Many words about nothing which is actually something
Today's plan was to do a bit of eat-later cooking then head outside to transplant the vegetable seedling I raised from seeds. Good plan, that. The problem is the sky just opened up, the rain came down almost as if someone opened a sprinkler above Acadia House and now I have to regroup and punt.
Well, the biscuits came out more than all right and are now in the fridge for quick breakfasts. I love to cook and I looooooove to cook substantial and mental breakfasts but cooking and washing up is interfering with my outdoors time. I'm slightly delighted that there are homemade from scratch biscuits and homemade (okay, I didn't raise the pigs) sausage patties in the freezer. The Morphing Vegetable Chowder will keep well too so there's lunch and maybe dinner in a pinch.
I'm sort of endlessly delighted by Outside lately. I like my Outside here. The pecan trees are sporting some very nice early foliage, all five of them. One of the trees I call the Kinder has a nest up high in its branches and when I sit on the steps outside my bedroom I can hear them peeping for food RIGHT NOW, DAMMIT.
I don't know what kind of birds live in the back Kinder tree. I can't get a good look at them, the mother bird being rather shy. I did find part of an egg shell though...light blue with soft brownish spots. The shell is very clean inside which I think means the chick hatched just fine after consuming all the nutrition surrounding it. I can see very tiny chips on the edge of the shell piece. I put it on a shelf in the garage because the kid in me always picked up Interesting Things to save because they're interesting. I don't see any reason to stop now.
I have a family of birds nesting on the front porch. I would laugh watching them build the nest because the male, a small bird who is mostly light brown except for a pink patch on his chest, would place a twig on top of one of the pillars and the female would move it to the sheltered corner where the nest is now. Then they'd fight and if he put the twig back on another pillar she'd move it again and then they'd fight. I don't know if birds have make-up sex, but this may be the real origin of the three or four peepsters now crowded into that tiny nest.
We don't use the front door that much anyway. Three times a day I take Gabriel and Diego out the front for their walks. I always warn the birds we're coming out. The mother bird will sometimes hunker down on her needy, greedy peepsters and the father bird almost always flies away. If she flies away too the chicks will get very quiet and sink down low until the dogs are walked and back in the house. So far, so good. I haven't been dive bombed yet though once they're hatched and have flown away I'll have to clean out that corner. The little things mostly eat and poop.
The house is designed...no, I don't think it was designed. I think it was built then built onto at need seventy years ago because some things do not make any damn sense. There are three doors, one coming directly into the living room, one into the room we call the office and one...into my bedroom. Right now I have that one blocked up and I'm using the brick steps outside as a temporary home for a pot of snapdragons and a pot with hawthorne.
Out front there's a row of hawthorne to the left of the porch and they are well and truly in full bloom, clusters of tiny pink blossoms which are usually being raided by butterflies and bumblebees for pollen. Actually a lot of things which just grow are available for the taste sensation of the butterflies and bees. There are patches of greenery which look like clover but clearly are not because the flowers they produce are a nearly hallucinatory Elsa Schaiparelli pink. There are patches of real clover, mostly white clover and the scent they produce is faint but absolutely intoxicating.
Earlier this spring the back yard was a field of purple. I knew the plants were herbs of some kind...okay, all plants are herbs but these looked special to me. Especially since the bumbles were getting stoned from the pollen.
When I was a kid we had a crab apple tree in the backyard. Today I'd have use for the little green apples (home made pectin) but back then they just fell and rotted until someone got around to scraping them up and chucking them into the woods behind the house.
But when the apples were rotting they produced alcohol which meant for me it was time to watch the bees and wild things from the woods come and get stoned.
The funniest thing was that different bees behaved differently when they were high. Some of them were just mellow and groovy to the point of finding a nice place to rest while sleeping off their high. Others were mean drunks, flying slowly just inches off the ground and looking for a fight, buzzing threateningly when there was not another living thing in sight.
This spring when I saw a huge bumble flying very slowly away from the purple flowers and buzzing the bee version of "You talkin' to me? You talkin' to me? No, you're not talkin' to me." with nothing else in sight to be talkin' to it...hell, I know a stoned to the eyeballs bee when I see one. I just didn't realize they could get stoned off nectar or pollen.
A friend suggested the herbs might be a kind of aconite which does not really narrow things down much toward identification...there are hundreds of varieties of aconite. Monkshood is one variety aconite and so is wolfsbane. Would I like to grow wolfsbane? Do the deer shit in the woods? My horror film loving self thinks a small patch of wolfsbane would be very cool indeed, thank you.
My friend said if I pulled one of the mystery herbs up and touched the root to my lip and my lip went numb it could be an aconite and it damn straight is. I've no idea if it's wolfsbane which is pretty rare in this country. What I do know is that my dogs loooooove to crop and eat grass and herbs but won't touch that stuff, no way, no how.
This is my first spring here so I haven't planted a thing. What grows of its own will or planted by the previous inhabitants comes as a usually delightful surprise. We'll exclude the dandelions. I like some dandelions but a few of them are the dandelions which intend to conquer the earth and they must go bye-bye.
I cleaned the dried leaves out of the beds in front of the house and everything hidden under them just grew. In addition to the hawthorne blossoming like a mofo (I know I can't bring the blossoms into the house until May 1st but it doesn't stop me wanting to) a big leaved thing tucked way in the corner shot up to almost three feet in height and produced a closed blossom I could not wait to see open since I had no idea what it was.
A big, dark purple ruffled iris, that's what it is. It's the biggest, purplest ruffledest iris I have ever seen. It's a beauty. Why there's just one tucked back there I will never know. I just was amused since I intend to kinda sorta recreate my Meme's half-remembered flower garden and I do remember she had old fashioned, non-ruffled irises. I just hadn't gotten to it yet.
I don't want a big expanse of plain sod-generated grass. Eff that noise. I'm too happy when I find a patch of forget-me-nots or wild strawberries growing all on their own. I want garden patches and clover and nice surprises and stoned-to-the-rafters bumblebees that are actually pretty cool to have around. They fly around in defiance of physics which says something about physics.
I tied up the tiny wildish looking primroses which are growing near the Iris Giant so they will not languish on the ground. I trim things and mow chunks of yard. I have been turning over the garden bed for the kitchen garden and I'm planning the smaller gardens.
I'm essentially me at age eight armed with seeds, potting soil and tools. I talk to the bumbles and the dragonflies and the birds. Oh and the dogs and cats too though there tends from time to time to be a fair amount of cussin' involved there. I really think Diego is one of those "You didn't SAY I couldn't chew up that piece of paper so what's YOUR problem" kind of dogs.
There are times when it's hard for me to remember what it felt like to live anywhere but here. I think I may just have defined the word 'home'.
Well, the biscuits came out more than all right and are now in the fridge for quick breakfasts. I love to cook and I looooooove to cook substantial and mental breakfasts but cooking and washing up is interfering with my outdoors time. I'm slightly delighted that there are homemade from scratch biscuits and homemade (okay, I didn't raise the pigs) sausage patties in the freezer. The Morphing Vegetable Chowder will keep well too so there's lunch and maybe dinner in a pinch.
I'm sort of endlessly delighted by Outside lately. I like my Outside here. The pecan trees are sporting some very nice early foliage, all five of them. One of the trees I call the Kinder has a nest up high in its branches and when I sit on the steps outside my bedroom I can hear them peeping for food RIGHT NOW, DAMMIT.
I don't know what kind of birds live in the back Kinder tree. I can't get a good look at them, the mother bird being rather shy. I did find part of an egg shell though...light blue with soft brownish spots. The shell is very clean inside which I think means the chick hatched just fine after consuming all the nutrition surrounding it. I can see very tiny chips on the edge of the shell piece. I put it on a shelf in the garage because the kid in me always picked up Interesting Things to save because they're interesting. I don't see any reason to stop now.
I have a family of birds nesting on the front porch. I would laugh watching them build the nest because the male, a small bird who is mostly light brown except for a pink patch on his chest, would place a twig on top of one of the pillars and the female would move it to the sheltered corner where the nest is now. Then they'd fight and if he put the twig back on another pillar she'd move it again and then they'd fight. I don't know if birds have make-up sex, but this may be the real origin of the three or four peepsters now crowded into that tiny nest.
We don't use the front door that much anyway. Three times a day I take Gabriel and Diego out the front for their walks. I always warn the birds we're coming out. The mother bird will sometimes hunker down on her needy, greedy peepsters and the father bird almost always flies away. If she flies away too the chicks will get very quiet and sink down low until the dogs are walked and back in the house. So far, so good. I haven't been dive bombed yet though once they're hatched and have flown away I'll have to clean out that corner. The little things mostly eat and poop.
The house is designed...no, I don't think it was designed. I think it was built then built onto at need seventy years ago because some things do not make any damn sense. There are three doors, one coming directly into the living room, one into the room we call the office and one...into my bedroom. Right now I have that one blocked up and I'm using the brick steps outside as a temporary home for a pot of snapdragons and a pot with hawthorne.
Out front there's a row of hawthorne to the left of the porch and they are well and truly in full bloom, clusters of tiny pink blossoms which are usually being raided by butterflies and bumblebees for pollen. Actually a lot of things which just grow are available for the taste sensation of the butterflies and bees. There are patches of greenery which look like clover but clearly are not because the flowers they produce are a nearly hallucinatory Elsa Schaiparelli pink. There are patches of real clover, mostly white clover and the scent they produce is faint but absolutely intoxicating.
Earlier this spring the back yard was a field of purple. I knew the plants were herbs of some kind...okay, all plants are herbs but these looked special to me. Especially since the bumbles were getting stoned from the pollen.
When I was a kid we had a crab apple tree in the backyard. Today I'd have use for the little green apples (home made pectin) but back then they just fell and rotted until someone got around to scraping them up and chucking them into the woods behind the house.
But when the apples were rotting they produced alcohol which meant for me it was time to watch the bees and wild things from the woods come and get stoned.
The funniest thing was that different bees behaved differently when they were high. Some of them were just mellow and groovy to the point of finding a nice place to rest while sleeping off their high. Others were mean drunks, flying slowly just inches off the ground and looking for a fight, buzzing threateningly when there was not another living thing in sight.
This spring when I saw a huge bumble flying very slowly away from the purple flowers and buzzing the bee version of "You talkin' to me? You talkin' to me? No, you're not talkin' to me." with nothing else in sight to be talkin' to it...hell, I know a stoned to the eyeballs bee when I see one. I just didn't realize they could get stoned off nectar or pollen.
A friend suggested the herbs might be a kind of aconite which does not really narrow things down much toward identification...there are hundreds of varieties of aconite. Monkshood is one variety aconite and so is wolfsbane. Would I like to grow wolfsbane? Do the deer shit in the woods? My horror film loving self thinks a small patch of wolfsbane would be very cool indeed, thank you.
My friend said if I pulled one of the mystery herbs up and touched the root to my lip and my lip went numb it could be an aconite and it damn straight is. I've no idea if it's wolfsbane which is pretty rare in this country. What I do know is that my dogs loooooove to crop and eat grass and herbs but won't touch that stuff, no way, no how.
This is my first spring here so I haven't planted a thing. What grows of its own will or planted by the previous inhabitants comes as a usually delightful surprise. We'll exclude the dandelions. I like some dandelions but a few of them are the dandelions which intend to conquer the earth and they must go bye-bye.
I cleaned the dried leaves out of the beds in front of the house and everything hidden under them just grew. In addition to the hawthorne blossoming like a mofo (I know I can't bring the blossoms into the house until May 1st but it doesn't stop me wanting to) a big leaved thing tucked way in the corner shot up to almost three feet in height and produced a closed blossom I could not wait to see open since I had no idea what it was.
A big, dark purple ruffled iris, that's what it is. It's the biggest, purplest ruffledest iris I have ever seen. It's a beauty. Why there's just one tucked back there I will never know. I just was amused since I intend to kinda sorta recreate my Meme's half-remembered flower garden and I do remember she had old fashioned, non-ruffled irises. I just hadn't gotten to it yet.
I don't want a big expanse of plain sod-generated grass. Eff that noise. I'm too happy when I find a patch of forget-me-nots or wild strawberries growing all on their own. I want garden patches and clover and nice surprises and stoned-to-the-rafters bumblebees that are actually pretty cool to have around. They fly around in defiance of physics which says something about physics.
I tied up the tiny wildish looking primroses which are growing near the Iris Giant so they will not languish on the ground. I trim things and mow chunks of yard. I have been turning over the garden bed for the kitchen garden and I'm planning the smaller gardens.
I'm essentially me at age eight armed with seeds, potting soil and tools. I talk to the bumbles and the dragonflies and the birds. Oh and the dogs and cats too though there tends from time to time to be a fair amount of cussin' involved there. I really think Diego is one of those "You didn't SAY I couldn't chew up that piece of paper so what's YOUR problem" kind of dogs.
There are times when it's hard for me to remember what it felt like to live anywhere but here. I think I may just have defined the word 'home'.