cantaloupe leaves harvesting rainwater

I think I will start a new category entitled "things I never noticed before. or if I did, I forgot"

 

 

 

Of his senility, my Daddy has sometimes remarked that the beauty of having no memory is that every discovery is new, and a fresh surprise all over again.
hmmmph, some trade-off.

Anyway, I knew that plant leaves collect dew, which can sustain them in times of drought, I just never saw them collect it so tidily as on these cantaloupe leaves.
A few minutes after this early morning photo, the sun warmed the hollow enough to send the droplets sliding down their little river-shaped veins, and into the channel down the center of the petiole, straight to the ground below.
I ran around the garden investigating, do the pumpkins do this? No. Not in this fashion, the dew was spread in droplets over the surface of the pumpkin leaves, as well as the tomato, potato, pepper and bean leaves. Guess they have other tricks, or the microclimate conditions where just not exactly the same, but only the cantaloupe leaves wore necklaces of dew.

doomed

While taking my morning wake up walk I found myself subconciously tallying up the estimated next few days death toll due to the impending freeze. We'll lose the little cherries so abundant on the tree, guess the plums are a gonner, too. Are the paw paws far enough along to abort? Will the baby nuts and seeds and berries all come crashing to the ground on the third morning, instead of rising from the dead? Will the drought make it so that this first try at reproduction be the final effort for the critter food crops for this year? My sister Mary says that it will drive some birds northward, where things aren't so far along.

Took some premortem memorial photos of wildflowers and brought in reams of lilacs from the bush to "stink up" though house right good.
After work today, must cover with row cover the spinach, lettuce, herbs, bring in the potted ferns, spread straw around the peas, bring in firewood, rustle up some kindling...whew! lotta work comes from screwed up weather.

Knowing Jack

One bad thing about getting intimate with jack in the pulpit is who they associate with...a lot of poison ivy. (bad company is dark green leaves in background of above photo)
This means you have to balance very gingerly while getting down with jack and remember not to put your hands on the ground to steady yourself.
If you do forget, then you have to try to remember not to put your hands to your face.

paw paw prolificacy

this is gonna be the year for paw paws! the trees are loaded with many, many blooms to the branch. This color is so mysterious and lovely to me, I have tried to duplicate in dying yarn, with no luck.

maybe I can try making paw paw wine this year!

wild winged wonders of the small kind

This year the vernal equinox was the most explosive transition between seasons I have ever experienced. Literally, the cherry was in tight bud one day, and full bloom the next. Swallowtails, honey bees, carpenter bees, beetles, ants and red wasps (my favorite kind of wasp) all appeared on the magic day as if responding to a curtain call.
I unceremoniously ripped the plastic off of the windows and threw open the sashes, letting the wind rustle papers and curtains and sweep seed packets off the table onto the floor of the cabin.
Today was the first day to liberate the feet and luxuriate in the feel of gravel massaging the winter tender feet. A day to notice the nuances and textures. A day to reroute the climbing rose and tear down old morning glory vines, a day to plant and dig and plant some more, and cheerfully (if naively) trust that it will rain.

chick(en) peas

spinach is up! (in the covered beds, only) and the lettuce that was up to eating size got severly frostbit as the remay cover blew off while I was at mom and dads and the temp got down low. Its all good, th0ugh, long as you have enough seeds, you just keep planting,
The portable pen has passed its first week of operation, with out falling apart, and the chickens are laying perkily, so it must be working for them, as I am not feeding commercial chicken feed to make them lay,
In the 25 years that I have raised chickens, I have tried every permutation of pen, coop and cage possible. I liked the hoop coops, but I believe I am going to like this design the best. (will write an article about coop design someday, pros and cons)
The sugar snap peas and snow peas and more spinach are planted now, too, just in time for more cold weather,
We had some rain,, need more. (am having troible typing, sliced my index finger with a razor blade-dumb trick, guess I will give up and not write ll the clever things I had planned too..ha!)

firsts, seconds, lasts and more

I wonder if it is a cultural thing to count "firsts" or if in all cultures somebody wanders back into the village and says, "hey, I saw my first mushroom of the spring!" We mark the changes of the seasons with "firsts", first frost, first snow, first trillium.
I was about to post these pictures when I realized that maybe I have become obsessed with "firsts of spring" this year. Maybe because it was a damn cold winter for me, or maybe I am clinging to these markers because they hold a continuity in a time when change is happening faster, or maybe, maybe I am getting boring as I age, and I need to get a life.
So this is the first trillium, even firster than first, because it is not even open yet!
Then I walked a little farther on and here is/are four, so can they count as first? or is it old hat now- are they no longer photograph worthy?
We don't say, oh look! my second violet of the spring, and my third! No, we then absorb them, just their beauty and fragrance and fleeting season, and we don't have to bother with numbers.