Last week was almost perfect spring weather, May at its best. We didn’t get all the rain predicted, just enough to keep things greening. It was chilly sometimes, which is normal for May, but it never froze. I had the time and energy and sometimes the help to get things done that needed to be done. The season is progressing and with it, my dreams for the year. I can see the potential and it brings me hope.
Springtime is all about potential. Flowers, for all their beauty, are the prelude to fruit and seed. I see that as I enjoy their loveliness. The black currant bush is in bloom now. I smelled its spicy clove perfume from across the yard before I even saw the blossoms. I stepped out onto the back porch steps, inhaled, and said “The currant bush is blooming.” Those delicate, aromatic flowers will turn into tart black fruit later in June and I will turn them into jelly to eat on buttered toast.
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| The black currant bush. |
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| Close-up of the spicy black currant flowers. |
Out in the orchard the apple trees are in bud. Some warm morning, perhaps this week, the buds will open and the orchard will be transformed. As much as I love apple blossom time, I love it even more for the potential harvest it promises in the fall. The flowers are even lovelier because of the promise of fruit. Out in the hazel hedge along the edge of the orchard there are some wild plum trees in bloom, the seed children of a plum tree I planted that died years ago. These little wild plum trees have never born fruit yet. I don’t know what their fruit would be like if they did. But to see those bright white flowers in the hedge makes me happy anyway.
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| Apple blossom buds. |
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| Wild plum in the hazel hedge. |
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| Close-up of wild plum blossoms. |
Out in the meadow the huckleberries are in bloom. Their flowers are not flamboyant. You could walk by them and not notice them at all. But I watch for them and when I see them, I smile thinking of the warm summer days when we will hunt for the tart little berries.
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| Huckleberry flowers. |
And out in the vegetable garden, the first spears of asparagus are up. I’ve been watching and waiting for them. This week we will eat our first picking. Asparagus time is one of the most highly anticipated events in our garden year.
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| The first purple asparagus spears. |
The flower garden is better than I ever remember it being. I credit the tulips for it – and the deer for staying away. Sadly, the tulips are almost finished now. Some of them have already dropped their petals. The biggest group still is holding on, but they are fading fast. The Rembrandt tulips with their bold, broken colors have opened and they are the last to bloom.
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| Tulips still in bloom. |
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| My Rembrandt tulips. |
I still have daffodils in bloom. I am amazed at the variety of daffodils that have graced my flowerbeds since April. They have surprised me. There are over 50 species of narcissus (daffodils, narcissus, and jonquils are all in the same genus), and hundreds of named varieties. Last fall my friend Nancy Jones gave me loads of daffodil bulbs. I didn’t know what kind they were and I planted them in patches here and there all over the flowerbeds. I already had some daffodils, mostly the classic trumpet type. These new daffodils with their fantastically various colors and forms have delighted me all spring. I wish I had more. This fall I will plant more.
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| Daffodils in so many varieties. |
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| More varieties. |
When the tulips and daffodils are done, there won’t be much color in the garden for a while. I’m not very adept at succession planting. The next bright colors will be peonies and poppies in June. The forget-me-nots will bring me some blue. And the muscari will keep going for a while yet. The violets as well, even though I’ve been trying to keep them out of the flowerbeds. I threw a bucketful of them onto a compost pile and, as if to defy me, they are blooming beautifully there.
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| Peonies on their way to June. |
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| Muscari's bright blue. |
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| Violets in the compost. |
I got some big jobs done in the yard last week. I relined the edge of the flowerbed at the front of the house with bricks. It looks very trim now. On Wednesday Miriam and I burned the old outhouse. The outhouse hadn’t been used as an outhouse for decades. When indoor plumbing was put in the house (sometime in the 1920's I think), the outhouse was moved onto a foundation out on the edge of the property where it became a garden shed. When I was young and we visited my aunts here, I knew that the outhouse was where the croquet set was kept. When we moved here, the outhouse had been neglected by everyone but the squirrels who had filled it half full of pine cones. When we cleaned it out, we found the remains of the old croquet set buried in the pine cone pieces. We turned the outhouse into a chicken coop. It was a coop for many years until we converted the old garage down at the end of the yard into the barn. For a year I kept beehives in the outhouse, but the bees didn’t like that, and I moved them out again. After that, the outhouse became a storage shed again. Its condition has been in serious decline. The roof was rotting. A woodchuck breached the concrete floor and excavated a burrow in it. Josiah shot a skunk last fall that crawled into that burrow and died there. We can still smell it even now. So it was time for the outhouse to go. Miriam and I pushed it off its foundation and set it alight. It is just ash now. I was sorry to see it go.
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| Newly bricked front flowerbed. |
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| Good-bye to the old outhouse. |
Last Monday we got new chicks. I didn’t want to get too many, just enough to keep egg production going as my older hens stop laying. I drove out to our friends, Bob and Nancy Jones’ farm. Bob hatches hundreds of chicks in the spring. When I got there, I took a walk with Nancy through her beautiful garden and she had me dig up plants to bring home. Then we went to one of their sheds and picked out nine chicks. I got older chicks that are almost completely fledged. I didn’t want to fuss with having to put heat lamps down in the barn. So the chicks came home and are adapting. They will spend a few weeks by themselves in the middle section of the barn before I let them join the flock. Also, Lola and her two chicks are doing fine. She is a good mother and a fierce defender of her babies.
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| Our new chicks. |
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| Lola and her chicks. |
Today is Mother’s Day and I must pay tribute to my wonderful mother. She has been on my mind more than ever these past few weeks as my father has been in poor health and so my mother suffers too. She is so devoted to my father. My parents have always been a great example of two people who truly love each other. On May 9th they celebrated their 66th anniversary. Dad’s health was serious enough that my sister Jaynan flew out to help care for him. When she got there, she said that our mother, ever fretful for my father, needed as much help as my dad did. I bless Jaynan for going to their aid. She has to leave in few days and my sister Nancy will take her place. My mother turned 90 in December and my father will be 89 on the 27th of this month. I will try to Skype with them later on to wish my mother a happy Mother’s Day. I have been so blessed all my life by my mother. She taught me so many important things. But most of all it is her love for me that has influenced me. I have always known that she loves me, completely.
We’re home from church. It’s a chilly, drizzly day. We had a simple lunch. I made omelets and now I need to go clean up the kitchen while my wife takes a little nap. So far two of our children, Geoffrey and Rachel (and their families) have chatted with their mother. I’m sure the rest will too before the day is out
