A new gardening season is upon us!

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The greenhouse and cold frames are already beginning to fill up with seedlings. This year - unhampered by any broken bones (yeah!!!) - I’m trying to follow along with Charles Dowding’s No Dig. We’ll see, it’s early days yet but my goal is to grow all my own fruit and veg for the year excluding any tropical stuff. Seeds are germinating and there is a pile of new covering and netting just waiting to be laid out over tender plants. I can’t resist growing flowers too, so those are sprinkled in with the veg.

I try to be efficient and sort the seed packets by the month and then by the temperature required so I can group them on the heat mats. It more or less works out.

This year’s major addition to everything is honey bees. The hive is constructed and waiting in the shop so nobody else moves in. My new bee suit is hanging on its own special hook and the bees have been ordered and registered with the state. Some time around tax day I will head over on the ferry and bring back my very own bees! I hope they like me…

Oops - where did November go?

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Time really does fly when you’re having fun (and when you’re trying to meet a deadline…) Now somehow it’s almost Christmas! The beehive is almost complete - it just needs a few coats of Watco on the outside and then the finishing bits that aren’t supposed to get oily added on. And then it will be time for bees. Which I admit to being somewhat nervous about - and they’ll know, I’m sure of it. Hopefully the welcome mat of cherry blossoms will be out and they’ll be so glad to call Short Meadow home that they won’t care.

I’ve started painting upstairs - in the hopes that I can live up there soon. Whitewashing is really a messy business but it does look good! It looks like I will have to forego underfloor heating for now - which is a disappointment but does mean I can probably get the floors done sooner and possibly do them myself… famous last words but I do like a challenge.

I will resolve to post on a more regular basis in 2019!

Cold frames and chipmunks

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It’s always amazing when one of those non-essential but important projects, that somehow lingers for years, finally gets done. Top of the list were these coldframes. The delays were numerous, from running out of screws to being too cold or too hot. The broken ankle didn’t help either. But now they are done, and I’m willing to look past the gaps and uneven corners!

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The location was mostly out of convenience, next to the greenhouse where there is still space to walk. This puts them under the pine tree which also has the birdfeeder on the other side. I installed the lids in situe on a rather windy day so I wasn’t too surprised to see Sarah, the chipmunk zipping around between her woods and the birdfeeder. I was amazed, though when she stopped and turned around on the fence to come back to see what I was doing. She didn’t mind the drill or big windows being moved just feet from where she was gathering seeds. In all she seemed to understand about needing to get things under cover and ready for winter.

Sarah draws the line though as cell phones with cameras- then I instantly became a suspicious character and she refused to come close until we negotiated for a few brief portraits (and yes, I then went away and left her in peace.) The wind seemed to work in her favor as it kept most of the birds away - which aren’t really a threat, but their constant motion makes her nervous. I put down a fresh handful of seeds to make sure she could make the most of the day.

Very little of my work at Shortmeadow goes unsupervised and its always nice to have a friendly face to talk to!

First frost

Saturday morning it appeared - in the vale by the chicken house. A light coating of white on the grass and mowed weeds. Elsewhere it was heavy dew but there is no ignoring the first frost to hit. It means plants must be relocated. So now most of the hanging baskets have been emptied and the greenhouse is beginning to fill up. A red geranium is sitting on the kitchen counter dropping scarlet petals on to the dining room floor - neatniks will be appalled - it makes me smile. This will be the first winter with plants in the greenhouse which isn’t heated. I expect to have regrets over some decisions of what goes in the house I just wish I knew what they were going to be now!

At the same time seeds are germinating for winter vegetables - some for the greenhouse beds and some in the cleared pots on the back porch. All but the cabbage and corn have been harvested and it’s time to put the Excalibur 2000 (the dehydrator) back on the shelf.

You may remember Sylvia, who lost her home recently in the glazed orchid pot when it came inside? Well, she re-emerged yesterday on the same table sitting on the small Buddha statue. She’s changed her coloring to match and while I think she’d really prefer her pot back, I find her posing with the Buddha to be most evocative…

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Fyi, I did put a cabbage in a small pot on the table since that can stay out indefinitely but as yet she’s shown no interest. I can’t blame her - orchids to cabbage is quite a comedown!

The Season of Cold Toes

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There were some hard conversations at Short Meadow the last few weeks. The season has turned, the rain has returned and the thermostat is dipping down into the 40’s at night. That means its time for the orchids, summering on the porch, to come back inside. This was met with great dismay by several amphibians who had enjoyed the ancestral memories of broad tropical leaves. Knowing they were likely in residence, this was a physically gentle but emotionally difficult separation. Sitting in the bottom of the outer pots, frogs looked at me square in the eye and blinked sad eyes. At least one relocated to the only plant staying out, a small fern, where it sat barely hidden by a frond and continued to observe my activities with what can only be described as grumpiness.

The orchids, now back in their winter abode in the kitchen and living room, are still decorated with random deposits of frog poop. Something I never thought I’d be able to identify. They too seem to miss their friends and the bigger community that exists outside. I plan to conduct an experiment of playing them frog noises everyday just to see what happens.

Meanwhile, the chickens still have the same routine, but even if I wait until 7am it is now dark when I let them outside. Also deeply in touch with their ancestors they distrust the dark (wise!) even when it is securely enclosed. They stick their beaky noses out and then turn around and look at me voicing their distrust loudly. It’s made clear that this is my responsibility. All except Daisy of course, who cheerfully and bravely hops out the human door with me to explore, trusting I’ll keep the bad guys at bay. I’m prepared to do that for five feet and ten seconds until I can scoop her up and deposit her back in the pen. She is a most intrepid chicken.

Which brings me to consideration of ‘science’ and the frequent accusation in the world of anthropomorphizing. I recently heard someone on the news say animals have relationships but to say friendship was going too far. Seriously?

There was a time not too recently that the only medical information that had value was what could be stratified on a blood test. Now we’re ‘rediscovering’ intuition and celebrating those that persist in the face of a negative blood test. Which we should, but I’d point out we never lost these skills we just lost the courage to use them. I have a lifetime of friendships with animals that didn’t live with me and weren’t fed by humans, removing most of the motivations the lab coats would recognize. Sure, I add my own interpretation to their actions but heck, I do that with other humans!

I think if we ever want to live well and gracefully we have to live as part of the Earth’s community and not apart from it, and that means making friends with our neighbors.

Harvest Days

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It seems like every year is an odd year when it comes to the garden. This one being no exception. You would think that a hot dry year would be ideal for tomatoes but their sensitive little souls felt it was too hot. So I sit and wait on the few green tomatoes to see if they have the will to ripen before a frost. I have hope for at least a few. I did get a few pears - less than many people but more than last year so I am eagerly anticipating my supper of pear and gorgonzola pizza.

The Italian plum harvest though was fabulous. There are now nine plum coffeecakes in the freezer ready to bring some zingy sunshine to January. The mornings are chilly now, but refreshing. As it gets colder thoughts turn to interior renovation with the unfinished 2nd floor weighing heavily on my mind. I think things will begin to come together in the next month.

I still have a few things that need to be planted out but otherwise its about making space for winter vegetables without compromising revitalizing for Spring. And wintering over is going to need quite a bit of planning…

A Tribute to Maisy

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Three years ago I would not have expected to have chickens, let alone love them. But when Ella and I moved to Short Meadow and the chicken house was sitting there, dusty but mostly ready it seemed a better place to start than the runner ducks I had in mind (and still want) as no ponding was required.

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So that following March I stood in line (yes, really) to get day-old chicks.  Maisy and Daisy were indistinguishable for a couple of weeks but as the chicks began hopping out of their enclosure to explore beyond the heat lamp, Maisy stayed behind and ate and ate. She was the first to lay an egg and the first to go broody, which she did with a great deal of grumbling but never, ever pecking. She continued her youthful disdain of exercise, always laying and brooding in the lower bunk of nest boxes.

In January I had to take a break from the hen house due to a broken ankle but on my return in March Maisy took to greeting me in the morning by sitting on the shutter laid crosswise in front of the door to keep the straw in. This prevented the other chickens from getting out and me getting in, but was a fabulous opportunity for conversation which Maisy always greatly enjoyed.

Last Wednesday she was not on the shutter. I found her where she had fallen asleep and died just before dawn. All the things that made her death at just 18 months shocking are the same things that give me comfort. She was not distressed in any way, and had spent the previous day happily scratching and eating bugs and doing everything a chicken most likes to do. She'd been laying regularly and all the other chickens are fine. So most likely her early behavior was a sign of something congenital that finally caught up with her. She had a good life and taught me a lot about the ways of chickens. The hen house just isn't the same without her.

Summer is closing out

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I put up a wildlife cam to see who would come investigate the windfalls; not surprisingly the deer dominated the scene but even they couldn't eat them all so there may be more footage to come. This young male is a frequent visitor during the day as well. He knows he's beautiful!

The fruit harvest is pretty much in - two buckets of apples are waiting in the kitchen for me to sit down and start cutting them up. I'm thinking more applesauce this year than drying. The peaches tasted better this year, more sunshine will do that, but there weren't enough to put up. Something happened in the late Spring between flowering and setting fruit that put almost everybody off. There are still blackberries for picking but the scratches are taking their tole on my hands. But while there may not be much going in the freezer at the moment there is little need of the grocery store with zucchini, cucumbers, tomatoes, peaches, blackberries, and eggs all in abundance

I did finally move the saddest gooseberry bush ever to a place with more light and more water. It is reconsidering dying but hasn't fully committed. I am slowly, slowly, tackling a garden cleanup. I manage about fifteen linear feet at a time and then ache for a few days, but things are looking tidier, if not exactly beautiful. As I go I'm making a list of what to plant in the bare patches that is both deer and rabbit proof. This mostly consists of lavender and hellebores. A seed and bulb order are going to have to go in soon. I'm planning to grow malabar spinach up the chicken enclosure so they can nibble from the inside. But I'll have to enclose it somehow to keep the deer from joining in and finishing it off...

Before long the rains will be back and it will be time to return to the wallpaper stripping upstairs.