Brightening Up a Cloudy Day

They are falling fast, but the autumn leaves are a rare treasure. The Burning Bushes are doing more that just holding up the hillside out back. Behind them is a maple; to the left is a Hicksii Yew.

One of my favorite sights now is the leaves on the green grass. They were a brighter red a few days ago, but are still gorgeous.

This is a pin oak at the end of the garden, in bronze now.

The sycamore dropped all its huge leaves within a few days. I mowed and bagged them then carried them up to the garden. I put the beds to bed first with chicken bedding and then the cozy cover of leaves and grass.

The green seedlings are two kinds of spinach, winter radishes and beets. All that rain not only washed the soil but made it almost impossible to thin them. I never can resist the idea of a fall garden. Some of the spinach may overwinter if I can ever thin it.

Down on the river bottoms, I discovered several big trees down since I was last there. I got the chain saw sharpened and will soon overcome my inertia and start cutting wood. It sounds awful, but once I get started, it's not so bad. The river came up and deposited some dead wood on my path, so that will be the start, right after I replace the dead battery in Rosie.

Perhaps I should fortify myself with another day of sock knitting first.

The end of Daylight Savings time is also the end of gardening for the year. Now, what am I going to do?

Abrupt Change of Season

Not only did we get some rain, we got quantities.

Not much gardening could be done with such soggy ground. The river was out of its banks and the road was flooded on the far side of the bridge for a couple of days. The irony is not lost on me that a stoppage of road dust only happens when I can't garden.

After about a foot of rain, the fields quickly became St. Patrick's Day green. The cows across the road were as happy as cows can be; their facial expressions reveal nothing.

We are not talking here about the passage of a month or two between hot, dry and windy, to verdant lushness. In a matter of days, I went from short sleeve tee shirts to a mad dive into the Winter Duds boxes. Suddenly, bare feet inside the house switched over to thick wool socks and shoes.

Outside, the temperature went from 90's to 40's. Then this morning, I opened the blinds and gasped, "Oh, my goodness!"

I wasn't quite finished with gardening. No one can figure out where autumn went. The leaves now only have not turned gorgeous colors, they are still hanging on for dear life awaiting Jack Frost. (I know that's not what happens, but we still like to say it.)

After a few hours of sunshine, the snow vanished and bright green grass reappeared as if nothing untoward had happened. That's why I keep the camera at the ready, to prove that it wasn't all in my dreams.

My tulip bulbs arrived right after the rain started, as usual. There will be a slight delay in planting them.

Held Hostage by Irises

For the last many weeks, I've been saving irises. They are a dangerous, addictive flower. They looked so pathetic in their overgrown location that I was drawn into a Rescue Triangle. Rushing to help out, I was ensnared and became the victim of the very weeds that I fought to extricate them from.

Their bed was in morning shade from the big old oak tree, which is why things got so out of hand.

I thought a reasonable goal for this project would be to do one-third of the old fancy iris bed this fall. It turned out to be more like half. Tubs of weeds and roots were yanked out, until I unwittingly grabbed a long root that turned out to be from poison ivy. My face still has itchy places where it got me back.

A horrible mistake that I made was to watch a quality video of a wealthy family's years-long creation of formal terraced gardens. It was overwhelming and made my bed without edging seem even shabbier. I know that in a couple of years, it will be full of fancy iris blooms, but even so, it lacks statuary, fountains and other accouterments. Several leaning peach trees form a background here, more of a distraction than a focal point.

Plus, they don't look like hours were spent sweating over the replanting. Did I ever mention the ice water soaked bandanna for my overheated brow?  It must be wrung out every few minutes when the sweat runs down my glasses. That's the jug on the lawn chair above.

Where the hard work comes in with irises, and a reason that sensible people have nothing to do with them, is replanting the ones that were dug up.

Racing to complete the work before the Autumnal Equinox rains,  I spent hours digging out enough room along the cow fence for five rhizomes. They look miserable, but I have high hopes for them. Many still remain  to be planted. Because the Fancy Bed had many different colors, I fear the best ones are in that batch.

I looked at several videos on iris division and found that the first ones I redid will not bloom again. I tucked a few into the front border and some into the garden flower areas where there is a stone pathway and a birdbath, my attempt at a civilized look.

I lost count at seventy irises into moved to new beds.

Although I don't have formal gardens, I do have Oreo for the obligatory cat. 

We had a few cool days when I dug out my winter duds, but the day after I gave all the plants quantities of water from the cistern, it was 89 degrees again, with a blast furnace wind desiccating  everything. Sigh.

Thank goodness for the roses, which always look better now  than the snide "last rose of summer" slur. This one is Dream Come True.

These are David Austin roses, Heritage. Both bushes have done well here for years. They haven't outgrown their location and only needed minimal care. Unfortunately, our cold dry winters have killed off several other roses. Maybe it was my minimal care,too.

The Morning Glories, being a sister to bindweed, have come back this year. They didn't much like the chain link fence I thought they'd grow up, so this year I stuck some branches and the old TV antenna for them to twine up. Not formal or classy, but they are beautiful. Some are Scarlett O'Hara and La Vie en Rose.

Finally, the rains came last night. My family were only slightly alarmed, after hearing me relate  my iris endeavors for days on end, to hear I ordered three dozen tulips to plant when the soil is amenable. With my bulb auger for my drill, planting them will surely only be the work of an instant.

Rain at Last

The drought was broken by a serious rainstorm. Great gusts of rainy wind descended upon the house. The gutters overflowed, and two inches of rain fell in about a half  an hour. The total was nearly four inches. I can't say how excited and grateful I was. The 55-gallon barrel was connected to the downspout and the hose at the bottom faucet went into the cistern, giving me another 400 gallons to use later. My new pump is finally working, and delivers 720 gallons per hour, almost a fire hose.

Even though the following days were moderately hot and steamy, I rubbed my hands together waiting for my favorite thing, friable soil.

After all that wait, I could dig in the dirt again. The soil on the hillside bed that I started some time ago is the best soil on the place: loam. The tall foxtail weeds were at their biggest and most vulnerable to being uprooted. I attacked the ones that were once on the fence line with my favorite tool, the baby mattox. They had no hard soil to hang onto, and surrendered to my attack.

Stabbing the mattox pointy end into the earth, I knocked off the remaining loose dirt against the blade side. Several big tubs of  the weeds went into the compost pile, which had begun to feel neglected  from only getting smelly garbage dumped on it.

Next, I dug up clumps of overgrown iris plants, from the long bed I planted  years ago on the downhill slope. I have so many now that I only save the best rhizomes to replant. A dozen made the cut.

Of course, I apologized profusely to the irises. They were part of the field planting of fancy irises. That bed is now sadly overgrown, even though I do mow the weeds along the sides.

It turns out that irises need to be divided and replanted at a rate guaranteed to make my head swim, every three years.  I even planted three in the brick bed, where veggies often refuse to grow. The other irises are some bronze beauties originally from the fancy planting, now in their third location. Pay no attention to the weeds, they are soon for the compost cage. The scrawny chard are the result of the drought. They did try.

However, she does go on, the beauty of iris division is it can be done in August, when there is very little to do in the dirt. All it takes is some rain. Right after I got the divided ones into the ground, There fell another inch and a half of gentle rain. They appeared to be cozily settled in to their new bed. They are very forgiving, but I did hear a murmur from one of them that sounded like, "About damn time."

It's Really Dry

It's not just dry, we are experiencing moderate to severe drought in Missouri.

In early spring, I planned to hike up to where I saw a beautiful big wild Bergamot last year. The plan was to dig it up and  move it down to keep company with the other flowers. With this drought, I was glad I hadn't carried out such folly.

It was a wonderful surprise for me to come upon a great patch of those beautiful flowers growing in the field I no longer mow. I believe it was my reward for failing to mess with Nature.

Not only were they fabulous as a great drift of flowers, but they have held well in the vase as cut flowers.

They look like blue fireworks, but are longer-lasting and quieter. Left to their own devices, they survived nicely without extra watering.

Their leaves are aromatic, used to flavor Earl Grey tea. I believe I should have not tried to garden this year and just waited in the hammock until these members of the  Monarda family appeared. They seemed to be asking, "Drought, what drought?"

The Longest Four Days

We have been deceived. On June 21 at 6:07 ET, the Farmer's Almanac said, it was the Summer Solstice. Precisely then.

However, a glance at the Rise and Set for the Sun for north 40 degrees latitude (here) shows four days with the exact same rise and set times. I would suspect a cover-up of some sort, but the Astronomical Applications Department at the U.S. Naval Observatory seems like they would have known or have been able to Google it.

The Solstice means the Sun Stands Still, a great trick.

As a gardener in a hot area, there is such a thing as too much daylight. In winter, I cheered the Sun on every day, marveling at each precious minute of sunlight gained. Now, I think the Sun has worn out its welcome. Lack of rain recently has left the ground hard and dry. The blazing Sun is not helping there, working in cahoots with the strong south wind. When I water the plants, I am dismayed to see the water slipping down big cracks in the ground.

Of course the road dust is choking. I run into the house when I hear big farm vehicles coming this way.  Long cattle trailers, trucks pulling multiple round bale carriers and their ilk create great clouds of dirt as they speed by as if to a fire.

A singular problem I have is the chickens don't get to bed until around nine. I'm always waiting for them to roost. They are in no hurry, meandering down toward the coop and then milling about in the hen run that they were so desperate to get out of earlier.

Back to the Sun Set chart. Even though the Sun rises later now, it has been sneakily setting only  three minutes later in all this while. For ten days following the Solstice, it set only a stingy minute later. The Sun is no doubt beaming at how easily we were fooled by the calendar.

As a amateur astronomer, more darkness with mild nights would be great. Ironically, in winter, we have plenty of night, when it's too blessed cold to go out.

I believe there is actually more afternoon now. It's some trick of the light that allows extra minutes to be sneakily larded in to the afternoon, when no one is noticing. As for me, I'm having a siesta in preparation for the long drawn out end of the day and possible stargazing after eleven p.m..

The hens turned out to be more resourceful than I would have imagined. With the ground hard and dry, they turned a molehill into a dust bath. I believe they scolded me to stop squawking and enjoy the summer.

Soaking up Summer

One of my favorite outdoor activities at this time of year is knitting on the chaise in the shade on the back deck. I stretch my legs out on the cushy comforter that I use for a pad, with a pillow at my back and iced coffee nearby. From that vantage point, overlooking the garden and lots of flowers, I take time to enjoy it all.

There is some possibility that the next two or three months may turn off really hot, so any moderate day now is precious. I noticed today that the NOAA weather radio only speaks of hot when the forecast is for the upper nineties. Personally, 95 is hot for me.

The trumpet vine, actually a nasty invasive weed everywhere else, is so pretty now. There is a hummingbird who sits atop a branch and guards his personal property. Sometimes, he dive bombs the field of bloom, which must make him dizzy with the repeated pendulum swings. He stops and sips nectar from the many orange blossoms.

Knitting on a sock, I listen for the birds that are still singing their hearts out. There are some wrens in the two houses that twitter practically non-stop. It's a cheery sound.One of the houses is down by the chicken coop. I get a big scolding from them when I go down there.

 After years, I identified the sound of the yellow-billed cuckoo, which is not at all like what one would think. It sounds like chuck chuck chuck and then slower, same thing. They are very elusive, apparently with privacy issues.

The sky is filled with puffy clouds today, against the wild blue yonder.

Over in the garden, the corn has shot up with the recent rains. An enormous Cocozelle Zucchini has tropical-looking leaves and has already given me plenty of dinners. Last night, I had the first ripe tomato stir-fried with zucchini, fresh basil, onion and garlic, served over fettuccine and topped with mozzarella and Parmesan cheeses . I will dream of it in winter.

These are the days that gladden my heart, especially since we are under a heat advisory tomorrow. Sigh.

Working Out vs. A Workout

In the winter, I would often try to get artificial exercise. The problem with that type of insanity is the minute it got tough, I gave up, stepping effortlessly down off the Nordic Track,

Now, it's a different story. Winding up out of pep at the bottom of the big hill offers two alternatives. I can lie down and wait for Search and Rescue to come for me. Or I can stop for small rests and press on and reach my house.

Recently, I had dinner around six. I knew that was a mistake, because I can't do much on a full stomach. However, if I wait until I've put the hens and my garden tools away, it winds up being 9:15 when I get back inside, with dinner at 10.

My plan was to merely shovel some compost and carry it to where I was planting irises I dug up the day before. Compost is lighter than dirt and it was dry, besides.

Here I should mention the fence I pulled up the day before. I wanted to enlarge the whole garden area to include the hillside part. Why I wanted to do that was the soil under the fence was some of the best, going to waste by growing giant clumps of grass. First, I'd unhooked the fencing from the posts. Then I rocked the  fence posts back and forth until I could, with some effort, pull them out of the ground. They didn't want to go. They  had been there since I put that fence in ten years ago. The materials came from the former owners' sloppy fences that I pulled up.

 Apparently, ten years is how long it took me to forget how much work it is to move fences. I  yanked the fencing out of the grass and rolled it up as seen in the illustration above. One day, I would do the job right, I'd told myself, and continue the fence down the hillside. There was a small amount of chain link fencing down behind the chicken coop.

Mulch is the way to keep from endless weeding. I love mulch. The problem with chickens searching for bugs is they scratch up any mulch. So, to keep the chickens out of the hillside plantings, I'd made a little flimsy green plastic-coated chicken wire fence held by bamboo reeds, weak ones.

Beau used to lie on the grassy pathway I kept mowed above that bed. With the 3 ft. fence, I put up another taller bit to discourage him from hopping over it there. Yesterday, when he showed up beside me in the garden, I realized this was going to be a bigger problem than I thought. Strangely, I remembered Elizabeth Taylor in Elephant Walk.

Beau had apparently, through the gateway I'd opened, seen a whole new area of lovely soil to dig up to lie in. He discovered how easily he could push the rickety fence over.

I was confronted with the immediacy of the fence situation. Whining about my full tummy, I went down to where some of the extra fence posts were leaning in a jumble with some sapling trees behind an outbuilding. Using them as ski poles, I came up the hill to the fence site. It was when I fetched the heavy post pounder that I wanted to give up on all that folly. I am a little over five feet tall. The post pounder raised overhead  poses a threat of driving me into the ground like a stake.

After setting a couple of posts, I had to try and figure out the parts of the fencing that had formed new bonds that kept it from unrolling. Sitting in the damp grass,  I was hot and sweaty, not helped by a largish Coon Hound breathing down my neck. That was day three of the Bright Idea.

Of course, this project, already not suited for heat, was destined to get even bigger. I needed more of the shorter fence posts. Although I had plenty of the other old taller rusted ones, I wanted some semblance of uniformity.

I see now that that was the tipping point.

A few weeks ago, while thinning the little green apples on a ladder, I decided the year had arrived to remove the fence surrounding the apple tree. I put it there years ago to keep the stray cows from destroying the young tree.While the ground was dry and hard, I had an excuse to wait. Now, I saw that the shorter fence posts I needed, also the chain link fencing, were at hand.

The next problem was the steep hillside with the apple tree had overgrown with grass and poison ivy. After pruning down some tree seedlings, I got on Rosie the Ride-On and scared myself mowing it.

At that juncture, I came up with a new strategy  for the fence completion. The work would have to be done in very small steps. Camelot Rules were I could not start before eight in the evening. Everything is in shade then and I would only be able to do a limited amount before dark.

Several days of extreme heat, 99 degrees with high humidity, made removing the fence seem like a really foolhardy idea. So when I was in the farm store buying scratch grains, I got three new posts. However, when I got home, I realized I'd gotten taller posts.

"Uniformity be damned," I muttered, not wanting to take them for exchange.

The next morning, after a good rain in the night, I saw I really only needed one of the posts to reach the corner post and some tacky metal temporary fencing leading back uphill. Before breakfast, I went up to the apple tree and easily pulled one post out. As long as I had the fence tool, I got the rest of the posts and pulled up the fence.

Putting the one tall post back in the post pile, I noticed I did have three more of those short posts. Oh well, no harm done, because I really wanted to get rid of that fence.

This time, I avoided those dangerous liaisons the fence was prone to form by not rolling it up.  Also, since I have this much fence and quite enough short poles, I'll go ahead and continue the fence as far as I can. I'll only have to pull up the temporary posts and other fencing and . . . .

The Best Garden Accessory

May was my birthday, quite my favorite holiday. Sometimes it comes on Mother's Day. This year, I turned 75, which sounds a lot older than I feel. Occasionally, I do have a few aches, but they are all from gardening.

My birthday is always an occasion for cake and ice cream and plenty of presents from my three "kids". Even Pauline,  my 98-year-old stepmom sends me a check.

Usually, Chris gives me money and listens patiently while I describe some choices I might make.  Almost all are gardening related. In the past, I bought a weed-eater, little pond liner, specialty tools,  plants and stepping stones. Lis brought me four big walkway stones this year.

With some of my birthday money,  I ordered a pump for the cistern. When I went to the hardware store for furnace filters, I believe that new lawn chair jumped into the back seat of my car.

Izzy brought me bedding plants, most welcome. She and Molly helped me plant impatiens and petunias.



With some of the other money, I got this ultimate gardening gizmo. Molly tried it out first. This is a boon to the overworked digger in the earth. Situated with a big  pine tree and a huge cedar to filter out the road dust, it was easily put up between a medium chokecherry and a maple tree.

The beauty of this hammock is when I lie down in it, I only see beautiful green leaves overhead. I cannot see things that need pruning, weeding, planting, transplanting, mowing or watering. Swaying gently in the shade, I see no reason whatsoever to get up.

It's very peaceful here now that the farm traffic for the planting season is over. Soothing sounds are the many birds singing and the occasional bass accompaniment of  a bullfrog down at the pond. Another feature I discovered was that this blue cocoon is a time portal. It's a gateway whereby an hour vanishes into a strange time warp.

Sorry I Haven't Written

Well, golly, here it is early June. No, I didn't fall off the earth. I've been healthy. My excuse is not that I broke an arm, but I got a new computer. Things went a little crazy after that, on account of not being able to share photos.

Perhaps, I thought, people are tired of me whining about winter never ending. For each missing picture of the bleak landscape, I'd have to write a thousand words. The prospect was daunting. As  a public service, I kept it to myself. Well, I did moan about it to family. They were so glad, they said "Thanks for sharing."

Lissa finally came to my rescue, as she does on many occasions. She fixed the various functions of the computer.Still, it would import but not share the pics.

Finally, I kept pressing keys and one day recently, I was able to share the blessed things.

March:

Some sad things that happened, that I won't dwell on, were the bees didn't make it through the winter. A fox snatched the two Barred Rock hens. The cistern pump gave out, leaving me without all the stored rainwater during an especially hot dry spring.

April:

Eager to start digging in the dirt, I transplanted some lettuce plugs I'd started indoors. It was a lovely sixty-degree day. The next day, we got five inches of snow. The 4-Seasons lettuce survived. They barely show up in this pic. Above them is the remains of last year's lovely compost of all things green plus straw and poop from the chickens. Nicely broken down over the long winter, it was doled out to spring plantings.

After a chilly start, the weather turned off dry and windy, making lots of dust from the road.Next came more winter.   Mother Nature was toying with us. I planted the early veggies.

I put the compost cage up in a different spot, wired the boards to the fencing and began filling it with weeds. It looks tacky but works well. Gardening in Missouri is an assault on jungle growth. There's always plenty of stuff to toss into the cage. My kitchen scraps are limited to coffee grounds and filters plus orange rinds. The four chickens get everything else.

It was so dry that the potatoes and beans that I planted never came up. While I waited for some word from them,  quantities of marigolds and tomato seedlings took over. The grassy weeds were laughing, knowing how the hard ground made it impossible to get them out. The rainfall total for the entire year in late April was two measly inches. Taking a chance that winter was really leaving, I put in three of the tomato plants I'd started in the bottom heat flat. They are now huge.

Unable to resist, I ordered and planted six more daylilies, bringing the total up to 41. I promise these will be the last ones, unless I find some spots in need of them.

May:

The bloom cycle was already later than usual because of a chilly April. It was late but the weeds were not. May was so hot and humid that the spring-flowering shrubs lasted barely long enough for me to bring a few bouquets into the house before they gasped and gave it up as a bad idea.

The peonies were especially pretty for several hours before a much-needed rain smashed their faces into the ground. My delight at having so many peonies was somewhat dampened by the huge dead-heading that came next.

We found a mess of morels down by the river. "Mess" is what they say here, and I never knew if it meant lots or a dinner in the military sense. In any case, they were delicious.

Many days in May were very hot, 96 degrees frequently. I retreated into the air conditioning in the afternoons, leaving the weeds to take over everywhere. The sun was painful on skin. I am a shade tree gardener. There seemed to be plenty of cloud cover at night when I wanted to get out my telescope and see stars.

Radishes and the incredible 4-Seasons lettuces from Pinetree Seeds were great.

Some Toy Choys were tasty one day and overrun by flea beetles the next. They are a problem in a dry year. The chickens gobbled them up.

If I were to chronicle all the weeds I yanked up and all the sweaty hours I worked in the garden, it would strain credulity. Also, it would cause some concern over my mental health. I'm a gardener; that's what we do.

The Call of Irises

The fancy irises in the oak field have been begging me to move them out of their original bed to somewhere less weed-choked. Their plaintive cries can be heard even when I'm inside the house with the windows shut, in mid-winter.

The former owners here planted the specialty irises, about twenty feet by four feet of them. Ten years ago, they were a magnificent sight.The thick grasses wanted the field back. I've done what I could to dig some of the rhizomes up, divide them and replant them elsewhere.

It's like having a tiny gold mine not too far under the ground. The problem is finding spots to replant them. The front yard is the sunniest and most level, but has some really nasty invasive grasses that I've written about before. Also, the yard is close to the road and in the fallout zone of the road dust, not a pleasure to work in. I keep having to rush into the house when I hear big trucks coming.

Even irises that I transplanted and looked after now need to be moved again, the ingrates.

My grandma Belle had gorgeous iris beds in her yard. I guess I love irises because they remind me of her. Now I understand why she seemed to always be working in them.

Giving up on irises is not an option for me. Their beauty keeps me caring for them as best as I can.

Just looking at last year's pic of the silver white ones takes my breath away.

One day, I hope to read the glad news that some determined iris-breeder has perfected irises that know how to hold their ground against encroaching weeds. In addition, the irises will have learned how to be not so prone to crowed themselves out of bloom. I await the news with breathless anticipation.

In the meantime, this year, I plan to move some of  them to the garden hillside, where the grasses are not so dominant. Unfortunately, the English Plantains are the invaders there. Sigh.

We Were Expecting Something More Like Spring

These out-of-town arrivals were promised by their tour group that Missouri would be a great destination for spring dining experiences. Daytime highs in the forties could be guaranteed. Yesterday, the snow and a large flock of Robins arrived at the same time. The birds, fluffed up against the cold, couldn't get to even frozen worms. They seemed  to be hanging around the bird feeders wishing they were seed-eaters, perhaps thinking of converting to Vegetarianism.

Groundhog Day dawned bright and sunny but cold and windy. The next day, portending spring despite the groundhog, it was in the 50's. The dive down to five below was admittedly a jolt. Highs in the following days didn't get above freezing.

My seed order from Pinetree Seeds arrived. It's time for me to move the yarn stash off the shelves and lower the grow lights for the cabbages and early annuals. Well, almost time for them. Since moving north, I've learned that February 20 works better than my old February 9 date for starting seeds. I learned the hard way that Spring moves north ten miles a day and will not be hurried.

This year, I did well to get through January with a modicum of complaining about winter. I walked  to the river and environs. A mink streaked across my solitary path as I walked my path above the cow pond. That  was very exciting.

It was fun watching the  myriad birds that came to the feeders: Cardinals, Bluejays, Goldfinches, Chickadees, Nuthatches, Woodpeckers, Purple Finches, Juncos and Sparrows.  None of them held still for photographs.

A Forsythia bush out front kept knocking against the house, begging to be let in. In two weeks, the branches I put in water bloomed, with a later batch thinking about it soon. Here they are posing on the cleared part of the kitchen table. The rest of the table is garden catalogs.

As for the Robins, I believe they flew on south and met up for coffee at Denney's, where they made plans to settle in a more hospitable area. At least they are no longer seen here, despite today's melting snow and dazzling sunshine.

Down By the Riverside

At last, there was a break in the bitter cold. Lissa and I played Lewis and Clark. Beau wandered across the mostly frozen river to the far shore. We did not, since a serviceable bridge was in sight.

While it was cold, I went out a couple of times a day to feed the chickens and fill the bird feeders. Alarmist warnings on the weather radio would have people believe that venturing out would result in instant frozen faces. I explained to a friend that it would only result if a person was immobile, say stuck in a snowbank.

Folks in the northern states and Canada get out all the time in the winter, much more than we do here in Missouri, and they seem to not only survive but thrive.

I did stay inside on a particularly cold day when grandchildren Molly and Jason went sledding. I had a cough and the snow wasn't really great. Izzy and I sat by the fire and drank coffee like wimps..

When Izzy was a baby, in 1967,we lived in Fairbanks, Alaska, a place that was really cold, sixty below zero. We went outside lots. When we went to watch the dogsled races on the always uncleared main street, we had to step into the stores occasionally to warm up not ourselves but the camera batteries. That day, it probably was only thirty below zero. Our faces didn't freeze. I learned to make mukluks (footwear seen above left) but was glad to leave such an inhospitable climate. It was not a gardeners' paradise.

Back to the present, Lis spotted some clear bags of leaves dumped alongside the exit ramp on her way here. We drove there, backed down the never-congested ramp and got them for my garden.

"Another fun Mother-Daughter outing," she said, assuring me that the worms would be very happy to have the leaves for dessert after I gave them a rich meal of chicken poop seasoned with wood ashes.

It's That Time Again

Anyone who has been reading my blog for years knows what I do in January. Nothing new here. I think about gardens. I make plans. I dream of having a greenhouse. I find myself singing, "It's the most wonderful time of the year."

Many seed catalogs came before Christmas, but a self-imposed rule is I save them for the boring days of January. Any month that follows such feasting and fun family gatherings would seem flat. I count on the seed catalogs to cheer me up. I believe the print on those pages is treated with a contact chemical that forces readers to make grandiose garden plans. Once again, I forgot to don surgical gloves before handling them.

This is where I check my hopes for years past, in order to plan on crop rotations (never exactly right) and varieties that I must have. It's good to have a plan, even if many of the plants and seeds didn't wind up where I put them on paper. I blame that on factors of soil condition and hazy memory.

Graph paper with big squares have introduced a touch of reality to my plans. One square equals one square foot. My garden is tiny by comparison to I when had a farm with a 90 x 90 foot garden. In those days, I had a family of helpers/eaters, so I don't need that much space now.

Next, I got out all my big shoe boxes of saved seeds. I'll compare them to the seed viability charts and decide what I can use this year. This mental exercise will either keep my brain functioning like a well-oiled machine or cause me to lose my mind completely.

It doesn't help that seed companies change their offerings from year to year. I had a note to self to get Sorbet Violas from Stokes this year, but didn't find it listed as one of the many varieties available. Wah!

Then there are the seed orders themselves. There's no rushing them, because it will be March at the earliest for starting seeds indoors. I wouldn't mind having plants be nearly full grown by the time I set them out, but I don't have much room under lights, horizontally or vertically, and potting soil is rather dear. My young granddaughter Molly actually started corn under lights just for the heck of it last year. We gardeners get a little desperate, a little crazy, waiting for spring.

Now is the time for me to go through all my digital pictures of last spring and summer. I took lots of shots of things growing and in bloom then just so I could have hope in bleak midwinter. Also, pics show where I actually planted things instead of where I planned to plant them.

This picture revealed a few square feet of grasses that I could get rid of and plant to perennials. I am ready once again to do battle with the established and fiercely determined grasses.

Rushing outside to check the area, I rubbed my gloved hands with glee at the prospect of a bit more room to grow flowers. The ground in question had traces of the last snow, but the clumps of grass still had green bases. "Just try and get rid of us, " they seemed to threaten, sinking their awful roots deeper into the frozen dirt beneath them.

So, the Grassland War continues for the tenth year here. The catalogs showed a flame weeder as a possible weapon to carry out my scorched earth campaign. It  looked appealing until I had a mental picture of lands where the grasses were burned off in early spring. A few weeks after the burning, the grasses appeared like green whiskers on the blackened ground. Burning did them a world of good. Also, my place is on the edge of miles of riparian woods, inaccessible to fire trucks.

My daughter Izzy is a chemist who used to work for the EPA. She has warned me against many appealing grass-killers in the catalogs. One that claimed to be organic caught my eye, as an orange life raft might appear to a person treading water in the mid-Pacific. However, a Google search revealed the product in question had a few toxic effects on skin, eyes and breathing.

My daughter Lissa's cardboard cure seems to be something that has worked for me in the past, so I'll use that again, to smother the grass in its sleep.

With all the colorful flower and veggie pictures, mine and the catalogs, hope springs eternal. This will be the year I keep the marauding grasses from taking over, don't kill the rhubarb, get my mulching act together, give things enough room and have no bugs competing for my dinner. It will not be unbearably hot and humid, either.