Beltainne is coming! (Also Flora and Fauna update)

I know, it says May 3 on the calendar, but you'll recall from my ridiculously infrequent postings, that I don't celebrate Beltainne until the frost-free date, when planting can happen, so we're at least two weeks away.

"Spring" as defined by warm weather has not official sprung in Central Ohio until this week, and has basically bounced right into the 80s.  "Spring"  as defined astronomically (which, let's face it, is what it anyway) has of course been here and even through snow and sub-freezing temperatures, the birds and plants have been doing their thing, although annual ant-migration inward was delayed a bit, starting a few days ago.  While I try to ignore them, if they get on ME they may get squished. Except last night we watched the Marvel movie Ant-Man, so now I'll probably feel bad about it.

Official pre-Beltainne has begun.  It has moved from the mere "musing about what to do" to getting down to the brass tacks of what to do.  The current to-do list:

• Begin the round of weeding. Somewhere, some botanist probably knows why weed tend to sprout forth before the things you actually planted did (please answer in the comments), but either way weeding must start.
• Clean out beds and planters of last years' stuff.  I did clean out the vegetable garden beds last year, and two got torn out. The planters I just left in place, mostly to attempt to hold the soil over winter.  I'm hoping to score a few more from a colleague who's elderly neighbors keep dumping them on her.
• Fix rototiller. Seamus has everything we need to fix it, so hopefully I can get him to do it, or better yet show me how to do it.
• Survey raised beds for repairs. Some of the planks are coming apart, so we may need to just re-attach them somehow.
• Re-establish new beds to replace the ones ripped out.
• Make list of herbs and plants.  It's in my head, but if I don't have it in writing before I go to various sales, I'll come home with NOTHING I actually need.
• Order dirt/mulch.

This year, I am switching it up. Because I like to can, this year is going to be tomatoes in all four beds.  Two beds of "slicers" and two beds of paste tomatoes.  Hopefully that can get us a nice stockpile, including sauces and salsas, in addition to just plain ol' canned. Next year I'm thinking all string beans, all the time, for the same reason, and then the year after that is back to adding zucchini, squash, peppers, etc.  Maybe I'll try corn again.

I have however done some spring harvesting.  Last night, with the help of a neighborhood girl, we sat in my front yard and picked dandelions, some of which are hopefully fermenting in my kitchen for dandelion wine, the rest of which will get made into dandelion bread.  I thought we had picked the front yard clean, but when I walked out this morning, it was like we hadn't even done a thing! 

That's all to update for now. The birds and squirrels are back.  The blue jays come for their morning peanuts when we whistle for them, and the squirrels don't automatically run when they hear the back door open.  I'm not sure when the juncos left, but they've been replaced by goldfinches it seems.  I haven't seen the hawks yet, so I'm not sure if they returned, but as I think about it, it might be an every other year thing.  Mr. Cardinal and Mrs. Cardinal II are back also, and still waiting to see if Waddles the Skunk is around. Stay  tuned!

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!

Changes and Stuff

So, as you can see, I have changed the name of the blog back to it's original.  We are every so slowly adjusting to our new normal, but I believe there isn't a day that goes by that we aren't laughing or crying (or sometimes both) over something that reminds us of Janet.

This week everyone and their brother appears to have their plant sales.  I went to Chadwick Arboretum's's plant sale/fundraiser on Friday at 8am, meeting my friend, Misty, and her adorable son, Liam.  We went to Tee-Jaye's afterward.  Then I got up early this morning and met another friend, Beth, at Creekside Cafe in Gahanna, and went to the Gahanna Herb Day after that.  Want to see a list of what I bought?

There's a plethora of stuff on there...herbs, flowers, heirloom veggies. I went without a list, and still really didn't either forget anything OR get any extra stuff I didn't intend to get.

(As an aside, I am totally going to hire Misty and Beth to be my gardeners when I win the Powerball!)

The book that's in is a "gardening journal" I bought in 2010.  It's a blank book, that isn't actually completely blank.  But  I think that's like page two.  As you can see, I am also jotting down where things go, and not everything has a home yet.  So, I sketched out the backyard so we can start thinking about it, thusly...

Good thing we didn't waste money on art school!
Totally not to any kind of logical scale.

That is as you stand on the deck looking out towards the back.  I have a good sense of where the annual herbs should go, in pots on the deck.  Everything else is up in the air, as I'm thinking of moving perennial herbs to the flower bed around the deck...my HOPE is they can be sort of shaded by the flowers that are there while they get established, and over the winter, and then been fairly self-sufficient after that.  The perennials don't seem to do really well over the winter in the containers.

It was threatening rain, so I didn't do much more before work.  I pulled some thyme that overwintered to start drying some more.  I love the way my hands smell after I do that!  Tomorrow morning I will  be all about the weeding and getting of the things ready.  Monday, Jim doesn't work, so that will likely be when the heavier work is getting done.  He's going to make me at least one new bed, maybe two to replace the pallets (to the right of the oak, and then above that one).

I have filled the hummingbird feeders, and one of the plants is a hummingbird attractant, so we shall wait.  I also have a way longer tale to tell you about our epic battle between a hawk and some squirrels, but that will have to wait for another time.