Cabbage!
Celebrating 36 years together
Cool Spring
It’s been a beautiful, long, cool spring. While so many others have been bored during this stay at home spring due to COVID-19, I found myself busier than ever. It’s been nice being outside tending my garden with temperature mostly in the 50’s and 60’s during the day. I have a lot of photos to share.
a lone tulip among the Virginia bluebells
We have since had a couple of frosts so I’m not sure we will have any fruit this year.
I made elderberry syrup from some elderberries I dried a couple of years ago. Hoping to regulate my immune system.
I’ve been making face masks for family, friends and Damian’s coworkers at FedEx. It takes me about one hour and 15 minutes to make two masks and I try to make two every evening. I also made my sister a couple of scrub caps because she has been involved in COVID testing at her hospital.
I guess most of my posts include a photo of Darcy and or Frida. They play though not in the way Darcy wants to. Basically, Frida stares at Darcy and twitches her tail and Darcy goes wild in a ‘why won’t you play with me’ kind of way.
Violets and dandelions – pretty weeds.
I don’t mind them in the grass – I just don’t want them in my flower beds because they take over.
We are trying bee keeping again. Not sure I mentioned last year that our two colonies failed. We have high hopes with this one because it seems so robust. It was nice of our friend, Sue, to give us a swarm from one of her colonies.
The ferns are so pretty when they first sprout.
I don’t often include a photo of myself.
I’m making hermit cookies to send to my mom for Mother’s Day.
I think I’ve mentioned before that I love columbine because it looks good from Spring to Fall. It’s really spreading itself around the garden – and patio – so much so that I’ve dug some up from between the brick and transplanted it along with some heuchera and woodland stonecrop into the front yard flower beds.
Mother’s Day cookout
Smokey Roo wanted to be included, too!
This rocker is on the top floor of the mudroom. There are two rockers up there and no one sits on them other than the cats.
A little painting I did in my Perpetual Nature Journal. According to the Humane Society “opossums can be beneficial for your garden, eating snails, slugs, insects and sometimes even small rodents. They’ll even clean up spilled garbage and fruit that has fallen off trees.”
Gardening During the Coronavirus Crisis
This is in the master bedroom.
We also planted other peppers, tomatoes, dill, marjoram, cosmos and marigolds.
A perk from this was the wood chips the arborists left behind. I used it to cover the cardboard I’d laid down in the kitchen garden a year ago. This is the path. I also finished putting leaf mulch there on the top left of the photo. I hope to put flowers and or native grass there. That area is under the eave so it has to be something that doesn’t mind it dry.
The cardboard was there to kill the grass. I’m trying to reduce the grass, especially in areas where it is difficult to get the lawn mower.
So far, social distancing because of the Coronavirus has been good for our garden. Last week we planted lettuce, carrot and spinach seed. Over the weekend, we planted onions and potatoes.
I should note here that our winter felt like a prolonged spring. Very strange. They say blooms are 3 weeks early this year.
First Snow
It was a pleasant snow day.
Making Corn Tortillas
When I bought this mixer I never thought I’d use it to grind corn we grew ourselves.
Frida and Darcy are checking each other out.
My sister and her two daughters visited us Saturday through Sunday AND NONE OF US TOOK A PHOTO!!! This is not the first time they’ve visited and I kicked myself afterward for not taking a photo. Ughhhh!!!
Black Kitty Day
It’s black kitty day and she posed so nicely for me.
A huge branch fell from one of the silver maples by the road.
I said I’d try to get the serviceberry tree in it’s fall glory and here it is. You might need to click on it to get a better view of it. I tried photographing it in at all times of day and in sun and clouds and it just wasn’t doing it justice. I think maybe it is because it is a delicate looking tree. The individual leaves are small and it is shaded by trees all around it.
Fall Color and Reflection
I hear it over and over again – women saying they love the fall because of the colors and the crisp, cool weather. I love the fall and spring for the mild weather and I also love them because they signal change. I love living where we have four seasons. Another reason I like the fall is because the days are getting shorter so my evenings are more relaxing. I’m not outside weeding or doing other garden chores to stay out of the hot sun of day, but still suffering through our heat and humidity that lingers into the night. I look forward to getting a shower and into my pajamas soon after dinner and spending the evening reading, sewing or sketching.
I noted the first fall we were here that we don’t have much fall color on our property. I have a cold and so was sitting quietly in my sunroom late yesterday afternoon and realized that while we don’t have a lot of bright color I was still enjoying the muted tones of early fall. So I grabbed my phone and went outside to photograph some color.
These aromatic asters bloom until first frost. This purplish blue color is a favorite of mine.
I’ve come to love columbine – it’s delicate spring flower and pretty foliage through summer and fall.
Tupelo tree – also known as black gum or sour gum
white oak
Dogwood tree
Redbud tree
Serviceberry tree – see the gold leaf in the upper left corner – this tree is just starting to turn. It’s kind of hidden behind other trees in our front yard so I keep missing it’s June blooms and golden fall leaves. Will try to remember to keep an eye on it.
This is one of our volunteer oaks in the front yard. I think it is a burr oak.
pear tree
Southern magnolia tree
Sassafras tree
Gooseberry bush
Rose hips
Sedum
Purple coneflower
barrenwort or bishop’s cap
Down with the brick walls
I took photos of our dismantling of the brick walls that line our driveway. Moffat paving said they should get to us in October so we are waiting to hear from them. They are contracted to take down the walls but I wanted to save some of the brick for a walkway in the kitchen garden. My neighbor, Nancy, says bricks are 50 cents each at Habitat for Humanity. It seemed worth saving what we could even though it is a messy job dealing with the mortar dust.
There was a good six inch gap between this wall and the asphalt. Dave used the tractor to nudge the brick forward so we could see what we can salvage. A lot of it has mortar that is too difficult to remove with our hand tool method. The original mortar is crumbling, but the mortar previous owners used for repairs was much newer and stronger.
The brick on this side started falling on their own. We were able to do the rest with hand tools.
Moffet doesn’t do brick. They will replace with a wall of block in a brown and grey. Just a wall, no pillars. I think pillars are a bit pretentious anyway. I expect we will fill in with plantings.
I invited Nancy to take any bricks she could chisel off. She got a shovel full on the tractor and Dave drove it up their steep driveway. She gave me some of their chinese chestnuts. Above are the roasted nuts. I’d never had them before. They are somewhat starchy in texture and not really much taste. I ate a few and put the rest in the freezer.
While thinking of chinese chestnuts, I have to set the record straight. A couple years ago I posted here that I though we had found a beech tree hidden among the privet we were chopping down. Well, come to find out, it was a chinese chestnut. Surely planted there from nuts gathered by squirrels at Nancy’s place across the road. Oh, well. I’d prefer the beech but won’t complain about a volunteer plant that provides food.
Fall is Finally Here
I’m sitting at a table with an open window at my back and the breeze is glorious! The first three days of October were around 90 degrees which is crazy. Today is beautiful and we are even expecting some much needed rain on Monday so keeping my fingers crossed.
Dave usually walks Darcy in the morning and we both go in the evening. Dave’s requirement to report to work in northern Virgina two days every other week means it is hard to get his hours in so I’ve been walking Darcy in the morning when I can. She plops herself down when she looks back and sees people coming up behind us which is pretty much always since it is a well loved park we walk in. I literally have to drag her to get her going again. Then the people say “oh, she’s tired” and I let them know she just wants to see them. She runs around the dog park for an hour so I know walking with me isn’t causing her to be tired. I enjoy walking again and can feel it is good for my body.
Letting her have her little break.
The red chokeberry bush
in my nature journal
The paw paw tree leaves start turning color quite early. I harvested quite a few this year. They are best when I just pick them off the ground before they start to rot too much. I gave some away this year. Some people had them before and were happy to have them again. One had never had a paw paw and was surprised she like it.
Our one little pepper plant has given us quite a few large peppers. I expect this is the last of it. I made some sweet red pepper relish with these. The guys ate it on their chicken salad sandwiches last night.