chill pill

 Late spring is a great time for hiking.  Everyone is out enjoying the sunshine...including the BABIES!

Moms kept close eyes on us as we admired.

Herons were out...

Recent weather has been perfect for turtle-sunning...

...and muskrat-swimming.

It's so lovely to see the trees in bloom...

...and the woods carpeted with wildflowers!

But there hasn't been much time for relaxing hikes.  I've been busier this spring than ever before.  All front beds needed to be weeded and heavily mulched.  The new side bed from the last post needed the same, plus seedlings planted out.  New seedlings need daily watering, and it's been pretty dry here.  Then there are the "old" seedlings to contend with.  I planted out my cool weather annuals a bit early...or maybe they stayed in their containers too long...but they're stressed, seriously stressed.  Many of them have started putting up pathetic little blooms.

I think that recovery is very probable, since this happened last year with my too-LATE seedlings.

I cut all seedlings in half to promote root growth and fertilized.  Fingers crossed that they recover and bloom.

Another unpleasant discovery:  weeds are really persistent.  I laid down thick paper and heavy mulch...and they're pushing through the seams.  Last year's garden path is thick landscape fabric with light mulch...weed seeds have germinated in the 1/4" of decomposed mulch.  The heavy mulching that I have been laying down for the past couple of weeks?  Weeds pushing through.  The areas that I haven't had time to weed and mulch?  Weed fiestas!  And as I stressed over the ground that I've already cultivated, I decided to cultivate another 1000 square feet.  ;)

Crazy, right?  I can't help myself.  Once I commit to something, I tend to go full bore.  I can't seem to slow down, even though:  I've been working for hours a day, constantly covered in dirt, body aching, picking off ticks, house destroyed, business neglected, quick junk meals.  My all-or-nothing personality has been showing through in full force.  It's a hobby, but I'm not enjoying it.

It's been a pretty powerful lesson for me.  Now I'm (working on) practicing an attitude of calm, of gratitude toward my little successes, of peacefulness toward what I still need to do.  I'm trying to accept the imperfections (which is not easy for me!) and balance my time a little more.  

I realized that I've been so busy stressing and working 'til I drop that I haven't enjoyed some of the real pleasures of spring...like sleepy porch cats...

...blooming geranium and muscari, a happy but completely accidental complementary planting...

...early morning sunlight streaming down the hill from next door...

...happy green plants that I have somehow nurtured from teeny tiny seeds...

...even the first blooms of the anemones that I started in FEBRUARY.  I nearly missed these as I frantically shoveled mulch and ripped out weeds!

The killdeer pair, nesting somewhere around my garden space...

...basically ignored, other than snapping a quick picture!

It's a work in progress, this slowing down and finding balance.  Yesterday, I finished mulching the front beds and potted up nearly-rootbound cosmos, and planted over 75 sunflower seeds...

...but I also did a load of laundry, read three chapters of a book, and watched T.V. for two hours.  Pure bliss!  Tabitha is trying to inspire me by example.  See how much fun I'm having with your plants?

 She is so wise!  :)

Have a great (and relaxing!) week!

Shrew-d Moves

The dust has been flying around here lately!  While Todd is working on installing a subfloor upstairs...

...I have been discovering my unexpected love of wallpaper installation.  Pre-pasted, paste the paper, paste the wall...I have all of the types, and I am greatly enjoying them all.  Upstairs, I have a nature-themed paper...

If you look closer, you can see the blackberries, foxgloves, rabbits, and hedgehogs.  LOVE.

Because of the odd angles of the slanted walls and tiny doorways, I'm doing a lot of cutting and pasting to keep the patterns straight.  It's just like working a puzzle and therefore, right up my alley!

Downstairs, we've got rabbits in the bathroom...

...and the kitchen is nearly done.  It was tiled last week...

...and I spent at least 2 full days with the wallpaper.  There were so many little nooks and crannies around the sink that had to be custom cut.  But I absolutely adore the wallpaper, even though it's not quite an exact match to the trim.  Close enough.  It's hard to get a good picture in this early morning light, but you get the idea!  It's a William Morris pattern from 1876. 

We installed a new snail door knocker, whose long antennae will poke out an eye if you aren't careful.  We're going to cut those down a little bit and possibly replace the entire door.  A name plaque has been ordered to cover the hole left by the previous (personalized) door knocker. 

I've sanded down all of our cheapo '70s hollow core interior doors...

...and am in the process of installing beadboard and painting.

It's going to be a busy couple of weeks, because we will be moving in the rest of our things from storage after the floor is laid down upstairs.  I'll be so glad to have my craft supplies back, though.  And framed wall pictures, and summer bedding, and the list goes on. 

I've squeezed in some outside work, completely filling the newly-created front bed with perennials from an amazing sale I found last week.

The plants are severely pruned here, but hopefully they'll give a good show in late summer and certainly next year.

I had some nice company in the garden while I worked.  At first I thought I was seeing moles...

...but they were so much quicker than moles, and they were eating fallen seeds from the feeders.  Moles are insectivores and don't eat seeds.  I did a little research and discovered that we have a few SHREWS!  My photo at bottom, versus the confirmed shrew picture at the top.  

Shrews are SO interesting.  Their hearts can beat up to a thousand times per minute, and they are understandably voracious eaters.  If they miss a meal, they can die (I've experienced this problem myself, as Todd can attest)!  Shrews are also venomous and a single shrew has enough venom to kill 200 mice!  Humans are too large, though, to experience anything more than pain from a shrew bite.  There are endless YouTube videos about shrews fighting (and defeating) snakes, scorpions, frogs, chipmunks, and many other creatures.  Theodore Roosevelt kept a pet shrew and noted, "Certainly a more bloodthirsty animal of its size I've never seen!" They have pointy, red-tipped teeth (red because of iron deposits)...talk about an appropriate look! 

(photo credit John Rochester, Flickr)

Yes, they tunnel, but they also eat a great deal of garden pests.  For the moment, I'm glad to have shews around!

I spent hours and hours weed-eating around the perimeter of the barnyard last week.  It was nice to see the white barn again...it had been half-covered with weeds...but we've just been too busy to get back there and get the work done. 

Now we can see some of the fencing that has to be replaced next year!  This is one of the worst areas, but at least we aren't needing to keep anything fenced in right now.

While plowing through 6 ft tall weeds, I nearly destroyed this tiny nest, even though I'd tried to be intentional about going slow and giving lots of "notice" for wildlife (mainly snakes) to move along.

Thankfully I stopped in time, but I was worried that I'd removed its protective cover.  The nest was still about 2 feet off the ground, but was completely exposed.  I've been checking it, though.  On weeding day, there were 2 eggs.  A week later, there are four!  I'm excited to watch this spot for new babies!

Borga is enjoying our brief moments of sunshine during this rainy spell...

...and the cats are passing through our noisy construction time by staying close and taking lots of naps.

They'd better get used to it, though.  Many months of construction ahead.

Have a great week!