Dandelion Days

Last week we had some heat – at last.  Monday afternoon we hit 88°. For Potter County in May, that's a heatwave. It was so hot, I had to stop work at the peak of the heat and take a siesta. It was wonderful. Before the siesta, I got a lot of work done. I finished distributing gravel in the paths of my vegetable garden. Once that was done, Kurt came over with his tractor and spread the remaining gravel on the driveway. And I mowed the lawn, well, mostly the dandelions.

Kurt spreading gravel on the driveway.

The driveway all done

We are just past the peak of dandelion season now. I think if left unchallenged, dandelions would take over the world. At least in this part of the world. It seems this year has been especially good for them. There are millions, possibly billions of them. Every lawn, the verge of every road, the wild meadows, the pastures, are full of them. When they are blooming, they cover the world in bright, cheerful yellow. When they go to seed, it becomes a sea of white fluff. And when the wind blows, that fluff rises up in diaphanous clouds of seeds that swirl away to make more dandelions. One dandelion seed head contains about 180 to 250 seeds. And one dandelion plant produces on average ten flowers. That means one plant is capable of producing 2,500 or more plants. Multiply that by the uncountable number of plants, even just in my yard, and it seems that dandelions could possibly take over the world.

A field of dandelions near Ulysses.

I'm pretty aware of the non-native invasive plant species in my area, and there are a lot of them. Some, like wild parsnip, Tartarian honeysuckle, and garlic mustard, I do not allow to grow on my property. Some, like dame's rocket, daylily, and Johnny-jump-ups, I let grow on the wild edges of the property because they are lovely. Some I grow on purpose because they are cultivated flowers. Most of the flowers I grow in my garden are non-native, but most are not especially invasive. Dandelions are both non-native and invasive. They originated in Europe and arrived in North America in the 17th century as a food and medicinal plant. Because they are so adaptable and their seeds are carried on the wind, they have spread around the world. They are now found on every continent except Antarctica. I treat them differently depending on where they crop up. They are not welcome in my flowerbeds. I don't do anything about them in the lawn and actually like their yellow flowers. But I don't like the fluffy seed heads that follow. Their long stems that make things look rangy and untidy, so I mow them down. That's the stage we're in now, and that's what I did last week – mowed down dandelions. On Monday and again on Thursday. After mowing, the lawn looks good for about an hour before the dandelion stems pop back up. They are slowing down now and will stop blooming soon. There will be a second wave of them again at the end of summer, but I don't want to think about that.

The front lawn newly mowed and looking good for a few minutes.

There is some odd folklore involving dandelions. We make a wish and blow the seeds off a dandelion head. I wonder who decided that dandelions can grant wishes? And then there is the rather strange "Mommy had a baby and its head popped off" chanted while decapitating plucked dandelions with your thumb. I tried to do some research to find the origins of that. No one seems to know for sure, but most agree it's been around a long time.

When I was a child, we also used to pick dandelions with long stems, split the stems with our fingernails and then dip them in water. The stems curl up and we would tuck them behind our ears to make "girly curls." I did some research and found out that they curl because the inside of the stem is hydrophilic, water-loving, and absorbs water, and the outside is hydrophobic, water-repellant. So now I know.

Dandelion curls.

Because it was warm last week, at least the beginning of it, and felt like summer, and because of the prolific dandelion crop, I'm drawn to read Ray Bradbury's Dandelion Wine again. That happens almost every year around this time. It's a short but wonderful book full of nostalgia and magic as only Bradbury can conjure. If you haven't read it, I recommend it. Late May and the first of June is the perfect time for it.

The robins are nesting and, as always, they have chosen some inconvenient sites for their nests. We have the usual nest under the eaves of the back porch. This year there is also a nest in the honeyberry bush on the edge of the vegetable garden right by the bench where I like to sit. The robins in both of these nests freak out every time I'm near their nests, which is all the time since I'm in and out of the back porch all day and often in that end of the vegetable garden. I hear robins fussing at me all day long. It's almost annoying except they are such lovely birds. I love to hear them sing their morning and evening songs. And their eggs are the most beautiful blue.

The nest in the honeyberry bush.

On Monday evening we went up the road and put flags on the veterans' graves in the Raymond Cemetery. We do that every year before Memorial Day. And in the fall we take them down again. The Kuprovs came along this time to help. My great-grandparents Theodorus and Anna May Howe and four of their children, Josiah, who died at age two, and my three great aunts Sarah, Esther, and Eleanor, are buried there. I will be too some day. It's a nice little cemetery, set on a slope, and it's close to home.

Putting up flags at Raymond Cemetery.

The graves of my family.

The flag crew.

Tuesday was the second and final day of our heatwave. The day began with a pretty sunrise. It was warm enough that I didn't have to wait before getting to work outdoors. That was nice.

Sunrise on Tuesday.

Tuesday was the Pennsylvania Primary Election. We went in the evening after everyone was home from work and voted. We vote at the Ulysses Township office just up the road from us. We always take an "after voting" selfie. I don't know why. We just do.

After voting.

Later, after dinner, Hannah helped me weed the raspberry row out in the big garden. It was very overgrown and it took us until sundown to finish. I took a walk in the twilight before going in for the night. One of the big floral events of the year is when the lily-of-the-valley that covers the ground in the woodland garden blooms. The scent of their tiny white flowers is one of my favorite perfumes. But this year, although there are lots of leaves, there are hardly any flowers. Maybe the cold got to them too. But the bluebells are blooming. Walking through them was a perfect way to end the day.

Bluebells in the woodland garden.

Our heatwave ended, alas, and on Wednesday the day was cool and gray. It rained a little around noon. I ran errands up in Wellsville in the morning. When I got back, I transplanted my pepper seedlings into individual pots. That was the extent of my gardening that day.

Transplanted pepper seedlings.

I thought my war with this chicken predator was over last week. I set the traps every evening and every morning they were empty. There were no more deaths. I thought the culprit had given up and moved on. I'd been going down to the coop, opening and closing the automatic coop door manually. On Wednesday I felt confident enough to set the door on a timer again. I programmed the opening time at 7:30 a.m. long after sunrise, and closing time at 8:00 p.m. before sunset, but after the time I thought the chickens would have gone to roost. They usually retire early, before it gets too dark. On Thursday morning at 5:20, just before my usual rising time, I was awakened by the guinea hen squawking near the house. She should not have been out. I dressed and hurried out to see what was going on. The coop door was still closed and the traps were empty, but the guinea and three hens were out. Apparently, I'd set the door closing time too early and they were still out when it closed and they spent the night outside. Then I saw the feathers. It looks like the guinea and four hens were out. The pile of feathers at the back fence of the chicken yard and the trail of feathers leading off into the meadow attested to another death. Whatever this killer is, it found where the group had gone to roost for the night on some low branches on that side of the chicken yard, and helped itself to one of the hens. I reset the timer so now the door closes at 8:45 p.m. and I've gone down every evening since then to make sure everyone is inside before it closes. And I still set the traps every evening. Friday morning when I went down, I saw that the trap was sprung, but when I checked, there was a chicken in it. One hen, who had hidden somewhere and stayed out all night, had gone into the trap for a little snack. She was pretty mad when I let her out. So, so far the only thing I've caught was a chicken. And the war goes on.

Thursday morning was cool and gray. That morning I began phase two in my seed starting process – I moved everything onto the back porch and shut down my growing center in the woodshed. I unplugged the heat mats and the heater and turned off the grow lights. The back porch is crowded. I need to start phase three, setting things out on the back porch stairs to harden them off for planting out, but I'm being extra cautious. To lose anything that I've fussed over for so long at this point is unbearable. After finishing that, I spent most of the afternoon mowing down dandelions again. I also did the first mowing of the orchard. I wanted everything to look tidy for Memorial Day weekend.

Seedlings crowded on the back porch, waiting.

I finally picked some asparagus on Thursday. Up until then, all the emerging spears had been hit by frost before they were up far enough to pick. Even so, I was only able to pick a handful. It looks like asparagus season will be very short this year.

The first picking of asparagus.

The weather service issued a warning that colder outlying areas could have frost on Thursday night and Friday morning. We definitely live in a colder outlying area. We are the coldest most outlying area in the state of Pennsylvania. So Thursday evening I pulled out the frost covers that I'd put away with such optimism and covered the lilies yet again. Every time I do that I think, surely this will be the last time. I said it again that night. The sunset was very pretty that night. We dropped to 30° in the wee hours and there was a very light frost, but no further damage. 

Sunset on Thursday looking southeast over the beaver pond.

Sunset on Thursday looking northwest.

I undertook a big project on Friday morning. The fence around the chicken yard was in need of adjusting. Parts of the fence were sagging, the gate was falling apart. I put on a new (old repurposed) gate. In the process of fixing the sagging fence, I decided to move a whole section of it. The section ran along the top of the embankment on the west side of the barn. I moved it to the bottom of the slope and fixed it to the corner of the barn. That makes the yard smaller, but it seems that most of the trouble came from that side where the fence meets the meadow. Now there is a gap between the meadow and the yard.

The new gate.

The adjusted edge. The bare part is where the fence used to run.

The Thayns arrived on Friday afternoon to spend Memorial Day weekend with us. We went on a walk around the property with them after they arrived to look at the gardens. Miriam opened the beehives for us and showed us the comb the bees are making. That evening we had Hannah's homemade pizza with the Thayns and the Fosters. We played mahjong all evening and had a great time.

Checking the bees.

Playing mahjong.

It rained all day on Saturday. Of course it did. It's Memorial Day weekend. We have a houseful of family. No one could play outside. We did pretty good at entertaining ourselves indoors. Table games, the dollhouse, the toy stable, dress up  – we know how to survive a rainy Saturday.

Playing indoors on a rainy day.

Playing Seven Wonders

Some of us went to the Saturday matinee. The movie was The Mandalorian and Grogu. My relationship with Star Wars goes back to the beginning, Star Wars: A New Hope (1977) which I've seen more times than I can remember. I was a fan of the original trilogy – even though I hated the ewoks in Return of the Jedi (1983). I've always held that the second film in the original trilogy, The Empire Strikes Back (1980), is the best of the whole bunch that now includes a prequel trilogy, a sequel trilogy, three (now four) stand alone films, and a slew of television series, with more to come. My enthusiasm for the franchise has waxed and waned over the years, mostly waned as the stories have tended to seem more stale, with less new plot development. They've become mostly CGI extravaganzas more than quality storytelling. I did enjoy Rogue One and its prequel TV series Andor – they were well done and the story was compelling. We watched part of the TV series The Mandalorian, but lost interest partway through the second season. My main reason for going to see the movie The Mandalorian and Grogu was because I got to go for free, and it was a chilly, rainy Saturday afternoon. My critical appraisal of it – it was okay. Not the best Star Wars I've seen, but entertaining, if a bit long.

Saturday afternoon it got chillier and rainier and then some high wind kicked in to make things even more dismal. I hurried as fast as I could to do the chores. I didn't want to be out in that weather and neither did the chickens. I did see another dead fox in the road just down from us toward Foster's. Maybe that was my predator. Even so, I will continue to set a trap every night.

Church was good today. It was nice to have the Thayns there to boost our numbers. We had six children in Primary instead of the usual one. The Fosters were the main part of the meeting. Sarah and Tosh both gave talks. Sarah played two of the hymns we sang. Sarah was in charge of Primary.

After church today.

Now we are home. Lunch preparations are underway. Rachel participates in the Billion Graves program, so after lunch we are going to several cemeteries to photograph gravestones. It seems like a fitting thing to do on Memorial Day Sunday. Later this evening, we are all going down to Foster's for a Sabbath Soiree. Tomorrow, weather allowing, we will go to the Memorial Day parade in Ulysses in the morning and then later in the afternoon we'll have our first cookout of the year over at Shilligs.

Tomorrow, in addition to being Memorial Day, it is our anniversary. We have been married for 42 years. Eight children and nine, going on ten grandchildren later, it has been a wild and satisfying journey with so much more yet to come.

Then and now.