Precipitation

After mowing one afternoon last week.

It rained a lot last week, which was a blessing. The garden responded with increased vigor. Seeds that I’d sown the week before sprouted quickly in the damp soil. The rain barrel down at the barn was full and overflowing.

All week the temperatures did not drop below freezing – until Thursday night/Friday morning. The forecast said it would go down to 34°, which is just above freezing and still safe. But this is cold Gold and I should have known better. It went down to 29° and we had frost. The ground was pretty wet from all that rain and I hoped that that would help prevent heavy damage. Wet soil holds heat better than dry. Plus the plants were fully hydrated and that helps. But there wasn’t much I could do. All the plants are too big now to try and cover. I went out before dawn and sprayed the flowerbeds with water hoping to minimize the damage. Later in the morning when the sun had warmed things up, I went out again to assess the damage. It wasn’t too bad, just a few frost scorched leaves on some of the tenderer plants. But then the weekend came – but more on that later.

One evening when it wasn't raining.

Those rainy days meant there were long hours that I couldn’t work in the garden. I used that indoor time to start more seeds. I planted seven more trays, all in flowers – zinnias, calendulas, amaranth, celosia, stocks, cosmos, and nasturtiums – that will be ready to plant out in the first week of June. I planted pots with ranunculus whose brittle roots seemed dead until I soaked them in water overnight. They plumped up and in the days of early summer will delight us with their blossoms. Hope for what lies ahead keeps me gardening.

Those rainy days also gave me time to work on sign orders. While I worked, I listened to music. I started my listening with a random selection from my music files and the choice fell on Variations on an Original Theme Op. 36, the Enigma Variations by Sir Edward Elgar (1857-1934). I hadn’t listened to them in a long time and I’d forgotten how much I love them. Elgar is not a composer I listen to often. His most famous work, which everybody knows, is his Pomp and Circumstance March No. 1 in D, played at just about every high school and college graduation since 1905. I have not fully explored his music, but I am familiar with some of it. Of all his works that I know, I love his Enigma Variations the most. After the original theme, there are fourteen variations, each one dedicated to one of his friends using their initials or a nickname. Variation IX “Nimrod” is one of my favorite pieces of music. It was dedicated to Elgar’s friend, music publisher August Johannes Jaeger (1860-1909). He called it Nimrod because Jäger is the German word for hunter and in the Book of Genesis Nimrod, the son of Cush, is called a “mighty hunter before the Lord.” (Genesis 10:9) Variation IX is a beautiful and stirring piece of music. I didn’t know, because I didn’t watch it, that Variation IX was played at the funeral of Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, on April 27th. When I found that out, I went to YouTube and watched the band of the Grenadier Guards play it at the funeral and was very moved by it. After listening to the Enigma Variations, my curiosity was roused, so I spent some time listening to some of Elgar’s other works. It was a perfect way to occupy my mind while I painted and the rain fell.

Sir Edward Elgar

August Johannes Jaeger

Here is a link to the funeral performance of Nimrod. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ilPvLCU9SE0

Here is a link to the Warsaw Philharmonic playing the entire Enigma Variations. It is an excellent performance. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vLNLvcBmoqo

The rain brought up my asparagus at last. I was beginning to worry. Others reported already harvesting several pickings when I hadn’t seen one spear yet. But mine was just slow to get started. I picked a few spears, enough for one serving for one person. There are a lot more on the way. My asparagus patch is twelve years old now, at least the oldest rows are, and it gives us delicious spears for about five weeks in the spring. We look forward to it all year. This year I planted more asparagus in a row over on the Blake property. It will be several years before I can harvest any of that. Asparagus takes some patience initially, but once established will go on producing for decades. It’s worth the wait.

The first asparagus in my garden.

Now that the Shilligs own the property next door, we are using large parts of what was once lawn to grow more vegetables. Kurt has tilled four long rows so far. In part of one row, he planted peas. One row will be tomatoes, other rows will be for onions, potatoes, and peppers. And I made a place over there for my pumpkin patch. Having that land will be a blessing for us. More garden work, but a blessing.

Last week I picked the first rhubarb of the year. I have lots of rhubarb – six plants in one part of the garden and four in another. That’s more rhubarb than we will ever use, especially since I’m the only one in the family who really likes it. The rhubarb I picked last week was for the chef at Stacey’s work, who wanted some for a pie. I love rhubarb pie with or without strawberries. I love rhubarb bread and rhubarb crisp. And I especially love rhubarb sauce drizzled over vanilla ice cream (Hannah loves that too). But rhubarb is tart and everything made with it needs to be sweetened and I have to watch what I eat when it comes to sweet things, so my rhubarb consumption has decreased. Even if I couldn’t eat it at all, I would grow it just because it’s a beautiful plant.

One of my rhubarb patches.

The black currant bush is in bloom now. I could smell it before I saw it. I stepped out of the back porch one morning and caught a whiff of its delicious sweet clove perfume. Its flowers are small but pretty and their scent is powerful. The maple trees are blooming too. Their flowers are not gaudy. They are just clusters of greenish filaments like dangling chartreuse tassels. On still and warm afternoons I can smell their slight, sweet fragrance. The orchard is starting to bloom now. The plum and pear trees were first. They will be followed by the crab apples, and then the early apples. The late apples will bloom last. There are few things in this world I find more beautiful than fruit trees in bloom. It isn’t just the beauty of the flowers themselves or their gentle scent that makes them beautiful to me, but also the latent beauty of ripe fruit that will come later in the summer and fall. With the trees in flower, we now come to the anxious time when we pray every day that no hard frosts will come to hurt the blossoms or the newly set fruit.

The fragrant black currant bush.

My maples in bloom.

Maple flowers.

Plums in bloom.

Pear tree in bloom.

Wednesday was Cinco de Mayo. We always observe the day as an excuse to have Mexican food for dinner. We eat Mexican a lot anyway, so we don’t really need an excuse. For dinner that night we had chimichangas, enchiladas, beans, and rice. Miriam made horchata for us to drink and a choco-flan cake for dessert. It was all ¡muy delicioso!

Our Cinco de Mayo dinner.

We had a frenzy of bird activity last week. We had seen a pair of orioles in the yard before, but on Wednesday afternoon eleven of them showed up at the feeders! They were Baltimore orioles except for one orchard oriole. That same day, the first hummingbird arrived too. Now in the mornings the robin and redwing songs are joined by the thrasher, song and white-throated sparrows, mourning doves, and orioles. It is wonderful music. All that remains is for the wrens to arrive and join the chorus.

We went down to the Thayn’s house for the weekend. It was just a quick trip. We left Friday after work and just got home. We went down to help with yard work and getting things ready for Rachel’s convalescence. She will have her surgery on Tuesday. It was fun being there with them. We got a lot of work done in their yard. We probably won’t be able to go down for a while while Rachel recovers. They have arranged to have help there with them. Tabor’s brother and his wife will be there for a while and Tabor’s mother after that. We are praying this surgery will be successful and that Rachel’s tinnitus will cease with no adverse side effects.

Azalea and wisteria in the Thayn's garden.

We worked on weeding on planting Rachel's front flowerbed.

A game of Castles.

We went to church with the Thayns this morning. After that we had lunch and spent some time relaxing, playing games, even napping a bit. We left their house at 4:00 to head home. It had rained off an on all during the weekend, and was especially cold and rainy today. As we drove home, at some of the higher elevations there were smatterings of snow on the ground. The closer we got to home, the more snow there was. When we pulled into the driveway, it was raining, but there was two inches of heavy, very wet snow on the ground. It was getting dark then, and still raining, so I didn’t inspect the garden. I could see from the house that the branches of the fruit trees are drooping under the weight of the snow. Snow doesn’t damage things the way frost does, so I’m hopeful things are not too bad. I’ll know better what condition things are in in the morning. The temperatures for the next week are supposed to swing between 50° during the day and 30° at night. I pray harder than ever over my garden and orchard during these uncertain weeks of spring.

What we found when we got home this evening.

Today is Mother’s Day and also my parents’ wedding anniversary. They have been married for 68 years. They are doing pretty good. My father, who will be 91 on the 27th, is having surgery on Thursday. We are praying that goes well. My mother is a wonderful woman who has blessed my life from its first instant to the present day and on into eternity. We will see my parents in August when we have our family reunion in North Carolina. I’m looking forward to that. Maybe winter will be over by then.