Apple Blossom Time

Blossoms on my Sops of Wine apple tree.

Last week there was some anxiety here for several reasons. First there was the weather. We are at the point now where the hours of daylight exceed the hours of night. The sun rises just before 6:00 A.M. and sets around 8:30 P.M. With pre-dawn and post sunset twilight added in, we have about 16 hours of light. Given that, you’d think it would be warmer than it is. The sun is warm. I can feel the strength of it when it gets a chance to actually shine. But the air is not so warm. We’ve had chilly winds blowing from the northwest most of the week. I did a little experiment and set a thermometer in the sun and out of the wind and it read 75°, but out in the wind it only read 50°. The daytime temperatures have been mild, but every night we’ve dipped into the 30's and even the 20's. We had hard frost on Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday morning. Saturday morning there was a light frost. My garden and orchard have suffered because of it. Most of my lilies did not survive. Nor did any asparagus spears that were above ground. We’ll have to wait for more to come up before we can eat any. At this point it looks like most of my apple blossoms have survived, but they are still vulnerable. The warm days have brought them into bloom. The cold nights threaten them. There are more blossoms this year than we have ever had. The trees are beautiful. Their soft fragrance fills the air on still days. I will fret for my apples until we pass the danger time. I’m hoping and praying the weather warms up so we can have a bumper crop of fruit this year.

What happens to tulips in a hard frost.

The last of the daffodils frosted.

One of my apple trees in full bloom.

We also had some anxiety over Rachel. She had her surgery on Tuesday. One of the dangers of this surgery was that in removing the tumor, she could suffer damage to the facial and auditory nerves that would result in paralysis of facial muscles and a loss of hearing in that ear. The surgery took five hours and was successful. The doctors removed the tumor without damaging the facial nerves. At first they thought Rachel would be deaf in that ear, but she was blessed and she has hearing. She had a lot of pain afterward. She was allowed to return home on Friday, but she has to take things easy for several more weeks. We’re glad it’s over and that she’s recovering.

My father also had surgery last week. He had a tumor removed from his bladder on Wednesday. It wasn’t a particularly dangerous surgery, he was back home by the end of the day, but he is almost 91, so anything like that has the potential to be serious. We’re glad he came through it so well.

We received notice on Monday that our chicks were on their way. I thought they would be here the next day. That’s how it used to be. But the mail isn’t as reliable as it once was and they didn’t arrive until Thursday. We got a call from our post office that morning and I drove into town and picked them up. We ordered 19 chicks. When we opened the box, we found that one had died during shipping and another one was in bad shape. Miriam tried to nurse the ailing one back to health. She named it Daisy and she got it to eat and drink a little. It seemed like it was doing better, but it died later that evening. There are few things on our homestead sadder than a dead chick. The next day two more started to decline. One of them the girls named Eponine (from Les Misérables) because she seemed so pathetic and doomed to die. She did. We’ve lost four chicks now. I’ve never had any die like this before. I think the long shipping time affected them. The survivors are in a box under a heat lamp in the dining room. Miriam and Hannah want them in the house so they can tame them. Last year’s chicks went straight to the barn and had very little human interaction. They are not very friendly. We hope these chicks, if any live, will be tame.

Chicks in their shipping box.

In their box in the dining room.

On Thursday Miriam and I went plant shopping with the Shilligs. I wanted to show them a nursery I found last year over near Troupsburg, New York. The drive out there was beautiful. Julie plants window boxes around her house. She has quite a talent for making beautiful groupings of flowers and foliage. They bought quite a few different things for that. Kurt also bought some vegetables – tomatoes, peppers, and a Bing cherry tree to add to his orchard. When we returned from that, Kurt and Julie went on to visit a few other nurseries. The next day they went to a few more. They know where all the nurseries within fifty mile radius of us are. Julie has all her plants in her garage. It will take her days to arrange and plant them. I can’t wait to see her finished boxes.

Julie getting ready to plant her flower boxes.

Last Friday when I went out in the morning, there were tree swallows swooping and twittering all over the garden. I was happy to see them. It looked like a pair of them was going to nest in one of my birdhouses. Then on Saturday, the bluebirds showed up and tried to claim the same house. So we are in a battle of the birds, the conclusion of which is still undecided. Now we just need to keep the house sparrows from driving them both away. We’ve had house sparrows evict and even kill nesting bluebirds and tree swallows before. I love both bluebirds and tree swallows, but I’m kind of rooting for the bluebirds to win the contest. Tree swallows are lovely birds with their metallic blue-green backs and white bellies. They are graceful fliers and I love their chirpy, gurgling songs. They eat about 2,000 insects per day including flies and mosquitoes, so we love to have them nest here. But there is something about bluebirds that charms me. They are gentle and refined birds. And their blue plumage is one of the most beautiful colors I’ve ever seen.

Tree swallows on the birdhouse.

Tree swallow (not my photo).

Eastern bluebird (not my photo).

In other bird news, the back porch robins have five large babies jammed in their nest under the eaves. I think they will be leaving soon and then I will take down their nest shelf. I need to do repairs and paint the back porch this summer, so the robins need to find another place to nest for the rest of the season.

During the week we worked on building a peacock pen out in the orchard. Our peacocks, Posy and Petunia, are not happy confined in the barn. Posy has been actively courting Petunia, but there isn’t much room in there for him to display his beautiful tail. We disassembled last year’s pig pen (we are not raising pigs this year) and will use the lumber, plus some chicken wire, to make the new pen. We should finish it and move them in this week.

Baby robins under the eaves.

The days have come again when I must go out in the mornings. Even on a frosty morning, I cannot resist being out in the light of the rising sun. I’ve resumed my morning walks around the property, through the orchard, along the gardens, down the road, and to the beaver pond. Those serene moments in the morning when the light comes flooding in, when the dawn chorus of the birds reaches its peak, when low mist hangs over the fields and pond, are the best moments in all the year to me. To miss even one seems tragic.

Scenes from my morning walks last week: the front yard.

Scenes from my morning walks last week: looking east across Gold.

Scenes from my morning walks last week: walking down the road.

Scenes from my morning walks last week: the beaver pond.

Evenings now are almost as lovely as the mornings. We had some very pretty sunsets last week. I love the long, lingering twilight with the robins singing their evening song and the peepers singing down in the pond. I usually take an evening stroll around the yard. Speaking of peepers, local folklore says the peepers have to freeze three times before spring will settle in. We counted and figured out that this years’ peepers have frozen at least five times, so spring is long overdue to settle in and stay.

One of the sunsets last week.

Another sunset last week.

Yesterday was a busy day. Stacey and I went into town in the morning so I could get a haircut and we could run some errands. When we got back from that, Stacey went up to Wellsville to do more errands. The rest of us went to work outside. Miriam, Hannah, and I transplanted tomatoes and peppers into larger pots. When Stacey got back, we spent some time working in the big garden next door with Kurt. I call it the big garden because its rows are 130 feet long. There are four rows so far and more to come. We planted potatoes, peas, and onions. I mowed our yard and when I finished Miriam and Kurt mowed the rest of the property. Stacey and I did more work on the peacock pen. Hannah washed and detailed the cars. And there was all sorts of baking and cooking going on indoors in preparation for the Sabbath. We are going to a dish-to-pass (that’s what they call pot luck here) at our branch president’s home this evening. Miriam baked an angel food cake. Stacey made scalloped ham and potatoes and a rhubarb crisp to take to that. By the end of the day we were pretty tired out, but it was a great day. The sunset was lovely, a perfect finishing touch to a beautiful day.

Transplanting tomatoes and peppers.

Planting rows in the big garden.

Rhubarb for a rhubarb crisp.

Sunset yesterday.

It’s a bit overcast today, but in the 60's. We didn’t have frost last night. I hear there is rain coming, which will be good for all the things we planted yesterday. Our sacrament meeting was at maximum allowable capacity today – 35 people. I was tempted to attend without a mask as so many states have removed that requirement. But the church has not changed their guidelines. I hope it happens soon. I’m tired of not being able to sing at church. We did find out that our Church History sites in Palmyra will reopen on May 28th. I wish the temple would reopen. So we’re home from church now. We’re eating a light lunch because we are going to that dish-to-pass later. It is being held outdoors. I hope it doesn’t rain on us. The week ahead looks good as far as the weather is concerned. I have so many projects to work on. My list keeps getting longer and longer and I love it.