Is it Just me? Wednesday, Jul 3 2013 

gardening acairfearann 16:33

Or is summer flying past this year? The hostas are blooming, at least the big white ones are, the standard hosta is about to, assuming I get around to spraying it for deer…. The Phlox has set its buds, as has the Joe-Pye weed, the wood aster, and probably (though I haven’t checked, the New England/New York asters). I don’t really associate flower buds on those until mid-July. It is a good thing I have stopped pinching them back a few weeks ago (usually you can pinch them back until the end of June/July 4th)! Not, I assure you, out of any prescience…just luck, laziness, and a lack of desire to garden in the rain. Still it seems that a lot of flowers have really raced through the growing season. No doubt to ensure that when we have a goodly group of guests at the end of August, the gardens look just as horrid as they can possibly manage.
On the other hand the vegetable garden is a bit of a damp squib, at least as far as tomatoes. Still chard tonight, snow peas last night, tomorrow lettuce. It isn’t all bad.

 

Run What You’ve Brung Tuesday, Jul 2 2013 

gardening and Landscapes , acairfearann 14:43

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Most gardeners do not have unlimited budgets, Esperanza is no exception. In this case, a decent display is created by an entirely untended, unplanted volunteer combination: the classic orange ditch lily and native elderberries. It won’t win any awards, but you know it doesn’t look bad filling in the distant background. And it didn’t cost anything!

 

Goldilocks rants Monday, Jul 1 2013 

Uncategorized acairfearann 17:10

I bet, if I trolled through the archive, I complained a great deal about it being too dry last year. Well, this year I am complaining about it being too wet.
My hay is rotting in the field, the roses are mush, the garden is mush, and every where there are mosquitoes. Oh, and turkeys. They are going to get a date with my friend who hunts turkeys. I am going to learn how. My bean patch is now full of four inch spikes (I knew that pile of apple branches would be handy!). I wouldn’t recommend falling on it. But, I can guarantee that the turkeys won’t be taking any more dust/mud baths in it.

 

The Problem of Trees Sunday, Jun 30 2013 

Trees , , acairfearann 13:15

I keep anticipating the sound of chainsaws over at our neighbours. They, like us, have large lawns and large old trees. Unlike us, they have not been at all lucky. We lost a few trees up by the house during the hurricane last year, but all but one were minor points in the landscape. Now down in the woods, near that old willow in the last post, it looks like a giant’s game of pick-up sticks: a set of black locusts going every which way (and all are hung). But those locusts were all exhbiting serious structural issues already. However, we haven’t* lost any of the trees on the lawn.
Our neighbours, however, have lost four sugar maples and big copper beech. None were outwardly problematic in their structure, but they were all about as big as they ought to get. I have some theories, unproven of course.
First: spacing, trees are evolved to work together. Their roots are intertwined, and if their canopies touch it would stand to reason that the wind loads are, if not less, at least distributed. Extremely wide spacing forces them to stand and fall alone. The trees on our lawn are much more closely spaced, creating a high closed canopy.
Secondly: competitive growth. One of the more interesting points a state forester mentioned to me once was the Sugar Maples are designed to grow in a dense forest situation. Put them in a full sun situation and they can grow too big, too full, and too fast overtaxing the strength of their wood and their roots. It stands to reason that certain other tree species might be better adapted to standing alone; anything requiring full sun to get started, or evolved to handle fire, or perhaps flooding?
Lastly: over-fertilization. Our neighbours fertilize their lawn, heavily, the previous owners never did. This also helps create lush growth in the trees. But, it would seem to me, if the tree is already as big as it ought to get, mechanically, than a sudden spurt of heavy new growth, which catches the wind and the water, might just be too much.
Theories anyway. Probably half-baked.

*I know, I know I just jinxed us, we’ll get a storm tonight and down they’ll come.

 

The Old Willow Saturday, Jun 29 2013 

Julie's Pond and Modern Photos , acairfearann 15:48

Down below Julie’s Pond, there was a massive triple-trunk Black Willow. A few years ago, one trunk failed, during this year’s storms the other two finally went, first one and then the other in different storms. Each trunk was a solid 18 inch diameter, and they split off about 7 feet above the base. The ruined base made for a fun set of photos. For scale, the horizontal broken piece in the first photo was about 6 feet off the ground.

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On Spinning Wheels Thursday, Jun 27 2013 

Genealogy and Historical Events , acairfearann 09:57

A delightful excerpt from some recollections by Fanny (Frances) Smith, one of Julie Smith’s daughters, written around 1900-1910. Here she is talking about her paternal grandmother (mother of Morris Smith), Lucy Morris in the mid 1800’s, Hartford.

“I remember her very well, after dinner she used to come out of her bedroom in her grey silk dress and lace cap with purple ribbons, and bring out the dainty knitting she loved. There is a chair with a red knitted seat in the Esperanza keeping room I saw her work on. When she died there were linen sheets among her things which she had spun and woven. She said her mother was never satisfied unless there were three spinning wheels going in the house at once.”

I can’t think of what chair that might have been, unfortunately. And I don’t think the spinning wheel has any direct connection. Still a lovely picture.

 

Still on Roses Wednesday, Jun 26 2013 

gardening and Modern Photos , , acairfearann 09:48

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Untold Stories Tuesday, Jun 25 2013 

Historic Photos and Historical Events , , acairfearann 11:54

Sometimes one hits a set of photographs and would dearly like to know more, such is the case with these two from summer 1909.

Image one: a group of children who appear to be determined to sink a canoe. The children are mostly unidentified, the location is somewhere in Long Island Sound. I think that one of the women in white is Lucy Morris Creevey.

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Image two: a rowboat has appeared, manned by George Creevey (complete with ever present pipe and tie), the man in the water is probably Perry, all-round deckhand on the Mavourneen. The children appear to be being scolded, the canoe is nowhere in sight. However, it is clear the photo is taken only shortly after the other one, judging by the positions of the people on the diving platform (complete with slide, can you imagine the splinters!?)

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And then what? And what is Perry standing on???

 

Night Lights Monday, Jun 24 2013 

gardening , acairfearann 09:46

This has already been an odd summer, we had our last frost on the last weekend in May and the temperature yo-yo has continued.
However, it is definitely summer now. I saw, without really looking for them, a whole group of lightning bugs last night. Warm, still nights seem to be a requirement, so this constant wind has probably been a trial. As always, they prefer the west lawn and the meadow. I think they like being able to drift down out of the tulip and magnolia trees into the tall meadow grass. One of my hopes with keeping a section of the northwest lawn uncut is that it will help them. There are also a couple big clumps of goldrenrod in those areas. It certainly has become a favoured spot for the Phoebe, so there must be bugs!
They are lovely to watch, little points of light throughout the dark.

 

Moon light Sunday, Jun 23 2013 

Uncategorized acairfearann 11:44

Watching the full moon sail behind the big hemlock south of the house the other night. The moon was a gorgeous, pearl-coloured moon last night, and elegant even without the tree. Yet, adding the tree, whose top is quite open, gave something more to the image. The half-hidden or framed object also seems to be more interesting, it leads us to wonder what is beyond even when we know perfectly well what it is.

 

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