Epic Beautification 1

                                   

Being a chronicle of the efforts of one medium-sized woman to create an exclusive, native plants only sanctuary in the Appalachian foothills of southeast Ohio. There is some hiring out, but not much.  

                        

The crisp fall days send me outdoors to work. I can't stay inside, and, squirrel-like, I feel like I have to accomplish something BIG before winter sets in. So in the third week of October, I set myself a goal to clear the road to my oil well before the Big Mow on Saturday, November 9, 2024. You see, this summer (2024) the oil and gas company that holds a lease on my oil well ( a common feature of every 40 acre parcel in my area of southeast Ohio) decided, after probably 15 years of neglect, to bulldoze and widen the service road that goes to the well. Which was a total surprise to me. I was delighted, having decided they would never again do any real maintenance on it, and it was all up to me to keep it open. The only hitch was that the dozer simply pushed all the brush over to the sides and it looked like hell. Worse, it would be a nursery for multiflora rose, which would come up like gangbusters under the protection of all the brush and fallen logs. And then I'd have as bad a mess as I started with. 

 The idea was, I'd get all the brush cleared from the bulldozing of this road, which runs along the east edge of my big meadow. I'd load it in my little wagon, pull it with the Deere tractor, and pile it on an already enormous brushpile in the meadow, just in case we might be able to burn it on Mow Day.

I knew, with the Extreme drought now going into its sixth consecutive month (we've had less than 5" of rain in six months!!) that the likelihood of being able to burn it was nil. But I still wanted to try to get the brush cut and gathered and hauled. I got serious about it on October 27, my first full day of clearing. It began to sink in on me how big the job was when I looked and I had cleared maybe 200' of road after working all day. First, I have to chainsaw the brush and logs down to manageable pieces. Then I load them in the wagon and pull it with my little John Deere X300 to the brushpile. I figured out that five loads is the maximum I can expect to get cut, loaded and thrown on the pile in a day of work. After five, I'm too tired to do more.

They're big loads, as this trailcam photo shows. Each one takes 1-2 hours to create and deal with.

Here's the energy expenditure of a typical day of cutting and hauling. It was pretty funny to have my Pilates and yoga app bugging me all week long to get some exercise with this going on in the background! Needless to say, yoga could wait. I did notice that, with a few months of Pilates and yoga exercise under my belt, I simply did not get sore from all this exertion. A good soak in Epsom every  night and I was good to go the next morning. It felt great to become a machine, well oiled and working! 

My best guy is always at my side, watching me carefully, for what I'm not sure--signs of distress? A fall? I don't think he'd run to the house and dial the sheriff like Lassie would (Arf! Arf! Arf!  What's that you say, Lassie? Timmy fell down the well?) but his presence is very comforting. He's helping in intangible ways, cheering me on.

I make sure to bring snacks and plenty of water for us both.

This video will give you an idea of the scale of the job as I peruse one small section of the woods road.

The only way to get it done is to do it in small bits. The bits were smaller than I'd have liked, but the mess was so much greater than I'd realized at first. In the end, I cut, piled and hauled  35 loads with my Stihl chainsaw and little Deere tractor. 

It seemed like I would never stop finding piles of brush and dead trees to deal with.

I also found a less common invasive: Euonymus alata, or burning bush. It was pretty, but I cut it down, because it doesn't belong here and is invasive.

Load after load after load, cut and hauled.

I cut five portals to the meadow along the road's length, which bring me joy, and I'm sure they delight the wildlife, too. Even if I don't decide to pop through them, having that peek of a view and the possibility of easily crossing into the  meadow lifts my heart. 

In between all the work, a delightful diversion: a grayish jumping spider, Phidippus princeps, scoots around on my tractor dash. I about died from the cute.

The saga continues in my next post.

Turning Inward--Home and Garden Solace

Out in the greenhouse, I went to pull something I thought was a withered bud off Hibiscus "The Path."

It was not a plant part. It was a huge female Bold Jumping Spider (Phidippus audax). And she had something in her jaws.  A brown marmorated stinkbug! I cannot imagine eating one of these, but maybe if you avoid the stink glands, you're good...This one was on a bud, sucking the life out of it, before its career was summarily ended by Ms. Phidippus.

I love jumping spiders. I hope this one makes a million babies. I'll put them all in my bedroom with the orchid collection. I let jumping spiders sit in my hand and zoop around on my arms and I have never, ever had one try to bite. No, they look up at me as if they understand that I am their friend.

I've had a bad bug year in the house. Zillions of Asian multicolored ladybugs. And way too many  brown marmorated stinkbugs. I hate them both with a passion. Here's what stinkbugs do to my orchid flower spikes INSIDE MY HOUSE. They pierce them and suck all the juices. This would have been an Encyclia cordigera flower spike with 5 incredibly fragrant lilac flowers on it, but for ONE stinkbug that I found on it. Ladybugs will pierce and chew orchid spikes too! I haaaate them so.

In past years, I bought yards of pale green tulle netting and made growing bags for the plants. It was a real pain because the stinkbugs and ladybugs still managed to find their way in. 

This year I hit on a more efficient protective device. It's Saran wrap, taped around the stem of the flower spike, with plenty of room for the buds to grow inside their makeshift protective bag.

It's ugly as hell, but it works. I have to look at bagged flower spikes for months. But oh, when they bloom! It'll all be worth it. 

In years past, before ladybugs and stinkbugs. This, my friends, is what's at stake. Encyclia cordigera:

Not only are they cool looking, they smell like muguet in heaven.

For some reason, stinkbugs leave Phalaenopsis bud spikes alone. They like to kill off rare orchids instead. Here's a fabulously graceful, full spike of 13 on its way. I've had this one for about five years. I remembered to use  orchid fertilizer late this winter. Duh. They do better if you feed them!

Next day, more are open. It's that ever-changing thing I love about growing plants. Checking in on them, seeing what's changed. Seeing the results of a well-timed feeding.

I like this strangely colored mini. It's more blue than magenta.

And this little clownface opened yesterday, and made me laugh. The whole plant isn't 5" across.

Speaking of mini, I'm in love with this supertiny aroid, Syngonium podophyllum "Mini Pixie."

The plant to the far left is the mother plant. I've had it since I took a cutting off my niece's plant, Thanksgiving 2017. And it still isn't 4" tall. I've split all these babies off it, and each one makes a gorgeous little specimen, variegated broadly with white. They're like microminiature caladiums. I have heard that people use this plant in fairy gardens. This is not a fairy garden, LOUISE. It is a planter with some very small plants and an oversized toad in it. Because Homey don't do fairy gardens. Well, I will put a toad in a planter, but that's as far as it goes. 

Another thing I'm growing in the house is sprouts. Many kinds. My very favorite, though, are sunflower. These are ready to harvest. You start them by sprinkling black oil sunflower seed atop moist potting mix, vermiculite or orchid mix, and you cut them off at soil level with a scissors when the shells finally pop off. It only takes about 10 days to get them to harvest. If you let them grow too long they'll get true leaves, and those are hairy, and not so good to eat. But the nutty flavor when you harvest them right after the shells pop off is amazing. So, so good. Anyone can do this. You don't have to live in the country! Just put them near a sunny windowsill and they'll turn into food.

The lettuce plants in the tower room ranch all bolted when Phoebe came home, but we got maybe six big salads out of them before I yanked them out of their planters. New understudies in the greenhouse here. I've got the planters all refreshed and ready. I'll grow them on the front porch from here on out, until October/November, when I'll have a new cohort ready for the winter tower room fun.

Outdoors in my shade bed, I'm watching these Virginia bluebells. When they are in full bloom, I figure the woodland plants will be, too. Then it'll be time to hit the trail! This year, I'll have both kids and Shila (at a distance) with me. Bliss. Heaven. 

Our daffodils have been absolutely spectacular this year. 

Phoebe's been making elegant bouquets. She says we have 13 varieties. I have never bought fancy bulbs. I have, however, dug a few here and few there at the margins of old cemeteries and abandoned homesteads, preferring to shop the heirloom section of the Earth's variety store.

Many firsts this year. We've tackled a bunch of spring chores much, much earlier than usual, simply because the weather seems finally to be breaking a bit, and we're here, and I have help and the time to do it.
The vegetable garden is cleaned up (with a team of three!), fully tilled, and I planted the peas this morning!! In order to get this done, I had to get the bonsais out of there.  I heel the bonsais into the vegetable garden in early winter. I take them out of their pots, dig a pit and sink them about a foot below ground level, and they do just fine. These are the small ones.

The big maples are getting really big.  I-can-hardly-lift-them now big. The one on the left is 43" tall. The right-hand tree, also my oldest at about 37 years, is about 38" tall. Scale is deceptive here. 

I'm so excited to see them leaf out slowly. It's the most beautiful thing to watch. Sometimes I'm so busy in spring I can't even get them potted before the leaves unfurl. This spring is different. I'm busy, but with different things. The things that fill my heart. Getting these trees out where I can talk with them and watch them change every hour is the thing.

Right now, this is my best looking tree. But things change.



This smaller one has real potential. I love that sideways sweep it has.



I've only got four potted maples to tend now. You may remember I sent the fifth out the meadow to become what it was born to be. It was so dang big, and it was trying to get out of its pot, getting taller and taller. I gave it a bigger pot and it started sending out crazy straight sprouts, headed for the stars.



The obvious thing was to liberate it, and put it out by Bill, where it gets daily visits and watering when it needs some.

I was most gratified to have a shaft of sunlight fall on this tree just as I was composing its picture.

 It is so very beautiful now. I can't wait to see it become a full-sized tree, like the two liberated bonsais in our yard. I mean, I can wait.  I want to wait. It'll just be fun to watch it all unfold.

This western red cedar that I got in maybe 1987(?) when it was about 8" tall has grown into the most beautiful specimen, complete with sweet little blue cones in season. It was given to me by a gentleman I knew in Connecticut who I'm sure is long gone. He asked that I remember him as long as I have the tree. His name was Dodie and he was wonderful. Loved bluebirds and used to put orange halves on dowels around his yard for the orioles. It was in his yard that Vanna, my Savannah sparrow, was found, rendered flightless by a cat. I kept Vanna for 17 1/2 years, effectively defining the possible life expectancy of that species. That's how Dodie and I became friends. Vanna is long gone, too, but the tree and my memories live on.

Thirty-three years on, here's that cedar you gave me, Dodie. It's 21" tall now. 

Still taking care of it, and the bluebirds too. They are initiating clutches earlier than any year in the 27 I've been keeping records. Birds are always telling us things. Those of us who listen to them have to tell the rest of the humans. 

Two Days in May

 Dang, this is a strange and wild spring. It was January until about April 25; people were saying it wasn't April 25; it was the 115th of January. And that's exactly how it felt, like the winter that would never end. Then it ended and BOOM, on the first of May I walked into the greenhouse and all the plants that had been basking in its gentle warmth were suddenly and inexorably being broiled alive. Winter to summer in one day. I've been cooking this idea for a blogpost about May 1 and 2, all the crazy crazy stuff that happened when spring finally burst open like a pinata.

And then it all happened. It warmed up, and everything woke up, including me. The lull I'd fallen into, of just leaving my plants in the greenhouse until whenever, left in a hurry.

April 25, 2018. Creole Lady finally awakens, like Sleeping Beauty, from her winter-long sleep, and resumes dazzling me as if she'd never languished. Still in the greenhouse. Last week of April and it was still dipping into the lower 30's every night!

Now it was May 1. And the greenhouse looked like this. It was 93 in there with the vent and doors flung open wide. No question about it: My to-do list for May first had just been turned on its head. 

 

 I was going to have to empty it out today, and plant everything out into larger pots and planters, or into the ground. It was that or let them roast alive.

On April 11, I'd found this little female tan jumping spider (Platycryptus undatus) in a shoe in my closet. Well, what was she doing there?? I had brought her down to the greenhouse and released her on the geranium. And here she was again! I gave her another drink, which she received gratefully. She'd grown! And now she would go outside with the geranium.

 

I was sure when I set it out by the Bird Spa on May 1 that Happy Thought Red would never look this grand again. Once the wind and rain got done with it, it'd be a sorry sight. Little did I know how right I was...You don't set a 7' wide geranium outside and expect to keep it that way. But it was Live Free or Die time. The greenhouse was no longer a living option, and wouldn't be until next October. It stands empty from May 1 until late October, because it's just too hot in there for any living thing except paper wasps. The derecho of May 15 pruned it all right, but it still looks pretty impressive. It needed a pruning, anyway.

Before I realized that this (May 1) was D Day for the greenhouse, I'd started a couple of loads of laundry to hang out. And while hanging out the first load, I looked out across the meadow with a sigh and noticed that it was full of yellow rocket. Growl! That's an exotic mustard that cheerfully turns meadows into monocultures of yellow rocket. 
This is the before photo. Yeah, it's pretty. Pretty obnoxious! Each one of those plants has to be hand-pulled before it sets seed. Jeez!!


  This is the after photo. Meadow clear, and laundry basket plus trash can packed tight and full, not with dry clothes but with yellow rocket. I grabbed the nearest handiest thing, as is my wont. Just another thing on a naturalist's to-do list.

While I was weeding the meadow, I heard a meadowlark sing, and spotted him in the top of a tree in the sideyard. He couldn't be serious! Our 12-acre meadow wasn't near big enough for him to successfully nest. But it sure was nice to have him stop through and advertise. He appeared for three mornings, then was gone. His clear slurred whistle stays with me. It's the quintessential sound of springtime. 

 
While watching him, it occurred to me that I needed to check the bluebird box out in the orchard. 
A bluebird had laid a beautiful clutch of five eggs, then left them lying stone cold for at least a week. In a normal spring,  bluebirds commence incubating with the third egg, almost invariably. The last one or two laid have to hurry up and catch up with the first three so they all hatch together. Now here her eggs lay, cold as stones, when they should have been halfway through the 14-day incubation period. I had a hunch she was coming back, and a hunch that today was the day. 

But on my way out to her box, I found this. There ensued a hunt netting eight large morels, which I ended up taking to the New River Birding and Nature Festival to cook up and feed to a few lucky friends. I usually have morels to share there. If you're getting dizzy, hey, me too. Going, going, gone, all spring long.



Morels gathered, I forged on, knowing this was the day I'd find out if the bluebird eggs were being cared for. And it was!! The  eggs were warm as toast when I went out to check. Oh, that was the sweetest thing. They'd been so cold 'til now.

Just goes to show you: never second-guess a bird. They know what they're doing.


 
 Yes, we do.

 

While I was out there, I remembered it was the right time of year to check for Incisalia henrici, better known as Henry's elfin. Its brood plant is redbud, and there's plenty of that in the orchard.

  

I found my little man!!  I love this bug. I love going out to look for it, when I get a feeling it's out there, before the redbud even blooms. I've only ever seen it at the end of the orchard. And I've been seeing it there in early spring for 24 years. There's great comfort in that.

 

Back at the house, it was starting to look a lot like springtime! Hummer feeders are out; colorful planters deployed; greenhouse plants finding new places to thrive in the cooler spring air.  Camera and binocs always at the ready on the front stoop. That's how I bring you all this great stuff, with these Essential Tools. I've been told to expect my Canon 7D to die any old day now, as it's passing the usual number of actuations (190,000) that constitute a normal camera's life. So far so good. I baby that thing. 

The hibiscus were enjoying their shady new digs after the scorching they'd gotten in the greenhouse. 

Amazing to see jonquils still going strong on May 1, when the lilacs were in full bloom.

The first catbird celebrated arriving at Indigo Hill by taking a bath in the newly activated Spa! Oh what a wonderful thing to witness!

I found a silken tunnel in the lawn that I suspect might belong to a very large spider, perhaps Hogna georgicola. I've raked them up while raking the lawn, and I've dug one of them up in the garden before, so I know they go underground.

 

 It would be on the size order of this one. Big.

I think this is a Dolomedes fishing-spider.  Ain't skeert.

Meanwhile, it occurred to me that it was probably getting pretty darn hot in the tower room, where I'd been growing lettuce all winter, keeping us and the neighbors in delicious salads. 

 

Yep. Hot up there, too. So before Liam left for school I enlisted his help in carrying the heavy planters down two flights of stairs, one of them small and treacherous. I could hear the lettuce sigh in relief when it got in the open outside air, which moves and swirls. Down it would go to the bunny-proof glass table on the side patio.  

Man, I hated to cut this uber-sexy flower stalk off my North Dakota rhubarb, but it has to be done before the plant expends too much energy into making seeds. Rats!! I manured it and the peonies next to it as an apology. I mean, I put cow manure on them. Pfft. That sounded weird.

Here's a flower stalk I won't cut off until the last flower falls: my Encyclia cordigera, which is still stinkin' up the bedroom with paradisiacal scents of clove and heady musky perfume. Never has it had better blossoms. I credit manure tea!

Of course, the lawn needed to be mowed and raked, too. It needs that again today. There is so much more to do in spring and summer, but I take great joy in doing it all. It's my cross-training workout when I have no time to run.

Phoebe sent me a blissed-out photo from Maine. Yep, that's pretty much how I felt at the end of May 2, with all this done, and all this to enjoy.