Watching a bewildering world from the middle of nowhere
Ken waters the straw bale garden
The vegetable garden this year is both small and late, because of time spent putting up the garden fence and planting permanent fruit trees. In future years, I intend to have a much larger vegetable garden. But the plants are all developing. The blueberry bushes and grape fines actually will have a little fruit this year.
The first tomato
Baby grapes
Wild blackberries
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.