Watching a bewildering world from the middle of nowhere
Of all the native species that like to grow here, I think I dislike black locust the most. This is because the young trees sprout everywhere, they grow fast, and they have vicious thorns. The stems are tough, so they’re hard to get rid of.
However, in the spring, the locust trees redeem themselves with dripping pods of flowers that have a really pleasant, springy scent.
Sorry for the blur. That happens easily with my camera when the light is low.
Solution below. Don’t peek.
The groundhogs love to eat my clover. Until a few months ago, I had a family of groundhogs living within 25 feet of my upper porch. That was a little too close for comfort. I was afraid they’d borrow around the foundation of the house. I harrassed them whenever I saw them by making noises, throwing things, and emptying cat litter down their holes. After a few weeks of harassment, they moved back just inside the woods.
For now, I’m content with where they are. Though groundhogs can be garden pests, I think they’re one of the smaller nuisances. Unlike deer, groundhogs can’t wipe out an entire garden in one night. They’re welcome to the clover. I like the idea of providing habitat for the critters, as long as they don’t bite me or get into my food.
I’ve decided to try straw bale gardening this year. Though my raised beds, filled with compost, have been pretty productive for the past couple of seasons, straw bale gardening seems even less expensive and less hassle. The idea is, you first prepare the bales for 10 or 12 days by keeping them soaked with water and adding fertilizer. Then you slip baby plants (not seeds) into the bales.
Though someday I’d love to have a thriving all-organic garden, that will be easier after I’ve had some years to work on the soil. The bales, as they decay into the soil, can’t help but help.
If you Google for straw bale gardening, I think you’ll find that the process has been university tested and is university blessed. Here’s a good starting article. Don’t be tempted to buy instructions. There are plenty of free sources of instructions on the web.
Ammonium nitrate, which is what you’ll find in 34-0-0 or 32-0-0 fertilizer, is powerful stuff. It may be a little harder to find than ordinary 10-10-10 fertilizer.
In the fall of 2008, I planted 10 young apple trees and a pear tree. The trees came from Century Farm Orchards. They’re all old Southern varieties of apple trees. Each tree was about 3 feet tall when I planted them.
I don’t expect apples for three years or more, but I did have my first blooms this week. Two of the trees had small, single blooms. So far so good.
Every day, the woods get a little greener and the leaves denser. The rain has been regular. There’s nothing like spring in the Carolina woodlands.
I have to walk half a mile to my mailbox. The mail carrier doesn’t come down the unpaved private road I live on. I took my camera with me when I went to pick up the mail this evening.
Above: pear trees in full bloom. I wish I could say they’re mine, but the trees line the road beside a neighbor’s horse pasture, up the road from my house.
The pear blossoms up close
The neighbor’s horses
Forsythia
I’m not sure what this is. They seem too tiny to be violets. Update: My sister emailed to say that they are bluets.
I don’t know, but the color sure is nice…
An early dandelion
I’d often wondered why a neighbor strung fairy lights along a pasture fence. Now I know. It was an experiment in keeping the deer out. I doubt that it worked.
Chickens have good clocks. When they know it’s time for me to bring them food and water, they keep watch, to see if I’m coming up the hill with my hands full…
The woods, from the deck at the back of my house
This time of year especially, I miss the California coast. It’s wildflower time at Point Reyes, the best time of year to hike along those grassy promontories above the sea. When I had to move inland, away from the sea, I knew somehow that life would be tolerable only if I was near the woods. The woods are a compensation for the sea.
Metaphorically, they are similar. If we were analyzing dreams, or the symbolism of woods and sea in a novel, we would encounter the same symbols: mystery, depth, danger, fear, the unknown. Does there live an adult who isn’t at least a little afraid to go into the woods alone at night?
What I find surprising, though, is the appeal of woods in winter. It is as though the water is clear. You can see into the depths. When the leaves come, as they will within the next few weeks, that clarity and silence are lost. The woods will be teeming with life. The sound of the wind in the leaves is not unlike the sound of the surf. And when there is a storm, the thrashing in the woods is not unlike the waves crashing against the rocks. The symbolism of that thrashing and crashing are the same: foreboding, the power and volatility of nature, the inevitability of change.
These are real woods here. If you look at these woods from above in Google Earth, you can see that the woods go on almost continuously to the north and west, into the Appalachians. No wonder we get bears here from time to time.
I am always frustrated at how hard it is to photograph the woods. I think this is because a two-dimensional photograph cannot capture the depth of the woods. A 3D photo of the woods might do the trick.
The Pacific from the Marin Headlands across the water from San Francisco
The daffodils are blooming at last. In the fall of 2008, I planted 55 pounds of daffodil bulbs. Every spring hereafter, they’ll pay me back. Notice how they all turn their little faces to the south.
The day lily shoots are growing fast. The deer don’t mess with daffodils, but they love to eat day lily shoots. I’ve been peppering the day lily shoots with dried blood (a fertilizer) in hopes that it will keep the deer away. So far so good. In the summer of 2008, I planted 300 day lily sets on the bank up the hill from my driveway, which is too steep to mow. I hated the work, but I love the payback.
Can you espy the bluebird?
The landscape is still brown and gray and wintry, but given the warmer temperatures for the past few days, and because the birds are singing, spring is surely just around the corner. This time of year, if it’s not raining, I take a walk around the yard every day to see how things are coming along.
A leaf bud on the magnolia
Young mustard. This volunteered beside the chicken house. A morsel that I threw to the chickens must have escaped somehow and taken root.
Daffodil shoots
I don’t know what this is. The ground is thick with it in the flower bed where the cosmos grew last year. I suppose this could be cosmos, but I also suspect that it may be different type of wildflower, a perennial, that I planted last year but which won’t bloom until this year.
A day lily shoot
Young clover, starting to feel its oats