It Feels Springish

 And just as quickly as the switch was flipped to cold, it's been flipped to hey, it's above freezing!  Not exactly beach weather, but boy howdy, snow is melting.  Though it's going to be a while yet before I can get into the hillside garden.

 

I'm happy to see the two small dogwood trees are still in good shape; they're those sticks poking through the snow just to the left of the bottom of the hay ring.  These are free range Pagoda Dogwoods, which are native to New England and are abundant on our property.  These two were found as four inch seedlings and transferred to pots to grow on. It's not a great idea to leave them like that in our climate; if the pots freeze solid, there's a chance the roots will get killed.  I generally try to bury pots in the ground over winter to insulate them, but these are extra large buckets and the thought of digging a hole for them was too much.  Hopefully the snow is enough insulation.

In the house, things are popping up like crazy.  The seeds I sowed on February 18th are doing well despite the mold issues.

 Only the globe thistle seeds that I pulled from someone's garden didn't germinate, so overall I feel like this is a win.

The gaura seeds were the worst affected by mold and the ones I gave a diluted bleach bath.  There were supposed to be 100 seeds in the package and I think I'll be lucky if I get a dozen to plant out.

 On February 23rd I sowed some aster and petunia seeds.  I used the new trays and also sowed 3 kinds of hot peppers, sweet peppers, and three kinds of tomato.  The asters and tomatoes popped right up, but the peppers are just barely breaking through the soil and the petunias are so tiny, I can barely see them.

tomatoes

aster

petunia

A word of caution...I've noticed the last few years that I've been seed starting in the house that there's a particularly sour odor that permeates the air.  My house smells really stale right now, and slightly like there's a soiled diaper lurking in a corner.  I think it's a combination of the damp soils and general lack of fresh air.  I'd start these all downstairs in the mudroom, but I love checking them every day and fussing over them, so that's not going to happen.  I recommend a clothespin to the nose if visiting.

And lastly, the strangest thing is happening with the barn roof snow.  With the warmer temperatures and the melting, the snow slides down the roof as usual, but when it hits the snow stoppers it acts like a bolt of cloth being unrolled, and begins to fold up on itself.  It's so bizarre!

(how cute are those mules, though?)

 

I don't know how much will bank up behind the stops before it melts off, but I'm hoping it all goes before the next cold snap.  As an old Yankee used to say to me, it's not melting, it's just making room for more snow.

I'm in!

Yesterday morning there was still enough snow on the ground to deter me from getting into my hill garden.

 

It was a rather raw and blustery day, but by evening the snow had actually melted enough that I was able to open the gate and meander about.  In spots the snow is still nearly up to my knees, but my raised beds are emerging.  

 Last year I had already sown my sugar snap peas by April 5th...what a difference!  I have to admit, mud season lasted about a week and that was just fine with me.  Pretty soon I'll be bitching about blackflies and ticks.

But it's opening up more every day...

Inside I've transplanted my impatiens, which are doing very well.  I sowed some pansies and they're not germinating as well as hoped, but thankfully I have an abundance of seed to try again.  Today I sowed cosmos, petunia, annual aster, and amaranth.  I'm hoping that by next weekend I'll be able to set up the poly tunnel. 

Meanwhile, in the pasture...

...love is in the air. 

What to do while it's melting

Things are beginning to melt!  The snow pack right now in the pasture measures 12 inches, down from 17 inches last week.  I can just make out the shapes of my raised beds in the hill garden, and my water feature is marked by a divot in the snow.  Under the mulberry tree, daffodils are beginning to poke through the soil.

 

 

The second sowing of impatiens is going well with about 95% germination.  The chili plants are hanging in there, but one variety still has very puckered leaves.  I've been battling fungus gnats and white flies for a few months now, and it's making me crazy.  No more over-wintering herbs from the garden.

I've mentioned that I am fascinated by the practice of planting bulbs in pots and overwintering them.  I have two sets of pots planted - one stored in the shed that I cannot get to right now thanks to the snow, and one set stored in the basement.  The ones in the basement were tucked in a dark corner on the cement floor.  My basement is heated and I keep it at 48F through the winter, which may have worked against me.  The allium in the pots started sprouting about a month ago, which was much too soon to put the pots outside.  I had to bring them upstairs into the house and on warm days I do set them out.  I have a feeling the allium won't bloom because it's really thin and leggy and just doesn't seem robust enough, but time will tell.  The daffodils and tulips planted with them are just starting to poke through the soil.  I'm going to consider this set a mostly failed experiment as I think the basement is just too warm for overwintering bulbs.  I'm eager to see what's going on in the bigger pots out in my shed, which I should be able to get to soon.

Another plant I overwintered in the basement was my lemongrass.  I took it upstairs about a week ago when I noticed a thick white fungus growing near the base of it.  I think I may have over-watered the last time, which may have caused this.  I scraped the fungus/mold off the plant, set it in the sun for a few hours, then chopped the leaves back even more and brought it inside.  In the entire clump, there are about 3 leaves that have some green showing.  This may also be a failed experiment, but we'll see.

 The south-facing front of the house is well thawed, and the bulbs I planted last fall are already growing like crazy.  

My little Witch Hazel spent most of the winter plowed under a snow bank, but it's poked through now and is trying its level best to show off some spring blooms.

And my ginger plants are coming along. 

The little fox has been back quite a few times and did manage to catch a grey squirrel.

The lone Tom turkey has been joined by four comely hens.

And a single raven has been trying to steal the crow food.  There have been a few airborne battles, which are spectacular to watch, but I feel sorry for the big raven.  He does manage to get a few bits of kibble now and again.  He's heavier than the crows and keeps sinking into the snow, so he'll propel himself upward with a few flaps of his wings and settle back down.

 

Soon that ocean of white will be a sea of green...I'm looking forward to it.

Spring!

The vernal equinox is upon us, get out your shorts!

Or not...last I checked we still had 23 inches of snowpack, but the March sun is definitely melting it every day.  So...welcome, mud season.  

Somehow my plow guy managed to miss half of my driveway, so I've had to drive on what is essentially lawn, and it hasn't been fun.  My driveway is to the right, under that solid berm of snow.

I've had to close the driveway and only drive on it when it's frozen, first thing in the morning.  Yesterday I managed to attack it with my snowblower and opened up another two feet.  I only blew two shear pins, which was amazing.  Thankfully I learned quickly that with gravel driveways, you'd better have a big ol' bag of shear pins on hand.  

The red winged blackbirds are back, and it's so nice to hear their music.  I've actually seen two turkey vultures in the past few weeks, which is super early for them.  I wonder if they know something we don't.  Judging from the last storm we had, spring doesn't feel like it's nigh.

Five days later and that pile against the barn has melted enough that the hay room window is almost completely visible, and at the front of the house my little garden is nearly melted.  There are hyacinth and tulips poking up through the soil, despite the cold.

We've also been visited by a fox, which has been very exciting.  It's hunting the squirrels that congregate in the pasture, where I feed the crows.  Since part of the crow food is soaked cat kibble, the fox has helped itself to that, too.  

And as for the crows, they seem to have recruited a third member to their murder.

There's plenty to go around, so it's all good.

Meet the new year, same as the old year.

 Three days in and that's how it feels.  How is it that on December 31st one is so filled with optimism and hope, and just days later the realization hits that nothing has changed and all hope is lost.  OK, maybe not lost.  Derailed?  At least we were treated to a stunning sunrise to end the year.

To lift the grey veil of winter depression, I wandered out to my little hillside garden (that's what I'm going to call the newly fenced vegetable/perennial holding bed area) to see what was happening.  To my surprise, I found my hellebore proudly showing off a few swollen flower buds.

There were traces of green in many of the beds; English daisy, veronica, yarrow, foxglove...all had decided to respond to the abundant daylight and warm temperatures.  Things look to be headed back to more seasonable temperatures, so I hope these plants aren't too bothered by that.  I can thank my mother for drilling into my head that hardy perennials are your best bet, and be sure they're appropriate for your USDA plant hardiness zone.  Despite being upgraded to Zone 5 (thanks, climate change) she'll still insist we're Zone 4 and any plant you have that isn't hardy for that zone, well, you're taking a chance.

After packing away the Christmas decorations and folding up the fake tree, I decided to bring up the seed starting shelves.  I couldn't bear to have them sit there empty, so I sowed a small tray of Gerber Daisies, Blue Mist Spirea, Rudbeckia, and Prairie Coneflower.  All of these were seeds I had collected, so I just want to know if they'll germinate.  I won't start anything else.  I need to keep repeating that to myself, otherwise I'll have six foot tall tomato plants on my dining room table come April.  😏

I've also started a new hobby, needle felting.  So far I've stabbed every one of my fingers and have some questionable looking Easter eggs to show for my efforts.  We won't talk about the Easter bunny that looks like a heavily pregnant monkey-chicken hybrid. I'll get better at it, once my fingers heal.

 Our good start came crashing down around us yesterday.  Winter Storm Elliot came bustling through our area, and while most of the country was left buried in snow in its wake, we warmed up to 50*F and had the strangest winter storm I can remember.  Hurricane force wind gusts, inches of rain, severe thunderstorm alerts, and temperatures plunging into the teens to single digits overnight.  We've lost most of our snow pack and everything froze.  

 

Friday morning, December 23rd

Saturday morning, December 24th

Once again, thousands are without power.  The winds from this storm came from the southwest, when typically they come from the northeast.  Trees toppled, limbs fell, and low areas flooded.  What a mess.  Thankfully for us the bitter cold is nowhere near as bad as it is in the Midwest right now.  And the long range forecast?  Well, there's another oddity.

I can only hope that things will settle into a more normal pattern in the latter part of winter. 

February Thaw

 As of today we are at 10 hours and 24 minutes of daylight.  The sun is definitely stronger, and the 40* temperatures have been helping to settle the snow pack and even melt some of the 2-3" thick ice floe that is my driveway.  Here's one days worth of melting.  Gotta love seeing that dirt!

 

With the sun and the warmth, it's hard to resist starting some seeds.  I don't want to start my veg too early, so instead I'm working on catnip, cat grass, and seeing if some echinacea seeds collected a few years ago are still viable.  I've also started a small batch of salad greens that are coming along nicely.

Most of my herbs are still alive, which is amazing.  As much as I love gardening, I'm really not good at it.  I have lost my rosemary, and I'm fairly certain I've killed my lemon grass.  The rest seem to be struggling, but still alive.  I have my pepper plants that I'm overwintering in the basement.  If all goes well, by next month they should be showing signs of life.  I've never tried this before but I'm hopeful. 

I'm not sure if it was from the potting soil or the garden soil that the herbs came in with, but I had an insane infestation of fungus gnats this winter.  They look like fruit flies and apparently they emerge from the soil in damp conditions.  According to a YouTube video I watched, one adult can lay 300 eggs in the soil and they're constantly hatching.  It's almost like a flea infestation - you have treat to kill all life cycles, not just the pesky adults.  The video suggested a dedicated water bottle that has a chunk of mosquito killer, like Mosquito Dunks, in it.  Drop a chunk in the water, let it sit for a day or so, then whenever you water your plants, use that water.  It's the best way to kill off the larvae and the eggs in the soil.  For the adults, there are these wonderful little sticky traps you can put in your plants.  They work fantastically well!

After a couple weeks of this two-pronged approach I'm happy to report there are significantly less gnats.  I'm still using the treated water and have put out a new sticky trap, but at least there isn't a massive cloud of these buggers around my herbs anymore.

 I'm also happy to report that Flea has been doing terrific this winter.  He is moving sound, hasn't had any signs of winter laminitis during even the coldest temperatures, and has been seen cavorting and sprinting around the paddock.  

He's come a long way from the crippled up little mule he's been for the past four years, that's for certain.  He's been on the drug Invokana to regulate his insulin resistance for just over a year now.  There were small signs of improvement within the first four or five months but a few backslides, too. The last six or seven months have just seen him get better and better.  Invokana is a relatively new approach to IR in equines, so we're not sure what the long-term effects will be.  One of the side effects seen in horses has been high trigycerides, which can be life threatening.  In these cases, horses are given a less stringent diet.  This means I can relax a little on the amount and type of hay he gets.  I still have to test any hay to keep it within recommended guidelines, but the hay can be at the upper threshold of percentages for sugars and starch.  When we first started this journey of PPID/IR, Flea would typically do well all year until around the end of January, when he'd start to show signs of being footsore.  He would remain sore and have difficulty moving until around April, when temperatures would start to rise.  I'm holding my breath to see if he makes it through to May this year without issue.  If he does, I'll be elated.  The one thing he's lacking currently is exercise, so getting the track system completed is my #1 priority this spring.  I'll be happy to see both mules moving more, and I'm sure they'll appreciate being able to move outside of a tiny paddock after all these years.   

putty and paint

Days 77, 78, and 79 entailed a little more mud, a little sanding, and a lot of paint.  

A lot of white paint.  

connecting room

dining room/living room

living room/dining room

bathroom and hallway

stairwell

mud room

garage into mud room

Meanwhile, on the outside, it's beginning to look a lot like mud season.  What a mess...

lower driveway

upper driveway

So.

Much.

Mud.

Between the mule's track system to be finished, new lawns to seed, fences to be installed, driveways to be reconfigured, walkways to be created and walkways to be replaced, there will be enough outdoor projects to keep me going through the next few years, I think.