Tag: spring

Mid-May–Merry Month of May, Midway

Good morning, mid-May, and midway through this night into the morning.

Well, that’s stretching it. Perhaps it was when I woke up at 3:15am. However, I resisted for an hour and a half. Now it’s 4:44 and I have succumbed to awakeness. Windows are still closed overnight, because, as I have, what, emoted, ensured, announced, in blog posts past, I like warmth, and, while a few days this merry month of May I have opened windows during the day, and Maria has instantly checked out the noise enhanced scenery, only one night have I left the two judiciously chosen windows to be open — kitchen and bedroom, both overlooking the backyard and the nascent vegetable garden, the bract-beautiful dogwood, the backporch, the arborvitae, and the birdfeeders. And last night was not one to keep them open. It being, even as I type, only 52 degrees Farenheit. I need at least 60 degrees, maybe 62 degrees overnight before the fresh air is allowed to blow in overnight.

Nevertheless, as I sat at my desk to begin this, 10 minutes ago, I heard through the closed windows of my office a robin, and now another. Perhaps the sparrows are rustling as well. It’s still dark out at ground level, so little motion, little rustling. I do see the sky paling a bit, and now, now, even as I type, I hear the 18-wheelers 1 1/2 miles away on the highway. And just now, a blue jay several house lots away. Boisterous enough to be audible over my clicking keys, the rolling 18-wheelers, and any lower decibel birds awakening and stretching closer at hand.

Well, so that’s me. Are you up? What do you hear? What do you see? If you were in New England, did you enjoy the incredibly beautiful, sunny day yesterday was? Nevertheless, have you been as glad I have been over the amount of rain we’ve gotten these past weeks? I was at the Concord River yesterday morning fairly early to count herrings climbing the fish ladder. That river, those falls, that fish ladder were so very high, and whooshing! Continuing contained within its banks, albeit barely, it was a good sight to behold. I read yesterday that we have finally emerged out of drought state here in mid-northern, and in northern New England, and are merely in “very dry” state now. So I, for one, hope for a few more days here of good rain. My arugula would be happy of it too. It is about an inch high as I planted a bit late in April. But it’s looking good, and I am ready for it! A rogue arugula plant popped up in another part of my designated vegetable and wildflower garden area, and nice and early, so I have been peppering my salads with it for a couple of weeks already. But as of yesterday I consumed all its leaves. So now I wait, wait for that which I planted later rather than earlier in April. But oh! I also harvested rhubarb last week. So good. I enjoy it like a bowl of applesauce. I have one friend who loves rhubarb as much as I do. Maybe I’ll save her a portion for when I see her later this week. Maybe…..

Apropos of nothing, I think I’ll show you a few photographs of recent vintage.

This, I read, is called an Interrupted Fern. It is so named to describe the gap in the middle of the blade left by the fertile portions after they wither and eventually fall off. (Well after this photograph was taken, which was April 29th)
I’m showing you these tulips, which bloomed later than all my others. Nice of them. Just when I thought, oh well, no more spots of color, these popped out. A friend of mine gave me these last year in a pot, I planted them last fall, and voila!!
Threeleaf Goldthread. According to wikipedia, its rhizome was chewed by indigenous peoples to relieve canker sores, and is also used to make a tea that is used as an eyewash. There’s more, you can look it up.
A work of art, otherwise known as an aged section of a red pine that has served quite a few purposes. Ah, to be useful, and found valuable right through to old age.

So, and I am also peppering my salads with violet leaves and flowers, and dandelion greens. My, my they are tasty.

Look!! It’s light out now!! I looked up from the screen, and I can see the street; I can see the weeping birch that curtains my front yard (and the sidewalk) from now until October. I can see the shrubs in front of my porch that cardinals vetted about a month ago for a nest, but rejected. They’re around, so their nest isn’t far. Just not here in front this year. I keep an eye on last year’s robin nest in the crook of one of my downspouts and the eave of the porch. No one has taken it over, but I think some of its structure has been taken for use by others elsewhere, as it looks a bit disarrayed.

June — just shy of summer solstice

Hello!

I have missed you. Even more so because I wrote in May, honest, but, with a few inexplicable exceptions, my post did not leave the postbox. It was most frustrating. So after trying for two weeks to get assistance from Google’s blogger help and, failing that, via the blogger community, I asked Mark for help setting up a wordpress blog account. And, as you can see, it is from wordpress that I now transmit.

You know, I won’t comment on weather over the past couple of months, because I forget weather the second it has passed. I know only this, it is much more favorable here in New England than anywhere else in this country, and conceivably outside this country too. I am grateful for what we have; I feel for those enduring life, livelihood, and home threatening weather systems everywhere else.

  • Peony in my side yard. There were white and rose colored ones in abundance this year

Plants grew abundantly and vibrantly because (I do remember this) days in May and June have been alternating between soaking rain and brilliant sun, in just the right order and just enough. In fact, I have been having backyard greens salads for a month now. Oh the beauty of arugula, sage, lettuce and, most recently, basil, plucked, carried into the house, and eaten. Fresh is a flavor all of its own. There is no other descriptor necessary. You can taste it, and you delight.

The bees swarmed! They overwintered well and so healthily that they made a new queen and a quorum swarmed into the arborvitae about 25-30 feet up. We collected them by perching on the shed roof and, well, you can see from the three photos below.

  • 1. Me on the shed with the pole we extended to dislodge and collect the swarm. A pail on the end of the pole was the intermediary receptacle.
  • 2. Lowering the pail with one of the four iterations it took collect the entire swarm to deposit them in the awaiting nuc.
  • 3. Alex, a fellow bee person, who took the swarm, as he has room in his backyard for another hive, and the nuc into which the swarm moved.

You can see I have missed doing these posts, because I seem unable to stop talking, even the captions are verbose.

So I will stop for now.

I will just add this excerpt from an Emily Dickinson poem (from The Single Hound no. XXXIV)

Nature is what we see,
The Hill, the Afternoon-
Squirrel, Eclipse, the Bumble-bee,
Nay–Nature is Heaven