reaching for the light

In for a break, after what seems the first "normal" gardening session of 2023. For two solid/liquid months I've been attempting bits of garden work between rains and chores. And trying - as Jane commented in an earlier post - "not to get too attached to an idea of what the outcome of the garden will be." A perfect description.

Practicing non-attachment by admiring daylilies.
Also ferns and grapevines.

As part of my sensible goal to do more gardening at waist-height and closer to the house, I invested in two Birdie beds during a 20% off sale last Autumn. I did not expect to have to wait til June 21st to actually get the first one filled and planted, but that's how long it took, working bit by bit over many days to gather up the muddy materials to fill the base. Leaves that I chopped and saved last year. All sorts and sizes of soggy sticks from every paddock, gathered in cartloads on rare days when the mud in the paddocks was not too deep for the cart wheels. A load of shavings from cleaning out the hen suite and barn. Also layers of actual mucky mud, which is so heavy it had to wait for days when my Occasional Helper could be here to fill a bin and heave it into a raised bed.

On the afternoon when I could finally start plinking tiny seeds into the soil, thunder began to roll in and I had to finish up quickly and hustle through evening barn chores. Not quite fast enough, though - the deluge arrived in full force, escorted by thunder and lightning. Since I was already soaked, I thought about finishing up the chores before heading back to the house, but the chores would have required standing in water and wrestling with metal gates, so instead I sheltered in the barn with Azalea and Hazel as lightning cracked overhead. We had a cozy visit after agreeing by mutual consent to talk about anything but the weather.

And look at the first raised bed, just one week and more rains later!

Actual rows of seedlings! My thrill level was off the charts.

Three kinds of greens, two kinds of broccoli,
and an assortment of radishes.

The second bed was filled and planted on the 28th, also just before a thunderstorm. This morning I checked, and radishes - planted between rows of carrots - are already reaching for the light. I've never been able to grow carrots here, so that bed will get a lot of checking. And I usually don't plant radishes at all, but this could be the Year of the Radish.

Many tall plants, including bee balm, have been flattened by the rains,
but some milkweed has managed to stand.

Back in the first week of June, I planted pole beans, along with dill, okra, and kale, in the terrace garden. In the wet weeks that followed, it seemed likely many seeds would rot in the ground, and I just had to wait for things to dry out at least a little before replanting or working in what is usually my main vegetable garden.

Roughly 80% of the 2023 blueberry harvest.

Well, yesterday and today have been beautiful days! Today the terrace garden area was more accessible, and not just a saturated and dripping jungle of undergrowth. I puttered happily, smacking mosquitoes, pulling up goat snacks for the boys who followed me down, and releasing the few tiny dill seedlings and young okra plants from an overstory of galinsoga and catnip. I patched two rows of bean netting while apologizing to the scant bean plants for borrowing their stock-panel trellising back in May for short-term goat use. The netting was intended as a "starter" trellis to be supported by reinstalled stock panels long before the beans needed the height. But I was never able to get into the terrace garden to replace the panels, and as much as I miss my lovely stock panels in the terrace garden, I imagine the pole beans miss them more. The good news is, I've used the panels to divide the Upper West Side in a new way, so that most of the herd can now access that area simultaneously but in two groups. Which is especially nice when the sun is finally shining after they've spent days cooped up in a shelter or walking along bits of scrap lumber to keep their feet out of the muck.

Doesn't it look like this bee is hugging the flower?

That's how I feel today.

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wordless wednesday

 

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paintbrush archaeology

 

I didn't notice until taking the snaps tonight, but there has been a bit of an unplanned theme in recent Daily markmaking: still the only non-essential activity that takes place every day, no matter what.

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a day and a half

That's how much time we had without rainfall.

You can imagine how much I tried to get done outdoors.

As soon as the sun came up yesterday, I started shifting goats in an elaborate series of dance moves - a pas de quinze? - that went on throughout the day: getting this goat through this gate while keeping that other goat back in the other paddock, until every goat had had the option of spending several hours with their little group of special (currently) pals, stretching their legs on solid ground, with dry footing and the sun on their backs.

Now.

They were less excited about it that you might think. Most of my adult goats aren't comfortable with change, but I thought this would be such a pleasant change that there might be high spirits and leaping about. Nope.

Also: Now.

But today, on the second not-raining morning, they were ready. As soon as I went into the paddocks they started leading me back down to the Upper West Side, which is a small slope (of course) that's got it all: sunny, shady, rocky, sandy, grassy, and dry. Since I knew rain was forecast for late morning, I got almost all of them down there in two groups, early enough to enjoy themselves. Which they did.

The rain held off til after 1, which was nice because I had time to shift goats back to their usual locations without racing around. And after two hours of working in the mucky paddocks with my Occasional Helper - who hasn't been here for a while and may have been quite sorry he came back today - I even had time for a shower and lunch before the thunder started rolling.

And then I cancelled everything planned for the rest of the day.

Could be any time, really.

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tiny time-savers

Subheading: internet

I remember watching the first real-time transfer of vast amounts of data between a field station computer in Puerto Rico and my lab computer in Massachusetts, and commenting that our collective sense of Time was in the process of a radical shift.

Because when something proves repeatable, the initially miraculous becomes the generally expected, doesn't it? And in my lifetime I can't think of anywhere that has been more in-our-face apparent than with computers, first, and then in a exponential expansion, with the internet.

But I still treasure the discoveries that make routine things a little bit more efficient. Or just easier. And even if I'm very late to the party, my discoveries are still exciting (to me) and that is why I share them. Because even if it's probable that Everyone already knows these things...maybe they don't?

So here are two tiny things that make my computer time a bit more pleasant and efficient. First: the option to Close All Tabs To The Right. I often have a dozen or more tabs open on my laptop, usually because of sites like Etsy that automatically open every click in a new tab. Or blogs that have a lot of links I want to look at, but only after I've finished reading the blog, so I open each one in a new tab while I continue reading, and then visit all those tabs. Anyway, I recently discovered that right-clicking in any Tab - in the actual tab - offers the option of closing ALL the tabs to the right of the one I'm clicking. Does it save much time? Well, it saves a little. And that clean sweep is very satisfying.

Right-clicked in the jigsaw tab; bottom selection in the drop-down menu.
This is Chrome, but the option is also in Edge and Foxfire, so I'm guessing it's widely available.

Here's my second discovery. I use YouTube a lot these days. For entertainment but also for recipes, for DIY tutorials, and for reviews when I'm considering buying something (most recently a hose nozzle that Does Not Drip, and that search continues so please recommend your favorite). Anyway, some videos on YouTube are good but a bit long/slow, or have frustratingly poor production values, or contain way more repetitious detail than I need. So I play them at 1.25 speed. Or even 1.5 speed. Does it save much time? Yes. And it makes many videos a lot more watchable, at least for me.

I've set my audiobook playback speed based on narrator, for many years. But it took me a long time to think, "I wish YouTube had this option." Then it took me an additional 5 seconds to think, "I'll bet YouTube does have this option." Boom.

Click the Settings gear at the bottom of the screen,
hit the Playback Speed arrow, and choose. 

Now, what time-savers do you use that you think everyone else already knows about but maybe we (or at least, I) do not? Please share!

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and inhale

The weather has been complicating daily life here for a while now. It's a waste of time to complain about weather but the simple fact is, there is nothing - not one thing - made easier in my life by rain. So when it goes on for days and weeks, it becomes wearing. Even the goats have been uncharacteristically subdued, when they are not being frustrated and short-tempered. It's a tough emotional range. I understand completely.

BUT.

Today the sun (the sun!) is shining and the sky is astonishingly clear. There's a breathability to the atmosphere that has all the exquisite quality of a very fine wine. Even more exquisite to me, since I rarely drink wine these days, and I breath frequently.

When I stepped outside this morning I stopped dead in my tracks, inhaled, and sighed in relief. "Let's savor this, shall we, goats?" I called out to the herd. "Let's all live in the moment and breath frequently!"

By the way, do these look different than my usual line drawings? They do to me. Back in June I tried a "micro tip brush pen." I thought it would be like my longtime favorite Micron 0.25mm pens, just with a bendy feel because of the brush tip. Well, it is certainly bendy but not very micro. At first it felt like drawing with a fat Sharpie. I stuck with it, adjusted my approach, and began aiming for quick, bold lines, instead of my usual slow, delicate lines. It's been a really useful exercise.

These flowers - daylilies, milkweed, spiderwort - were drawn from photographs taken during the rare moments in the past two weeks when it was not raining. Even so, every flower in every photograph was wearing raindrops. I don't want to sound mean about it, but I felt no inclination to include the raindrops in the drawings.

I decided to post a few of these drawings because this afternoon I did something I haven't been able to do in weeks: I took my sketchbook outside, sat in a dry chaise, chatted with several goats who ambled cheerfully over to see what I was up to, and made this sketch of one of the black birches:

It was such a relief.

Just like breathing.

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wordless wednesday

 

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saturated sunday

 

It was not raining yesterday when these pictures were taken.

This year I've become very aware of the aroma of milkweed.

It's lovely, and stops me in my tracks at least twice every day, as I pass the plants growing next to the path to the barn.

Daily trips with the little hay cart have been rerouted to prevent a collision with the one milkweed plant growing in the shorter path.

Spiderwort is providing surprises:

I've now seen four shades of purple on individual plants.

Here are two:

And a single spiderwort plant blooming white. 

The palette of the barn gardens is about to change.

Daylilies on the brink of blooming:

After several years of trying, the precious thornless raspberries I've planted in the terrace garden seem to have come to terms with the tough soil and light conditions here, and are not just surviving, but growing. They are currently doing as well as can be expected in a subtropical rainforest.

(This snap makes my mouth water.)

Wishing you all an excellent week ahead.

And wishing us all a bit of moderate weather.

I don't know anyone who doesn't need it.

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