nothing gold can stay

 My heart is broken.  

 

After twenty five years of mules in my life, my paddock is empty.

Back in June it was discovered through radiographs that Flea had significant loss of coffin bone, which was why he had such a hard winter.  I knew this would be his last summer.  I went back and forth about Fargo; he was perfectly healthy, but he was for all intents and purposes a feral mule.  I couldn't just walk up to him and put a halter on him, vets and farriers couldn't get near him, heck, I couldn't even reach out and touch him without having him overreact.  He had a terrible start to life, and even though he was only seven months old when I brought him home, he was never really able to get over his fear of people.  I was so extremely lucky that he'd never been sick or injured in his time with me.  And so I made the decision that he would go with Flea.  

I'm so thankful to them for all they taught me over the years.  Mules are definitely not like horses, and spending time around them was never boring.  Flea's medical conditions (PPID & IR) taught me more than I ever thought possible about navigating this world of equine nutrition, understanding seasonal influences and triggers, how and when to adjust medications, and most of all how to support these animals through all of the ups and downs their bodies are forced to endure.  Fargo's overreactions taught me how to be quiet and patient, how read body language, and how to find a system of communication that worked for the both of us to keep us each safe.  From my long gone draft mule, Mister Mann, I learned just how much an animal can actually want to be with people, and crave affection.  He was a love bug the size of a truck, that mule.   

I don't know if I'll ever have more equines in my life, but I hope I get that chance.  For now, I need to work through this grief and learn how to navigate life without them.   

At Long Last

As August winds down to a close, so does the alpine garden project.  It looks a little out of place in the landscape now, but next year the grass will grow in and it will have settled enough to lose that new garden look.  I'm pretty happy with how it came out, and want to give the plants that are in there a chance to grow before I add anything else.  I've tried to keep a color theme of green, blue-green, acid green, and burgandy flowing throughout.  The only exception is the dwarf iris I planted, which are the blue Katharine Hodgkin and white Louise, but they'll be long gone before the sedums and other herbaceous perennials  start to do their thing. 

Lest we forget, here's how it started. (Thank you, Kevin!)

 As it was filled in (thank you, Sam!)

 Then I topped it off.  (Thank you, Li'l Red Tractor!)

I spent days moving my key plants around hoping for some kind of divine garden design inspiration.  I don't have a knack for this, so hopefully following my gut paid off.

 Then I started planting.

That dark green mugo pine has been on my wish list for a while, I love it.  And the little upright dwarf juniper to the right of it, how cute is that?  To the left behind the mugo is a Japanese maple I've been growing for about four years now, from a tiny seedling from a friend's massive tree.  The small blue spruce was an impulse buy at a box store about three years ago, from their Christmas tree leftovers.  Poor thing probably thought it was never going to get out of the tiny pot it was in!  At some point, I want to try to do some bonsai pruning on it. I set it in the ground with its natural curve facing southwest, because the northeast winds that come across the pasture in winter would naturally shape it that way.

The ravens seemed to love checking out every inch of my project.

Finally, I was happy enough with what I'd planted and what I'd transplanted from other gardens around the property.  I purchased a load of pea stone to use as a top mulch, and some decorative stones to create a symbolic waterway.

Most of the herbaceous perennials should double in size, like the heather, sedums, and dianthus.  The creeping phlox and Scotch moss should spread out and soften the edges.  Next year, I hope to add a waterfall feature where the cave is, and some kind of potted water feature to set on the flat stone near the base.  This has been a fun experiment, and so different from the more traditional gardens I've worked on.  Now that it's done, I've started working on the cat fence.  Next year I'll be able to start building more garden beds, and begin bringing my backyard oasis to life.  My back already hurts at the thought!

The Shade Palace

It's hazy, hot, and humid all over again.  For a few weeks, we did have a reprieve and the weather was beautiful.  My go-to project guy, Sam, built the lean-to off the back of the barn.  It was a little narrower and a helluva lot taller than I'd pictured, but it's great.  As he said, it's tall enough that I could park my truck under it with a full load of hay on it.

Here's the area before the build. It's the only place that has any shade during the hottest part of the day, except for inside the barn.  I wanted the boys to have a fresh air option.

 

 

The first order of business was digging some holes for post supports.  Sam learned exactly why this is called Stoneridge Farm.

 

 

Look at that piss-poor soil loaded with rocks.  This is why we can't dig into the ground around here by hand.  But don't you worry, I put that junky dirt to excellent use.

 

 

That's right, it was perfect for the alpine garden!  Sam bucketed over what he could and I only have some minimal filling to do at this point.  I was hoping to finish filling it this weekend, but the weather has gone back to unbearably hot and humid, so I'm pumping the brakes on outdoor chores for now. (That Sphinx statue just keeps moving around, but eventually will end up IN the garden, not perched above it.)

Back to the lean-to.   

Once the supports were in, Sam lost no time in getting the frame whipped up there.

 

 He had some gently used tin roofing that he recycled for this project, and close off the ends with some scrap T1-11 that between the two of us we managed to scrape up.

 He trimmed the roof edges and added some finishing touches, then snagged me a load of stone dust to use for the inside of it.

And thus my next focused task was born.  I needed to pull the vegetation and scrape the ground clean under the part of the lean-to that had been outside the fence originally, smooth it all out, dump the stone dust in there and level it.  Li'l Red was a huge help bucketing in the material, and then I would rake it by hand with a landscape rake.  

 

 After that was done, all that was left was to secure some pipe panels to the uprights, adjust the fence a little, and add one large helping of mule.

 

And there you have it, The Shade Palace.  I need to get my ten foot gate out of the pasture and put that on there, but for now a spare twelve foot panel will suffice.  This simple chore took me all day and I was dead exhausted by dinner time.  Fargo was so excited about his new digs at first, but once he realized there were no fans going, he went back into the barn...so I'm not sure if this was money well spent yet.
 

The Great Melt of '26

 Hot.  So hot.  Melting.  Stuck indoors.

Guess that's a good excuse for an update.

My focused tasks lost focus with the weather.  I'm a larger lady and I don't do well in these hot, humid days of summer.  I've also kind of lost my drive.  I'm dealing with a few not so great issues with my health and one of the mules, so it makes it hard to really throw myself into the yard chores.  I did get the squash plants in the ground, so that's good.  I'd call that a focused task since I had to pull all the grass that came up through the mulch on the bank, but after bumping into a milk snake that was close to three feet long, my focus went right out the window.  I made sure he stayed on his side of the bank while I worked on mine, so the squash are a little shifted to one side of the area.  

Most of the spring sown crops have or are failing.  I've lost half the onions and shallots, and the snap peas are pretty pathetic.  The potatoes are doing great above ground.  I can only hope for the same for below.  I lost one of the six tomatoes but replaced it with a pineapple tomato variety.  I can't wait to try that in salsa.  The peppers are doing well, but I never got around to planting my corn...again.  I haven't planted any cucumbers yet, either.  I'm really slacking this year.  The hillside garden is more weeds than anything else.

The cottage gardens look pretty good despite me drowning them in soil.   I did lose a lot of plants over the winter, but some of the bulbs, like the varieties of alliums I added, are filling in empty spaces.  

The meadow, though.  Wow, is that really starting to come to!  Most people would probably identify at least a third of the plants as weeds, but I love them all. The pale purple and Bush's coneflowers are thriving, the field daisies have run rampant throughout, and my white penstemon seeded a baby that actually bloomed this year.  And it's still going like gangbusters.

 

 

 

See, not all doom and gloom.  As a bonus, I was able to meet my great granddaughter.  Her parents used wildflowers as a theme for her baby shower and in her room, and as soon as I heard that, I decided this was Charlotte's meadow.   It was fantastic to have her see her namesake garden, even if the copious amount of bees meant she couldn't really wander through it.  She managed to at least sample a small part of it.

Also, there is evolution happening in my water feature!

 

I've never seen them reach this phase in past years, so I'm pretty stoked.  Live long and prosper, little tadpoles!