Planted!

 Nearly all the things got planted the week of May 15-16.   So here's what they looked like then (I am so bad at updating this...)

This first bed is dedicated specifically to the spirits of the land.  You can see the milkweed growing on the left, and I planted goldenrod as well.  The third thing that was going in there I accidentally didn't buy and now I don't know what it was. So stay tuned. There's also a hummingbird feeder in this one but I'm about done with this design.  The humming birds don't seem to see it and it's hard to clean, so now it's all gross and mildewy inside.

Nature Spirits

 This next bed is in the other corner of the house and just by default is dedicated to the ancestors. I'm not sure what else to put in there.  That is a crap ton of sage that is blooming beautifully. There's room for something else behind it (besides the weeds I dug out) and I'm still thinking of what that might be. It gets the fullest sun of all but one bed in the garden.

Ancestors

 This is a bit of the moongarden.  If I remember right, those are some kind of primrose? They come on like gangbusters.  I think we're going to get some fairy houses to put in there, knowing full well the controversy over the nature of the Good People.  I don't think it could to give them some nice houses though, right?

Moon Garden

 First of the food beds, and it's somewhat sparsely planted right now.   One of those is the Lazy Wife beans (no strings) and the other is some sort of dwarf melon.  I have plans to add more beans (good for the soil and the peeps, too!)  but I'm also not sure how much room the melon is going to end up needing.  Up in the top left-ish corner you can see the volunteer chives from last year.

Next bed is all tomatoes all the time.  And I think one of the peppers.  Right now, something is munching on the leaves, so I applied so Neem in the hopes I wasn't too late.

(TBC...I have more pictures but I they won't post for some reason..)

Weekend? More like GREENKend....

Okay, not funny.

This is, however THE weekend of gardening. If Spring/Beltane/Summer had a "Black Friday" weekend, this would be it.

Today, I went to Chadwick Arboretum's Plant Sale and Auction.  I had heard about this, but last year was the first year I went, with the Lovely and Talented Misty. Misty is so lovely and talented, she now as a job, so I went by myself.  I arrived at OSU, kicking myself for not making a List to Be Adhered To (as to avoid overspending), and resolved to be Sensible and not get more than the cart would allow.

The carts hold quite a lot.

I meandered around. I'm never sure what to get, even if I know what I'm looking for.  I mean, I want a 'tomato' but there's 87 million varieties, and each booth has overlapping types and they're organic and stuff and....*sigh*  I let intuition guide me, usually.  They have lots of good stuff, so if you're available Saturday you should check it out.

I probably got there at 8:30 and was home by 10, with:

Flowers:  Nasturtium, Brutus Hosta ("created" there at OSU, hence the name), blue salvia, pink salvia, and goldenrod for the butterfly garden. I got something else for that garden, but it didn't have a tag, and I couldn't remember where I got it.  Sadly, that did not mean I got it for free and since at the time I didn't know what it was or where it belonged, back it went.

Herbs:  Marjoram, oregano, lavendar, basil, parsley, lemon grass, and rosemary

Vegetables:  2 zucchini, 2 pickling cucumbers, lunchbox peppers, 2 yankee bell peppers, 2 amish paste tomatoes, 2 some other slicing tomato (heirloom!), 1 black cherry tomato.

You'd think I'd be done, but tomorrow is the Gahanna Herb Show.  I'll be meeting Beth, Misty, maybe Julie and Teresa for breakfast before we descend upon it.  I really don't have much to get after today, but I liked their pole beans from last year (although I have seeds I got last year too), and I'm sure I can find something.

The seeds I sprouted are doing okay. I forgot to bring them in one night, so I'm not sure how they're going to do.  I might want to replace them with actual plantlings, but we'll see.  I do need to replace some strawberry plants. I wish I had seen that before this morning; they had some there.

I came home and had second breakfast, and then after cleaning up from that, I pulled weeds in the raised beds to get them ready.  Almost every bed has had it's spring weeding, except the moon garden, and that's almost done.  I just don't know what belongs there and what doesn't.  Seamus will have to do that, and then roto-till the beds.  I may want to turn the compost and see if I get some good stuff to roto-till in there.

Pictures forthcoming.

As I look at my big box of green-kins, I remember last year how excited I was for the summer growing season to come, and the plans I had...and then how that was completely kicked to the curb by random mystery illness....it's hard to raise that level of hope again, but such is the lingering emotional challenge of the past year.  I almost didn't do any gardening at all this year, but that would be to admit defeat and while I don't always feel like it, I follow the maxim sometimes of "Fake it, 'til you make it." So much doesn't seem real, like it happened to someone else....but not all.

So I plant.  The Earth heals.

New Neighbors

Technically we are getting them. The house to the west has sold, but we haven't met them yet. Jim thinks he saw them though. While bird-watching out the back window, he yelled to me "Hey, we got Asians."

Thus the "U.N." feel of our diverse little street persists...

But, those are not the neighbors I'm talking about.  It seems that Freya the hawk has returned, and this time she's got a mate!

No really, the windows are clean...

They've spent the last couple of days taking turns flying off, and standing guard in and around the neighbor's trees out back.  One hung out on our birch tree for a while...above the bird feeder.

What is interesting, is that the other birds sometimes don't seem to care that there is predator in their midst.  It's like they can sense that the hawks aren't hungry right now or something. I imagine that will be a fatal mistake at some point.

Today's activity included what was probably mating.  One of them was in a tree in between houses on a street to the southwest (behind) of us.  The other one flew over. I expected the other one to fly back to where the nest is, but, nope...It was too far away to see clearly, but I've seen other birds "doin' it" and "it" looked just like that.  And for about as long too, which is to say "not very."  Birds don't waste time.   No, I didn't get pictures of that. Perverts.

I went back to my breakfast, and trying to figure out how to get Comedy Central via Roku, since they are in some dispute with Vue.  After I ate, I looked out back just to check things out.  Mr. Cardinal and Mrs. Cardinal II were visiting the feeder together (aww..).  I sort of said out loud, "Watch out, we have two hawks around" when they both flew down to below the juniper bush (or yew...I can't remember which is which).  Suddenly, from across "The Asians" yard, I see Hawk flying low in that direction!  I wait...I yell "I think we have our first casualty" to Jim, who is busy doing dishes and doesn't hear me.  Finaly, Mrs. Cardinal II pops to the birch tree, her crest standing straight up with indignantly.  (Trust me, she was indignant.)  I wait further, and change vangage point because I can see Hawk sitting on the fence, but most of them is blocked by the bush. I can barely see their talons, but see no bright red feathers.  Then Mr. Cardinal flies over to the bird feeder.

I'm not sure how Hawk could have missed either of them, but then it might be because Hawk was on the hunt for different prey...sticks and twigs from the neighor's trees that fall in our yard.  Mrs. Cardinal II looked on indignantly still, while Mr. Cardinal ate, the only logical thing to do after narrowly escaping being eaten himself.  Hawk tried various sticks, all of which were too big (that's when I snapped the blurry pictures). Finally, they get one that is to their liking and fly off with it.

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Then I had to go to work.

The adventure continues...

Yes I'm using the singular "they" until I can tell Mr. and Mrs. Hawk apart.  And to get myself used to it in general.

Baby steps towards spring...and a tragedy

Editor's Note:  I forgot to "publish" this.  So it's horribly out of date.  But I also think it's because I wanted to add some pictures...so those have been added.  There's new wildlife activity, but that deserves it's own post.

I don't feel like winter is done. Not because of the date on the calendar, or because we usually have an April snowstorm, but be cause of the weird February.  Usually, no matter what the precipitation, sometime around the end of January and beginning of February, there's a day or two where the mercury rises to the 40s or maybe 50s and we get the 'mid winter thaw.'  It is usually a true thaw, enough so that I can often get a few cold-weather seeds planted, more in the spirit of "let's see what happens" than anything else.

This year was different.  "Climate change" continues to be a real thing, and we had week in the high 60s and into the low 70s. While that was nice in its own way, I kept having the feeling that it was...just wrong.  It just felt wrong, at like a soul level.  Only way to explain it.  It had me so discombobulated that I didn't do my land's recognition of Imbolc because...well, how do you know when Imbolc is when the usual markers you use have shifted? So the corn dolly is still unadorned, although perhaps we will take care of that at Equinox.

Shortly before that, we did have a tragedy of sorts.  I had mentioned earlier that one of the juncos hit the back patio window, and I rescued him.  Dizzies and Lizzies continue to flit around the yard, and we bought decals for the windows, but not before Mrs. Cardinal hit it.   I came home from work and Jim told me something had happened, and described the bird he found on the deck.  He put her in the garden bed we have dedicated to butterflies.  She was such a pretty shade of peach with a bright salmon beak.  We were going to bury her, but opted against it.  Jim went out to check on her the next day and she was gone, probably taken back into the circle of the life of the world.  We would see Mr. Cardinal occasionally in the yard, and I hoped he would find another Mrs.  We also hoped they hadn't nested yet, since at that point it had been in the 40s for an abnormally long time, but a friend said it was too soon.

A week later we saw her.  A new Mrs. Cardinal. She was darker, more beige than Mrs. Cardinal I, but still had a beautiful bright salmon beak.  It wasn't long before we saw Mr. and Mrs. in the yard together.  Grieving is a quick process in the bird world.

The continuation of the cardinal population secured, other birds seemed to be enjoying themselves.  We keep trying to identify birds, but some just won't sit still long enough for us.  We think that we've had a blackbird. We may or may not have had a longspur, and a few white-breasted nuthatches.  There another bird that looks like a blackbird, but is kind of yellow or tan speckled underneath the black feathers.  The Peterson Field Guide is only so helpful.  I need an ornithologist to come spend a few days.  (Pictures from allaboutbirds.com)

The Lapland Longspur

Finally, I got around to sowing some cold-resistant seeds indoors.  I have a large seeding greenhouse that is 6 by 12 spots of seeds.  It was warm enough again today (because climate change) that I put the potting soil in while out on the deck, and the brought inside for the sowing.  Now, as long as Spooky and Stormy leave it alone, I hope to get lettuce, broccoli, cauliflower, brussel sprouts, spinach, and nasturtium sprouting soon.

New Year

I look at the date of my last post... June 2.  The last half-or-so of June was tied up with Festivals and I was going to update things....but.....

I was hospitalized on July 11 for what has turned out to be Acute Disseminating Encephalomyelitis.  (We think.)  It has been a long process of treatment, then in-patient rehab, then home rehab, then outpatient rehab.  I've had to relearn how to talk, walk, write...basically everything.

And that's all I want to dwell on that.  I'm back to about 90-95 percent from where I started and so now, in addition to heading back to work, I turn my mind towards the things I love to do, and one of those is the garden.

While I was incapacitated, I had great friends who looked after my land, harvesting things, weeding, and just generally upkeeping stuff.  I can't thank them enough.  They helped me put the land to sleep in the fall, too.  Since then, we've been enjoying the wildlife that seems to have just decided our yard is home.  Our census is below, with our guesses as to how to tell critters apart:

• Three grey squirrels, Punky (the Hawk-Harasser), Itchy and Scratchy.  Itchy and Scratchy are smaller and usually together.  
• Fireball, the white squirrel. I thought he was long gone, but then I saw him on December 28.
• Four blue jays. Jim has named them (Jay, Jerry, Jackie, and Ruth?).  Every time I think they've moved on for the year, the next day I hear them squawking and begging for peanuts.
• Mr. and Mrs. Cardinal
• Mr. and Mrs. Purple Finch (We are more creative with the names some times rather than others.)
• Little brown birds of undetermined species (LBBOUS). Too many to name (although less than usual in the winter).
• Three crows.  They show up about once every two weeks. Huginn and Muninn and...I can't remember the third name. I'm told it was 'Jim' because that's funny.   Either way, the last time they came around though there were only two.
• Freyja the hawk (rarely seen after the "nest incident.")
• Dizzy and Lizzy the grey juncos, a.k.a snowbirds.  Dizzy was a male snowbird that hit the glass patio door running from Freyja.  He was stunned, so I picked him up and put him under the yew bush for some shelter from the wind and Freyja.  He was gone later.  We have so many that all the males are Dizzy and the females are Lizzy.  It's just easier that way.
• One of the neighborhood feral cats from Stormy's family.  Her size and long hair, but dark grey or black.

Jim tosses about a cup of peanuts out every morning; some out to the yard (away from the vegetable garden!) and some placed on the deck railings.  The bird feeder is pretty active, and doesn't get empty quickly despite being raided by the squirrels.  The snowbirds and LBBOUS finally found the suet feeder in the maple tree. 

As you can maybe guess, there's often a lot of activity, and they never sit still for pictures. Today, we are finally getting some snow, and while that makes me want to stay indoors and sleep, the critters are having a good ol' time.  Freyja the hawk was on the back fence with her head tucked down low against the wind. Either that, or we have to add an owl to our inventory. I couldn't get a good look even with binoculars.

The Dizzys and Lizzys are flitting about the deck, and Mr. Cardinal also made an appearance.  They all seem to be happier about the snow than we hairless apes. Actually, this hairless ape is not so sad about it either.  Snow melts and goes down into the water table (hopefully), and is a Good Thing for gardens.

Before the weather turned, Jim raked leaves (usually my job, but...)  and all five of the garden beds got a nice blanket to keep down weeds (we'll see) and keep the soil warmer over the winter.  The snow is laying upon that, and will help break down the leaves so we can till them under in the spring.

Which means, it's time to look for seeds.  Last year I got interested in seed catalogues, but it was too late.  This year, I have some my friend Misty gave me, and I'll look to those and decide what to try.  I' managed to save seeds from our bell and banana peppers last year.  I even managed to can the banana peppers, even though I had to use a walker for most of the time.  I need to get to Dill's Green House for seed starting supplies and maybe some hand tools.

I don't do resolutions, but I'm going to try to be better at keeping this up.  Feel free to share to other people if you think they'll be interested, and comment down below.  Happy New Year!