Rainy Days

The rain of the past few days is giving everything a jump start in the vegetable patch. Pumpkins are in flower and sending forth their curling tendrils.
The yellow squash is in flower and has thus far escaped the borer that devastated our crops last year.

Brussels Sprouts are happy for the cooler temperatures and becoming strong and sturdy plants in an amazing shade of light blue.

Some of the tallest Marigolds I have ever grown are nestled among the tomato plants. Their scent hits you as soon as you come within sight of the garden.

Some

days

here

are

so

breath-

takingly

beautiful

I cannot

believe

my eyes.

Despite the fact that I have about a lifetime's worth of weeding...and the rains are bringing forth yet more weeds, I somehow cannot be bothered with or stressed by the fact that I may never catch up. Days like these are wondrous here in the Valley. The temperatures are cool, you can smell new green growth in the air, and everything is covered in a fine blueish mist. There must be five colors of flowers bursting on the largest Nasturtiums I have ever seen. They are running a muck in the pumpkin patch and gourd patch.

The Birdhouse Gourds are growing before my very eyes and tomorrow I will place another support on top of this one which will let them climb to a height of six feet- which still may not be enough!

Delicate lettuces are coming in every day as the new seedlings try to gain a foothold in their peat pots. These lettuces are three year old plants and just put forth new growth every season.

Apples are coming in on the tree and are just loving all this rain. It is not unusual to spot a tawny fawn and her parents nibbling on the new fruits.

The hay is getting wet this season. The horseman is not too happy about this but the cut was timed wrong. Most of it was salvaged and the rest left uncut until we dry out. I can hardly blame the cutter, however, when for so long rain was in the forecast and did not arrive. But he took a chance and cut over the weekend and it has poured down rain- and hail- ever since.

Market beans are coming in after a very precarious start. We lost an entire seedling run and the second did not look to be faring any better. But most survived and are now putting on vigorous growth.

Wren's Prince

Kiss

a
Frog,

and

get

a

Prince.

It has always been our motto around here. Ever since Wren was a baby we have always played up the old folklore of kissing frogs and magically appearing Princes. When we left Florida, I had assumed our frog seeing days were somewhat over. There's toads in the gardens and bullfrogs aplenty in the ponds, but the smallish little green variety I thought was rare. The first time I spotted a little green, my immediate thought was that it somehow smuggled its way from Naples in one of our deck chairs or tables. But a quick search here-

http://www.ohioamphibians.com/frogs/frogspecies.html gave me some relief. I hadn't single handedly introduced the dreaded Cuban Treefrog into Ohio. Although I am sure someone has!

The species we often see, I believe, is Cope's Gray Treefrog or the basic Gray Treefrog (nearly identical except for differences at the cellular level). Our little guys are more green than gray, however. If we listen carefully, we can hear them peeping on the back porch at nightfall.

It is difficult around here to move near a flower patch and not turn up a toad. We have spotted both the Eastern American and Fowler's Toad. Both species appear to be very well fed here in our gardens and we welcome them wholeheartedly. They do not seem appreciative of our toad houses of terra cotta, but we put them out each Spring none the less. The Northern Leopard Frog appears on the water banks in such great numbers that it is a wonder anything else in the frog family can sustain itself around here! A casual stroll down the line of the ponds produces a regular Plop!... Plop!... Plop! ...the whole way down. You are then met with curious large eyes just visible above the surface line of the water. The abundance of toads and frogs at Hawk's Run is another true testament to the land's ability in southern Ohio to host a range of wildlife that elsewhere is becoming very scarce. It was not unusual in Florida to see amphibians with birth defects, a growing problem in many areas of our country due to pollution. I have yet to see that once here in Ohio.

For more on our hoppity friends, one of our favorites books is Toad by the Road A Year in the Life of These Amazing Amphibians by Joanne Ryder and Maggie Kneen.
Beautifully illustrated and full of short poems and factual tidbits, like the bewildering story of a toad who eats his own skin...yes, all toads do! That is why we never see one lying about once a toad sheds its skin for growth, and it is the basis for the old folklore.

Win Some..Lose Some

In gardening, there is no such thing as success all of the time.
This year I have made a valiant attempt to save money and grow everything from seed. I had two three level indoor greenhouses perched right up against our wall of windowpanes in the great room. It has been a revolving door of peat pots since early March. Our main goal was the vegetable garden. Getting a head start on plants for the newly tilled over earth seemed like a good idea. The garden sits at the southern portion of our grassy area before the fields give way to hay production for the horses who live down the road on another farm. We dedicate about five acres to hay every season. The other goal was to grow our own Annuals and Perennials which seem to be getting ever more expensive at the local nurseries. I started seeds for Black Eyed Susans, Forget Me Nots, Marigolds, Morning Glories, Nasturtiums, Poppies, Purple Cone flowers, Snapdragons, Sweet Peas, and Zinnias. It was a bigger list than I had anticipated but I knew that there was just not going to be the disposable income for buying these plants full grown. The planted areas here at the farm are pretty extensive, and the weeding that accompanies these areas is exhaustive. The more we get planted it seems, the less weeding there is to be done. It is a nice thing to be able to see beautiful color and know you are saving yourself from knee and back-breaking work. I love gardening in every sense of the word, but there is another reason we have to keep up the appearance of the farm. It doesn't happen often, but my husband's art brings clients to the farm to discuss their projects and see his wood shop. It is an awful thing to bring a client to a house that is unkempt. You may as well just place a "I'm disorganized" sticker on your forehead. And yes, while we can be disorganized, I don't like to announce it with an unkempt yard! The seedling project has educated me about growing flowers. Some varieties are just not meant to be grown at home by a novice. For instance, poppies do much better broadcast in sand into the places where you wish them to grow. Growing them in peat pots is near pointless. Sweet peas can be tough to germinate, as can Black Eyed Susans. Cone flowers take a while to grow, whereas their bought in four inch pot sisters take off growing like wildfire. Snapdragons have to be thinned and then wilt and die if you miss a day of care. Marigolds, Nasturtiums, and Zinnias can be grown by someone with a brown thumb and four brown fingers they are so easy.

So it was that one of my local favorite nurseries ran a special on beautiful Snapdragons in reds, whites, and yellows. The seedlings I had grown were meant for our front entrance under two newly planted Lilac trees that our old trees had given birth to. Needless to say, my seedlings of Snaps had failed miserably. Snapdragons may be one of my favorite Annuals because they just cannot help but bring a smile to your face. They are a cheery group indeed.

On the whole, I would say the seedling experiment is a success. Most everything has survived and is flourishing, and I spent nary any money in flowers this year thus far. That is not to say if I had unlimited funds for flowers, I would be hitting those nurseries every weekend, because I would. There is no place more exciting or adventurous than a nursery decked out in all its floral regalia. Here's my local favorites: Greenfield Plant Farm in the Landon Maineville area, Allyson's Gardens in Lebanon, and the local Lebanon Farmer's Market held each Thursday at noon near the town library. I have found some wonderfully healthy plants at the Market that I haven't seen in the nurseries. Greenfield's has the most extensive selection in the area and gardeners who know just about everything I have ever thrown at them. Allyson's is smaller but again just as knowledgeable. One of her gardeners has a Shaker garden that was on last year's garden tour and it was to die for. So while I am learning to grow my own, I'll still be popping into the locals. I think this is important because gardening just would not be the same without them.

A Barrel of Monkeys

Real Life sometimes hits you in the oddest of moments.
This has been a busy morning. We have yet another rainy day and I have a list of things to accomplish a mile long. There is no school for my oldest pumpkin today and she is bouncing off the walls. During breakfast I was able to do my writing for one of my favorite "foodies", and the subject matter made me HUNGRY! Once the kitchen clean up was finished after breakfast, it was immediately time to make lunch. I wondered if I could fit in a batch of homemade cookies in the process? Sure, why not? When you have this much to do in one day a batch of cookies does not make or break you. An added benefit is that it grabs the attention of two children for a full forty five minutes. Once lunch was over and the promise of cookies after a nap is lulling around in their heads, nap time is coming along pretty nicely. One down one to go... I am sitting on the couch fumbling with a Barrel of Monkeys and my three year old is showing me how "Daddy does a double monkey". I am intrigued I realize, not because of the feat of the double monkey, but because I realize that my house at times is just like this game. A Barrel of Monkeys, and I am trying to string everything together nicely. Let's face it, one mom, two children under four, a big lumbering dog, and two cats spells chaos in any sense of the imagination. House clean and perfect- no. Children clean and perfect- no. Mom- most certainly no. One of the cats has just chased the lumbering dog in a round about that has ended with the papers from my morning's writings everywhere. My phone conversation with my little sister in Florida earlier had me thinking the tiredness in her new mom's voice echoed mine. I jokingly said, "it takes a village". A large part of me wasn't joking. It is no wonder we are all so tired all of the time. I think we now live in an age where demands on each family unit are so great that the "village" no longer exists. I used to think, too, that the reason of people living apart was the main foible. Now I know this is not the case. Even people who live right next door do not always have the ability or time to pitch in- and this goes both ways. I cannot tell how many times I have been phoned for a favor that I just could not do at that moment. You feel terribly about it but also realize that one more thing under your nose at that moment and all things might just go haywire. Just like that chain of monkeys, the likelihood is that it will all fall apart if I try to do one more thing. The economy demands that we use every spare moment right now just trying to survive, but none of the other "work" lets up either. It is the busy time for growing food, maintaining the house outside, and most families have children at home now that school has let out. So how do we cope? I find that we have to begin to get a "village" mentality back in our lives. I find this a topic of conversation more and more amongst my friends. A very close friend said recently, and I am paraphrasing, that we have to find a way to keep what is good in our circle. I have taken this to heart. What changes will occur in my life as I get back to the business of survival in this tough economy will be taken with this advice in mind. Who knew a little children's game could open up so much space for reflection?

The Soap & the Serpant

I like
snakes,
I really
do...
but there
is a place
for them...
and it is
not the
soap dish.
Let me set a scene for you. It had been a long grueling week for my husband who is working around the clock to get a project completed for a client. We are relaxing for a few minutes in the great room on Thursday evening prior to my husband having to go out to his workshop yet again. My three year old has just run upstairs to put some stray coins in her bank. She comes back down, passing over the cat laying in the hall who decides it is high time she comes down too. Sunshine has been sprawled out in the upstairs hall for hours like a beached whale. I hear my husband's footsteps heading toward the laundry room in the upstairs bathroom. And then I hear a fairly long string of loud expletives. I call up to be sure he is all right and barely make out the word "snake". Hmmm...I think and get moving toward the stairs myself. What I see is unbelievable. My husband is standing just inside the bathroom, having reached for his boots, and has caught a glimpse of something moving on the bathroom counter. At first he thinks it may be a mouse, then maybe a few mice- and as his eyes adjust to what he is seeing, he steps back. A snake has coiled up in the iron soap dish, furtively eyeing both him, and the other snake which is looking a bit threatening in the mirror! This gives me just enough time to grab a wood walking stick with a nice handle. I pass it to my husband trying not to make any quick moves. I plead with him to be careful. He cheerfully tells me he has seen this on television and can handle the situation. And the next thing I know he is holding the snake at the head and walking it out the front door. I am stunned, both by the snake, and the snake charmer. Our guest is dropped into a plastic bucket for identification and covered tightly. A few moments later we realize that what we have is a pretty large and well fed rat snake. A lot of odd occurrences throughout the day begin to make sense. Sometime in the early afternoon both of our cats were staring down the basement stairwell. There was a gate perched in the landing there and I did not think too much of this at the time. The door there is rarely open and I figured they were doing a bit of investigating. Then there were some odd odors. I couldn't put my finger on it but it was musky- like a cross between old shoes or old meat. I know, gross, but then it simply went away. It is hard to tell how long our slithering friend lived with us. I know that the past year has seen very few rodents running around the house. I attributed this to our cats, but perhaps not. Rat snakes can live to be twenty years old, and do much good. We let him go right outside the barn. He may face some competition out there, and hopefully will not find the baby birds in the conifers. Just today we saw one of the hawks fly over carrying a rather large snake. And we think we have had a tough week? There's no way to tell if our serpent became the hawks dinner today, but I'd be surprised if we find him in the soap dish again!

Thanks to Kenny Brooks for the name of this blog post!

PS- You can click on the photographs here on my blog for a close up view of the snake...almost just like being there...almost.

Farewell to May

It seems
just
yester-
day we
were
tying
ribbon
to the
light
post
in
hope
for May
to
arrive.

Here she is come and gone after tomorrow...time spent out of doors passes so quickly. I spent the greater part of May tending to the vegetable gardens and rotating the weeding of the flower gardens. It has rained here in the Ohio River Valley at what seems to be the optimum waterfall conditions for weeds! My daughter looks forward to the Maypole every Spring. I find it intriguing that most little girls who visit our home in May know exactly what to do with the ribbons. No matter the age, if a little girl can walk, those ribbons just beckon to be held and run in circles. Peels of giggles and entanglement ensue, and it is all quite lovely to watch. Maybe such old traditions really are stored in the genes? Most parents of the children look at me in wonderment as their girls run with the ribbons saying that they have never seen a real Maypole. I smile, because while the child might never have seen one in real life, they may store images from Fairy Tales, both told and imagined, in the depths of their memory. We will miss the colorful ribbons blowing in the wind as we turn toward June. The exchange will be colorful flowers in the gardens from now until late Autumn. One thing is certain, there will still be little girls running in the front lawns in circles!

A Flash of Blue

I have been seeing a flash of blue here and there since early Spring...

I am so excited to report that a family of bluebirds is finally nesting in the box at the side of the house. Each year I have watched this box only to be disappointed. But this year, they arrived. They built a little nest and have been coming and going. I had planned on moving this box before any birds had a chance to nest in it. The previous owners of the farm had placed the box here, but ideally a bluebird box should be on a metal or smooth wood pole. This keeps the likelihood of rat snakes eating the eggs or young to a minimum. Rat snakes are notorious climbers and this tree is no problem to overcome. Another pitfall of placing this box on a tree is lice. I found this out the hard way while trying to see if eggs or young birds were in the box. I carefully placed my camera up to the hole, snapped a photo, and noticed all the dirt on my lens. Oh no, I thought, that's not dirt. It is moving. Hundreds of bird lice. My camera is perched in a nice tight zip lock until I can figure out how to remove the insects from inside my lens. This was all rather disgusting and I cannot imagine how the bluebirds have overcome this problem if they were successful with eggs this year. I can only hope that either the eggs are yet to be laid or they laid early and have already fledged. I will be monitoring this box constantly over the next few days to see if the parents are still coming and going. If I do not see them soon, I will get into the box and get it cleaned out. De-licing a bird box is not top on my list of favorite things to do but knowing that it is infested is going to drive me crazy. It needs another coat of paint and I will do that at the same time. So one bluebird family is getting their Spring cleaning a bit late, but hopefully they will still be able to lay another clutch before it becomes too warm. They certainly are beautiful and I would like to see a lot more of them around!