Next to Emerge…

Some hybrid tulips on the South side of the house. 

 

And also the hardy Amaryllis. 

 

 

 

 

 

Oh, and the onions harvested from the garden last fall may not last much longer either, even though I’ve been keeping them in the basement right next to a wall.  Really wish I had a better root cellar. 

Allium is First Again

The first sprout of the spring was visible today, perhaps the earliest in some time.  Not a flower yet for sure, but a sign that some things at least have made it through this unusual winter. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Actually, there have been shoots of various things visible for much of the winter – the chrysanthemums, some of the sedums, some of Bill’s favorite columbines – all establish some shoots at the end of the season that stay just above the ground for the winter.  With the snowless winter we’ve had, they have been exposed to much freezing and thawing, and I hope they are all OK. 

Clean New Snow

A light snow overnight has made everything pretty and white again.  Still not really much on the ground, but at least it looks like winter.  The birds are everywhere lately.  Lin next door gave me her peanut butter suet recipe, and we made a couple of birch log suet holders.  Many different birds seem to like them a lot, including the chickadees, a nuthatch, and woodpeckers. 

 

 

The favorite suet feeder in the yard seems to be the ceramic feeder in the gazebo.  It’s never worked well with seeds, because the holes are too large.  But stuffed with suet it attracts all types.  Looks pretty gross, but birds do seem to love it.

 

A group of English Sparrows has taken over one of the feeders, and they are also occupying the forsythia bush near the deck.  Don’t really want a sparrow tree in the yard, so I may discourage them. 

 

The new snow was pretty for sure.  I don’t love winter, and I don’t love snow.  But if I’ve got to put up with winter I would like some of the beauty of snow, especially in January. 

  

 

 

The gargoyle is still guarding the hole in the pond created by the aerator and sometimes the heater.  I haven’t been able to see the fish for awhile since the snow covered the ice over most of the pond.  Hope they are hanging on.  Looking forward to the melt in another month or two. 

 

Peanut Butter Suet Recipe:

Melt ½ pound Lard

Stir in 1 cup chunky Peanut Butter (or creamy PB and fine ground peanuts)

Add 2 cups yellow corn meal

2 cups quick oats

¾ cup flour

1/3 cup sugar

Store in Refrigerator or garage in winter.

January 9th? Seriously?

This winter has been amazing for sure.  We’ve had a little snow here and there, but it hasn’t stuck around for longer than a few days each time. 

Today the afternoon temperature is approaching 45 degrees.  It looks and feels like March, and its only the middle of January.  I’m sure that we will see some colder days in the coming weeks, but I’ll take this for as long as it goes.

Here are photos of the yard, including the remains of the willow tree that we had cut down in early December. They came to do it before the ground froze completely, so we will have work to do in the spring cleaning up. I hope the ruts work themselves out some before then. I think it will be nice to have that tree gone. Beautiful and dramatic as it was, it was messy for sure.

 

And the windstorm in early September really bent many of the branches and it was feeling dangerous to walk under there. I think we’ll also appreciate the earlier light on the vegetable garden, and the tree roots won’t be sucking up all of the nutrients we put out there.

The fish in the pond mostly hang around on the bottom, but come up to look around in the heat of the day.  There are so many of them that I’m afraid the air hose we have going may not be enough to sustain them if the pond freezes over more than it has.  But so far all are well. 

Fall Birds are Arriving

Yesterday the Cedar Waxwings arrived to strip the Juniper of all of its nicely fermented berries.  Each fall they arrive in droves and take care of it in no time.

It has been Very windy here for the last several days, and I’ve seen hardly any birds.  But this morning the yard was just filled with all sorts that I haven’t seen in quite some time, along with the usual goldfinches, house finches, and chickadees.  The first Dark-eyed Juncos are here, which is a sure sign of winter.  Also a couple of Nuthatches, I think a Hermit Thrush, and a gaggle of Robins helping out the Waxwings. 

We’ve cleared off most everything from the deck that matters, although some pots still look OK.  This year I think we’ll empty all of the soil from the deck planters, which we don’t always do.  Will be plenty of work, but will make storage much easier over the winter. 

Took cuttings of everything that I care about preserving over the last several weeks.  The light gardens in the basement are filling up, as are the windows in the atrium.  Grace is happy to have her papyrus plant back in the house so she can have a little bite now and then.  The big windstorm back in September knocked it down and broke the pot it was in, so I have it now in a slightly larger, plastic one that I can just keep filled with water and add a little fertilizer now and then.  It seems to like that even better than being planted in soil. 

We’re planning to have the willow in the back cut down later this fall.  The windstorm took a huge toll on it, and many branches are broken, split or hanging oddly.  It was certainly dramatically beautiful for many years, but its time has come. 

The late rains and warm weather encouraged a lot of second blooming on a variety of things, including several of the Clematis plants.  Nice to have flowers this late in the season.  The frost this week may take care of that, though. 

First cold and wet, Now hot and dry…

Seems like there should be some sort of in between with our weather.  The yard got off to a slow start, then got soaked with cold rain.  Now, its hot, and it hasn’t rained for over two weeks, at least not meaningfully.  We were supposed to get an inch today, but it pooped out after only about four tenths.  Hardly enough to wet the deck, though it was so hot and humid that things actually stayed damp for hours.  Still a chance for the next few days – let’s hope.  I would hate for everything that is so beautiful to just wither away. 

Got a new camera this week and took a bunch of photos this afternoon to see how it works.  Don’t think I have it figured out quite yet, but it does do some neat things.  Here’s a gallery of what’s going on in the yard right now. 

 

OK, May is the Month of Spring!

This week has been the first that has really been spring-like around here.  But OH! what a change we have seen.  The radishes and lettuce are both up in the new raised beds, along with the broccoli plants.  I also planted the onions and potatoes in two other beds.  This was the first year that the garden centers sold onion plants in stupid little three packs, with three or four plants in each pack.  Geez!  Had to hunt all over town to find something worth the purchase price.  Ended up buying two of the three-packs, one sort of better square flat, and a pack of pulled and banded plants.  I will compare the results for next year.  But they were all far more pricey per plant than ever before.

We did get all 8 yards of mulch spread around the yard, and Bill finished the new compost bins.  So, when the weather finally seemed to stabilize, and the yard bloomed with daffodils and tulips, it was wondrous! 

This morning was a bird-watcher’s heaven.  I awoke and raised the window shade in our bedroom to look out on the evergreen garden.  There were many birds out at the feeders and birdbath there, including three Indigo buntings.  I’ve only seen one of those since we moved here.  Gorgeous.  But it got better.  A little later we watched three pairs of rose breasted Grosbeaks around the yard.  The three males were dramatic, and the females blended in, but were obviously there.  The usual Goldfinches, Housefinches, Song sparrows, and Cardinals were around as well.  There is a troop of three or more Brown headed Cowbirds serving as the bully gang in the yard, along with the Crows who are making life miserable for the Red-tailed Hawk in our neighbor’s Spruce tree.  I have little doubt they will hide their eggs in one or more nests of the others.  Mid-morning, the Cooper’s Hawk made an appearance, and everyone else vanished for a few moments.  But they all came back. I’ve seen a hummingbird already, and there are Orioles around, though they have not been to our feeders.  There are two or three birds that I can’t identify for sure.  About the size of of a large finch, smaller than a Robin.  Most obvious feature is a white eye-stripe, and crest, with black stripes between. Front is greyish, back more to brown.  Short tail.  At first I though they were the female Grosbeaks, but then saw them together and they are different.    Help, friends, please.