Monday, May 04, 2009, 04:45
Alyssum and Yellow Rocket
I am disgusted. Now that the hayfield is starting to grow, I can see that we will have to address the alyssum and yellow rocket growing out there. There are certain sections of the field that are full of alyssum and yellow rocket.
Alyssum, for one thing, is toxic to horses, so I certainly don't want that in the hay for Kajun and Isabelle. The other bad thing is that it will take over and crowd out the alfalfa and the timothy we WANT to grow in the hayfield.
The other disgusting thing about alyssum is that it is extremely drought resistant. When we haven't had much rain for two months, everything else will be dry and brown, but the alyssum (and the rag weed) will be green and lush.
Yellow rocket also will take over the hayfield, if given half a chance.
Fortunately, we know what we can do to get rid of most of it: cut the hay before the alyssum and yellow rocket have a chance to go to seed. The very first year the hayfield was seeded back in after we moved home in 1995, it was full of weeds, too. But, after we cut it the first time, that eliminated about 95 percent of the weeds. So, I am hopeful we can get rid of most of the weeds this time around too.
Of course I can't help wondering where did the weeds come from? We certainly did not plant yellow rocket and alyssum last year.
Then again, we didn't plant any clover, either, and I see quite a lot of clover out there growing as well. The clover is all right, though, just as long as we make sure the hay is completely dry before baling it. Not only do the vets tell me that alyssum is toxic to horses, but they also say that the mold which grows on clover that has not been dried sufficiently before baling the hay also is toxic to horses. (sigh)
It's like my dad always said -- if it's not one thing, it's something else.
I can do at least something, though, to make myself feel a little better about the situation. I can pick the Yellow Rocket leaves for salad. I've read that they grow the plant in Europe as a salad green. It's also known as Common Winter Cress. The leaves have a tangy taste to them, so lately when I've been walking around the hayfield, I pick a handful to mix in with my salad for supper. Seems only fair to me. If Yellow Rocket wants to invade my hayfield, then I'm within my rights to view it as a salad green.
LeAnn R. Ralph
Tired of cheap junk from China? Buy books written and printed in the U.S.A.
Saturday, May 02, 2009, 14:23
Lilacs Budding
It's May already. And my lilacs have buds. Actually, they're covered with buds. I'm surprised.
After the long, cold winter with many days of below zero temperatures and far below zero windchills, and after the drought we've been in for five years, I was expecting the lilac buds to be sparse. But they're not sparse. The bushes are covered with buds that are now a quarter to a half inch long.
I adore the old-fashioned lilacs. We have three big bushes in the back of the house and other smaller bushes that I have planted in recent years by digging up shoots from the old bushes. When my folks retired from farming nearly 35 years ago, I dug up some of the shoots from the lilac bushes on the farm that my grandmother, Inga, had planted during the Great Depression.
I never knew Inga. She died long before I was born. But the story my mother told is that her mother kept her daylilies alive during the drought years of the Depression by watering them with her dishwater.
With the drought we've had for the past five years, I have followed in Inga's footsteps. I don't use the dishwater to water the lilacs. I use the wash water from the washing machine. I carry it out in five-gallon buckets and dump it on the lilacs.
I was not quite vigilant enough a few years ago when the drought first started, and the smallest lilac bush, the one farthest to the west where it is growing in rocks, died out in the middle during hot summer days with temperatures in the 90s and a tremendous amount of hot, dry wind. The main middle branch is quite dead. When I realized that part of the bush had died the next spring when the leaves failed to emerge, I started making sure that it got extra wash water in the summer. The other two bushes look just fine, thank goodness.
And so, if we do net get temperatures in the 20s within the next few weeks, I will once again be able to enjoy the lilacs and their wonderful heavenly scent that takes me back to those years so long ago when I was growing up on our dairy farm. After we finished milking on May evenings when the lilacs were blooming, Dad and I would make a special trip out to the backyard to admire them.
While the lilacs are blooming in the spring, I can quite often smell them down by the barn at night. It's amazing. The barn is about a hundred feet from the lilac bushes, but I can still smell them. What is even more amazing is that I can smell them down in Isabelle's pasture, which is even farther from the lilacs.
When I go out to check on Isabelle's water at night, I stand there in the dark and breathe in the scent of the lilac bushes. I want to enjoy it all that I can because the lilacs only bloom for such a short time. And then it is another whole year before I can enjoy the lilacs once again.
I don't know what it is about the scent of lilacs that so many people find appealing. A few weeks ago I was in Wal-mart and bought some lilac-scented votive candles.
"I can hardly wait for my lilacs to bloom, but maybe this will tide me over until they do," I said to the clerk at the register.
"I know what you mean," said the clerk, who was, I suspect, old enough to be retired. "I've got some bushes at home, and I can hardly wait for them to bloom."
"The problem," I said, "is that they only bloom once, and then we have to wait until next year for them to bloom again."
"Isn't that the truth," she said. "I wish they bloomed longer."
Maybe, in the grand design of the universe, that's the point: enjoy what's here now because it will only be here for a moment.
LeAnn R. Ralph
Books have lasting value. If you want to escape from the frenetic pace that technology has introduced to our lives, turn off all the gadgets and settle down with a good book.