Warmth

It's not quite August and here's our woodshed!

That will last us through winter, and the first two rows are left from last year, which means we will actually start the fall shoulder season with dry wood.

And here's the beginning of the pile to dry for next year.

The fallen over side is the one I stacked. We should have about two cords stacked here drying for winter next year. We are slowly stockpiling wood with a goal of having three years of wood in a cycle.

More on Bugs and Milk

Maybe you've heard, but we have had inordinate amounts of rain in the last month- so much rain that there aren't many strawberries because they've molded on the vine. Being from Texas means I avoid complaining about rain. And our grass is the most beautiful we've ever seen it because of all this rain. Our cow is very happy with all the nice pasture.

However, there are complications. You might think that we would always need rain because of our sandy soil. You would almost be right. Even as wet and sopping as everything is right now, if we do go the next five days without rain, the garden and the pasture will show signs of stress.

Still, the garden is suffering. The sandy soil means that none of my plants are standing in water, not even with all the hay I've put in the garden for mulch. What has happened is that all this rain easily leeches nutrients from our soil. Soil without nutrients means the plants do not have all the trace elements they need to have happy bacteria and fungi around their roots. For all I know, the inundation might even wash away some of those microbes, because it has rained and rained and our soil looks a lot like beach sand.

The rain also washes away my foliar feeds, so I have been spraying milk twice a week instead of once. And still, the latest deluge seemed to be the final straw for the potatoes and pumpkins. The potatoes are crawling with potato beetle larvae and the squash beetles have killed two pumpkin vines. To give a little perspective, my potatoes are still leafy and lush, not a bunch of bare stalks, and this time last year, the cucumber beetles had eaten most of the vines to the ground, so even with these setbacks, I'm still ahead of where I was last year. Also, I have mulched heavily with hay, so I have trapped some of this water to get the plants through the next little dry spell.

I also ordered more of the trace mineral/complete feed from Nutrient Dense Supply Company. I have the recipe for making it myself, but so far, it's been worth it to just buy it from them. Yesterday, I sprayed this at the maximum concentration with more milk. Now, it's not supposed to rain for a few days, so maybe the plants can get a leg up, and the various invertebrates will not thrive.

I'll post pictures of the garden soon!

Spring's Immeasurable Surprise

These were taken with an Ipod, so forgive the quality.

Empty birdfeeder to make the yard less inviting to bears

Lilac budding

It is so hard to see because the sun was so bright yesterday, but there are little baby garlic shoots in all that hay.

Garlic

Johnny Jump Ups Blooming

This is a weed I have much love for

Everyone helps in the garden.

Spring Count

On Saturday, I saw the first robins and heard the first "cheeseburger" chickadee call. This morning, I heard the first frog. The snow continues to recede. I smelled the evidence of a skunk passing through Saturday evening. I haven't heard a snowmobile in a week. The snack stand opens in another week.

First Sight

by Philip Larkin

Lambs that learn to walk in snow
When their bleating clouds the air
Meet a vast unwelcome, know
Nothing but a sunless glare.
Newly stumbling to and fro
All they find, outside the fold,
Is a wretched width of cold.

As they wait beside the ewe,
Her fleeces wetly caked, their lies
Hidden round them, waiting too,
Earth's immeasurable surprise.
They could not grasp it if they knew,
What so soon will wake and grow
Utterly unlike snow.


Just a poem on this early April day when the arriving spring is hidden once again beneath a blanket of snow.

Red Wing Blackbirds

I heard them for the first time yesterday morning as I was hanging out the laundry. In Shelburne, they filled the field in the early morning, in the early spring, with their call. I loved to be struggling through knee deep snow and listen to them declaring their intentions to raise young in what looked like a forbidding environment.

There are not so many making their declarations in the damp area below our property, but I savor their call, announcing the coming spring.

No robins, yet, and no "cheeseburger" calls from the chickadees.

What Happened at Our House Today

Maybe I'll get used to this, but I have my doubts. Here in early October, we had some strange, but not unheard of, weather. That white stuff is not hail, but very fat balls of sleet. It felt decidedly winter-ish, or late fall-ish, with the wind blowing and much frozen white stuff falling.

Like Texas (in January or February), it all melted pretty quickly, like when there would be twenty minutes of blazing sun between the intervals of blowing sleet and snow. I was delighted, and awed, and mystified.

I looked at the children on this mid-October day and said for the millionth time, "I do not believe we're in Texas anymore."