Walking around the yard yesterday evening just before it was time to come inside for the day, I encountered several flowers that smelled divine. The lily-of-the-valley is lovely. It reminds me of a perfume stick I had as a young girl, Muguet.
I also came across honeysuckle. Our bush has never had as many flowers as it does this year.
And this is our first iris to bloom for the year. It has that faint scent of grapes. The first of our three types of lilacs is in bloom as well. I just had to bring some of inside to enjoy.
We spent most of the day yesterday putting in our vegetable garden. We tilled one row and planted it with seeds for icicle radishes, turnips, and beets, less than a week ago. All of them are up already.
Yesterday morning hubby gave the rest of the garden it’s final tilling. I made hills and planted the cucumber, yellow crookneck squash, and zucchini seeds, while hubby planted green bean and Romano bean seeds.
We worked together planting four types of tomatoes that we purchased as plants. We chose lemon boy, Romas, pineapple, and Mr. Stripey varieties. Mr. Stripey is my all time favorite tomato. I search it out every year. It has the perfect, slightly sweet tomato flavor. Since it is a combination yellow and red tomato, it is lower in acid, but still has great flavor.
At this point, hubby had to go mow the yard before the rain set in. So, I finished up planting sugar snap pea, a mixture of lettuce, and spinach seeds. I watered all the vegetable plants after that. Hubby watered them again before dark.
I watered all again this morning, and mulched the tomatoes with grass clippings. Garden 2020 is off to a good start.
And then before coming in for the evening, the smell of the lilacs and lily-of-the-valley was so sweet, I had to bring a few sprigs inside so I could continue to enjoy them!
This was a busy day. This morning I baked bread since we were nearly out. Then I made an oatmeal cake with chocolate frosting.
The afternoon was devoted to planting many of the flowers we purchased yesterday on our trip out into public for the first time in over two months. I planted the usual six hanging baskets for our porch.
Black Cherry Petunias
From there I planted some urns and pots for the patio garden.
Mandevilla
Dahlias and mounding vinca
Dahlia and Petunia
Dianthus
I bought a new dianthus to add to one of the flowerbeds. We already have some, but they have been coming back for many years and I thought we could use some new stock. This one is a nice, bright pink.
Bleeding hearts, Dicentra
I didn’t plant these bleeding hearts. They are a perennial that was here long before I bought this property. The blooms are peaking right now, so I wanted to share them with you.
Gardening season has begun in earnest. We will plant the rest of the vegetable garden this week. Our radishes and turnips are up already in less than a week!
We bought flowers for the gardens today. It is the first time we have been inside a store of any kind in over two months. We, of course, wore masks.
Most folks were wearing masks and polite, keeping their social distance. Some were not wearing masks, but kept their social distance. I saw a few wearing masks beneath their noses, but covering their mouths. I guess even if they weren’t protecting themselves, at least they were protecting others and making an effort.
And then, there were those few who wore no mask and did not keep their distance. One lady was shopping while yapping on her phone. She seemed intent on following us up and down the aisles and looking at flowers where we were standing. We did not seem to be able to get away from her. We finally went to another area of the garden section.
During checkout, there were not enough markers 6 feet apart for the amount of customers. A man without a mask apparently did not have a concept of 6 feet. He kept inching closer and closer.
I am not an “in your face” person, but I was just shy of telling these shoppers to back off. This is not a game to us. Our family has high risk concerns. Please consider how your behavior affects others. If you are not going to wear a mask, at the least, give others space.
Once we returned home, it was time for planting! We got just a handful of flowers tucked in before it started to rain. So, we know what tomorrow holds. More planting! The beautiful blooms made me feel like I had trays of jewels awaiting me. I guess I do.
It was nice enough to sit on the patio this weekend. It was enjoyable to sit and appreciate all the hostas and other plants that we moved into last year’s new raised beds. In fact, after a long winter and disappointing spring, we are enjoying many plants.
New growth is everywhere at this time of year. On a walk through our little township park, we saw many May apples. They remind me of little parasols.
The last of the viburnum blossoms overlapped with the first lilacs of spring.
And the large scarlet azalea is once again a showstopper.
Can you tell which of the four dogs above is leash reactive?
Leash reactivity, at least in the case of my dog, causes him to lunge, growl, and bark excessively at other dogs, people, or fast moving objects like cars, bicycles, or motorcycles. He is fine walking with any of our dogs. He is fine if people or dogs come in our house or gated dog yard to visit, be they known or unknown to us.
And this prompts my apology to the person we encountered at the intersection up the hill near the fire station of our township. I was walking four of our dogs this morning and a car approached the intersection where I was getting ready to cross the street. I waved the car on. The driver of the car waved me on, and kept waving, insistent that I should go ahead. This left me with no choice but to proceed. Very thoughtful, right? Indeed it was. The only problem was, this left me trying to walk with two calm dogs, one dog that was barking, lunging, and jumping at the car in an attempt to reach it and no doubt scratch it’s paint job, plus one dog who was barking because the reactive dog was going into freak out mode. So, I apologize to the kind driver, if the expression on my face was not warm and appreciative. I had my hands full and was doing my best. Oh, I was also carrying two bags of poop on my way to the nearby dumpster at the time.
The reactive dog has shown improvement. It is just slow and ongoing. I have learned that if I go into the grass about four feet off the road, cars can pass without incident. Usually. This sometimes puts me in people’s front yards. I hope they don’t mind. It requires keeping a vigilant eye out for approaching vehicles in front of and behind us. I need to have ample time to get the required distance off the road, and must remain calm while doing so as not to insight a reaction
This is the kind of dog that is not for the first time dog owner, the physically weak, or the faint of heart. This is a labor of love. Ironically, if I kept the dog at home all the time, he would be friendly 100% of the time. Even with visitors. But, I want more for him, so we walk and try different training techniques. A work in progress.
By the way, the leash reactive dog is Zekie in the upper right hand corner.
This is the time of year for all things garden related.
Yesterday, I de-thistled our asparagus bed. Once the spears are up, you can’t rototill the bed. And it was full of thistles. So, I dug them up with my hand trowel so they won’t go to seed and infest the rest of the garden. They aren’t very difficult as weeding goes, but there were a lot of them. Resulting in a blister on my palm, even whilst wearing gardening gloves. Oh well. I harvested a batch of asparagus this afternoon that we ate with dinner.
Today hubby ran the rototiller in the rest of the vegetable garden in preparation for spring planting. Our seeds finally arrived in the mail today! There was a backlog at all the seed suppliers. Everyone is wanting to plant a garden while they are home avoiding the coronavirus. We put in our first row for the year, containing turnips, icicle radishes, and a variety mix of beets. We will plant more vegetables over the next few days.
I also harvested some of our rhubarb today. It wasn’t enough for a pie, so I added some blueberries from the freezer and made a blueberry-rhubarb custard pie. I always use a butter pie crust. No Crisco for this girl. Blueberries were what I had available so I altered a recipe I found for rhubarb custard pie. It turned out just fine. In fact, it as downright tasty. I look at baking as an art form, so I always feel free to make whatever adjustments suit my fancy.
We have seen a plethora of birds around our house lately. Varied species.
We have a little family in this birdhouse in our red maple. The birdhouse was built by my husband and has seen one or two broods of young fledged every year. Usually it is sparrows. This year I think it is house finches.
We ran out of seed for our bird feeder two or three weeks ago. I usually stop feeding in the spring. I figure the birds can easily find their own food by then. This year I was going to continue feeding since we are staying at home isolating, and enjoy watching the birds. But my mail order sources have been out of seed. Everyone else must be thinking the same.
Even so, we are graced with many beautiful birds. The woodpeckers of course. I feel like they are special friends since they are here with us year round.
And we have been seeing the eastern bluebirds many times each day. We see them all over our property. We’re not sure if we have several pairs of bluebirds or one pair that is very active.
There are numerous goldfinches. They often flit by as I look out the kitchen window. I have seen them sitting on the lawn munching on dandelion blooms.
We have a pair of rose breasted grosbeaks that we see once or twice each day. This is the first year I have ever noticed them here.
And today, for the first time, we saw an oriole. I have seen pictures, but they do not do the bird justice. The orange is so brilliant that it is striking.
We see these birds in various areas of our yard, but they especially like to sit on our power line and jump from branch to branch in our trumpet vine. We hear the sounds of chainsaws, and trees being felled in the small valley down the hill from us, and hope that we are not seeing this increase in birds because they are being displaced.
We hope the birds are increasing in number and that the trend will continue. They are jewels of nature and we take joy in their presence.
Our pups have such fun playing. It makes us happy just to watch them. This is from an afternoon a few days ago when it was nice out. May they give you as much joy as they did me.
A couple days ago, before the May 9 snow, we went for a walk through our woods. I love this old tree stump with roots that marks the entrance to our campfire pit in the woods.
The woods are full of jack-in-the-pulpit right now. I look forward to finding them again later when the seed pods are ready to pop. The way they slowly open when you squeeze them is always fun.
We have woodland violets in white, purple, and a combination like these.
Euonymus on fence post by our shop.
Heading back inside after our walk. Shelby and Zekie came along.
Shelby needed the exercise. She doesn’t want to go outside much anymore unless we aregoing for a car ride or a walk. She says just dogs hang out in the pasture!
And Zekie must be involved in everything that his people do. Right down to following me to the wood crib to bring in a load of wood for the wood burner. It makes him happy to have a job
Sanctuary Acres 