Posts Tagged ‘flowers’
Short Note
No time for blathering on this morning… Finished with breakfast, we are hustling down to rake and remove piles of grass from the labyrinth before rain arrives today.
While we work, you enjoy this image of berries and flowers that Cyndie captured.
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Pickin’ Time
Today is Independence Day in the U.S. I’m not sure whether there is added significance about the holiday this year, but it feels more complicated than usual with the turmoil over the bizarre turn our national government has taken, starting early in the Presidential campaign season, then through the change of administration and beyond, and all the while, compounded by the apparent ongoing meddling of foreign nations.
Did someone say “Russia?” Cough, cough.
Are we still an independent country? “One nation, under multinational corporations, indivisible…”
Regardless, we will be celebrating the day by mowing grass, composting manure, and picking raspberries. We returned from the lake yesterday afternoon, despite the gorgeous conditions beckoning us to stay. There was just too much work to be done at home.
Unfortunately, more than gets done in one day, but what a difference a day can make. I’m confident I will feel just fine by the time I throw in the towel tonight and head in for a shower and some dinner.
We took a little reconnaissance walk around the property last evening and found horses and chickens in good order. Most noteworthy was the amount of progress visible in the raspberry bushes compared to how they looked when we left on Friday.
Without delay, Cyndie got a bowl and started collecting berries. Soon, the chickens arrived to join her. It appears she will have some added competition this year on picking raspberries.
Another new addition to our landscape is bursting open like 4th of July fireworks! The first of the many colors of lilies at the top of our driveway are in full bloom.
It was a nice treat welcoming us home.
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Lake Art
On a partly sunny day, between rain showers that rolled over us at regular intervals, I wandered down to the dock to soak up some sun. I thought maybe I could collect enough rays to lightly toast the inside of my arm to dry out what is now a pretty fierce poison ivy rash.
I don’t think it did anything for the rash, but I pulled out my camera and played around with the speckled pattern of puffy white clouds reflected on the surface of the water.
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For landlubbers, I’ll garnish these with an image from the forest to bring us back to solid ground…
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October Flowers
It’s All Hallow’s Eve and we have still got some flowers blooming. Who’da thunk it?
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Today is the 25th anniversary of a blizzard that hit the Twin Cities in 1991. One of my memories of that event is of our next-door neighbor trying to navigate his car through the mess of deep snow and ice on the road and his not being able to get into his uncleared driveway. There was still a MN Twins flag attached to his car, a remnant of the 2nd World Series championship the team had just accomplished days before.
It seemed so surreal to me. Baseball. Halloween. Blizzard. It was rather odd.
It was actually morning of the next day and I was standing in our driveway, almost finished with shoveling the 2-feet of snow we had received. We mutually agreed he should park his car in our driveway until he got his cleared.
That storm now serves as a benchmark for me to always be aware that winter could arrive all at once, in one big storm that changes from a warm fall afternoon to snow that lasts a season, all in a matter of a few days. And it could happen in October.
Which is similar to the benchmark I now use for spring snowstorms. The first year we lived here, in May of 2013, we received 18 inches of snow. Who’da thunk it?
It could happen.
But it doesn’t look like we will have any worries of snow in October this year. More likely, we’ll have November flowers.
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Yard Hay
I mowed the back yard yesterday afternoon and ended up with windrows that look like I should be borrowing George’s baler to pick it all up. I feel like I have mowed when it has needed it worse, but not ended up with so much in the way of cuttings as I did this time.
That must be a good sign that the lawn is thick and healthy. I hope the same holds true for our hay-field out front in a few weeks!
The weather hasn’t been so kind to a lot of other growing plants. Over the weekend we had two nights of below freezing temperatures. Cyndie was proactive about protecting her newly planted wild flower garden both nights, covering them with blankets. She also brought all potted plants into the garage.
Unfortunately, we have too many growing things to protect them all. Several trees with new leaves look to have suffered to the point of drooping wilted leaves.
In the autumn, by the time we get freezing temperatures, the leaves are on their way to the ground, if not already there.
It’s not obvious yet if anything was damaged beyond recovery, but we will be watching the labyrinth with hope that plants there didn’t experience the couple of freezes as fatal. Cyndie’s initial survey brought hope that some may not have suffered at all.
That offers promise to which we intend to cling.
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Nascent Blossom
It looks like we have some mixed success with our transplanting of last year. The maple sapling we hoped would be our 3rd-time’s-a-charm in the center of the labyrinth is not showing signs of life. For comparison, I check the trees of similar size back in the area from which we moved him, to see progress of buds and leaves. They already have a lot of buds.
Sad.
The good news is with our trillium. I’m not sure we have 100% success, but any is better than none, and we definitely have a couple groups of blossoms.
It’s a long way from the carpet of flowers we get in the woods up at the lake place, but it’s a great start! The next excitement to celebrate will be the day we see them spreading naturally and bringing up new shoots nearby. That’s what we are hoping for anyway.
Since we have success transplanting small plants, I am tempted to just transplant a little seedling of a maple tree to the labyrinth to increase my odds of success. If I would have done that a few years ago, we’d probably now have one about the size of what I keep trying to move.
It is just so tempting to see a nice crown of leaves overhead in that spot. I’ll probably try again next fall. First, we’ll find one that looks like a good candidate when it is fully leafed out this summer, and we’ll mark it. Then when it drops its leaves and goes dormant, we’ll dig it up and move it.
Hoping the 4th time will be the charm.
Place your bets on which we will achieve first: a naturally spreading carpet of trillium blossoms in our woods, or a surviving transplanted maple tree in the labyrinth garden.
I’m going to keep trying to accomplish both. Practice makes perfect.
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Last Gasp
While engaged in several projects of preparation for freezing temperatures yesterday, I spotted a few flower blossoms that appear to be entirely oblivious of the fragile existence to which they cling. It is inspiring to see such optimism from our flowering plants at a time when a killing frost is so close at hand.
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We moved horse-care products and medications that shouldn’t freeze out of the barn and up to the shop, drained and rolled up hoses, and blew out the buried water line to the labyrinth. I taped up a plastic barrier over the window of the shop and rearranged some things in preparation for winter storage.
Starting tonight, and continuing through Friday and Saturday, the overnight temperatures here are going to be at or below the freezing mark. That becomes the official end of our growing season.
Something in me wants to consider hibernation. Imagine if humans hibernated like some animals do. I think I’d enjoy the part where you eat non-stop right before the long rest.
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Lily Show
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We are enjoying a period of wonderfully comfortable summer weather. Our variety of Asian lillies are popping open like a July Independence Day fireworks show.
The dew point temperature is in the refreshing 50s (F) and we are well-between rainfall events. The sunlight still lasts summer-long, but the grass has finally slowed to a reasonable rate of new growth. I hesitate to mention that I have spotted some leaves on the ground under one particular tree that has already decided to start the change process from green leaves to yellow.
It is the pause of breath before the big exhale toward fall. The raspberries have yielded a bumper crop this year, but the bushes now look like we’re arriving at the end of berry season. In contrast, the plum trees are just starting to reveal their fruit, cherry-sized green orbs becoming apparent.
Down the path a ways, one of our volunteer apple trees in the woods has decided to drop its fruit a little early this year, providing a trigger for another passing thought about the relative shortness of our growing season.
This time of year I find myself mystified by the incredibly extreme amount of change that happens across the span of seasons where we live. The number of what seem like endless winter days trekking along the frozen trail that Delilah and I stomp into the snow around the perimeter of our property becomes a surreal memory in relation to the lush green landscape and warm breezes we are treated to in July.
The colorful explosions of flowers like our lillies become an icing on the cake that is summertime.
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Hello June
What took you so long to get here, June? We’ve been waiting for you to arrive. Of course, the clematis vine climbing our trellis didn’t wait for you at all. The flowers on it seem more than happy with their situation (despite the recent threats of overnight frost that keep happening), and began blossoming some time ago.
June is a big birthday month around our house, and it is also when I gather with somewhere around 120 like-minded bicyclists for a week of riding and tent camping. Oh, and eating. We do a lot of eating.
I was able to get out on Saturday for a warmup bike ride of 43-miles with Julie and Anand, both of whom I will see again in 12 days when our week of riding begins. Other than one annoying click from somewhere in the drive train of my bike that appeared during the second half of our excursion, my bicycle seems ready for the journey.
My body, on the other hand, is a little more of a question. I’m hoping that just getting that one preliminary day of significant mileage will help me to feel somewhat prepared for the adventure ahead. It’s certainly better than nothing.
The only thing left to do is prepare my appetite for the trip. Do you think I need to do any work on that? No, that won’t be necessary. How early can you start the carbo-loading routine before a big event?
Come on, June, bring it on! Despite my surprise that you arrive today, I’m ready to dive in to whatever it is that you have in store.
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Wonderful Wetness
We have received several days of light-to-moderate precipitation which is soaking in more than running off, and the plants around here seem pretty thrilled with the conditions. The grass sure is growing fast.
Hopefully, the horses have properly adjusted to all the greenery available for grazing, as we are now leaving the gate to the back pasture open 24/7 again. They don’t seem to like the noise made by rain on the metal roof of the barn, so when precipitation is falling, they move away, either to the bottom of the paddock or way out in the pasture.
I was in the city working yesterday, and when I got home in the afternoon, Delilah was laying in the gate area of her kennel, which is beyond the tarp that covers the main area, so she was soaking wet. Silly dog.
We walked down to feed the horses, but they didn’t show any interest in coming in from the far side of the pasture. Since it was raining steadily, I didn’t wait around for them, taking Delilah on an abbreviated walk back toward the house.
After having just mowed last Saturday, there are places where it already looks like it needs cutting again, just 3 days later. On our way in, I stopped to empty the rain gauge, which had 2 inches of rain in it since Saturday.
Before going to the horses, we had stopped by the labyrinth to see that the maple tree looked okay (hard to tell exactly when the leaves are drooping from the wetness), and the trillium in the woods was looking very good.
I’m grateful for the rain not coming all at once in a gully-washing downpour, but instead has soaked in enough to help fuel growth in everything around here. It’s making things a sloppy mess in some places, but overall, it is a wonderful wetness.
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Relative Something 