Frustrated - verb, prevented from accomplishing a purpose or fulfilling a desire; thwarted. From Latin frustratus, “to deceive, disappoint, make vain.”
Aggravated - verb, annoyed or exasperated. From Latin aggravatus, “to render more troublesome,” literally “to make heavy,” from ad “to” + gravis “heavy.”
Discouraged - verb, deprived of confidence, hope, or spirit. From Old French descoragier “dishearten,” from des “away” + corage “spirit.”
Disgusted - verb, feeling extreme dislike or disapproval of something. From Middle French desgoust “strong dislike, repugnance,” from des “opposite of” + gouster “taste.”
Can you see where I’m going here? These are the words (the polite ones, anyway) that best describe how I feel when I look at the weather forecast and see headlines that read: Arctic Blast Set to Punish Northeast with Cold, May Snow and Record-Breaking May Snowstorm Headed for Northeast. That’s what happened here last week. We’re still in the middle of it. After a day or two of fine spring weather early in the week, winter reasserted itself and plunged us back into cold and frost and snow. Maybe I was expressing some prophetic foresight when I decided not to put away my wooly socks and my fleece and flannel lined jeans and jacket on May first. Or maybe it was a lack of faith or a dwindling hope that spring would ever come. Here we are 41 days away from the first day of summer, and there are still patches of snow on the ground.
Aggravated - verb, annoyed or exasperated. From Latin aggravatus, “to render more troublesome,” literally “to make heavy,” from ad “to” + gravis “heavy.”
Discouraged - verb, deprived of confidence, hope, or spirit. From Old French descoragier “dishearten,” from des “away” + corage “spirit.”
Disgusted - verb, feeling extreme dislike or disapproval of something. From Middle French desgoust “strong dislike, repugnance,” from des “opposite of” + gouster “taste.”
Can you see where I’m going here? These are the words (the polite ones, anyway) that best describe how I feel when I look at the weather forecast and see headlines that read: Arctic Blast Set to Punish Northeast with Cold, May Snow and Record-Breaking May Snowstorm Headed for Northeast. That’s what happened here last week. We’re still in the middle of it. After a day or two of fine spring weather early in the week, winter reasserted itself and plunged us back into cold and frost and snow. Maybe I was expressing some prophetic foresight when I decided not to put away my wooly socks and my fleece and flannel lined jeans and jacket on May first. Or maybe it was a lack of faith or a dwindling hope that spring would ever come. Here we are 41 days away from the first day of summer, and there are still patches of snow on the ground.
 |
| Here is the Jet Stream plunging out of the Arctic to vex me. |
 |
| Blue means cold. We're very blue. |
I did exercise some faith and hope when I moved many of my plant starts onto the back porch on Monday. I do that every year at the beginning of May to prepare them for planting out at the end of the month. But on Tuesday night, I had to set up and turn on an electric heater to keep them from freezing. I haven’t turned it off yet.
 |
| Plants on the back porch. |
Tuesday was a chilly but sunny day, so I did a final tilling of parts of the garden, envisioning as I tilled the places where I will plant beans and corn and where the rows of tomato plants will go in a few weeks. On Wednesday, it snowed and shrouded my vision in white despair. It didn’t stick long. On Thursday it was almost sunny. I mowed the lawn while wearing my winter work coat.
We had frosts and hard freezes every night all week. The garden took considerable damage. Many of the lilac, plum, and pear buds were killed. I don’t know if we’ll have flowers or fruit from them this year. The asparagus that was just an inch above the ground got frosted off. Other plants were set back. The lilies were nipped and I don’t know if they will recover enough to bloom. A year without lilies is a sad thing. It frustrates me to watch it all happen knowing it is beyond my control, but such is the life of a gardener or a farmer. We are at the mercy of Nature and Nature is merciless.
We had frosts and hard freezes every night all week. The garden took considerable damage. Many of the lilac, plum, and pear buds were killed. I don’t know if we’ll have flowers or fruit from them this year. The asparagus that was just an inch above the ground got frosted off. Other plants were set back. The lilies were nipped and I don’t know if they will recover enough to bloom. A year without lilies is a sad thing. It frustrates me to watch it all happen knowing it is beyond my control, but such is the life of a gardener or a farmer. We are at the mercy of Nature and Nature is merciless.
 |
| Late narcissus before the snow. |
Although my garden has been hard hit, my chickens are thriving. Down in the barn, I released the older batch of chicks into the main flock. They haven’t fully integrated yet. Chickens live under a strict hierarchy, the famous pecking order. These chicks had their own order among themselves, established when they were in isolation. Now they must fit into the larger group. It takes days, maybe weeks, to get it all sorted out and there is much bullying and drama involved, but peace will prevail eventually.
The younger chicks are now free from their box and enjoying the wider space of the isolation pen. They are busy establishing their own pecking order. I love to watch them jostle and spar with each other. I’m trying to determine which of them are cockerels and which are pullets. If all the bullies I see turn out to be cockerels, it looks like half of the 30+ chicks are male. I’ll know for sure in a few more weeks.
The cold weather has been rough on the pigs (named Wilbur and Orville by Miriam). They both have a cough, which worries me. I’ve been feeding them pans of warm mash laced with vitamins. I’d taken the heat lamp out of their pen when the weather warmed a little, but now I’ve put it back. Stacey even gave the smaller pig (Wilbur) a chest rub with some Vick’s VapoRub. They love their new pen. They’ve made a bed in their shed where they bury themselves in the deep straw. I think they’ll do better when the weather gets warmer.
The younger chicks are now free from their box and enjoying the wider space of the isolation pen. They are busy establishing their own pecking order. I love to watch them jostle and spar with each other. I’m trying to determine which of them are cockerels and which are pullets. If all the bullies I see turn out to be cockerels, it looks like half of the 30+ chicks are male. I’ll know for sure in a few more weeks.
The cold weather has been rough on the pigs (named Wilbur and Orville by Miriam). They both have a cough, which worries me. I’ve been feeding them pans of warm mash laced with vitamins. I’d taken the heat lamp out of their pen when the weather warmed a little, but now I’ve put it back. Stacey even gave the smaller pig (Wilbur) a chest rub with some Vick’s VapoRub. They love their new pen. They’ve made a bed in their shed where they bury themselves in the deep straw. I think they’ll do better when the weather gets warmer.
 |
| Orville and Wilbur. |
On Friday Miriam and I went plant shopping. The local nurseries have opened and I needed to go out and see some vigorous growing things. We went first to Leona’s up on North Hollow Road. Then we went to Hershey Farms down in Coudersport. It was very therapeutic despite having to wear masks, which I find to be claustrophobic. I bought two flats of plants that I’ve set on the back porch with my own starts, all of them waiting until the end of the month (if we’re lucky) to be planted out.
Friday afternoon the promised Arctic Blast arrived and it began to snow. Yesterday morning there was two inches of it on the ground. The daffodils and tulips were mashed down yet again. Frustrating indeed. The sun has enough strength now to melt the snow when the clouds clear enough to let it shine. But in the shady places there is still snow this morning.
Friday afternoon the promised Arctic Blast arrived and it began to snow. Yesterday morning there was two inches of it on the ground. The daffodils and tulips were mashed down yet again. Frustrating indeed. The sun has enough strength now to melt the snow when the clouds clear enough to let it shine. But in the shady places there is still snow this morning.
 |
| Thursday, Friday, Saturday. |
I ran out of seed for my bird feeders yesterday. This bad weather has been hard on them and they’ve been mobbing my feeders. Sometimes there are as many as twenty gold finches jostling for a place at the feeders. Chickadees, titmice, nuthatches, chipping sparrows, cardinals, grosbeaks, and various woodpeckers come early and stay all day. I love to see them. I’m sad that the weather has been so terrible during their nesting season. Speaking of nesting, the robins have moved in. They were trying to build a nest in a ridiculous spot under the eaves of the back porch. There was no place for them to anchor the nest and all the materials they brought just kept falling to the ground. So we put up a little shelf for them. They have a nest there now and I think there are eggs in it. Over at Shillig’s house there are three robin’s nests tucked, one in a lilac bush and two in clematis vines, all of them with eggs. The bluebirds never moved into my birdhouses. After two weeks of checking them out, they moved on. Then house sparrows tried to move in, but I won’t allow that, so I blocked the entry holes. So we won’t have bluebirds this year, and that’s sad.
 |
| Goldfinches in the crab apple tree. |
 |
| Goldfinch. |
 |
| Rose-breasted grosbeak. |
 |
| Cardinal. |
 |
| The robins' nest on its shelf. |
 |
| A nest at Shillig's house. |
Because we were out of bird seed and needed some other things, Stacey and I drove up to Wellsville. We stopped at the church to flush the toilets and do a quick building check. It’s been nine weeks now since we last held services there. The building seemed forlorn. After the church, we went to the Tractor Supply for bird seed and came away with another bird feeder, a kiddie pool to use as a chicken dust bath in the barn, and a few other items. We stopped to do some grocery shopping at Tops and then stopped again at the Genesee Builders Supply for sand for the chicken dust bath, boards for a barn quilt order, and a few other things. It was nice to be out and about, but I don’t really like to shop even when the things we’re buying are for my own projects. It was even worse this time because we had to wear masks. I kept pulling it up in the stores and then pulling it down outside. When I pull it up, it forces my breath upwards and fogs up my glasses. I’ll be glad when we don’t have to wear them, but I’ll still dislike shopping.
Last week my sanity music took a sharp turn. After several weeks of relying on the instrumental music of Bach, Vivaldi, and Mozart to distract me, I went to the opera. I discovered opera late in my explorations in the world of classical music. I was in my 20's. Before that, I thought that I didn’t like it, although I hadn’t really listened to much of it. But when we lived in Los Angeles, I became a devoted listener of KUSC, a great classical music radio station. On Friday nights I began listening to a program called The Opera Box hosted by Jim Svejda. That’s when I first really listened to opera. And after having the plots explained to me, I found that I actually enjoyed most of it and I began to explore it on my own. I had a brief fascination for Wagner, but he quickly became tedious – not enough melody and too long (it takes 17 hours to listen to Der Ring des Nibelungen!). I found Mozart and Bizet’s operas to be charming. But it was the late Italians that I came to love, especially Puccini. His operas, La bohème, Tosca, Madama Butterfly, Gianni Schicchi, and Turandot are wonderful. So last week I indulged in the glorious drama of Puccini operas. They are full of anger, madness, deceit, betrayal, death, despair, joy, and passion, all set to ravishing music sung by magnificent voices. Perfect distractions for my confined mind.
This is an important weekend in our family. Yesterday was my parents’ 67th anniversary. I can’t express how much I love them. They were married on May 9, 1953 in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. Four years later, they were sealed for time and eternity in the Salt Lake Temple. It has been an amazing 67 years. Six children, 32 grandchildren, and 36+ great-grandchildren later, they are the parents of a mighty posterity. Today is Mothers Day. My mother is the matriarch of that mighty posterity. I’m thankful to have such wonderful parents. I’m glad I will be their son for eternity. We will Skype with them later this afternoon and have a nice long chat.
Last week my sanity music took a sharp turn. After several weeks of relying on the instrumental music of Bach, Vivaldi, and Mozart to distract me, I went to the opera. I discovered opera late in my explorations in the world of classical music. I was in my 20's. Before that, I thought that I didn’t like it, although I hadn’t really listened to much of it. But when we lived in Los Angeles, I became a devoted listener of KUSC, a great classical music radio station. On Friday nights I began listening to a program called The Opera Box hosted by Jim Svejda. That’s when I first really listened to opera. And after having the plots explained to me, I found that I actually enjoyed most of it and I began to explore it on my own. I had a brief fascination for Wagner, but he quickly became tedious – not enough melody and too long (it takes 17 hours to listen to Der Ring des Nibelungen!). I found Mozart and Bizet’s operas to be charming. But it was the late Italians that I came to love, especially Puccini. His operas, La bohème, Tosca, Madama Butterfly, Gianni Schicchi, and Turandot are wonderful. So last week I indulged in the glorious drama of Puccini operas. They are full of anger, madness, deceit, betrayal, death, despair, joy, and passion, all set to ravishing music sung by magnificent voices. Perfect distractions for my confined mind.
This is an important weekend in our family. Yesterday was my parents’ 67th anniversary. I can’t express how much I love them. They were married on May 9, 1953 in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. Four years later, they were sealed for time and eternity in the Salt Lake Temple. It has been an amazing 67 years. Six children, 32 grandchildren, and 36+ great-grandchildren later, they are the parents of a mighty posterity. Today is Mothers Day. My mother is the matriarch of that mighty posterity. I’m thankful to have such wonderful parents. I’m glad I will be their son for eternity. We will Skype with them later this afternoon and have a nice long chat.
 |
| My parents on their wedding day. |
 |
| Last September. |
 |
| At our house in 2017. |
