how now, brown cow(bird)

Just like the seemingly countless red-wing blackbirds that are making homes among the cattails in our pond, we are nesting!  Slowly.

Some furniture is in, but most of my personal things are still in storage, waiting for the new floor to be laid upstairs.  Most painting is done, except for doors and bathroom.  Four rooms are still waiting for wallpaper.  But we have officially relocated! 

It's a remarkable change.  Total silence and darkness at night, punctuated by millions of flashing lightning bugs.  Cool, quiet mornings, usually just me and the roosters from one of the local horse farms.  Windows open, birds singing.  I've mostly been working inside, but just within the past two days have seen a wild deer, rabbit, and turkey.  Did I mention the birds?

The cowbird is one of our most common visitors.

I've written about them before - about how they don't make nests, but instead steal an egg from another bird's nest and deposit one of their own.  They must be pretty successful at it, because we have a virtual flock (or herd, as Todd says) here!  Another remarkable thing about the cowbird is that although they are raised by different species, they all develop their own (and identical, among their breed) unique song.  I learned pretty quickly that when I heard a sound like gurgling water, a cowbird was probably overhead. 

Speaking of invaders, it took me three consecutive mornings of getting up early and putting in two hours at a time in the garden to remove all of the invasive weeds and vines.  First the gnarled mint roots, then the vinca, Virginia creeper, and wild violets.

I found some new invaders, though.  We have moles!  Several holes have appeared in my newly-weeded beds, and a little head popped in and out of one yesterday while I was working. 

Moles don't eat plant roots.  They're insectivores and are strictly after worms, centipedes, grubs, and slugs...which, with the exception of worms, cause plant damage in the garden.  They're pretty remarkable creatures, more closely related to bats than rodents.  Their saliva contains a paralyzing agent, which enables them to eat prey at their leisure. They can tunnel 15 feet per hour!  I would never poison a mole.  A cat can eat a poisoned mole and die...a fox can eat the poisoned cat...a bird can eat the poisoned fox corpse...it's a terrible way for an animal to die, anyway.  You can humanely trap and relocate moles by planting cans in the ground beneath their tunnels, for all the world like an old-fashioned tiger trap.  For now I don't see the harm, so I'll let them be.

Another invader - a four-lined plant bug set up shop amongst my transplanted mint.  Its salivary glands make up 20% of its body weight, so you can see that they have plenty of destructive saliva to make these dark spots on plants.  These were easy enough to pick off by hand.

This little guy overnighted on our screen door daily for the past week!  It's a banded tiger moth.  It's got beautiful coloring...

...with a surprise dark orange inner wing pair that it occasionally flashes.

Another harmless 'invader' but one that I'm pretty excited about is this fungus growing around the bottom of a wooden planter.  It's easy to see why it's called Dead Man's Fingers!

They'll grow appropriately long, spindly, and creepy before they're through, then start turning black.  Aren't they amazing?!?  I can't wait to see how long it takes for us to have a whole 'hand'!

(above photo credit Boredom Therapy)

We've had a week of rain, with intermittently hot days, so when one of the bird feeders out front overturned and spilled about two cups of seed into the front bed, it didn't take long for a massive patch of sprouting greens to come up.

These were pulled along with the weeds, so I've been very busy outside.  I was a kid who spent a lot of time outside in the mud, and thankfully I haven't changed much.  I love weeding and love rooting around in the dirt.  It's exciting to see my little garden start to grow.  Although I don't expect much for a few years ("Gardens:  the first year they sleep, the second year they creep, the third year they leap!"), even my small blooms are enjoyable.

Spearmint...

Foxgloves, one of four:

Stock, an old-fashioned Victorian cottage garden annual with a delicious scent:

Newly-planted fern, one of three, showing new life:

Baptisia, with their pea-like leaves and dainty purple flowers:

Bright-faced yarrow:

Lady's Mantle, with their delightful leaves that show off beaded water like columbines:

Even our bleeding heart still has a few flowers, even though it's nearly June:

I hate leaving 16" - 18" blank spots around my tiny plants, not just because it's not aesthetically pleasing but because empty healthy, composted soil invites weeds...but my little plants will grow and spread.  I'll collect seeds from these plants this fall and increase their number by 10 - 20 each, hopefully, in the spring.  This tiny little garden is going to grow and spread nicely!

Even though certain cats are not yet allowed outside to assist...

...baby steps are being made toward something wonderful, I hope.

Have a great week! 

bulldoze rose

It's moving day!  I wisely prepared by eating 2 pints of light ice cream before bed, tossing and turning with nightmares all night, and waking up with a queasy stomach and heavy head.

It's anxiety, people!

Todd is frankly baffled at my reluctance to make the transition to the new house.  "Let's just stay in the apartment four more days," I urged.  "We can move everything but the couch.  That way, we can gradually make our way to the property."  Todd noted, quite reasonably, that by spending only the afternoon hours at the property and driving 20 minutes to and from it daily greatly limits the amount of time we can spend working there.  Also, that we're hurrying to get in before excavators level our driveway and put in a retaining wall along the side of the house, which will temporarily limit our driveway use - a pretty major issue when you rent a moving truck.  He's absolutely right...but we have such a cozy little nest at our apartment, even though it was always meant to be temporary - and the house is quite unfinished and crowded with boxes.  I feel fairly panicked about transitioning to a new place that, for all its potential, is really quite strange to me - no cozy spots and happy memories, just narrow pathways between box piles.  I'm excited about our little farm - the space, the natural beauty, the quiet, the big gardens, the animals, and a nice amount of personal workspace for the two of us. I just have to get through this little adjustment period.

Breathe in, breathe out, and continue to work toward property completion.  Planning is soothing, and of course, I'm still trying to find that perfect kitchen wallpaper.  I'm still in love with the Swedish style and have found some great contenders.

This is a Swedish pattern from 1890 and PERFECTLY matches the kitchen trim.

Samples have been ordered and I'm really hopeful that I can find something that will work for us!

Our furniture is slowly starting to fill in the empty rooms.  It will be so nice to get this house put together, finally!

I certainly haven't had time to scout around with my camera, but I've noticed lots of wildflowers edging the fences.  An Indiana native, white aster, in big clumps as far as the eye can see:

And a favorite from my childhood, buttercups.

Have you ever wondered why buttercup petals are so waxy and shiny?  I read a fascinating article about it this week.  Buttercups have a thin layer of cells on the petal surface, which act as a light reflector.  This makes them very visible to pollinating insects.  Pretty clever!

I also saw a series of strange trees that run perpendicular to the road, right along our fence line.

There are at least five of them, and they are dripping with white flower bunches.  I was sure that they were wisteria, but I'd never heard of a wisteria tree.  The white flower bunches are beautiful and smell delightful.

After doing some research, I learned that they were yellowwood trees, a relatively rare hardwood that exists in a little pocket here in south-central Indiana.  Once you leave this area, you'd have to drive over 100 miles - to another state! - to find another one. 

We have lots of multiflora rose along the fence lines, too.

They're pretty, but terribly invasive.  They spread and choke out native plants, and their thorny branches are a horror to behold.  Like kudzu, multiflora rose was originally planted in the 30s to halt erosion.  Farmers were encouraged to use them as "living fences" for livestock.  Unfortunately, the thorns were so plentiful that livestock was frequently injured, and the roses didn't stay in tidy fences, but spread to take over the fields themselves.  I'm afraid we're going to have to eradicate them, but this year we'll have to be content with snipping the canes in an effort to keep the roses from going to seed.  Next year, when we have more time, we'll deal with rooting them up. 

Our fields have become quite meadow-like!  Next year, our sheep and goats will have a jolly time with all the grasses.  This year, we are hiring out the mowing. 

So many exciting plans, but actually living and working at the property will expedite their completion.  I will just be taking this adjustment period day by day.  Hopefully our old 'nest' will be a distant memory in a few weeks! 

eucalyptus fuss

The freakish cold snap we had recently was perfect for attacking the overgrown garden at the house.  I delayed painting for two days while I dug up most of the invasive vines (there's still a 2' x 2' patch that I haven't quite gotten to yet).  Then I dragged all of the sun-loving perennials around and stacked them around the edge of the bed while I contemplated placement.

True to my Type A roots, I'd made a spreadsheet detailing height, bloom time, color, light needs, and spread.  Armed with this formidable document, I placed the pots around the bed...

...and started digging.  A side note:  every time I do something scary like this, my mind goes back to a passage from one of the Little House books by Laura Ingalls Wilder.  Laura hated sewing, and fabric was expensive.  She splurged on several yards of lawn cotton, a very nice but thin fabric that's harder to work with because of its delicate nature.  She shrunk back from the pile, afraid to make a mistake and ruin the fabric.  But Ma "made the pattern for the waist and fearlessly cut the lawn."  I always think of Ma seizing her cutting shears whenever I have to do a scary project like this, where there's potential for major loss of time and money from my ineptitude (height/color proportions totally off, spacing too close/far, holes not deep/wide enough, plants wither and die after so much time and money spent). Funny how those books have been so influential.

Back to the plants.  At least they're in the ground!

 
The shade section too.  Columbines, transplanted bleeding hearts, solomon's seal, ferns, fall anemones...it could be beautiful in a couple of years.

Meanwhile, Todd has been ripping out carpet from upstairs and taking it to the barn, where it will be stored until I drag it out into the fields to kill down weeds for another garden. 

He has good company back there.  In one of the many fence post nesting boxes, a tree swallow couple has set up house!

And a family of woodchucks is living under the chicken coop!

They are fairly tame: if I stand quietly for a few minutes, they'll come out for food.  Now, woodchucks are fairly damaging.  They make big underground tunnels, which will undermine the foundation of buildings they've made dens beneath, and they eat vegetables and fruit, which is bad for the garden I'm planning in the area.  As I've mentioned, we're planning to tear down and rebuild this chicken coop.  Since these woodchucks are 'teenagers' and will 'fly the coop' soon, we'll time our rebuild so that we don't disturb any young nestlings, and give the oldsters plenty of time to make a new den before winter.  When we build, we'll sink wire into the ground around the foundation to keep out groundhogs and predators like foxes and raccoons.  Someone on a nature forum gave me a good tip:  "Put a radio in the coop and dial it to NPR.  Woodchucks don't like the sound of human voices and won't try to re-nest in the area."  That's our plan!

I love walking out there...

...but house demands have kept me inside.  I've been painting for 2 weeks.  Two rooms need a final coat, plus trim, so the end is in sight.  But I'm still obsessing over kitchen wallpaper.

The one that Todd and I like the best has also been a top-rated selection by a couple of visitors:  a watercolor rendition of eucalyptus sprigs.  It is a PERFECT match to the trim/cabinets and feels fresh and light.

I had no idea that wallpaper was so expensive, though!  It will cost SIX HUNDRED DOLLARS to wallpaper our tiny kitchen.  Worse, I've read terrible reviews about Spoonflower, the company selling this particular design:  that they basically print designs on cheap fabric and low-quality wallpaper, and customer service is a nightmare.  They do have an equal amount of rave reviews, though, and the sample I received seemed really nice, so I will continue to wrestle with this decision for a little while longer. 

At least we've purchased the bathroom wallpaper and will get started on hanging in the next couple of weeks.  Anthropologie has amazing wallpaper and it's actually less expensive than you'd think.  I got this roll on sale for around $60 and it's enough to cover 3 walls, which is just what I wanted. 

The cooler weather has been nice for doing my work this week:  clearing beds, planting perennials, and painting with all windows open. Borga likes the work, too - mainly because she makes nests in the carpet pad that we're dragging away.

The cats love it, because I've brought the quilts back out, and there's nothing they love more than a quilt snuggle.

Hopefully they'll be snuggling up at the new house pretty soon.

Have a nice week! 

Genghis Khan's Garden

Indiana has sometimes been accused of having a rather unpredictable spring - that we can go from extreme cold temperatures to pretty warm ones, without the pleasant middle ground that makes spring so nice.  That may be the case sometimes, but not this year.  We've had a delightful long, cool spring, and looking ahead at highs in the high 60s next week, I see that it's not over yet!  This cool, wet weather is great for bringing out the wildflowers, like these Virginia Bluebells...

...and flowering trees, like redbuds.

The road to the farm is lined with them!

Work is slowly moving on at the house.  Just taking down the close, dark curtains that were in the living room opens it up and makes it look bigger and brighter.

After a week of work, the living room is painted, and so are the kitchen baseboards.  Meanwhile, I've been feeling like a kid in a candy store as I peruse and order wallpaper samples right and left.  Wallpaper, where have you been all my life? 

I've had to do a little yard work too.  I joked to Todd that we inherited Genghis Khan's garden, because it's chock-full of invaders.  Vinca, violets, but by far the worst is mint.  They all spread by underground runners and are near impossible to eradicate.  Mint, in particular, has long, deep, woody runners that mightily resist persistent tugs.

I dug up several large clumps...

...and planted them in a large wooden planter by the side of the house.  The planter will contain those nefarious roots, and I'll still get to use the mint.  Win win! 

Some good news in the front beds:  the massive bleeding heart in the center has re-seeded!  It's surrounded by 'babies' and I will dig them up in about a week and transplant them to other locations.  With the columbine and spring bulbs, it will look amazing in a couple of years!

I know there's a wealth of insect and animal life at the farm, but I just haven't had time to do much exploring.  I did see a really interesting moth on the back screen door.

No one is quite sure why the abdomen curls up, but some think that the curl is for mating purposes, or perhaps part of its camouflage.  I've seen several other interesting moths and hopefully I'll have time to get some photos later.

Lots of these around too!

I'm absolutely loving the front yard tree.  It looks totally different, depending on where you're standing.  So beautiful!

It's nice to make progress at the property, but it's REALLY nice to come home to a comfy couch and our sweet kittens. 

Have a great week!