Monday, May 01, 2006, 20:22
The Best-Laid Plans . . .
I was going to mow parts of the lawn this weekend. As is always the case first thing in the spring, the lawn grows unevenly, and right now, it is very shaggy over the drainfield and in other parts of the lawn where the grass is at the bottom of the hill and has gotten more water or where the grass is shaded by the cedar tree in front of the house.
Notice the emphasis on "was" -- because, of course, it was much too wet over the weekend to do any mowing.
It has not rained a tremendous amount, about an inch, but it has been blustery and misty with occasional sprinkles and light showers since Saturday morning.
Not that I am complaining about the rain, mind you. We can really use the rain.
Randy also was going to dig up the garden this weekend.
Again, notice the emphases on "was" -- because, of course, it was much too wet over the weekend to dig up the garden.
The one thing Randy did get done Friday evening was to clean up the hay next to the house that Charlie has been using as a dog bed all winter long. During the winter when it is cold, Charlie needs a bed to curl up on during the day when everything else is covered with snow.
Seeing as it has been cold and rainy and damp and blustery, this morning I took the wheelbarrow out and gathered up some of the hay that Isabelle has not eaten. Yes, the hay is wet, but I figured if I put it by the house, wet hay would be better for our Springer Spaniel, Charlie, to curl up on than mud.
Charlie had other ideas.
He went around to the opposite side of the porch and curled up in my bed of new Lily of the Valley, breaking off every last one of the tender plants that had just started sending up shoots. We got the Lily of the Valley last year from Randy's mom and dad. They had some growing by their porch that they didn't want there anymore, so we dug some up and brought them home.
My new Lily of the Valley plants have not even had a chance to bloom here yet, and now they're all broken off. . .
And not only that, but Charlie is STILL curled up in the mud.
I hope it clears off and dries up around here by Wednesday. I've got a guy coming out to trim Isabelle and Kajun's feet. They really need to have their feet trimmed, and I would rather not have my hoof trimming appointment turn out to be another of my "best laid plans" that does not work out quite the way I had intended . . .
LeAnn R. Ralph
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Saturday, April 29, 2006, 22:47
If Only It Could Talk
If only the old granary could talk, I'm sure it would have many stories to tell.
The granary sits just up the dirt road about a half mile north of our house. At one time, the granary was part of a farm. There's nothing on the place now except the old granary and the barn foundation and a few pieces left of the windmill.
The house left long ago. And when I say left, I mean left. The house was moved to another farm a couple of miles away where it still stands today. I have often wondered if the people who live there know that their house started out at a different place all together. Maybe I ought to ask.
The granary holds a certain value for me. At one time, relatives of my mother's lived at that place, and in fact, we have a picture of my mother as a little girl, sitting in the grass with the house in the background. My mother was born in 1916, and no one has lived on the place for maybe 60 or 70 years, so that gives you some kind of idea about how old the granary is.
Randy and I went for a walk up that way today, so we decided to take pictures of the granary. It is leaning badly, and it won't be long now before it falls down. If it weren't for a couple of trees growing behind it, the granary would have fallen down long ago.
The other interesting thing about the granary is that after the house was moved off the place, people lived in the granary -- that is, it was converted to a small house of sorts. That's why there's a chimney inside. Granaries typically do not have chimneys. The old granary also has a basement underneath it, unusual for a granary, too.
This is the same place where the antique plum tree is growing that is slowly dying because the hunters thought it was in the way and trimmed it back. The plum tree stands 20 feet from the granary and is nothing much to look at now. Only a few buds for blossoms and just a few budding leaves. I'm grateful to have gotten a plum tree started by our barn from some of the pits off the old tree. Randy and I are hoping the new tree by the barn will send up shoots we can transplant or that we will be able to start more trees if we can get some plums from it. I have more dried pits from the old tree saved in a paper bag and will continue to see if I can get any of those to sprout, as well.
After taking pictures of the granary, we walked back home through the woods, much to the delight of our Shetland Sheepdog, Pixie, and our Springer Spaniel, Charlie. Throughout the woods, the choke cherries are starting to put out a few frothy white blossoms. I am hoping that all of the proper elements come together this year so that we can pick some so I can make some jelly. If it doesn't freeze again, and if we get enough rain this year, and if we don't get any hard rain storms or hail -- then there might be choke cherries to pick. The same is true for the wild black cherries.
On our way through the woods, we came across a dead tree that has apparently been quite attractive to the Pileated Woodpeckers. The tree is just about chipped to pieces. They must be finding insects in the wood that are tasty to eat. We hear the Pileateds every once in a while -- eeeee-eeeeee-eeeee-eeee -- they say, sounding rather prehistoric and ancient. We rarely see the Pileateds, though, except from a distance, although on one occasion a few years ago, one of the huge black woodpeckers perched in a tree at the edge of our yard long enough for me to see him.
It is damp and rainy and cloudy today, although it has not rained much to speak of. It sprinkled all night, too, but I could hardly see any water in the bottom of Charlie's food dish this morning, and when Isabelle walked along her path by the fence in her pasture, her feet turned over dry dirt underneath. This really does not bode well for our growing season. Time and again, the weather forecasters predict rain and rain and more rain -- but we only get a quarter of an inch (if we're lucky) out of what has been predicted to be a "rain event" with "torrential rain." I talked to a store clerk on Friday who said it is even drier yet up north of here, where her son lives. On the two occasions this spring when we got a quarter of an inch, they got nothing, she said.
As my dad used to say, "We can't make it rain. We wish we could, but we can't."
Too bad other parts of the country that get more rain than they need can't send some of it this way!
LeAnn R. Ralph
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