wordless seedy saturday

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ordinary extraordinary life

The middle of June! Time is getting away from me lately.

Each day contains some of the same ordinary elements:

weeding, planting, more weeding, goat chores, home chores, seasonal chores, watering the gardens, more weeding.

Every little thing takes me a long time, but it's all good.

New perennials in a new raised bed:
white coneflower, english lavender, harebells,
and a pink coreopsis.

Heliotrope - the scent is amazing.

One of the white spiderworts has returned!

Bonus: pumpkin from the "leftover seeds" box.

Asian cucumbers, soon to be transplanted.

.

Piper and I have been out for short walks most days, and sometimes I carry my sketchbook into the woods. I don't look for something to draw; I look for a combination of landscape elements that will make it physically possible for me to sit with a sketchpad for 15 minutes or so, and then - this is important - stand up again.

Once I've found such a place - that's the hard part - I sit.

And then I look around for something to draw.

That's the easy part.

While I focus on ahhht (I'm from Massachusetts), Piper runs loops around me. She explores the area. Then she chooses a Lookout.

Here she is perched high above me, on a slope:

And for the first time in over a year, she actually allowed me to take her picture. She didn't immediately duck her head or turn away at the sight of the camera.

We were serenaded by a redwing blackbird,

perched in the branch of a fallen tree, out in the pond:

We also saw a pair of Great Blue Herons, and the next day we saw one in another part of the wetland. Last year, I saw two in the same area and hoped they would nest nearby, but I never saw them again.

Fingers crossed for this year!

Birds are such a chirping, swooping, fluttering gift. Yesterday, when I was distributing hay on the Upper West Side, I saw something I've never seen before in my life: a Scarlet Tanager. Even if I'd had my camera, I wouldn't have taken a picture; it was a moment to savor.

But if he becomes a frequent visitor, I'll try :)

Meanwhile, after hearing my neighbor shouting "Go! Go away! Get out of here!" early yesterday morning, I think the bears may be about at last.

I've removed the biggest bird feeder, leaving just the hummingbird feeder, and smaller hanging feeders that will only be up during the day, when I am at home.

So we won't be seeing this for a few months:

Squirrels: the Tiniest Bears of All

~~~~~

snaptest

I'm testing a new camera.

So far, the results are inconsistent.

In a batch of snaps taken between house and barn yesterday,

fewer than half turned out as planned.

Azalea explains,

"Surprises are all very well in their way, but we require consistency in some areas. In photography, for example, we have very clear ideas about the images we seek to record."

 "Or, for a more pertinent example where consistency is critical,

let's talk about the supply of carrot pennies.

Yes, let's talk about that."

Ahem. Yes. Thank you for that insight, Azalea.

(Stops typing to scribble "carrots" on grocery list.)

I must set aside time for a careful test, under various conditions.

It's on the Weekend List.

I hope it will be a long weekend,

because it certainly is a long list.

Meanwhile, here's a picture of Fern (left) and Tansy (right),

choosing the Perfect Spot to lie down atop one of the old wells.

These girls turned 5 months old last week!

To refresh your memory,

here they are on the same well cover, in May:

Time flies.

As do baby goats, remember?

~~~

I hope your Saturday becomes a day to remember -

in a good way.

~~~~~

as it happened

Thank you all so much for your good wishes regarding my foolish injury - much appreciated! Update: my thumb no longer aches all the time, so that is good progress! I hope to get back to outdoor projects (beyond the minimum daily requirement of chores) in another day or two. This blog post will be the most typing I've done in a week!

One small achievement: after not knitting at all for a few days, I did manage to finish my hap, in a series of many, many, very short stints of knitting.

Washed:

 and blocked, using roughly one million pins:

and finally, posted on my ravelry project page

two days before the hap-a-long deadline.

Photographed at sun-up:

I wish you could feel this - it's so light.
It's not even weighing down the ferns.

Not quite as light as cashmere, but then, not much is.

I'm well pleased with it!

It will make a cozily warm - but light! - neckerchief/scarf.

I will very likely knit another.

Hap construction is interesting, and apparently addictive:

many hap-a-long knitters made more than one,

and most of them were shawl-sized, or even blankets!

~~~

In other news, it's been raining. A lot.

When not actually raining, it's been very hot and muggy.

We had one pleasant day last week; it was very hot but not as muggy.

That day, Campion (my Champion) was not feeling well.

He's FINE now.

So I spent six anxious hours on a chaise in the paddock,

keeping an eye on him.

Apart from anxiety, it was nice to be outside and not getting rained on.

You probably can't tell, but in the picture below,

the rain was coming down in sheets.

I've been spending a lot of time on the porch.

If you come visit, you can spend time on the porch, too.

I highly recommend it.

~~~~~

bank holiday

And another big project is underway!

On the west edge of the Upper West Side,

between the perimeter fence and the driveway,

is a narrow rocky bank.

It is partially supported by an old stone wall

that has been gradually collapsing for decades.

At the base of the wall is a narrow strip of rocky garden,

with violets and daylilies, and other lovely blooming things.

"Where are these violets?" you might well be asking.

"And what daylilies?"

 Fair question!
I think they're under here:

Buried beneath a tangle of bittersweet, grape,

forsythia, rubus...and did I mention bittersweet?

Every Spring I spend days hand-cutting and removing invasives

before the violets and daylilies (and I) become overwhelmed.

And prior to this year, I have always managed to enjoy 

at least some flower garden.

But last Winter, when a lot of this sort of thing was going on:

there was an unfortunate incident involving the plowman.

The result was a sadly gouged-up garden

buried beneath a heavy layer of driveway gravel and stone.

It wasn't the plowman's fault; my driveway is terrible.

I am very fortunate to have a plowman, after long years without.

(Some years, I call my driveway The Snowshoe Highway.)

But I must admit, it was disheartening

to imagine what the "garden" would look like come Spring.

And sure enough, almost all the plants appearing this Spring

 were those hardy and tenacious and prolific invasives.

So, when I recently hired the brushcutting fellow,

one of his first assignments was to take 99% of this bank vegetation

Right Down To The Ground.

Here's a progress shot, looking north after the first session.

See the bright green area along the fence to the left?

That's the edge of the terrace garden.

For scale, that fence is 6-foot woven wire with 2x4" openings.

Which makes this amazing squash plant about 7 feet tall so far:

It's a Sow True Seed winter squash, called

Pink Jumbo Banana. 

The description says each squash can weigh 25-40 pounds!

Do you think I should make little hammocks to support the 

two baby squash(!) already growing high up on the fence? 

I'm thinking maybe.

~~~

Today the brushcutting was finished.
When my younger helper comes on Wednesday,
he can pull all the wilted (by then) cuttings off the bank
and pile them up on the Very Raised Bed.
I am loving having a way to make good use of such material!

Now, I would love to have your advice, all you lovely gardeners!

I'd like to plant the whole bank with perennials this Autumn.
Any recommendations for plants?
What are your undemanding perennial favorites?
I'm in Zone 5, and the bank is rocky (of course).
It gets a lot of afternoon sun.
I'm hoping for plants that will spread densely,
but not grow tall enough to shade the terrace garden above.

So far, I'm considering daylilies and iris
(tall, so they would be planted at the base of the stone wall),
and several varieties of shorter coreopsis along the upper bank.
I've never grown coreopsis; not even dyer's coreopsis.
It is an annual, and since it is so difficult to garden here,
the return of perennials is important. To my sanity.
But...it seems there are now perennial coreopsis,
reputed to be equally hardy and even more colorful.
And perhaps a dye source! Worth a try.

That's all I've come up with for possibilities so far.
Please, please feel free to make suggestions.
Prepping and planting this garden is going to be a lot of work.
Any guidance to making it successful will be much appreciated!

~~~~~