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  • A Force of Nature

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Spring                                                              Bee Hiving Moon

    In these months, when I go to bed, the full moon shines in our bedroom window.  It keeps me awake sometimes, gazing at it, feeling it, absorbing the ancient wisdom it offers.  All those prayers and hopes and wishes flung its way over the millennia.

    The last two nights the full bee hiving moon has lit up the magnolia.  Its white blossoms have begun to droop and fall away but in the glow of the moon its fire blazes up again, a quiet torch illuminating the dark.

    It’s cherry blossom time too.  One of our cherries blossomed yesterday afternoon,

    Kate has been pruning, weeding, clearing away debris as I visited the eye doc, did tours and today worked on Latin.  She’s a full gardener now with her own expertise tied to her energy, her wonderful work.  She gets a lot done.  A lot.  And always comes inside with a sense of having left it all in the orchard or the vegetable garden or among the perennials.

    Meanwhile I’ve kept glaucoma in check, showed objects related to communication and swept through 14 verses of Metamorphoses, Book III.  Work in its way, of course, but I can’t say I prosecute it with the same vigor as Kate.  She’s a force of nature, out in nature.

    Mickman’s comes on Monday to start up our irrigation system.  We need the water to support the veggies that we plant.  Especially in this drought.  On Wednesday when I went to the eye doc I stopped by Mother Earth Gardens, across from the Riverview Theatre.

    We now have four six packs of leeks, one of shallots, one of green onions and pots of rosemary, cilantro and basil.  The last couple of years I’ve started these myself, but not this year.  They won’t go in the ground until Sunday or Monday, so they can get watered right from the start.

    Lots of tasks now:  clean the air conditioner, clean out the bee hives, install our new fire pit, cut down a few trees that impinge on other activities.  Some of them involve the chainsaw, so I’m happy.

     


    📂This entry was posted in Faith and Spirituality Family Garden Great Wheel 📎and tagged

  • Changing Seasons

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Spring                                               New (Bee Hiving) Moon

    We are now over three months away from the Winter Solstice.  The spring equinox has come and gone, yet our yard still has snow, maybe 5 0r six inches, more in spots where the snow plow moved our many snow falls to the side of the driveway.  In the orchard the snow has begun to melt around the apple, pear, cherry and plum trees.  The currants have no snow around them at all and the huchera is free of snow, too.  Those gooseberry plants I didn’t move last fall are still in the orchard, but their destination is the sunny slope of our 650-orchard-late-summer-2010_0175third garden tier.

    I have a sizable number of trees with broken branches, many large ones.  They will have to be cut down and moved.  The chain saw!

    As soon as the soil becomes workable, I’ll get the cold weather crops in the ground, something I’ve not done so well in the last three years.  The bees will move into their new homes in the orchard where I hope the protection of the garage on their north/northwest side and the sunny aspect of the southern exposure will help them in the winter.  They will be closer to the house, which may prove to be a problem.  If so, they’ll have to go elsewhere next year.

    In the spring this man’s heart turns to the garden, the bees, the trees.  I’ve been preparing my body for spring, but I’m a bit 650-raspberries-late-summer-2010_0199further behind than I thought I’d be.  The resistance work has taken a while to work its way into my exercise cycle, but it’s there now.

    Learning the language of plants, flowers and vegetables, is a life-long pursuit.  Another school year begins in just a few weeks.


    📂This entry was posted in Bees Garden permaculture Weather +Climate 📎and tagged