Zombie fish! Tuesday, Dec 16 2014 

gardening , acairfearann 11:15

Because we didn’t have enough going on… a check of the fish pond yesterday revealed a rather horrid sight: about eight of the large goldfish looking very dead indeed with the rest apparently heading that way.  We pulled out the dead ones and put them in a bucket (with no water, they were dead after all), pulled the heater as a possible suspect, and consulted with a local fish expert.

This resulted in a reorganizing of the afternoon to go and get an air pump for the pond (it has been running with simply the waterfall as the oxygen source for about a decade) since the consensus was low oxygen levels, likely caused by too many leaves.*

The air pump was installed a few hours later. Remember those fish in the bucket? Still sitting there by the pond? One of them twitched. So the bucket of dead fish was put back into the pond. Several dead fish promptly swam off.  As of this morning only two of those ‘dead’ fish are still lying in the shallows looking dead. Another is looking ill, but the rest seem to be swimming about.  I think we will wait a bit to determine the actual death count.

Apparently, asphyxiated fish in cold weather are the opposite of drowned people in cold weather.  The person isn’t dead till they are warm, dry, and still dead. It would seem fish aren’t dead until they are wet and still dead.  Or something. Not an experiment we are going to repeat.

 

*Usually the leaves are removed, for a number of very good reasons that just didn’t happen this fall. Now that we know that it really is important to do it, its priority will be bumped up for future years.

 

dartboard! Sunday, Dec 14 2014 

gardening and Landscapes and Uncategorized , acairfearann 20:37

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Otherwise known as your random photo of the day. Hard to believe that there is a busy two lane road out there!

Norway spruces for the most part, the tree in the front/left is a young redbud. What is funny is that until I was looking at this picture just now, I hadn’t seen the strong diagonal of those spruce trunks…I’ll have to give that some consideration. Lines make a garden!

 

 

The beauty of old houses Friday, Dec 12 2014 

gardening , acairfearann 22:16

for gardeners. Aside from the Christmas cactus that have blooming since October and will continue through January; the house is also cold enough and dark enough in areas to allow jasmine to set buds. Not quite ready to bloom yet, but almost. The buds, which stated as miniscule green points, having lengthened. They are now long white spirals, picture a unicorn’s horn, reaching towards the light. There is no fragrance yet, but there will be, subtle and rich.

We still haven’t quite figured out how to prune them for shape; but considering the difficulty of getting them to set flower…

The trick is to put them outdoors during the summer, and then keep them outside until the first frost. They then need forties to fifties and natural daylight for flower set.  No turning the lights on at night! Not easy to do in most houses. But an old, rambling house? That works.

 

Old and new Wednesday, Dec 10 2014 

gardening and Landscapes , acairfearann 20:20

The old red maple beyond the garden, one of the few survivors from the original early 1800’s line, has a precarious life. It split many years ago and now exists as a carefully balanced, dancing, tree. Someday it will fall. And someday the two young beeches which bracket it will fill the space, now far larger than those little two foot tall, struggling saplings that I transplanted many years ago. For now the old maple rises above the golden beeches still.

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The Old Redbud Friday, Nov 28 2014 

gardening and Modern Photos , , , acairfearann 20:50

Still hanging in there!

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Six months Saturday, Nov 22 2014 

gardening acairfearann 19:06

to this…..seems a bit long!

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But there are a lot of projects to get done inside in the meantime. Not much more that can be done outside. The ground is frozen and the wind is hunting hard across the forest.

 

Thanksgiving Dinner? Saturday, Nov 15 2014 

gardening and Modern Photos , acairfearann 20:17

Hard to believe that forty years ago, turkeys were locally extinct in Connecticut. This is part of our local bachelor band, nine in total this year.

and not dinner!

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First Snow! Friday, Nov 14 2014 

gardening and Landscapes and Trees , acairfearann 10:25

About two fluffy, sticky inches likely to be gone by evening. Very pretty. (remind me of that in March…) Driving home from a meeting last night, just as it was turning from rain to snow, was gorgeous: cut crystals in the headlights.

What is distinctly odd about it though is that we actually have not had a killing frost yet. But I am glad that we spent time alternately mulching into the lawn and raking up leaves yesterday.  We are trying a new tactic on leaves this year. Instead of collecting them with the lawnmower, we are running the lawnmower with the leaf catcher attachment, but no bags, spreading the cut leaves far and wide as we go.*  There actually is a noticeable difference to the feel of the North Lawn* where we have done this: all those oak and magnolia leaves are back on the lawn in little pieces and it is definitely springier/softer, even in another year of nasty fall drought. The question is whether it will work with the denser ginkgo leaves, we shall see next spring.  It is much better than taking dozens of bags of leaves off the lawn each year.  Maybe it will even slow the appalling subsidence of the lawn!

 

*I am pondering whether the pipe could rotated a bit so it makes a better rooster tail and wider spread….

**The North Lawn is dominated by two full sized Black oaks, two Cucumber Magnolias (one at full size), a good sized Tulip tree, a mature ginkgo, and three young trees: elm, maple, and beech. There are A lot of leaves.

 

The muse Monday, Nov 10 2014 

gardening , acairfearann 18:10

has left the building or something. So you are stuck with a picture again. This time a set of highly confused Christmas cacti blooming like mad. Naturally, they will be done by Thanksgiving, which is when there are guests this year. Grrr.

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Seasons change Wednesday, Nov 5 2014 

gardening and Landscapes and Modern Photos , , acairfearann 23:03

Hard to believe that this:

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Was this back in June!

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