Sunday, April 22, 2012

Dolly's New Duds

Since Dolly wore the same dress all year last year, and since she was a sodden heap this spring, I took pity on her and went shopping. Ball gowns were on sale at the used clothing store, so I thought this one would be perfect.
I wanted red anyway. Did she want red? I don't know. It has sequins and sparkles and probably by mid-summer it will all be pale pink. But at the moment she looks dazzling.

The garden is barely started. The onions are just rooting, the garlic is barely up, the lettuce is maybe 1/4" high, and, wonder of wonders, we have the teeniest, tiniest 1" high tip of asparagus coming up from where we planted the roots a week or so ago. It was so thin, thinner than the stem of a Q-tip, we hardly saw it.

But no bees. I am looking everywhere and no bees. This spurs my desire to get a hive this year or next. I know nothing about keeping bees, but I am willing to learn. You can see what no bees has done to my mania for fresh strawberries this season. The plants are all a-flower but not a single passer-by to dawdle in the pollen-laden blossoms.
So here I am, hand-pollinating the blossoms. I think this photo pretty much shouts "Botanic Loser!"

Besides being on my hands and knees in the strawberry patch, I have begun two other projects. These deal with rust-covered items that I plan to restore and make a part of my flower garden.
This is a small, metal folding chair I discovered out in the woods as part of a deer stand. I have big plans for this small chair. I see it painted a soft, pale buttercup yellow, holding a large pot filled with dark blue salvia and pale yellow nasturtiums. At least this is the plan in my mind. Flower gardeners are notorious for floriferous, blowsy dreams of colored blooms. (I have really no idea what sorts of dreams vegetable gardeners have. Last year's vegetable garden was a surprise and a miracle.)

Here is my next project. The "Ross Europa III" which means nothing to me, but the Viet Nam veteran who sold it to me (after some haggling) for $15, assured me it was worth far, far more. "The seat alone is probably worth $40!" Perhaps. Perhaps not. This, also, I plan to spray paint pale yellow, attach a basket to the handle bars and plant it overflowing (overflowering) with cheery annuals. At the moment it's a rust heap. (But still rideable!)

It's still cold here, highs only in the low 50's, and we're still covering the strawberry patch almost every night since it dips down into the low 30's at night. I still don't know what to do with myself most days. The garden doesn't keep me busy enough. I'm sick of cooking. I'm completely sick of cleaning. Frankly, going into town to shop for a new dress for Dolly was probably the highlight of my week.

We have lived here for exactly one year now. I suppose this blog is a record of how well, or how poorly, I've adjusted to farm life. Does anyone read this blog? I have no idea. I suppose it's a form of journaling, and perhaps that's good enough.

Thursday, April 5, 2012

The Promise

We have lived through March. I thought it would never end. It was the wildest and wooliest March ever. Came in like a lamb with over a week of temperatures in the high 80's, and left like a lion with frost/freeze warnings every other night. It was crazy.

Because of the warm temperatures, the flora and fauna of the world came alive much earlier than normal. The apple tree on the west side of the house that we freed from a vice grip of fox grape vines, burst into bud. The daylilies rose 10" out of the ground. My bonsai Hawthorn tree, a gift from a friend, leafed out, and most of the bulbs I planted last fall bloomed. Actually bloomed. In March. Amazing. We planted peas, spinach and lettuce. We pulled back the straw blanket from the strawberries and they reached for the sun. Already waist-high, the raspberries leafed out and suckers appeared everywhere.

We had to mow the lawn! In March! This is unheard of in Michigan and it will make a very long, lawn-mowing season for us. While mowing out back, I scared a small garter snake and apparently those girlish things never go away because I screamed as it (quite reasonably) fled from the tractor-mower I was riding on. The next day I was sitting in the sun and Don came out to see me. I stood up and started to walk toward him. "Honey, just stay where you are," he said in the tone of voice that only the Snake-Fearing among us understand. Another garter snake. It is spring, after all, when a young snake's fancy turns to...girl snakes, I guess.  "Could you just kill it?" I asked. (And I understand that this is NOT the politically correct thing to do.) He didn't. Said he'd catch the next one and show it out to the large rock and brush pile in the woods. Well, okay. I guess.

But here's the great news. Look what arrived this morning.

Our box of garlic, potatoes, onions, asparagus roots, rhubarb, and one tiny lilac bush. All things that will have to wait 48 hours because we're supposed to have a hard freeze tonight and tomorrow night.

But it's a promise of vegetables to come. Braids of garlic hanging in the garage. Bins of potatoes resting quietly in the dark. Beautiful, enormous pale golden onions drying outside on top of the trampoline. Ruby red rhubarb pie. It's a promise of hard work, weeding and watching for horn worms. Garden bounty. And some day, in a couple of years, fragrant dark purple lilacs.

The asparagus will take 3 years before we can harvest any of it. Knowing this, you're thinking, why didn't we put it in last year? Well, because we didn't. We had trees to plant, raspberry trellises to build, grapes to stake, and an enormous deer fence to put up. So this year we are putting in rhubarb and asparagus.

Today it's cold and windy, though, so I'm sitting inside writing and dreaming of the promise of what's to come.