Sturdy Volunteers

Jim didn't til the two lower strips of the side garden this spring.

Since we are [hopefully] in transit to another property a few miles away, our main gardening efforts have been concentrated there.

I wasn't surprised to see sunflowers emerging in the neglected strips with the advent of warmer weather.

The surprise has been at how quickly they reached blooming status.

Scrolling through photos from 2013, I find the first sunflower in bloom on July 7.

The scent of a pollen-laden sunflower has been familiar since childhood when my Grampa Mac planted a row at the bottom of the garden each year.

Volunteer plants intrigue me.

Each summer finds a few tomato plants which have popped up, usually after the garden has been rototilled. 

In my Vermont garden I allowed any of those which were growing in a likely area to continue, sometimes transplanting a particularly promising specimen to a safer spot.

Invariably the plants have caught up to their cosseted greenhouse companions and in spite of many being hybrid varieties, the fruit produced has been indistinguishable from those deliberately cultivated.

This year's example is the Roma variety, the tiny tomatoes already showing their distinctive oval shape.

I sowed pink cosmos in 2010 [the first year of our Kentucky gardens] and they made a rather feeble showing alongside an exuberance of zinnias.

I collected seed and in following years was rewarded with swaths of dainty billowing foliage and pale blooms dancing along a row near the zinnias.

This year a few are growing stoutly among the sunflowers in the grassy uncut lower strip--uncut due to my 'spare the flowers' protest.

I set out perhaps three cleome seedlings last year--tenderly cosseted in small pots on the front porch.

The first bloom opened on July 5.

I was regretting that I hadn't time to start  plants this year when I discovered that 'Rose Queen' had done the job for me and perpetuated her kind all around the big rock in the front yard.

Mint--what can one say!

Although I spent an hour one afternoon as summer waned ripping out yards of mint roots, it has returned, undaunted, to clamber around the Red Knock-Out roses.

My beautiful trailing rosemary was a casualty of a cold February night when I forgot to trundle the plants inside from the front porch.

Three other varieties survived with only a touch of frostbite browning the needles.

The prostrate rosemary had been covered for months in tiny blue flowers.

In chilly earliest springtime I was astonished to find a colony of tiny plantlets surrounding the dead trunk of the mother plant.

I lost a few in the transplanting process, but have nearly two dozen ready to pot up individually.

It could be argued that I don't need that many rosemarys, however I'm determined to keep enough to learn if they grow true to form or offer interesting mutations.

In 2012 I planted a nursery grown foxglove.

Knowing it to be a self-seeding biennial, I anticipated a crowd of seedlings would appear in 2013.

Nary a one!

I abandoned that particular small garden behind the clothesline this spring, having found it too vulnerable  to washing out in a hard rain. I removed the peonies early on, leaving only some clumps of seed-grown achillea which seems impervious to anything weather or climate may offer.

A few poppies straggled out of the springtime mud and in admiring them I spotted half a dozen foxglove seedlings. I can only wonder if the severe cold of January prompted the seeds to germinate.

One by one I'm potting up the small plants.

A friend in Wales shared photos of foxglove naturalized in great sweeps along the country lanes where she walks. I doubt I can establish a colony of foxgloves but I shall encourage any that are inclined to volunteer.

 Nigella produced only a few wispy stems in 2010 but has since faithfully maintained a presence.

The fat striped seed pods can be gathered and the seeds merely strewed on top of the soil.

This year a second flowering has sprung from plants that Jim mowed in his persistent efforts to tidy the straggling edges of my gardens.

A clump has established along with an errant poppy or two in the edge of the stony rubble behind the garage.

Johnny-jump-up [viola] has behaved predictably, bouncing about in the herb garden, crouching in the edges of the lawn, lurking under the lilies, fading to brown stems with the heat of summer, reappearing in the chilly days of autumn and earliest spring.

Lambs' ears [stachys byzantina] encroaches on less vigorous plants and must be restrained.

Lemon balm and catnip rampage, assuring me that I will never be without their distinctive scents. 

 At our other property Jim resignedly turned a strip alongside the veg garden where I strewed the carefully saved and labeled seeds from  last years gaudiest zinnias and the boldest colored of the 'dwarf' sunflowers.

Assisted by a stiff breeze I flung out poppy and cosmos seed with a profligate hand.

My gardens will never resemble the tidy well-planned arrangements that appear in magazines and the glossy pages of books detailing the work of revered English gardeners.

I sow, weed, divide, gather seeds, transplant, grumbling at the resultant ache in aging back and knees, but unable to accept a season without flowers.

Chief among my delights are those plants, the sturdy volunteers, that surprise me with their cheerful reappearance--a reward far beyond the price of the original packet of seeds.

  Sturdy sunflowers flourishing under a hot blue sky.

Clearing Up After the Storm

As we turned onto the lane which approaches the Cane Valley property  this forenoon I tried to stifle my apprehension at what the storm might have damaged. Coming up the hill we could see that the house was still there [!] and the roof where it ought to be.

Turning into the drive we beheld the welter of limbs that had crashed from the water maples and locusts which shade our acre.  Both trees are fragile easily shattered wood, so it wasn't surprising that we had a mess to clear up. 

I felt mildly indignant that three of the largest fallen branches were lying across a flower garden!

Flower pots lining the front porch had been overturned and a branch lay at the edge.

The yard was scattered with everything from leafy twigs to whip-like slender branches and some 

good sized limbs.

In the backyard we discovered that the storm left us a 'widow-maker'--the large broken maple top caught in a horizontal position.  The shabby half-dead locust to the right had a big limb snapped off and leaning upright against the trunk.

Seeing the house intact, Jim's next concern was for the garden, just around the corner from the 

fallen locust branches.

A strewing of locust boughs blown down from the hedgerow.

Jim declared that the largest limbs couldn't be easily moved without first being reduced to shorter lengths with the chainsaw--which was at home.

He went inside to work on the kitchen trim.

I decided to gather twigs, small branches, anything I could haul off or load into the wheelbarrow.

Above is the result of 2 hours trudging to and fro dragging anything I could manage.

Surprisingly, locust limbs in full leaf are light in weight, but prickly in places.

At the end of two hours I was sweaty and tired.

I had freed the flower bed from the smaller branches that fell there, gently straightened leaning tree lilies and tamped them back into the soil.

When I went to the open sided shed for the wheel barrow I found it had nearly three inches of water in it.

Jim had left two paper bags of seeds in the barrow along with his hoe and disk planter.

We've all read the recommendation that for quicker germination seeds can be 'soaked overnight.'

The bottoms of the paper sacks let go when I moved them, dumping well-soaked seeds into the wheel barrows' bottom. 

I fetched plastic containers to scoop them up and spread them on layers of newspaper to dry a bit.

Meanwhile, as you can see, Jim had nearly finished installing bead-board below the kitchen cabinets. 

Our son Howard when he was here suggested the bead-board as a low cost and relatively fast covering for that area. 

We pulled off an ugly wallpaper that had been applied over a rough surface that indicated  the wall had been tiled at one time.

Corn and beans.

Jim slogged into the wet garden and planted these before we left for home--if they all germinate we shall be inundated with vegs!

When we reached home everything shimmered with rain.

I ejoyed a much-needed hot shower and clean clothes, then went outside for a few photos.

Lilies are bejeweled with raindrops.

Why do orange lilies [my least favorite color] proliferate readily while the white ones are slow to colonize?

Pebbles, serenely grazing in the rain, her fly hood in place.

[She's been known to rub the hood loose and shake it into the grass.]

The rainbow was fading by the time I thought to look for one.

Our house is in need of a thorough tidying--there are letters I should write--curtains to be finished for the Cane Valley house.

I manage to leave my kitchen tidy when we go off to our refurbishing, I keep up with laundry.

We've long since accepted that when we are out straight building or remodeling a house, eating lunch 'out' is part of the expense.

Since we eat this meal mid-afternoon I'm spared coming home and needing to prepare food and tackle another  kitchen clean up. 

Inspiration falters, my feet beg to be elevated.

The real labor and skills needed for the refurb are Jim's--I am a rather lowly assistant--painting areas that need to be 'cut in' without climbing on a step ladder, cleaning up behind Jim, tidying up tools and paint cans at the end of the day, pottering with my plants.

At some point the work will be done and I can sit down with a book--and stay awake 

long enough to read it!

Torrential!

It was a beautiful morning, cool, a breeze, sunshine. I hung sheets and towels on the line to dry before leaving with Jim to work at the other house. 

The clothesline, which was here when we bought the farm, sometimes needs shoring up.

Jim propped it several weeks ago after one post fell flat.

I think the underground end of it is slowly rotting away.

Another support was added this morning.

I suppose a real solution would be to build another clothesline.

Strangely, Jim, who has built many barns and houses large and small, has a history of cobbing together the posts for washing lines.

A group of self-sown sunflowers in the lower garden strip which we haven't planted this year.

I so wanted a leisurely morning!

Time to sit on the front porch and observe the hummingbirds whizzing around the feeder.

Time to wander about the dooryard, noting the scents and colors.

I decided on a skillet meal to fortify us for the day ahead.

I pulled an onion from the garden, added a selection of items on hand:

red and yellow peppers, mushrooms, asparagus from the garden, some ground beef--and left it to simmer while I went out again with my camera.

Several branches of the old grapevine seem to have winter-killed.

 New vines have appeared at the end posts of the arbor.

[Both the arbor and the clothesline were doubtless constructed by the late Haskell Rogers, and share similar characteristics.]

Garlic grows untended around the grape arbor.

Behind the grape arbor and beyond the clothesline are two elderberry bushes.

They are bursting with bloom and seem much taller than last season in spite of pruning in earliest spring.

The foxglove in the garden are reaching the end of their bloom. 

The one tucked in the back of the herb garden was slower to open.

It seems happy there in this rather dry corner.

These foxglove are listed as a perennial variety.  I started them as seedlings last year.

Charles Albanel has done well this year after looking feeble in previous seasons.

I came inside [reluctantly] to find that Jim had cooked eggs to eat with the stir fry.

I set about brewing tea, slicing a lemon--the basis of iced tea to carry along to the other house.

Cat litter boxes must be dealt with, the breakfast dishes washed

Jim loaded the table saw and other pieces of equipment onto the back of the truck.

He announced, 'I'm ready to leave when you are.'

I flung myself into the truck, clutching my container of tea.

At the other house we again worked indoors and out.

Jim's project was fiddly--measuring, cutting, fitting.

By the time we decided to quit about 3, dark brooding clouds were filling the sky. From the main highway we could see heavy black clouds to the west. Jim remarked that it was likely 

pounding down rain at home. 
We had turned onto Rte 80 from the crossroad we use when the wind began gusting, driving rain before it so that it was nearly impossible to see.

Sheets of rain, grey-white, billowing, bore down on us, branches flailed on either side of the tree-lined road.

 The wind and rain were so fierce that I uttered, "Dear God!" a statement that was both prayer and an exclamation of something approaching fear. Within seconds, a tree fell fully across the road, 

30-40 feet in front of us!

Jim managed to jockey the truck around [thankfully we were in old 'Snortin' Nortin' rather than the car] and drove cautiously back to a junction where we could take an alternative, longer route home. 

Headlights piercing the green darkness, windshield wipers slashing against the battering deluge of rain, Jim guided the old truck slowly along the twists and bends of a typical Kentucky back road. At times the rain came so fiercely that he kept the truck at a crawl.

Houses and barns seemed to waver in and out of the darkly shimmering landscape.

Jim muttered that a rain such as this could go over the bridge we would need to cross a half mile 

below our home. 

I said little, knowing from long experience that one does not distract the driver during a tense situation.

 The water had not come over the bridge.

As we neared home, the pounding rain diminished, the wind subsided.

We pulled into the yard, surprised to see that no tree limbs were down.

Pebbles, her coat shiny with wet, browsed unconcerned in her pasture.

One of the sheets I had pegged on the line lay like a sodden spread parachute on the ground.

Its mate, the pillowcases, the nightgowns and shirts, dragged, heavy with water, but still on the line.

I bundled them inside, soaking my clothes as I dripped my way down the basement stairs to heave the cold wet wad into the washer, punching in the spin cycle.

We went through the house turning on lights against a gloom that suggested sundown rather a mere 

4 o'clock.

I swapped my damp jeans for a dry pair, pulled on a warmer top.

A cozy sort of supper seemed the thing.

I mixed batter for pecan waffles, while Jim hauled on a waterproof jacket and foraged in the upper garden for blueberries.

Waffles with fresh berries and maple syrup, ground beef patties on the side, for me a comforting mug of tea.

Once again we have witnessed the awe-inspiring forces of nature unleashed.

Yet again we are thankful to be safe.

[The above three photos were taken an hour after the storm passed by--about 5 P.M. with the sky 

a bit lighter.]

Blossoms Before Rain

Renovation Update

Living room is finished.

The lighter paint above the chair rail is called 'cafe au lait'--a bit more yellow than I anticipated from the sample--color in this photo is not true.

I loaded most of these photos yesterday [Tuesday] morning before we went to work on the 'other house.'

I planned to add captions in the evening.

I was stung on right index finger by a species of hornet/wasp known as 'cicada killer wasps.'

We've ushered several out of the house recently.

They are larger than the 'average' hornet.

Had been home only a few minutes when I spied one buzzing on the windowsill where my elderly Siamese, Eggnog, now spends most of her time.

Yes, I had the evil intention of killing the hornet--and pulled a crumpled tissue from my pocket to 

smash it with.

Hornet objected and I was left howling [literally] in outrage and pain.

Iced the finger, tried a paste of baking soda, a paste of vinegar and soda, both remedies from a google search--trying to type with left hand and remaining fingers on right.

A Face Book friend suggested a poultice made from the contents of a charcoal capsule.

Two hours after the 'wounding' this proved to be effective in reducing the swelling and stiffness.

A cousin of J.'s supplied the helpful [?] information that 1) if I intended killing the wasp I should have gone after it with something more substantial that a tissue, and 2) the wasp uses its venom to paralyze the cicada which then becomes the nurturing host for the wasp's eggs--thus the feeling that my swollen finger was immovable. 

At any rate, finger in operating mode today.

We used the same 'hand-loomed scarlett' on three walls of the master bedroom--mainly because I wanted a soft neutral and J. opted for 'color.' Couldn't agree on color so on went the scarlett.

I can therefore be said to have a adopted a 'signature red.'

Kitchen has thus far needed a good deal of fiddly work.

Removing the fascia of fake wood paneling above the cabinets revealed a messy wall and untidy retro-fitted wiring.

Another wall of the living room and oddments of furniture.

We don't care for the off-center 'niche' for now we think a tall cupboard might hide it.

Somehow the small crocks were carried over and unpacked by J. who lined them up on the shelf.

Grandson D. visiting with his girlfriend, told her they contained the ashes of 'Meme's dear dead cats.'

The boy has always had an imagination!

View from dining area to living room.

I am in love with the paint color of the dining area and kitchen.

Designated as 'Banana Bread' by the manufacturer, it is a lovely soft old gold.

J. working shirtless, has replaced the ancient florescent ceiling fixture with the new LED light which our son chose.  Work in progress--trying to decipher the wiring [badly done] to the fixture above the sink.

Finally able to till the garden after rain of previous week.

My transplants doing well, but the area looking a bit sparse and forlorn.

The inherited half-wild farm cat who appears each day to eat.

Mr. and Mrs. L. were feeding her and a small black one with table scraps. 

She feels at home [sigh] will doubtless at some point, present us with kittens.

What can one do except feed a starving cat?