Springing back to winter

After reading TC's blog this morning (Tim Cotton Writes ) I have determined to write an upbeat, positive missive here, even as I am only sipping on my second "cuppa" and contemplating my day to come. We have been having unseasonably warm weather; the ground has been bare for weeks now, or so it seems, and even the usually ubiquitous mud has all but vanished. It lingers only in the wheel tracks at the end of the driveway now. If we had ducks, there would be some in the poultry yard, but the new flock will not appear until the first of next month and it will be while after that before they live in the coop and have free run with the hens.

Yesterday we unexpectedly undertook a much needed digression into the closet. The intent of the foray was to install a locking mechanism to keep the cats OUT. In order to install the lock, we had to, first, get INTO the little room and in doing that we removed many bags of wool roving, representative of my former flock of sheep and some from UMO, their original home, as well. Now, I love to spin....  BUT if I did nothing else for the rest of my

Icelandic wool roving

allotted days I probably would die without completing the task, so this roving is now hanging out in the living room (aka craft room) waiting for me to divide it into at least one pound lots and offer it to friends as a share and possibly on the open market.  

With the appearance of spring outside the windows (though as yet no spring flowers have appeared) this might begin to feel like a job for another, colder season. But have no fear, our more seasonal temperatures AND precipitation will return this week and weekend, with a current prediction of nearly 7" of snow on Saturday alone. While that may not make all of you happy at the outset, just remember that we really do NOT want the overall temperature on our only home planet to rise.

So I will weigh wool and wind roving into balls that will hopefully be held together with a band of paper, at least long enough to get them bagged and away from the cats.

Amy and Kate

Picking up the threads

I have not been blogging for a while, but as the season turns, I feel the urge to pick up some long neglected threads. One of them is this blog.
 

I think the stirrings of the increase in energy in the natural world around me are "at fault", or to be thanked, depending on point of view. It has been a very hard winter and is not yet showing any real signs of change. The brake job on our truck, Artie, which was the first of a handful of repairs -- for which we have the parts --stopped due to colder weather and Tractor Guy's slowly failing health and energy. Artie still is partly jacket up, half in and half out of the garage, awaiting warmer weather and hope of more energy for TG. If we can at least make him drive-able for a few miles, we can get him to a real mechanic. Hopefully the young man will be willing to work with our supplied parts and can be paid with the CarCare line of credit. But for now, we continue to be thankful for friends willing to carry us to town for food, feed and occasional fun.

Meanwhile, the ol' homestead is limping along. We wintered over only a handful of laying hens, TWO of whom gifted me with eggs this morning. They must have felt the change in the energy 'cause through the winter I had found only one per day, at most. The poultry freezer is still mostly full --including most of the fowl I

harvested for Thanksgiving. I posted Tom the turkey to offer him to someone for eating or breeding and he as gone off to be a yard ornament/pet. As much as I love turkeys, I think I will stick to chickens and add ducks back into the mix. Khaki Campbells are my breed and I will soon be looking for some, hopefully locally. I really miss having a couple of goats (can't have just one!) but not sure if I have the energy to milk twice a day any longer, or to move electric fence in the warm months.

Seed starting season is at hand and actually I *should* be making soil blocks and seeding onions today, but I had not been planning to plant any this year. But I put an order in to Johnny's for storage onions and, for TG, some scallions. I have never had luck with them direct seeded. This year I seeded them into the little soil blocks as well. Johnny's orders are always the fastest to arrive of the local seed companies I patronize so hopefully starting will not be delayed much. We still have a lot of veg in the freezer too. Getting used to the reduced food requirements now that we both seem to be eating like old people is, I think, even harder than when I went from cooking for a family of 7 plus add-ons to just me.

Meanwhile, I continue to love to spin, and to knit and crochet as well... but not nearly fast enough to
use up the yarn I make! I do not want to sell yarn, even if I were to label myself as the "rustic, backwoods spinner." I am self-taught and do not care to try to make my yarn resemble the stuff from the store, even remotely. I love texture... visual and physical... as evidenced by the hat I knitted myself this winter.

Join me in a JUBILEE!

Welcome to what I am calling my Jubilee year. Nope, not in the Christian sense for several reasons but the biggest of them is 'cause I ain't one. You can research what that means in their context if you wish but it will probably be pretty obvious why mine is based in the different world view. 

Think royal. Queen if you can, though I understand if it is a stretch to put that word in the same same world as this openly peasant-leaning old woman. Typically they do them on the "ten's years" when the monarch's time on throne gets long... 50, 60, 70 years. But true to form, I do not even care to get that right. This year, my 75th, FEELS right. 

I suspect the timing is related to a life altering, possibly massively life extending experience I had at 25.

In 1948 when I was born, I was what was then known as a "blue baby." Not at all related to the so-called "indigo children" which were often talked about beginning in the '70s, these babies had serious heart defects and the "blue" referred to the cyanosis resulting from poor circulation or inadequate oxygenation of the blood. That I survived babyhood and was seen by a big-city cardiologist when I was 2 1/2 was due to my RN mom's determination and care. At that time, open heart surgery -- which I eventually had -- was in the beginning stages and the doc warned my mom to "manage me" without medical intervention until I was 25, by which time he expected the procedure to be perfected, if not routine. 

I thank my mom for not giving in to fear and making me an invalid. I dunno how much guidance she got along the way, she never talked about it, but the only restriction I remember from my young childhood was being told "don't run" (yeah, right LOL) and during school years was not being allowed to participate in PE. I bet that, at some level, hurt my dad who was a Jr high and HS coach and called "Coach" by almost all the students, even after he joined the administrative team. 

When I hit 25, my mom made an appointment with a nationally recognized heart surgeon in LA, as we were living in SoCal at that point. No, I was no longer on their insurance and no, there was no discussion about costs or how to pay. I guess they covered it all, which must have been a pretty big deal for a school administrator and an RN. When I first saw Doctor Burt Meyer, he listened, fluoroscoped me and then sat me down for the consultation, looking at my fingernails repeatedly, and asking "are you sure you never turn blue?" I told him not since the last time I went in Lake Michigan waters... but he just kept asking. 

You see, I had a ventricular-septal defect. A pretty bad one. The hole between the chambers in my heart which allowed some of the blood entering the heart to skip the whole "lungs" part of the typical body-heart-lungs-heart-body trip was the size of a quarter. Might have been worse, I guess, but having learned that I could do pretty much all of the physical things I wanted to do, if I did them at MY pace (and I spent a lot of time outdoors, exploring, walking, riding my bike, 50 mile hikes in the Kennedy era, climbing foothills in SoCal and bringing home dead creatures to turn into skeletons) I was good. My heart got big and strong. Doc said it was the size of an NFL linebackers (in my skinny, 5'2-on-a- good-day, frame.) No wonder I did not turn blue, eh?

I actually felt like I had MORE problems after the hole was patched. My body was getting all the O2 it was suppose to -- but was not use to it. Fortunately, life handed me a move to Grand Junction, CO soon after. Living at a bit more altitude gave my body time to adjust and when I returned to closer to sea level I had no more problems. 

I have been happily following my passion, my nose and doing what was necessary to keep body and soul together, a roof over my head and food in the belly in the years since. Some of them have been in larger cities/towns than I preferred but there were always places to connect to the earth and the other elements. I worked at many things, but after not completing my original course of study at UCLA (astronomy/math with minors in physics and engineering) I never really sought a career. I worked at whatever caught my interest or what was available, almost always landing the jobs for which I had applied. One day, I received three telephone calls of acceptance and I had to decide. I do not recall what any of them were, but I remember considering the feel of the facility, the hours and the commute but since all had offered pay that was acceptable to me, I did not revisit that factor at all. 

I married briefly in the early 70s and though we were only together a short time we are still friends. I married again in the later 70s and have 5 daughters, all of whom I love dearly and who are amazing women and mothers in their own right, however that marriage fell apart long before our divorce and we are not on speaking terms. He did become fodder for some great stories, though!

Over these many years, I have lived in Michigan, California, Maryland, Colorado, Wisconsin, Washington, Oregon, Texas, North Carolina and finally was able to put down real roots here in Maine in early 2008. I might have stayed planted in NC, if not for the climate; I connected as well with the people there as I have here but I truly need the 4 season climate with a real, cold, snowy winter that seems to be embedded deep in my DNA. I am a woman of the Northlands, as I say; a peasant, a farmer, and though I love the folks here with whom I have connected (you DO know who you are!) I am most at home when surrounded by the natural world. The plants and animals that live here naturally, and the domestic ones we love, care for and use, these beings are my reason for being, I think. This is the thumbnail version of "how I got here." Turning 75 this week, I will be spending this year celebrating what is. Yes, my body hurts, most days, most of the time. Yes, I do not have the get up and go that I used to. But I want to focus on the joy of "I CAN." For a full year. While I can. 

Enjoy the ride!

Not much to see (yet) but ... things are growing!

 Look at my annual garden and the perennial plants and if you are not as familiar with them as I am, you will probably notice nothing. Most of my work this past few days has been unremarkable... getting ready to lay cardboard and mulch against weeds, pruning back vines and bines and hauling the prunings into a stash area from which I can pick and choose basket making materials next week, when it rains.

The few crocus are finally blooming and I see tulips coming up, but they are few and in an odd place. But little by little, things are moving forward here.

1. vine 2. bine

Plant factoid of the day: Vines climb and support themselves by using tendrils that reach out from the opposite side of a leaf at a node. Bines (think of the word "bind") twine their whole stems around whatever they are climbing on, and even around their own stems if they reach out and find one or more before they find something else to cling to.

In the annual garden, the garlic is up and tiny onion seedlings have been planted. They do not show in pictures yet, but let the wet spring days give way to a few warmer sunnier ones and they will show that they are holding their own. Peas are just beginning to peek through the earth in places and today, May 2, I planted the second round. 

Most of the lettuce seedlings did not survive this year. Shit happens. But I have seeded some directly into the garden, trans planted the 5 or so that I could and started more inside. Never give up.

My healthy transplanted cabbage seedlings make me look like I know what I am doing  but of course I did not get pictures of them. LOL  

I believe the last round of indoor seedlings was started today... mostly winter squash and some melons. I need to pick up a short season watermelon seed in town this week and I think I can call it done.

When Tractor Guy gets going, stand back!

 Early in our sojourn here on the grounds of Fussing Duck Farm, I attended a tree sale at Fedco, one of the local organic growing institutions here abouts. I picked up an order and browsed around for other goodies and bought a couple more blueberry bushes. 

Yes, the wild ones DO grow .... er... WILD... here in Maine but most of the best places are not nearby and as I have gotten older, they are a PITA to pick. Most folks "rake" them with a special tool, but that gets both ripe and unripe berries and I do not want to do that. I does not respect the plants and is wasteful. But I like blueberries and  am getting a nice stand of the cultivated "high bush" ones going here. All of the plants are from Fedco. But one year, in their display area, something *else* got improperly filed in one of the blueberry bush slots. That happens in all retail, we know. Wrong sizes, wrong items, misplaced by distracted shoppers trying to help, usually. In this case, I ended up with a tall deciduous and decidedly not fruit bearing TREE in my row of blueberries. I did not recognize it, but let it grow, hoping it would eventually bear some kind of fruit. But Fedco sells both ornamental and fruiting plants and all this one wanted to do was host web worms and grow taller, so it really needed to leave the berry row. 

Today it did. The Other Half, affectionately known as Tractor Guy in the warm side of the year, got Fergie, the tractor on the job. The tree did not want to give up, but TG and Ferg won the day!

And once you get a Tractor Guy going, it's hard to turn him off! LOL  Nothing like tilling up the driveway to help even out some of the winter's ruts!

The blueberry patch is back as it was, minus tree, with cardboard and mulch on the nearest 6 plants and plans to finish mulching the ones beyond where the tree stood after we spend some time with a mattock and shovel, after the rainy period this coming week, to remove much of the stump. That tree was tenacious though, and I suspect I will be fighting it for some years to come.

The big project for me, after the tractor work was done, was collecting the electric fence wire, resetting all the posts and re-running the wire to keep the deer at bay. I was not sure how they would react to the sudden disappearance of a tree...something that, in their world, usually stays put. Would the space make them leery and put them off approaching, or would deer curiosity win the battle in their brains? I was not willing to gamble my juicy, freshly budding plants so round and round I went, coiling up the wire and then round and round again to re-deploy it... 5 strands on the outer fence and three on the inner one. They are 3' apart and designed to keep the deer from jumping over. So far, it has worked. 

But my feet were dead, my legs were bitching and damn, was I tired! But it felt good to get this big project this far along. 

I have 4 more blueberry plants coming next month, so I will watch over the patch until then and finish the mulching when they arrive and are planted.  What a day!

But spring is here, with my favorite spring flowers greeting me on my way to the berry patch this morning and the trees and bushes are beginning to bud. Yeah, I know that begins the allergy season for many of us, but without all of these wonderful green things bursting forth, why would be bother to keep putting one foot in front of the other!

lilac buds

Maple tree budding

If you did not know I was a garden geek...

Cherry trees are on my mind. My single pie cherry has made enough cherries for a pie the last couple of years and I am sort of thinking of more. And thinking of cherries to eat, straight off the tree. Turns out my favorite vendor of such creatures, Fedco, right here in Maine, is having a get 'em while you can sale online starting tomorrow, for a week. I have researched and picked out the eating cherry trees that are most likely to survive here. Unfortunately they both require pollination from another tree.. and one of their kind will not work, so this will be a bit of a crap shoot. Also the pie cherry tree which has been so fruitful (self-pollinating) will not help in this game. 

SO...

If I can log in and score a tree at a somewhat discounted price, I will be happy. If I can figure out two that might pollinate each other and score one of each I will be close to broke, but will deal.

I am kinda chuckling here, inside at least, thinking about friends who have stayed up until midnight, queued up in all kinds of weather at stores out there for video game or book midnight release parties. They had a blast, or so they reported, hanging with their fellow geeks until time to (usually politely, at least here in Maine) rush the doors. But for me, it's trees... the big ticket item in my "garden". Defining "big ticket" for something that will outlast my lifetime as selling for under $40 might seem odd, but that kinda defines a low-income senior. 

 I am also adding to the list some other things that might be nice, if the cherries fail to materialize: a peach tree to replace the one that my friend Morgiana bought for me, with the understanding that I would share many of her favorite stone fruits with her... and which set its first crop of peaches as she laid in hospital under hospice care. Each and everyone of those peaches shriveled and died, as did the tree, the day of her passing. I am happy to think that she took them with her, but I would like to try again. 

 And my blueberry area is not yet full.

So we will see what we will see.. (I will not spend the mortgage or electric bill money. I will not!! LOL)

 

Spring Finds the Northlands

 

The First Robin

Yes, I am writing about spring... again. Spring and it's not so eagerly welcomed cousin "mud season" are a constant subject of conversation here in the Northlands. Contrary to the name of the season, it does not "spring" upon us here, as perhaps it does elsewhere. It is often slow to arrive, with many eagerly awaited signs and almost as many grudgingly acknowledged spring snow and ice storms. But eventually the earth gives up its white blanket, the rivers and streams become liquid and one sees the first robin. Somewhere in there, pussy willows open their catkins which then produce the first bits of pollen for the early insects. And, much more quickly than most of us expect, they will be followed by dandelions, which the bees love, so please leave them.... be... for the bees... for a bit.

The arrival of visible spring weather and signs, even here in the far north, is often associated with the Easter holiday. This happens much less often than many folks might like, as both Easter and Spring's arrival are essentially "movable holidays," and only when Easter is at the end of its possible date range and we Northlanders are having an unusually early spring, are we likely to have anything like thawed ground for that popular bunny to hop upon. So while my Christian neighbors hopefully don their spring-type Sunday best as they head off to the sunrise service tomorrow (sunrise just after 6 AM, temperature prediction 24 degrees F) my acknowledgement of the holiday will be as a second (you can see it from here!) celebration of an earth-centered liturgical calendar day called Spring Finding.

And find it I shall, as I set out a bit of sugar water in the proto-forest in an attempt to capture wild yeast for eventual baking, walking there on actual earth, not icy snow. It is, even, just beginning to thaw.

To those of you who celebrate Easter, may your day be truly blessed, as I hope Passover, just past, was for my readers who walk that path. Me, well my nod to tradition was to pick up a chocolate bunny when I was out and about with a friend today. She bought some real chicks to add to her flock. I decided to act a bit like an adult and bought a high end chocolate bunny. But I will still eat the ears first.