Category: The land

Frost, on Earth Day


Wild persimmon

Most of the country had unusually cold weather on April 21 and 22. Ironically, April 22 was Earth Day. Here in the South, spring was far enough along that there was considerable damage. Native species are hardy and came through pretty well, with the odd exception of wild persimmon. Most of my persimmon trees are fine, but one tree in particular was badly bitten. The frost was devastating to my two deciduous magnolia trees. The figs were heavily damaged but will recover because they were in an early stage of leafing. The other fruit trees in the orchard — all old Southern varieties — don’t show any damage.

A Facebook friend with commercial vineyards posted sad photos of his damaged vines. He wrote this:

“I want to thank all my dear friends for your concern about our vineyard. First, let me say that it’s not just our vineyard. All the North Carolina vineyards in our area suffered the Earth Day Freeze. Different varietals have varying degrees of damage with the Chardonnay and Cabernet Franc suffering the most. It looks like most of shoots that were budded out were damaged. What will happen is that we will end up a very reduced crop with a mix of latent primary and secondary fruit with irregular ripening. The positive is that this event did not split and kill the vines like we have experienced in the Easter Freeze of 2007. This is being a grape farmer in North Carolina. It’s difficult and this is why wine is so expensive.”

Late frosts have always been a risk, of course. But it seems to me that, at least in this part of the country, late frosts are happening more and more often. I blame global warming, which causes early budding, complicated by increased arctic turbulence also caused by global warming. That turbulence messes with the jetstream, and cold air spills south into places where nature has already committed to spring.


Fig


Deciduous magnolia

Update: It happened in France, too: Washington Post: French vineyards devastated by April frost that followed unusually warm March.

Almost April


The gate from the garden into the orchard

It’s a bit of a tradition to post this poem each year.

The Goose Girl

Spring rides no horses down the hill,
But comes on foot, a goose-girl still.
And all the loveliest things there be
Come simply, so, it seems to me.
If ever I said, in grief or pride,
I tired of honest things, I lied:
And should be cursed forevermore
With Love in laces, like a whore,
And neighbours cold, and friends unsteady,
And Spring on horseback, like a lady!

— Edna St. Vincent Millay, 1892-1950


A neighbor gave me the eggs

The neighbors in the woods

The three sets of neighbors who own land contiguous to mine have sworn to leave the deer alone. One neighbor has spoiled them by feeding them and taming them. There are two bucks in this group. Bucks usually stay deep in hiding during daylight. If you have deer for neighbors, you can forget about such things as day lilies or azaleas. But, after all, it’s their woods, too.

What’s blooming at the abbey, July 6

By the time summer leaves us, most of us are tired of summer. But would we ever tire of summer mornings? I think not.

These are iPhone XR photos. The XR camera is so good, and so handy, that I think I will trade it this fall for an iPhone 12, partly to get an even better camera, and partly to get support for T-Mobile’s low-band (600Mhz) 5G, which sounds very promising for rural areas without a lot of cellular towers. The 600Mhz band of 5g uses frequencies that formerly were used by broadcast television. Propagation at those frequencies is excellent. I still use my heavy Nikon D2X camera, by the way. The Nikon is still best for more formal and more carefully composed photos, especially when the camera is on a tripod. But the newer iPhones are astonishly good at snapshots (and video).

Why I can’t have apple pie

The squirrels have been stealing peaches from the orchard for at least a couple of weeks. Now they are stealing apples. This morning, I saw Mrs. Squirrel in the backyard, coming down from the orchard with an apple in her mouth. I knew where she was going, so I had time to go get the camera. She was going to the deck railing, because she loves to sit there and eat what she steals. It’s time to put out the scare cats. I’ll have another post about that.

What’s happening, May 13

Who will ever be able to forget the spring of 2020 — the Pandemic Spring? Here in this little corner of the world, the strange weather continues. An arctic incursion brought two late frosts. The tomatoes, basil, and squash are hating it (we covered them), but they survived. The cool-weather crops are flourishing. Mustard and kale have been plentiful. Soon there will be cabbage and onions. A building project has kept us very busy for the past week. It’s a much-needed shed up above the garden, with space for the Jeep, the lawn mower, the tiller, and tools. I’ll have photos when it’s done. The news, in my opinion, isn’t getting much better. And everything having to do with Donald Trump is getting worse. But this strange, slow-moving spring is a huge compensation. Now’s the time for scouting the best locations for picking blackberries.

Spring sunset


Click here for high-resolution version.

The weather was strange today. During the night, two inches of rain had fallen. Today the sky was heavy, and the wind was still. All day, there was the sound of rushing water from the stream below the house. At sunset, a break in the clouds near the horizon meant that, though the abbey itself was in shadow, the opposite ridge could still see the sun. Green is breaking out all over, but the trees are not yet in full leaf.

April 20


The photo is from 7:50 p.m. Supper is over, and the kitchen has been tidied up after the wreckage of a wok supper.

I am so lucky not to be cooking for one — or gardening or orcharding for one — during this quarantine. There is a certain reluctance, as suppertime approaches, for those who are not in the kitchen to wander into the kitchen and ask, “What’s for supper?” A better practice, I think, is to pretend you’re a bistro and put out a sign.

Spring continues to slowly unfold in the cool weather. And what a spring it is.


The spiderwort just started blooming.


First rosebud!