Busy Day

Today was a fantastic day. At first, it was hard for me to tear myself away from the Weather Channel, I was so fascinated with hearing that our forecast was to consist of "plentiful sunshine." Oh, did it ever.

Too much sunshine, in fact, for me to stay inside, with so much on the docket to accomplish today. The first order of business was to finish digging in the garden bed around the lamp post and the clematis vine there.

As I worked the soil free of the grass roots, plenty else came free as well, all the stones and bits of organic material and all the residents, as well, like this catepillar.

And, holy crap! Look at this giant worm. I couldn't believe the size of it, but fortunately thought to lay down my hand fork beside it for comparison. Now there's a worm you want to keep happy...


I had that section finished by around 11 a.m. or so and then turned over the bed where I'd laid out all the seaweed and salt hay a week or so ago.

The last thing I did before breaking for lunch was to test out the soaker hose. I'm always fascinated by the way the water beads up out of the hose. A side benefit of this was that the hose was full of water as it lay out in the noontime sun while I lunched, so it was more pliable for the afternoon install.

The pink azalea by the front door is starting to open today. Beautiful, huh?

The lunch break included a trip to the store, as I needed to pick up a few things for the afternoon projects: twine and pushpins to make some trellacing to help the morning glories find their way up the fence, some plastic knifes to mark where the soaker hose would be buried and a few other things, as well as a tuna sub from the Harwich Subway, where the world's angriest man was making sandwiches.

The soaker hose installation went well, and I wove a path through the garden, burying it about an inch under the soil surface. I tried to arrange it so that it would water the plants who'll benefit most.

Unfortunately, it wasn't quite long enough to cover the whole garden, so I'll still have some hand watering to do in certain areas. But I've also got a lot of seeds to plant which will thrive in drier areas, so it should all work out to the good.

Once that was in place, I built up a series of mounds in the area around the birdbath, which will be the home for the Three Sisters garden. Step one is complete now, with the corn planted in the center of the flattened mound. Once those sprout, I'll plant the beans, and then a week after that, the squash.

Next I made some trellaces on a few of the fence posts and got the older vines planted and trained onto the bottom of the strings. I have a feeling they'll take right off and start climbing up the posts by summer.

Meanwhile, as I dug in the hose, I also moved a few plants into the new bed near the lamp post.

That opened up space for the tomatoes I'll be planting tomorrow. And I was able to get my garden sign into the ground, as well. Also into that bed went the two canna lily plants I've been harboring in pots inside this winter.

I finished up with all I'd planned to do today just as Owen was getting home from work around 4 p.m. Whew...what a long and productive day. My forearms and face may've gotten a little more sun exposure than necessary, but I think I'll sleep especially well this evening, knowing all I've accomplished.


Perhaps the best part of the day was having everything done early enough that I was able to steal a few peaceful moments to sit in the sun on the back porch and do a little reading.

I seem to have a lot on my mind lately, since I find myself re-reading paragraphs as I get into the first chapter of this new book. Fortunately, they are great paragraphs. And what about that beautiful bookmark, hmmm? Thank you, Patrick!!

Here's the northern flicker on the lawn outside the front door this evening.

Sunny Sunday

My backyard birding has been a bit short-circuited by the emergence of all the trees leaves and flowers this past week. There sounded to be a least a dozen different species up there this morning, as I reveled in my first giant mug of coffee, but I sure couldn't see them. The catbirds' distinctive call was amongst them, I can say--they've begun to make their appearances just in the past week.


Here's another pansy from the front border sporting some royal purple to continue our visual internet discussion/celebration of this delightful side of the color wheel.

I spent the morning (well, once I'd waken up...I did get to sleep in bit later than usual, which was very nice--my horoscope yesterday mentioned that part of my foul mood could likely be blamed on needing more sleep...and that sounded likely enough...so I was happy today was a day off) puttering around at assorted things hardly worth discussing, like laundry and dishes and stuff like that.

But I also got a substantial bit of work done on finishing up the front garden's overall layout, by beginning to tackle the last section around the lamp-post. If you embiggen this photo, you can get a decent look at the Super-Terrific-Happy clematis that's about to be taller than the lamp-post itself. Hey, I just remembered--back when we were moving in, our landlady told us it was purple!

I didn't finish the job, unfortunately, since the weather was changing as the afternoon wore on, and I opted to head inside for things like cooking some dinner, a nice hot shower, a walk with my girl and a little hot tub time.

But I did get the rock edging laid in and about half the "sod" (as you can see, our "lawn" is a model of diversity) seperated from its soil. The rest has been loosened and will probably be a little easier to get cleared away once I get back to this in a day or so.

Ideally, I'd have finished it today, so I could do my veggie planting in perfect conjunction with tomorrow's Full Corn Planting Moon. But honestly, I know if I get my corn planted sometime in this next week, everything should be just fine.

Having this part of the project done will allow me, too, the ability to shift around the locations of a few plants, as I prepare to add a few tomatoes along the inside of the fence, as well as assorted other veggies. And I am giving some more serious thought to some kind of canal/moat business to help address those times of heavy rainfall, in hopes of avoiding yesterday's frustrations returning.

Our forecast had called for showers to begin around three p.m., which is when this first bit of clouds slid by overhead. They never really thickened up, though, so I continued to work a little longer, and it wasn't until I knocked off and got things put away that it started to really cloud over.

While we are celebrating purple, I'd be remiss not to include a shot of our across-the-street neighbor's purple azalea, which has come into bloom this past week. Gorgeous, huh?

It was misting very lightly as Emily and I headed out on our evening walk around Not Wisteria Lane...but not enough to deter us (frankly, she's taking to our evening time together that I don't think any kind of weather would rain on Em's parade).

The last few nights, we've seen a pair of ducks--one male, one female--walking together along the street, which amuses me no end. I didn't realize they went in for this sort of traditional, old-fashioned courting ritual, but it's pretty cute.

I haven't been bringing the camera along, since it just distracts me from the business of walking her, and once there's a full poo bag to carry, it just stays in my pocket anyway. Tonight I brought it, though, so naturally there was no sign of those ducks.

Thursday's Thoughts

Well, okay. There's always a new day, and before getting this one started, I'll offer my thanks to Joe for his forward-looking comment and Cooper for his thoughtful post, both of which worked in concert to talk me down off the idea of fomenting an Earth Day revolution with my Great Big Hoe in hand. Revolution's great, but who can spare the time from the garden?

Oh, and just in case we have nearly played out this dear planet of ours and need to look elsewhere, this article offers some ideas of what we might expect of flora on alien planets!

As the trees begin to flower and leaf out, things are looking great out in the garden. But as I've been reviewing things lately, I noticed that a few little slips of weed seedlings and minor grasses were beginning to appear...and that's the best time to get rid of them.

So, with the full day off before me, I tended to the garden up close and personal-like, taking my little hand rake and loosening up the soil, blending the various layers I added in raising the bed this spring, whilst teasing out the little invaders.

Here's that foxglove plant I mentioned the other day.

The project was a good chance to give each transplant a close study, to remove old foliage and in a few cases, to actually dig up and replant a few who'd been done a dis-service in the haste of last fall's planting.

It was another incredible day, with freshening breezes and temps climbing into the low seventies. Birds sang everywhere and my mind was free to sort through whatever it needs to in the quiet. Today, though, I seemed to have music on my mind, considering the idea of theme songs and I cycled through a few different tunes as I worked. Whenever I'm doing this sort of work, it's always "Wick", the song from Secret Garden that sticks itself in my head.

Those are some of the peonies in this image, those fancy looking red stalks. There are four or five of those and they have all survived the move nicely, if their early growth is an indication.

Because it was such a great day, my sunflower seedlings enjoyed the day outside, getting better accustomed to the conditions they'll be enjoying soon. They seemed to love it. Meanwhile, last night I planted a tray of cleome seeds, and tonight added a tray of morning glories (which I soaked overnight before planting), so the next class of seedlings should be coming along shortly.

This tulip, though sporting chewed leaves, looks like it will be blooming for us by the weekend.

Because it was a pretty warm day, and it was windy and my work was turning over a lot of fresh soil, I was a little concerned about drying. So as I finished each fence section of the garden, I stopped to hand-water of each plant. It took most of the day, but the whole border looked really great by this evening.

I should've used some sunscreen today, though for the kind of work I was doing, it always gives the dirt a little something more to cling to. Plus, I didn't imagine I'd need it, being fairly well-covered up. But just the same, I can feel a little sunburny-ness on my forearms and my face. I'm not a tanner. Usually I burn and fade, instead. I'll try to remember to be more careful. Maybe I need a hat.

As I was watching the bunny sitting in the yard across the way, gazing hungrily at the garden this evening, I was kinda pleased to notice that some of our neighbors slowed down to check out the border as they drove by. It's always nice to be noticed...and since they seem to be seasonal residents, the sudden appearance of a garden where there had been none must have been a little bit of a surprise.

Oh, this is funny. So I knew we had this great bird population, so I've made an effort to establish two new birdbath areas at our place this week...and I've been eager to watch them enjoy the new facilities. So imagine my surprise when the small group of house sparrows who hang out in the bushes came flying down to take dirt baths in the new garden bed around the birdbath.

I got a little film of them, too. Now that whole area is full of little sparrow dents!


I'm happy to say that other birds have been enjoying the birdbath, though, like this cowbird who had a nice pampering visit tonight.

(As you can see, with a little trial and error, I'm finding that the telescope can be a helpful way to watch the birds without scaring them off from their routines.)

On Top of Mount Dump-It...

Beautiful morning, as we got that day of "practice" sunshine I was whining for last night. After a cup of joe and some cat-nail trimming (he's so cooperative, it's kind of amazing...), I got myself outside to spread the Starbucks coffee grounds around.

I was real pleased with how fine they were ground and how nice and dry they were. It seemed they'd been dried in little muffin cups...maybe it's the shape of their filters or something...but the grounds were in crumbly cakes. I spread them around, focusing on the roses, but trying to get a little bit everywhere.

The bunnies...or something...have continued with the crocus nibbling, taking more of them right down to the level of the dirt. Grrr...also the tips of some tulip foliage seem to have been nipped, as well.

In other news, my digital camera decided to give me the finger and won't extend the lens, telling me its a "zoom error". It is over three years old, and has taken over 10,000 photos in that time. But double grrr. Today's photos were taken with Owen's camera. I'm a little unsure of all the settings yet, but these came out okay, I thought.

It was a beautiful day out there, but there was a full day ahead, so I resisted the cardinal's song and headed inside to get ready for work. Still, there was no escaping the world out there. I saw the flicker out the bathroom window as I shaved and as I dressed, I watched a cardinal and a robin canvassing the greening grass nearly side-by-side, while a sparrow explored the hedge behind them.

After work, I spent some more time tidying up the side of Mount Dump-It, that lumpy little hill behind the house. We see it out the back windows, so I'm mainly trying to improve our view.

I pruned back some viney things, so I can study what they are before I decide if they should be running wild...and there's plenty of assorted seedlings and things greening up the hill where I've raked away the old foliage stalks. I wanted to prune the apple tree some more, but resisted all but a few errant branches which were running the wrong way across the tree. After it's blossomed, I'll tidy it up some more. I found some old apple remains on the ground from last season. They looked to be nice-sized fruit, so I'll be careful not to prune too heavily 'til fall.

I added some rocks to the raked hillside, both for erosion control and to make it a little more interesting to look at. I'm not finished here, but this time of year I have the attention span of a flea, and I let myself be drawn up the side of the hill by a pair of birds I could hear calling back and forth.

There was a blackbird and his mottled girl in a tree at the back corner of the property, and I climbed almost to the top of the hill, so I could watch them more closely, without interrupting their date with my presence.

They sat on different branches, he a little higher. And then he dropped down to a lower branch. And she moved one branch away. He closed the gap to the branch between them, and she hopped away to another. Their coy game of checkers went on for a minute or two throughout the tree before they came to some agreement and flew off together.



Overhead, a pair of crows fly side-by-side. At first they are parallel, and then they cross one another, taking the other's position as they go parallel again, and then swap places again, spiraling around one another, weaving a flirtatious invisible ribbon across the sky.

Through all of this, a cardinal is singing in a treetop two lots or so away, with a host of smaller, twittery birds singing back-up from all over the place. You kind of get the idea these birdies have only one thing on their mind right now.

I kind of enjoy the view from the top of the hill, since you can see over the houses to the trees in the neighborhood and that blue sky beyond. With the sun over my shoulder to the west, it was cool to spend a few minutes just watching the bird world going about its dirty business.

Sunday Garden Report

So, look at this!! After only four days, I've got a nice variety of seedlings bursting forth from the sunflower plantings! Not bad for year-old packets of seed.

Of course, there are plenty unheard from as of yet However, of the Mammoth Gray seeds, who's package indicate 5 - 15 days for germination, there are four. Amongst the assorted varieties (pictured, left) there are 7 seedlings already climbing...and their package suggested 7 - 17 days. Not a bad showing at all.

In another ten days or so, I should be able to weed out any dud seedpots and maybe plant a fresh wave, so we can keep those sunflowers blooming throughout the summer.

I should also find myself a package of morning glory seeds and get some of those going, as well.

It was a late night at work, and then I got into photo working/blogging...and then I found myself surfing to catch up on my favorite blogs far into the wee hours and didn't end up finding my way into bed until around five...but still crawled back to life around 11.

A couple cupsa Joe later, I got myself properly moving and headed outside for the tasks at hand. As you can see above, the bleeding heart is up almost five inches, and that pinkness down near the center of the plant is, I believe, the first glimpse of the flower stalks to come.

Today's real floral moment comes courtesy of this lovely buttercream pansy (no, I don't have a dessert problem...I could stop any time I wanted).

I did get the pansies dead-headed today, so as to encourage some heavy blooming in the days to come. I was a little bit at a loss, not having Thumper George to munch up the spent flowers.

As I've mentioned, I have seen evidence of Nibbling in the garden out front, and I suspect its the neighborhood wild bunnies. So I left a pile of the deadheaded flowers in tribute to them across the driveway from the garden, in hopes of distracting them (tho it appears more likely I'll just be giving them a taste of the sweet garden's rewards).

In a more practical effort to divert them from their garden dining, I did collect a bag full of salon sweepings when I got my hair cut the other day. I've heard that human hair, discretely introduced to the garden, will deter such nibblings with the human scent it carries. We'll see.

Anyway, I sprinkled a little of that around (particularly around the crocuses, who've been chewed somewhat hard, as well as the other emerging bulbs), and tucked a few tufts into the edging rocks, as well. I've got more if I decide to re-apply later on, or as I finish off addition sections of the garden.

I also did some work on adding some more soil to the part of the bed that flooded this past week, having found a nice pile of fill behind the house which seemed well suited to the purpose. It's a little on the sandy side, but also pretty dark and rich looking. Since I'll be adding coffee grounds, etc., as the season progresses, I'm not too worried.

A call for assistance here, if you please. Does anyone recognize this plant?

I happened across it growing in the lawn on the east side of the house and it looks familiar, but I'm at a loss. That's its woody stem snaking into the ground just below the "little red floret".

Meanwhile, as I spread and leveled the new fill in the front garden, I noticed some new growth...particularly this tulip foliage, with a first flower bud in the center. This looks to be from among the "bunch" variety of tulips that put out a branching bouquet of blossoms, instead of just one.

Looks like I'll know it's identity (or something about it, at least) soon.

And to finish off, here's that columbine foliage I mentioned the other day. I've spotted the other columbine plants beginning to emerge further along the fence, as well. Additionally, today I spotted some more rudbeckia, a little more phlox and the first signs of what I'm pretty sure is beebalm.

As you can see, it was a bit of a dull gray day, but it's amazing how okay with that you can be when the temps in the low 40s and you're working with a lack-of-sleep hangover.

Finessing the Season

I may be pushing the season a little, but I prefer to think of it as offering encouragement to a winter-weary world.

This morning was bright and sunny and warm...when the wind wasn't blowing. The temperature, though, hovered in the high thirties.

But as we all know, pansies are hardy little things, and available at the better garden centers now.

I made the mistake of exploring new territory along Route 28 instead of hightailing to a place I knew and ended up driving entirely too far before I found such a garden center...but still I happily bought a flat of them in assorted colors, to tuck in here and there around the landscape.

There's a long strip of garden bed along a picket fence just inside the gate to the back yard. We had previously sited two of our holly bushes and some daylilies along there.

It'd also been the catch-all spot for all of our garden statuary, tomato stakes, gnomes, assorted pots, turtles, dinosaurs, etc, during the move. So today I tidied that up and planted a young rhododendron (which wintered en pot and looks to recover nicely), along with a couple of hostas, a sprig of lamium, a clump of vinca and some more daylilies.

I added some pansies in there, around the little bird feeder, and we found those cool blue ceramic starfish when cleaning out the shed recently.



After planting some more of the pansies in a windowbox on the back porch, and a few at Thumper George's grave (he was a BIG fan of the pansies), the rest found homes out front in the long border garden, where soon they'll cavort with a great crop of soon-to-debut crocuses, hyacinths and tulips (daffodils are a priority for fall planting this year).

Being a full sun area, I don't know if the pansies will last all summer...but with careful watering, deadheading and pinching back, I find I can coax them pretty far into the heat of summer. Taller neighbors can offer them some shade, perhaps and they can always be moved into shadier spots, as other more sun-loving plants come home from the nursery.

Anyway, their smiling little faces always make me happy and I'm pleased to welcome them. Their fragrance reminds me of the stately dutch Hyacinths which will be blooming soon; it's intoxicating.

Did you know the pansy means "You occupy my thoughts"in the flower language of the Victorian Age? It's true, you know!

Easter Sunday

Happy Easter and Blessed Spring from us here on Not Wisteria Lane, to all of you!

I was up in time to hear the early morning drumming of the downy woodpecker who likes to bang against the outside of the computer area almost every day.

It's a pretty cool sound, though you can put easy money on it totally firing up the cat each morning. After a minute or two of just enjoying his rhythms, I snuck out the front door and was able to reach my camera hand around the arbor vitae to catch this shot of him before he flew off.

Here we go: this never fails. Each spring, I'm keeping an eye on 10 million different clusters of crocus foliage, trying to guess where the first blossom will appear.

And every year, the first flower comes from some spot I wasn't even watching. Here's our first Purple Pretty, springing from a clump of shasta daisy foliage this morning.

Here's the bunnies Owen and I surprised one another with this morning, each of them as different as we two. Mine to him is the cute, cuddly guy with the carrot and the plaid bowtie. His to me was this little thug-bunny with the bling and the colors. Heh heh...he even sings a bit of "In Da Club" (Go shorty, it's yer birthday...) when you squeeze his paw. Quite a pair, aren't we...er, they?

I shouldn't be surprised that Em's been a little wistful around the empty rabbit cage lately. There's no reason why she shouldn't be missing George. We all are, especially on his big holiday.

So far, we've been successful in resisting the temptation to fill his void with some new little bunny, or a pair of chicks or a duck (oh, how Badum would love that...)or something even less predictable.

Better to focus on the kids we have already...especially since our boy Badum seems to have a renewed spirit of adventure, having escaped twice into the Great Outdoors this past week. Fortunately, the bird-filled skies just mesmerize this kitty and he's fairly easy to corral.

I had my own celebration of spring today with a bit of yard work, getting the front lawn raked and assorted shrubs at the front of the house pruned into tidy shape for the coming season. When that was through, I tackled the years of old dried foliage of past seasons that had built up on the lump of a hill in our backyard which houses the septic system.

There's all kinds of things growing there...looks like asters and goldenrod and some daisy variety, as well as something that may be russian sage or something similar. Clearing away all the old stuff opened up all the green clumps of foliage underneath and hopefully they'll grow better for the exposure.

Since being atop the hill (I call it Mount Dump-it) affords full views of the neighbors' yards and the similar lumps in their own backyards, working up there afforded me the chance to meet another of our neighbors. They are quite happy to see someone taking an interest in making things look better, which is encouraging. Of course having neighbors to talk to at all while I'm at assorted chores is still a new thing.


Hey, look what happens to your shoelace when you don't realize it's become untied while you're raking! Fortunately, this is last year's pair, dedicated now only to gardening.

I started pruning some of the unnecessary branches from the long-untended apple tree, as well, but the remainder of that project remains for another day and a greater variety of tools than my hand pruners.

However, I did bring in a few branches to see if I can force some blooms from them.
They'll be a nice foil to the african violet, which as you can see is also helping to move the whole Spring Thing along.

In yet another sign of the changing season, did you know that yesterday was National Pillow Fight Day? I had no idea--you should totally check out the video at JMG and watch those feathers fly!