Planting time

This is the time of year I love and hate the most. I have always loved dirt. Even as a kid I was not the little girl playing with the dolls. I was the little girl stealing the little boys trucks so I could play in the dirt. And that is what I love about gardening, it is playing in the dirt and being rewarded for your efforts.
I can't say much for the condition of my hands, dirt is rough on them because eventually I have to take my gloves off and feel what I am working with. And it is hard on my feet, because the shoes have to come off so I can feel the grass as I walk back and forth doing my various projects. 
But the rewards of blood, sweat and tears and yes there are tears, are great. From seemingly out of nowhere come hundreds of plants. Not only do I have perennial beds but I let nature have its way with my lawn. Creeping Veronica, bugle weed, sweet white violets bloom along with the dandelions. I mix flowers with vegetables and I let the pumpkin vines snake their way onto the lawn. My gardens are not planned, they do not stay the same from year to year. I view each and every plant as a piece of furniture or artwork meant to be moved in order to create a more pleasant and comfortable view. Although I can and do appreciate gardens that hours have been spent in the planning and execution of I like, no love, the randomness of my gardens. I love the small creeping Veronica wending its way from underneath a giant hosta. The bright blue of its flower contrasting with the variegated greens, bright lime green or deep blue green of the hostas. The daylilies I have gotten when they were nothing but side shoots off a mother plant thrown into a basket like unopened packages. Unlabeled, unknown, a game of patience in which the reward has been flowers of yellow, peach, red, and all colors inbetween. The blooms ranging from small and delicate to large and gaudy. Some with fragrance and some without. But all the more special because they were all unexpected.
This is the time of year where my senses overload. I want to see all the colors, look at the contrast between plants, feel the textures. Gardening in a sensory pleasure. It is not just visual. It is the fragrance of the lilacs on a warm breeze. The prick of the thorn of a rose. The textured ribbing on a hosta leaf.  I want to hold it, embrace it, close my eyes and see the paths, hear the sound of the water, the chatter of the swallows as they swoop down from the sky feasting on bugs. 
And soon enough the growing season will be over. And I will be happy. I will enjoy the apples, pumpkins and even turnips. Knowing that I have spent an amazing time watching blossoms and seeds and every day dirt become more than they were.
I will be tired of weeding, watering and heat. I will be ready for soups, breads and a fire burning in the furnace. But sometime between the last frost and first snow I will start dreaming about my gardens. I will spend the winter watering and caring for my 'alternative' garden, the many houseplants that sustain me during the cold winter months while I wait out another year anxious for planting time to come again.
 

My 'birds'

I have one of the best views right from my bedroom window. I can see a part of the dirt road I live on and I can see my gardens. Okay sometimes its not the best view looking down because then I realize how much work I have yet to do on my gardens. But right now even with the gardens needing a lot of attention my view is great. And the reason for this is swallows and robins.
A few years ago I started being gifted tools. I call them my 'girl' tools because they are scaled down versions of some tools/machinery that can be fairly large. I have a small drill press that sits on a counter top. They make huge drill presses that could not even fit in my cellar. So slowly over the past few years I have been gifted lots of tools and/or machinery. I got my hubby an air compressor he got me an air nail gun. And so it goes.
Of course the one drawback is I really don't know how to use most of this stuff. I may be married to a carpenter and know how to hammer a nail but actually figuring out and using stuff that could possibly hurt back? Nope, hadn't done that.
But I found that instead of trying to start out large, like building a chest of drawers, start small. Birdhouses are small. Birdhouses come in a variety of styles and can be embellished upon. They also teach you the first lessons of cutting straight lines, learning angles and how to nail things together that need two set of hands to hold all the pieces. They also can be made with a variety of scrap wood so you don't need a big investment there.
The first birdhouse design I stumbled upon was totally different. A birdhouse with only 3 sides. A kind of 'shelf' birdhouse for birds that prefer not being in an enclosed box. Robins being and example. So I struggled through and made 3 of them. I hung them in various, suggested locations around the yard and the birds ignored them. I swear I heard laughter from them.  So much for that.
I tried again this past winter. I made swallow houses. A bit more complicated. But overall they came out well. I made 3 but only had 2 poles to mount them on. I figured even if the damn birds didn't like them, they added a bit of art to the garden. So I got them on the poles and attached them to our fence. Then a miracle occurred. A pair of swallows came and started looking at one of the houses. Then they moved in!
When I look out my bedroom window in the morning I can see the male hanging off the front of the birdhouse busy feeding bugs to his mate. This is thrilling and what adds to it is one of those silly 'shelf' birdhouses about 25' away is occupied by a robin. I got birds!!!
It is an amazing feeling to watch these beautiful birds swoop and dive across our front lawn. I get to spend a season with them. That in one word is 'awesome'. 
They don't seem to mind me wandering about as I do my yard work. I am probably helping both sets of birds with stirring up the bugs for the swallows and mucking about in the dirt gets the other bugs and worms moving for the robins.
There are days when I think, 'this is the best time of my life.' I have found that in the balance of my life, the best times do out weigh the worse. But it isn't a balancing act. It's just life. As my little grandma would say (& this is paraphrasing), stop and see the sunset. Don't just look at it. See the clouds, the colors, feel the air. See the sunset. Like I see this dirt road, the same, different, changing, staying the same. Now that I have walked it, I see it, I no longer just look at it. And what a difference that makes.

At last...

Well things are finally looking like spring. It seems to have taken forever this year for the plants to start popping.
The creek that runs by my dirt road has bright green skunk cabbage now lining it's banks. The trees have lost their blossoms or catkins and the wonderfully small, perfectly forms leaves are starting to appear. From a distance the hills surrounding this area look 'misty' with the different shades of spring greens that is now visible.
Trilliums in both white and red are blooming in the woods are as the tiny, yellow dog-tooth violet. The viburnum lantanoides is also flowering in the woods. It is a small woody, bush like plant with white flowers. In fact my 'picture' is one that I took of a plant that grows on the side of my dirt road.
It is not only the plants and trees that are starting to come to their own on the dirt road but it is also our yard.
The hubby and I have already put in many hours cutting down and digging up various things. I have the usual tulips and daffodils blooming but there is also lungwort and lenten rose. The red Japanese maple is starting to unfurl its leaves and the Henry Lauder walking stick has long catkins, like tassel decorations hanging from its lovely twisted branches.
The early planting of turnips and peas is starting to show little seedlings and the tomato plants are growing bigger every day down in the greenhouse. Now is also the time to start my pumpkins, squashes and gourds. I planted one batch of potatoes yesterday and have 2 more varieties to go in today. 
I will walk around my gardens with pad in hand and blackflies swarming to make notes of what needs to be done. I did get my birdhouses up finally and may be rewarded with a swallow family. There were a couple showing interest. I got the hummingbird feeders up a little later than usual but they seem to have forgiven me and I have seen both male and female feeding. 
How can you not forget the rest of the world and all the problems there in when you walk out to the quiet of my road. The simple beauty of the woods, the sounds of stream and wildlife. I suppose this is way the world should be. We should all be able to choose whether we live on a quiet back water dirt road in a little town or an apartment in a busy city. 
But I admit my friends the ugly part of the world invades this dirt road too. The hubby and I participated this past weekend in Green Up Vermont. We walked from the west end of the road to the east end. Now over the past year I have made it my goal to try to pick up the trash that people with less conscience  throw out their vehicle windows. Still there were 2 tires that people actually had to make an effort to get out of their vehicles to dispose of and the numerous beer cans and bottles. There are the occasional soda can or ice tea bottle, but beer seems to be the favorite. But what was most disheartening was finding needles. We found 4 needles, used, in one spot. Somebody was shooting up there. You could tell by the debris in the area that the needles had been used there. Not for taking insulin but another drug. Fortunately we had a quart size beer bottle with cap and were able to dispose of the needles without danger to ourselves or others. But it is a sad story to tell. My little bubble, my little piece of heaven has really been tainted. 
But my faith has not. The flowers are still blooming and the trees leafing out. This will continue long after me and the person with the drug habit. And most like I will still be enjoying it long after they are gone. They see their world in a needle. That is truly the sad part of the story.

A dirt road dinner

In recent months our community has been offering a once a month community dinner held in the basement of the local church. This is a 'free' dinner with contributions taken. We have 2 main women that are our cooks (Sandy and Heidi, thank you). The dinners are not fancy but well done. Ham, beans, coleslaw & bread or tonight, spaghetti, sauce, meatballs, salad and bread. Good quality, filling food. Dessert is provide by several of the diners. Cookies to cakes every piece sweet and delicious.
The people gathering are as varied in personality as can be. There is one older woman who as a young girl taught school right next door at what use to be the one room school house. It now serves as our town office but back in the day this woman taught 6 grades in one small building. She brings with her one of the oldest town residents her friend of many years, Pearl. A woman whose sisters names were like jewels in the family crown.
Then there were our neighbors John and Treah. We were informed tonight they are putting their house on the market. Selling up to move closer to family. Fortunately their family is only about an hour or so away in MA so they won't be going far. But the realization that they had live next door for 13 years and we didn't really know them hit hard. It's part of the isolation some of us have chosen living on a dirt road. You can know your neighbor on 3 levels. Not at all, barely and friends. We never got beyond barely (thought we had a few more years) and I realize tonight that it is our loss. As we sat there and talked and laughed I realized how much I actually like these people and now they are moving. I guess that is the part about getting older is sometimes you move to either be closer to or get away from you family. We moved to VT because we liked the state but also because we realized we didn't want to live too close to our families. Close enough to visit but not on a daily basis.
So hopefully the summer will show the house off to its full advantage and a buyer will be quickly found. One who likes dirt roads and quiet neighbors. 
But during our conversation tonight Treah gave me an idea for a book title, 'My memories of Vermont, I think'. I was telling them stories and she said I should get them down in book form before the dementia set in. Being polite I thanked her. Before it sets in? Some days it does feel like it is visiting. But I think it will be awhile yet before I have to worry about it. Actually I want to be one of those old ladies that people whisper, 'She's as sharp as a tack, but watch out for that cane. She'll trip you.' That will be me over in the corner sticking my cane out to watch people go ass over teakettle to the floor. And I will politely mumble my apologies. I won't need the cane but I will have one.
So maybe the next step in the blog journey is to start another blog with that extraordinary  title, 'My memories of Vermont, I think.' Yep, another part of this dirt road to travel on. 
Tomorrow is my hubby and my day to celebrate Mother's Day which is Sunday. We plan a full and long day. This tradition came about due to my hubby's involvement in a prison ministry for about 18 yrs. Every year his group ended up giving the service that fell on Mother's Day. So we start ed celebrating it a day early because I would be spending a good portion of that day alone. Face it with kids its a card and a kiss if your lucky and then they are off to their own lives. They may be in the same house as you but a not spending time with you. They have done there duties as children and therefore must find things that amuse them and not you. And now that they are grown and off living their own lives they usually just remember Mom when the need something. And only for Mother's Day if you remind them that it's coming up and a card would be nice.
So tomorrow in annual celebration of Mother's Day (I should explain hubby doesn't do the prison ministry anymore but we liked our tradition too much to give it up) we will start by participating in Green Up Day. We have the brightly colored trash bags in hand and we will police our street east to west or west to east and pick up the trash. Next we will probably go to Walkers on Rte 5 outside of Brattleboro. My favorite nursery. This is the time for quality bonding with plants. Then there is the southern side of Rte. 5 down by Greenfield which contains another of my passions, soft serve ice cream. Townline is the name of the place and it has the Capp Family #1 rating. Finally on the list is something a little more somber. Replacement of the flags on the veterans graves at both our local cemeteries. The job come from my hubby being the chair of the Cemetery Commission. And I think it is a fitting end to my Mother's Day. A mother placing the flags on the graves of the brave children of this country. Some who fought and died for our freedoms and some who were lucky enough to come home and celebrate Mother's Day for many years with their own mothers. I also love these old cemeteries so I don't mind this job at all.
So that is it from the dirt road on this fine spring day. Love your moms, enjoy your neighbors and keep and eye out for my yet unwritten, unpublished new best seller, 'My memories of Vermont, I think.' I do love that title.

When the shad are in bloom

A shad is not only a fish but a type of tree. I learned this many years ago from a couple named Rita and Joe. The one thing Joe loved as much as Rita was fishing. And when the shad tree is blooming the shad fish are said to be running.
I don't remember how I first met this couple. I do remember the boys were both young and our friendship grew through a mutual love of the local flea market.
When my kids were both young the flea market was a great place to go early on a Sunday morning. In a small field located just north of Newfane on Rte. 35, vendors and dealers would set up to sell their wares every Sunday from May to October. This was a ritual of ours. When you don't have a lot of money a flea market can be a gold mine. This was before the days were every item more than 20 yrs old became an antique and worth a fortune. This was a place where you could buy books, socks, used toys and a variety of other things for a very low cost. You could give your kids a couple of dollars and they thought they were rich and had the best time going from vendor to vendor looking for the right deal.
Our particular favorite was 'the plastic man'. Every Sunday his crew would unload cardboard box after cardboard box from a large truck, setting them up in neat rows on the ground. They would be filled with crayons, bubbles, coloring books, kitchen items, tape, envelopes, box after box of surprises like Christmas morning.  The crew had on canvas carpenter aprons which served as their cash registers and plastic bags tucked under the tie strings. Everything was affordable and it was all amazing. You did your shopping there just like you were going to Wal-Mart. I knew the vendors I could afford and those I could not. I could buy my family socks from one lady, I could get fresh produce at one stand and I even had one man make me a special mirror frame which is still hanging in my house today.
Anyway, Rita and I would walk back and forth through the different rows of vendors while the boys ran ahead looking for those special things that little boys love. Rita would tell me about her life with Joe. The house they lived in with the driveway steep and turning that only a Vermonter would consider having. 
I remember they spent time out in the desert during World War II in a trailer while Joe served in the Army. There was her sister (whose name I can't remember) and her husband that would drive up from MA to visit some Sundays and go to the flea market.
Joe and Rita were well into their 70's when I first met them. Their love for each other as obvious as the many lines and wrinkles on both their faces. Joe got cancer and they eventually stopped coming to the flea market. And within a year or so Joe died. Rita sold their trailer which they had moved into after selling their house and property and moved to MA to be closer to family. She wrote me a couple of times but I in the folly of youth was too busy with my life to answer her cards. I deeply regret that now. 
Still, every spring when the shad blooms both my hubby and I say to each other 'Joe and Rita'. 
They are a lasting memory. So here's to Joe and Rita, the shad running and the shad blooming.

Dreamland

I woke up early this morning, even 4:30 a.m. is early by dirt road standards. What woke me up other than my 15 year old mix breed Gracie's cough, were dreams. Now this past weekend my hubby and I had worked hard on the landscape of our yard. Every now and again one of us comes up with a brilliant idea to change something and that leads to the domino effect.
I am sure you have all done it. You start with one project which leads to another, then another and yet another. So even the simplest of projects becomes complicated.
It started last fall with a decision 2 years in the making. We had a lovely mulberry tree in our front yard. Over the years it had grown quite large and we had successfully pruned it back fairly hard once. My hubby had come to the conclusion it was time for the tree to go. I took a little longer. It sat in the center of a well established perennial bed. In fact they had both been planted some 25 years ago. But even though the bed was still thriving I had to admit the tree was not. Most people think that trees have an indefinite lifespan. Unfortunately they don't. Their span on this world may be longer than ours or it may be shorter. In this case it was time to remove the mulberry before it became a problem. It was already showing signs of going down that road and after 2 years I was finally able to say we could cut it down.
In early winter of last year we did the major portion of cutting the tree down. Leaving behind a good portion of the main trunk so in the spring we could pull the remaining 'body' of the tree out.
Well that happen a couple of weeks ago. And that was man against all odds type of story. A truck leaking fluids, chainsaws not running, mud, all the elements of a weird thriller.
But it was the removal of that stump that really started the dominoes to fall. First all the plants had to be removed safely to a nearby tarp, stump dug out and dirt on another tarp, stump pulled and removed to another section of yard. Okay we are cooking with gas now. Well then there is the 2 week waiting period for the area to dry out so that just means puttering around the yard for me. Hubby is on hiatus. Then we start to go crazy. 
Well we had this 5 arborvitae next to our walkway near the mulberry bed that had grown quite a bit. Now with the mulberry gone the balance was off. Another decision to be made. In the meanwhile lets move the 6 ft. tall smoke bush from the front of the mudroom out into the main garden. Decision made on arborvitae, move 'em. Then fill in hole from mulberry removal. Move Japanese maple from old location to where mulberry was. Start putting perennials back into bed. Redo rock edging. Oh my, there are still more perennials, how did that happen??? 
And in the midst of this is the constant raking and cleaning up of debris. I am fortunate to have a hubby who is good at digging things up while I do most of the clean up. So it was a long strenuous weekend for us older folk. Then I wake up this morning after (of course) dreaming about all that work (I ache!) to the thought of taking a few of the plants, mostly daffodils and daylilys (the common 'ditch' variety) and sharing them. Not in the sense of dropping them anonymously on peoples front lawns but taking a few and planting them down by my mailbox and taking a few more and planting them by our street sign on the west end of the road. (No place for them on the east end.) 
This thought occurred to me not only because there are many plants but because this coming weekend, May 7th, is Green Up Day in Vermont. Since I started walking on this dirt road a little over a year ago it became obvious that some people don't care about where their trash lands. When you drive down a road in a car you can ignore the problem a little easier. So last year for the first time since my kids were in elementary school I and my hubby joined in on Green Up Day. We pulled out five bags of trash (bottles, cans, plastic goods), 1 rusting a partially stripped mini-bike and six tires. And that was only on 1 mile of road. I have been stopping and picking up trash ever since. I would like to say I don't expect it to be as bad as last year but we are doing 2 miles of road this year and I have noticed a section out a Rte. 35 right by our road that looks like someone just drives up and down the road throwing out beer cans. 
I would like to be a cockeyed optimist and think if people could just take care of a small stretch of road and that would make a world of difference. Just in front of their house, or some area that they walk. But it seems people as individuals seem to think they can't make that kind of difference. I think I can, I think anyone can. There is a lot less trash on my road. I can't stop the idiots who throw it out but I can pick it up. And I can take some of my flowers, plant them by a street sign and maybe put a smile on somebodies face when they drive by and see them in bloom. And I will do this as long as I am able. 
I know it is a little thing in a big world. But it is what I can do, so I will. And if you my dear 'cult' followers or anyone else who reads this blog takes a moment to do something that somehow makes you feel a little better then do it. 
Now, I need to take a walk down my dirt road and scope out those 2 planting spots. It's suppose to rain this week and that is the best time to move plants around. I want to take advantage of nature and it's helping hand.
You know I did title this 'Dreamland'.  My dream was me planting flowers, now how weird was that?

Words

Words flit, fly, float, crash and burn. They go from the top of my head sliding through my veins to my toes. Then they swim back trying to find my fingers to either tap themselves free on my laptop or flow out of my pen or to find voice and be heard.
I love the written word. Books on murder and mayhem, biographies, history, romances even the occasional ode or limerick. But most of all I love how words can transport you somewhere or describe some one or some thing you have never seen. How they make you think about the world and life around you or how they just take you to a world of someone else's imagination.
It is a much harder craft than you would think to sit down and put pen to paper or fingers to keyboard and describe what you want people to see. 
How do you describe fog rising from a beaver pond or the ripple of the water as a goose paddles by?
Sometimes its just a sentence, a few words strung together that are repeated over and over in my head until another sentence joins it and then another. Before you know it I have to get it down, release those words from me. There are times I read what I have written and I am glad for the delete key. Other times I am rather proud and I hit the 'publish post' key. 
For the most part I want to share this little piece of Vermont. Granted I don't want hundreds of hikers walking up and down my road but that actually happening seem slim to none. 
I just have always wanted to be able to write something. And technology has given me a chance I would have not had otherwise. Laptops, blogs, in my bed or sitting on the couch, I (in a sense) have it all. 
'The dirt road crunching softly beneath my black soled hiking boot' that is the sentence stuck in my head right now. Guess I better head outside for a walk down that dirt road and see if I can find another sentence or two to go along with it. But first I'll just tap 'publish post'.