Watching a bewildering world from the middle of nowhere
Late yesterday afternoon, a thunderstorm dropped almost one and a half inches of rain here. So all the growing things are very happy this morning. The first railroad lily opened this morning.
This terrapin slowly wandered across the driveway.
A baby bell pepper
A couple of the straw bales have a crop of mushrooms each morning. As soon as the morning sun hits the mushrooms, they turn black and dry up.
Ken with a clump of butterfly weed
Butterfly weed is one of my favorite wildflowers. The only way I know to acquire it is to dig some up by the roadside.
Ken and I made a run this morning to Mitchell’s Nursery and Greenhouse at King. We came back with the trailer loaded with: Another fig three, two peach trees, 3 blueberry bushes, two grapevines, a rhododendron, 2 crepe myrtles, a dogwood tree, and two emerald green arbor vitae trees. I wanted a couple of cherry trees, but unfortunately they didn’t have that.
This nice man answered all our questions at the nursery.
Ken among the shrubbery
Mitchell’s is one of the biggest nurseries in the area.
After the nursery, it’s off to Sandy Ridge Landscaping Materials to get more compost. Ken has used three loads of compost already, and we’re not nearly done.
This old mattock couldn’t stand up to Ken’s demands.
Though we used a rented gasoline-powered augur to drill the holes for the fence posts, and though we frequently use a battery-powered drill and screw driver, otherwise we are using hand tools this summer. Ken is strong and doesn’t mind the work, and in most cases the hand tools are much safer.
Ken saws a post.
Ken planting a post for a hose rack
A fence rose
With Ken here to do the planting, the landscaping around Acorn Abbey is finally starting to take shape. We planted climbing roses along the new fence. The rose variety is called Awakening, and it’s a relative of the New Dawn climbing rose. I believe it is considered an heirloom or antique rose. I expect these climbing roses to cover the fence in three years or so.
A gardenia
It was a long day, but Ken and I finished building and installing the two gates today. So the fence is officially done. We let the chickens celebrate this event by letting them out of the chicken coop to scratch inside their vast new garden fence for the first time.
Ken opens the door to let the chickens out. By the way, I believe we are seeing the pecking order here, left to right. The red chicken is No. 1 in the pecking order, so she is first up to the door.
All this new ground to scratch!
One of my regular stops is the Monitor Roller Mill at Walnut Cove. There’s a family of cats there, working cats that patrol the mill. Here’s one of the spring kittens, making himself at home on the front counter.
The first day lily of the year bloomed today. This is a hybrid lily. My common lilies, which I call railroad lilies, should start blooming any day now.
Hmmm. Another gate.
Cats really know their territory. I had kept Lily indoors for more than two weeks, mostly to try to get her to adjust to Ken’s presence. I let her out this morning. I noticed that she immediately started checking out the changes that have happened outdoors while she was trapped indoors. She walked the fence, found the gates, and noticed all the other changes.
Something’s missing.
Where’s the trailer, my old home?
What’s that over there?
Someone’s been busy here.
This is not so bad.
Ken and I planted some tomatoes and basil in the straw bales yesterday. We’ll see how it goes. The vegetable garden is going to be very limited this year. The fence-building project got in the way. Not to mention that to start a garden before the fence was up would be to take chances with the deer (again). Last year, for example, the deer pretty much wiped out all my tomato plants in one night.
This year, however, there will be a weekly farmer’s market in Walnut Cove, and a farmer’s market every other week at Danbury. I’m hoping those two farmer’s markets will make up for the smallness of the vegetable garden.