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| Crocuses in my garden. |
It was a week of gradual departures. After having a houseful last weekend, the Thayn family left for home on Monday. The house seemed so quiet and a little sad after that, as it always does when they leave. On Thursday, Stacey and Miriam left for Utah to attend a wedding. Then the house seemed sepulchral. Stacey will be back tomorrow evening. Miriam is staying out west for a short visit and will be back in two weeks. Daniel is coming with her to visit for a while. I’m looking forward to that.
When I’m alone in the house, my first inclination is to clean. If I’m going to be alone, I want the house tidy. I don’t know why I’m like that, I just am. So I did some house cleaning on Thursday. Unfortunately, an hour after Stacey and Miriam left, before they’d even arrived at the Buffalo airport, I discovered that the dishwasher was broken. It just kept running and wouldn’t finish a cycle or shut off. I am not mechanical at all, Stacey is. She’s the one who repairs appliances at our house. She’s good at it. I sent a message her to see what I should do. She sent a message back and said to unplug it – she’ll fix it when she gets home. So I’ve been hand washing dishes since then. But that’s okay. When I’m home alone I don’t dirty many dishes. I use just one plate, one fork, one cup, one pan – wash and reuse. Easy. So I began my Spring Cleaning this wekend. I didn’t do too much because the weather was nice and I spent as much time as I could outdoors in the yard, but it was a start.
When I’m by myself in the house, I like to fill the house with music. This time I went on a Nine Symphony Binge. Before Beethoven, the composers who wrote symphonies wrote a lot of them. Haydn, who pretty much invented the symphony, wrote one hundred and four of them. They are lovely and light and a lot of them sound the same. Mozart wrote forty-one. His symphonies start out sounding Haydnesque, but as he matured they transform into something different with more depth, more drama. Then along came Beethoven. He only wrote nine symphonies. The first two sound very Mozartian, then things begin to change when you get the powerful Nos. 3 through 9. After Beethoven transformed the symphony, composers wrote fewer, but more monumental symphonies. And they seemed to get stuck at nine. Schubert, Dvorák, Bruckner, Mahler, and Vaughan Williams all wrote nine symphonies. And that’s what I listened to in my empty house. Beethoven on Thursday, Schubert and Dvorák on Friday, Bruckner and Mahler on Saturday, and today, the lovely symphonies of Ralph Vaughan Williams. Glorious music to keep me happy in my solitude.
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| My musical weekend companions: Beethoven, Schubert, Dvorak, Bruckner, Mahler, and Vaughan Williams |
The weather turned warmer toward the end of the week. On Friday we hit 73°. I’d almost forgotten that it could be that warm here. It was wonderful. Earlier in the week it rained and washed away most of the snow. By Saturday it was all gone. It’s nice to see the crocuses again. Some of them look a bit battered from being buried under snow for so long, but the newly risen ones are glorious. Oddly there are crocuses coming up in places where I never planted them – a few out in the lawn, two way out in the orchard, some under one of the maples in the front yard. I don’t mind, they can grow wherever they want. Other flowers have sprung up too – glory-of-the-snow (chionodoxa) and Siberian squill seemed to appear in matter of hours. The hyacinths, tulips, and daffodils are coming up quickly now too. The ground is thawing, which means mud. In some parts of the yard it’s like walking on a wet sponge. But the warmth was just a tease. It’s colder again. I see we’re to get freezing rain tonight and snow tomorrow. But they say it won’t accumulate. We’ll see. The war with winter isn’t over yet.
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| The long flower bed. |
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| Crocuses. |
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| Crocuses I didn't plant. |
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| Glory-of-the-snow. |
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| Siberian squill. |
I planted more seed trays last week. On Friday I planted all my brassicas – broccoli, cabbage, and cauliflower. They are eager to grow and have sprouted already. The tomato seedlings are growing big and are almost ready to transplant into larger pots. And my clivias are going to bloom after all! I have four potted clivias – one in the livingroom bay window and three in my bedroom window. They usually bloom in February or early March, but this year they didn’t. I’d given up hope of seeing them bloom this year, but now there are buds. They are just late. They must have sensed that winter would linger this year. They delayed their bloom time until I was at my wits end and needed some extra cheer. Smart plants.
We had some avian adventures last week. A bear came around sometime on Sunday night or early Monday morning and smashed my bird feeders. The bear has been moving around the area. A few days before, he destroyed the feeders of my neighbor down the road. I bought a new (and inexpensive, in case the bear comes by again) feeder. The birds would be sad if I stopped feeding them, and I would be sad not to see them every day. Stacey reported seeing some white birds on the Waterwheel pond in Colesburg on her way home from work on Wednesday. We all grabbed binoculars and cameras and hopped in the car and drove down to see what they were. They were Bonaparte’s gulls. They are not rare, but aren’t seen here very often. Then on Friday afternoon I glanced out the kitchen window to see if the bird feeders needed filling and saw a Cooper’s hawk on the front lawn in the process of killing a mourning dove. I grabbed the camera and got some good shots. It was there for five minutes and then flew away with the dove in its talons. I heard bluebirds singing on Friday while I was working outdoors. I don’t have any birdhouses set up, so I know they won’t be nesting in my yard, but neighbors around me have nest boxes. I think they are one of the loveliest of all the songbirds.
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| Bear attack! |
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| Bonaparte's gull at the Waterwheel Pond. |
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| The Cooper's hawk in the front yard. |
Despite the dismal forecast for the next few days, I’m feeling more optimistic about the weather. I think it’s almost over. To show how much faith I have in Spring, I unplugged and retired the heated waterer down at the barn and set up the rain barrel. No more carrying water down from the house every day – I hope. The chickens are feeling optimistic too. I have three hens now that have gone broody.
It was strange being at church by myself today. I was the only one sitting in our row. Everyone kept asking where Stacey and Miriam were. Now I’m home and my sorry little lunch is in the oven. After I do the chores I might try to take a nap. I feel especially tired this afternoon. As usual, I haven’t slept well these past nights. When I’m alone, every tiny noise wakes me up – the furnace turning on, a car going by on the road, a dog barking. I’m glad this will be my last night alone.
