Fire & Fly

much excitement at the neighbors' house today, band of boys testing their limits and having their first encounter with police and firefighters.

during the drama, a fly sat on the tip of a rhododendron leaf out our window. green grass and dark shadows beyond, it was occupied with cleaning its legs, cleaning under it wings, utterly undisturbed by the human fiasco.

like any other creature in the world, taking the time to care for itself.

camping until next wednesday, will write when i return.

Seedlings!

Pickling cucumbers!

Cabbages! (Left is one we planted from seed, middle and right are from the market, to replace the groundhog's share.)

Pole beans! Garlic! Tomatoes! Kale!


Cut flower bed: Statice! Strawflowers (invisible)! Dahlias! Two rows of Bachelor's Buttons! (Rocks from out back.)

Thunder, Light, and Rocks

thunder and lightning, rain throughout today.

excavator roared all day out back, breaking ledge under the earth. we've begun collecting the rocks for garden edges and paths. beautiful patterns, shapes, weighty stories of the past they carry - of the formation of the earth, the history of this land here.

rainbow this evening after the storms. called husband outside with son and we looked together, even the boy gazing at it against the slate sky.

Fog

more rain, straight from sky to ground. green grass speckled with purple clover, frogs chirring and peeping, wren singing all the day. lightning bugs taking over at dusk, slowly appearing in the dark. fog slowly filling the night air now.

Dripping World

thundershowers, rain, a new baby born into our family this morning, world dripping with life.

Summer

first full day of summer.

family up for a visit, children gurgling and playing, all of us in happiness to be together.

torrential downpours off and on today, wondrously wet world. here is our little apple, soaking it in. discovered today that it's growing many apples, in this second year of its pruning.


little house wren has returned! last year's wren house turned into this year's swallow house, so it spent today courting the other bird house, singing in an arc around it, always facing its new little home. glad to have it back, dear little bird, our days to be filled with song now.

here it sits in a rare quiet moment.

Waxwings in the Strawberries!

no, these aren't in the strawberry patch, and yes, these are actually two photos of the same bird, but there is a flock of them and they do eat the strawberries. such a joy to see such beautiful birds sharing the red berries.

Birds

walked the trail again with the boys.

hawk cried above us, far away up in the sky.

mother duck and seven ducklings hugged the shore as they swam from us, the little ones swimming so tightly together that they made another duck.

Fox & Owl

perfect weather: warm, breezy, sunny with fluffy clouds.

we walked today, the boy, the dog, and me, our favorite trail these days, along the railroad track. as we looked at the wildflowers, we heard a crow call above us. so loud and ragged, i wondered whether a human was making the sound. but as i looked up, i spotted the crow's subject: a fox trotting alongside the tracks ahead of us by a few hundred yards. it stopped, turned to look at us, with the crow circling and calling above it, then continued on. stopped again, stood still watching us, then on again, all the while the crow calling its location to everyone in the forest. foxes are said to represent protection of family.

sewer pipes going in for the new house behind us. our little blueberry bushes and silky dogwood lifted gently out of the earth by the crane and set down in a cluster on the green grass. so gentle, like a mother bird shifting her eggs with her beak, the crane moved slowly and carefully.

boy, dog, and i spent the whole day outside. pulled up the bolted mustard greens, planted lettuce seedlings, mulched strawberries with pine needles, transplanted marigold seedlings into garden beds, re-seeded strawflowers, mulched garlic with straw. boy sat on his blanket in the garden, alternately chortling with glee at the world (crane operator said he wished he had a picture of him), and then planting his face into the earth in the spaces near him that i hadn't covered with blankets. took his spills well, fussing just loudly enough so i'd turn to see how he was doing, then happy to sit up again.

inside at dusk tonight, looked out the window at the sound of birds shouting. in the evening light, caught sight of three little songbirds chasing and harassing a large, strange-looking bird of prey, which flew directly over the center of our house. realized after it passed that it looked so peculiar because it had a flat face; it was an owl. spoke with my husband about it tonight, he reminded me that modern cherokee culture considers owls to be harbingers of death, but that traditional cherokee culture held them as harbingers of change, all kinds of change. what change will be coming to this house?

getting something from the car tonight, i noticed the moon, round and orange coming up over the trees in the far southeast. showed it to the boy, who looked at it for its light, and we stood and watched it float ever so slowly up, free of the trees, balancing itself in the night sky.

Finch Babies

missed a few days.

purple finch mother brought her three teenagers to the feeder yesterday. they spent almost the entire time shouting and shivering their wings at her, begging to be fed. in the ten minutes they were at the feeder, only one of them ventured over and scrambled onto the actual feeder to try for a seed, and then only once mother had flown off. i like this shot for the frantic energy; this one, along with its siblings, was in hot pursuit of their mother through the apple bough on our porch.



harvested three luscious heads of lettuce yesterday for a weston price potluck, along with some garlic scapes.

Away

away for the day...

Colors

swell day. sun, blue sky, warm, breezy.

watered all plants. no groundhog casualties for two days now. sprinkled coyote urine that we regretfully bought last year to see if it will help deter it.

peas are growing quickly now that they've found the fence. lettuce is generous these days. love to water the garden, see how everyone is doing each day. boy alternates between watching the water flow from the hose and hanging himself over in the sling, looking at the ground as i walk, always quiet.

found this eastern black swallowtail when i went to get the mail today, lying on the side of the road. reminds me of one i found on my first day working at a children's home in north carolina.

(i just today discovered how to put text below my pictures. this is very exciting.)
the males are always yellow, but the females can be yellow or black/brown, in which case they're referred to as "dark phase females." the one in NC was in its dark phase, and it was the beginning of my sharing my love of nature with the kids at the home. all but one of them didn't even feign interest, but one little guy could have played outdoors all day with me. we'd build little rock dams in the stream behind the home, he'd catch crayfish, salamanders. once he caught a baby salamander, and went in to show it off to the other kids, whom he was eternally trying to impress. one the of girls who normally couldn't be bothered with nature discovered, upon looking closely, that the creature's tiny, beating heart was visible through the translucent skin of its belly (it was up on the side of the transparent carrier).

also:
in his insatiable love of board games, my husband happened upon instructions for making a "Piecepack." this is the board game equivalent of a deck of cards, in that one can fashion a limitless number of games out of one set of pieces. it consists of 20 tiles, 24 discs, and four dice, all divided into four suits.

while it is possible to purchase sets, we both loved the idea of making our own; we play a lot of wonderful european board games (don't think 'monopoly' - it doesn't compare), and it was exciting to have something simple enough to be able to make our own. the link above gave him directions, and he promptly found a site to order wooden pieces from and set about designing suits for us. we chose the four elements: earth, air, fire, and water, and he combined ideas from the web with our own aesthetic. below is what he came up with. he printed the images onto adhesive transparent paper, cut them out, and affixed them to each piece. it's marvelous!

here he is working at a game. the games we've explored so far are as complex and challenging as the board games we regularly play. we're even working on creating a game of our own.





setting up for "fujisan," a fun solitaire game:

Evening Out

sunny day, warm with a cool wind.

finally planted cucumbers, and the nasturtiums who have been soaking for two days. lettuce, mustard, zucchini planted last saturday are all appearing; no beans yet. groundhog has taken out two more kale and another brussel.

spent much of this beautiful day indoors, art projects and organizing happening there. this evening as dinner cooked on the stove, brought my sleepy, diaper-less boy out to nurse on the back porch as the sun set. beams of light streaming low through the pines, moths glowing as they crossed it, spider webs appearing where the light lay across the grass. a mockingbird who first visited our boughs just last night sat in a neighbor's tree and serenaded the world, endless songs and twitters of every bird it had ever met. sleepy boy knew only warm arms and milk.

Babies

hot, humid again.

swallow baby flew the nest today! clumsy flapping in circles around our deck-limbs, and landed with wings slightly akilter each time. can you guess the baby?


around the same time, two young squirrels came for a visit. the white of their bellies was sharply contrasted with the brown of their bodies - a much more distinct line than in their parents. they had obviously been to our feeder - or someone's feeder - before, because they took to it quite adeptly.


one decided to sprawl out under our deck table after eating.



this one came for a meal a couple of weeks ago. in looking at it more closely again today, i realized that she'd been nursing.

Round Sun

hot & humid again, with a blessing of a breeze. so humid that the ball of the sun hung visible behind the curtain of thick clouds. in the afternoon and again in the evening, i mistook it momentarily for a full moon, so similar in size to the moon, who lets us look directly at her.

chickweed, hawkweed, birdsfoot trefoil, clover, gil-over-the-ground blooming.

a cool breeze quite suddenly graced the land this evening, and now pours in through our bedroom window upon us and our sleeping boy in his blanket.

Lightning Bugs

another hot one, towards ninety.

driving to a friend's, it looked and felt like any hot August day, only the flowers blooming were spring and early summer flowers, lilacs and lupine incongruous with the heat.

lightning bugs tonight. just three of four, speaking to us silently as we walked home in the dark through our yards, after sharing dinner with family. boy watching the dark world quietly, actively.

Wilting

heavy air again today. plants were wilted by noon, even with watering yesterday.

planted pole & bush beans to dry, and some bush green beans. considering installing an electrified fence to keep at bay the groundhog who's been nipping the leaves off our our kale, brussels, and onions.

indoors a lot today, windows and doors closed to hold in last night's cool air. through the window, leaves moving in the hot breeze, floppy and up-turned as it came; the picture of summer heat, against the blue sky.

Into the Earth

hot, humid, heavy day. worked outside all day today, my son up with his great-grandparents in the house behind ours, they in town from away.

planted another round of lettuce & mustard seeds; re-planted zucchini & summer squash seeds again (i'll remember to water this time!); planted butternut squash seeds. tomorrow will plant: bush beans, pole beans, cucumbers, more parsnips (a few didn't come up).

spent a while expanding my cut-flower beds with the "weedless gardening" technique we use & love: lay down 4 layers of newspaper, wet them with the hose, then lay down at least 2" of soil/compost on top, and plant into that. this technique preserves the waterways under the earth that support roots, keeps the microorganism communities intact below the surface of the soil (which also support the roots of the plants) and saves you from "waking up" all of the dormant seeds lying under the ground that otherwise start growing after you till. into this expanded bed (8'x10') i happily planted my flower seedlings: dahlias, statice, and strawflower. the bed only accomodated about 1/3 - 1/2 of the seedlings, so i'll need to find more space for them elsewhere, but at least these can start sending their roots down. still need to plant various sunflowers, and zinnias.

an update on the saga of our plum grove: we learned last week that american plums are not grafted onto rootstock, which means that the new little shoots from our dead plum are the same sort that we want to have grow, so today we lobbed off the dead stalk and are now watching the two little replacement shoots make their way into the world. being our main pollinator, it stands in the center of our little plum grove. so now our circle of 7' saplings, which looked scrawny a week ago, absolutely tower over the new little shoots growing in their midst. they have a way of leaning inwards over the little one, so that it looks like they're guarding and monitoring the growth of their new little relative.

Courting

heavy clouds all day, but no more rain yet.

plants have lept up out of the ground since yesterday: foxgloves are a foot high with multiple flower stalks, some of our garlic is waist-high, lettuce is ready to eat, bachelor's button rows are visible from a distance now.

male purple finch spent the afternoon frantically courting a lady who wanted nothing to do with him. tail up like a wren, crest as puffed up as he could manage, singing his heart out. a little bit pathetic, with the female so relaxed and dismissive.

Rain Rain Rain

glorious rain, all day long!

Primary Birds

bluebird returned today, coveting tree swallow's house. spent some time getting a feel for the neighborhood, sitting in the apple bough that our feeders hang from. when he finally flew over to get a closer peek at the birdhouse, the swallow promptly swooped down and ushered him away. before he left, we had male cardinal, male bluebird, and male goldfinch in the tree all at the same time - "primary birds," as my husband stated.

current owner:


prospective owner:


visitor:

Weeds

worked in two of my beds today, preparing them for the flower seedlings i started indoors a couple of months ago. grass, clover, and gil-over-the-ground have set up shop all around the perimeter of the beds. gil & clover are easy enough to pull up from dry soil, but the grass has deep roots and holds fast. life creeping in from all sides, during the seasons when it grows. reminds me of when i was in mexico and they told us (and we subsequently saw) that the land was so moist and so fertile that when they placed newly-cut branches in the ground as fenceposts, the posts proceeded to sprout leaves and grow.

grass is thick and tall, trees are heavy and lush with leaves, crickets chirping in the dark.

Life

we all gathered today for a new babe heading into our world soon. our own little fellow was thrilled to have so many people to interact with. he spent the entire party enthusiastically making eyes at the children, shrieking with delight at everyone who talked to him, and cozying down quietly into me to nurse before reclaiming his social butterflydom.

put tomatoes, basil, peppers into the garden today - market-bought since we've had bad luck starting tomato and pepper seedlings for the past two years. only one of our eighteen beds is left unfilled now, waiting for cucumber seeds. re-started zucchini and summer squash seeds, since i forgot to water the first batch.

our dead little american plum is sending up new sprouts from the root stock that the scionwood variety was grafted onto, the roots reclaiming their original identity.

husband and i took some chairs, some glasses, a nice bottle of chardonnay, and a sleepy boy out under the apple at dusk tonight, and had a couple of glasses as we watched the trees dance and the day end. we talked about our growing plants, our desires for the future of our garden and our yard, our excitement about the possibility of our vegetables carrying us through the winter, and other pieces of our lives. i was holding our little boy in my arms, talking with my love under an apple on our lush earth in the springtime of our little family.

Rain

a downpour this morning, accompanied by glorious thunder and lightning. misty some of the day with a couple of sprinklings, and quite foggy now, at night.

indoor day for all of us. put my flower seedlings out for their fourth day of hardening off, up to four hours outdoors now. had to bring them in during the downpour, but put them back out and decided to leave them out all day, the sun being so filtered through the clouds.

birds flocked to the feeders during the downpour, especially grackles and goldfinches. have never seen more than two grackles around the feeder at a time, and today there were six or seven while it rained. not sure if there was a connection.

a little female hummingbird visited her feeder today.

here are some photos of recent visitors: rose-breasted grosbeak and bluebird during its scout of the swallow's birdhouse. both are perched in the apple bough we fixed to our porch for that purpose.