...snowing.
Yes, the white crap is falling from the sky again.
Bummer.
It's suppose to get to almost 70 next week, so I'll bide my time and stare at seedlings on the plant stand. And repot. And prune. And transplant. And water. And fold more newspaper pots. And stare. Oh, and sow more seed.
I have a feeling this ridiculously long winter is only turning into an enabler for me.
Exactly where do I think I'm going to plant everything?
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Two days ago, my WS jugs were frozen solid and sitting under snow.
I figured it would be a few more weeks of getting some decent warmth before I saw any germination at all. But...
I have green!
I only checked a few containers because it's suppose to get down to at least 18 degrees tonight and if anything else has sprouted - I don't want to know I lost them.
The three I looked at and quickly ran away, lol:
Cardinal Flower (I know these will care less about the quick chill)
Nicotiana
Love-in-a-mist (Nigella damascena)
If I lose that Nigella, I am not going to be a happy camper.
I have sprouts! Yay!
~doing the happy dance~
I really should go back out there and peek at the rest just so I can have a germ date recorded, but it's like 10 with the wind chill out there (gusts at 45 mph. sustained at 25-30. grr.). I'll wait until tomorrow and then I can get excited all over again.
:)
Woohoo - the green wave is definitely riding north!
You know how I know?
I saw it. I actually saw it with my own eyes.
Not in a good way.
We have a half-dead maple tree in the front yard that I've been refusing to cut down. I've left it as a snag for the Red-headed Woodpeckers, and it worked. Every spring, when they've finished emptying the matted mess of leaves the squirrels have packed the holes with all winter, we get to watch (and listen) to them situate the place to suit them.
Yesterday was a shock.
While I was out messing with the front flowerbed edging, I kept hearing something that sounded like a waterfall, but I knew it couldn't be ours as we haven't started up the pond one yet. I have ear problems, and most of the time I only have partial hearing out of one ear or the other, and lately my right ear has been plugged up completely, so I figured it was just an echo from the creek as all the snow melt and rain have turned it into the rapids.
But, even an echo from running water wouldn't sound like falling water! I walked a few yards away and didn't hear it anymore, shrugged and went back to the edging.
There was that sound again! Honestly, I thought I was losing my mind.
Then this dummy finally looked up.
Sap waterfalling, and I DO mean really waterfalling from one of the holes in the tree! There were gallons and gallons pooled at the bottom of the opposite side of the tree I was working around.
I have never seen anything like this in my life! Yeah, droplets rolling down bark, or drips from small winter wounds, but this was as if someone had turned on a bathtub faucet. It was so unreal! I swear it had to be at least (at the very least!) a gallon a minute! A true waterfall of sap.
Man, oh, man, I wish I had a freaking camera. I figured the hubs would never believe it. The flow had slowed down by at least 3/4 by the time he got home, but he could still see the big puddle at the base of the tree.
It was the strangest thing I've seen in a long, long time. I think the poor thing is a total goner this year. Bummer.
And no - I didn't think to grab some buckets. ~sigh~
I dodged raindrops and got quite a bit accomplished today.
Go me!
I repaired the cracks in the pond stream. I hope I got them good enough. This winter was a real pisser on the concrete. We've never had a problem before, but this year beat the crap out of it. The stream wasn't the only thing to heave - every freaking perennial I have is sitting a few inches higher than it was in the fall.
I started weeding the cracks between the stone path (who said the weeds and grass could grow there all winter?), got half done and had to postpone the carnage due to a rain delay.
Hey, I got half done before another task ... ummm ... caught my attention before the next bout of rain vs plant-slave-lady. The soil is so pliable right now, it was pretty hard to resist digging in it.
After much searching (why, oh why do I never pay attention to where I store tools?) I found my happy little half-moon edger and went to town on one of the front flowerbeds. The grass had actually creeped into the bed a good 6 inches through winter. Urg!
But, might as well make it even bigger while I'm at it, right? The hubs will never notice? Ahem ... yeah, right.
Now, that bed is a foot wider. Alrighty then, so all that removed sod is flopped onto the lawn and looks like hell. Shhh! It'll go away (eventually).
The oldest son brought me some tiles someone was going to use as fill (no, no, no!) and I got them all into the ground as an edger for the bed. It looks pretty nice! They're brick colored, but only about a quarter inch thick, 4 inches wide and maybe 6 inches long. They worked nicely. I'll still have to keep an eye out for grass roots creeping between where the edges are butted together, but it's sure better than letting the grass just go to town and taking over the whole freaking flowerbed. I got them as tight to each other as possible. (who knew a trowel worked just as good as a rubber mallet?)
Another rain delay. I tried to work through it, but do you know how wet your butt can get when you're bent over and it's facing the sky? Yeah - enough said.
I finally got all the edging done, thought about finishing the weeding in the walkway, but decided the dianthus ('fire witch' I WSed last year) might as well be moved. It sure as heck isn't happy where it is and those tiles looked so lonely a whole foot away from anything green! So, I moved almost all of them, at least 50, to the edge of the front bed.
Honestly, that wasn't all that much work to do in one day, but for the first real after-winter workout it was more than my body thought was necessary. My legs and ankles hurt, my back aches, and my arms are asking if they could please fall off and be left in a heap on the floor. I'm kind of shocked that I'm hurting already. It's usually the next morning that the bod starts the protests.
But, it's a good hurt, you know? The, "I got something accomplished today," kind of hurt.
It sort of feels nice! We won't talk about the stained hands and dirt under the nails. Hmmm...now where did I stash those gloves...
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I wonder what's going on?
For the last 15 minutes, thousands upon thousands of geese have been flying from the north, over the house and landing in the field across the road.
There must be millions out there right now!
It's like a huge, swirling tornado of wings as they turn and curve over the spot where they've decided to land.
We've seen thousands over the last few weeks, but this is like every single one of the one's that we saw go north have decided to turn around, come back and bring friends all at once! And wow, are they loud. The noise is deafening.
And hot on their tails are thousands of sparrows and tons of blackbirds.
I wonder what the heck has them so spooked? It's like someone to the north hit the panic button.
I'm going back to staring up at the sky...
*holy cow - now, ducks too! The rain/sleet/freezing rain/slush falling from the big, gray sky doesn't seem to be bothering them a bit.
