stepped to shore, Richard was singing and dancing “Ding, dong the witch is dead” up and down the shores of the pond in celebration, mind you, with the original “little person” choreography (it’s not too difficult, but very entertaining). We were feeling very victorious. Hoorah and halleluja! It took about 20 minutes for my teeth to stop their clattering.
Today I’d like to say that the pond situation is finito, a thing of the past BUT it’s a work in progress. We thought we had it. We’re very, very close, just a few more kinks to work out. Emotions have run high. It’s been very Captains Courageous on the high seas at times, but with all the unsolvable things swirling around these days, it’s good to deal with something that has a definite beginning, middle, end. Sort of. Back to the drawing board and welcome to a new streambed. I’m out to yank a few more cattails and willows.
Wednesday, April 18, 2012
The Septic Man Cometh
No Art Carney he. No loquacious talk meister. No, Bob was a soft-spoken fellow. I had to lean in to hear him when I was right next to him. His hand barely made an impression on mine when I shook it, and it was soft and cushy, not callused. But of course, as I soon learned, most of his work is done wearing gloves, rubber made. I think he was a little afraid of me. As my husband Richard loves to remind me in acted out stories, I can be a little much in the full blossum of my effusiveness. Stronger men than Bob have been sent into a balk or a slight shielding themselves, maybe even thinking of going for a weapon when I’ve charged up to them to ask directions or wish them a good morning. And morning is my electric time. Bob didn’t know what to make of me. He froze upon my enthusiastic approach, stock still like a rabbit. Bob doesn’t seem like a people person. First impression. And let’s face it, his line of work doesn’t lend itself to conversation, to a give and take, to people coming out wanting to stand beside you and gab, as you uncap the cement block of a receptacle of mostly human waste from the past 3 to 5 years. Not really the kind of thing that conjures up a nostalgic look back. “Oh, look, that must have been when ...” No, septic tank cleaning doesn’t really do that. It’s a solitary undertaking. And Bob went to the beat of a different drummer. A drum with a very muffled beat. But I was garrulous. I wanted to keep him company. And I was curious. I wanted to ask him some tricks of the trade. Incisive journalistic questions like:
‘About how many tanks do you drain a day?’
(Slight pause)
“5.”
(Every answer was given staring straight at me, still, expressionless.)
‘And do you have to drain your truck’s tank after each one?’
“Yes.”
(Pause. Slurping sounds. Bob puts a shovel with an extra-long handle to work.)
‘How big are these tanks?’
“4 feet.”
(Another pause. Lots of looking down. Then he asked me a question, I was overjoyed.)
“You’re talking about how deep?”
‘Yes.’
“4 feet.”
And so it went. And Bob had a job to do. He had places to go, people to meet. Well, tanks to empty.
He was about 60 years old, a worn cap from some country club, thick white sideburns curling around the sides of his face, glasses. A kind-of-smile on his face. Somewhere in between a smile and straight flat line of an expression.
His job finished, he methodically wound the hose, packed up his tools, and then sat in his truck cab with the door open and wrote up the bill. I replaced the dirt and sod back around the green plastic raised cover to the tank. He walked over to me with his clipboard.
“You want to mail this in or ... ?”
(I had to lean in to hear what he was saying and that may have been why he trailed off instead of finishing his sentence, but it seemed as if he stopped speaking because he was too shy to ask for outright payment, as if that would have been an affront.)
‘No thanks, I’ll mail it in later. ’
He slowly fingered through the receipt and ripped it from beneath a carbon. When was the last time I’d seen carbon paper. He handed me my receipt and a card saying the day’s date of cleaning, almost 4 years from the last time.
‘Well, thanks Bob, good job.’
(I shook his hand. He had a faint, faint smile on his face.)
‘Have a good day.’
“Thank you. You too.”
Some people gotta do the dirty work. And Bob walked over to his truck without looking back, got in, started his motor, and drove right out of my life.
‘About how many tanks do you drain a day?’
(Slight pause)
“5.”
(Every answer was given staring straight at me, still, expressionless.)
‘And do you have to drain your truck’s tank after each one?’
“Yes.”
(Pause. Slurping sounds. Bob puts a shovel with an extra-long handle to work.)
‘How big are these tanks?’
“4 feet.”
(Another pause. Lots of looking down. Then he asked me a question, I was overjoyed.)
“You’re talking about how deep?”
‘Yes.’
“4 feet.”
And so it went. And Bob had a job to do. He had places to go, people to meet. Well, tanks to empty.
He was about 60 years old, a worn cap from some country club, thick white sideburns curling around the sides of his face, glasses. A kind-of-smile on his face. Somewhere in between a smile and straight flat line of an expression.
His job finished, he methodically wound the hose, packed up his tools, and then sat in his truck cab with the door open and wrote up the bill. I replaced the dirt and sod back around the green plastic raised cover to the tank. He walked over to me with his clipboard.
“You want to mail this in or ... ?”
(I had to lean in to hear what he was saying and that may have been why he trailed off instead of finishing his sentence, but it seemed as if he stopped speaking because he was too shy to ask for outright payment, as if that would have been an affront.)
‘No thanks, I’ll mail it in later. ’
He slowly fingered through the receipt and ripped it from beneath a carbon. When was the last time I’d seen carbon paper. He handed me my receipt and a card saying the day’s date of cleaning, almost 4 years from the last time.
‘Well, thanks Bob, good job.’
(I shook his hand. He had a faint, faint smile on his face.)
‘Have a good day.’
“Thank you. You too.”
Some people gotta do the dirty work. And Bob walked over to his truck without looking back, got in, started his motor, and drove right out of my life.
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.
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.
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