Working up the flower beds! And a few mysteries to solve.

I did battle with my climbing rosebush.

I love the painting Crimson Rambler, by Philip Leslie Hale.   Ever since I first saw it, I have wanted a climbing rose.  Finally I found one hardy for our area.  It's been in about five years.  When it's pretty, it's really pretty.  But I think the delicate looking lady, sitting gracefully on the porch railing in the painting had a gardener. 

I didn't come out unscathed, but I won the trimming battle for another year.

Sophie and Inge helped me get this bed ready for annuals.

Stella helped me clean out under the Miss Kim Lilac when she got off the bus.  She helped me enlarge the border a foot or so, and then re-arrange the rock edge. 

 A rose, but not the climber, a columbine, daylilies and iris.

A little further around the corner, I have a Shasta daisy, some bright orange oriental lilies, another columbine, more daylilies, some creeping sedum, blue fescue grass, Some daffodils and tulips, a clump of pink coreopsis, and some mystery plants.  Neither of my coral bells came back, but I've never had them before last summer.  Maybe too sunny a bed, too dry a summer, too cold a winter, or maybe it's simply too early for them to be showing themselves.  

Oh, and you can see the wicked climbing rose is at the base of the trellis.

My tarragon, which is not supposed to be hardy here, but comes back every year.  I love the smell of it fresh, but don't really know how to use it in cooking.  Last summer I dried some for use in herbal teas, so we enjoyed it during the winter.

One of the three mints I had last summer.  This is in a different spot than the regular old mint that comes back year after year.  I think I had both chocolate and orange mint, but neither of those fancier ones have ever returned.  I'm not sure which this is. 

This is two views of the same plant.  I found it in a clump of dirt and roots that the kids had dumped out of my pots last fall.  I don't know what it is.  I don't usually plant anything in the pots that will winter over, but something sure did.  Anyone have any ideas?  It's hard to tell in the photo, but the leaves are kind of thick and fuzzy.  Not really fuzzy, just kind of soft.  And wrinkly.  Almost like a verbena. 

This is the first time I've gotten a Shasta daisy to come back.  Do they always get an empty spot in the middle?

This is two views of the same plant, too.  What is it?  I thought I had labeled everything but this is definitely not a weed.  I had a couple of dahlias that I didn't get dug up.  But how in the world would one of those winter over?  But doesn't it kind of look like a dahlia?

I found one coral bell label by a dead looking plant and another in the window well.  Is this by any chance one of my missing coral bells?  It looks too plant-like to be a weed.  I put so many new things in last summer that I just can't remember where they are all supposed to come up. 


Obviously I've not gotten this far in cleaning the beds.  But is this a poppy?  I planted a bunch of Oriental poppies from seed last summer.  Then with the dry weather, not many survived.  But I think this is one of them.  I've never grown them before, but what do you think?  Poppy or some sort of thistle?

Some spring photos after the long winter

I know, I'm jumping the gun just a little here, calling it spring.  But I think last night was the first below zero night in about a week, so really, that's pretty springy if you ask me. 

I was tempted to take my book out on my front porch, well bundled in blankets, and with my coffee in a thermal cup.  Weather underground says it's 7 °F.

That white wicker love seat looks pretty inviting in the morning sun, does it not?

But before I got comfortable, I looked around a bit.

We're starting to see some earth up by the house.  I can't wait for my perennials to start showing themselves.

The snow is mostly melted off some grassy areas near the driveway.  And you can see a bit of soil in the field south of the church parking lot.

It will be awhile yet, before we can get the van into the detached garage.  If you look closely, you can still see the remains of the edge where Todd and others were plowing for us earlier in the winter.  Eventually they just gave up, since it drifted back in every night and often during the day, too.  We'd go out and not be able to get back in.  Or in the morning, the kids racing to school would find the van stuck out there with no easy way to get it out.

I think it will take some time before the mountain of snow from clearing the driveway is gone.

I won't be hanging out clothes just yet.  And that baby swing that hangs from the far end of the clothes line, ...  Yeah, I know, I don't have any babies, ... but the smaller kids still sometimes like to climb in it while I'm out there working, ... nobody will be swinging today.

We won't be getting any laying hens this week.

But the cat has been enjoying the shelter of the chicken house all winter.  Last fall Clara hung a bit of cloth in front of the chicken door.  She put the cat house inside, and hung another old blanket around it to shelter it further from the drafts.  Talk about luxury.  But I think the cat needed it this winter. 

The kids learned that the electrical box gives off a certain amount of heat.  One of them fell through the snow that had drifted over.  They discovered the little cave surrounding it a few weeks ago. 

It reminds us to be thankful for electricity and all the other many luxuries that make even such an extreme winter as we've had much easier than those through which generations past had to manage.

After my little tour of the "winter into spring time" yard, I decided it wasn't quite warm enough to have my coffee outside.  Even bundled in a couple layers of blanket.

The Promise of the Catkin

I've gotten caught up on many household chores this winter and spring.  I've even done some windows.  Anyone who knows me well knows what an accomplishment that is.  Since, ... well, ... you guessed it, "I don't do windows."

I have all the screens cleaned up and ready to put on, but I haven't yet.  I love the openness of the windows without screens.  And with our prolific insect life in Minnesota, once those bugs kick in, we really need the screens.  So I always try to enjoy a week or two with no screens before that happens. 

And I hate to put a clean screen on a dirty window, so I suppose I will give the windows a once over before putting the screens on.  I'll get down and dirty with the windows I haven't tackled in over a year, and do a quick dust up of the ones more recently done.

It will be nice.  I will enjoy the clean windows and wonder why I don't wash them more often.

Until the screens go on, I'll continue to enjoy my open windows in screen free luxury.

Today as I was washing dishes, the pretty little spear of a poplar catkin blew in at me.  As it bounced off me and fluttered into my sink, it whispered the promise of the coming summer and made me glad.

Sun Dappled Mornings

Dappled.  Isn't that a great word?  It conjures up images of speckled ponies and shady grass with the sun glinting through.  Lazy days at Grandma's house lying around her yard and looking up at the sky through the branches of the trees.  Were they ash?  Elm?  Poplar?  I don't remember.  But I loved my grandma's yard, and the sound of the wind in those trees, and the shade and sun playing across the lawn, and the green and blue when I looked up into the sky.

Right now the shade from my hanging basket of petunias is dappling the white wicker chair across the porch from me.  As it sways in the very gentle breeze, the shadow shifts and shudders into an every-changing show of white and gray.

Adjacent to the wicker chair is a planter into which I did not put any pretty plants this spring.  It's a biggish planter, so I don't move it for the winter.  It sits through all the cold and gray of winter, and waits for good things to come its way in the spring.  But this year it didn't get any colorful plantings.

At first.

In spite of not having discretionary funding to use on pretty potted plants this year, my big porch planter has now had some good things come its way. 

One of the projects the kids made in VBS the other week was these decorative garden stakes.  They are cute as can be.  Since I had six little ones in VBS, I have six garden stakes.  So instead of sticking them in the dirt here and there around my gardens, I tucked them all into my big front porch planter to make a bouquet of my children's colorful handprint flower blossoms.  It's fun to see as I sit and have my coffee.

Beyond the porch railing, and further yet beyond the southern perimeter of the yard, the neighbors' hay field is looking beautiful in the sunlight of this summer morning.  The round bales are scattered across the landscape.  They have dried from the grayish green with which they pop out of the baler, to a soft golden hue.  The new growth of the alfalfa is coming up a fresh green around them.  This particular view is one of the great blessings of living where we do. 

(I have only the webcam on my laptop this morning.  I tried to take a photo of the above scene, but the quality was not lovely enough to want to share.  If you use your imagination with the above description, you'll end up with a finer end product than my camera and photographic skills could produce.)

The bees are buzzing all around me, and the birds are twittering in the trees.  I can hear the kids starting to stir in the house, which means it's time to start to think about getting things rolling.  We have 11:00 church this morning, so there is no real rush.  But somehow, it always ends up in a rush by the time 11:00 rolls around.  The most likely culprit:  too much sitting on my porch to enjoy the view.

Front Porch Reveries

After breakfast today I went out to my front porch with a cup of coffee.  This is my peaceful thing to do.  

While the kids attempt to do dishes.  Which often involves a certain amount of bickering. To which I prefer to avoid listening when possible. 

I sneak outside to my quiet spot.

This morning, I deadheaded some petunias.  I peered over my railing at the several brightly blooming wonders below.  I sipped my coffee and listened to the birds sing. 

I watched Joe pace around the property, wondering what he was up to.

(Ought the previous sentence to read, "...wondering to what he was up"?  or "...wondering up to what he was"?  Sometimes grammatical correctness is elusive.) 

When Joe got near enough to the front porch, I saw he had his flannel shirt full of something.  As in, he was holding up the shirt tails around a load of something.  Ahhh, then I understood. 

We often have a large crop of mushrooms when conditions are right, which they are right now.  We've researched these mushrooms. We think they are the common meadow mushroom, which is very similar to the plain white mushrooms one can easily get in the supermarket.  Tasty and benign.  But each year, when the crop comes in, we are a little bit too scared to try them.  I think Joe is getting ready to sample them this year.   We shall see.

After enjoying the sights and sounds of the outdoors for awhile, I went inside to get my computer with the idea that I'd find a way to write something interesting for my blog readers.  But first, of course, I had to check my facebook.  Not much happening there.  No new e-mail clambering for attention, either.  I guess nobody loves me. (That is tongue in cheek by the way.  But I must admit that it is in my sinful human nature to feel that way betimes.  I often joke about it thusly, in order to remind my self how foolish a notion it really is.)

Time to write.  But alas!  Ugh, it suddenly, in the few minutes I was doing my social networking checks, suddenly the air changed from the pleasant morning air after a rain, to the heavy stickiness of a Minnesota summer.  We don't very often have that kind of stickiness here, for which I am very thankful.  The summer weather here is much nicer than that in southern Minnesota, as far as the humidity goes.  But there are always a handful of days when the conditions are just right that the air seems to really weigh on a person.  It's not even that hot today.  The thermometer shows only 68 degrees.  But the sunlight is filtering through the haze and the air is such that I was sweating, just sitting there.

So I came inside.  I suppose I should change my post title to Front Room Reveries, but that's not nearly so romantic sounding.  I suppose some people may have a nice clean and pleasant front room from which to revere, but that is not the case in my home. 

Sadly. 

My front room is cluttered with the detritus of a large family and burned-out mom.  Towels, books, papers, coloring books, newspaper, clean and dirty laundry, toys, stuffed animals, wrappers, flip-flops, kleenex, and yes, even two empty egg cartons (?).

This is not the stuff of romance and imagination. 

No!  this is reality. 

But reality also has little arms that wrap around my neck, and medium bodies that snuggle up next to me, and big almost grown-up hearts that occasional overflow to Mama with all their hopes and dreams and traumas.  Romance aside, clean or cluttered, reality does have a certain draw that imagination has only in, well, imagination.

Springtime is for Healing and Hope and New Growth and New Life

I worked in my yard yesterday.  It made me happy.  What a good feeling...to be able to feel the emotions of happiness, peace, and contentment.  To feel them pulsing through me like blood!

As I've mentioned before, last fall much of my front flower beds was torn up.  That frustrated me, although I understand why it had to be done.  It frustrated me because when we moved here, the yard was so very bare and the house was so very white and shiny new.  It was...hmmm... how shall I say this? how to find words?  I am from Washington state where we have hills and trees and curves.  Oh, and people.  I grew up in a semi-urban area.  I was surrounded by town, although many of the places we lived were somewhat removed from the hubbub of the suburbia. 

We moved here and it was winter.  It was white and gray.  And open.  Very open.  We can see for miles from our house.  I don't exaggerate.  It's flat.  It's open.  And everyone knows everyone.  The house was new, so only had a few rows of baby trees around it, and very few landscaping plants.  I felt naked and exposed.  And the sameness of the surrounding area was an emotional assault to my senses.  There was so little variation in texture or color.  That sounds extreme and even a bit unkind.  But so it was. 

So when those bushes that were finally full and big, and which I had lovingly nurtured for nine summers, had to come out, to be ripped violently from their safe little places, I have to admit, it was a hard day.  I was not happy.  I kept telling myself that I oughtn't to love the things of this world.  But we do, don't we?  All of us do.  We can't help it.  God has given us so much wealth and beauty in our material possessions.  There is a fine line between appreciating and enjoying such blessings, and becoming too strongly attached to them.

Our financial situation this spring is such that I don't feel as though I can invest in any perennials to fill up the bare bed area that was quickly filling in with weeds.  It was yet another job looming and staring me in the face.  But what to put there?  What to do with that space?  Do I plant grass and call it good?  Do we cover it with black plastic for the summer to keep the weeds down?  Do I stare at the dirt and weeds all summer?  I was at a mental block with the situation.

My kids and I like to fill pots with annual flowers for around our porch and driveway corners.  It's one of the great joys of my summer.  Usually I take at least some of the kids, sometimes all of them, and we head to one of the big nurseries or greenhouses in the region.   I pick out some of the plants, but I also let the kids choose others.  Then we bring them all home and spend a couple of days arranging pots for all the kids.  They get to help me pick the plants to put in.  They help arrange them in the pots.  And then we arrange all of the pots around our front yard living areas, so that they continue to please us all summer long.  Some of the kids usually choose to put these planters in the county fair.  The whole process is something we really enjoy doing together.

But again, financially, I can't justify spending the money on such an indulgent thing this year.  As I'm sure everyone else has noticed, the price of groceries has absolutely skyrocketed.  Between that and the cost of  fuel, we just can't do it this year.  It was always a splurge.  Always indulgent.  But it was something that brought us so much pleasure that it was worth it to cut corners other places to be able to do it.  But this year, I've told the kids, we don't have money for luxuries.  There is little left to cut.

But then, suddenly, on Thursday, I was blessed with the living gift of plants.  From two directions. 

One of my walking buddies, Lana, brought over a bunch of her extra plants.  She brought some garden seedlings, squash and tomatoes.  She brought some perennials that she had dug out of her beds.  She also had a little six pack of snap dragons left over.  I felt rich!

That same day, I heard from another friend, Allie, who runs a little shop and greenhouse in Thief River Falls.  She and her parents decided to go together and provide us with whatever plants from her greenhouse I wanted to choose.  They would cover the cost!  Another blessing! 

Allie is having a big sale this weekend, so she recommended I come before the weekend to get some good ones.  I chose several six packs of tomatoes, a couple varieties of hot peppers, some cabbage and broccoli, and three different squash/pumpkin type things.  I was going to splurge a little and pick out one of Allie's beautiful hanging baskets of petunias, which I felt I ought to pay for myself.  But of course she would not let me.  She also encouraged me to pick out a couple other "just for fun" things, so I chose some perennials, daisies and lupines for the naked flowerbed; and an old-fashioned white enamel pot with red trim, filled with cosmos for my front porch. 

I'm going to stick a parenthetic paragraph in here to promote Allie's shop, The Shed, on MN Hwy 1, three miles east of Thief River Falls.  Allie describes her inventory as shabby-chic.  She has a selection of antiques, some remade items, many locally hand-crafted things, some quirky-fun items.  A little of this and a little of that.  This spring Allie had a wonderful greenhouse, and sponsored a perennial swap for area gardeners.  She has handmade wooden yard furniture and garden art for sale, such as picnic tables, patio sets, trellises, and arches.  She's done a great job with the store.  Go check it out sometime. 

As one further aside, Allie is having brain surgery next week to have a cyst removed that has been growing and pressing on some important brain cells.  I pray for her full recovery.  And for God to grant her and her family an extra measure of His peace and comfort as they go through this very frightening time.

Veering back now to talk more about my yard work, which seems so trite compared to brain surgery, ... Because of the kindness and generosity of these friends, I was able to fill in about a third of the naked flower bed.  We are well supplied with bedding plants for the garden.  And I am even now sitting on my front porch gazing upon my beautiful hanging basket of petunias.  They are a deep purple and a salmony pink, glowing in the morning sunshine, and swaying gently in the breeze.  Such a pretty sight.  I have snap dragons in two of my pots in two corners of my front porch.  It will be fun to see in a few weeks what colors they will bloom.  And I have this cute little enamel pot topped with tall cosmos whose blossoms are just beginning to swell in preparation for opening. 

I may see if one of the local greenhouses has some basics left, and on sale.  Nothing fancy or expensive, but maybe a couple of six packs of marigolds and moss roses.  Some petunias and verbena.  Perhaps some salvia.  We can get by with that; and the kids can create some pretty arrangements for their pots.  We will have to wait and see what I can find.

But even if we only are able to have what we have now, what a blessing!  What a joy!  Living and growing things to enjoy, both all this summer and in years to come!

Thank you, my friends!