revealing

Well, the only person to say a word to me about the election results was Mr. D.  And I didn't even hole up at home all day.  It pleased me that civility rules the day up in this part of Wisconsin.

We're moving a compost pile because snakes are inclined to live in the current location and our neighbor lady is terrified of snakes.  Digging out the compost revealed a few interesting things:
1.  We have a TON of worms, busily digesting all of our waste and they do great work.
2.  We have a LOT of really nice compost.  Thanks, worms.
3.  Mr. G really loves worms--he made sure they all got transplanted safe and sound to their new compost pile spot.
4.  Mr. B really hates to work too hard.  He mostly wandered around while his brothers and I put our backs into this project.
5.  Someone threw out a kitchen spoon.  I'd suspected we were short a couple spoons for a while now, so it was nice to find one in the pile.
6.  Those "biodegradable" compost bags?  Are. Not. Biodegradable.  Not by my definition of the word, anyway.

We also moved the sandbox out of the back yard.  Team Testosterone refused to pull out the weeds, so I pulled out the sand and now I have a nice frame filled in with those extra pumpkin seedlings I enthusiastically planted.

Standing in the grocery store the other day with Mr. B I learned that all my "eco-awesomeness" isn't all that effective: 
GG:  Buddy, what are you hungry for this week?  Whatever you want for dinner or lunch, let's grab it.

Mr. B: No, they don't have anything I like to eat here.

GG:  What do you mean?

Mr. B:  I like gas station food.

GG:  Gas station food?

Mr. B:  Yeah.  The stuff you can buy at gas stations.

GG: Dude!  That's like all sugar and chemicals.  That's not FOOD.

Mr. B: Well, I can put it in my mouth and chew it, so it IS food.

GG: All right, then I'm feeding you grass for dinner.  You can put that in your mouth and chew it. 


T-4 days until I leave for Baltimore for the 2012 Screw Iowa Writers Workshop. 

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mid-spring garden walk

The first of May and tulips are in full bloom. 

The phlox thrives in a sunny spot.

Tulips at the base of a birch tree--I like little clumps of bulbs blooming around the yard.

Apple tree in full bloom--will we get more than a handful of apples this year?  So far this tree has been all talk and no action...

Lilacs!  Inhale.  Inhale again.  And again.

Crabapple trees are in full bloom, too.  We have pale pink, deep pink and nearly burgundy blossoms in the front yard.

I finally put up my bottle tree--it's the refined version of a beer can pyramid, isn't it?

Those pale pink crabapple blossoms--they smell as delicate as their color.

And these are in full bloom beside the front porch.

 

 

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blooms

Of course the forsythia I cut for Thursday's Bumble Book Club meeting looked gorgeous two days later. Even so, I'm glad I did it because it sure brightens up the place. You can cut all kinds of spring-blooming willows or forsythia this time of year and bring them inside. The warmth will force early blooms on bulbs, too, if one were so inclined to dig into the frozen turf for daffodil or tulips. I'll stick with forsythia branches because I only have to walk a few feet out my front door to access them.

In other signs of spring, I've almost got my seed order ready to place. This winter I got one of those small shelf-style greenhouses to put on our front porch. Armed with starter soil, cardboard egg cartons, last year's seed harvest and the seeds I'll order, I have big BIG ambition for an early start on the season.

Since I'll have a wattle under construction, I plan to expand into the space beside the raised beds. I asked my guy (the landscaper who sells me wood chips) if it's too early to deliver mulch. He laughed and told me it would be a couple months yet. Until it's time, I'll doodle away on graph paper, designing the plan for the new space.

Carrots, lupines, peppers, hydrangeas, onions, zinnias, blackberries, cranesbill, tomatoes, astilbe, beans, lilies of the valley, squash ... that's what's on my mind lately. Spill it, reader. What's on yours?

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you wanna build a what?

Early this morning Mr. D took off for 5 days of golf in Arizona. It's been a mild winter, hardly any snow. Naturally, the morning he leaves the snow began falling and blowing. It's also the morning of "Donuts with Dad" at the ol' PS, and the boys seemed despondent not to have a special man in their life attend. Dad en route to his golf trip, one grandpa too far away, another grandpa too ill (plus the roads are crap), the neighborhood surrogate grandpa in Florida. Team Testosterone couldn't agree among themselves on who to invite, so this morning we did "Donuts with Dad at Rico's with Mom." I treated them to breakfast and brought them 45 minutes late to school so they missed most of the event. I generally don't promote skipping school, but in this case I think we made the right call.

Yesterday I mentioned a new project around here. As you know, I'm kind of a nut about my gardens and I really want some fencing--more to add structure than for any other purpose. Among my favorite gardens in the Whole Wide World is Anne Hathaway's garden in Stratford-on-Avon, England. It's rustic and charming, full of pretty flowers and practical vegetables and a small orchard. Sweet little paths wind through the property and occasional benches and trellises provide cozy spots for reading a book or watching the birds.

I've studied many books about garden design to try to figure out how to flesh out the bare bones of my own garden. I keep coming back to those English Cottage Gardens, and even with my informal styles, I need some fencing. I've been hankering for the white picket kind of fence, but I have a lot of garden to fence around, so the price tag on such a project would be substantial.

I kicked around the idea of planting hedgerows, but they take eons to grow, and while I think I may plant some, I want more immediate gratification. Like the kind that happens this summer.

And then I remembered (reminded by Jen on the Edge's recent post) how Anne Hathway's garden was framed out by very rustic-looking fencing and edging. Since Medieval times, gardeners have constructed wattle fences to provide structure, shelter and support for their plants.
I did some research and learned that to build a wattle you need a lot of "green" sticks, preferably live willows since they are flexible, durable, straight and don't have too many excess branches to clip off. As it happens, we have a prodigious amount of willows growing on our property. To build a wattle you need sturdy branches for posts. As it happens, we have enough fallen branches to heat an entire European village for two years.

So, the materials to build a wattle are plentiful and free. I can build any size of wattle to suit my needs. All I need is time--to gather the sticks and branches and pound/weave/shove/tie them all together. We've hardly any snow on the ground and there aren't any bugs or stinging nettle at this time of year, so yesterday I began Project Wattle. Armed with a pruner, Jax and I attacked a berm of willows and dragged several loads up to the garden. Then we scavenged the woods and found a good supply of sturdy, straight branches and logs measuring at least 3 1/2 inches in diameter.

For the next month or so I'll continue to cut willows and find fallen trees for posts. It's great exercise tromping around back in the woods and dragging loads back up to the house. Then, when the ground thaws, I'll be ready to pound in my stakes and begin weaving the willows between them.

Project Wattle. It's the perfect solution for this dry winter weather. Besides, I've always wanted to say "I'm going to get all Medieval on your asses" in a meaningful way, so now I can while I wield my pruner at those willows encroaching on our fields. Plus it's a unique conversation starter--"What've you been up to this winter?" "Me? Oh, I'm building a wattle."

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officially, fall

This morning Team Testosterone headed off to their first day of school. Mr. D accompanied them to the end of the driveway where they all waited for a bus! (Green Girl has taken this shot of every child on their first day of school--it shows how they've grown as they walk beside their dad, walking away from her and towards the year ahead.)







Camera in hand, Green Girl decided September 1st was a great day to take a photo for her fall blog header. She was wearing a brand-new apron and looking quite dapper.



Then it occurred to her to take readers on a garden walk. The sunflowers beckoned her to the vegetable gardens.



Green Girl ignored the vegetables because she'll be grubbing around in there later, picking tomatoes, onions, peppers and basil. Veering left, she tromped towards the domestic end of the garden where she planted zinnias,



tall red lilies,

black-eyed Susans, Russian sage,



prolific amounts of coneflowers,





and sedum about to bloom.



The prairie is brilliant this time of year.





Fields of gold surround Green Girl. She twirled around a little bit like Julie Andrews in The Sound of Music before continuing down the path.



She loves finding dew-drenched webs.





Further along you'll see she and her neighbors planted some pumpkins.





Just a few...



For carving

and decorating.

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3 wishes

Completely random, but true things in my deeply secret bucket list:
1. create a Japanese-style garden, full of equal parts yin and yang
2. have an old shed or barn on our property
3. learn how to surf

Spill it, reader. What are three wishes you never tell people you have?

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of daffodils and dirt piles

My name is Green Girl and I have a daffodil addiction. I add a new variety each year, about 450 daffodils bloom here in the springtime. My fantasy is to have 30 varieties, thousands of yellow flowers in the spring, and the way these bulbs naturalize, it's not too far-fetched a fantasy. I dug up a few patches last fall that hadn't bloomed and discovered they'd multiplied exponentially, so I divided and moved things around, adding 75 bulbs to new spots. This fall I'll purchase another new variety (or two) and divide some more crowded clusters. Behold! Daffodilpaloza!
The peach insides of these creamy flowers are unique,

but I especially like the dark yellow insides of these jonquils. So cheerful.

Standard all-yellow and pale yellow,

delicate rims of dark yellow in the center,

and peach-colored with double-ruffled inside petals. Definitely the most unusual and showiest.

The sustained warmth made my front bed explode overnight. I swear I could have sat on the porch and watched them grow, the hostas burst through the soil, the tulips budded from scrawny green stems.

A little forsythia brightens up the beds, too.

Formerly this bed was my original vegetable garden when we built. Then it became a strawberry patch when the berries overtook things. Then I got a bright idea to amend the soil with dirt from the creek bed, which brought in enough stinging nettle to burn the Taliban into submission. I've since moved all the strawberries out to their own spot in the potager and will plant this with vegetables once again--peas, green beans, tomatoes and peppers.

This mess is the potager--memorize it well, friends. When you see it again it will be greatly altered in appearance.

Signs of industry are everywhere this time of year.

The dirt calls to me. Can I help myself? I dig dirt.

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cheerful thoughts on fat Tuesday

I saw this sign online and it made me laugh. What made me laugh more was hearing Team Testosterone race to the car this weekend: Mr. G "I call shotgun!" Mr. B "I call shotgun infinity!" Mr. D "Do you guys even know what shotgun means?"

While trying to enjoy the remaining weeks of winter (read: Screw you, Winter Storm Ethan), I'm focusing on the chickadees at our birdfeeders. They're pretty cute. And I like how I can see the structure of a tree so clearly when the leaves aren't there.

So, there's that.

And I've started lopping off forsythia branches and bringing them inside to force them into blooming bright yellow flowers for me. (Note to self: plant more forsythia.)

And this! Polyester skirts and funky sweaters! Love! Love! Love!

Mr. D is in baseball mode. He's kind of always in some level of baseball mode, but the season begins on the 21st. You can imagine the conversations here. He has also brought home the first half of the 40 boxes of Girl Scout cookies he ordered this year. And then I made cookies for Mr. T's Mardi Gras carnival at school today--which seemed incredibly superfluous under the circumstances.

I dreamed about our pool last night--in my dream our pool actually connected to a canal that surrounded our entire house. At the corner of the front porch (where the gutter needs repairing) it had become very green with algae. Halle Berry and I discussed what I should do and then I switched on a pump to clean it up. This is exactly why I never put much stock into dreams. As if Halle knows the first thing about water chemistry. Pfft.

Seed catalogs. I'm still finalizing my plans before I order. One nice thing about March is that June and July are still full of promise and hope.

Today I'm gathering paint swatches and making a drop at the thrift shop.

Spill it, reader. What's keeping your spirits up on Fat Tuesday?

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garden walk

The weeds and everything I've planted this year are doing fabulous with all the rain and hot weather helping them along. Sure, it looks like it's all coneflowers and butterflies, but I assure you, we've got mosquitoes and thistles and slugs.


Here's the potager this year--quite an improvement over last! I notice we've got green beans to pick already. Mr. D gave me that garden bench for Christmas, a pleasant spot to stop and admire everything.


And beside it I've started a wild garden.

I planted a bunch of extras--sunflowers, coneflowers, lilies and irises!
The daisies this year are as prolific as the pigweed (and that's saying something).

And lilies! Good ol' reliable lilies.

Hollyhocks, of course.

Our front garden has gotten pretty wild. I like it this way.


And of course there are the pots. What's more charming than pots of annuals on a porch?

I'm off to weed a little, pick a little and deadhead a little. Happy Thursday, reader!

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