Peep Eye

Humor me.  Penny Lane turned three this weekend and she is playing peep eye with Carson.  Such precious babes.

Thank you all for caring to comment on surgeries.  Ollie is great and got a rad hard cast yesterday.  He was raring to go back to school.  Mine turned out great too - all benign.  

With spring temps tomorrow, I'll be out in the garden.  Life is good.

Flash

Winter is on the wane. How do I know?  I'll tell you at the end.

This is how I amuse myself on those cold winter days when I don't venture out much.

The same nuts I bought for $4.98 per bag before Christmas are now 75 cents per bag and I buy lots of them.  The squirrels are waiting on the porch each morning when I raise the shades.  I'm afraid I've let them get too friendly, but they make me smile.

Of course, the weenies come running to chase them away, but the squirrels have little fear of them.  Sister is momentarily guarding the lot.

In an instant, the squirrels are back.  I'm surprised they even run away from the weenies as they don't go more than a few steps away.

The weather will be warm today and I'll be out cleaning up some flower beds, in between watching the wildlife.  Everyone has been sick with a form of the flu; I think we've all had variations of the same virus.  I am at the end of mine, but this one saps your energy so I may be doing more watching than working.

Besides cleaning the flowerbeds, I'll be making a loaf of bread from friend Monique's blog.  I haven't made bread in years, so I am going to have to be patient and let it rise for a long time.

And lastly, winter is on the wane.  At the farm, I always looked for the changes of the seasons. Signs of spring, like the wild onions and mayapples are the first to appear. In the city, the birds are busy popping in and out of the birdhouses, feathering their nests.  Both the males and females are bringing in dried grasses and feathers, prepping for their spring hatch.  Seems early, but there you are.

"Do you know why swallows build in the eaves of houses? It is to listen to the stories."

Peter Pan

The Winter That Wasn't

Though it might not be over yet, I think the end of winter is nigh.  Yay!  Spring is my favorite season. Only a few daffodils are open, but I'll take them.  Today I am planting more seeds in peat pots, though I haven't had good results with that.  They either have a damping off or aren't warm enough or something.  Going to try again anyway.  I found these teeny tomato seeds about the size of pearls that I had a few years ago. They are a bite bursting with flavor.  I hope some of them grow.  

I bought two raised beds for the city house.  They are waist high and I put them on either side of the house to see which one gets more sun.  Vegetables need at least 6 hours of sun per day.  There isn't anywhere else here for vegetables, so I'm giving it a shot.

This weekend I bought the weenies a pup stroller and we used it this morning.  They were too nervous to enjoy it, but hopefully will as we do it more often.  At least it got me out for a walk.  I've spent the winter being a slug and I hope to change that.  

Hope this week finds you out in the garden with lots of sunshine.

Starlings

The north winds are howling today.  I finally got the leaf and limb cleanup crew to come today and I doubt they'll come due to this blow.  It is literally howling.  Wouldn't you know.

The starlings have arrived and are fighting over the suet cakes.  Must be their favorite meal. Though their vocalizations are not as pretty as a songbird's call, I don't mind theirs'.

I took these pictures last year at the farm.  They were everywhere.  It is something to see how they lift off at the same time; a rare treat to see their murmurations.

Spring is coming, though I can't tell today.  The bulbs are finally peeking up through the earth.  I had to water, since the ground was so dry.  The ground needs rain, but I didn't say that.

Spring In The City

I was sitting on my bench next to the bottle tree, when what swam up to me?  I was shocked - didn't expect it.  Cutest ever.  I tossed them some bread and pellets and Mom and Dad showed the goslings how to eat it.  I always feed the water fowl, turtles and fish when I am here at the city house 

and they all come for the feast.

Mom and Dad both cared for the littles and one scolded the weenies barking at them.  My grandkids will be by soon and I can't wait to let the geese swim up and surprise them. They'll be tickled.  But, oh no!  Here comes trouble. A loud splash. A huge fish.  Now what am I going to do?  Jump in and wrestle the disgusting leviathan???

Couldn't get this little whale to pose so I did what I could.  A huge catfish showed up, mouth gaping, skimming the water for pellets.  If you've never seen one, they are ugly with large whiskers/feelers - look like an alien and can grow to more than 100 lbs.

Here is a rear shot of the head and barbed whiskers of this submariner.  It made a large splash and wake and my heart stopped as I thought it grabbed a gosling.  I quickly did a head count and Mom and Dad were keeping the babies between them pretty close.  I even saw one of the parents peck at the catfish which quickly disappeared under the water.  It wasn't going to miss out on its feeding though and after the geese swam off, the turtles and catfish cleaned up the rest of the meal.

Oh nature, do I now have to worry about the turtles and catfish eating the babies while they feed?

Now what?  Oh no.  Miss Runner Duck has come ashore in the bottom yard with her new mate.  The weenies won't allow it and thankfully didn't notice.  

She is looking for a place to nest while her drake waits in the foreground beside the tulips. 

The little mallard nest full of blue eggs has disappeared.  I can only surmise that a snake ate the eggs. 

 Wish Miss Runner would find another plot to build her nest.  She has nested here previously; this was her home before it was mine.  I just don't want the drama of duck versus weenies, turtles, snakes and catfish.

Spring At The Farm

Or, maybe the title should be just pooting around the farm, trying to find ways to keep from doing what I should be doing.  Like cleaning up antiques.  Antiques are dirty business - stored away in the barn and covered in dirt and dust. Add pricing to that and ugh...

So I decided to go looking for morel mushrooms.  They are only around for a week or two at Easter.  Every year I traipse through our fifty acre wood, right where they are supposed to grow - amongst the Mayapples growing by downed and decaying trees.  

I have never found one.  Nada. The deer or other animals must get to them first.  I did see a patch of grass neatly cropped off by a set of teeth and little holes dug in the dirt.  And I got two ticks on my thigh for my trouble.

Mayapples begin their growth in February, not May.  They stand about 12 inches high off the woodland floor.

They produce a flower with a sort of mild citrusy honeysuckle scent.

Then comes the apple.  It will grow to about nickel size.  I watched a program where three young men were on a campout.  They gathered the fruit from Mayapples, cut them up and along with sugar and cream, they put the mixture in a can.  They put that can inside a larger coffee can with salt and ice and taped the whole thing up.  After playing kick the can for a while, they opened it all up and voila, Mayapple ice cream.  I thought that was very clever.

Though I found no morels, I picked up these tree galls.  Wasps sting trees and the tree produces galls. I don't know what for.  Interesting part is that the galls used to be made into a sepia colored ink that was used by Abraham Lincoln and many others.  In the Outlander books, the author talked of making ink from tree galls.

Beside the Mayapples, this tiny flower, about the size of forget-me-nots covers the lawns here first thing in spring.  And since I am wont to do so, here is one of my favorite stanzas from a poem by Wordsworth - Ode.  And sorry to him for explaining in parentheses one of his words.

"Thanks to the human heart by which we live,

Thanks to its tenderness, its joys and fears,

To me the meanest (smallest) flower that blows can give

Thoughts that do often lie too deep for tears."

I can do many things trying not to do that which I should be doing.

Raring To Grow

The wild jonquils are waving to me alongside the roadways, heralding my favorite time of year, spring.

To see a world in a grain of sand

And a heaven in a wild flower,

Holds Infinity in the palm of your hand

And Eternity in an hour.

William Blake

Auguries of Innocence

Water World

Morning has broken.  The farm where I live is a watery world.  We haven't had this much rain in a long time.  So much, in fact, some roads are closed or washed out, even major highways.  It simply will not stop raining long enough to dry out.  Water stands in the fields.  There is no way I could get in my garden to plant veggies which should have been planted a month ago.  The strawberries are mush.  Did I tell you I dislike rain?  Always, I need sunny days.  The frogs and water lilies are happy though.  Can't believe I made it outside before the lily fully opened.

I have herbs to plant and lots of lavender.

Even my little apple tree that has born its first fruits this spring, is dying from all the rain and wet.  I watch it daily as more leaves turn brown.

Well, here is something that might interest you though I should have taken a better shot at a different angle.  The iris on the left are from plants more than 100 years old.  Merely 12 inches high.  The one on the right is nearly 2 feet higher.  Hybridization I guess.  

The left plants came from an old mountainside homestead.  The log cabin has long since rotted away, though the rock foundation remains.  I heard to look for flowers blooming around the old home to find where the front of the house had been.  This site had previously been in Indian Territory and I wonder where the iris and jonquils might have come from.  My guess is that they came in bulbs, across the country in a covered wagon, from the eastern part of the United States; a sweet reminder for immigrants of their homeland.

Sprang

The days are glorious. It got to 84 degrees today and I seriously thought about turning on the air conditioner, but just kept the doors and windows open instead. 

Here is a tip for new gardeners out there - for what it's worth.  Some wild things need to stay wild.  Case in point, these woodland violets I transplanted a few years ago.  Though they have no scent, I thought they were pretty and put them around my goldfish pond.  They have taken over.  Spread everywhere; in cracks, beds, even around shrubs. Can't even kill them out.  That also happened with a wild rose that grows around here.  I transplanted one in my flower beds and they multiplied exponentially.  It took a few years to rid my flower beds of them.  

Stay wild and enjoy spring.  It's my favorite season.

Spring Sprang Sprung

Spring is coming along nicely at the farm.  Things are greening up; I love the chartreuse.

Little Red is about to fly up on my shoulder.  She likes me, but really just wants me to feed her. The way she looks into my glasses always makes me think she wants to peck that little black dot out of my eye.  She must see her reflection or she really does want to peck that speck out of my eye.  Baby chicks do that.

Babies are hatching around here.  I did buy some new baby Turkens and Auracanas, but hens are sneaky and hide eggs that later hatch.  At least Mom can take care of them instead of me.  The turkeys are laying.  I almost hope they don't hatch.  Two are more than enough. 

Gracie wonders what in the heck I'm doing, but really just wants an apple or a carrot. 

It is time to trim all the avian boxwoods.  There is so much to do I really don't know where to start, but it's SPRING!

It's Spring

It's spring alright.  How do I know?  I'm digging through cabinets and drawers.  Thirty years of detritus and all sorts of things.  Rubber bands, receipts and files from too long ago have filtered down to the bottom of cubbies and piles of paper are being purged.  As I dig I wonder, why did I save these old rubber bands, clips, ink pens that no longer work and stacks of papers?  

To tell the truth, I am somewhat of a magpie by nature, but much of this is ridiculous.  Saving things on the chance that they might be needed someday only adds to clutter.  

Like a slip of paper I have saved for years.  It has Phi 1.618 written on it.  Below is the sign for Phi.

Phi, pronounced like fly, was discovered by Fibonacci and is the solution to a quadratic equation (math was my worst subject in school so I know I didn't save this for the math).  Phi is also known as the Divine Proportion, The Golden Mean, or the Divine Ratio.  So, how does it effect us?  Well, Phi is the proportions of the human body as well as animals, plants, DNA, the solar system, art and architecture, music and even theology. Phi unwinds the chambers of a nautilus and the spiral of a galaxy, arranges seeds in the head of a sunflower. So how does Phi 'figure' into my spring cleaning?  Well, I guess it seemed interesting at the time, but out it goes.  

UPDATE ~ I found another slip of paper from a magazine article which is why I copied Phi down in the first place.  Susan Dell (yes, that Dell) started a clothing company in the 1990's (that's how long I have held on to these scraps of paper) and she named it Phi, after the divine proportion.  So, nothing profound or life changing.  Just a bit of minutia that interested me at the time.  Finally throwing them out.  But, oh no.  Wait, here is a third scrap.  I must have really been impressed.  Seems that Phi is the principle on what Leonardo da Vinci based his illustration of The Vitruvian Man. I could go on but I think I've probably lost most of you by now.  So, nuff said about Phi, but isn't it beautiful ~ like spring?

Asparagus Time

Though it is near freezing, (yesterday it was 80 degrees), with rivers of rain, hail and tornadoes, it is asparagus time again. The first vegetable to arrive in the spring,  I am plucking handfuls and faced with what to do with it all.  I have quite a lot of it left from last spring.  It's in the freezer.  But, I don't really like frozen asparagus; it is the texture I presume. Pickling it would turn it to mush like freezing.  My husband won't eat it.  So, I guess I will have to start marinating it, roasting it and eating lots of it.  That, and  giving it away to my cooking daughter.  

Oh Spring, Wherefore Art Thou?

It has been raining and cold all week.  We need the rain, but please, enough.  My apple, plum and peach trees are in bloom and trying to produce this years' fruit.  I read this week that there is a study out that says researchers are trying to figure out how peach trees count the days till spring.  My turkeys are laying and now have twelve eggs in their nest.  Come on spring! I need some sunshine.

Spring Break

Spring break has finally come and gone.  Bella came to the farm for the week.  Here she is trying to pick up one of the baby chicks we bought.  There were a couple of warm days before another winter blast.  But, we did have a blast - right through the wall and door of our garage with our ATV Ranger.  I didn't know they were that powerful.  We screamed but were unhurt.  Not so much for the garage.  

I am still trying to get the house back together and cleaned up.  My son came home from college to stay and my daughter came down with my three year old grandson.  We installed a new trampoline, our third.  The directions said it would take 45 minutes for two people to erect, yet it took us two days.  All had fun, but now, I think I need a spring break.

Dandelion Greens

While most gardeners are already wringing their hands about how to banish those loathsome weeds from their lawns and gardens, I ordered some dandelion seed from Pinetree Gardens and Seeds.  You see, dandelion greens and roots make the most delicious salads, tinctures, tea and jellies, liqueurs and cordials too.  Not only tasty, but very healthy for you.  Smoke that in your pipe; oh no, I don't know if that is legal or not.  By the way, I am already gnashing my teeth about crabgrass.

Daffodils

  

Just had to let you know that my daffodils are up about four inches. Spring is coming!

ORANGE YOU GLAD?

After the record breaking cold and snow of last week, it is 70 degrees today. I am walking around with a smile on my face, certain that spring has come. Hiding in the back of my greenhouse, I found that my naval oranges were ripe, (really almost too ripe). Nonetheless, I juiced them and drank the sweetest orange elixir I have ever tasted. Oh, and you can get precious doggie and kitty juice glasses at ANTHROPOLOGIE. And, did I say that I'm smiling? Life is sweet.

Things That Go Boomp

This mantis is praying before his meal. Mantis's, Mantii? I don't know the plural. These insects kind of creep me out; I am sure they can rotate their head more than 180 degrees while their body remains perfectly still. In fact, the only time you see them move is when they are spinning their head or slowly climbing. They don't scare easily, but they can sure fly (as long as it's not at me). Kind of pretty. Reminds me of the old Irish ditty or blessing.

From the gillies and the ghosties,

to the long-legged beasties,

and things that go bump in the night...

PSSST

We've had temperatures in the 60's for the last few days, thank you Lord, and guess what I've been hearing at the farm? Yes, peepers. The cats even brought a one inch specimen in my kitchen yesterday. Also, a bee was buzzing me in the flower beds. I think Mother Nature is telling the creatures to get busy, gather, spring is coming. Yahoo!

Looking For Signs Of Spring

I walked around today looking for signs of spring. The 60-70 degree days we've had, then a forty degree drop the next has the flora all mixed up around here. Nevertheless, the buds are swelling on the trees, the bulbs are peeking up from the ground (the deer haven't seen them yet) and the groundhog hasn't a clue. They say the same thing every year. So, I just know it is coming soon. The pic is of a Contorted Filbert aka Harry Lauder's Walking Stick. This one is only about 3 years old and started out just a slip so it has grown nicely.