Sunday, April 18, 2010

Willow Moon: Weep Gently, Rise Lightly

The fruit trees arrived in the mail on Friday, with perfect timing. I got a late start heading north on Saturday morning and swung by my folks' to walk the grounds and help scope out sites. They found good spaces for the three plums and two pears just north and south (east) of the sauna, respectively, with the two sour cherries going in just a little west of there, in the field to the south of the house. The two cider apples, and two others on order, will live in the back garden yard, occupying some fertile ground behind the pole barn.

Following the instructions that accompanied the trees, each one got nice 2x2 foot hole, a generous dressing of composted manure, a good soaking and a protective cover of mulch that Dad had chipped up from last year's garden leavings. The trees themselves were all in good shape, 3-4 feet tall and about 5/8 in diameter or so, nicely branching. The cherries were starting to leaf out already, the rest still just beginning to bud. Only one substitution was made--a Superior plum for the Underwood, which was quite all right since I'd been on the fence between those two, anyway (with the former being at the top of last year's list).

Mom and Dad got all those trees in the ground Saturday afternoon, while I took a pear tree and traveled further north to spend the day with my dear sister, who I see not nearly enough, helping her finish work on the lovely tile mosaic she'd pieced together for their "master" bath. As it turns out, free-form mosaic work is not the most, um, straightforward of endeavors...it's much like putting together a jigsaw puzzle that's been mixed up in a box with six other puzzles, but with half of the pieces removed... Looking forward to seeing it on the wall next time I'm there.

wind-borne heart

Sunday I put in a few hours at my folks' in the afternoon and evening, weeding the front garden and coaxing the turtle out of hibernation. With the early Spring and unseasonably warm weather, Dad's been able to get the gardens cleared (during which he uncovered a full rabbit nest near the garage. Boo.) and chipped for mulch (no, not the bunnies!), and the back garden's already tilled. The front garden still needs to be turned over with the broadfork, since we're continuing the no-till approach there, but we didn't make a lot of headway on that... Instead Mom got the cilantro bed cleared of every last weed and then helped Dad get the potatoes planted in back, while I scoured the turtle, planted some of last year's blessed thistle offerings, corralled some rogue chamomile and scattered some old packages of dill. The clover I planted in the paths has come in nicely, if a little aggressively (going to have to keep that in check), and there's now a pretty green turtle body to be seen (I'd have snapped a photo but I was too dirty). My plan is to bomb the center with orange and yellow Calendula and Bachelor's Buttons this year, and get that shell painted.

Birds are out all over the place. Mom and I caught sight of the cedar wax-wing, among others.

As usual, we ended up working til sundown and sharing a late and cobbled-together meal. I left for home with a handful of fresh asparagus spears, my rosemary and my bay laurel, four boxes of composted manure, two fruit trees, the old reel lawn mower, a nice hammock stand and a working sun roof (oh joy! thanks to my brother-in-law) or rather moon roof, through which that lovely crescent, whose dark side has been so beautifully visible lately, smiled down on my tired head as the sounds of some good old-time radio theater kept me company on the drive home, where I returned to find my bee hive had arrived. A rather surprisingly sweet weekend.

above the light


1 comment:

Cosmic Monkey said...

Beautiful. Hey, free form mosaic with 200 pound "tile" is what I do all day...it is no piece of cake, I tell ya. Weird, the verification code is "emalli", for real!