May 7…Frost v the Flowers

daphne on May 9, 2010

It’s hard to tiptoe on the tulips when they are slick with snow–

Snow, shmoe, I won’t let it get me down.  The weather changes so fast around here that you might not even notice something very fishy going on in the rhubarb patch.  What, exactly, is this?

I’ve had this rhubarb for seven summers now and this is the first time I’ve seen it get so, er, excited.   Email me stat if you’ve got a reasonable explanation.

With Dave up on the roof battling his nemesis, and me here on the ground with a broken foot and looming cold nights, there was little I could manage in the garden.  Still, Mother’s Day means I get my way (kind of) and my request was simple–just pick all the dang dandelions. I know it’s short-sighted but I don’t want to look at them and I’m the mother and it’s my day so just get rid of the things, okay?

And so it was.

And the mother was pleased as she watched the children pick the “wild flowers” and construct a chain of them which they looped round the au natural trellis and they all lived happily ever after.

On to the mundane.  I hobbled to and fro to photograph the progress being made between the snowflakes.

The spinach is coming along nicely,

As is the lettuce, which had been written off but is proving tougher than 28 degree nights–

Our itty bitty peach tree even has a couple of promising blossoms–

Mother’s Day had us planting, hesitantly.  We’re going to wait a few more weeks for some warmer nights before planting the more fragile stuff, but put in another round of carrots, onions and chard today.

My house smells like dirt (in a good way)

daphne on May 8, 2009

Coming back home after eight days away I am hit by one particular fact: my living room smells like dirt.  No, I can’t blame my husband for letting things fall to pot. The kids are in one piece and the house is still standing.  The house smells like dirt in a good way.  Forest path in the rain dirt, not dust bunnies beneath the bed dirt.  It smells like dirt in here because a few weeks ago I started some seeds inside, but then life got in the way and I high-tailed it to Boston and I just haven’t gotten around to the moving them out into the garden part of the plan yet.

But as they say to Marvin K. Mooney, the time has come. The time is NOW.  And I’m looking at a weekend of planting in a garden that is more than ready to go.  I think we’ve had some success with the sage. It’s coming back, and that bodes well for a summer full of my favorite pasta with sage leaves.

It also seems that taking that rhubarb risk is paying off in a big way.  All is going well with our original plant and her little rhubarbarinos.

The leaves are lush and green, but I can’t touch them without breaking out in hives. For some reason, the toxic leaves don’t bother the kids at all.  The stalks are ruby red and thick, harvest-able very soon, which means that days rich in rhubarb crisp can’t be far away.

As Dr. Seuss famously told Marvin K. Mooney, the time has come to GO GO GO.  I’m all about frenetic activity, and can’t wait to break out the shovels this weekend.

Which may work fine for me, but sweet Acadia sails on a different tack.  She’s slowing it down, making some time to stop and smell the tulips.

Who is this chick?

daphne on November 6, 2008

Yeah, that one. The one planning for a flowering spring. The one with a song in her heart and a belief in the future. The one dancing with hope.

That’s me, really. With just a few tweaks to the old personality.

I am not known for having patience. A fondness for delayed gratification didn’t make my list either. But hey, if America can climb on board with a big plan for change than the least I can do is try for some changes of my own.

So recently while the girls helped Dave rake yellowing leaves into billowing piles,

I planted something that would not emerge from the soil for 6 month. Talk about delaying some gratification. Talk about hope. I’m talking about lovely ladies that demand a nice six-month nap in the dirt before rearing their pretty faces. Tulips. And daffodils.

I’m never one to jump up and down at the return of warm weather, but I do like the bright colors that litter my neighbor’s yards while our property remains the sole landscape slumbering away beneath a blanket of blandness.

And each year I am reminded that these April flowers demanded attention way back when the first snows were threatening. They require planning ahead. Way way ahead. Which has always been enough to send those tulip-thoughts tiptoeing out of my head.

Not so with the new me. After an eternal election cycle the idea of waiting a paltry six months for flowers seems reasonable. So I read the back of my little packet of seeds. And I dug the holes. And while I may have skimped a bit on the suggested 12 inches of depth and 6 inches of spacing, I remain confident that my yard will look very much like this.

Ok, I can’t say for sure that my yard will blossom like that. But after a long long time I find myself believing in a future bright with rainbows and gilded with hope. My dreams are rich in solar paneled rooftops, electrically-charged cars and daughters bedecked in white lab coats out to change the world.

So why not? Anything is possible. And come springtime I believe we will be dancing in daffodils.