Mainely Living

Thoughts of Spring

2011-03-06T04:35:00.000-08:00

While many gardeners elsewhere are eagerly breaking earth, coaxing perennials back to wakefulness and plotting the planting of peas on St. Patrick's day, here in Maine I am seeing the coming of spring in the lengthening day and the first above-freezing days and nights of the season. And in the rain, which is helping to melt the former skating rink also known as the dooryard.

My collaborator began planting this week and I will continue this weekend, with more onions and leeks, and a few more lettuces for the uber early indoor kitchen garden.

I love the soil blocks thus far. Oh, watering is an issue -- they DO dry out much more quickly than the soil in plastic containers -- and the spray attachment on the sink is a bit too coarse, even at a bare dribble, to keep them happy. The first sets of blocks have had a bad habit of running together, and therefore the plants roots are not getting "air pruned" as per request. BUT on the other hand, the size of the small, 3/4 inch blocks forces me to plant at a reasonable density so this is not as much of an issue as otherwise.

And we do have a watering wand on the list for soon.

The chickens have picked up their laying schedule; we now get at least half a dozen from the hens and occasionally two a day from the ducks; duck #2 must be coming on line (or actually more likely they have also picked up frequency ). I have ads up on several bulletin boards (physical in the area, and virtual online) to sell eggs. Fingers crossed.

Towards a Greening of the Garden

2011-02-07T10:58:00.000-08:00

Now, at first thought, gardening IS green, isn't it? After all, stuff grows, and to grow requires chlorophyll which IS green... And in the modern sense of "green" we do seek to garden in harmony with the earth, using "organic" principles, avoiding strictly chemical fertilizers in favor of compost and manure and the meals made from bone and blood. We pick off bugs, or very judiciously use water with a bit of soap or diatoms.

...BUT like many gardeners and growers, we had become accustomed to the ubiquitous plastic pot and six-pack, and the plastic flat which group these smaller containers on the greenhouse benches. Now, unlike some growers, we always washed, sterilized and reused all these plastic containers until they were well beyond use. Even when one or two of the cells of the thin six-pack material would break or degrade, I saved the units and would nest two of them with broken cells overlapping complete ones until the bitter end.

Yes, I know there are other planting containers... peat pots and others made from cow pies and such. Their main drawback, the higher price, took them out of contention especially when coupled with their designed single use.

This year I decided to invest in the infrastructure to begin moving away from all that -- to avoid the whole container issue almost entirely -- by planting in soil blocks. I suspect that any plants I sell will need to have their 2" or 4" block placed into a pot for the customer, though I am hoping to introduce the more environmentally aware customers to the old-fashioned way of buying transplants. Back before the advent of the plastic pot, greenhouse growers used wooden boxes to grow their transplants and would carefully remove the plants you had selected from the box with trowel and fingers, and wrap them carefully in newspaper for their trip home. If the larger soil blocks hold up as well as the smaller ones that were just "potted up" yesterday, I should be able to do this easily, or even to plop the selected plant blocks down into recycled cardboard "flats" in which stores get a variety of beverages.

But back to the blocks...

The soil block making tools can be manufactured at home; there are a variety of plans on the Internet for such contraptions. I chose, however, to buy metal ones from Johnny's Selected Seeds. I got three sizes; the mini block maker for starting most seeds (3/4" blocks) and the 2" and 4" sizes most often used for "potting up" as the seedlings grow but also useful for the larger seeds of squash, melons, etc. I did a lot of reading on the Internet, as well as talking to folks who had used the block makers, to try to learn the ins and outs. I learned that not all soil mixes work and that there was no consensus on whether the ProMix that I have on hand was good. I also learned that the wetness of the soil used to make the blocks is very important.

The soil needs to be SOGGY! This is bound to be counter-intuitive for anyone who has experience planting in flats or other pots. Notice not only drips, but an actual stream of water falling from the handful of potting mix as I squeeze it. If water does not squish out the top of the block maker as you push it down into the potting mix, the blocks will fall apart.

Next you load the blocker. I have talked to people who use a plastering trowel to scoop up the mix and force it into the block maker. I chose to put my tub of potting soil on a chair and to push my tool into the mix, repeatedly and with force. Having the work surface down low makes it easier to put more "oomph" into it. Squish as much potting mix into your block maker as you can; you cannot overload it!

Make sure you scrape the excess off the bottom of the block maker. Some folks run it along the edge of their soil tub. I scrape it with my hand.

Then place the blocker into the container that will hold your blocks. I still have some plastic flats, so I am using them at present. Push down the block maker, squeeze the handle to release the blocks and lift. Sometimes a very slight shake is necessary to release the blocks from the tool.

Voila! you have a set of soil blocks! Continue until your container is filled. You can put each set of blocks close to the previous ones; the blocks do not need much space at all between them.

One of the benefits, for me, to using the mini blocks is that they prevent me from planting my seeds too close together! I have a bad habit, when seeding flats, to over plant. The seedlings emerge too close together, get leggy. Transplanting them into six-packs is hard on me and on the plants, too.

There is a trick to getting just one, or at most two seeds into each tiny block. I will admit that this process takes a bit of patience, but it also makes your seed go much farther! All you need is something to hold a bit of water and a toothpick.

Just a bit of wet and the toothpick will pick up a tiny individual seed.

Usually touching the seed to the block will leave it there. At most, you will need to brush or rotate the toothpick a bit to leave the seed behind. The hardest part, when doing tiny dark seeds, can be remembering where you are in the sea of blocks!

I cover the seeded tray with a sheet of saran wrap to keep them moist until the seedlings begin to emerge. You will need to be very vigilant in keeping the blocks moist! This may be the biggest challenge to using soil blocks. Because they are surrounded by air on 5 of their 6 sides, they dry out very quickly. You will need a gentle mist to water them, or your sink spray attachment just barely turned on. Until the seedlings get some roots to help keep the blocks together, it is easy to damage the block structure by too hard a spray.

These are the 2" blocks, which were made with 3/4" holes in the center to accommodate the tiny blocks. These herb seedlings have been potted up to the larger size blocks and will grow here for some time. Depending on how they grow and where they will end up, these blocks may go directly into our garden, or onto the sales tables at our markets, or they may get potted up once again to be sold as herbs in 4" pots later in the season.

Out of sorts

2010-12-06T21:13:00.000-08:00

I am very out of sorts this evening. Work went well, it was a typically slow Monday night despite the snow. But I came home ready to paint on the hex signs in process and was unable to find one of the colors I needed.

I thought I had it --a light green that I had taken to the Mall to paint during the filming of the interview. I know I had it then, in the basket but Gods alone know where it is now. The color I thought was right to touch up that sign was way too dark. And the looking for it sent me off along a path of great frustration.

I moved much of my painting and spiritual stuff out of the back "craft" room so I could still work while we had a roomie and, well, there is just not enough room in this trailer -- nor native organization at the end of market season -- to make this work easily and well... especially not with the publicity and orders generated by it. There is painting stuff, garden stuff, and just plain living stuff EVERYWHERE.

Now, I will be the first to admit that I am neither a clean nor a neat freak.. but the current chaos is beyond coping with and made more so because I have no idea how or when it will come back into order again.

I am NOT moving back into the back room until we have replace the flooring, and possibly some of the floor as well. Dog pee.. from Coffee before she was completely house broken and Tonka of late, mean replacing the flooring is necessary. I want a hard surface.. wood most likely. And that costs money and takes time both of which are in short supply at present.

Of course, in a more perfect world, we would have got the "ready for winter" chores done.. the chicken tractors would be built and one for the ducks, the tractors would be ready to plow snow and the new snow wheels and tires would be on the car. And little stuff, like the seasonal clothing shuffle, would be complete. The garden stuff would have been moved to the garage and would be in order, ready to come back in with the start of indoor planting season next year. But much of that garden stuff -- still in fall chaos -- is in the house. My winter coats are still in the garage, and out of season hats are still in the house.

And I have this lump of crud in my throat that can't swallow, won't hack up and makes me feel like I cannot properly swallow at all. Hopefully this tea I am drinking will help that.

And tomorrow when I pick up the colors I need to complete the indoor hex I am working on (colors I did NOT have) I will pick up another bottle of the missing color and give thanks that these paints are inexpensive. I'll mail off one order and when I get home I'll cut blanks for the next two and somehow find places to work on them in the living room, despite the dog hair.

And I know that eventually things will get into order -- and a better order than they were in.

getting on with it

2010-12-03T19:08:00.000-08:00

For the past few months we have had a roommate -- an internet friend who had been planning for some time to move to Maine. Her time in PA came to an end with the rental of her home there, as she hoped to stave off foreclosure (I do not think it worked) and though she had made a recon trip here to look for property and work, nothing had quite fallen into place when she needed to move.

So we offered her space, if needed and agreed to let her horses graze on our back land, if she supplied the needed fencing and temporary housing, if necessary. I had high hopes, since she had a job offer before she arrived and had seen several properties of interest on her recon mission, that she would be settled soon. She initially decided to take her goats and chickens and stay with another friend but that fell through quickly and soon she and all the critters were here.

She got two part time jobs, but other monies that she was counting on failed to materialize and she didn't have her truck (another long story) so she ended up rather behind the curve and for various reasons seemed unable to get ahead of it quickly enough. The horses refused to behave -- repeatedly breaking or escaping from the electric fence which we supplied (she sent only a bit of wire and 6 posts!) and she was just to scattered with work, looking for a place, not having a vehicle (she used our car for a month or more) to get housing up for any of the critters. Eventually animal control and the state become involved and the animals were taken. At that point she became very withdrawn.

Now, some weeks later, she has moved on to live with other friends from her work, The truck that she bought here -- when we got to the point that our farm truck needed to be taken off the road for the winter and we needed to reclain our car) seems to have issues and these friends apparently have the time, money and willingness to cart her back and forth to her jobs and to her cabin up north. She plans to live primitively in a one room cabin with no amenities. Were I 20 years younger, and without dependents (4 legged, as she has, 2 legged as I had) I can imagine doing something similar... but not with an unreliable gas hog of a truck and a job many miles away. I wish her luck and God Speed...

But we are now beginning to get our lives back on track again. Her chaotic energy was very disruptive and her need for "help" (which often sounded and looked more like :"do this for me" ) put some serious kinks in our stated plans to get ready for winter. The garden did not get totally plowed, our yard is full of pallets, gathered for both our projects and for her use while here, to make temporary housing for critters. The blades and snowblower for the little tractors have not been worked on, the chicken tractors are seriously behind schedule (maybe ONE will be done soon) and on top of it all , here we are in the Holiday season with gifts to make for the grandkids and many orders for hex signs coming in thanks to the publicity from the White House tree story... and the season, of course.

But we will carry on and thrive.

The winter lettuce in the kitchen garden is growing under lights , the stuff for making the kids presents is at hand and time will be found.

Maine to Represent PA on White House Tree!

2010-11-28T19:21:00.000-08:00

My work was selected recently to represent the state of Pennsylvania on the White House Christmas tree. This Double Creator's star hex sign binds the blessing of prosperity.

Many other designs are available on my web site, www.dutchhexsign.com

The turning of the seasons

2010-09-07T17:49:00.000-07:00

I know it is not a "recognized" holiday, not a quarter or cross quarter point... but the turn has made itself known here in the past few days and the garden bounty is pouring out, and I have a few moments today to spare so I am cooking a wonderful meal, using mostly stuff grown here and processed here, augmented by deer meat -- a gift from a new friend -- and a few boughten ingredients... and lifting one of the "last of the season" bottles of Sam Adams Summer Ale in toast.

That brewery has wonderful seasonal beers, and while their Octoberfest brew began arriving on shelves late last month, and while I know Octoberfest is actually celebrated in September, I will reserve that brew to toast the equinox in a few weeks. Meanwhile, the summer brew and the bounty of the late summer garden, are on tap today.

My second planting of beans started coming on strong last week, and yesterday I picked a shy bushel from HALF of the plants -- put by in the freezer for the winter -- with the remainder waiting for market on Thursday. My tomato crop has been poor (overrun with weeds and lack of water) but I processed a large bowl of the fruit into sauce for a coworker, augmenting it with my meager harvest, overripe fruit left from my partners offerings at market and the shared offerings of another coworker, so as to be able to split the sauce. I have a bag of early apples -- a "late summer" fuiit that says "fall" to me -- and some are in the salad tonight. A "mess" of green beans and zucchini lasagne (the veggie fills in for the pasta in an otherwise fairly traditional recipe with meat) round out the menu.

I guess this is why my spiritual practice is largely solitary... my celebrations, rituals, workings are prompted more by "when Spirit moves me" than by clock or calendar. This makes total sense to me, since the very genesis of my current path was the promptings of the world around me when I lived very close to nature and beyond the power lines. There were no books at all, no meetings with others, no human teacher ... until much later, after my practice had taken root.

I feel propelled to get the garden put to bed and the outside work done by the end of October. I feel the call to work inside (both inside myself and inside the house) that will follow. And, simultaneously, my mind springs ahead to the return of the growing season with the watermelon seeds drying on my counter, and thoughts of how the gardens will be laid out and planted next year. And so it continues.

But tonight, I give thanks... to the Powers That Be and to the Land upon which I stand for their nurturing and guidance.

So be it!

A few moments of reflection

2010-08-10T16:15:00.001-07:00

I have a few moments, between an after-town-errands client meeting and supper (which is cooking in the oven) to reflect in this space.

So here are a few random thoughts:

I am glad to have had a week of "one market Thursdays" but we are trying to get into a relatively new market that needs veggie vendors. The only hangup at this point is their requirement for insurance, which we do not carry and have not yet been able to obtain. The underwriters are still contemplating... The vendor who encouraged us to apply has agreed with my suggestion that we might sign a waiver... but what the business owner, who hosts the market, will say is anyone's guess. Perhaps we will find out this week, but I am not planning to attend this week, but rather to visit a greenhouse that I found on my way to the once-a-year market that I attended last Saturday. they have a good selection of herbs and I still need some plants to fill in the gaps.

The gardens are struggling. My partner has discovered that her strength apparently lies in starting plants and tha she had neither the heart nor land to plant a true market garden. She will continue to share her excess, but market produce will not be her focus. I knew that water would be my ongoing issue in dry years (like this one) as well as the damnable runner grass. My tomato crop is pretty much nil, the peppers got too hot at the outset and are now not setting fruit, the cabbages (which do lousy at market anyway) are getting eaten and the beans lag... It is a learning year (my mantra...)

I need to rework the shopping cart on my hex web site, but am at least most of the way along to moving a new client from Homestead (and her own work on the website) to our servers and my services. Several hex signs have been ordered despite the broken shopping cart.

Despite my comfort level with my solitary work spiritually, I am actually looking forward to being able to attend a few new and full moon fires that are being held by one of the therapists with the wellness center where I get my massage... only a few miles from here. Who knows what will come of it, but I will be a positive thing I am sure.

Now supper calls, and for once I am going to eat BEFORE DARK and hopefully head to bed --and needed sleep -- as darkness descends. Sleep has been har

Behind the Curve

2010-07-18T06:43:00.000-07:00

I have not been blogging in far too long – not because nothing has been happening, nor because I have nothing to say – but rather because I am once again sliding down the back side of that elusive curve, drowning in things that MUST be done, and getting “more behind” each day.

To this year’s credit, though, I must grant it that the process is somewhat slower this year than last. Despite more on the plate, in the form of two days market in Brewer for starter, the addition of the tractor tiller and K’s mechanical help in the garden is helping to slow the incoming tide of weeds. And despite the excessive heat and my having lost a couple of days last week to heat exhaustion, I have yet to feel the first stirrings of the “Big D” that plagued me during southern summers.

I am going to characterize this as a “learning year,” in hopes that the next few will be “fine tuning years” as I put into practice what the land teaches me through these seasons.

With the mechanical tiller, we should be able to put the garden to bed properly this year, perhaps even with a cover crop. Having it ready to rock and roll when the ground first becomes tillable will hopefully allow me to get the earliest of the early crops and allow for smaller, succession plantings through the spring. This year, the first early plantings went in pretty close to on time, but because of mechanical difficulties with Tilly Milly we were not able to follow up.

Also, this year, the first planting of lettuces was WAY too large. Even though some customers at Brewer market wanted lettuces by the head (Bangor shoppers still prefer a mixture of leaves) we could have easily supplied the markets and ourselves with a much smaller initial planting.

Most of the indoor started lettuces are bolting now and must be pulled and composted. Also, many of the varieties I bought were included in the summer blend. Now that I know most of them by name, though, I think I will likely concentrate on planting that same blend, and including some seeds of the other varieties that I liked that were not in there, as a blend, next year. I need to remember to do smaller plantings, also, when starting seeds inside, and in the spring and summer for my succession planting. Making/using a blend will help keep the numbers under control I think.

Late summer should bring some clarity to the timing of planting for late crops of lettuce, spinach and the like, as well as my ability to lengthen the season with covers and a makeshift cold frame. I am going to try placing the old swing set frame in the garden, over some specially planted (more closely spaced) rows of spinach and the winter lettuce mix and will cover it with heavy plastic.

I need to figure how to get beets to come earlier, too. I am thinking about experimenting with over-wintering some b eets (the root would not be usable, most likely, but they might make some early greens, I am hoping) and will be trying to over-winter some leeks.

I need to plan to plant some old fashioned gr een chard, in addition to the bright lights blend; some of the older shoppers prefer the older varieties.

I also have had request for yellow beets, which normally I plant.

Need to put in more sugar snaps and more peas, with succession plantings as well. I am still not sure about whether I want to standardize on the Waverex “petit pois” or to plant them primarily for us and plant less expensive, larger peas for market. The petit pois are actually pretty easy to pick and easy to tell when they ar e ready to go, but very short vines. The regular garden peas I planted the last two years also have pretty short vines, which means bending. On the other hand, the Sugar Snaps need much taller support than the 2’ fence that I used this year.

I need to get the corn in earlier, ditto beans.

Shoppers, on account of the wide availability of shipped in food and the increasing popularity of greenhouse growing by both amateurs and larger small farms, do not have a sense of proper seasonality for produce . They call for corn as early as Memorial Day – and expect it by July 4. With th e onset of hot sum mer temperatures, it seems, folks are expecting to instantly see the “summer veggies” in quantity. To their credit, most of the farmers at market are meeting these requests at least in limited amounts. Our early struggles to get the ground prepared hurt us badly in this regard this year.

On the other hand, the early – and for that matter not-so-early – sales of plants went really well. There seems to be a need for individually potted vegetable plants. Everyone wants to grow a garden, and many folks do not want to waste the extra plants they do not have room for if they were to buy a 6-pack. I am wondering if this niche would also appreciate buying seed in smaller quantities as well.

This coming fall will see me doing some major division of the herb plants in the garden, so as to increase my production in some varieties and be able to offer well started, second and third year herb plants for sale next spring. The succession plantings of dill and basil are doing well, though the initial planting of basil – transplanted from the indoor starting shelves – has struggled for some weeks. We have begun offering common herb blends often found on grocers shelves as dried product, but in this case offered as a selection of fresh herbs – fines herbs and Italian blend for starters. And yes, at least one of these blends includes fresh, locally grown bay leaves! I need to acquire and begin wo rkin g with more little bay laurel trees, as well as more rosemary (a slow growing herb) and lavender.

I also plan to move the berry bushes from their original location – random holes dug into the “lawn” in the general area of the west garden – to actual rows in the tilled area which K has been working. If they are planted at proper spacing, he will be able to continue to work between the rows, as he has been in the later plantings of the east (vegetable) plot. More berries are on the wish list. The strawberries seem to be surviving despite having been neglected after planting. I had a chance to scythe down m uch of the weed cover and hope to complete that job this week, as well as taking the time to rake the weed stalks out of the berry patch and mark – with bits of paint on the ground – the location of the berry plants in hopes that K can first mow the stubble, and then do some tilling between the rows. It will be close, as the strawberries were planted before we got an accurate measurement of the row spacing needed for the big tiller, so the paint should give him a easier time in spotting the plants that must be kept.

Blueberry and cranberry bushes need soil amendment to support acidity, asparagus needs side dressing with compost or manure and the strawberries need mulch. I am hoping to begin hauling straw and manure this month, as the farm truck goes into the shop tomorrow for inspection (and likely work… hopefully wit hin my meager budget. Meager is good compared to the empty purse of last year!)

The flower and herb beds are terribly riddled with runner grass, and I am considering various ways to deal with this. At this point, I am considering moving the majority of the perennial herbs – when I divide them – to rows in the west garden and using weed control fabric in this area as well as putting it down in the herb circle once that area is clear.

I will likely use the fabric as well for the garlic that I plant this fall, and if it were less expensive, I would put it in between the strawberries as well.

We have yet to get the chicken and duck tractors made, but they are still on the project list. Currently they are running being the construction of a ramp at the back door for our elder Saint Bernard, Brandi, who is having increasing problems climbing the stairs. I am thankful to my collaborator, Anne, who continues to keep and care for our fowl.

This extreme heat, though, is delaying lots of projects. K cannot work in it and, after last week, I know that even taking proper precautions, I should not either. We remain hopeful that the temperature and humidity will abate.

Garden, continued...

2010-05-24T04:58:00.001-07:00

It's hard to find a beginning place to write about something as ongoing -- with both successes and frustrations -- as the garden this year. I shall just jump in and try, I guess...

Tilly Milly, my umpteen-hand walk-behind tiller is taking an extended vacation at the shop getting her motor worked on. That setback put me behind in both tilling and planting even as we acquired the tiller attachment for the Wheel Horse lawn tractor -- which was, of course, missing parts. Parts which attach it to the tractor which were left on the previous owner's tractor when he gave it to his son (and understandably so, I would say, after our replacement parts arrived and I ended up helping K get it all installed on the tractor. Suffice to say, the process involved lots of barked knuckles, those words and installation manual instructions and illustrations that did NOT match what we saw in front of us.They never do, do they?

Anyway, Big Bertha, with K at the helm, has been doing a bang-up job in the last week or so and the second quadrant of the vegg garden is ready and being planted. All the cabbage and kin that are currently on site, are in their rows, though there are flats of 3 cabbage varieties at Abundant Acres with their greenhouse offerings, and at the Brewer Farmers Market the past couple of weeks. Likely after the coming Memorial Weekend market, any remainders will join their counterparts in rows here.

K says that Bertha does a great job as long as he is patient. Initially, he had expectations that she could produce as much till as quickly as the BIG tractor/tiller combo that we contracted to break soil when we got the place. Well, she can't, of course.. but even where the grasses and weeds did not get burnt back this spring, she is giving a good till as long as he takes it slow and gives the garden multiple passes.

I suspect that the early plantings -- including the strawberries -- are not in rows spaced widely enough to allow K and Bertha to work between the rows of plants. However, as long as the plants are small -- or things that do not grow tall, like the berries -- we are planning to experiment with removing a couple of tines and driving to put the planted row under the tractor, between the wheels...

I suspect we are going to get a lot of practice swapping implements, though. The mowing deck and the tiller can not coexist on the machine. The deck needed work (that was the story of the spring, I guess... ) and just came back from having some cracks welded. Hopefully K will be able to get it up and running and get the "hay" mowed down a bit. though the 3rd and 4th quadrants need a bit more tilling and will likely get plants this week (crossing fingers for time and weather).

We need to find some way to efficiently gather the mowings, too... The blades on the mower are "mulching" blades, which means they cut and re-cut the grass which makes it hard to pick up in one of those pull-behind sweepers (even if we had one) and the mower will not side-discharge so we cannot use a bagger. So meanwhile, all this good green manure is left to lay.

With the potatoes and onions yet to be planted, the coldframe lettuces needing transplanting and succession plantings looming... with the grasses at knee-height, and growing, not having been mowed even once... I have this constant feeling of being "behind". But I know that in the larger scheme of things I am ahead... ahead by not only one but TWO tillers -- ahead by a tiller that not only allows K to help but has drawn him out of his virtual electronic world and sucked him -- big time -- into the world of small tractors, farm implements and even to the plants themselves. And, as Martha would say, that is a VERY good thing.

Also, new this year, is our foray into a much longer market season, at the Brewer Farmers Market in Brewer, Maine. This market is open Tues - Sat from early May until the end of October. Thus far, our Stone Soup Collaborative has been there only on Saturdays, but as our amount of produce increases, look for us there on Thursdays, as well! I hope to have an initial offering of ear

Bragging on my Daughters!

2010-04-29T14:33:00.000-07:00

I am going to take a moment to brag about a couple of my talented kids...and help them promote their crafts.

If you, or someone you know, likes unique jewelry, you have to see Chiquitas Jewelry. My daughter, Halley, makes frequent trips to Peru to visit family. and brings back the cool beads that she and her sister-in-law use to make these creations.

Also, especially in you are in, or know someone in the Salt Lake area who is in need of photographic services, you've got to meet Amelia! She was known as m'Elaine as a youngster, because when she was born her older sister couldn't quite wrap her tongue around "Amelia Elaine" and from that she got the name for her photo business, m'amy m'elaine photography.

And my eldest, Katrina, in whose footsteps I followed when I began my career in graphic design, also works for herself as well as holding down a full time job (and being a single mom, as well! WHERE do they get this energy?!) Giant Peach Creative is her company.

That is not to say my two remaining daughters are not creative and talented... Talitha is a massage therapist but is quite busy being the mom of two, with one one the way and Amanda, who is also the mother of two, uses her creativity as I used to -- for home, family and friends. She is not only a crackerjack decorator, it seems she has taken to cake decorating as well.

Everyone has to brag now and then... and you are welcome to share any of these URLs with anyone who might find them of interest!

The flow of days

2010-04-28T04:59:00.000-07:00

It's been a long while since I posted here. Life has been busy, and I have been hard at work in the garden and setting up the website for our collaborative farm, Stone Soup Collaborative and the "Garden Ho(e)s blog on that site. Hopefully, my partner Ho(e) will sign in soon with some of her thoughts from her farm, but she is as busy as I... if not more so.. as she has critters to tend as well as veggies. Her goats are kidding and she is brooding the first batch of chicks and ducks, some of which will come home here in a month or so.

But this is once again a cold, rainy day and I am taking a few moments with my coffee, to muse on life... in particular on my need to live life within what I call "the natural flow of days." This can be very frustrating, when you also have to live life within the modern workaday structure, that cares not for the coming and goings of the seasons nor the sun. This has been a thread in my life for years... I recall noting it when all I "farmed" was a 50x50 plot in the back yard of our house in Appleton, WI and that was before all my girls were born. Then I did not work a paid job, but even in interactions with other stay-at-home moms (La Leache League, homeschoolers and our church) they did not GET that I couldn't just take off and play whenever, even when I explained "...but the tomatoes are RIPE!" or that I had just brought back two bushels of peaches from the pick-your-own orchard which needed to be canned.

But in my ongoing quest to live in my own little world (as some folks see it) I still pay attention, first, to the natural flow of days. I have a feeling some of you know whereof I speak... Some days, when the sun rises happily on the horizon and the air is comfortably warm, and the breeze stirs... those days just call us to be outside. They say "I'm a good drying day! Get up and start the washing!" or "The soil is warm and calling for seeds and seedlings" and there is no shame in leaving the floors unswept because you know that there will soon be garden tracks added to the dust bunnies... and because you also know that there will be days like today.

Today the weather-guessers predict an 80% chance of rain and the high temp is supposed to rise only a few degrees, to the mid-40s. I can see droplets on the leaves of the seedlings on the porch and know I will find more than a trace of water in the rain gauge when I read it in a bit. Perhaps, if the threatened rain is light and intermittent, perhaps some herb-garden weeding might be in order (for it is long overdue and being on a rise, our soil does tend to drain) on a day when burning weeds, running the tiller or planting seedlings might not go well.

But mostly today wants us to catch up on inside chores... corralling the constant herd of dusk bunnies (which we call proto-kitties and proto-pups based on their dog and cat hair composition) and knocking out many other projects that need to be done before market season opens (Mothers Day weekend! Wow!) like our Stone Soup Collaborative sign (at least the frame is done, need to stretch the fabric, print out the text at size to trace and paint the sign) and the matching green aprons for the farmers' market crew (which hopefully will also get the logo painted on them). I also bought some lightweight plastic sheeting, tulle fabric and elastic from which to make transparent covers for the large bowls that I use to display the lettuce leaf and lettuce/spinach blends that customers wanted last year. Oh and planting more seeds indoors!

Strangely, folks did not buy individual lettuces, of any kind... but seemed to want a pre-mixed version from all our varieties. Last year I struggled with plastic wrap (even the commercial width roll needed two pieces to cover the large bowls) semi-secured with blue duct tape to keep the product covered to stay clean and fresh. My fellow 'Ho(e)' mentioned having seen the "shower cap" style of bowl covers that I remember from the 50, for sale at Walmart... but for the life of my I have not been able to find them anywhere... not even online in the size needed. So when I spotted the very flexible plastic stuff (in Walmart, of all places!) I snagged a few yards. The tulle I got just recently, on a search mission to find something from which to make a casing that would be sufficiently light and flexible. I also got some seam sealer, as I know the stuff, especially when cut on the bias, will be very inclined to ravel. Wish me luck that this turns out as planned!

But I digress, as that is but one of the indoor chores that calls today and had not been done earlier as the sewing machine had been blocked in by 4' hex signs, packaged and awaiting shipping to the customer when he returned home. That got done this week, the machine is open again and business on this thread shall commence.

Also I have been hankering for strawberry shortcake, and we have berries from last year to use from the freezer. When I saw a new pound cake recipe as I passed through the living room where K was watching TV one day, I Googled and saved it... Cold Oven Pound Cake and I think this is a good day for that as well. I got come organic whole wheat pastry flour, plenty of eggs, butter and milk at the store yesterday (though the recipe calls for "cake flour" I could not see buying the white stuff, so we will see...)

And I suppose I better get at it!

Local Food movement

2010-04-10T07:45:00.000-07:00

Just wanted to let anyone who is interested know that Stone Soup Collaborative Farms website is up, including a new farming blog
in which my collaborator will soon join me in writing about our farms, food and life.

It's spring... we're all busy!

Feeling great today, not sure about tomorrow...

2010-03-14T15:48:00.001-07:00

Been outside all day, working hard helping some young friends tear into one of their neighbors' barns, taking it apart for parts. Gods I love demolition! LOL No, this is not typically what you think of for demolition, as we are trying to save good wood, but never the less, taking hammer and pry bar and muscles that haven't see this much work in months feels good. Even in the early spring, not really warm, but windy and muddy type weather it feels good. I layered up... wore my mucks, even gloves most of the time (I hate working in gloves) and we got the car port part of the structure down.

Sheathing for the roof was not usable but I had fun taking down the flashing (note, remove pine needle accumulation BEFORE climbing onto roof... no I didn't fall but it made for little traction at first.). It felt really good to pry up the rafters and help push down the intact walls and load them on the trailer.

Tomorrow is "de-nail" day, if it doesn't rain (and I can still move!) and then I work a short shift at the store. And then we start over on another part of the barn. We have 2 weeks to salvage what we can before they take to it with a bulldozer.

Hopefully by them we will have scored lots of good wood. I have chickens and ducks coming, other projects in the queue.

Now, a glass of wine, a hot bath, supper, some web work and BED.(trying NOT to be too aware of the damn messing with the clocks.)

BTW, I HATE "daylight saving" time. Don't get me started on that...

Not too many heads, just too little time!

2010-02-26T18:28:00.000-08:00

I realize that I haven't blogged for almost a month. This is not because I have had nothing to say, but more like I can't find the time when I am wearing THAT head and when I get to the next one, there is more happening and I figure I'll write about it, but ... I can't find the time so I go on to the next one... well I think you get the picture.

One head at a time then...
Country Store Clerk - she has been rather hurting in the work hours since the first of the year... as little as 16 a week, which is half of what I will take but not nearly enough. Everyone has been cut back, it's winter and the economy is lagging sales a bit, but really mostly it's winter. I "let it be known" among my coworkers that I would like more hours and they have been making a good effort to call ME (instead of our newest "warm body" AKA Miss TextALot) who just turned 18 and is in no way needing to support herself. So there is hope, as the snow birds return and more folks are out and about.

Hex Painter - I have one order on the table, albeit a large and relatively lucrative one: 2 identical 4' signs for a barn and two smaller ones for posts, one with the farm name in the border around the design. They proved somewhat hard to draw and to paint (most tend to be one or the other) but are almost done. I have applied to be juried for a booth at the Common Ground Fair (was rejected last year) and will be applying as well for a booth at the American Folk Festival which I think I have a good chance of getting. Not sure how lucrative it will be for me.. I need to have a bunch of stock painted up, as booth charges run $400 and have to be paid by mid-May if I am accepted. This may prove a challenge but I think I need to go for it. Selling just a couple of the 2' signs would cover the fee, to put it in perspective. I am also going to be attending two outdoor markets with both produce and my art, but more about that from Farmer Jj. I still have plans to paint the garage/outdoor workshop "barn red" and add a large (6' or larger) hex to the west face of the building.

Graphic Designer - As the hex sign business slowed, design has begun to pick up again. I have several projects on the table, including a print project for the Park Service at Cape Lookout, web and print work for my newest local Maine cleint, Dan Pelletier of MaineGuiding.com and I am doing a bit to help out my massage therapist, with updates and edits to the web site for River City Therapy and Wellness Center. I had considered letting Vision IPD go by the wayside, but the timing had not yet seemed right to terminate the business; now I am feeling led to be a bit more aggressive in my promotion, including (come actual spring) erecting my large sign after the garage/shop is painted.

Farmer - I am pleased to have scored a rototiller through Freecycle this winter and am planning to take it to the local shop for a once-over early in March. This, I am hoping, will be one more tool to help me keep the weeds at bay. I realize that one of my biggest problems is the runner grasses... but what beat down most of my crops last year were just plain ol' WEEDS. Getting Artie, the pickup, road-worthy is still on the top of the heap with increased emphasis this year. I had high hopes of making a good start with the proceeds from the big hex order, but alas those bucks went to am emergency repair for the Subaru. Eventually I will see those funds returned to me, but the timing here is unknown. With Artie running it will be possible for me to get inexpensive -- or even possibly free -- loads of manure and to haul straw which I will need as well. It also will make going to market a lot easier!

Speaking of market -- Stone Soup Collaborative (www.mainestonesoup.com, soon to be live) will be at the Downtown Bangor Market on Thursdays this summer, as well as being represented Thursday AM and Saturday on a regular basis at the Brewer Market... or at least that is the plan. We have been accepted at the former, just applied to the latter. Both allow artisan wares as well as produce, which is one of my main criteria for a market. The veggies pay the bills and allow the hex signs (and maybe other Crafty and herb-related wares) some exposure. I am determined to get a strawberry patch started this year, though the cash flow issues will have an impact on berry bushes that I had my eyes on, darn it!

I am planning to play with some lower cost greenhouse/cold frame/high- and low tunnel ideas this year, keeping in mind that portable units don't need building permits and (I am hoping) temporary structures don't either. This I must research... My goal is to prolong the season a bit for our fresh eating and maybe push the season a bit in the spring for market in 2011.

Newer plants for the garden this year include starting several dye plants, "baby bunching" leeks for market and hardy leeks that allegedly hold over winter with a simple straw mulch, here in Maine. We will see...

Caregiver - This is a hard head for me to name, let alone write about. K's health continues to decline and no one seems to be able to make any headway into putting the brakes on, let alone turning the tide. He is actually beginning to talk as if he were talking himself around the idea of wheeled transport, though he has yet to "give in" and use one of the varieties available at some of the stores we frequent. The last few trips to town he has been unable to complete our shopping at Walmart, being pushed to return to the car by pain and weakness. He often sleeps much better at night, but also still falls asleep during the day and retires earlier and earlier in the evening. Standing long enough to cook a burger is pushing his limits; he no longer is able to stand long enough to clean up after his cooking -- a fact that troubles him badly -- nor to do dishes or vacuum regularly. Thus, more an more of daily life tasks fall to me on an ongoing basis.

Home repair and maintenance projects will have to be brought into the equation this year... the plumbing has not gotten worse, but is not likely to improve on it's own (Can someone please invent self-healing pipes and apply them to this trailer retroactively?!) The roof WILL need work (this will likely be the year I learn to deal with metal roofing, IF I can come up with the $$, keep K off the roof and hire one of my local young friends, who has some knowledge of this material, to show me and help wrangle large metal kites up here on the hill) and the dog yard enlarged (a relatively cheap and easy project... I just need more long 1x4s from the local saw mill and a couple of days to cut and screw) and the front porch and steps re-designed and re-built.. with provisions for wheeled transport and fitting UNDER the greenhouse canopy in mind. Greenhouse is also on the wish list...

Volva - I continue to receive the Words of Wisdom, and tend the daily, weekly and other Fires. There are times I feel very far away from everything that matters most, but I know that it is temporary and mostly due to having too many heads and too little time (or maybe not enough practice switching heads while juggling hot irons and teakettles of steaming water, who knows! lol

Anyway, that's life "in the slow lane..."

"Oh, life on the farm, it's kinda laid back... " -John Denver

Turning Wheel Moon

2010-01-30T05:50:00.000-08:00

I know the Moons are called by many things, depending on the culture...

As I looked out to see the huge, bright light illuminating the fields and banks of snow (beautiful and newly fallen, it had blown and drifted leaving areas of the earth bare and filled in others...changes of hue and tone in the monochromatic landscape that accented the turning of the Wheel.

Just a few days ago, our misplaced (too late) and unseasonal (too warm) "January Thaw" took our snowpack average from 12" to a mere 2, showing furrows in the fields and garden, turning the lane to mud and leaving shrinking banks of black and brown much more suitable to March than January.

But as I contemplated by the Moon last eve, this Moon came by the name of "Turning Wheel Moon." The dark banks, not obscured, but accented by the forcefully drifted snow, and the patches of bare, muddy earth -- with footprints frozen once again in place -- spoke to the "hope for a good season" that fuels green-thumbed folks to pick up catalogues, place orders, and even begin tucking early seeds into pots warmed in the windowsills.

And the glistening, pristine drifts filling the distant lane and undulating across the fields told stories of more time for contemplation, preparation, thought and rest.

I love February. Not, as many say, because it is short and quickly over, bringing the overly anticipated spring. No, I love it because it eases us gently into the busy days of summer, giving us plentiful times for "catching up" on the winter's rest -- which often seems delayed by holiday madness in our modern world.

Candlemas, Groundhog Day, Imbolc, St. Brigid's day... whatever you call this time of the year, it IS a time of change. Here in the Northlands, the sun is rising visibly earlier each morning and lingering longer in the afternoon. For me, it rises now before 7 am, which means before long it will be awakening me, not the other way around, as I feel during the winter season. These holidays, spread over a few days in early February, accent for me the tidal nature of these seasonal changes. As the sun does not wake up one morning and jump over the horizon an hour earlier, neither do the changing seasons turn on a moment, or a day.

The feelings of change rise from twinges that motivate me to remove the holiday greens and douse the yard lighting, to joy at seeing jonquils and daffodils, harbingers of the growing light, lining florist shelves. The garden plan is in process, and I anxiously await the first early order of seeds -- leeks and lettuces, broccoli and cabbage -- for the window sill. The second order -- for later indoor starts and the first direct seeding in the ground -- will go out this week.

And I stand under the Turning Wheel Moon and hail the tides of change with the hope for a good season for all.

and it begins again...

2010-01-21T03:54:00.000-08:00

We'll be picking up wood in town today for not one, but TWO custom 4' hex signs. The order includes two smaller ones (20 inch and 24") that I'll start next.

This has been an expected order, somewhat delayed on account of (take your pick) Mercury having been retrograde OR the incompetence of the city post office employees. hummmm... that's a tough choice. LOL Anyway, regardless of the cause of the delay I did make contact with the customer again yesterday. We had been talking (yes, on the phone, blast it... ) and by post for some time, working out the details of his design and sizes but he had said that he would be away for the month of December and would be back in touch after the holidays.

Turns out, he sent a check and some other material to the PO box early on in the month of December, apparently just before leaving on vacation and it was returned. That is odd, because I had been getting orders by post there all through the holiday season! But I had fielded a phone call from someone in Maine state government earlier in the week saying something had been returned to them that was sent to Dutch Hex Sign at that address... So I guess I will inquire today when I am in town and really beat the issue later when I receive the package from the new customer (who is sending the whole shebang here to the studio).

In any case, I am glad to have this commission, glad it is continuing into the new cycle. I have been working a bit to connect up the web site with other sites that many generate local traffic (business directories for the Bangor area, etc.) and have done so with the design company as well. I am planning to put up the design "shingle" on the side of the garage as soon as I can reasonably get there, and still have in the back of my mind painting the building barn red to put a large hex on the west end.

Also after discussions with my friend with whom I co-marketed last year, I am ramping up the branding of Stone Soup Collaborative produce over the next few weeks.. We are considering adding some markets... we will see how that goes. I am interested in attending any that I can that will allow craft as well as produce and we have looked at one in Brewer...But it will have to be worked around everything else, of course.

And everything else now includes a standing counseling appt for K on Thurs AM. I will let them know, eventually, that if they get an opening on TU we would like to switch. That will make it easier.

One thing I can't do, though, is complain. I have work -- new work for both of my businesses. Could there be a bright light that is NOT a train, at the end of the recession tunnel?

Hope for a Good Season

2010-01-17T09:04:00.001-08:00

Farmers and fishermen have something big in common... The Hope for a Good Season that keeps us coming back, be it to earth or to sea. (PS... the author of that wonderful book is a friend from NC).

So, once again I prepare to come back to the garden. This year the seed orders are going in piecemeal, in bits to get them here in time for planting.

Thus far I have ordered from JUNGS, three cauliflowers: Cheddar (a yellowish-orange head) Graffiti (purple) and Panther (green head, but cauli, not broc.) Did this order online. None of my caulis did well this past year, but I will try again.

Monday I will get the $$ out of the CU (from savings) for the FEDCO order, which is much larger and includes (this time)
LEEKS Lincoln (which I am hoping to take as early, small gourmet "bunching leeks" to the Thursday market) and Bleu do Solaize, which is touted as having decent overwinter survivability even here in Maine with only straw for protection. I would like to hope it is possible... the freezer full of leeks, even though they are sealing securely in freezer bags, is giving a taste or scent of leek to things that should not have it, such as MooseTracks ice cream, according to K. Now, I haven't any confirmation of that...but then his senses are so over the top I am not sure it would be an issue to anyone else. But still, fresh leeks would be nice...

LETTUCE (a passle of them) a Summer mix which is supposed to stand into July without bolting (going to seed), a Winter mix that supposedly has the potential to overwinter with protection (motivation to get some sort of tunnel system going) as well as some of our usual favorites: Black Seeded Simpson (the old standard green leaf lettuce) Slobolt, Royal Oakleaf, Cardinale (red Batvian variety) and Summertime and Webbs Wonderful as attempts at head lettuce once again. Last year they all rotted due to too much rain, but were good early on as I picked outer leaves to add to the lettuce mix for market.

BROCCOLI -- I ordered a mix this year, to see what will happen and save a bit of $$. This is just for our eating.

PEPPERS Klari Baby Cheese (supposedly good for the "pepper challenged" to grow, and that includes me) and Peacework

TOMATOES the Heirloom mix (again for variety to experiment with and save $$) as well as Bellstar past tomato and Oregon Spring, Ida Gold (yes, a tomato with the same name as the potato) to lean a little heavier on the early varieties. Oregon Spring has grown well for me in the past.

CABBAGES: Golden Acre (early, round variety) Bartolo (late variety that is touted for storage as one that "will hold and hold") and the savoy variety called Frigga, just because I had to!

... and it begins...

Finding Abundance in a $25 stove

2010-01-06T12:26:00.000-08:00

The way I live, the way I work, there is no separation, no difference between material and spiritual. To me, that division smacks of being a "Christmas and Easter-" ( or even just a Sunday-) Christian. I guess that might translate to a Samhain and Beltane Pagan?

Any way, in the veins of As Above, So Below and the converse, I have been mulling about the recent demise of my oven and my search for its replacement, which will not be another wall mounted oven (which is not good for a short old cook, as climbing ladders while hoisting heavy fowl, roasts or even pans of batter is NOT FUN.) Instead, I have opted to replace said oven and the island with cooktop with a standard, everyday gas (propane) range. This will likely give me a larger oven, as well as one more in keeping withe my stature.

The "gotcha" in all this is, of course, there was no "replacement stove" category in the budget and no slush fund that could be shoveled over to fill that missing category. We ain't hurting, we ain't broke, but extra money... well it's in a bit of a short supply... so off to hassle the Ethers I went with emphasis on "cheap" or "free" via such venues as Freecycle and Craigs List. One thing I noticed straight off -- all of the used stoves I found on by any of the second had resources were listed at $300 or more. Yikes... at that price a bottom of the line NEW one would be pushing into the picture!

Then I found one, on Craigs list (which is normally a total bus for me) for $25. Not a half-dead near antique, either (I asked for a photo) nor clear across the state, it looked quite perfect to fill the bill and we were even able to negotiate pick up for this weekend, rather than last, which was the sellers' preference. Yeah, I need a stove but not bad enough to push it in predicted blizzard conditions.

An email to a friend was all it took to secure loan of a trailer to pull behind the Subaru for transport (even if the farm truck was safe and legal, stove is outside the roaming distance for legal farm truck operation, and with a PayPal transaction, the deal was sealed.

And then another friend showed me a new listing in Uncle Henry's for a FREE one... at about the same distance.

What does this tell me?? It shows me that abundance IS INDEED manifesting in my life. I did not need to wait for the free stove to appear, nor did I have one moment of regret over having "missed" that deal. No, that stove is undoubtedly destined for someone for whom $25 would be a big deal... a deal breaker big deal.

And my new stove will come home on Saturday.

Happy Yule! Turning The Wheel...

2009-12-21T08:48:00.000-08:00

There is much energy of change floating around out there at present. I have been feeling it for some time, K noted it last night as well. And others -- even those who are not aware or sure of what they are feeling -- are responding to it as well. I see it in their words and actions.

Yule is -- by it's nature -- a "tide" and not a time, not a moment, an instant, a day.... but rather a period of time where the changes ebb and flow, washing over us all and over the world as it spins through space. It's a good time to let go of things whose time is over. It is a good time to tidy up, both in material and non-material spaces, and prepare to begin moving forward again as the light grows.

As the energies of the first night and day of the tide begin to wane, with Mother Night behind us and the rest of the days ahead, take time especially to remember the Mothers. For me the first of these is AllMother, Frigga, the Lady of the Hearth. It is for her I light my candle on the hearth and keep it burning. And there are my ancestresses..... Dorothea, Katherina and on back... Hail the Mothers, who keep the hearth fires burning. Hail to the Mothers who light the lamps and soothe the tears. Hail to the Mothers who take up arms in righteous causes, in the homeland and in the defense of same. Hail to the Mothers who struggle uphill against the odds; may they prevail in all their righteous desires. Hail!

Crunchy snow!

2009-12-16T10:08:00.001-08:00

I went out today into snow that crunched under my feet! Admittedly it was only the fact that the previous fall had melted, slightly, in the mist that fell yesterday, but it was enough to finally make me FEEL the beginning of the Yuletide season. 'Bout time, eh? LOL

We have outdoor trees up, but not lit yet and the indoor tree finally in place, but not decorated yet either. On account of Coffee (aka The Pup That Ate Corinth) I had to look to something much smaller than usual and placed on a table. I cut the tree at a friend's place where I tipped for wreaths a while back. These "free range" trees, not being kept in captivity and force fed, are much leaner and lankier than the typical "Christmas tree" and I often have issues with their trunks and my stand... and this year presented a unique challenge.

The very scrawny trunk on the tree (the top part of a taller one) was only a little over an inch in diameter, way too small for even the replacement bolts that I refitted to the stand to securely hold. In the end I cut a piece of pvc pipe, which the bolts did hold, and K whittled the trunk diameter to fit inside the pipe. The tree can still drink and it is held securely enough. Hopefully it will be decorated tomorrow.

Yesterday, "town day" ended up taking much longer than expected but in this case it was a good thing. We had forgotten to calendar a rescheduled doc appt. for K until the reminder phone call Monday afternoon. So that got added to the list, and while we were in that building we decided to stop by another office to see about the reschedule of a different appointment that we had canceled during the previous week's storm. The person he had been supposed to see just happened to be at their front desk, reporting a "no-snow" for that exact moment, so she pulled K into the slot. A good thing... all appts are back on track ... but set the day's errands later and the outside home work that I was going to do when we got back (other than bringing in the tree) sifted to today.

And is done... in advance of the coming "deep freeze" and despite a brisk, rather cool breeze. The main chores included:

...an attempt to repair a rip in the foundation's plastic "windbreaker" with duct tape (which doesn't like to stick in frigid temps, but was persuaded -- I think -- by judicious applications of heat from the heat gun. Helped me to work sans gloves as well... tearing duct tape with fuzzy gloves is not optimal. ;)

...topping off the coolant in the Subaru

...taking out trash and unusable cardboard

...bring in cardboard for packaging the last hex shipment of 2009, tomorrow

...crawling under the trailer to plug in the pipes heat tape.

Now I have a couple of hours until I have to leave for work, so I'll fuss a little more on that hex, hopefully get it sprayed with overcoat and wash dishes. Hopefully I'll feel like working on monkeys when I get home tonight!

Mistletoe, anyone??

2009-12-14T11:06:00.001-08:00

Last call for a sprig of Mistletoe or protective talismans for your doors!! I am shipping them tomorrow. Get your request in today, with address!!

Mistletoe, anyone??

2009-12-07T11:19:00.000-08:00

Having moved to an area where it does not grow natively -- and being unable to find good, fresh sprigs in any of the local stores -- I have once again ordered a box of mistletoe sprigs.

It is still time to make decorations or amulets as per your tradition, in time for the Holidays. I would be glad to ship sprigs of mistletoe, tied with a red ribbon, to anyone who wants some of the "good stuff" for $5 plus an additional $5 for shipping US Priority Mail.

I would also make a protective charm such as I put over each door at Solstice, consisting of a solar cross made of birch twigs and a sprig of mistletoe, tied with red jute cord. I would like 7.50 for the charms and the shipping is the same, $5 for up to 5 of them. One should put one over each door to the outside...

If you would like to order, email me at starwalkr(at)gmail.com and I will invoice you through PayPal.

Here we go again!

2009-11-13T04:38:00.000-08:00

The furor is beginning... the Holidays continue to merge one into another as Christmas decor faces off against Halloween across the isles. The soggy economy is a moot point, I think, for the hype of BUY BUY BUY for the winter holidays seems to change little in intensity from one year to the next.

Everything from cars to homes through useful gadgets and clothing to unnecessary geegaws, produced only to separate us from our money and add to the landfills... all is being hyped with increasing fervor... and we are not even to Thanksgiving yet!

Yes, you probably all know that I have never been "a consumer" in the classic sense. Though I no longer have it on my wall, the motto "Use it up. Wear it out, Make it Do or DO WITHOUT" is indelibly etched on my brain. Not that I don't every buy stuff, mind you... and I have even been known to engage in "retail therapy" of a sort... but in my world there is much more focus on DOING than on HAVING. And, quite frankly, I think that is the better way.

I have been reading about the new and "serious crowd control" measures some of the major retailers have been planning for the post-Thanksgiving buying frenzy and several thoughts cross my mind. The first is "Thank the Gods I don't have to deal with this" from either side of the counter. And the second is that you don't either.

Even if you do plan lavish gift giving and holiday decorations there are other ways to get there.... Planning ahead is just one... What if they gave a sale and no one came? And they cut prices and still no one came? Do you supposed they might get the idea that a FAIR price, every day, was the way to go? No, probably not.. but no one ever said that I am not an optimist! LOL

But once again I take my stand to promote "Buy Nothing Day" not to cripple the economy but to bring some sense of SENSE to the marketplace. We don't need to be fighting (and even dying) over STUFF, folks. Yeah, I am likely preaching to the choir here, I know... but the more who stand up and say "NO.... not this way, not this year" the better.

For myself, from Thanksgiving day through the first of the year, I do not set foot in anything like a department or big box or discount store unless it truly is an emergency. Pretty much, I go to the Post office, the bank, a grocer or two and pick up petrol, kero and propane... and by pulling back from the fray I have the chance to relax and enjoy the season of darkness more as it feels to me it needs to be experienced...

I'll be in the "monkey business" in a few days (making stuffed toys for Grands from the old red heel socks) and finally making the yarrow salve that I have had the ingredients to make for a few weeks now. I'll jar up the remainder of the dried herbs, paint hex signs, fuss with the web and read. I'll bake goodies and clean the office and -- weather permitting -- likely just spend some time sitting and watching the snow fall. There are snow shoes to wear and doggies to walk, and lots of time to plot and plan for the coming of the Light. And once the Yuletide has passed, there will be plenty of time to think about buying again, as the seed catalogues drift in with the blowing snow.

Buy Nothing Day --- give it a thought. and consider expanding it... "Take the perspective gained from your 24-hour moratorium on consuming and apply it to the most hectic and wasteful shopping period of the year: the holidays. Make this holiday season a time to reflect on your consumption habits instead of expanding them." --AdBusters.org

My Hex Signs made the "local" news

2009-11-06T19:00:00.000-08:00

A reporter and photographer from the Bangor (ME) paper were out a few weeks ago to interview me.

The article is appearing in the weekend edition of the paper, on line and print.

November has arrived

2009-11-05T17:37:00.000-08:00

Yes, I know... it's on the calendar so what's the big deal? Just that the earth signs, here in Maine at least, concur.

A couple of days ago we were blessed by some more serious winds than we've had of late. K commented that this was the "leaf stripping wind" and it appears he was correct. Most of the deciduous trees are now bare, and the bushes as well.

Today we got our third snowfall and the first to happen in the daytime for multiple hours. Most of the afternoon into the evening, snow was falling as I worked in the garage, assembling the fence panels for which I had cut the wood yesterday. There were lots of big, fluffy flakes and in late afternoon, they began to accumulate a bit, making the first "sticking" snow. The forecast was for it to continue into the night with an accumulation of several inches but I do not see than happening now, unless there are more waves of precipitation to come. We will see.

I took the funnel and measuring tube out of my rain gauge in anticipation of having a bit of an accumulation of snow gathering in the 4" cylinder, to be melted and properly measured as liquid tomorrow morning. I have yet to set up the snow accumulation measuring station, but the parts are more or less in place so if there is any accumulation tomorrow morning I will be able to at least take a ruler to it.

The fence, which will enclose the dog yard and hopefully keep Coffee confined, is being made from a load of cull rough cut lumber... mostly 1x6 and some 1x4 boards. I do not have a count of the number of panels I have made, but I used up nearly 100 verticals -- all of the 1x6s. I decided to save the vertical 1x4s, of which there were only a handful, to go with parts cut from the remaining long 1x4 to make a gate. The gate will not be installed until next year, when we get "real" fence posts set. For now, the wooden panels will be held in place by being bolted to metal posts, the kind most often used for electric or wire fencing.

Neither of the dogs jumps against the fence, though at times they lie -- and lean -- against the bottom and the posts should hold against that. The main issue with the current fence -- plastic netting held in place by cheap plastic step-in posts -- is that while Brandi, the full grown Saint Bernard, views it as a barrier, Coffee, the now 5 mo old pup, see it as not even a challenge any more. She just walks it down and is out.

Cutting the wood yesterday and assembling panels today has left me tired and sore in many places but feeling pretty good. "Making sawdust" as my dad used to say, is fun.

Now, if the ground will just hold off on that freezing thing until after next week and we can get the posts driven and the fence up!...

Winternights comes!

2009-10-22T12:56:00.000-07:00

A couple of observations from the past two days...

Autumn is tinged with melancholy,
A sweet good bye to summers end,
as to a friend
you know you’ll see again.

------------------------------

Falling leaves tuck us into bed,
Billowing piles and crazy quilt lawns
Evoke the comfort of winter nights
Burrowed in down and tucked, with love,
In cozy flannel and woolen hospitality.

a week in pictures

2009-10-19T07:23:00.001-07:00

The last harvest of herbs. Upper left to lower left: oregano on top of sage, thyme, winter savory and chives. Upper right, yarrow. Lower right, Greek oregano.

dried leeks

Leek flower bud

Leek flower bud cross section

Leek bulb reproduction

Leek bulb reproduction: you can see the bulblet was indeed attached to the larger bulb. Leeks are related to lilies, garlic and onions so this type of reproduction should not surprise me, I guess, but I had not seen it before. Less than 10% showed bulblets.

saying no

2009-10-17T06:05:00.000-07:00

I just officially dropped out of doggie training class. For now, at least... I am hoping that I can at least audit the last few classes at some future date. Timing of the classes, and finding time to work with the pup, just were not even close to optimal.. they were just not happening.

It was hard to just shoot off the email without explanation other than reassurance that I was not an unhappy customer. But I think I am going to have to learn to do this, and to learn to make more "maybe" commitments as time rolls on.

You see, my specialty through the years has been "no matter what" commitments... it happens or I MAKE it happen. But things change and that isn't working now.

It might very well have something to do with working 3 jobs. Might have something to do with two of them being client/customer driven (and there I am not willing to give up the "no matter what" commitment; that's just how I do business!) And then there is my getting back to a seasonal /agricultural lifestyle. This has proven to be a thorn in the side of my interactions with the larger community before, when folks don't understand that "there is a time to sow and a time to reap" isn't just metaphor.

And add on top of that, a partner whose health is waning, steadily and significantly -- despite finally having decent medical care. It may not sound like much, but this time last year, he could sit at the computer all day long, doing research, playing WOW or the like and could rouse sufficient energy to do household and other tasks as needed. A year before that, even the task of laying carpet in our small office reception area (which, by the way, was a bear and a half of a job!) was just one of the tasks he did during the day. Yes, he complained of the pain... but he could do it.

Now, he gets winded just walking to the garage; cannot stay awake during the day and even with naps cannot summon the energy, strength or endurance to do much. Putting away the dishes is a major job (though he can still do it at some point during the day) He often says that he used to be "a planner and a do-er" but now can be neither, and that is pretty much dead on. His thinking is affected sufficiently that he must pick and choose times in which he has sufficient clarity to plan out a simple project like designing a replacement for the back steps. One's afternoon's work (with my help) got the boards for the sides cut to size. Assembly of the sides will also need my help, as will cutting and attaching the steps.

So, not only must I deal with the psychological aspects of his decline, there is little that must be done here on he ol' homestead that my hands don't end up having to touch.

And meanwhile, there are still leeks (25') and Brussels sprouts (100') and carrots and beets (just a few) remaining in the garden, as well as all the tall stuff which must be whacked down with the scythe, perennials that much be mulched (with SOMETHING... I wonder if I can still get some of that mulch hay and where the $ is coming from to buy it...)

And while I never thought I was much of a "schedule" person, I am finding that K's total lack of schedule... of falling asleep randomly... being awake randomly... is throwing me for a loop. Just simple stuff like eating.. if I make enough for 2, and it is not something that can "hold" will it be waste? If I make enough for one, chances are about the time I sit down to eat, he's awake! And I do try to keep him eating healthy, trying to buy good stuff and not empty calorie junk, it is hard to keep grab and eat food around that is good for a diabetic.

Sorry about the whine... sometimes it just helps to write as I try to figure out the balance point here.

On marriage, contracts and separation of church and state

2009-10-14T14:36:00.000-07:00

I don't generally delve into the realm of politics, for several reasons. The most notable of these is that most folks have their minds made up and no amount of discussion will change their position.

However, with the furor that is going on in my home state of Maine as conservatives attempt to overturn our newly enacted right for couples to marry, regardless of gender, and having had a conversation with one of my daughters regarding similar legal controversies in Utah over extending civil rights to folks regardless of sexual orientation and belief system, I am going to jump into the fray.

Be forwarned, I am likely to be so far out in left field as to be totally out of the arena, if not my mind.

For many, many years I have wondered how we can, as a country, say that we separate church and state and yet have the grey area in the law that is marriage -- a rite of churches -- that is also a legal status. As I understand it, marriage became a state matter long ago, as a way of further controlling the peasants and the flow of property. In those days, in Europe, there was also an established State church... and the mixing of Church and State politics was the norm.

That was then... this is now... and it is my opinion that the institution of Marriage should be relegated to the individual churches where it belongs. If a church chooses to marry a couple -- and the couple wishes to partake of this particular sacrament, so be it.

But this should have no bearing on anything beyond the communities of faith... not on who inherits what, not on who pays for what, not on taxes, nor insurance nor any of the other doings the involve the affairs of state. For that, there are contracts. We enter into contracts for buying and renting stuff, for saying who gets what after we die and heck, we even enter into contracts to say who gets what when we separate from a union. Why, then, need there be more than a contract (which could be written any number of ways) to spell out the rights and responsabilities of those who choose to pair-bond? It would be the responsibility of the two parties to negotiate fair and equitable terms which they could agree to... including sharing or separation of finances, responsibility for child care and expenses, and so on.

This would of course require a revamping of the income tax system (which in itself would be a good thing!) and adjustments to other contracts such as for insurance. Anyone of the age of adulthood, who is able to enter into a contractual relationship, could choose to execute this contract with anyone else of suitable age.

They might also choose to participate in a church sacrament, but that would have no bearing on their contractual relationship.

And we would be able place legal issues in a legal arena and spiritual issues on the shoulders of the faith community, where they belong.

Interview!

2009-10-10T07:58:00.001-07:00

I was recently interviewed (by email) regarding my hex work; the interview has been posted online.

What I have been up to...

2009-10-07T09:26:00.001-07:00

We have been enjoying autumn colors... this was the view on the way to Dover-Foxcroft for K's counseling meeting. Shot from the hill in Charleston, ME looking north. And after that appointment we went hunting covered bridges we had seen, so as to be able to share the locations with a friend down east in Maine.

This is Low's Bridge, Willimantic, ME (a ways past Dover-Foxcroft) Google map

I found this one "accidentally" on my first vacation to Maine. One could not drive over it then. Who would have expected it to be in my new home town! Robeyville Covered Bridge in Corinth, ME google map

And last night's project result... I moved all this lumber, which we had ordered from a small lumberyard, into the garage so as to be out of the rain today. This represents my back steps and deck (front, boards lengthwise to camera) and the dog fence (boards in back, stacked 4 deep -- this bit is an order of "cull wood" that cost md $40!). My muscles are stiff today from moving all this!

lazy? Busy?

2009-09-14T04:39:00.000-07:00

I am either lazy or busy, not sure which, but I did get these shots of birds this morning... a huge flock that I could hear running along the roof and see swooping odwn to eat on the front lawn.

I have no idea what they are, but there were a lot of the critters!

pulling in for the winter

2009-09-07T07:30:00.000-07:00

For years, it seems, the dark seasons have been my time to be out and about -- visiting and doing all the things in the community and with friends that most folks do in what is, for me, the busy summer season.

This year seems destined to be different. Not only have I been pulling in during the summer, but I am feeling a stronger need, even, to pull in more as autumn approaches.
There is the garden to finish and put to bed, the house to weatherise and secure and after a year of living here, what needs to be done inside and the priorities are beginning to show themselves.

But even more so than this, am I looking forward to much time of solitude and thought. So if you don't hear much from me, that is likely why.

I will respond to prodding for a sign of life, and will try to do so not as a hibernating, grouchy bear... but I may not have a lot to say. Doesn't mean I care about any or all of you out there any less.

Sorting through thoughts and projects

2009-09-03T14:34:00.000-07:00

What a week it has been. I have been working hard at the store, in the garden, at the stove (canning) and in the paint studio. And getting projects for the next few months for the design studio as well.

And when I work (at the jobs where there are not people around at least) I think, contemplate, cogitate and meditate. I see, find and follow threads.

One of the threads that has presented itself several times of late -- and has caused me to count my blessings -- is that of relationship endings. Three friends -- one very close and two less close, but no less liked -- have been part of break-ups of late. Of these three, the ones remaining (for the present at least) in the area or in some sort of communication are all guys. And being guys, mostly not given to a lot of chatter. But they are no less hurt and confused, just a bit less likely to sit around raking the coals with a woman friend. I am sure that the economy is a thread in at least some of these breaks.

One woman is badly stressed out by having found her youngest child is very, VERY sick, on top of (in my opinion) their being over their heads financially with the purchase this summer of an owner-finance house. When she was initially talking about the place, it had that "too good to be true" feeling but she and her fella saw none of the red flags. She moved in based on her commitment to working massive hours at a local nursing home and him working good job as well. But he has a history of many jobs/lay-off and such and that proved to be the case once again. Though he is working again now, his income is not enough to support the family, even at a subsistence level, while she stays home to care for their youngest. They have had a tumultuous relationship in the past and I learned last night that she moved home to her parents the previous day. He is camping out in a relative's basement, having let the house go, to be able to save and eventually move to where she now is and he hopes to get his old job back. I wish them well and think they might have a chance.

Another friend had his wife take the kids and head back home to another state some time ago. I dunno much about that, other than he misses the kids terribly. He is once again an over the road trucker, though earlier in the year or late last year I believe he sold his truck as he could no longer make a profit. Not sure if his being home made things better, worse or had no effect... but I know there is a phenomenon of returning spouses (like from the military) having issues with fitting back into the household full time.

The third situation is the one I am closest to and my only conclusion here is that the woman I knew must have never existed. She and I used to talk farming and gardening, goats and chickens and I cannot count the number of times she said she loved her animals. Now I don't know what to believe, as I was told she was going out of state for a week, and told a long story in confidence about why (which story gave NO indication she was sour on her marriage). We had a verbal agreement for working together this summer, but I was ok with the one week absence... but I was NOT ok when it turned into 2+ weeks even though she had assured me, point blank, that she would be in time for a particular engagement. I got into the middle of a big boondoggle with mutual friends on a social networking site when I chose not to break confidence and disclose what I had been told was the reason behind her absence. Now, as I say, I don't know what to believe. Before she "un-friended" me on the site, her posts were cryptic or mundane -- as if she were someone else talking about the daily bits of an existing life -- not someone who had run away from spouse, and her own parents who she had basically caused to move into her home. Now it seems she is attempting to write "the Maine years" totally out of her life. I just don't understand.

What I do understand is making sure you know your self -- well -- and being true to your self when you make commitments. And when, by chance, you discover you have gone down the wrong path (yes, it does happen to us all) extricating yourself gently and gradually. I understand throwing out the bathwater, I guess, and keeping the baby.
And even though I am not one to worry about "what other people think" I do understand that all our actions set off ripples across the web and that these ripples go much farther than even the best of us can see. I understand that seeing this CAN be paralyzing, but that we need to proceed with care and all the truth and honesty that we can muster, regardless.

I understand Intent and that it can do much, but it cannot "cover thy ass" when you make an ass of yourself.

I have learned that working with Intent and honesty and a truthful heart can bring you blessings far beyond what you might have hoped/prayed/been willing to ask for.
Which brings to me to what I guess amounts to an "thankful Thursday" place...

For I am thankful for K, for the fact that he tries and usually doesn't miss by too much, and for the fact that he keeps trying.
And I am thankful that even though I no longer am IN NC, the Cape Lookout National Park folk want me to work on their big annual newsletter.
And I am very thankful that my friend, and museum director, survived her car accident and is still forging ahead (albeit with chronic lack of sleep and hurting head) and has asked me to work on their annual publication as well, one more time. Fall was going to feel very empty without it.
And I am thankful to the Gods for giving me the Words of Wisdom each day to share
and for the hex sign orders, which just keep coming in. there is seldom a time these days that I do not have a hex in process for someone.
And I am thankful for having found our home. Even in my wildest imagines when we sell a lottery ticket at the store and the talk turns to "what would do do if you won" I cannot imagine living anywhere else than on this 4 acres.
And I am thankful for my health, for the fact that my body continues to work, even though it often hurts.
And for having the time and space to write this.

Blessed Be.

Looking Forward to Fall

2009-08-26T04:14:00.002-07:00

After a long and rainy summer -- followed by a couple of weeks of dreadful heat and humidity --the days are visibly getting shorter and the cold fronts are bringing actual cooling now. I sit here in the early morning, wearing sweats, though I will have to change before I go out, as we are expecting summer temps (low 80s, this is as hot as it ever need be, in my book) again today. Tomorrow, and the weekend. look to be a forerunner of autumn though and I am SO looking forward to it. Not that I wish it wish away the year -- there is still much to do before Samhain which I have set as the "buttoned down for winter" deadline. But the cool weather will make the work possible.

I haven't blogged recently as life has been very full. My weedy garden continues to surprise me with produce ( and I likely have still more cukes, and maters to pick, an I know there is half a row of red onions that need doing, and some of the beets as well. I've put up one batch of pickles and there will be more. At least I managed to get a box of wide mouth jars, this time!

Hexing has been going well, too. So well, in fact, that I have yet to complete the written interview I have been asked to do. Hopefully before the end of the week, despite another order for 4 indoor signs and the rush I put on one last night to ship to New York. I was contacted yesterday by Gourmet magazine, wanting to borrow several for potential use in a photo spread, as background. I will get credit if the shot makes the cut, so after some discussion, I am sending several of the 10-12 inch signs I have on hand, plus I quickly painted one of the small change signs that they liked so much. Cross your fingers we make the cut!

I have been spending a lot of time carrying K back and forth to appts and sitting in medical offices and it looks to continue for a while. At my mention of a need, his main doc referred him for physical therapy, so there will be that 2x a week. First appt is tomorrow, in Dover. Today we go back to Bangor to get the leads removed from his 24 hr. EEG. He is terribly worried that he is going to start getting bills for all of these expensive texts, and that they will continue to show nothing abnormal -- despite the fact that he is NOT right, and indeed that the neurologist did see strange things during his exam. He has a dental appt next week, as well.

I am "running away from home" for a day on Saturday, though! (maybe with, maybe without K, depending on how he feels) to go to Caribou to the National Weather Service open house. I am hoping to learn more about their trained weather observer program, as we are now part of the Community Collaborative Rain, Hail & Snow Network (CoCoRaHS) . I urge everyone who is interested in the weather to log on, sign up and pony up for the wonderful "official" rain guage that we are required to use.

Since it is such a long ways out to Caribou (about 3.25 hrs according to Google maps) I have decided to make a day of it and visit Madawaska (the most northely town in the continental US), about an hour farther on, and then head over to Fort Kent (20 min) before coming back down 11 (a little over 2 hrs, they say, but likely more with photo stops -- hoping for MOOSE! and then back home, nearly another 2 hrs on 95 and such. Despite the fact that it will be a grueling drive -- I do not not long drives well any more -- I am thoroughly looking forward to the day, especially since I have the following day off to recoupterate. Hopefully pix will be forthcoming!

Looking Forward to Fall

2009-08-26T04:14:00.001-07:00

After a long and rainy summer -- followed by a couple of weeks of dreadful heat and humidity --the days are visibly getting shorter and the cold fronts are bringing actual cooling now. I sit here in the early morning, wearing sweats, though I will have to change before I go out, as we are expecting summer temps (low 80s, this is as hot as it ever need be, in my book) again today. Tomorrow, and the weekend. look to be a forerunner of autumn though and I am SO looking forward to it. Not that I wish it wish away the year -- there is still much to do before Samhain which I have set as the "buttoned down for winter" deadline. But the cool weather will make the work possible.

I haven't blogged recently as life has been very full. My weedy garden continues to surprise me with produce ( and I likely have still more cukes, and maters to pick, an I know there is half a row of red onions that need doing, and some of the beets as well. I've put up one batch of pickles and there will be more. At least I managed to get a box of wide mouth jars, this time!

Hexing has been going well, too. So well, in fact, that I have yet to complete the written interview I have been asked to do. Hopefully before the end of the week, despite another order for 4 indoor signs and the rush I put on one last night to ship to New York. I was contacted yesterday by Gourmet magazine, wanting to borrow several for potential use in a photo spread, as background. I will get credit if the shot makes the cut, so after some discussion, I am sending several of the 10-12 inch signs I have on hand, plus I quickly painted one of the small change signs that they liked so much. Cross your fingers we make the cut!

I have been spending a lot of time carrying K back and forth to appts and sitting in medical offices and it looks to continue for a while. At my mention of a need, his main doc referred him for physical therapy, so there will be that 2x a week. First appt is tomorrow, in Dover. Today we go back to Bangor to get the leads removed from his 24 hr. EEG. He is terribly worried that he is going to start getting bills for all of these expensive texts, and that they will continue to show nothing abnormal -- despite the fact that he is NOT right, and indeed that the neurologist did see strange things during his exam. He has a dental appt next week, as well.

I am "running away from home" for a day on Saturday, though! (maybe with, maybe without K, depending on how he feels) to go to Caribou to the National Weather Service open house. I am hoping to learn more about their trained weather observer program, as we are now part of the Community Collaborative Rain, Hail & Snow Network (CoCoRaHS) . I urge everyone who is interested in the weather to log on, sign up and pony up for the wonderful "official" rain guage that we are required to use.

Since it is such a long ways out to Caribou (about 3.25 hrs according to Google maps) I have decided to make a day of it and visit Madawaska (the most northely town in the continental US), about an hour farther on, and then head over to Fort Kent (20 min) before coming back down 11 (a little over 2 hrs, they say, but likely more with photo stops -- hoping for MOOSE! and then back home, nearly another 2 hrs on 95 and such. Despite the fact that it will be a grueling drive -- I do not not long drives well any more -- I am thoroughly looking forward to the day, especially since I have the following day offto recoupterate. Hopefully pix will be forthcoming!

Too #&$%#@% HOT!

2009-08-18T04:01:00.001-07:00

I am sorry that the weather decided to make up for the cool and damp of early summer and give Maine (and indeed, it seems, much of the east and north eastern US) the entire summers worth of heat in a week. If you have read my blogs for long, you know my opinion is that 80 degrees is as hot as it needs to get. And that by that, I do NOT mean "mid-80s" or gawd forbid the "high 80s" to 90+ degree temps that are forecast for today. [metric translation: My opinion is that 27 degrees is as hot as it needs to get. And that by that, I do NOT mean "low-30s" or gawd forbid the "mid-30" degree temps that are forecast for today.]

It is too hot to move, too hot to breathe but yet the garden still needs weeding and especially needs water, so I have been trying to weed early in the morning, in the very heavy dew and have been applying soaker hose to plants on a rotating basis. But that still leaves putting food by (even the bit of heat to blanch a few veggies is noticeable in he kitchen) and housework which as multiplied with the pup.

And speaking of pup, Coffee appears to be a very smart doggie. She is learning quickly about the pee and poop outside thing, and has not messed in the bedroom since about the second night we had her... and she HAS got me up in the wee hours to go out. She seems to know what is expected, just with a bit of confusion and possible lack of maturity (inability to hold urine sufficiently long to get leashed up and taken out on occasion). Her "accidents" are pretty much directly in front of a door (not always the door to outside, though that is becoming increasingly the only place accidents happen.) and since said doors are covered with linoleum or an old mud mat that came with the house, the scolding of "bad dog" only carried the energy needed for training and no extra "oomph" from the stress of a potentially ruined floor.

Hex orders have dropped again, but this is not necessarily a bad thing, as I need the time (once the weather cools enough, especially) to clean and organize the workspace. I do have one job pending -- the painting of a hex on a rock for a friend to place overlooking his garden. And of course I need to update the website.

Other than that, life continues. We have finally got a lumber list and a friend will be ordering it for us from a local fellow with a sawmill, so we can build a small deck and decent set of steps for the back door to the dog yard. This has been an issue since we moved in -- the bottom two "steps" are nearly 18" tall, which makes it difficult for me and the big dog and impossible for the small one. The delay on this is partly a money issue and partly a motivation of Kevin issue.

He spends increasingly more time "lost" or "gone" into his own mind or who knows where.... asleep in part and just not here in part as well. Some of this is from pain, I am sure, some from the fact that even with the CPAP machine, he is not sleeping even close to a "normal" night. However his primary care practitioner finally made a referral to a neurologist for a look at several issues and we had the appointment last week. After an initial terrible meeting, due totally to screw-ups on the part of their staff, we got seen during a cancellation in the early afternoon of the same day as the messed up appointment. It was not fun cooling our heels in Bangor for several hours, with few necessary errands and a Kevin who was hurting, but we did it.

The doc only got started on ONE of the three issues, but even to my untrained eye, the exam found abnormalities for him to work with/on. This is in remarkable contrast to most exams of any sort, in which he comes out "textbook perfect" even though something is obviously the matter. Doc ordered an MRI (two CAT scans have failed to find anything) and a 24 hour EEG (typical EEG was one of those "textboox perfect" tests...) MRI is today at 6 PM and he gets wired up for the EEG next Tues. This is a set up where he wears a unit for 24 hours, and we push a button on the machine, and log in a journal, any "events" that might produce signals they would need to look at in detail.

The neurologist office scheduled BOTH of these appointments while we waited, as well as our next visit to that office -- one of the most efficient medical practices I have seen thus far. I have high hopes that he will uncover something; whether it will be something treatable, I am not sure. K's counselor seems to think that his exposure to ball lightning as a young child may account for some of the abnormalities in his brain.

In the yard, our humming birds and gold finches continue to visit the feeders and I still hear an occasional killdeer and see the swallows swooping on skeeter patrol.

We have been visited by a (couple of?) young skunks. One we both saw ambling across the grass and one was almost surprised by K and Coffee last night on their walk around the house. The young Pepe Le Pew was eating up spilled seed under the backyard bird feeder.

Thus far the two-strand monofiliment deer fence seems to be working and (crossing fingers) the turkeys have yet to find the garden. I have a "bunch" of about a half dozen grapes on one of the two grape vines, and have eaten a few blueberries, but I need to deer fence the berry area and the canes of the branbleberries have been being munched on by deer. I'll look today in the big boxes for the cheap plastic step-in posts, hoping they have resupplied since my last visit.

As I have been trying to get out and weed, I continue to find food in the garden; excavating the visible Brussels sprout plants, I noted the second planting of carrots still trying to grow under the weeds and have begun to give them light and room too... I'll put the soaker on the row later today so I can do a good weeing job on them tomorrow, with luck.

Peppers are not producing well -- no big surprise as they seem picky to me and have not had the care they deserve, but the tomatoes are beginning to come on, as are the cukes. Gotta get "stuff" for pickling today -- cukes and beets for sure.

Whew, that's a lot of words. Now I am typed out...

Meet Coffee

2009-08-11T04:56:00.001-07:00

Say hello to the newest member of our family, Coffee! (Those of you who know the Mainer liking for Allens Coffee (flavored) Brandy will understand our naming convention. Our older Saint is named Brandi.)

She is a 2 mo. old Saint B baby that we got last week, after seeing a sign "Saint Bernard Puppies" on our way home from K's doc appointment in Milo. We stopped and played with them but had no $$ as we had yet to hit Bangor and do banking, and "on the way" home stopped by to find the people not home. I left a business card and they returned the call later and I went back, with $$ to get her.

She just learned how to do steps yesterday (UP, not yet comfortable with the DOWN option) and we are working on house training. Walking on a leash she caught onto quickly (with a harness, not a collar, which she hates) especially when we walk with Brandi. B is pretty tolerant of the baby. There have only been a few "grr"... of the big dog correcting small one variety, however jealousy is in style, as big dog makes sure she gets what is big dog's due (regardless of my active commitment to love on and give attention to her in a heavier portion even than to the baby.)

Today we are off to the vet, first, for her checkup and second set of shots and then to town for an UNTIPPABLE water dish. Coffee loves to lay her head on the edge of the water dish and ends up dumping it... so we have a puppy puddle of a different (and much larger) variety.

Brandi also will go to town, as she is getting a pedicure at Petsmart today.

Finding "Normal" again

2009-07-31T07:54:00.000-07:00

My first foray into "market" is over for the year, "summer" seems to finally have arrived in Maine just in time -- ironically -- for the cross-quarter time that begins our turn toward fall. Whether you call it "First Harvest," "Lammas" (from the Latin for Loaf Mass), Lughnasa or something else, the period at the first of August marks a turning point on the wheel of the year and this year for me there are other markers as well.

Come mid-month, we will have been here for our first full year. Most of the bittersweet plants have survived and are making a run for growth, now that I have found and excavated them from the grasses. The grapes, blueberries and bramble berries as well are growing, though some of the brambles did not survive and some have been heavily browsed apparently by deer.

The herb garden is in and, though it needs weeding again, seems to be holding its own in large measure. Minus the Basil, which is struggling here as most everywhere from what I hear this year.

There are flowers growing in the flower patch, visible here and there through the weeds and in the veggie patch, hope grows for a small harvest from the vine crops, a gimmer of hope for an ear or two of corn and if the tomatoes and peppers can just keep going -- and cold holds off a bit -- a crop we will have there as well, now that I have deer fenced that area. I could have sworn that the western deer did NOT like tomato vines, but it appears that these guys have munched on the tops of some mater plants as well as the peppers, which I know they love.

Now that market is over, I'll have the leeway to weed more and harvest on a more constant, smaller scale for food to eat and put up for the season.

I still have an unconscious negative response to seeing the bright sunlight shining in the yard, though. Too many years in the southlands, where even the early morning rising sun, shining through the kitchen window into a house still holding the overnight cool, felt like sharp knives attacking my skin, I suppose. Yes, it has been HOT in the garden... I worked a full Wednesday there this week, sun shining and temps peaking in the high 80s... but I need to remind myself that was a PEAK temp and not what I need expect when I open the door in the early morning.

Finding "normal"... which is of course not a point but a range -- and a constantly changing place ... will be my theme this week as we celebrate the first harvest. Here there is no grain to harvest (even normally, when there might be glimmers of corn on the horizon, what wheat is grown locally harvest later in the season) so while I am thankful for the grains, my focus will be directed toward my local wights and the land upon which I stand. There is much to be thankful for, as despite my poor attempts and missed deadlines and lack of necessary tools, we DO have a harvest. They kept their commitment and on my part I will be thankful and redouble my efforts to keep up my part of the bargain next year, for I know They will cut me some slack, but not forever! LOL

I am feeling strongly the need to tend to the house for the next few days (cleaning up the post-market chaos, making order out of the garden stuff so I can maybe throw in a few seeds for fall crops and an try at overwintering) and then back to the garden of the morning and work as needed in the afternoon, with hex painting stuck in there somewhere. Like I said "finding" normal... not having it already nailed down...

In the Flow

2009-07-24T07:38:00.000-07:00

It is so comforting to be "in the flow." It is not something you can make happen. Not like "pushing the river," a much more common state for me... No, being in the flow is something that you just sort of slide into when you are lucky and the stars and right and you have the right mindset.

I am there at present, at least mostly.

Thinking about this as a result of several things and lines of thought in recent days. Starting with the most immediate and working backwards...
I slept in today. It was a sort of deliberate decision, the result of knowing this would be a rainy day and the incredibly busy, stressful, physical and tiring previous days. Tuesday included all the usual errands (and it still surprises me how much trips to town tire me all by themselves) as well as packaging and shipping a 4 foot diameter hex sign made from 3/4" plywood. Can you say "heavy" and "bloody awkward"? At least we were (barely) able to fit it IN the Subaru!

Tuesday night and Wednesday were spent prepping the next 5 hex orders for painting, drawing on the designs and getting the painting started before the beginning of my short shift at the store Wed. night.

Then yesterday was Market. I love picking, don't mind cleaning and prep of the food but hate loading, unloading, set up, tear down, loading and unloading again. Which means I kinda dread market -- until I get there and start talking to the folks and all. K was able to help with the dreaded parts -- though he was hurting well more than usual, as was I. Dunno what was up with my right knee, but it was not a happy camper yesterday, though it has not complained at all yet today. And Market -- though it was an overcast day with clouds that looked to threaten rain (though there was none in the forecast until the late night) went better than at first expected. We did not sell out, but spent the hours shelling the huge bag of Petit Pois destined for the freezer and much to my surprise I sold the first little indoor hex sign, a Love and Happy Home. The food stuffs were unloaded, but the car will remain packed until the rain abates -- likely not today -- so there will be some time to clean out the prep mess and get the blanching and freezing done before the living room fills with market stuff again.

But as it happens, and not pushing the river, likely all the food will not get put up today. There are some beets (greens and roots) to deal with and unsold Petit Pois (two quarts) and English Peas (maybe 3 quarts) to be shelled. A few dozen eggs to return to Todd (who will stop by later to pick up proceeds and remains) and that will be that until next week, the last one for this market.

Hex signs will likely not get any more paint until tonight or tomorrow, as I have full shifts today and Saturday. This I do not mind, as these days generally go quickly as busy nights and then Sunday is a day off -- with predicted dry weather for garden work again.

With the past new moon/eclipse and the coming of the celebration of the First Harvest Tide I have been thinking about the rituals and thoughts that I have read here and there and which have been posted on Spindle and Broom and in her LJ by my friend

hazelkate

I haven't done many "full blown" rituals since we moved here. Not that I am against them, mind you, I just haven't felt the need, past the cleansing, claiming and warding that I did when we first arrived. But the threads of sacrifice and letting go of ego that HazelKate talks about are here none the less... in my realization that I am no longer the proud-of-it "Type A" personality I used to be... and in the emotional watershed of conversation with K that rolled through on Wednesday, before work. And the thankfulness for the First Harvest bounty is easy to come by, when you are picking -- and still picking -- and yet still picking peas with a back that is giving you words and the realization that, now, you DO have the means to allow the peas to climb next year instead of laying on the ground as they are... and before the peas will be done the beans will be coming on and the beets ARE big enough and yes, under the weeds there are carrots and the broccoli needs to be cut again and there is a small, but perfectly beautiful little purple cauliflower there and another one here and blooms on the squash and 'maters and peppers. It's not time for the grain to be ripe here -- were we to be growing it (tried... lost in the weeds this year, maybe next time around) but I do remember the August combines in western CO and eastern WA, kicking up my allergies until a very wise chiropractor suggested that I give up eating wheat (a sacrifice, no?) a week or so before harvest started... which worked... a minor wheat allergy is made worse when you eat and breathe the chaff.

And so it flows... Eir's spirit kept me asleep much longer than typical when I say I will "sleep in" and turn off the alarm. I know it was her, because I do not hurt and am rested, not groggy. And though I can not see how, the abundance will get into the freezer and the hex signs will be done by their shipping day.

Busy days at Hearthfire Hill

2009-07-19T04:51:00.001-07:00

Busy week here at Hearthfire Hill. Despite the continuing cold and rainy summer the garden has been producing like crazy... Weeds in abundance, which I haven't had time to properly pull, and peas... lordy the peas! LOL Lots to sell (we continue to sell out each market on the edible pod even though the variety we have growing is not especially sweet) and yet still pickings mid- cycle and after market for freezing. K has become the de facto pea sheller, as it is something he can sit and do (albeit slowly with fingers that don't feel and don't always behave) while I am in the garden or painting or at work or -- on those rare occasions -- asleep. I have lost some of the head lettuces to rot, ditto the cauliflower. I'm not sure what was up with them, but many seemed to be bolting from their tiny heads... and it seems way too early for what I always considered a fall crop, too. Broccoli is also wanting to head for the sky, but will continue to produce side shoots for the freezer.

Note to self -- revisit planting schedule for cole crops next year...

The cabbage are heading, the cucumber bugs seem to have left the patch (following Elvis? who knows) but I got some BT spray that is kosher for organics to treat the 'taters and have beaten back their bugs pretty well.

And then came the deer. Apparently deer love peas. When I was out mowing the cross walkways betweeen the 4 sections of the garden (yes, weed control is THAT far behind, and I am THAT desparate!) I spotted a late planting of peas. When I went to weed around them, I discovered the top growth had been eaten, and the next day (the smell of Human all over that row) they attacked th earlier plantings. I had bought out the hardware store on the cheap plastic step-in posts -- aiming at duck and deer fencing -- so it was past time to rig the fencing. Following the advise of a farming friend, Robin I dug out the monofiliment and put up two strands between posts. I have two areas so "secured" and thus far no sign of deer. I know I will have to do the peppers soon, for if the deer find them, there will be nothing left to try to produce fruit later in the summer, should we have one.

I need to clean out around the berry bushes and Freecycle wild roses I planted last year (they are all growing, despite being end of the season markdowns, hastily thrown into the ground when we bought the place) and the bittersweet, which I had ordered before we even signed the contract on the place. Most, but not all, of them appear to be growing as well. I need to side-dress the vine crops and the 'maters and peppers (heavy feeders, all) and of course weed, weed, weed... and pick peas (again) and beans (soon) and try to find the carrots and plant more lettuce and maybe carrots... hoping to make use of the early pea and spinach and lettuce planting areas, which are at least a little less weedy.

Herbs have been weeded but need it again... at least I can see them now! the flower area is totally gone to weeds and may not get weeded this year. I have high hopes that the flowers will reseed and go "wild" so I can have some next year when hopefully a tiller will be in the arsenel. But of course that means finding time to clean up and sell some of the old equipment...

And meanwhile (not to complain of course!!) the hex business is booming! I think I have more in the order queue at present than ever before... a 4' custom is nearing completion and needs to be finished to ship on Tues and there are 5 more 2' on order -- blanks are in the wood shop to be sanded now that the wood filler has dried, and primed. That will happen first today, then on to the garden.

Then on to a road trip to WaCo to pick up a few ducks (who hopefully will help me with bug control ) and have supper with friends as a mutual friend's restaurant, the Nook and Cranny. If you are ever in Maine, you gotta eat there!!

So, I suppose I better get at it, eh?

Remembering to be Thankful

2009-07-12T09:13:00.001-07:00

It is so easy, when I am out in the garden, to want to fuss at my situation. The weeds in the corn (WHAT corn! I think it gave up...) are almost as tall as I, much of the fruit/perennial side is taken over by them as well (though in places I can find the flowers I planted, can still see the garlic and just got a first weeding done on the herb circle, so that they can see the sun again.)

But I keep reminding myself (as I have to do) that the last time I tackled a garden this big it was an existing market garden that had been going for years and I did not have 3 "outside" jobs (and no, 5 kids do NOT count as the same thing!). And the time before that, when I did a "sod garden" it was not this bad of sod -- bunch grass not runner grass -- and again, I did not have work off the farm and had not even started writing as a side career on a regular basis at that time.

And I keep reminding myself that the healthy weeds are also an indication of healthy soil. If the garden didn't grow them, I'd be in a worse fix, as likely it wouldn't be growing food either. And growing food it is! The lettuces are great, spinach isn't bad (even where I didn't manure last fall) and the peas (which I filled two baskets with while I was contemplating these words this morning) are abundant as well. Beans have tons of blossoms, where I see them through the weeds and the broccoli and cauliflower are making heads, as are the cabbages. Brussels sprouts are thriving, there are carrots out there (in the weeds and in somewhat less weedy areas) and even the potatoes and the vine crops are still alive, despite having been found by bugs that target those crops. There are beets and chard (one beet seems to have wanted to bolt and it wasn't nearly beet size yet, but I'll add those few greens to some spinach in the freezer tomorrow) though the deer seem to have tasted the chard over night, and onions and leeks looking fantastic. Tomatoes and peppers are out there, too.. beginning to set fruit and making blossoms in hope of a summer season to their liking.

so despite my frustrations, the garden is giving me FOOD. And next year, and he year after that and after that it will only get better. I will find a tiller, figure out weed control and succession planting for here; I will learn to do the season extension stuff (on both ends) and get more fruit trees, bushes, and plants, more asparagus, enough posts to fence the garden and keep in ducks (when the plants are big enough) and keep out ducks (when the plants are babies) and slow down the deer, to give the peas something to climb on. Teaching the peas to turn a different color when they are ready to be picked would be great too, but I don't hold out much hope on that one!

I have to think back to this time, last year, as well... we were still in "the second most ghetto trailer park in Milo" searching madly for property (which was about to materialize but I didn't know that yet), I was still unemployed (which was about to change, but again I didn't know that yet) though that job only went through the fall and was shortly replaced by my current one and while we were enjoying exploring Maine, photographing flowers and searching for a home, it was not the best of times.

So I am thankful for home, for 4 acres on which to play (and be frustrated), for a job (which doesn't really pay enough $$ but doesn't require all my time either) and for my other careers (which add $$ and as importantly much satisfaction) and for the blessings of the abundance of the Earth, despite what I feel to be my poor stewardship of it. They know I am doing my best.

the rain in Maine falls, mainly...

2009-07-08T07:48:00.000-07:00

The weather is finally beginning to "get to" me. Funny, though, the Pacific NW weather never did... But after one of the wettest Junes on record for Maine, we are off to a dripping wet start for July as well. I know, we also have to have August and Sept (September IS Summer, too... as Ogden Nash points out) but the cold and rain (I think it must be the combination) has definitely set my senses off a bit.

While we were in Bangor running errands yesterday I had a most unexpected urge to go to LL Beans outlet store. Now this is only surprising in that it occurred NOW (July) and it took me a few moments to realize why my "Gods, NO" reflex kicked in a second later. You see, the urge was apparently triggered by what some part of my brain believed to be FALL weather and the reflexive response by the other part that realized it is, after all, really JULY. You see, we discovered last year that the prices -- which are often not that great in the first place ( though with luck and persistence, deals on stuff we need do show up often enough to make regular forays justifiable) -- go UP in the summer, apparently for the tourist season.. And therefore the occasional good deal disappears...

But it is NOT fall, though it is still or again raining. At some point today I must get into the garden to check the peas. They are coming on and will continue slowly despite the rain. I need to pull weeds in the cauli. and broc... they are making heads though how good they will be is yet to be determined. I looked for an organic approved remedy for the potato bugs that are afflicting my crop (they went from a few busily mating to many, many tiny ones over night) but no one in town had the right stuff. "We were expecting it today..." yeah, right...

The vine crops languish, mostly. If I can get the chance I will give them a nutrient boost and pray.

Some of the head lettuces are rotting. I did discover some more seed, though, so I will add a planting soon. With this weather, maybe I can get away with a "summer crop" of lettuces. Some of the leaf lettuces are bolting, as are some of the succession planting of spinach. But there is still plenty to eat, some to sell if not enough to freeze. K doesn't like cooked greens anyway and there will be chard to freeze later, with luck, to satisfy my winter eating.

much of everything else is pretty much gone to weeds. There is no way I can totally keep up.. I hope to complete weeding the herbs and that some of the flowers (some ARE blooming!!) can hold their own and reseed next year.

Gotta get out to the garage and clean up the old corded electric mower and weed eater as I will put them out for sale. Ditto the spa tub from the trailer when we remove it later this season. Those proceeds, such as they may be, are earmarked for a tiller. Come hell or high water I'll have one next year. And with the flame weeder at the start of the season, we should be able to make more of a dent in the garden.

Now, to find $$ to get the truck fixed enough to get inspected so I can haul manure...

Independence Day

2009-07-04T08:46:00.000-07:00

There have been lots of thoughts -- centered around Independence Day, and independence in general as well as just general holiday thoughts -- floating around in my over worked and much addled brain of late. Many thoughts and much to do and little time to write, so an attempt to catch up and capture a few of them is in order before I head off to the store to supply the local populace with beer, steak, Allens (coffee brandy, a Maine staple) and likely pizza and sandwiches as well, if the rain continues.

We did not make it to Market this week. A combination of events conspired, as they say... short hours at the store and an offer to pick up a shift on Thurs (market day), an assurance by my marketing partner that she could and would man the stand solo which was followed by circumstances conspiring against her to keep her out of state (still....); K offered but not knowing "the ropes" and not having the tent (it has been living with the partner; I have custody of the tables and other marketing essentials) and threats of thunderstorms... so we did not make it.

Independence/interdependence, cooperation, collaboration... what works and where the lines are drawn have been much on my mind.

And fueling more thoughts on the same values -- the weedy first year garden does its share as well. I have attacked with the flame weeder, pulled and carried out, pulled and dropped and most recently mowed between the vine crops and on the cross walkways (made wide for the garden cart) and fallow section, where I will hopefully find time to flame weed again. a smaller tiller would be SO useful at this point but... it will have to be bought by money in hand and of that we have little. So for next year there is hope...

This is a case where we actually did consider going against our values (don't make enough to qualify for any sort of loan and my credit reports cannot be found) but despite my railing against the weeds I am glad we could not. As K says "when you do it your way, it can't be taken from you..."

Yeah, it likely looks to others like we bit off more than we can chew or don't know what we are doing or some such... but they are looking with late 20th or early 21st century eyes... As I said to a neighbor while we were kibitzing at the store recently, "I pretty much stand with one foot in the 18th or 19th century and one in the 22nd"... and I know that pioneer managed to bring gardens around long before tillers were the norm and they didn't drag their team and plow into the kitchen garden mid-season either! This is the first garden season, there is no reason to expect it to be -- or to look like -- something that has been established for years. It is producing... we have tons of lettuce, spinach, the peas are coming on and -- hidden in the weeds, beans and carrots and beets are growing, broccoli and cauliflower are putting on heads and the potatoes are trying their hardest to fight off the beetles...

So while many folks head out here or there to celebrate Independence Day, I feel more like I am living what our country used to be... when folks worked hard with what they had to make it through and make things better.

I got a $3 shirt in town this week -- not that I needed another T, but working this weekend at the store it just seemed the thing to wear... It shows a rather weathered stylized map of the US colored like the flag and bears the words "Faded Glory." Now, that is the brand name -- and I don't necessarily sport brand names on my chest... but this read to me much more like a political statement, and one that I wanted to make.

So for our celebration we have had fireworks (last night's thunder storm and the previous night's fireflies) and attended a rodeo in our own back yard (at least it wasn't at midnight... neighbor horse got out and everyone turned out to herd it back home).

Yesterday felt very much like the holiday, though, to me... quiet and very alone. It seemed that everyone was off somewhere else doing something. The neighborhood was quiet (well, as wet as it is the usual sounds of kids playing and power equipment running has been seriously muted for some time) and even here on line there was little activity. I guess most folks WERE out getting ready to go, or going. My kids -- who can often be counted upon for a blog entry or Facebook post -- were off grid at a family reunion. Even K noticed it.... though he attributed it to lingering post-dream thoughts.

And, as it was not yet the holiday, it set me off kilter a bit, as did the amazing lack of energy I felt most of the day. There were garden chores that could have been done, despite the dampness, hexen to paint (three orders in the queue at present!) and always housework. I finally managed to get started on the hex signs and picked up energy in the evening. That was not such a good thing, though, as it made sleep hard to find.

I was awake to enjoy the Thor's fireworks and the percussion section drumming on the metal vent in the bathroom, and to comfort the dog.

Foggy morning thoughts

2009-07-01T05:12:00.000-07:00

Read that as thoughts on a foggy morning, not as the pre-coffee misfiring brain neurons output...

The weather service has been reporting record wet and overcast and damp weather here in Maine and still it continues. Most folks gardens are suffering. Mine seems to be fine though of course the tomatoes, peppers and vine crops are not especially thriving. We bought a quart of strawberries yesterday from a roadside stand (our handful of plants are somewhere out there in the weeds, I am sure of it, but not enough to make a meal-sized "mess" of berries) and the seller reported that they are molding badly, making the picking hard. You can see it in the fruit too... just don't look terribly excited to be here, y'know?

The stop did yield a networking opportunity though... as many folks in Maine wear more than one hat, this berry seller is also a food writer for a local paper and has a cookbook at the presses and will be looking for business support -- web and such. Thankfully I have remembered to keep business cards in the car.

Rainy and damp days have played havoc with laundry, though I lucked out last week with a "drying day" as I donned my last clean undies. With the forecast today being for no rain, I began washing and hanging out last evening (they are now quite heavily fog-kissed but I have hope) and continue this morning.

Next job will be to cut a 4' hex blank for the next custom order. Being 3/4" plywood and the largest blank I have cut, it will be a challenge. Yesterday errands were prolonged as the saw at Lowes was out of commission, necessitating a trip back across town to Home Depot. I refuse to buy half-sheets of plywood and K refuses (quite rationally) to carry full ones on top of the Subaru. The 4x4 pieces are just a HAIR too big to fit inside... By the time we got home I was too beat to even think of woman-handling the wood and tools for this precision job. So that's at the top of the list today, along with sanding and priming the wood.

It can then attempt to dry while I work on the garden. The flame weeder is a big success but I am learning that earlier on in the year -- before I had a full two storey forest of weeds in the garden -- it would be easier. I am going to try mowing the cross paths and some of the area that was not planted, as well as between the widely-spaced vine crops and then hitting (in some cases again) with the torch.

With the fussing over the plywood, I totally forgot to get metal posts to begin making the monofilament deer "fence" that my friend Robin suggested. Thus far, they do not seem to have found the two new cherry trees or the garden (though in the former case, I think the lack of tall weeds giving them cover as they emerge from the forest helps and in the case of the garden, well my camaflague is working well! LOL) so perhaps that can wait a day or so.

Cross your fingers...

The first picking of early peas (top of this page) were delicious and I am sure there are more from this variety (Coral Shell) as well as the Petit Pois coming on. The second planting of spinach will be ready for a light picking for market this week, but the Blushed Butter Oaks lettuces are bolting and will be ending soon. I didn't get a good second planting of them, unfortunately. There is always next year...

The ebb and flow

2009-06-27T03:50:00.000-07:00

Someday, maybe, I will learn to stop stressing about where the $$ is coming from... but then, as K pointed out, when you take things for granted they have a tendency to evaporate... so maybe not.

We got our schedules for next week at the store and I got a whopping 19 hours. Not sure what is up; I haven't been "talked to" about my work and veteran employees -- which I would hope I counted as by now... as I have moved up 6 spaces from the bottom of the list over the past few weeks -- are supposed to get priority for hours. If my marketing buddy can solo this coming week, I have been offered to take her Thursday shift and though I am not "supposed" to be available Thurs. I will do it if it won't stress A too much, but I won't know that for a bit as she is out of town this week.

But anyway, here I was stressing... and I got home and checked emails last night and there were two more orders for large exterior hexen... one paid and one custom that is waiting on a digital proof...

The one that is in the bank more than covers the "lost" hours.

Needless to say, many thanks were offered to the Powers That Be last eve at Hearthfire...

Rainy days and Tuesdays

2009-06-23T05:12:00.001-07:00

Looks like we are in an odd weather pattern for a few more days -- wind out of the NORTH! strange... and clouds and showers and threats of showers. Most here are getting tired of it but I don't mind. Every day that I CAN get into the garden I have been able to -- pulling weeds in the planted rows, even if it has been too wet and/or windy for the flame weeder to work. Its time will come....

Despite the many rains (we were at 3.5 inches on the gauge during this rainy period when I last looked) it seems the garden is carrying on. I have seen many buds and blossoms on the pepper plants and ditto, plus small fruits, on the tomatoes. The early planting of peas have pods beginning to fill and the later plantings are beginning to blossom. I need to add side dressing of blood meal for some of the crops and will likely do that this afternoon, when we return from our wanderings.

I have a chance to show my hex signs and talk to a shop owner in Dover about possible design work, so I will do that this morning while K is at the counselor. Hopefully this will keep me from Bobs, where the wonderfully sinful malted milk balls call. They were out last week...

I have actually enjoyed the showery times in between the times I can get into the garden. They allow me a natural flow between outdoor work and indoor chores. I got the fridge cleaned yesterday and did some other minor chores, along with getting some paint put on hex blanks in the garage. I need to work on them a bit more today too... second and final coat on the front of the signs and then if they dry sufficiently, a coat on the backs so that they are ready to draw. I am rather low in stock at present and need them for the Market.

Lettuces continue to thrive, though I have found what appears to be a quirk in the market here; folks seem to want to buy mixed lettuce leaves over whole heads. Strange... and more work but what the heck. we'll do it.

Turning the Seasons

2009-06-20T05:14:00.000-07:00

I had been invited and made a plan to join friends on their annual early morning hike into Baxter State Park here in Maine, to view and photograph the elusive and delightful moose in their morning adventures. Now, anyone who knows me or has read my writings since my arrival in this great state, knows of my desire to see these great creatures, and my frustration at their apparent scarcity. I've been here over a year and have seen just one, loping along the Interstate in the evening gloom. Not even a chance at a photo op!

I was so frustrated by their failure to appear that, when I adopted a black fuzzy kitten from a friend last year, I named her Moose! And yes, I sleep every night with a Moose curled up by my side, but it's not quite the same thing...

Anyways, as time for the annual hike and moose watch approached, I felt more and more conflicted over my commitment. My body complained -- loudly and madly with pain and stiffness -- that I am not up to hiking. The garden filled with weeds that steadfastly refused to disappear. Work -- both at the corner store and under my several other hats -- proliferated. Each, by itself was not enough to stop me from going and collectively they were not -- in all honestly -- what was weighing on my mind saying "not this year."

But something WAS there... and as I tried to fathom why I felt I should stay at home... and as my friends who were going on the expedition tried with increasing vigor to persuade me ... nothing clicked as "yes, this is why."

Until just this morning.

Tomorrow, the day of the hike this year, is Summer Solstice. Litha for the Pagans, and thus "should be" a good day for being out and about. In fact, just thinking about going into the park brought back memories of a wonderful Solstice on Bear Island in NC a few years ago...

But I keep hearing that I need to be here, on "my" land... on the land I tend and care for, and then, today as I looked at the timing of sunrise on Weather Underground I noted that not only is tomorrow Solstice, but the following day is New Moon.

A new season coming that close to a new moon means, to me, there is much stirring of the pot to be done, and as Volva of the Northlands, that means I need to be here, preparing and working and "doing what I do" as my kids would say.

Y'know, I find this part of my life very strange. Not, as one might expect, the part where I walk with one foot in 2009 and one foot in the mists of antiquity... not the part where I am supposed to share insights and wisdom from Gods and Goddesses that most think are at best myth and at worst... well we don't go there. No the part that is strange is that for most of my life I have walked the path of solitude in comfort but not necessarily by choice; now I am surrounded by friends and must figure how to continue my solitary path without offense to those I am connected to and care about.

And so, as much as I want to see moose, to share this experience with my friends and will be sad not being there tomorrow, I know I am to be here, working the Magics necessary in this time and space, for the benefit of all.

cycles of the seasons

2009-06-19T07:15:00.000-07:00

We are within shouting distance of the Summer Solstice (12:45 AM EDT I believe) and once again I have noted an interesting phenomenon as I track the time of sunrise (via Weather Underground, scroll down the page about halfway for the Astronomy column). While the days will continue to get longer (by 4 seconds) the sunrise is shown as 1 minute earlier than yesterday.

For the past week, the sun has been rising at 4:48 and today it said 4:49.

This is because the orbit of the Earth is not a perfect circle and because the rotation axis of the Earth is not perpendicular to the orbit of the Earth around the Sun. (reference)

And while I am thinking about it, the allegedly equal day and night of the equnoxes does not happen on the astronomical date either, on account of the refraction of light. Light travels through the near vacuum of space but when it hits the atmosphere it bends, much like it bends when going from the air through a glass of water. (reference)

On other notes, I have been most pleased with the other cycles I have been noting for the past little bit. The days of rain (much maligned by the TV weather folks) (note to TV producers: Tell your talking head to stop editorializing on the WEATHER!) have nicely alternated with days of sun. This cycle is not only good for the garden (at least mine seems to be doing fine) but for the workflow as well; during the dry days I have to be out in the gardens, weeding and picking and such, but during the wet weather, there is time for house work and painting and other indoor projects. For me, this natural balance is a very good thing.

Earth, Air, Water and FIRE in the Garden

2009-06-17T09:46:00.000-07:00

When I think about the garden and the elements, Fire -- beyond the rays of Ol' Brazen Face -- does not come immediately to attention.

Earth -- well that is obvious -- the lush, fertile Mama from whose breast springs forth a bounty is easy to picture. And even the hardscrabble farm, rocky or full of parched clay, want to grow stuff. Heck even city sidewalks crack from the force of Mother Nature trying to reclaim the ground.

Air -- from the gentle breezes that kiss by sweaty neck as I weed to the blustery, rain-filled gusts that wave the trees... that is pretty easy to understand too. It is also the home of many wonderful creatures, flying in the invisible oceans and pollenating our food.

Water -- from the surface to the sky to the surface, a continuing cycle. Sometimes we help with hoses or magic, but it too is an obvious element in the garden cycle.

Today, though, I brought Fire most directly into our first year "sod" garden. Working the field with only hand tools, and with the abundant fertility and rain we have had, the weeds have gotten the upper hand and something of the "big guns" needed to be brought into play were we to have any chance of gaining balance. Herbicide is out of the question -- besides being against principles, do you know how much the stuff COSTS now! No wonder "organic" options are being considered on larger scales!

Tillers, too, at least here in Maine, go for a pretty penny, even well used. And the fact that the lawn machine died and HAD to be replaced (with 4 acre all together, none wooded, you don't just hire the neighbor kid!) totally ate the implement budget. There is still a call out to the Universe for a tiller, to be used in conjunction with the tractor dude's efforts, most likely... but even there I didn't think it the best option with all the spreading grasses. Those rhyzomes, given half a chance, will do their thing and the best option is to PULL as much as possible. Which I will do... but meanwhile we need to keep everything down enough for the plants to thrive.

Along with this thinking, K has been being upset that he cannot do more in the garden. He cannot stand for long periods nor bend to pull weeds and his strength is such that pushing the high wheel cultivator a row or two maxes him out for the day. A day in the sun, applying hoe to earth (still not the best option for the grass!) would not be practical.

However he had been reading about flame weeding and decided that he could do the "flame broiled" weeding thing, and so bought a device yesterday. Today we hooked it up to a grill tank on our hand truck (dolley) and away I went... I wanted to start as I DO know the plants from the weeds and wanted to see how easy it was to control. I will know by tomorrow the results of my work today. I did notice as I worked that a pass with the torch dramatically turned the weeds a brighter shade of green. Working it more, they begin to wilt and dry out, but I am hoping that the flush of green stage will be sufficient heat to beat them back. IN the rows will still need hand weeding, of course... but many of the crops are planted far enough apart that a hoe can be used (not the potatoes, though... where I am currently working. I have accientally exposed several roots with the barest beginnings of a tuber on them, trying to hoe.)

I think it will be a good, short term, "get it down" option! My first partial tank of gas is gone; my experimenting with "how much" heat was needed.... well I went overkill on the first bit. But tomorrow on the way to market I'll fill our two empty tanks and then Friday I will walk the garden with Kevin and show him some of the more obvious rows -- and the walkways -- where he can begin work.

Photo of the "flame broiled" weeds will follow.

A day in the garden

2009-06-15T18:01:00.001-07:00

With today being an actual factual day off from the store -- and no rain in sight -- I decided this was going to be a full day in the garden. Well, minus the time to fill the clotheslines with laundry! LOL I still have more to do tomorrow, thanks to the kitties having emptied a linen closet shelf on the floor, and having changed the bed linens as well... but the bulk is done and will be brought in tomorrow as I am just too tired and stiff and sore at the moment.

K went out and ran the high wheel cultivator up and down between several rows, but when I went out to complete hand-weeding the row that I had not finished on my last day out, I learned a bit more about my soil. 1.5 inches of rain within a couple of days and no wind following makes for soil that is too wet, early in the morning, for optimal weeding. The day I weeded after the inch of rain was accompanied by sun and wind. We had neither today, but I completed the row anyway despite the soil not wanting to part company with the weed roots.

I did cabbage worm patrol and found that I had a bad tendency to get distracted and want to pull bind weed. I tried to pull what I found in the cabbage rows while looking for worms. Hope I didn't miss too many of either. The place I pulled bindweed earlier still seems to be pretty free of the stuff, so this is the way to go with this pest.

K and I had discussed, next time I didn't have to work and the cart was empty, hauling broken cement block from a pile in the back to use as a border for the herb garden so, after dumping my cart of weeds and offloading the bucket of rocks, that was next on the list. We used the tractor to pull the cart and made several trips with the only physical work being the loading and unloading of the blocks.

Then, while the cart was still empty, I decided to begin moving some of the "straw" from the back field that I had attempted to pile for compost last fall (and which almost immediately BLEW OVER in our over achieving winds) to where the compost pile will live, on the east side where I had been piling weeds and where the neighbor had brought a small cart load of horse manure. Discovered that I NEED the wooden pallets that friends have offered me. Making free form compost piles... well the don't quite pile right, but I alternated the dry weeds (wetting them down as I went -- I have proof positive how, and why, thatched roofs work! the bottom of the pile was bone dry!), pulled weeds with some soil on their roots and the manure.

While I working in this area, I noticed that the areas where K had cultivated were almost totally free of weeds! There are grass plants to pull, but most of the other weeds have been gathered at the end of the rows, so weeding these potato rows should go quickly when I next get to work.

After putting the border around the herb garden I decided the next job needed to be completing the weeding of the Sweet Anne and the basil, so that I could put into the earth seedlings I had been given.

I guess either the soil there is better drained, or by afternoon the moisture was being taken up by plants and the water table, as the weeding went well and the baby plants were quickly put into the soil. After seeing how effective K's cultivation had been, and having hoe in hand, I decided to hoe some of the herb circle. Got it about 3/4 done before my muscles and stomach told me it was time to quit and consider supper.

Tomorrow is a town day, but I am hoping to make it a quick enough trip to get back into the garden again, after getting the laundry completed.

definitions of "need" vary

2009-06-10T19:04:00.001-07:00

GRRR... I am gonna vent but I am also not gonna bite on this one again.

Co-worker L asked me on Sunday if I would work her 8 hr instead of my 5 hr shift today. I told her no. Then she asked me on Monday if I would work trade shifts on Tues, being totally clueless that I HAVE NEVER worked a Tues... and if she would look at the schedule she would see if never says "off" or "off-R" (for request)... but instead N/A on both Tu and Th for me, EVERY WEEK... so I explained to Her Clueless Majesty and then she calls me after we get back from K's extraction, Tues even and asks me for a trade today again "because there are things I have to do (italics mine) that I can't do any other time.

So me, I don't want to, but I am thinking Dr. appt or something (though she was not specific) and stupidly say yes.

So I am behind getting ready for market, and the garden always needs weeding (though that was not a good project for today, as it was very wet and cold) and housework needs doing, always... but I am a good person and help out a coworker. Yeah, right...

I was partially motivated by her "fragile" and stressed demeanor for the past few days. She has said she has insomnia and hasn't been sleeping even as well as usual and quite frankly I have been expecting a meltdown. Apparently she had one yesterday -- before she called me according to the supervisor -- over something with another worker. Said supervisor speculated that she thought L might have been planning to look for another job. Not a bad idea, I thought when she said that... I know L has worked for our big boss before and left as well as having been fired both repeatedly...

But as work progressed today she let slip what it was that she "had to" do that couldn't be done at other times. She went GROCERY SHOPPING, went to the NURSERY and WORKED IN HER (hobby, flower) GARDEN!!! Can you tell I am livid? How can anyone put a hobby before work enough to nag a coworker to switch shifts?

Well, as they say "fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice shame on me." and there ain't gonna be a twice. From now on unless the supervisor or boss calls "I am scheduled at my other job." Because I am...

To Market, to Market

2009-06-09T04:35:00.001-07:00

It has been a busy week. Very much so...

The garden has been demanding weeding, and more and more it is possible to do, as the most recent seeded plantings are beginning to show. AKKK!!! Well, I must remember this is a first year garden, and it will do what it can. As much as I long for a tiller, I KNOW in my heart of hearts that, slow as the process is, the BEST way to deal with the massive "grass" problem is by loosening the soil and pulling the bastards. These are all runner grasses... crab grass and the like... and they are sending out rhizomes like mad. Every small piece not accounted for will become MORE, and tilling... well it would make many, many small pieces.

So ever.... so.... slowly.... row by row, it is getting done. My loose goal is "a row a day" and some days I make it and some days I don't even start (like today, town day).

It is interesting to see the differences with the land, row by row as well... and when I am done, my hands will have been through every last inch of tilled land. The first few rows I weeded yielded a quarter of a cart of weeds (more or less) and about half a bucket of rocks for the driveway holes. This last row I got about the same for weeds but a full harvest of rocks. LOL

On another note, though, this week begins MARKET! I learned about the Artisans Market, Thursday evenings in downtown Bangor a while back, and on a whim, signed up for a table, specifying that I would be selling produce, herby-stuff and hex signs. I signed up as Dutch Hex... but my friend Ann and I are working together to market our produce and have come up with the "Stone Soup" name for our collaborative venture, hence the "Stone Soup" on the sign... Her farm is called Abundant Acres. If this works well (and she is lining up other marketing venues for just produce as well for this season, closer to her home turf, to which I will contribute) we would like to do more next year. Next year, too, I already know that I need to plan for more staggered plantings, and starting some things, like early beet greens, under row covers.

But for now, it is crunch time! I "lost" a day of weeding to making the stretched canvas sign (photo, above) and today I need to get our shelter and other odds and ends while in town on our town day. And since I don't have a lot of hex signs in stock at present, I need to make a portfolio book as well, and figure out how to showcase the ones I do have.

Better get cracking!!

Roots in the ground

2009-05-31T08:32:00.001-07:00

ALL of the tomatoes and peppers now have their roots in the ground and have been counted, as well. I'll post the counts in a day or so.

I ended up with a bunch of extra tomato plants of undetermined variety, from my friend Robin. Seems that one of the packets of seed she ordered produced plants with two kinds of leaves. There are two BASIC leaf types in the tomato family, Regular & Potato Leaf but any given variety is only supposed to have one kind of leaf. She planted this packet and got both types of leaves... so the potato leaf variety she has been calling "mystery tomato" and handed a bunch off to Ann and me when we went up to claim the seedlings she had grown for me.

Yes, having greenhouses and professional experience shows, but there was not nearly as much difference between the seedlings I got from Robin, from my seeds, and the ones I grew here, which both pleases and surprises me. Hopefully there will be a greenhouse in the future someday, too...

Meanwhile the lawn continues to grow. Ann and her husband (a professional landscaper no less) are planning to come over later today and take a crack at taming it, as we were turned down for the mower loan, at least part on account of my slipping through the cracks. So be it... I get a strong message that this is as it should be and I will continue to walk this path. Meanwhile, K has been scouring Uncle Henrys for likely prospects and has actually found a few that might be within reach and usable. Finding time to look at them (none are really LOCAL) may prove interesting as I work 5 days this week. But it will happen somehow, some time.

I find it very interesting to note that over the past few days, when it has been rainy and I could not get into the garden, I have once again begun hurting, my knees have bothered me at work and I have been unmotivated and blah and not even having the energy hardly to get into the garden once the weather was cooperative. Once I got going, though, things changed. I have always been connected to the earth, but this strong change amazes me.

So, back to the garden I go... there are some baby perennials and herbs from Robin yet to be planted before work.

On "just doing it" and why I hate loans

2009-05-27T08:44:00.001-07:00

Been working in the garden a lot, finally getting to where there was time from planting to start weeding, then cold snap and now rain is promised for a few days so I was working madly to get some succession plantings in and maybe the tomatoes and peppers...

But I had to come in on account of the damn loan officer at the CU kept calling and so I didn't get done, not even close, and it's time to eat and go to work and my mind is a mess of thoughts about gardens and making do and how they did it in the old day, the pioneers on virgin prarie sod, trying to eek out enough food for the family while fighting the tough grasses. And I am reminded of why I hate applying for loans, and why I resist many of the fine points (or should that be financial points) of business plans. Stems from the 70s and my first venture at farming, when I was laughed out of the bank, several times...

mostly because I don't believe in putting myself in hock for big bucks and won't stop from doing (or starting) something just because I may not know everything about it and because I don't have all the "proper" equipment.

So here I am with an insanely grassy garden (mostly) that is getting weeded catch as catch can (beween all the other things demanding my attention) with a human powered high wheel cultivator, a hand cultivator and HANDS. And in the process the compost heap is growing with the pulled weeds and the driveway is getting filled with collected rocks

and the grass is growing higher and higher because the Credit Union can't find my credit reports and doesn't like disability and we don't make tons of $$ and so on, all the number-cruncher things that sooth the souls of accountants and loan officers, we are lacking in. (things like pictures of dead presidents, laying in a vault somehwere...)

And no, I will never have a "showplace" garden, but in a few years (tiller or not... ) it won't look like a neglected first year garden any more. And yes, the food WILL grow despite the weeds. Not as well as it would with no competition, of course, but we will eat and I am more than betting there will be stuff for market too. And more of that each year, you betcha...

You see, what happens while you are waiting is life... so I am not sitting around waiting for it to be perfect, as it might be in my imagination. When you do that, that's all you will ever have, and I prefer a few home grown 'maters and beans fought from the weeds now than stuff from the store in my bellyalone to augment the dreams in my head.

And somehow, it works.

Turning an unseen corner

2009-05-22T19:35:00.000-07:00

I feel like I have turned some unseen corner in the last few days, and not in any way that I might have suspected even as much as 3 days ago.

On Tuesday, apparently, the warmth following the sudden overnight cold snap told the pine trees to WAKE UP and BLOOM! No, we do not have drifts of chartreuse coating everything, and the allergy report does not even list pine as a major source of tree pollen... but my sinuses were telling a far different tale when I awakened Tuesday morning. The phrase "like a ton of bricks" comes to mind... and I was quite thankful that K was feeling up to driving a bit after we reached Bangor as the trip to D-F and then down to the city were trying to my poor body. I had been feeling the "normal" aches and pains of an old woman gardener for some time and then to have the pine allergies on top made for a miserable day.

Even the Dayquil that I took after our trip to Sams didn't help much (I should know better by now... buy Niquil for at night and let day take care of itself with hot compresses, steam and pain relievers. (Anyone want a large quantity of sealed Dayquil packets... cheap??) but the Niquil that night (two doses, properly timed by the instructions) put me out for a good nights rest -- and unfortunately a good bit of Wed. as well. I managed to rally by afternoon and got some planting and painting done but not as I had planned.

Wed. night I took a single Niquil and was able to attempt to function Thursday after a good nights rest as well. Thurdsay, however, was Hell Day in Maine (temps in the very high 80s to low 90s) though I did work in the garden most of the day and didn't even feel THAT hot. Amazing what a good stiff breeze -- and the knowledge that tonight will be cool and tomorrow the high will be more reasonable -- can do! I am showing my time in the sun, though...

What surprised me was how I feel today, now.... after several days of pushing a high wheel cultivator, planting, bending, reaching, walking.. and 5 hours on my feet in the store with only a DayQuil in my system... I feel energized, free of pain (though I am a little stiff in a few places) and if I do say so myself "the way I should feel."

I accomplished a lot today... the last bit of planting until I put the maters and peppers in the ground, weeding (enough that it is beginning to show, though I am starting on the part of the garden that was NOT re-plowed this spring and therefore has the hardest soil) and cooking a roast and makind salad dressing for a noon dinner of pork roast, applesauce and salad. Oh, and I have two hex signs on order, so I have been applying paint to them every chance I get.

As much as I have hurt the last few weeks... months... I wish I knew what, why or how it is that I do not at present.

Early on in the season, K said that the garden would make things right (or something to that effect, I don't recall exactly, though I do remember wondering how -- through all the pain -- I would even do it. )

I hope he was right. This feels wonderful!

ugh! pine trees are in bloom...

2009-05-20T06:24:00.000-07:00

After the cold snap of the other night (39 degrees on our recording therm.) the trees are blooming with a vengeance. My spring allergies kicked in BIG TIME yesterday, which was thankfully enough a day in town so I could get OTC meds. I don't think dayquil is all that great, but the antihistamines knock me for a loop so they are reserved for blissful sleep at night.

I will likely be sweating with the earthworms today and tomorrow, as the temps are supposed to climb and I will be out putting in the summer crops -- first another planting of lettuce and spinach and then the beans, corn and vine crops. I have two days off and then two short days at the store and I am hoping to get all the planting done during this period so I can begin the Herculean task of WEEDING.

I started that a bit day before yesterday, extracting the early peas from the grass. This being a first-year garden, the grass will be my nemesis for some time to come.

We also got our "peach" tree yesterday. No, peaches are not a common crop in Maine and this tree actually should produce Gala apples. We call it our "peach" tree as it was bought with a housewarming gift card give us by a Peachie friend (who, by the way, runs the Nook and Cranny Restaurant in Baileysville, ME with her hubby Steve). If you ever find yourself on Rte 9 (AKA Airline Rd) in the Calais area of Maine, keep an eye out for the little place and stop in. It can be easy to miss, but once you eat there you will find ways to keep coming back! Great food, wonderful atmosphere and the best hostess and chef around, bar none!

But back on topic... "Peachie" gave us this gift card for Home Depot when we moved into our new home last year and we decided to apply it to something that would keep on giving... an apple tree as the start of our home orchard. Now big boxes are not known for their variety of stock, so I was quite pleased to find something that was not a Delicious (red or yellow) as we are not fond of these apples. Getting tree into earth will be the first job on my list today (me, mattock, shovel, time...) and then I will get into the planting of veggies, despite sniffling running nose and full head.

Tonight, friends in the Calais area are holding a potluck supper for other friends, just arrived for their summer in Maine and I am sad that I will not be there. However feeling as I am, I am not sure I would have been up to the drive anyway.. it will be hard enough to make it to the Business After Hours in Dover-Foxcroft that I had committed to prior to knowing this was the day for the Calais potluck. I will go, though, wearing both Dutch Hex Sign and Vision IPD hats and do some serious "local" networking.

Then come home and collapse, most likely. Wish me well!!

digging dirt

2009-05-14T04:31:00.000-07:00

I finally got to spend much of a day in the yard and garden. Three loads of wash out and in again and one in early on from a late night hanging, just to get it going, and then I was off to the garden.

Soil temp yesterday afternoon was mid-60s so the earth is telling me it is time to plant EVERYTHING. I got out 250 feet of row of cauliflower and broccoli -- which got mixed up and were poorly labeled for starters, as I had run out of proper wood or plastic label sticks -- so they are just planted together and I will not worry this year about varieties (though I will try to second guess who is who and will direct seed the small remainder of the packets as an experiment, so may be better able to ID the seedlings as they grow.)

I planted the ones that had got some good growth on at 18" apart and the smaller ones half that, figuring that half may survive.

I had been skunked on getting bare root strawberries, but found several packages in plastic -- 10 plants for under $4 -- at Home Depot so bought 3 as a promise to the garden. Sigh... I am not sure any will grow, I'll consider half a rousing success. The poor things were gathered up and roots wrapped about and bundled up with a rubber band, inside a plastic bag with some moss. The result is that getting crown UP and at ground level, roots DOWN etc was problematical -- and adding to the difficulty many had already started to grow in various directions, mostly sideways. But they are out.

I was also able to "shoot" the north star, finally, last night, to set the directions for the herb wheel. I'll shoot some pics of this perhaps later, after I get some herbs planted... I plan to plant it as 12 sections, with the sections on the directional lines, not the paths. Not yet sure who will go where, but I am sure I will be told when I get out to plant. I am going to eventually recycle the pile of broken cement block as "rocks" to separate the sections and surround the garden. No, I don't lack for rocks, but this is a way to use up the waste pile from the back.

I was going to ask K to help by carrying a wagon load around with the little lawn tractor, but the thing appears to have died. It made a strange "pop" day before yesterday and K has not been able to find the problem. All the obvious things are working so he is suspecting a broken part internally -- something not worth fixing, even if it were found. But we will take it to the guy who works on them later, he says. Meanwhile I am glad I do not think of having "lawn"... as it is up to nearly 6" many places now.

We did get a battery weed whacker, so I will take it out to the front ditches today and whack a bit, making places at least to plant some of the rooting willows and such. Also on the list for today along with willows and herbs are the forsythia and perhaps other seeds -- we will see how long the first part takes.

I will be going to breakfast in a bit with friends -- or at least a friend -- to talk about several of our cooperative ventures. I was accepted at the Bangor Outdoor Market. Apparently this market has a new location and a new manager ( from what I hear, politics is rampant in farmers and outdoor markets) this year, with many previous vendors not returning due to last year's bad location. Dutch Hex Sign will be there, vending my art as well as herbs and veggies, under the label "Stone Soup". I just was reminded of this market by a local blog site I read and found out that the market is open only on Thursday evenings, June and July, 5-8 pm. That day and those hours are perfect for my schedule, as well as the price fitting the budget.

Now to hope something grows!

just another day

2009-05-10T04:55:00.001-07:00

Generally, I don't make a big deal of out holidays that are not earth or moon related. And Mothers day, while good in intent (mothers need to be recognized and honored but in my opinion, more than just one day a year!) often fails in execution. I guess I got burnt out on sermons praising the impossibly perfect supermom, while giving us real, in the trenches, moms a good dose of downer.

So today is just another day in my world. A day off from the store which I appreciate. A day when hopefully I will meet friends at a garden center and maybe score some rhubarb and/or bare root strawberries. A day to hang out the wash in hopes that the 30% chance of rain will fall elsewhere, giving me a leg up on household chores so I can spend most of the 3 days off I get in a row this week in the yard and gardens.

For now I am a bit frustrated, as I want to make breakfast but K is fast asleep.. he didn't come to bed until Gods only know when, when I saw the light under the door and hollered. He got to hurting after taking his pills and did not follow me to bed, so his day is totally scewed and I am trying not to let it mess up mine. I'll likely make some eggs in a bit anyway, wash up the dishes and be ready to head to the nursery on time.

If it doesn't rain, I'll likely be in the yard today a well. I found the offset factor for the difference between magnetic and celestial north (it's been too cloudy for a long time for me to spot the North Star, and I want to mark and lay out the circular herb bed on a grid based on the directions) so when K finds his compass, we can do that part.

I still have more asparagus to plant and cole crops to set out and it is time to do another planting of spinach and flower seeds... I am thinking of pushing the season a bit as my "spidey sense" tells me there will not be any more freezes...

But all this takes time.

Walkabout the back field

2009-05-06T11:54:00.001-07:00

Yes, it is still rainy. Likely to be for a few more days as well, and I have been enjoying the time away from the garden and rejoicing in the natural moisture for the ground.

Yesterday was "lost" to monthly major shopping. In addition to groceries, I scored a couple of shepherds crooks which I will use for wind chimes. One is currently hanging from the garage eaves and is beating the corner badly. The other has been sharing my single crook with a metal sculpture dragon fly and the two get badly tangled which does not help either. Maybe I can get the hooks installed tomorrow and the dragon fly moved; I will have to wait for K to get the chime off the garage or haul out the ladder.

I also picked up a d-handled shovel. This will help considerably in the planting of the rest of the asparagus roots and the new order of same that just arrived. The ground is actually draining well enough that, if it is not actively raining, I may work on that a bit tomorrow. I also got a Spirea bush to plant. Spirea and Lily of the Valley were two of the early bloomers that I enjoyed as a child at home in MI. I planted the LotV today, to the west of the Craft room on the north side of the house.

I went out initially -- a day "late" -- to bury last fall's corn dolly in the garden and anoint the soil with apple juice in blessing. This fall, with any luck, my corn Goddess will be born and raised here!

While I was out I dumped the compost bucket and pitched a bit of the grass that had blown off the pile last year back on it. I am waiting for friends to bring me some pallets with which to build a real compost area, but for now I will tend what I have. After dealing with the kitchen waste and dumping the cat box leavings out in the back, I wandered around looking at the emerging vegetation. I need to learn the various plants in their infancy... "weeds" and not ... and I think I have decided which will grow up to be goldenrod and I have found many patches of a nasty ground-hugging creeper that will be the focus of my "war" this year. I need to go back through my Master Gardener notes and find out if this plant is a perennial or just a very vigorous annual, but in any case, I will be attacking it any where I find it, with my trusty mattock.

When I wandered out to the back (north east) corner where most of the little trees are growing I discovered ferns as well as the trees and other growing things. K had commented that his place must be more damp than the rest of the land and I have to tentatively agree, though I have never noted it to feel any wetter to my feet. I wonder if the water is just closer to the surface there? If we could possibly dig a pond? I know I want to walk about a bit with dowsing rods to see what they can tell me, and to research the plant life there a bit more.

Along with needing to tag the actual trees and bushes (with ID as well as just differentiating them from tall annual growth, to help K with the mowing) I will need to get back there with the mattock, as well. I was also surprised to find -- in addition to the ferns and the birch and kitty willows that I knew were there -- the "remains" of a maple that had apparently been accidentally cut in the fall mowing! That will be encouraged, for sure! I am also thinking about trying to dig and transplant some of the smaller trees, using my existing "stock" to expand the range of the proto-woods across the north boundary. We will see what happens in that regard.

Still no sign of any sprouting on the things thus far planted, though the transplants are holding their own and the ultra-early seeded row is growing.

Next year I want to try an experiment, to learn more about what the optimal early planting time is, by doing very small plantings of spinach and lettuce every week from the start until the first week of May.

Honoring the turning of the Seasons

2009-05-05T04:09:00.000-07:00

This is Tuesday, and the first in the month, so we are off to town on a major shopping trip. We need groceries, odds and ends for around the place (shepherd crooks on which to hang a couple of wind chimes, maybe strawberries, definitely soil amendments... ) but my biggest focus is after our return.

This is the day that the Gods have decreed I am to bless our fields and complete the changing of the altar. I have the corn husk doll -- which I made last summer from fresh husks, a tradition that I shall keep this year hopefully with corn from our own field -- to bury in the field and some acorns as well, in hopes that they may someday grow into trees. And for the first fire of the season in my outdoor firepit, some greenery and twigs to burn...

My spring altar sits decorated with branches of "kitty" and weeping willows with the intention of rooting them. The weepers, and elsewhere in the house a glass of corkscrew willow, have started to show rooting, The kitties are lagging behind but we continue to wait hopefully.

I also have a large container of forsythia starts -- all with at least some roots -- that my daughter in Utah sent me after their yard cleaning this spring. Their seasons are a bit ahead of ours, so I am waiting with the starts in water, to encourage more root development, until the danger of frost is past.

There are a few asparagus roots remaining to plant, and more should be arriving any day, and I have yet to get the Lily of the Valley into the ground, so they are all on the list, as well as the seedling trees pulled from my friend's farm. They will likely go along the front ditch line, which has yet to be cleaned out... I think I am going to have to clear small areas and plant them, then come back to the rest of the work, just to get them in the ground. However, some hours spent out there already has given me insight into just where they will go. The town sends a tractor along in the fall, apparently (at least this happened last year) to cut "offending" growth too close to the road, so I need to make sure my plants are beyond that line. In one place, on the eastern ditch, they cut a 2" sapling this past fall. That could not have been just one year's growth, so I am going to put some metal fence posts out by some of the trees -- including that one, if it tries to come back again, as I hope it will -- to hopefully repel the cutter. Said tree was obviously ( to me at least) bypassed in previous years, so there is no reason it should not be spared again. I can use my added posts to make sure the trees stay upright and do not lean out towards the roadway.

I also will be putting some of my vine crop seeds into starter pots in the house today. I know they do not like transplanting -- they don't like having their roots disturbed -- but hopefully I can do this and give them a bit of a head start.

I am enjoying learning the seasons.

The tide continues...

2009-05-03T08:07:00.001-07:00

Beltane tide -- or whatever you call the beginning of REAL spring -- continues.

While I was not paying attention, the bulbs in my first flower bed -- the one I sorta half dug last fall and into which I threw some "get 'em out of our sight" perennials from the Big Box, a couple of bags of bargain basement bulbs and some Freecycle plants -- went from showing a few sprouting bulbs and a wimpy crocus bloom or two, to a profusion of tulip color (well, more accurately a bunch of them bloomed and they are yellow and red), a couple of daffys in blossom and a couple of grape hyacinths as well. It also looks like the 10 cent mums (yeah, you read right!) are coming back as well.

And one of the lilacs along the drive is showing an inch of very purple budding on many of its branches! The other one looks to be following soon.

In the garden, though, we are still in that time of faith -- between the setting out of transplants and seed, and the moments at which they break ground or begin to take off into growth. My early-seeded peas, spinach and lettuces are up and growing slowly and the transplants are thus far holding their own. But each day when I go into the garen and see no sign of sprouting in the seeded rows, I wonder....

The main planting of petite pois peas and the flowering peas have been put into the ground and the laundry brought in from the line. While I was taking it off, K brought a shovel around and back filled the holes, in preparation to the first mowing of the grass.

I spent part of yesterday beginning to work on the ditch banks. This really needs doing, as I want to clear out around the brush that is there, to try to encourage it -- and some of the trees that I shall plant there as soon as I can find a few moments with the mattock and fork -- and to keep down the goldenrod.

I know fighting the goldenrod and to a lesser extent the milkweed will be ongoing, but I am trying to get enough of a start so I can see where they come up. In the back field, until we can begin to get it plowed and seeded with a cover crop, I am going to suggest that K mow (some times at least) very short, as I have learned in Master Gardener class that is one of the non-chemical ways to control weeds. We will see if I can stand it...

I am also looking to try brewing some dandelion wine -- taking a leaf from a friend's journal. Humm.. I wonder if I can find where she talked about how, as our crop is just coming on and Beltane seems to be the time to start this project.

Drive by posting...

2009-05-02T05:23:00.000-07:00

Just a quick, drive by posting this morning before I start my oatmeal and jump more thoroughly into the day...

I started my Beltane-tide workings yesterday evening. It is sometimes a struggle -- since I often work Friday until 9 (and though I was scheduled to be off yesterday, I was thankful to be given the chance to work, though not thankful that several of my coworkers called in ill yesterday... It was fortuitous at least that my friend asked me to cover for her evening shift early on, as the boss considered calling me to cover a day shift and honestly, I prefer the evenings. I know the flow and the routine, even though Friday nights are increasingly over the top with food orders and last-minute shoppers). But a favorite TV show will be in re-runs soon (Numbers).. which will ease Friday night congestion. Nevertheless, once I take my offerings into the Craft room and begin thinking on what needs doing, I never have any trouble settling down to a chat with the Powers That Be.

Last night my time at the cauldron was one of "just being" and stirring the pot a bit for health/healing for several and financial stability for others, receiving assurances and guidance for myself as well. With the coming of this Tide the winter window coverings are coming off (part of my Working last eve included the removal of the plastic and tape from the Craft room windows) and the aux. heaters will be stored in the garage as well. In a couple of days, my cornhusk Goddess will be interred in the garden, to bless and fertilize it for the corn and other crops to come.

Today I plan to get the Brussels sprouts out into the earth, and if there is time, begin digging for the remainder of the asparagus roots. I have a handful of local ones to plant and have heard that the ones I ordered have been shipped. I also have lots of little trees to plant and rooting cuttings from other trees, but the cuttings will wait, I think, until they have a good set of roots on them.. The forsythia from Utah looks good, but because their season is ahead of ours in temperatures, I will wait until danger of frost is past to plant them out, I think.

Also on my list today is laundry! We will see how much can go out on my new long lines. It is nice to have them again after many years with the square "clothes tree." We have the room... and the poles came with the house. I will need to tighten the lines several times, at least and K suggests we may need to make prop poles. But we will see... at least if the weather holds -- and the stash of clothes pins is sufficient -- I will be able to get laundry caught up. It is great to be able to do darks, lights and whites all in the same day, instead of in small enough bits to hang on the indoor rack. I will need more clothes pins though... many of the old ones are wimpy and others weathered sufficiently to break.... another thing they "don't make like they used to!"

The Maying Tide

2009-05-01T07:03:00.000-07:00

The Maying tide -- May day, Beltane -- whatever you choose to call it -- the tide rolls in and with in, the wheel comes turning on toward summer.

Here at Hearthfire Hill, the gardens are getting their first spring soaking rain overnight and this morning. I am, as usual, a bit behind, as not all the coles have been put into the garden. Even the Brussels sprouts -- which have been hardened off -- are still sitting on the porch and the broccoli and cauliflowers just went out for the first time today. I also put the tomatoes and peppers out to get a bit of the rain as the temp were warm enough this morning, though I will bring them in likely when I go to work at 1.

Most of the asparagus roots have been planted (though there are more on the way -- an order placed much earlier than is just getting shipped) so we will have more backbreaking trenching to do. With the soil only tilled to the depth of the spading fork, and with the Maine rocks to contend with, planting these perennial roots is WORK, involving shoveling out the trench and then attacking with the mattock and sometimes the pick axe. At least the crop of rocks is going to good use filling driveway holes.

Also planted thus far (in case I have not mentioned it) are several varieties of potatoes, onion sets (brown and red), leeks, green onion seed, all the cabbages, lettuce transplants, second planting of some peas (the petite pois are still in hiding, darn it!), carrots, beets and chard.

Yesterday, when I could have been planting, I took the day "off" the garden to take a shipment of hex signs to Growing Concern in Calais -- my first "local" reseller. I had a great visit about plants with Richard at the store and look forward to visiting again throughout the summer on my trips to the area. Their "NEW Farm Stand - Garden Center" will be opening May 2.

I also visited a friend, walked her yard (and brought home some clippings to attempt to start and plant matter with an condition I need to identify) and spent a delightful time chatting about this and that -- from spiritual stuff to gardening to kids and the current flu bru-ha-ha.

This morning I got the opportunity to pick up an extra (and needed) shift at the store, so my planned day of organizing in the house will be cut short., but this is typical for this time of year, which focuses so much on he out of doors and getting the gardens in and going. Some housework must be done, for this is Frigga's day and she would not be pleased otherwise, but as the tide sweeps over us bringing in the growing season, she knows that looking well to the needs of my household requires tending the earth as well as the hearth.

There will be a fire outside in my fire place at some point soon -- as the spirit and the timing of life move and allow. Working until 9 does make this more of a challenge, but it will be met. For tonight I think, my fire will once again burn in the cauldron in the Craft room, after I have reset the altar. In a place of honor will be the forcythia starts from my daughter in Utah -- soaking up extra water and growing additional roots in preparation for their voyage into my landscape. This wonderful living May basket (disguised as a priority mail box delivered by the postal carrier) washed in on the first lappings of the tide early this week.

If you know me, I need your insights...

2009-04-25T03:58:00.001-07:00

I have been feeling rather lost of late. I just put it down to "before new moon, unsettled" things, but it is likely more than that. And the Words of Wisdom came through today seemingly with my name written on them. "Look to your strengths. List them if you must, to see how they apply today."

Only problem is, like many folks I am only really good at seeing my weaknesses (or maybe that should read "seeing things as weaknesses" for I know what is a strength in one case may not be in another).

So I am asking for insight here... If you know me, help me out by sharing what you think some of my strengths are...

I can list:

stubbornness (one of those double sided swords) <>
can-do attitude ("I can do that..."
humble (I don't think anything is "beneath me."
belief (knowledge?) that the Gods help those who make an effort

However, my current lack of focus is still the biggest thing in my field of vision...

Worm Rain

2009-04-22T04:42:00.000-07:00

No, not a typo... though yesterday's rain was warm in one sense (it was NOT snow! LOL) and the weather did not cool overnight sufficient to make me cover the plants hardening off on the porch.

It was the first "worm rain" of the season, raining hard and long enough to wash the wiggly crawlers from the ground.

I don't have a rain guage up (thought I can swear I bought a replacement this year, it has not shown its head here at the house) but it rained a LOT yesterday -- off and on, harder and less so -- all day long and even as we were going to bed.

I was glad for the moments of "less so" as they seemed to be timed to our goings about by afternoon so I could dump my yellow rain jacket, which works great but is big and awkward. We glommed onto some vines from a Freecycler, suitable for wreath making, and it was good not to have to deal with the wet stuff in the rain. I did get K's Subaru rather dirty in the back, though, as they would not begin to fit into the bags I had taken and ended up just being pulled and pushed into the back of the car.

Since we had also go 2 80 lb bags of concrete (planting clothes poles is on the short list) I was glad we had already dropped the recycle stuff and I had two totes to turn over the bags of 'crete to keep them dry.

We'll have a bit of rainy weather for a spell, but I am hoping tomorrow to get out and plant the rest of the potatoes and the asparagus I bought at Bobs in Dover-Foxcroft yesterday, and the lily of the valley. Today I need to work in the house until my half-shift at the store. After having friends over at the last minute for supper last night and the accumulated general mess, there is much to do. Also one hex to be completed, boxed and mailed.

It is totally foggy out the window today, and I am feeling much like just being in. I had unwanted an early morning excursion in my gown and slippers, as I had to hop into the car and go out looking for Brandi. I had K let her out before I got up, as he was coming back to bed (he had been awakened early on by a massive headache and was just coming back to try to finish his sleep) as I planned to get up in a few to start my day. Well the mutt found the door to the "shed" (makeshift roof, only one wall) by the garage open and wandered through the recycles and old windows to take a walk. I found her 3 places up the road (and well beyond the sound of our hollering for her) and brought her home (on the front passenger seat, as the back of the Subaru is still storing the 'crete... and two bags of concrete does not go well with a large, wet dog, even one with recently clipped doggie toenails).

So I suppose if I get the chance I will go out and re-work the fence. I really don't like to have to walk around the garage to get to the compost and if I were to make the fence go straight out from the house, in a westerly direction, instead of between house and garage I could solve two "problems" with one change.

But that will have to wait until after housework...

Spring rain!

2009-04-21T04:19:00.001-07:00

My witchy sense tells me this is the beginning of the spring rain today. I wish I had planted peas now, along with the onions and 'taters, but perhaps this spell of rainy weather will give me a bit of clearing of a morning so I can make a furrow and get some more seeds in the ground.

I have ordered the wheel hoe (and it should arrive later this week... none too soon and when I think about planting, I keep seeing myself making a furrow with it, and then realize that I have only my hoe) and am still waiting on plants.. I need to check for shipping date on those asparagus plants, I guess. Also on the non-garden list, I need to send an old, favorite frame out to get my new Rx bifocal lens put into it, so I can send the existing version of that Rx back to get the (apparently quite cheaply made) frames fixed. I had thought to have done that on the weekend, but did not get a confirmation screen on the order, so was waiting to make sure I did not order them twice.

On the garden front, I have a new-to-me hardware store in Orono that I want to visit (likely Thurs, on the way back from a doctor trip to Milo) and today I will stop by Blue Seal just to see if they have (or are going to have) strawberry plants, which I need. We will be picking up cement to plant the clothesline poles the came with the place (uninstalled) as the clothes tree died in the wind last fall. I need to get K to consult on how to convert the new poles to using cotton rope, instead of the plastic coated metal stuff they have on now. I do not think it will be able to be strung in the same manner as the plastic stuff has a smaller diameter.

I am also committed to completing the hex signs that I did not quite get done in time for the trip out to the garden shop in Calais. I will not be able to deliver them Thurs, as I had planned, as I had forgotten a K appointment with his doc, but I will get them out the following week. Store opens for the season May 1.

I was also hoping to pull up baby trees to transplant on that Calais trip, but my friend is willing to pull the trees and send them back with another friend who is heading that way on the weekend, so that will be my route.

Now, to get breakfast out of the way and start the busy, rainy day. Oh, I love a rainy day...

We have germination!

2009-04-18T07:09:00.001-07:00

The first stirrings of life are showing in my garden today. After feeding the birds I walked down to where I had planted my first row, a few peas, some lettuce and spinach in the area that had been heavily manured last fall and -- lo and behold -- there were tiny spinach cotyledons here and there. Not a lot, but the beginning.

I had been wondering about the lack of pea growth and my friend Robin had suggested I dig down and look to see if they had rotted (which I had not expected, as my soil drains better than that) but I did anyway and found they have about inch-long roots. Just the cold and lack of rain has slowed them down a bit.

All of my early crops are now toughing it out on the porch, with a blanket over them at night. A few of the coles are showing a bit of cold damage but I am not worried. I think they will recover and if not there are still PLENTY!

On another note, much as I had expected, the tractor guy showed up on Thurs. while I was away learning to make soap. Fortunately K remembered where the garlic was planted and stopped him before he tiller there. I am not sure whether the garlic is still there or not, thanks to the plow guy this winter. We will see...

Tomorrow I will have a day off and will likely spend much time in the garden. I am going to see what can go in and how I can possibly protect some of the early cold crops if I get them out into the soil. I should have ordered row cover but haven't yet and haven't seen anywhere here.

the list of needs is growing longer -- a pitchfork (for the compost pile), a real long handled hoe (or maybe two different styles) and of course the rototiller that has yet to be found. If I can find a wheel hoe in anyones barn sale this year I will buy one. I loved that tool when I had one in CO years ago!

turning point

2009-04-15T04:39:00.000-07:00

This is a turning point day in many ways. Master Gardener class is over (I still have the volunteer hours to complete but my Tues nights have been returned to me). Spring is here. I have leeks and lettuces staying outside overnight (we got down to 19 last night, I am waiting to see if the closeness to the house and blanket covering them was sufficient to prevent damage at that temp, they don't look badly affected though!) and am waiting for the tractor dude to show up and do the spring tilling.

I had yesterday off, but of course that was Tues -- a "non-day off" day off when normally the day gets eaten by K's appointments, trip to town, etc. We don't need food or feed so I made the decision to make only one trip south to Bangor, combining bank and PO running with the trip in for class. That left me sufficient time between the AM counseling and the PM trip to get the last of the income tax forms crunched out and paint put on several hex signs.

This is the last year (hopefully EVER!) that I will have to do 2 state and federal forms. After class I came home and inked, signed and sealed them. I should be getting a little back from the feds AND the state of NC, had to pay a little to ME, and it looks like I need to plan for that to be typical. I always had to pay a little to NC too on account of the business income.

I am crossing fingers that the Park Service project is complete today ("director's edits" ... I am told they are minor ones) and can be burned to CD and FedEx-ed off when I take the tax forms to post.

I keep thinking that I have three days off in a row today, so as to be able to get something done, but then remember tomorrow is another up early and out to Calais day, he soap making class having been postponed due to the order of lye not having arrived in time last week. No biggie... I am looking forward to this class as well as seeing friends again... and am hoping to get the small outdoor hex signs done to take as well, for consignment. Wish me luck!

I do wish the cats hadn't awakened me after only 5 hrs of sleep, though...

This year we have BIRDS!

2009-04-04T05:15:00.000-07:00

After a summer, fall and most of a winter of frustration over not seeing birds here, they have come... by drove and flocks and drifts (we have not yet seen a murder, but it may yet happen).

First were the drifts of snow buntings... then a robin or two and a red wing blackbird and the retuning sounds of something calling and circling overhead both morning and evening and into the night.

Now there are flocks and flocks of robins and the red wing blackbirds walking about on the lawn, pigging out on the underground critters that are emerging from their winters sleep.

And the circling, calling birds... finally have shown themselves!

I was glad to be able to sneak up on them enough to get a photo suitable for identifying them, as both pairs of binoculars had decided to play hide and seek for a bit (and of course, having done this, both have returned!) The are kildeer... which I had suspected after having heard just ONE calling as it flew by -- and jogged my memory -- while I was in the garden yesterday.

And yes, I have planted some stuff. Day before yesterday the soil temp was reading 45 degrees after a day in the sun and yesterday morning at 9 am was still reading 44, so I took spading fork to earth and found good tilth. All this was sufficient for me to put in my first, early, experimental rows of peas, spinach and black seeded Simpson lettuce.

The broccoli and cauliflower are up and tomatoes coming up in the house (and another light fixture acquired, though one of the bulbs refused to work when installed and will need to be returned on Tues). We are still waiting on the peppers and suspect we will wait a bit more, as there has been little sunshine to warm the seed trays and I don't have a warming mat, yet.

The kildeer were identified just in time as a coworker at the store apparently heard them the other night as well. These birds have unusual eyesight, so the online info said, enabling them to hunt both day and night. Said coworker was sure she was hearing bats -- not thinking of anything else that would be hunting them and in that way, but she is not one who hears TV whines when no one else does.. and her hubby heard them too... so I taught her about the kildeer.

That's life in the Maine slow lane, early April...

Off to school I go!

2009-04-01T21:02:00.000-07:00

Tomorrow I will be one of the "visiting artists" at Hermon (Maine) middle school. My visit -- along with those of several other local artists and some of the teachers demonstrating artisan talents -- will be part of a "Spring into the Arts" event that has featured a literary day with a visiting author, and will end on Friday with performing arts day.

They contacted me as a result of my being listed with the Maine Arts Commission. How cool is that!

I have prepared a handout, collected a passel of student type drawing compasses and rulers and will be carrying along some of my work to show, as well as giving them instruction on a bit of the history (and controversy) surrounding this folk art tradition.

Because I was only able to be there in the morning (I am not sure why I told them that, this is my usual day off.. but in the end it was the correct choice as we found out after I had committed that K's kidney doc's office had scheduled him for an appointment in the afternoon) I will only get to play with the 5th and 6th graders; 7th and 8th have there sessions in the afternoon. Next year (if I am invited again!) I will plan to be there the full day, I think.

Tomorrow is going to be a long day, as we will be scheduling our usual Tuesday events in the afternoon after the doc -- a trip to Sams for meds, and to pick up cat food and olive oil for the folks in the soapmaking class that I have prevailed upon my friend Robin to give (next week... a reschedule from tomorrow, due to my having overbooked myself! LOL), to WalMart for another light for the plants, to Millers, to find me a pair of muck boots, unless I luck out and find some at Blue Seal where I need to stop and look for more seed flats, etc. etc. All this AFTER the doc...

Thankfully I will have a short work day Friday, though being a Friday, it will likely be very intense.

Some time SOON I need to:

get out and prune the maple tree
clean out the ditches of annual grasses and "weeds" and see what is there in the matter of woody plants that I wish to encourage and suppliment with other things that I will soon beg, buy or glean
check the ground to see if I can turn over the rabbit manure and plant spinach and early lettuce
clean up a winters worth of doggie poo (oh joy...)
dig holes in which to plant the clothes lines that came with the house
dig the last of the Museum archive files out of the garage and send them to the soon-to-be-former client.

and, while I am at it... we need to find:

a small tractor with tiller or a rototiller (working)
a snowblower (less urgent but needed never the less, by next fall)

( Universe... take note...)

Hanging on for the ride

2009-03-31T03:55:00.000-07:00

These few days are a whirlwind of stuff needing doing and I feel that if I am lucky I can hang on for the ride.

Yesterday I had a somewhat unexpected day off from the store (this constantly shifting work schedule can be fun to deal with! LOL). Of course there are always tons of projects to fill unexpected time slots...

One of the newer ones -- the deal I made to claim the red painted and faded siding from an old (historical) building here in Corinth that has been left to fall down and is currently being dismantled -- was out of the question due to serious rain. So I went with a plan B... visiting a friend to discuss our cooperative Ebay project.

In the past she has made a "good living" selling stuff through this online venue and offered to collaborate with me as a way to get back into doing this to add to both our incomes. So off I went to her home and computer. This was much more of a blessing than I ever thought it would be, as I was once again reminded how much I need a periodic "driving meditation" over familiar roads, to allow me to ground and open to the possible.

I watched the rain fall -- a serious, pretty much day long rain -- that felt like spring to me. Even though it was cold I could sense it as the "first spring rain" as it washed the earth and helped melt remaining snow banks. And I remembered a year ago, seeing the landscape emerge from under the snowy cover that had greeted us on our arrival in Maine. I enjoy being able to look through the trees -- bare now like they are not in the late fall, all but the beech, which retains its beige leaves to the bitter end -- and see fields and falling buildings that in a month or two will once again be hidden by leaves. And being reminded that I NEED to take the camera out and shoot some of these scenes and compose them into a book "All Fall Down" ... a photographic visit to the forgotten buildings of central Maine. Yes, it's now on the list..

My friend walked me through some of the thought processes that had succeeded for her in the past. We discussed what to sell, listing strategies, and eventually took a wander off to Bangor (as I had other errands there) researching inexpensive things in second hand stores that we will look for as the yard sale season opens, to resell.

I am also revisiting adding my hex work back on Etsy and possibly other online venues, and including other things -- such as my version of "Give us this day..." as a printed and hand-illuminated small poster.

But today is the day for agriculture... I will shortly be off to spend the day joining other friends at a series of mini-classes in a day long Vegetable and Fruit School offered by the Cooperative Extension Service, to be followed by Master Gardener Class this afternoon. Sandwiched in between, hopefully, will be a visit to the Post Office and a quick stop at Sams club to see if Olive oil and shortening are less expensive there for our soapmaking project next week. Which reminds me, before I head out the door, I need to write down the prices the I am to compare with.

Tomorrow, thankfully, is a "short day" at work, as it will give me time to prepare material for two hour-long classes in hex sign drawing and painting that I am giving to middle schoolers nearby as part of their "Spring into Art" program. I am still not sure where/how the school found me to solicit my participation and I am a little uncertain about the class, as this is not an age I am terribly comfortable with teaching... but be that as it may, I will do it and have fun I am sure. Won't get to stay and lunch with the other visiting artists, though, as K's follow up with the kidney doc is early afternoon. I will just have time to pack up my visual aids (I am taking a bunch of art to share), slide by home to pick him up and get him to the doc after classes are over.

After that I AM NOT PLANNING!

It's GROWING!

2009-03-28T05:15:00.000-07:00

Though I look out my window at a field that is thoroughly frosted and not entirely free of snow, I KNOW things are growing.

Yesterday on a trip back from town the emerging catkins on one of the Salix discolor (known as "pussy willow" in the places where "pussy" still connotes a purring feline -- unlike my favorite forum on City-Data, where my post about this sign of spring was edited into "***** willow! LOL) caught my attention. Three of these little trees that I started from roadside cuttings last spring are now planted along our driveway and one of the three now has tiny catkins! The jury is still out on the other two. While I was admiring the new growth, I checked out the lilacs and found swelling buds as well. Better get to the pruning of the roadside maple, pronto I guess!

Inside, my new growing racks are growing fuller..

early lettuces -- the ones that were large enough to transplant this week

Baby Brussel Sprouts (which I am never sure how to spell but do know how to cook!) This variety is called Oliver.

Early cabbages (Gonzales, I think...)

Danish Ballhead (late) cabbages... I had TONS of these guys, gave away more than I have here

and the leeks

And there are now peppers seeded and more tomatoes will be planted today as I ran out of time yesterday.

Now, all I need to do is to materialize a rototiller or a small tractor with a tiller attachment in the next month.

You listening up there??

New Moon, Stirring the Pot

2009-03-26T05:11:00.000-07:00

New natural year, new moon -- both the sun and moon are in Aries which seems to be a time of much "stirring of the pot". I was going to say "..for good and ill" but since mostly I think changes are neutral and the good or ill comes in how we work with and deal with them, well I left that part off.

There has been "drama" at work (mostly one co-worker stirring the pot and her target is -- at present at least -- not me.) I do feel for the younger gal who is current the focus of her fussing, though and will be calling Syn forth in her behalf today.

Riding other threads, I had the thought a few days ago -- after learning that one of my long-held contracts was getting pulled (victim of the recession) -- of a "money spell" that I had been taught and by an online friend and used remarkably successfully previously. It is a visualization spell, and I only just did it momentarily -- almost automatically -- as I remembered it, in the instant of walking between my Craft room and the bedroom to get my clothes for work. That distance is, oh, about 10 ft... so you can see there was not a lot of time put into the visualization!

However since that moment -- this week -- I have had two additional queries regarding hex signs. One is from a disgruntled buyer of someone else's sign that was marketed as being for outdoor use but painted on and with inferior materials, it would appear. It is disintegrating after only three years. This person is querying about the durability of my work and cost for a 3' sign. I had to price plywood, and had told her I would send a photo of my oldest sign (which I think was actually made of the sort of material hers was.. I explained it was an experiment and what I now use) and I need to get the email out to her today.

The second query was in my box this morning -- from a police dept in PA seeking a custom design to incorporate in their patches. Interesting concept... I have told them they were especially in luck on account of my "other hat" as a graphic designer) and asked more questions about the project (size, etc) so I can come up with something that will work in that application.

Meanwhile, the snow is departing and I am actively looking for some sort of tiller, am continuing to plant and transplant in the seedling area and am considering trying to cobble together a cold frame from some of the lumber and windows that I have stored. We got an additional light fixture for the seed racks this week (one each week, most likely, until we have enough) and I taught K how to transplant.

Today will be a busy day, and I have client work to do, hexes to paint, material that I need to send out, and some organizing of the office and hunting down of archived material in the garage that needs doing too.

Brandi-dog, who had her spay on Tues, is doing better. She is not yet interested in her kibble but I have a couple of cans of wet food that I will add to it over the next few days. She has pain meds, 2x a day... I got them in her with a bite of egg from an unsold breakfast sandwich yesterday night. She seems to be going up and down the front steps ok, but I won't let her out the back until she is off her meds.

K, with his sleep machine, is doing less well. I am thinking that perhaps he really needs to have the "over the mouth and nose" apparatus. He can only sleep with it a couple of hours and wakes up with a very dry mouth, despite the water in the tray. He has decided to nap with it, any time he feels sleepy, to see if he can begin to get "caught up" on good sleep, and we will go back to the place that supplied it in a month for follow-up.

I am looking forward to the new moon working this evening. It is especially nice being able to do it on a night when I did not have to work and can properly prepare. Thank you, Universe!

Maine Maple Sunday

2009-03-22T04:41:00.000-07:00

I am off in a few minutes to spend the morning, at least, with friends touring a maple syrup producer during the annual spring rite here in Maine known as Maine Maple Sunday.

The sap is flowing, the producers are hard at work and many of them offer tours and demonstrations and treats (and of course use this as an opportunity to promote their products!) each year.

As we drive to Nutkin Knoll Farm we will be talking and brainstorming about business opportunities. My friends Anne and Todd (with whom I am taking the Master Gardener class) have a fledgling farm, Kidding Around Farm, raising meat goats and Anne makes soap and Todd does landscaping (like many Mainers we wear many hats during the year) and like many of us everywhere, we all need more income.

With luck I'll be back in Bangor in time to meet and briefly visit with farmer friend, Robin and friends of hers from "away" who have been here to visit and study four season gardening with greenhouses.

And then there is work at the store 4-9. But it should be a fun day.

Season of changes

2009-03-21T18:51:00.000-07:00

Not unexpectedly, the recession has come home to roost. I learned today that my major client, a museum in NC, will be pulling in their belt and replacing me with volunteers. Even before the recession, I expected to loose them at some point; organizations like theirs really DO need someone "on scene" to best communicate their message.

However, these things always hit hard and more so when the director is a good friend and it was she who gave me the news. We've been through a lot together over the years and many folks who know her wondered at the longevity of our partnership. She is a wonderfully fanatical workaholic who has a tendency to attract -- and then also to burn out -- even the most hard workers in a crowd, like moths at a flame.

We will remain friends and, as a professional, I will help make the transition as painless as possible.

At the same time, losing a large chuck of my design business revenue, my brain in vacillating between panic and mad brainstorming ways to make up the shortfall. "What, in THIS economy, will people and/or businesses continue to need that I can easily and affordably supply?" bounces around batting against "What do you WANT to do?" and "What CAN you do?" and none of them seem to want to line up in any coherent fashion.

I can design stuff... but in these days of almost universal computer usage (so it seems) and "everyone" having access to something that at least purports to be a design or publishing program I am not sure how much that will or should figure into the equation. Especially in tight money times, I suspect that the understanding of the difference between professional communication services and what they think they -- or their hotshot computer-user friend or relative -- can do will seem like so much BS or 'smoke and mirrors.' And, at least on some level, I no longer feel driven to do this. At one point it grabbed me and consumed me -- or we became one, or something like that -- but now if feels like the "demon" has spit me out. I CAN do it, but I don't have to and I am not sure I still want to, at least in the same way I did in the past. I still feel the need to use these skills to promote messages and provoke change, but not necessary for anyone else's vision.

I can write. And indeed I have a mostly-completed book that must get off the starting block, self-published at least. In the past I have made a decent part-time living as a freelance writer and that appeals to me again. However, I am not anywhere near being part of the "mainstream" or so it seems to me, and I wonder what, if anything, that I might want to write about would be of interest -- and to whom. "Back in the day" I wrote how-to articles on saving money and making do and gardening and food... but what about all that hasn't been said a million times. How, I ask myself (and you, if you wish to accept this mission) do I make it relevant to this very different 2009 world?

I can do folk art and will continue to promote my hex signs, but as "non-essentials" I wonder how practical this will be? True, the indoor ones are quite affordable and "small indulgences" are one of the trends that Faith Popcorn's Brain Reserve has been talking about for some time. But how does that fit into today? As an amateur futurist myself, I have been following her work since before the publication of her book The Popcorn Report in 1991 and have seen more than a few grains of truth in her observations. For this year, the four trends they are highlighting are: Reclaim, Retrench, Reset and Reinvent so I am keeping these thoughts in mind as I brainstorm ideas.

Nothing has settled yet, except the knowledge that I am on a familiar part of the path, in a new season, walking the road of reinvention. When I put aside the desire to panic (which is, as always, totally nonproductive) I am left with more questions than answers and a hint of curiosity as to what this chapter will hold.

in preparation for Spring

2009-03-19T18:38:00.000-07:00

Whatever you call it -- Ostara/Eostre, Summer Finding or Vernal Equinox -- tomorrow will be marked as a day of transition, the turning point between winter and summer.

Even here in the northlands of Maine, the Turning is obvious. The fields,which a week ago were still covered with snow, now show major portions of earth. More is being revealed each day, as daytime temps come to the 40s and low 50s and we have turned the supplemental heat off the exposed pipes as with the night temps reaching only the 20s, freezing is not an issue now.

The winter birds seem to have left but I have yet to see any of their spring and summer cousins. Some of the trees are beginning to show the barest hint of awakening as their buds show tiny bits of swelling. You have to look close though!

The days are lengthening by seconds a morning, and similar at the evening and more importantly I am feeling the changes inside.

Today, the third of my days off this week, found me busy and motivated with an internal drive to do things that, while they could have been done at any time, seemed to take on new importance as part of a natural ritual leading into the turning of the tide, tomorrow. Clothing suitable for the depth of winter, that I had not worn for a week or more, had called me to gather it up earlier this week. Today I took it to the garage and dug out the trunks, searching for transitional items for the coming weeks. Leather and denim jackets were swapped for my winter coats and a large pile of turtleneck shirts went into storage, replace by a paltry few long or 3/4 length sleeve blouses. I don't have much for this season, for working out at the store, I found.

I also made the quarterly run to the dump, took out the compost and checked on the berry bushes and other perennials that I planted last year. These latter tasks called for snowshoes -- likely their last wearing in this cycle, so they are now in the garage along with the snow shovel.

When I got back in the house, the spring cleaning bug bit me hard and I spent the rest of the day working on the living room (including cutting and hanging herbs from the planter gardens to dry), setting up a fan to blow on my newly transplanted seedlings and spent some time in the kitchen and bathroom as well. Floors have been vacuumed, swept and mopped as appropriate and the hex sign to fill my newest order got its design drawn on and the painting started today.

We had friends for supper this evening. He said tomorrow at 7:44 would find him, beer in hand, toasting the turning of the year. Myself, I'll pot up some more cabbages for those who want them and hail the turning of the season in a more quiet way. I think most of my ritual was done today.

two days ago they weren't but now they are

2009-03-17T13:20:00.000-07:00

I went out to try to shovel some of the gravel -- which has sunk and frozen rather thoroughly into the plowed snowbanks -- OFF said banks and therefore out of the garden and lawn. I was somewhat successful, but next year if we are NOT plowing ourselves we WILL have the gardens staked and woe be unto the Plow Guy who pushes snow there.

While I was out I did a bit of a reconnoiter and discovered some of my spring bulbs pushing through the earth. I have been looking almost daily and today there they were -- daffys I think and maybe a crocus or two -- about an inch or less above the (now somewhat gravelly) bed next to the drive.

It appears that some (but not all) of the birches are just at the bare beginnings of breaking dormancy. The maple is still asleep, thankfully. Looking at it with newly educated eyes I can see it for what it is at present -- a poster child for the Master Gardener pruning class last Saturday. I do not think there is a single one of the basic reasons to prune for the health of the tree that is not represented. Most are there in multiple presentations.

I had originally gone to look at it with the idea of bringing it back from the driveway a bit, however in the process of doing the REQUIRED pruning, that will doubtless follow without specific attention. Most of the birch seem to be in better shape in that regard, thankfully.

But anyway, Thursday I will make sure to buy a decent small hand pruning saw and longer handled lopper to go along with my hand pruners. Believe me, I will need all of the above.

I have also gotten bit with the Great Spring Clothing Shuffle bug. It has been too warm for a couple of weeks to comfortably wear my turtlenecks. I think I am acclimating -- or this year is already warmer than last -- or Corinth is warmer than Milo -- as I have been too warm in my turtleneck shirts at work for a couple of weeks. So I have pulled them and my heavier long johns and all but one of my winter skirts/dresses (most of which I wore very little this year and will be considered next fall for the charity pile) and sweaters and most of my heavier winter outer gear out to bags for a trip to the garage soon. I need to get out there, dig out the storage chests and see what can be brought out of them and how much needs to be gotten rid of just to have storage space. I have way too many clothes for this part of my life, I think. I am remembering back to the "canyon years" when I had a couple of "town outfits" and mostly wore old stuff. The garden and the goats didn't care. Now I have a few things for the store (halfway decent but not good, as they will be bleach spotted eventually), the farm clothes and far too much "town stuff."

This has been a pretty productive day for a Tues, largely because we had no collective errands in town. I studied during K's counseling and then took us both to Shaws, where I get my vigil candles. That gave K a bit of "wander time" in a less familiar and rather neat store and got me a new supply of candles and (finally... mid-March) a bouquet of daffodils (imported from England, no less! LOL)

I took Brandi-dog with me on the paycheck/post office/bank run, but left K at home and the only other errands I added on to that were quick stops at Blue Seal to get a few flats for planting out cabbages tomorrow and a brief stop at Goodwill.

Got some winter clothes in the washer, the first load of dishes done and am off to finish that job (left undone for far too long...) before heading to class.

Oh, and I will shoot pix of the "poster child" tree to share later.

Spring and days off

2009-03-16T18:52:00.000-07:00

Even though most of the fields are still covered in snow, I can feel that spring is coming. We are on our second planting of seedlings (Brussels sprouts and lettuce, planted last week, are showing their cotyledons) and the cabbages are ready to be planted out into the growing spaces for the next few weeks. That is a Wednesday project.

This week I have three days off in a row and Tu is not likely to be a big away day, though we still have Dover-Foxcroft in the morning and my Master Gardener class in the evening), though Th will require us to go do Milo for an extra doc visit and likely to Sams for new/more/different meds. But I won't have to be at the store and I will have time to work on the new hex order that I got last week, and the garden, and decide about the truck.

K got the farm truck going but said there is either a worse problem with our rear axle or a brake than we thought. Thankfully there is a (reportedly decent) garage just down the road. I'll drive it down the road and back and give them a call during this time off to see what can be done.

We also have Brandi's spay coming next week, so $$ will have to be watched... but I do need to get the truck running so I can begin using it for hauling manure soon.

Still not sure how I am going to manage to get the gardens turned and tilled during the year. I am holding hope that something will present itself.

Right now I am just so thoroughly glad to have got the corporate tax returns done and out today and not to have to think about much that worries me for the next few days, save K's health. He has been having more, and more protracted and "worse", spells of "not really being here" of late. He lost most of yesterday and several other days recently he has been out of it in various ways so badly that he cannot even play the video game that he uses as something to focus on to block the pain.

Today must have been better, as he got the truck going/moved and apparently also pattied up the ground beef that I had not yet got done. And for his sake, I am glad of that.

No worms in this moon for us!

2009-03-11T05:46:00.001-07:00

Somewhere, in some tradition, this month's full moon (just past) is called the "worm moon" so I read. But not here in Maine... worms are at least a month away, maybe more... I have yet to figure this out.

Here I would call it Changing Moon, for the season IS changing, slowly, and more definitely back and forth between days that feel like spring (like yesterday, with temps in the mid-40s, riding around on errands with the windows down and opening the house to air it out upon our return home in the afternoon) and days that once again remind us that it is not yet spring, either by the calendar or the climate. We have a wet flurry of snow or maybe sleet falling outside the window and the temps have fallen seriously overnight, so that today feels once again like winter.

So it changes, and changes back and will change again, as the sun comes scrambling, clawing, fighting its way back to dominance for the seasons of growth and the old man of winter struggles for one more day, one more week before taking to his grave.

Here at Hearthfire Hill we have seedlings sprouting and soon to need transplant separation and have acquired a new, larger rack for them to live on and the first two, of many, shop lights to augment the sunny south-facing windows in which they live. The new rack is much larger than the first one, and will go in front of the actual window and the smaller of the two (both on rollers) will be eventually rolled in front of the glass paneled front door. This was not my idea, believe it or not, though I heartily seconded it! K came up with it and the plan to roll the seedlings into the light in the morning, with the space next to the door (in the small hall by the heater closet/office/bathroom) designated for the shelving unit when the door needs to be used. The door opens out, so even if the shelves have not been moved when I come in from work, they will not be a problem.

We have also been thinking about this entrance way -- which needs work for many reasons, and are considering opening up the wall and beefing up the wall structure so that when we replace the door, it will be with a sliding glass patio door rather than a solid wood one. We agree that, having gotten used to the openness and light levels of the existing glass door, we would not be happy with a solid wood one in the future. And think of the extra light for seed starting in the spring!

I am so happy to be with someone who "get it" in the sense that our home should be the workshop for our lives and our occupations and avocations; that it should match us and not force us into a mold and a lifestyle that doesn't fit.

By the light of the silvery moon...

2009-03-09T09:16:00.000-07:00

No crooning going on -- well at least not deliberately -- just planting. I am going at planting a bit by the moon this year. So far just starting my seeds indoors when the moon is growing (for those things that produce above the ground) and shrinking (for the leeks thus far).

I have put a public garden calendar on Google, and am imbedding it here. If you bookmark this post you will be able to see what I plant when and when the harvest comes and such, if you are interested.

That is about all the news at present. This will be a hectic week, with full days at the store alternating with "days off" that mostly aren't... Tues being Dover-Foxcroft/Bangor (major shopping this week)/home/Bangor for Master Gardener, Thurs I will take K to help a friend with her computer, Fri fortunately is a short day at the store and Sat I get "off" for my full day of Master Gardener classes. Somewhere around there I need to find time to do laundry, cook and wash dishes and maybe even think and sleep a bit.

Wish me luck...

It's beginning to look like MUD season!

2009-03-07T04:52:00.000-08:00

Our wet snow of yesterday morning gave way to rain and our temps remained above freezing overnight, with above-freezing highs for the coming few days. This means much of the drive has melted off and the rest of the snow pack is (hopefully) sinking into the earth.

"Mud season" will hopefully soon be upon us, and shortly there after the beginning of the gardening year, "as soon as the ground can be worked."

It's been a wacko week for me, mostly good but still decidedly out there and I will be glad for a return to a more normal routine as the week turns.

Monday I had planned a road trip to Calais (about 3 hours away) to meet some Internet friends who had just arrived in Maine. They moved from TX and are staying with mutual friends there until their stuff arrives, hopefully today. The weather gods saw fit to bring us a nor'easter with snow, sleet and the like that day, but it was not as bad as the weather guessers predicted and, though many businesses and all the schools in my area and theirs were closed, the roads were "not bad" in my use of the phrase. The predictions, I guess, served to keep the "other idiots" off the roads, as I saw little traffic on the Interstate and not a single vehicle off the road either coming or going. My reference for "bad roads" comes from a holiday trip from Spokane to Seattle with the kids, many years ago. We had promised we would go visit friends who had moved away though the west side of the mountains had been hit with a "terrible" storm. We started counting vehicles off the road with the first one we saw after crossing the pass and if memory serves, we lost count, or lost interest, somewhere in the 200s. When we got the the island off Seattle where our friends lived, they were without electricity and we had a grand adventure, as we had both lived "off grid" in the intentional community where we met.

So after a great visit with new and old friends, and having dropped off some tomato and pepper seeds to my friend Robin (who is going to start them in her greenhouse as a backup to my windowsill starts) I made my way home... an entire day away and on the road.

Then followed our usual Tuesday crazyness, early AM counseling appt in Dover-Foxcroft, followed by a trip to my store to pick up the paycheck and a quick trip to Bangor for errands (post office, bank, meds...) which had to be a quick one so we could get back home in time to turn around and take K back to D-F for the second part of his sleep study, the overnight stay. Of course we are still in panic mode with the Park Service project, so some editing and sending of files had to happen in there as well. K offered to be dropped at the hospital earlier than his 7 PM appointment so that I could make it to my Master Gardener class and not be too late (which I did, arriving 1/2 hr into the lecture. I was able to take the quiz that usually starts the sessions during the break and got a copy of the hadout from the lecturer, so all was well.)

After class ended at 9, I had to come home and try to get to sleep so as to be able to pick K up at 6 AM (which meant arising at 5, much earlier than I usually do these days). Unfortunately sleep eluded me and I made the bad choice of eating some ice cream, which I know I should never do just before bed, as it always results in the "drowning in crap running down my throat" phenomenon, which doesn't do much to help sleep... and I couldn't even take an OTC decongestant as I would never wake in time in the morning.

So Wed. ended up being a day to just survive... I napped twice, sent out invoices to clients and managed to struggle through a thankfully short night at work.

Thurs I went BACK to Calais, to deliver a hand truck (dolley) for my friends to use when their stuff arrived. They didn't have one, and I felt it was a good way to be able to help, even though most likely I would not be able to be there in person to lift and carry, due to work.

Meanwhile I have clients wanting stuff, and my heart is not really into it. But it must be done today... fortunately a short evening at the store today and tomorrow.

And mud season precursors, which must truly give a northern gardener hope.

Road trip!

2009-03-02T18:47:00.000-08:00

My rational brain was at me, big time, last night, as I listened to the weather forecast... DO NOT make the trip. I had planned a trip on my unexpected Monday off, to Waite to visit my friend Robin who had offered to start some seedlings for me as back up to my windowsill seed starting and to finally meet online friends who arrived Sunday, moving from TX to ME (Calais, to be exact).

And my rational brain had me massively depressed... Yeah, I could have visited later, but somehow rational thought just wasn't satisfying me. When I went to bed last night I honestly figured I would likely sleep too late, it would snow too much (as in I was NOT shoveling my way OUT of the driveway) or some such. But I awoke at a reasonable time and she snow had not accumulated to Subaru-stopping proportions, so off I went.

And boy, was I glad.

The roads were not bad, not in my definition anyway. The snowplow had been down our side road and along most of the road into Bangor, though as always I could tell where the town limit lines were without benefit of sign. There were tracks to follow through the snow, where it had not been plowed most recently and once on 95, plenty of tracks to follow through town. After hitting the outskirts of the Bangor area, I ran out of traffic. I saw only 2 plows (both of which I passed), one UPS truck in my rearview (which got off at the Orono exit, which I had just passed) and an ambulance on the other side of the highway, heading into Bangor. But most of the way there were patches of asphalt showing here and there, from previous plow trips and not a single vehicle was spotted broken down or "parked" in a ditch the whole way. Not ONE.

Obviously, then, the roads could not have been "bad"... for on no other storm day has the warning of the weather-guessers caused the reckless drivers to all stay home!

I visited a bit with Robin as I divvied out the seeds and made little packs for the share I was leaving for her expert ministrations, had a cup of coffee and then was off down Rte 1 again towards Calais, on the US-Canadian border, to meet Tammy and her family and visit with Mary, who is hosting the newcomers until their truck load of stuff arrives, later in the week.

It was a great visit, exactly like meeting old friends and not at all like a first-time visit with someone from the Internet. The kiddos were in and out (loving their second day in the snow) as were the dogs. I felt very much at home in the "madhouse" full of kids, dogs and still-slightly-travel-lagged adults. K had asked several times if I was taking Brandi and I knew I did not want to... and am glad I didn't, as 6 dogs in the house would have been WAY too much chaos, especially as one was a newcomer as of yesterday and had not quite sorted it all out with the resident top dog. I did get plenty of doggie-loving and a good smell-down from Brandi when I got home as there were a total of 8 doggie odors on my from this trip. I'm surprised Brandi is still talking to me!

I realized on the way up that not only do I need a road trip now and then -- several hours of solitude behind the wheel is a good way for me to clear my mind, center and meditate -- but I have somewhat got out of the habit/family tradition of deliberately taking off for a visit somewhere any time the forecasters say "stay home." My dad did it in the winter -- though his was just for a drive -- and in the summer often after a good rain, "to see if I can get stuck" he would say. Either he didn't try too hard or was an excellent driver (my guess is the latter) for he never had a Jeep or even an old pickup but did his excursions in our famly car -- a Buick of some sort or another during my growing up years. And I do not ever recall it coming home looking like it had got stuck.

And raising my family, I would do the same... when we had only one car and lived in Appleton, WI I recall taking Katey and newborn baby Amelia, tucked into a snowsuit, in her front carrier, under my wool cape, by bus in a Wisconsin blizzard, up to Shopko to take advantage of the day after Thanksgiving Christmas ornament sale. We came back with three HUGE plastic bags of ornaments and ornament makings, a difficult haul even the couple of blocks from the bus stop to home, as the wind whipped the huge fluffy flakes around us and Katey (Trina then) struggled to drag the lighest of the three through the snow that was well up to her knees any time she missed stepping in my boot prints.

My other memory of that trip was the strange looks I got from the few other brave bus riders as we waited at the stops. You see, Amelia's warm breath was rising up as a visible mist from the neck of my cape, though the source was totally invisible and (as she was asleep) still and silent as well.

So, I guess, as long as I am able I shall continue to go a-visitng on snow days. I enjoyed the quiet (I turned NPR off after I left 95, to better concentrate and enjoy the drive) and the sound of the snow and later sleet hitting the car. I loved the part of Rte 1 that I drove through the Hollywood-style huge, fluffy flakes. I loved a chance to visit with Robin and hear what was new with her family and the farm, to see her greenhouse-bound seedlings bursting out of their pots under the lights in her living room, and to dream of days when I will have a greenhouse as well.

And it was beyond great to see Mary again and Tammy (again... or so it felt, though it was the first time) and her family. I can't wait to see their new home, overlooking the river and Canada, and her first year garden that she will be planting there. Can't wait to carry seedlings up to share, to see how her first year garden differs from mine. Can't wait to see her kiddos in my wide open, snow-covered spaces and then running free across the 4 acres come spring... feeding apples to the neighboring horses, making friends with Brandi and the kitties (or at least some of them... some won't come out for anyone!)

Tomorrow will be back to a typical Tuesday, with added strangeness, as K is scheduled for a sleep study and I will at best be late for my Master Gardener class or at worst miss it entirely. Day will start early with his counseling appt in Dover-Foxcroft, then by my store to pick up paycheck, post office, credit union, maybe Sams if he needs Rxs (major shopping day will have to wait until next week) and back home so he can bathe and eat and get back to Dover-Foxcroft for his sleep study by 7 pm. I pick him up at 6 on Wed, thankfully it is a short day at the store.

Some time soon I need to get back to the Corinth history web site, though I am still waiting for some content and feedback from the Park Service project, so timing will be here and there until that is over. I was glad to be able to make the Historical Society meeting on Sunday, where I met some very interesting local ladies and volunteered to turn a porcelean doll kit into a finished project for a door prize for an upcoming doll show/fund raiser event. I have never done one and always wanted to!

And now, the bed is calling and I shall listen to its siren song.

Busy time since the last snowfall!

2009-03-01T14:28:00.001-08:00

It has been far too long since I blogged, but much has been keeping me very busy. I even took a bunch of shots after the last snowfall on the 25th, which has mostly disappeared in subsequent warm spells and rain.

However, here are a few shots I would like to share..
A weed manages to still show its head, a place where the snow has drifted FROM, with lines from the branches nearby crossing the drift waves, frozen in time.

And several birch branches, reaching down to touch their shadows on the snow.

Followed by a couple of shots K took of me on my snowshoes. That "bush" I am next to is actually a small silver maple TREE that, if it needed topping, would not have been much of a reach for me to do!

Below are the first tracks I have seen in the yard other than the crows feet around the compost. I am not sure what they were...

Anyway, I have been busy trying to get the Park Service project done (we are still in revisions), working, enjoying the snow and the melt, planting cabbage seeds to join the leeks in the front window and spending a lot of time on the phone and in computer chat with daughters in Utah who are all wanting to pick my brain, all of a sudden, about gardening! It's an interesting challenge trying to use my new Master Gardener lessons long distance and in a climate where I have never gardened (but I did do a lot on the western slope of CO, which is not THAT far different... )

I managed to make it to a meeting of the local Historical Society this morning as well... quite by accident almost, as I had not set the reminder right on the calendar program and saw the meeting on the calender with 15 minutes to spare when I logged on to check on bills needing paid. OOPS! Off I went (paid bills when I got back home) to a very enjoyable meeting with several local ladies whom I had not previously met. I am going to enjoy working with this crowd, I am quite sure.

Tomorrow -- despite threats of another storm -- my day will be spent heading out to Calais to greet some new Maine friends who only just arrived today! I met these folks online a while back and had truly expected them to be in Maine far before I was able to move. To have them roll "into town" exactly one year after we did is mind blowing on many, many levels and I am quite anxious to finally meet them in person! So neither snow nor sleet nor having to pass the snowplow will keep me from Calais tomorrow. I just hope my plow guy comes by while I am gone!

the Plow Guy Cometh

2009-02-23T04:36:00.001-08:00

The Plow Guy, working his way down our driveway about 6:30 this morning... I am not sure how much has accumulated over night, but the porch drift was as big as I have ever seen it, and snow is still falling and predicted to continue until late afternoon. Plow guy says "I will be back!" and I am sure he will... went home to get the chains on his truck.

When we let the dog out this morning, she ran into a wall of snow in her yard, too. I work a late, short shift at the store, so I have time to get out and clean off the porch, dig out Under House Cat and maybe strap on the snowshoes and take a bit of a walk. I am very glad that I got the compost, trash and kitty litter carried out yesterday, though!

This snow calls for PLAY!!! .... lovin' it! hopefully more photos will follow!

Another snow from the East

2009-02-22T19:47:00.000-08:00

We are under a winter storm warning through tomorrow afternoon, about the time I need to be at work.

Thus far, at almost 11 pm, we have about a little over an inch on the porch (more where the porch door drift is beginning to form) and predictions for up to 14 inches and increasing winds which will mean more blowing snow.

I find it interesting that, through January, ALL the snows came from the west and starting in Feb, thus far, all have come from the East.

We got a small electronic thermometer with a remote sensor for outside, that will do max/min readings at the hardware store today and (after a trip back out for AAA batteries, of which we had none in the stash) got it installed. The remote unit is on the north wall of the garage and at last look was reading 30 degrees F. That pretty much goes along with what I felt when I walked out on the porch to check out the snow.

Our plow guy was here today to clean up the remainders from the last storm that had drifted around and to finish up his work, which he felt had been incomplete as the plow broke before he got "done" when he plowed us out from the last snowfall.

On other topics, March 4 I need to take my hex sign "Everything She Touches Changes" (shown here) down to the Community College in Bangor, to be part of the first installation of a rotating show to be put on by the Maine Crafts Association. "As part of MCA's partnership with Eastern Maine Community College in establishing the new degree program in Traditional and Contemporary Craft, we have arranged to create a permanent display of work by MCA members in a large museum display case on the EMCC Bangor campus in Maine Hall. MCA's staff will maintain the display, changing the exhibited works on a regular basis, approximately once each semester." I am a member of the Association and was selected, along with about 8 other crafters, to be included in this initial showing.

This piece was created for a show of work by the Worldwide Women Artists Organization and was included in their international show through March, 2007, at the New Port Ritchie (Florida) gallery. That show was entitled "A Woman's Work is Never Done."

pretty snow

2009-02-20T04:47:00.000-08:00

Hopefully after a short bout with the creeping crud, I am on the upswing again. I really have no choice but to go to work today and tomorrow and they are usually heavy days. But I will cope. At least I don't have to try to "look nice" and wear business attire. Our normal gear is jeans and t-shirts (for me, sweatshirts and turtlenecks) but one gal came in one day wearing fuzzy PJ pants (the only clean pair of jeans had an inappropriate rip at the last minute!) so if I feel like sweats, I'll do it. I AM going to layer, as my temperature has not stabilized yet. I was sweating much of the night though upon awakening, the thermometer told me I was about 2 degrees F below my usual normal. I don't feel woozy or weak, at least, though I know I am not 100% and will likely not be as aggressive in the heavier work as I usually am (no 2-litre or mop-bucket workouts this evening! LOL) and for the safety of the customers, I will wash frequently and try to stay on the register (where the $$ is most likely already totally contaminated with germs) and away from the food.

Looking out the window, I am not sure if it is still snowing a bit or if I am just seeing drifting, but I will have to shovel off the porch a bit and the plow guy has been here. We are back to looking like winter in Maine -- as we should in February -- with a fluffy layer covering the brown crud.

After going to let to dog back in, I can report that it is snowing, gently, from the west as usual. The previous snow, all yesterday, came from the East. Most unusual here!

This being Friday, it is the day I set aside to especially honor Frigga and her Handmaidens and tend the cauldron of the Needfire. As long as I have been doing this practice I have done it in the evening after tending worldly chores and concerns. Since I get off late now, and have been worn out from the busy Friday nights at the store I have been thinking about doing it earlier in the day and today I shall do so. We'll see how it works and whether it will become a usual practice. After I am done with this entry, receive and post the Words of Wisdom and have had breakfast and a bath (which I dislike doing in the morning, but after a night of sweating, it's pretty much necessary before I scratch my skin off!) I will go attend the Ladies.

Then when I stagger home from work tonight I can plunk myself straight into bed if I like.

it's SPAY and NEUTER Month!

2009-02-16T07:58:00.000-08:00

< soapbox mode >

February is spay and neuter month. I am not sure when/how it started but for the last few years, every veterinary clinic I have know of or been associated with, as well as most humane/animal welfare groups, have had some sort of incentive program to encourage and enable pet owners to get their animals "fixed."

Today our two newest kitties, Moose and Thirteen, are at the Corinth Veterinary Clinic for their surgery and Brandi has been scheduled for the exam that is required for "high risk" critters, a category she falls into on account of being 10. If surgery is found to be an acceptable risk for her, she is scheduled March 2.

If you have animals that have not yet been spayed or neutered, please contact a local vet and talk to them about making arrangements to take this step. It is my opinion that it makes for less stress and more contentment both for the critters and us humans (both pet owners and their neighbors) as well as reducing pet over population.

Thank you for listening. Now DO IT!

< / soapbox mode >

It's been a while

2009-02-15T16:50:00.000-08:00

Sometimes life just takes over, but to be honest, I am not sure what it did or how it happened.

I've had a few shifts at the store (one closing, last night followed by a return engagement at 9 this morning undoubtedly fried more than a few brain cells today) and a couple of nights of insomnia (made worse by an increase, though only at night it seems, in congestion and crud flowing down the back of my throat that, because of work the next day and the crazy notion that if I am not drugged, maybe I can actually USE the morning) has been pretty much untreated. Which of course means that I have been less then totally productive in the mornings as well.

Ah, life. sometimes preferable only when you take the time to consider the alternatives! LOL

Yesterday, I was surprised to discover that Valentines Day is apparently a heavy drinking holiday (who would have guessed?!). I came to this conclusion based on the amount of hard liquor and beer that left the store last night -- much more than a typical Saturday. K's comment: Maybe that's what it takes for them to get their women into bed! LOL I did have time to throw a pizza as a surprise for K.. he had been wanting one from the store and I managed to make it heart shaped. We ate half when I got home last night and the rest is for supper, with salad, tonight.

Today I spent the afternoon catching a friend up on a missed Master Gardener class (not that he needed it, though I did need the review, and much more! He's studied botany previously.. I have not) and visiting, as well as returning a canning jar to another friend and making another visit. Both live near each other but not near me, so I didn't get home until after dark. And with my odd hours of late, I am tired.

I won't get to take my NiQuil tonight or tomorrow night either.. Tomorrow I have to have 2 kitties at the vet by 8:30AM for they neuter... Moose and 13's times have come. And Tues starts in Dover at 9 with K's counseling appt, followed by a busy (and as they will be for another couple of months, LONG) day: pick up paycheck on the way to Bangor, EEG appt (for which K needs to be sleep deprived... another reason I won't be getting much sleep Mon night!), and stop at the PO and CU, along with a bit of catch-up grocery shopping and lunch, and of course get K home in time to turn around and head back into Bangor for my Master Gardener class at 6. And they call this a "day off!" LOL Gotta do some shopping though to make sure I have all the stuff to be able to throw chili in the crock pot for supper with friends who are coming over on Thurs (my REAL day off!)

Which reminds me, K likes kidney beans in his chili and they take an inordinately long time to cook.. I better get some started tonight and they can get stored in the fridge, if need be, until time to make chili.

On another note, I am amazed at how well snow melts here in Maine when the temperatures are well below 32 degrees F. As far as I understood the temperature scale, water freezes at 32, which seems to indicate that when it is around 10 degrees lower than that it should likely remain frozen. Not here, apparently, as we have been having constant snow melt for the past few days. First it appeared that the birdbath was getting taller... then there was a small dark patch near it that caught K's attention and wonder. Before I could make good on my intention to snowshoe out to see what it was, the melt continued to reveal about the top 2' of the large flat rock, the existence of which I had forgotten.

Even in the solid ice of the driveway, puddles of standing water appear to be, well, standing... and we have used no salt anywhere but immediately by the steps.

Interesting..

There are chances of snow in the forecast through the week, with the best chance they say come Thurs. Hope it doesn't blow our dinner party!

Yesterday was a day!

2009-02-11T06:14:00.000-08:00

Well, they usually are, I gueess...but this one was a long one spent "away" -- appointments, shopping, class... and as much as most of those needed doing and some are sometimes enjoyable, a long day still wears on me.

It started off oddly, as K (apparently) had one of his times of being "not here" during the session with his shrink that started off the day. I am thinking that overall this will be a good thing, as she needs to see the whole picture and when he manages to pull together enough, as he seems to have done up to this point, to self-censor and put the best foot forward, it is not as supportive of his disability or terribly helpful in diagnosis or treatment. But, like many folks I guess (I know this was what make it take so long for my doc, who even knew me fairly well, to recognize my depression) we desire to show ourselves at our best, even when it is overall not to our best advantage.

I am not sure what happened, but he was a bit "off" when we left for the appointment. I dropped him off so I could hit the local drugstore in search of old fashioned Mentolatum (found it! and also found that it is now Cadbury Eggs Season! WOO HOO!! and they were on sale, even... ) When the session was over the counselor came to get me to accompany him out of the office, and I found him just sitting, initially non-responsive and cold/sweaty to the touch even on his hand. He did come back enough to walk to the car, slowly as if he really were not there.. and indeed he wasn't as he "winked out" again halfway down the stairs... stopping as if someone turned off the switch. At least I was able to get him back, saying, "Kevin you are still on the stairs, you need to keep walking"... and he did not fall.

We got him a snack before we left town, as we both sensed that part of the issue might have been his insulin hitting a bit harder/faster than usual, and our second stop in town was Olive Garden, for lunch (after a very quick stop at the PO box). By then he was coming back to this side, remembering, perhaps, bits and pieces of what he had said at the shrink's office...

His new med, prescribed to remove some of the lactic acid (I think) seems to be causing him lots of pain in the kidney area. I keep trying to get him to force fluids more, suggesting a glass of water and a drink (thirsty or not) every 10-15 min... but so far he doesn't seen to be able to do that. Today is a half day at work and I am going to try to give him a drink every 15 min while I am here and see if that helps. A good nurse, I really am not...

We did get groceries stocked up a bit, though to my frustration WalMart was out of the indoor cat food and Beneful in large bags for the mutt... which will mean buying it locally in smaller quantity for now and another trip next week. Ugh.

We did a bit of research at the hardware store on ways to get the weather station up -- didn't buy parts though -- and found that Home Depot here never carries the portable greenhouses that they offer online, so I will not even consider buying one unless someone else in the area springs for one over the 'net and I can see it installed. They say they are good to 60 MPH winds, but I am concerned that they might not hold up well to our blustery hill.

I did have the thought of building a smallish wooden structure, on skids of a sort, with strong eye bolts for ropes and designed to be pulled from location to location by a small tractor, our lawnmower or even people power... wondering what qualifies as "temporary structure" for the town building inspector. I need to make an appt to talk to him at some point SOON... was thinking of that today, but I am still a bit under the weather and feeling like laying low for now.

Our last stop of the day was Hannifords -- not that there was much on our list that we needed to find there (I had not found kitchen matches at Walmart... not sure if they don't stock or I just don't know where to look... so that was about it, but I had a STRONG urge to stop there and was rewarded with finding JONQUILS!

I have this thing (I have written about it earlier) of having daffodils on my altar in February and I was quite frustrated that I had not found anything like them here this month. Hannifords (and other placed) had the potted jonquils LAST month (too early) and there have been tons of tulips - both cut and potted -- this month but it seemed that the minute the calendar turned to Feb. the daffy type things vanished. I have no idea where these two pots of jonquils came from (they were likely left over from last month, as one was rather long in the tooth and they were sporting a "special" marker at 3/$9 marked down from their former price of $3.33 each) but I snagged one and now, all is well.

Though I do have a bit of a complaint for the commercial florist suppliers to stores like Hanniford and WalMart... WHY must you put most of the flowers in bunches of identical items? I see tons of tulips, sorted in bunches -- a bunch of red ones, a bunch of yellow ones etc etc and none mixed. I see other flowers done likewise, and never a bunch of mixed color tulips. And the bunches of mixed flouwers seldom feature the "seasonal" varieties (other than, this time of year, a rose or two). Just makes no sense to me...

Leeks!

2009-02-09T05:42:00.001-08:00

... as opposed to leaks, of course. LOL

Today I MUST go to the garage and bring in at least one of the containers I have been saving to use as a mini indoor greenhouse to start seeds and plant the leeks.

Also on the list is a snowshoe trip out to the back with kitty litter and around to the compost with another bucket full.

I have learned from my first Master Gardener class what I knew in the first place, I have a slow compost pile -- because I don't have the "proper mix" of stuff at hand to build a fast one. And that will just have to do. I am also not going to be insulating my pile to keep it working through the long Maine winter, though I did see a great use of pallets in one of the slides at class, to contain the pile. Come spring, when I have use to the farm truck again, I will seek out a few as this will at least allow me to keep the pile from blowing over!

We have lost a good bit of snow over the past day, judging by the amount of fence and post visible in the corner of the dog yard, and the forecast for mid-week is showing temps in the melt range again, though they are also teasing with hints of snow, and rain.

The little birds, now identified as Snow Buntings, seem content to visit every day and yesterday a group of from 4 to over a dozen spent much time sunning themselves on the peak of the garage roof (which annoyed the bedroom cats no end!) and occasionally flitting over to the ground where I am scattering some seed each day.

For the crows, yesterday was a bust. I saw one sitting on the snow pile near the seed with a look of "no way!" on its face, but I did not have any old bread to throw. K fixed that, though, snagging the extra uneaten dinner roll from our lunch out yesterday and I have thrown its crumbs this morning.

Much to be done today, and it is a day at the store, too... tomorrow we will head out for K's appointment at 9 and while he sees the counselor, I'll hit the nearby drug store and then we'll pick up my pay and head into the city for our monthly major shopping, so tomorrow will pretty much be used up away from home.

January thaw (late) or hints of spring (early)?

2009-02-08T16:31:00.000-08:00

A record high temperature of 47 degrees was set at Bangor Maine today
at around noon EST. This breaks the old record of 42 set in 1990. (WeatherUnderground)

It was above freezing when I came home from work last night, shortly after 9 pm and warm today (though it felt a bit cooler thanks to the VERY BRISK) wind we have blowing (gusting to 26 MPH).

We have had some serious melt going on, though the total height of the snow doesn't seem to have dropped much (as per an eyeball assessment of the amount of birdbath visible in the front field.) The driveway was slush and it was easy to clear the dropped snow and ice from the floor of the garage.

I had planned to plant the leek seed today, but the NiQuil I took last night to allow me to sleep kinda ate into my day, so I will go out and pick through the recycled packaging I have been saving for seed flats tomorrow and put them in.

Mostly spend today working on a web site redesign for the Corinth Historical Society ( I am volunteering my time and server space to get them moved off Angelfire -to look more serious and remove my annoyance at the freeserver crap when I go to their site.) I also think it will be a good way to meet folks and to get to know my new home town.

I have been hurting quite a bit of late, at least part is the due to my coughing and such from the crud that I keep almost -- but not quite -- fighting off and part is surely on account of my being "off" a bit after cutting my finger at work while slicing onions. It is healing but of course still hurts (who would guess how much one uses the SIDE of one's left index finger!) and at work I must wear a glove to do anything involving water (for the sake of the finger) and food (for the sake of sanitation, and the finger. I don't think antibiotic ointment and pizza dough make a very healing poultice. LOL)

Tomorrow the forecast is back to more seasonal temps, but by mid-week, once again, they are showing highs in the mid-30s and teasing possible snow. We will see...

Turning Tide 3

2009-02-07T05:21:00.000-08:00

Today marks the end of Imbolc-tide as I have it marked in my calendar and there are some things that are interesting to me to take note of...

Without reference to the calendar, my internal calendar prompted me (more like kicked my butt, to be honest!) to take the candle-leavings I had been saving -- mostly unburnt remains of tealites (that do not burn completely if you use them, as I often do, for multiple shorter periods) and re-craft 12 tealites for the Handmaidens and fill a small glass flowerpot-candleholder as a container candle. I had saved enough tealites to have good metal parts and figured how to re-wick the little metal wick holders with bits from the votive wicks I had bought (one of which went into the flower pot, whole. And, of course, I had JUST enough wax for my project!

These candles were used, last night, as part of my tide-turning Hearthfire workings...

And, on a thread that I had much less direct control over, the last of my seed order arrived by post while I was at work yesterday! Now, I seriously need to attack the file cabinet -- or maybe some boxes -- in the garage to find the article I wrote may years ago on the timing of plantings and seed starting indoors to see if it tweaks as well as I hoped when I wrote it, for climates as northern as this.

I am reading that Robin has already started her leeks and some tomatoes, and I am hoping that these are for planting in her season-extending greenhouse (of which I do not have one... yet!) and that I am not too far behind the seed-starting curve.

I know "local wisdom" is to plant everything in your garden after Memorial Day weekend. Not sure where that came from, as I would think most gardeners would be aware that not all plants have the same needs and ability to tolerate cold on one end and heat on the other... but who knows. That is one reason why I am asking the Universe to hook me up with a small tractor or a big tiller (ok, in a pinch a smaller tiller will do... but, Universe, you CAN see the size of the plowed fields thus far, can't you?) because I am concerned that getting "the tractor guy" to come till as early as I would like for the leeks and spinach and lettuce and the like will be impossible.

But, back on track, my seeds have arrived and tomorrow I have a day off so I will get the chance to sort through them and decide who goes into the potting mix now and who waits a bit and which ones I am sending part of up to Robin, to start as backup for me, as I have in the past had a hard time with this part of gardening.

And the Tide rolls on...

I just wish that cut daffodils were not only a March thing here!

not quite so backlit birds

2009-02-05T11:22:00.000-08:00

Well, a few of the flock were at the seed a bit after lunch and did not even attempt to fly when I approached the door, so I was able to try to get a bit better photos.

Still not good ones, on account of the distance, having to use the zoom at max AND the funky double pane window that seems to have just enough fog in the are I have to shoot through in order to get the closest ones, eating on the ground, to make those photos badly out of focus. However, the birds on the snowbank were easier to shoot, even if they were not so cooperative in positioning themselves.

The DO have ruddy bits on them, somewhat as the photos and illustrations of the Redpolls indicate. Perhaps young and females? winter coloration or variation in the species maybe??

Backlit birds not easy to identify

2009-02-05T06:19:00.000-08:00

While we were eating breakfast this morning, K noted bird shadows moving past the window (he faces the south kitchen window at the table, I face the north one) and I was not only able to grab the binoculars for a good look, but the camera... and managed to get off a couple of shots before the skittish little fellows took off as K walked into the living room.

I believe that the comment on the previous post, suggesting they are redpolls, may be correct, though I did not see any strong signs of the reddish patches. Even with the binocs, though, I was working at a disadvantage... through a somewhat funky double pane window and against the sun.

However they did stay around to eat today, and play on the snowbanks and that means most likely I will get many more chances to see and photograph them.

Now, if I can just get them around to the north side of the house, in the sunshine!

BIRDS! -- proof

2009-02-03T13:23:00.001-08:00

So I know it's not a great -- not even an adequate -- shot but it was all they would let me get, skittish flock that they are.

These are the same guys I saw the other morning, making an afternoon visit. I have not seen them ON the feeder. I took one that we had brought in, on its stick, as it was leaning badly in the soft soil (pre-freeze and snow that was) and stuck it in the plow guy's snowbank just off the porch, near where I had scattered the seed on the snow and ground and where I throw the bread.

I had thrown bread that this morning... just after seeing a crow casing the joint, and before we headed out for our early morning trip to Milo to the doc and following errands in town, and noted that it seemed to have all been eaten by our return around two.

Sitting her at the computer, my eyes were attracted to flighty movement at the top of the window and when I looked I saw small bird motion flying back up over the roof. Looking out the front door, I spotted the flock on the ground just past the porch, but apparently even my slow motion as I reached for the camera that was sitting on a box nearby and tried to position myself for a shot spooked them. This shot was taken out the office window, as they had regrouped about 25 feet away in the field. But, here again, apparently my movement in the window spooked them as they took off almost instantly. I got off just the one shot, and all are in the air save the single bird far left, which I have enlarged in the oval top right.

If these are your Juncos, (not that anyone can tell from the pic! LOL) are they always that skittish? and are they mostly ground feeders or will they eventually land on the perch area on the feeders?

No groundhog worth his salt... (and other musings)

2009-02-02T06:03:00.000-08:00

No groundhog worth his salt would be out, here in Maine, at this time of the year. So I ignore the media hype (but pity poor Phil, the reluctant media 'hog) and instead turn inward.

For a week or so I have felt like I am standing in the ocean, feeling the tide coming in… with each incoming wave washing the shore higher and harder and pushing me forward along with it.

The push to clean and organize, to think of and plan the garden, to put on my farsight vision and look into the coming year, is strong and palpable and seems to come from far outside me. This morning, as I was sitting drinking my coffee and contemplating the universe, I first felt very depressed, tired, sad and overwhelmingly overwhelmed. But I was sitting in my Craft room, before my altar and almost immediately came a bit of reassurance: "hang in there.. this is the year for settling in, for getting in sync with this time and place. You'll have it figured out by next year." While that is good to know, it doesn't REALLY help my feelings of "OH MY GODS how am I to cope at the moment" but I know that too will pass as I continue to put one foot in front of the other. At times, that is not only the best, but the only approach. Just do it...

This is also, in the Northern Tradition, a time to honor the female ancestors (Disting) and to bless the plow and other implements of our work. And since I am working this as a Tide and not, thankfully, a particular day, there will be time enough for me to do this with ALL the implements of my work... from the computer (which was blessed physically, most recently, with a reinstall of software and a new external hard drive) to the paints and brushed in the Craft room, to the (as yet not physically present) tractor/tiller that will help in the garden, along with the cart.

As a physical manifestation of that blessing of distant tools, I will take the time to clean and tend the riding mower, which was (despite K's intention) put away dirty. And I have had the prompting to melt down the remaining candle ends and bits, to pour new small candles -- what part they will play in all this has yet to be shown to me, but I have put that on my list for tomorrow.

Tomorrow is a day that will start early, as we have a dr. appt for K Milo, at the doc's request, to talk about some of the issues we have not yet addressed. Some time back the counselor gave me a list of things she thought the MD should be looking at, and I have been holding the list, waiting for the "right time" to bring it up. Tomorrow it that time. We "should" be doing a major shopping trip but with me working and doing some eating at the store, we are not going through food as quickly as we had been, so I am unlikely to do it this time, in order to make the town trip a shorter one. K (and I for that matter) both need shoes and I need boots, so that will be on the list, but I do want to get back home effeciently so that I have some time here before heading out for my first Master Gardener class. Which reminds me, I need to take a check so I can pay them the $100 for that class!!

I had planned to do the candles tomorrow, but we will see... Wed I have to work (just a short day) so it may get put off until then, if I do not have sufficient time to properly do it tomorrow.

I am wondering if I am going to have to fight to keep from getting close to full time hours at the store as the season progresses? I am hoping not, as I told them, when I signed on, that I didn't want more than 32 hours -- 35 max... This week I was scheduled for 37, but managed to trade away 8 of them to a coworker who had a very thin week, so I am down to 29 which made me much happier, as it is closer to what I have been getting all along. I am glad, especially in this economy, to HAVE a job; I am even happier that I am in a position where I can live on less than full-time-wage-slave hours and at a realtively low wage at that.

BIRDS!

2009-02-01T08:05:00.000-08:00

As I commented on Maine Nature News some time ago, we had put out bird feeders shortly after moving to Hearthfire Hill, but they went totally ignored. At first I figured there were lots of weed seeds in the back fields, and indeed we saw may (unidentified) small birds clinging to the side of the growth and flitting about. I had hopes that, once the snow fell, they would move on to the feeders, but it didn't happen.

Eventually the seed all blew out and I did not refill, as it was hard keeping the seed IN and removing the wet, untouched seed in the feeder cups on a regular basis when no one seemed interested. Indeed, we saw and heard almost no birds.

Then, later, I would hear larger ones at a distance, occasionally spotting them from afar....crows mostly.

This put me in mind of how the birds came to our feeder in NC. Originally, there, with trees and houses and -- one would think -- others feeding, we also noted a lack of feathered ones. Then, gradually, I would notice a gull flying high, or sitting on a distant lamp post.

I began feeding the gulls, who soon came to be my regular Sunday congregation, and shortly after that we began to notice other, smaller birds beginning to appear at the feeder... doves and song birds, first a few then by the dozens.

I began to wonder if the crows would serve a similar function here.. if I could attract their attention, if the smaller birds would also eventually come. So, as I reported to MNN, I began throwing out bread crumbs -- when I had them -- for the crows. Eventually I saw one in the area where I threw crumbs and began to do it more regularly. And they began to come more regularly... not like my flock of gulls, but often enough that even without watching I would see one or more in the yard each day.

A few days ago, when I went to the garage to bring in the bulbs I had not gotten planted last fall, I spotted the bag of bird seed and on a whim, grabbed a handful into a container and threw in more or less in the area where I throw bread. It is at the side of the drive, accessible by a hand-toss from the porch or driveway and the closest (currently still empty) feeder is a snowshoe trip around the corner. Only about 12' or so, but in deep snow.

Today as I was washing dishes and K was sitting in the living room, able to see out the front door, he commented on a small bird, then many, that he could see on the ground! I did not get a good look at them, but they were not sparrows (larger, but smaller than a robin), all in grays, black and a bit of white, possibly on their undersides and wings. There was a pretty good size bunch -- maybe 30 -- and the flew away in a definite flock when something startled them before I could grab the camera.

A glance at the bird book makes me guess possibly chickadees -- though not likely as I know these guys pretty well, having had one hop down my leg once, as I lay in the hammock, being part of the universe -- or possibly nuthatches or juncos. When I saw them fly, they seemed to have kind of swept-back wings, like I associate with swifts and swallows... and they were definately eating the seed that was on the ground.

Hopefully they will return and I will be able to photograph or at least identify them.

Tomorrow's chores will include filling the feeders when I go to take out the kitty litter, you can be sure!

February!

2009-02-01T05:03:00.000-08:00

I wonder if, here in Maine, I will be able to find bunches of cut daffodils with which to grace my altar? Thus far, I have not seen any in the regular places I look for flowers -- the grocery and big box discount stores -- though they have potted and forced ones.

But then, so do I, when they grow. I bought a big bag of (unfrozen!) potting soil and dragged in the plastic throw-away pots from the berries I planted last late summer, along with the bulbs that had not got placed in the ground.

Gods help the ones I planted, by the way... I will be out there hacking away at the snow banks pushed up by the plow guy, to allow my "early spring" flowers to grow before summer. Next year we WILL BE marking the "do not disturb" areas...

I have 6 pots with an assortment of a few daffys, a few tulips and a few more crocus. Some of them were starting to push little ends out of their bulbs, even though they were stored, willy-nilly, in the back of the (uninsulated) garage.

I have never tried starting these babies in the house, so wish me luck.

I still would like to find some cut flowers. Though I am not feeling the dread of February, I do feel the call for spring flowers -- specifically daffys -- on the altar. This harks back to years ago when I first separated from my husband, was living in a tiny, mostly uninsulated cabin, with no money and not much else (I moved out in October, survived the winter with scrounged wood, my home canning that he hadn't wanted and veggies gleaned from a neighbor's market garden). Every now and then I was able to catch a ride to town to sell plasma for a few bucks for eggs or the like and on one of those trips, at this time of the year, I saw a bouquet of daffys and recalled a poem I had read: (as I somewhat badly recalled it)

When of all thy worldly goods thou art bereft,
And of thy meager store
Two loaves alone to thee are left,
Sell one, and with the dole
Buy hyacinths to feed thy soul.

But I don't like hyacinths... and when I saw the daffys, I heard that in my head as "buy daffodils to feed thy soul" and so it has been ever since.

Turning TIde 2

2009-01-31T05:02:00.000-08:00

During my time by the Hearthfire last night, I felt moved to welcome the incoming Tide.

I have been feeling the energy of the growing light for a week or more, finally getting to putting away stuff from boxes brought in from the garage in the office and Craft room and plunking away at the perpetual ToDo list (allowing it to renew as well).

But last night, as I sat by the fire, I seem to have felt the same energies as my friend Terra Joanna,
deep in the southlands. With the coming of the lighter days (though there is still not a perceptible increase in the length of the day) I am well motivated to get projects out of the way, begin new ones, and -- today -- to visit the dump (which is a regular, if not frequent, ritual for us as we have no trash pickup.) We generate, of the course of a month or more, less trash than we typically see sitting by the driveway of those who have pickup on a weekly basis. But nevertheless, it must go out.

It is the end of the month as well, and business invoices will be sent today, and a day off from the store, so I will get to cook something for supper as well. It is supposed to be a warmer (mid-20s) day, if not sunny, so likely I will get out on my snowshoes a bit, to play in the deepening snow. the birdbath in the front field is almost covered. There are no drifts in play there. But in the dog yard, it is a good thing Brandi doesn't challenge the fence (though I am pretty sure the snow would not support her) for in many places it is near -- and in some places OVER, the top of the fence.

(photo, top of blog) On the front side, the "drift" under the window is just that, a drift -- the one that tries each time the snow falls and blows, to block the front door. If you have the eyes of someone from the northlands, you can see where the snow was shoveled off the porch and pushed by the plow guy at the front of the drift... but back, under and almost kissing the window, the snow was deposited only by Mother Nature, with no help from man, woman or snowblower. Hail, Winter!

Mainely Living

Thoughts of Spring

Towards a Greening of the Garden

Out of sorts

getting on with it

Maine to Represent PA on White House Tree!

The turning of the seasons

A few moments of reflection

Behind the Curve

Garden, continued...

Bragging on my Daughters!

The flow of days

Local Food movement

Feeling great today, not sure about tomorrow...

Not too many heads, just too little time!

Turning Wheel Moon

and it begins again...

Hope for a Good Season

Finding Abundance in a $25 stove

Happy Yule! Turning The Wheel...

Crunchy snow!

Mistletoe, anyone??

Last call for a sprig of Mistletoe or protective talismans for your doors!! I am shipping them tomorrow. Get your request in today, with address!!

Mistletoe, anyone??

Here we go again!

My Hex Signs made the "local" news

November has arrived

Winternights comes!

a week in pictures

saying no

On marriage, contracts and separation of church and state

Interview!

What I have been up to...

lazy? Busy?

pulling in for the winter

Sorting through thoughts and projects

Looking Forward to Fall

Looking Forward to Fall

Too #&$*%*#@% HOT!

Meet Coffee

Finding "Normal" again

In the Flow

Busy days at Hearthfire Hill

Remembering to be Thankful

the rain in Maine falls, mainly...

Independence Day

Foggy morning thoughts

The ebb and flow

Rainy days and Tuesdays

Turning the Seasons

cycles of the seasons

Earth, Air, Water and FIRE in the Garden

A day in the garden

definitions of "need" vary

To Market, to Market

Roots in the ground

On "just doing it" and why I hate loans

Turning an unseen corner

ugh! pine trees are in bloom...

digging dirt

just another day

Walkabout the back field

Honoring the turning of the Seasons

The tide continues...

Drive by posting...

The Maying Tide

If you know me, I need your insights...

Worm Rain

Spring rain!

We have germination!

turning point

This year we have BIRDS!

Off to school I go!

Hanging on for the ride

It's GROWING!

New Moon, Stirring the Pot

Maine Maple Sunday

Season of changes

in preparation for Spring

two days ago they weren't but now they are

Too #&$%#@% HOT!