• Tag Archives asparagus
  • Workin’

    Beltane                                                                       Beltane Moon

    Flagged off my Latin tutor for this Friday.  Bees, garden, retreat, finishing Missing combined to soak up my good work time.  To do well at the Latin I have to have a full day; it takes me awhile to turn on the neural network that recognizes cases, remembers Ovid’s peculiarities and enjoys the play of connotation and denotation.  Once I get in that place, which may take as much as a morning, then I can translate faster, with more facility.  But.  I need that unbroken time.  Just the way I work.

    Rain kept me out of the garden last Thursday so I’ve got to out there right now and plant potatoes and chard.  The garden’s looking good, daffodils and tulips, bleeding heart and hosta, pachysandra and maiden-hair ferns greeting the strawberry blossoms, the asparagus spears, the green shafts of the allium family:  onion, shallot, garlic and the small leaves of the emerging beets.

    Today, too, is another round in the Can I keep Gertie in the yard game?  I added another wire and plan yet more moves.  I’m smarter; she’s more persistent.  An equal match so far.


  • And Yet More Planting

    Beltane                                                           Waxing Last Frost Moon

    Cherokee Trail of Tears.  Hutterite.  Soup beans and green beans.  Vidalia onions from sets grown in Georgia.  Purple passion and white asparagus.  Three varieties of tomatoes.  Golden beets.  Pretty much the last of this year’s non-succession planting.  Mark’s been a big help, letting Kate and I focus on the things we do best.  One or two things remain: cucumber, gourds, but they’re delayed right now.  So Artemis Hives and Gardens has all the bees in their colonies, early and post-frost vegetables plants in the ground and daffodils and tulips and our magnolia providing color.  The fruit tree’s buds have swollen; the currants have fully leafed out; the quince has its bright red flowers; the gooseberry plants are in a new home with more sun and Kate has planted shade lovers in the spots where the gooseberries were.

    Left to figure out.  What crop(s) to grow in the hydroponics during the summer.  How to take good care of the fruit trees and their produce.  Succession dates for the rest of the growing season.  Mulching and pruning.  Weeding.

    My object list for my Thursday early evening Love, Sex and Scandal tour:  Venus figurine, The Singer Su Hsia0-Hsia0, Theseus Killing the Centaur, Bacchante and Satyr,  Mlle. Lange as Danae, Lucretia, The Little Girl, The Living Room.  This group wanted edgy.  This tour will qualify.

    Late to bed last night, a great day today so I planted in the am, but I still need to do Latin.  Not so easy with a fuzzy head.  Probably nap time.


  • A Good Day

    Samhain                                     Full Dark Moon

    Rigel and Vega spent much of the day defending us from visiting neighborhood dogs.  Of course, thanks to our record setting fence-lines no battle could be joined, but jaw-boning was much in evidence.  This evening they came in, flopped down on the couch and went to sleep.  That is except for the show on birth and babies in the animal kingdom.  Rigel turned her head toward the TV and watched a mule-deer born, penguins enfolding their single chicks and musk-ox turn to face down the white wolves of the Arctic.  Would loved to have been inside her head.

    Kate worked outside today, weeding the blue-berry patches and other parts of the orchard.  The good news is the clover has become established and has choked out the weeds.  The bad news is that the clover threatens to choke out the blue-berries.  Sigh.  She is only two weeks out from her procedure tomorrow.  Amazing.

    Our defended (defenced?) vegetable garden can now be worked without fear that a Rigel or a Vega will come along later and try to emulate any digging I might have done.  Their work is not up to my exacting standards.  The last greens came out today with the exception of some Swiss Chard that still has vitality.  All that’s left in the garden now are strawberry plants, asparagus, garlic, parsnip and carrots.  The first two are perennials, the latter three crops from this year that can stay in the ground for a while, carrots, or need to over winter, the parsnip and garlic.

    I couldn’t bring myself to patch the damage from the dogs.  It is quite extensive and I find myself reactive when I work on it.  It will keep until next spring.

    Then of course there was the Vikings-Packer game.  Our defense had a bit of a let down late in the third quarter and the first part of the fourth, but they played brilliantly otherwise.  So did Favre.  At one point a Packer named Jennings fell on the Viking sideline very near Favre.  Favre’s concern and his action, bending down to see how Jenning’s was, moved me.  He seems to genuinely care for his team mates both current and former.  He also plays like a little boy, jumping and waving his arms, picking up players who’ve just scored a touchdown.

    After the game he had an interview in which he spoke warmly of the Packers and the fans there.  It was a mature and sensitive moment.

    It’s fun to see him play as a Viking.  Didn’t think I’d feel that way, but I do.