SPRING 3
EMERGENCE
It took half of April before I realized that I wasn't scraping ice from the truck windshield each morning after running the defroster for fifteen minutes. I even flirted with the idea of getting out my warm weather clothes, but abandoned that idea quickly. Even now, as I write this at the tail end of June, I keep a pair of sweatpants and a light hoodie hanging in my bedroom. I turn off the fans two out of five nights and laugh at the idea of air conditioning.
Let' see how I feel about that in August.
By early April, the grass began to get a slight green flush about it and before I knew it, other green things began to emerge through the still-frozen ground.
My problem was figuring out which were perennial plantings and which were weeds.
I let it all grow.
The first thing to turn its face to spring was my pear tree. Sitting below a dead pine in the backyard, it flushed and budded before anything else.
I went out to examine it one warmish morning, coffee in hand and a smile on my face at the end of the long dark winter. I was happy with the emerging green but sad at the fact that I'd eventually have to cut down the dead pine that loomed almost seventy feet high to the right of the pear. It had been dead when I saw the property in September and it had been dead when I arrived the following October.
"What the hell??" I said aloud in mid-sip. "It's a miracle!"
The pine was sporting tiny little needles as green as an electric leprechaun.
It wasn't a miracle, really. It was a larch, one of only a handful of deciduous conifers in the world. Around here it's called a tamarack. Either way, it was coming back to life. I was happy I didn't have to cut it down and even happier that it was alive.
The larch awakes
Below these trees, a collection of wide, fuzzy leaves appeared (look beneath the pear). More on these later.
Across the street, on the very edge of the road, a host of dark and light green spears began to push through the leaves. Frost and still-frozen ground be damned; these things were as ready as I to see winter end. I recognized the darker spears as daffodils (jonquils to you English Majors), but was not sure what the lighter green was. I rightly guessed they were day lilies.
I raked the area around the emerging spears to give them a little breathing room. I'll bet Bertha Izbicki, the last of the Izbickis to live in the Standish House (Granny to many in the neighborhood), tended these yearly. She might even have planted them, but plenty of folks were here before her.
Other plants were emerging, blooming, or budding out.
This thing is covered with closely spaced needles that just scream out "I will kill you!!" It is some sort of a bush rose that eventually produced beautiful, fragrant pink flowers. It would still be happy to kill you.
This plant was found growing in the cinder block when I removed the topiary in November. It had climbed into the topiary's branches and sported pretty white flowers, even in late fall. I took it out this spring and planted it in the ground in the same spot, where it thrives. I have found four or five others growing wild on the property.
These were emerging all over the property. The leaves look rather chrysanthemumish, so I let them go about their business. Turned out they are some sort of weeds, but they put out pretty yellow flowers that look sort of like giant buttercuspidors.
I wasn't sure if this thing was a domestic rose gone ballistic or one o' them there briars, so I let it go. It followed its twenty-foot-wide fellows in the forest, informing me of its identity (smilax rotundifolia to you taxonomy nerds). I let this one grow to observe its feeding habits and attack tactics, but others on the property were under my microscope for destruction.
Poison ivy vines clinging to the machine shed. I waited patiently for leaves to form so I could POISON THE GODDAMN THING!!!!! One bad turn deserves another.
One of the sad things to emerge once the snow was gone and the leaves were in the process of being raked was this 18th century door, likely an original from the house. Thin with four panels, it was found half-buried near the machine shed.
This pile of pre-split firewood was gleaned from the patch of high grass at the northwest corner of the yard. I only found it by walking there and nearly breaking my ankle. Apparently a large tree, long since removed, had been cut up in place, then forgotten. It will be put to good use this next winter.
The patch of deep, dense grass from which the firewood was pulled. I am still harvesting wood from the edges of the patch now in June, but since I've been mowing it regularly, the long grass has shortened and become a part of the lawn.
Berry canes, which I recognized when I moved in in October and so did not whack them with the weedeater. The neighbors tell me that they have all been raiding these for their berry bounty since Bertha Izbicki has been gone. They're mine now!
New growth promising many berries. But what kind of berries? The neighbors call them raspberries, but I'm used to blackberries in Arkysaw. They look wild to me, so might be huckleberries, whatever the hell they are. I though those only grew down south. Perhaps they're all the same and only local vernacular lists them as different.
And why are they called RASPberries, anyway?
Some things I was glad to see taken over by new growth. Below this rash of green is a household trash pile and a bunch of rotting firewood. It will be cleaned out next winter. Note thee japonica behind the garage.
New leaves on the chokecherry, emerging from the ground up. This was loaded with tiny tart cherries last fall, and I had no time to pick them (the same with the hundreds of pounds of pears). This fall will be different. The cherry is actually on the remaining Izbicki land next door, but they don't mind me doing some harvesting.
The spot where the station wagon used to be. Note the flattened remains of the dead skunk in the background (to the right under the trees). It was left there as a warning, and apparently was effective as such.
I have no idea what this bush is, but it looks domestic, familiar, and has no thorns. It stays.
This was an interesting find. I recognized these hairy things as chestnut husks, and since chestnut is perty much extinct, I got very excited. They were found just south of the greenhouse.
Chestnut grove. Six or seven trees
Proof is in the pudding, or in this case, in the leafing. This leaf is similar to American chestnut, but has more rounded lobes. This is Chinese chestnut, according to the locals.
Ferns began to announce themselves in the woods, They resemble Boston ferns. The small plant to the southwest is a skunk cabbage. With a fine little wetland in the middle of the property, I am blessed with a plethora of these.
Strange things can be found in the woods behind a 324 year old farmhouse. This is an iron bed, around which a number of vines and plants have entwined themselves.
Jack-in-the-pulpit. I have thousands of these
This is a dry well. I have no idea what it did or what it does, but it has a very large rock on top of it to keep small children from falling in. Pity. I may have the rock removed. Might as well make some use of the thing.
As always, I really enjoyed reading your post. Thanks for taking the time to show all the plants and projects and dogs you live with. LF
ReplyDelete