A 24 Carrot St. Patty's Day

What a day. It's the day before St. Patrick's Day and a beautiful sunshiny day that just demands work out in the garden. While Jim planted stakes for our fruit trees to be shipped soon, and strung the lines to provide support for the growing grapevines, I worked in the garden. The snow's melted off at last and I pulled the plastic off the raised beds I planted last fall to find that I have tiny plants coming up under there! We have collards and lettuces, spinach, onion and garlic. What a bounty! Small, but it's a start.
I cleaned out the tiniest raised bed of ours to ready it to put the cabbage and broccoli plants from the greenhouse to start them early. They're tough, and able to cope with the cold weather to come. As I worked to loosten the soil to put in the plants, I found all those tiny carrots I left in the ground in the fall. They were too small at that time, so I left them in the sandy soil to grow over the winter. What a delicious bounty! I found a lot of carrots in really uneven sizes and shapes, and three big onions, along with a lot of happy, contented earthworms keeping the soil loose and healthy. The carrots smelled deliciously like sweet carrot and fresh earth and went along with tonight's corned beef and cabbage, our, "almost St. Patrick's Day" celebratory meal. Jim cooks this meal by tradition, and it was even better than usual.I pulled all the carrots and planted that little bed with tiny cabbage and broccoli plants and watered the other plants in the bigger bed to encourage them for early season growth.Dinner was delicious and we thoroughly enjoyed it with a big glass of red wine. The Guinness will wait until tomorrow night at our favorite Irish Pub, Kate's in New Carlisle.
Tomorrow's the big day. Ever since our honeymoon trip to the Emerald Isle, we take our Irish holiday seriously around here and want to wish you the best: friends who wish you well, someone to swap stories with, as well as a brimming glass of something delicious to enjoy on this beloved Irish Holiday. And, since we've actually kissed the Blarney stone, we wish you a touch of the magic of the Emerald Isle-may you have the skill to give tongue to intriguing stores and entertaining lies and truth. You choose which!

Spring Workday

Yesterday it was warmish and sunny at last and we burst outside in a huge rush of energy and desire to work on growing things. I pruned the blueberries, turning this-Into this-

and just repeating the process 12 more times to end up with 13 properly pruned blueberry bushes for delicious berries in July and August. They'll only produce berries on the newer wood, so each year we have to remove about 1/3 of the older branches. Then Jim picked up the prunings and piled them in the woods, to make another safe harbor for the rabbits to make a home in.
He dug a hole and put up a pole for one end of the new grape arbor. Digging a hole-a little deeper-and adding cement to secure the vertical in place. Our vines are growing each year and need a good strong support. He'll string a braided wire cable, covered in plastic that should stand up to many years of weather and heavy, delicious grapes.

What a terrific day. We've ordered a composting worm bed and it arrived Monday, we readied it and the worms arrived yesterday.

10,000 worms!

We opened the box and sprinkled them on top of the prepared bedding and they burrowed right down in and started munching the stuff up.
The whole assembly will sit in a corner of the greenhouse and make wonderful black gold fertilizer for us to use on our plants indoors and out.

It sure felt good to get so much done.

More Signs of Spring

They're subtle, but the signs are there if you look close, to see spring working it's way out from under this dirty white blanket everywhere. While out yesterday morning gathering sap from our maple trees, I spotted this small spot of snowdrops bravely making their way out of the snow, and ran for the camera.I spotted a robin trolling through the grass in an open spot, but he flew away before I could capture his welcome image. Nearby was the the very last remnant of the tallest snowman Jim and Anna built.The last pale leaves of the beech trees add an elfin woods look to contrast with the darker evergreens behind it.Each day, we hear sandhill cranes with their high, wild call winging north high overhead. On the path, the moss is growing brighter green with each day.In front of the house, the tulips and the dead nettle are reaching for the sunInside the greenhouse, the daffodil bulbs that we missed when we dug out the dirt to lay the bricks are forcing their way up.Wigelia and forsythia buds are swelling. I snipped some of these to force bloom inside.And most beautiful of all, last night a fog rolled in, making everything soft and mysterious. The snow on the ground seems to absorb the light and make this photograph much lighter than it actually was. In the foreground, Anna's swing waits summer play, while in the background the barrel cooker and the wayside building shelter tables, tents and cooking equipment for warmer days' fun.Our home is on a popular route for bicyclists and riders are a frequent sight, as they make their way past. They come in all sizes and shapes, from grandma and grandpa with the kids all riding together, to the most exotic lycra-clad modernist with all the latest gear. Yesterday I saw my first of that breed, decked out in brilliant lime green lycra riding an ultra-light mountain bike. He looked like a blossom, all by himself.

It feels like our whole world these days is gathering energy for that annual joyous rush of new life. I can feel my mood and energy level swinging into that lighter feeling too-how could I not?

Tapping the Trees for Liquid Gold

Each Spring, we tap our maple trees and make maple syrup. It's a good exercise for us, walking those cold woods early in the year when we need it the most. Once we get some syrup ready, we have the family out for pancakes with maple syrup and blueberry syrup from our fall berries.
This year we were concentrating on the greenhouse progress, and almost let the season get away from us. You have to tap maple trees that are at least 6" in diameter, when the weather is warming to above freezing during the day, and below freezing at night. That way you can harvest the sap as it moves up and down the tree trunk each day. Once the trees "bud out" meaning those little branch tip buds swell, the season is over and any sap taken has a green and funky taste.
Many of our bigger trees here are already budded out so it's too late for them this year, so we had to roam out in the woods, searching for shorter trees that couldn't reach so far into the sun, or had lots of shade on them. We found a few, and yesterday afternoon, tapped into them.
First Jim drills a hole about an inch and a half into the bark. We used to use metal spiles, the very old kind, but then moved to hand-whittled ones out of sumac, and then to just using tubing. This year, Kim gave me her excess plastic tubing from her c-pap machine, and it worked just great! Thanks Kim! We were able to make a smaller hole in the tree, seal the hole with the larger end of the tube, and snake the thin hose right down into the plastic jugs we tie to the tree.
It was cold out yesterday, a crisp shivery walk in the woods to hang our jugs. The pictures show Jim drilling the holes, a hole just dropping a drip of clear sap, the first run of sap filling a tube, and the whole assembly ready to go, with last year's healed tapping scar just to the right of this year's hole.
This morning, I went out with my bucket to see what nature had left for us in the jugs. The sun was low in the sky and the shadows on the sparkling snow stretching long and blue between the trees. This jug had about 2" of sap in the bottom of the jug, and more was frozen in the tube on its way down. I just left them all in place, and this afternoon when its warm and everything's running, Anna and I will go out and harvest the first run of sap.
Then we'll have days of trudging out there at least twice a day to collect that clear, sparkling tree juice to boil down into amber colored syrup. Yummmmm

Sometimes Dreams Do Come True!

We love gardening here, and winters are tough. The older we get, the longer these cold snowy winters seem to get. About two years ago, we were sitting by the fire one night, enjoying our evening glass of wine, when we'd been mostly inside hiding from the weather for days, and we started talking about how nice it'd be to put up a little greenhouse on the south side of the house.
On cold, but sunny days, we could sit out there in the bright winter sunshine and soak up some of those much needed rays, set up a little table to have lunch on warm days and read gardening magazines and seed catalogs and think about spring. Hopefully as the season moves on, it'll get hot enough out there to vent warmth into the house and save on the heating bill. Well, it took us about two years, but yesterday that dream came true!
We ran some errands in the morning and when we got home the sun had finally climbed high enough in the sky to clear the tall trees on the neighbor's property and warm that wonderful greenhouse space to 74 degrees! Outside we still have about 6" of snow. Inside it was humid, and smelled like dirt and all the green growing things it was going to be possible to grow in there. How wonderful!
We already have lots of cool weather plants started, and they're coming long, but for me the highlight of the day was my lunch out in the greenhouse. I made a beautiful salad and took my Organic Gardening magazine and favorite seed catalog and just basked in the sunshine.
Life is very good, especially when you have a terrific husband who listens to your dreams, makes them his own too, and best of all--makes them come true! Thank you Jim, for the sunshine and joy that you've brought into my life in so many ways.

We're Fighting Back!

It's that time of year, when we get sluggish, and slow and the creepy feel-bads come sneaking in. I started with a sore throat on Friday night, and it escalated until I had a full-blown sinus headache cold nastiness and spent all day Sunday in bed, trying to sleep it away. Of course it didn't work, and when Jim started this morning with a sore throat, I decided it was time to fight back. I made us some serious soup! It's a white bean chili with lots of garlic, onions, and jalapenos, cabbage, white beans and turkey, simmered on the wood stove all day and tonight we sat on the back porch with the stove cranked up all the way. The soup was savory, zippy and delicious. I figured if we ate the hot stuff, then soaked our whole bodies in the heat from the stove, we'd sweat these ugly colds right out of our bodies!
Right now my head feels great! Just a touch of the headache and it isn't bad at all. We'll see tomorrow how it worked. For now, at least--the soup tasted good.

I SAW IT! A Sign of Spring! Oh Boy!

We're getting really tired of winter around here, and today I was peeking out the windows at the birds, mobbing near the feeders to find something to eat. Snow has covered everything for a while and there's not much for them to find.

And today, I saw a glimpse of Spring coming, just a touch, but it's there! One of the finches is beginning to turn yellow, just a bit, but it's happening. That's a sure sign that spring's coming, since they've been grey and dull all winter. When Spring actually comes, they'll be bright, brilliant, happy yellow and sing their hearts out to welcome the return of warm weather. It's nice to see these little signals and it lifts my heart.
We've got new snow today, and more coming. Jim's out stocking up on goodies and I'm home catching up on paperwork. It's too cold out to venture out to take these pictures, but I can just stick the camera out the front door with one reaching arm and catch our little left over Christmas tree, stuck in the snowbank at the edge of the driveway. Dark evergreens behind it highlight the snow on the small branches. Eventually, we'll take this little tree out into the woods to add to the pile of branches that serve the rabbits as shelter houses these cold days. When we do wrap up enough to wander out there, we see the tracks of many rabbits scurrying around their trails in the woods.
We leave a trail of corn on the log out back and many of the trails lead to that bounty. You can see that log in the background of the feeder where the camera caught a carolina chickadee in flight.

I've started lettuces in a long pot in the living room. Hopefully we'll have some delicious crunchy fresh lettuces for salads from our bay window in front. Soon, the greenhouse will warm up enough to use, and many more things will start growing. It won't be long now--I've seen the sign. Spring's Coming!

Wolf Moon

Tonight is the "Wolf Moon," the first full moon of the year, and it also happens to be the biggest in a year, since the moon is closest to us on its orbit. We're lucky enough tonight to have a clear, though cold, sky and we sat on the back porch tonight, finishing our wine with all the lights off and a cozy fire burning in the stove, while the moon rose through the sycamore and pine trees straight east of us over our little woods.

What a sight, as it moved slowly from branch to branch, now in clear sight, now appearing to be pinched in a giant's fingers as it moved through the pine branches. Sometimes a cloud covered it for a while, only to move on to show us where it was now. It looked mysterious, spooky, friendly and flirty in turns.We took a few pictures, and I'll post two of them here, of the moon rising through the trees. Mostly dark, but so pretty. I'll also post one I found on the internet, and didn't take myself. Isn't it pretty? Someone has a much better camera than I do.It's been a beautiful clear sunny day today, about 13 degrees, and we have about 2" of clean snow covering everything. It's so cold that the sun made the whole front yard look like diamonds. What a gorgeous day. I did venture out for a short time to feed the hungry birds, and walked back to see the deer tracks in the woods. I saw a lot of tracks where they were just strolling around, and many tracks around the feed corn we put out, but they're not bedding down in our woods in this cold weather, but staying in the more dense woods to the east of us, where the cold winds are more blocked. Lots of rabbit tracks though.

We've been watching the temperatures in the new greenhouse, hoping for warmth enough to plant spring garden seedlings in there, but the neighbor's tall pines shade it too much to really warm up. It is keeping in the 30's or higher, even on these really cold days, and warmed up to the high 30's today. As the sun rises in the sky, we'll get more warmth in there, and garden seedlings will be a possiblility. I think in a few days, we'll start some lettuces and radishes in there. Those are pretty cold tolerant, so should do well.

In the meantime, we'll enjoy the beauty that surrounds us and stay close to that warm wood stove.

Aren't They Beautiful?

The outside world is locked in winter around here still, and we have a new ground cover of white just this morning. But inside, things are buzzing with thoughts of Spring. Now I'm studying the seed catalogs to plan the garden layout for the next year's growing season and drawing up plans for a chicken house.

We attended a Garden Show and seed swap last weekend and a friend brought me these beautiful eggs. I've had chickens here many times over the years, from my first batch of 100 chicks we raised for meat, to long lived small flocks of a rooster and a few hens for eggs. We found a home for our remaining hens a couple of years ago when we were planning extended travel and couldn't care for them. Now we need to get our own chickens again. Just a few, for fresh eggs and for the fun.

I've always loved the sound of contented chickens scratching in the dirt and having those fresh beautiful eggs was always a treat. There's such a difference between the eggs you buy in a store and those grown in a healthy farm setting that it's hard to believe they're the same thing.

The first difference is color. These shells are a riot of color and texture, from the smaller pale brown one, to the green of the araucana, they all have their own character. Some shells are speckled or rippled, and some are more rounded. The insides are different too, with the yolks of these a rich vibrant orange color and they stand up full and round when you break the egg too, not just lay down and drool all over the pan.

We love to travel, but really miss the chickens when we're home, so we'd decided our next batch of chickens will be just a few hens, in a house so well designed that they'd be safe from varments and well fed and watered even when we're gone for a few days at a time.

With the new urban chicken movement, the internet is filled with all kinds of chicken house plans, including some space age looking pods, that we could probably strap onto the top of the motorhome and take with us if we chose to! I'm studying sturdy little buildings, with extended eaves to shelter the chickens and give them some shade in summer, little trap doors to open on the side so we can gather the eggs without having to climb inside the coop, and automatic feeders and waterers.Now, we'll only want 4 hens at the most this time, and no roosters to chase the grandkids, and I have to decide what kind to get. There are so many breeds out there. Rhode Island Reds are probably my favorites, plump, easy maintenance, and they lay brown eggs, and so pretty with their chestnut red feathers. But there are also Araucanas, who sometimes have silly topknots, leg feathers and lay green or blue eggs.There are over 60 breeds commonly available, and the decision is tough. I love the old barred rocks, with their speckled black and white feathers, the sprightly little bantams, with their punk rock colors and self sufficient manner, and the big golden orpingtons. I guess I have a while to decide. Coop first, then chickens. Hopefully one of these days I'll post a picture of our own eggs in beautiful living color.

Happy New Year 2010

We're starting the New Year right. We're at our usual place this time of year, at Myrtle Beach in South Carolina with my daughter and her husband for a wonderful visit.We spend this week at a condo on the beach, enjoying so many different things this place has to offer. We've done our share of shopping the flea markets and antique malls, finding lots of good things to list on eBay for sale when we return home. A fun lunch one day was at a little beach lunch restaurant where customers decorate a dollar and tape it to the walls. Later they take them all down and donate to a charity. We all worked on our dollar and Kim taped it right above the fireplace.

A trip to the local seafood market yielded delicious fresh shrimp, triggerfish and oysters for an unforgettable feast.Last night we walked next door to a great seafood restaurant for a marvelous meal, strolled down the street to visit a bar with entertainment, then back and sat out on our balcony in the balmy breeze and watched the lights of the city and the fireworks being shot out over the ocean by lots of people up and down the beach. It gave us time to talk over the year past and think about the things we've done right and others we might not want to repeat, then talk about our direction for 2010.Of course, our highlights were all about family-our new grandson, and our continued joy in our adventures with our Anna. Lots of good love in our life, and we feel very fortunate. Goals for this year focus on spending more energies on our creative works, and improving skills in painting and writing.
What a great evening. It was fun trying to get pictures of the fireworks around us. Timing the shot right isn't easy with the delay in a good digital camera. Some of them were shot from the beach 19 floors down and burst right off of our balcony right at our level. What a view! The full moon kept cruising in and out of the clouds overhead, adding an air of mystery to the evening too.
Today we drove south to Myrtle Beach State Park and went our separate directions. Jim for a leg stretching walk, Kim and Robert searching for letterboxes, while I strolled the beach and the sculptured oaks, wondering at those marvelous trees. Kim and I even found a terrific tree to hug, an annual tradition that we love.Lunch was the traditional hog jowls, collard greens and black-eyed peas, supposed to promise luck and prosperity for the coming year. The strawberry cheesecake was just yummy.Back to the room for a nap, then out tonight for another great seafood dinner, then I think a last soak in the hot tub is in order to finish the day properly.Tomorrow we check out and head out to see more family, then home to cold, snowy Indiana. Each year this visit leaves us refreshed, with enough sunlight and family love soaked in to hold us through the rest of our tough northern winter.

Happy New Year everyone.