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!

weather blues, tiny shoes, southern views

 New fence goes up...snow comes down.

The precipitation and the low temperatures (a new record for so late in our area) were quite an unpleasant surprise.  I had pessimistically given up hope of salvaging anything, but Todd convinced me to try to cover a few rows.  "Army tents" sprung up in our back garden, and it was quite appropriate, because we were going to war against this weather.

No sooner had we finished...

It was brutal!

Despite temperatures dropping to 29 degrees, and thick, wet snow blanketing everything...we had no casualties.  Even the apple tree blossoms, which completely withered in last year's late freeze, rebounded.  What a relief, but what a lot of work!  Not to mention the work of dragging as many outside containers of seedlings into my grow room.  They were grumpy with the low temps, but everything has perked up again.

After the stress of the sudden storm, it was nice to get away for a day.  We had the requisite pie for Todd's birthday...

...and took a short jaunt to Louisville, Kentucky.

The Falls of the Ohio, starting place of the Lewis and Clark Expedition...

Huge rock outcroppings...

...embedding with plenty of fossils!

A trip to the Conrad-Caldwell House, ten thousand square feet of fanciness.

I loved seeing the leavings of former occupants.  Old credit cards...

...custom-made Louis Vuitton doll shoes...

... and dusty, stained monogrammed linens.

I wonder what they would've thought about us traipsing through their halls and studying their things?

After, a nice walk around Old Louisville and peeks at the manicured gardens.   

Lots of friendly faces!

I was glad to get away, but in a bit of a rush to get back.  This is a really busy time of year.  So many seedlings have to get planted, and quickly.  Plus, weeds are coming up in the established beds.  I have to weed them and lay down a suppressive layer of mulch.  It's a lot of work, but I get little hints of the possibilities.  I was admiring the back/side garden and considering its progression.

April 2019:

April 2020:

April 2021:

All will burst into bloom within 6 weeks, but I'm really enjoying the gorgeous shades of green and various textures!  All I did this year was mulch, and it performs beautifully on its own.  If I get the spring work done, then I can relax.

Have a great week!

 

fleeting cold and sheeting, old

Beautiful spring weather has helped to make our outdoor-work time really pleasant. Todd has been hauling wood...

...and clipping out extraneous metal debris on our old fences.

They were in pretty bad shape...

...so they're all being replaced this week!

Many of our old fence posts have bird houses attached, but only one of the houses is chock-full of bluebird eggs.  Todd set up a post about five feet away from the old post and quickly transferred the bird house to minimize nest disturbance.  Mama bluebird has been happily visiting the new spot and hasn't seemed to notice her new real estate!

We've also got nesting finches in our front porch eaves.  See the little head?

We're pretty suspicious characters and the finch pair watch us closely as we traverse the porch each day.  

Besides regular work, I've been planting cold-hardy seedlings out into the garden. I've planted in about 1/4 of the space, and we're plowing up another plot in a week or so.  Hooray!

Sunny days...blue skies and fluffy white clouds overhead.

Such a nice variety!

The apple tree is in full bloom and the blossoms have an intoxicating scent.

Dead nettle is rising in the back fields, and their little purple tips are the exact color of the redbuds that border their space.

The woods around our house and all along our main road are full of redbuds and dogwoods.  Coupled with the chartreuse color of the tender new leaves, the colors are gorgeous!

I love cutting a few branches for the front porch.

We've got horses directly and diagonally across the street, and I've discovered that there's a grazing pasture just beyond our back woods.  I can see a group of horses out in the mid-afternoon, peacefully eating.

It all makes for a wonderful and bucolic atmosphere for being outside.  

My perennials are starting to fill in!

Claudia is feeling more frisky with the warmer weather too.

Blooming apple tree, rapidly-sprouting roses, peonies, hydrangeas, and lilacs, unfurling hostas and maple leaves, all after a prolonged period of warm weather.  And then, directly in middle of two 70-degree stretches, we have...dum dum DUM!...snow.  

Snow!

Tuesday night's forecast:  rain turning to snow, with up to an inch of accumulation.  Temperatures dropping down to 27 degrees.  

If I do nothing, we would have another year with no apples.  Many of my seedlings would be toast.  My bleeding hearts and roses would probably die.  Just like last year, our hostas and even hardier perennials like ground geraniums would survive, but be blackened.  

I'm going to have to pull out every old sheet in the house and cover as much new, tender growth as I want to salvage.  All seedlings will have to be covered, again.  It's a big frustration with a midwestern spring.  Hardy annuals prefer cooler weather, so if you want beautiful May and June blooms, you need to get them into the ground as soon as possible in April so that they can establish roots and set up buds. Moving them into the ground frees up space under grow lights as well. But, of course, you run the risk of these random freezes.  So I'll be rolling up my sleeves and covering, covering, covering on Tuesday afternoon.  Gritting my teeth and reminding myself that this hard work should pay off nicely in a month or so...I hope!

Have a great week!