Prairie Moon Rising

ProfessorRoush was forced into the mundane chores of garden these past two days on the prairie.  Rapidly growing grass and weeds meant that I spent most of Saturday's 'free time' mowing the lawn and trimming, and most of Sunday's "free time" weeding and planting.  I planted 22 garden pepper plants and 17 tomatoes.  And I also replaced the watermelon and cantaloupe that I planted and previously mentioned in the Showing the Crazy blog entry.  Not surprisingly, the first two didn't make it.  This time I planted 'Sugar Baby' watermelon, 'Ambrosia' and 'Athena' cantaloupes. 

Remember the song "Bad Moon Rising" by Creedance Clearwater Revival?  Lyrics that include "I hear hurricanes a-blowing.  I know the end is coming soon.  I hear the rivers over flowing...There's a bad moon on the rise."  Well, my 'Prairie Moon' peony is rising (upper left), and it's not a bad moon, even though the rain around here has the ground saturated and some folk in town have water in basements again.  'Prairie Moon' is just a beauty, pure white blooms as big as your outstretched hand and healthy bright green smooth foliage.  What's that you say?  The foliage isn't smooth?  Yeah, that's a volunteer hollyhock in front of the peony that I didn't have the heart to root out.  As long as it doesn't smother 'Prairie Moon', I'll let the hollyhock bloom and then grub it out later.   

Speaking of tomato planting, I had the bright idea to plant Mrs. ProfessorRoush's favorite grape-sized tomatoes in the large pots on the back (south) patio this year.   They'll get major sun there if they can stand the heat.  I was hand-digging a hole in the potting soil and the little gray tree frog pictured at the left about gave me a heart-attack, sitting as still as a postage stamp on the edge of the pot.  I almost put my hand right on him!   Here they come again, those sneaky peeping frogs, watching my every move.  Creeps me out, I tell you.

Bella is in the garden with me most days right now, protecting me and making sure the Texas Longhorns don't cross the barbed wire fence.  There is something that just feels right about longhorns on the prairie, isn't there?  Well, may not right to Bella, who seems a little disturbed by these big dumb things in her pasture.

In the Garden, At Last

Weather report:  High 55ºF, blustery, overcast with the look of winter coming back.   However, ProfessorRoush just doesn't care.  He's back from a relatively short vacation and, while it may not be a great day to kneel on the wet and cold ground to clear the winter debris from beds, there are still things that can be done.  Done if the will to garden is strong enough and the gardener's soul has enough fortitude.




 And besides, I have a Dutch crocus blooming!  And Scilla!!! One single crocus so far but I'm sure that more will come soon.  In my records going back to 2005, I don't specifically note the first Dutch crocus every year, but in only one year, 2014, was my note of the first crocus later (3/25/14) than this date.  In 2006 and 2012, I saw these blooming on 3/6 and 3/8 respectively.  So, right now, I'd estimate spring at around 2 weeks later than normal.

If crocus and scilla are the first signs of life in my garden this year, they are not alone.  Today, as you can see from the pictures posted here and below, early peony buds are breaking ground, and the ornamental Alliums are up and healthy.  I must get the Alliums protected from the deer soon!

I can already see that there are one or two minor drawbacks of my plan to post more often  so that you can experience my garden activities with me  each time I garden:  some of the posts are going to be long!  And the photos will be smaller to account for space concerns, but if you click on them, you'll be able to see the detail you desire.   Today, I spent about 4 useful hours total in the garden.  And what did I accomplish?

I started by planning to mow down my "rain beds" of prairie grass near the house so that they will green up faster and allow some extra sun to the early prairie forbs.  Mowing, however, was a longer chore than I anticipated as I started with a "surprise" flat rear tire on the tractor that had to be fixed first.  You can see Bella, above, running in the taller grass, but here is a photo of the back yard before mowing:

 And after:  Already I feel better!  One spring chore off my checklist!

Then, I moved on to clear debris from the asparagus bed and weed it.  I'm sorry, I didn't think to take a picture until I was halfway through clearing, but the photo at the left will give you an idea of what it looked like when I started.







And the photo at the right will show you where I finished; the asparagus bed is mulched with around 2 inches of aged straw that sat out all winter.  That should help suppress the weeds!  The next green things I should see in this bed are some delicious asparagus spears rising above the golden straw.

Other than the usual puttering around that includes picking up the occasional down limb or blown-in-city-trash, my last major accomplishment of the day was in keeping with my goal to garden smarter this year.  For the benefit of others who have the same problem, this is my solution to "pole-migration" in my shade-house over the strawberries.  You see, my shade house is on a slight slope from front to back.  I've noticed over the last couple of years that the long poles that run on each side, and to which the canopy is stretched, have a tendency to slowly slip from their sleeves out the lower side, extending sometimes past the electric fence and out of the garden.  Up until now, some occasional pounding with a hammer every few months would shift them back into place.  I noticed today, however, that one pole was very very far (as in 8 feet or so) out of the canopy sleeve, leaving it in grave danger of ripping off in the next wind.  So, I got a length of good old, stiff #9 baling wire, made a hook in one end to place into the pole, and then wound it around the upright so the pole...hopefully...won't be able to migrate.  A minor brain-storm to fix a now-minor but potentially major problem.  Let's hope it works.

Sorry about the long post, but it was a good few hours in the garden today!  I'll leave you with the promise of these deliciously burgundy-colored herbaceous peony buds, just breaking ground.

Winter On!

If you are wondering about the title, I'm shouting it in a tone similar to urging you to "push on," "plow through it," "soldier on," and so on.  Because we don't really have any alternative during this seemingly ceaseless season of snow and suffering, do we?

My photo today is the most garden-ey thing I could find related to the outdoors right now; the salty paw print of my precious Bella as she pads back in from the salt-strewn pavement out our front door.  It is pretty tough on Mrs. ProfessorRoush to see these paw-print-ey trails across her oak floors and likely the salt is tougher still on the sensitive toe pads of poor Bella. 

The rest of my garden is still in the deep freeze.  Here in Kansas, on February 19th, we've had 20.6 inches of snow already this winter, with 3-5 more predicted tonight and two more days of snow in the ten-day forecast.  It does melt off between snows here, with the result of leaving the gravel road leading to the house in the worst condition of the entire time I've lived here. Still, our average snowfall by this time each year is 13 inches according to the KMAN news article I linked to.  Yes, I know, that the 58% increase in snow to this point is JUST WEATHER, not global climate COOLING.  Keep telling yourself that for another few years.  All this gardener knows is that this time last year, I was outside on the weekends clearing garden beds in shirtsleeve weather.

 ProfessorRoush, he just keeps staring from the windows this year, primarily assessing whether the straw over the strawberries is still undisturbed and counting the upended garden ornaments in his back garden.  Sooner or later, I suppose the weather will warm and we will receive sunshiny hope again.  After all, I've seen bluebirds looking for nesting sites recently.

I know I haven't been writing much, but I have resolved, in my discontented winter's mood, to try something new this year in the blog; shorter, quicker updates on a more daily basis during the growing season with the goal of placing you beside me whenever I putter back into the garden.  A Growing Season in the Life of ProfessorRoush, as it were, beginning whenever the weather warms enough for the ground to thaw.  You'll have to let me know sometime if you liked it.

That's It, Nothing Else

I'm afraid that this is all I've got to show for a weekend in the garden.  These two simple photos represent my dual accomplishments for two days, a weekend of miserable weather and attention to a single-minded dog.  In fact, as far as how my garden goes, these are my accomplishments for the whole week, since I worked during each day and I was too ill during most of the week to want to go into the garden in the evening.

The first photo is how I woke up from a nap this afternoon, to a closeup view of my constant pestering pooch, the lovable Bella, at my side, wondering if I'm ever going to rip the Frisbee out of her paws and throw it over the balcony again.  I don't know how long she had stood like this, patiently waiting for me to open my eyes and play.  But, for the four-hundredth time this weekend, I indulged her canine compulsive disorder and tried to muster enthusiasm from lethargy.

The second picture is my Star Magnolia on Saturday morning, shivering in the early morning 40ºF temperatures as they prepared to plunge to the 30's by afternoon and an overnight low of 26ºF.  When I looked at it later, I was surprised at how the marvelous light softened these blooms even in a simple iPhone camera.  I would show you a third photo of how these beautiful blooms looked this morning, but I can't because I wasn't willing to venture into the 40 mph wind gusts to get it.  Truthfully, I don't also don't want to chance anyone jumping off bridges at the desolation.  I'll just leave it by saying that the magnolia, appearing like a heavenly cloud yesterday from my dreary landscape, now appears to be a bare bush adorned with brown tissue paper. Used and disgusting tissue paper.  A few of these, and other magnolia blooms, brighten my kitchen today because I decided to save a few from the cold, knowing that the rest would perish.

My consolation prize is that I was able to write this blog while listening to a tribute on POP TV to Sir Elton John, his greatest hits sung by famous vocalist after vocalist while he is forced to sit in the audience.  I'm singing along to songs from my teens as poor Elton is held captive to his tribute, probably thinking about how the singers are mangling his songs.  I'm mangling them too, the lyrics written on my soul, memories springing forth along with each verse, lifting my spirits at the end of another lousy winter day in the midst of spring.

 "And I guess that's why they call it the blues, time on my hands, should be time spent with you." 

Deer Gardens

The intrepid Bella jumped from our bed and ran into the sunroom yesterday around 6:45 a.m. and started barking madly.  When I crawled out bleary-eyed but prepared to defend home against marauder or monster, I found her perched on the back of the couch, back and nose and tail straight as an arrow pointing to the danger.  How does a beagle/border collie learn to point?  Beats me.


How many deer do you see in the photo above?  Two?  Three?  Look carefully.   As you can see at the right, there were actually four deer around (okay, there were only three in the first picture).   The large bush that the nearest deer is so avidly feeding upon is my two year old Salix caprea ‘Curly Locks’, the white French Pussy Willow.  I hope it left a few buds for ProfessorRoush to enjoy next month, once winter breaks from its current ice-locked cycle.  I'm tired of winter.



Tired too of the posers, those deer who try to justify their garden meals by allowing me a still picture of their exquisite form.  Just go away, girls.  Go have your spring fawns and leave my garden alone.  To be truthful, I don't think they do that much damage, and my really juicy shrubs, such as most of the magnolias and my ain't-Red HorseChestnut, are behind fencing anyway.  Man learns to adapt from the incursions of nature, even though adapting means that I view my garden in winter through that same wire fencing.




I did notice, last weekend, the damage shown on the base of this Hibicus syriacus ‘America Irene Scott’, which sits right beside the Pussy Willow.  At the time, I attributed it to a hungry rabbit or rodent, but now I'm wondering.  Is it time to defend more fervently against all enemies, hopping rodents or doey-eyed villains alike?

When Momma Ain't Happy...

Brown Thrasher on nest

...ain't nobody happy!  That's the way it is, isn't it?  Humans, birds, beagles, it's all the same.  At home, Mom rules the roost.

While out working outside on Sunday, I checked the Brown Thrasher nest and was able to photograph Mrs. Thrasher while she stared at me with a gimlet eye.  Correction, Mrs. Thrasher HAD a gimlet eye, since the definition of "gimlet eye" is "an eye with a piercing stare" and so my statement that she "stared at me with a gimlet eye" has some built-in redundancy.  Obviously I don't mind digressing, but I'd rather not be redundant.  But look closely at the photo.  Isn't that the very picture of a "gimlet eye?"  I can see "fight or flight" reflected in that dark pupil and yellow iris.

Brown Thrasher chick

At one point, Mrs. Thrasher left the nest and moved into a viburnum in the next border, so I took advantage of the moment to take a picture of a newly hatched chick in the nest.  I first saw it yesterday, so this little guy is less than 2 days old.  And hungry.  Remember when I mentioned that Brown Thrasher's are known to be territorial about their nests?  Well, Mrs. Thrasher was not happy when I moved toward the nest in her absence.  I heard various nervous clucks in the viburnum behind me as I leaned in for the shot and then suddenly Mrs. Thrasher was just across from me in my 'Banshee' rose bush, ready to defend the nest if I got any closer.  I didn't hang around to see if I could get a better picture.

Chapeau de Napoleon

I have declared ProfessorRoush's garden back under some semblance of control after my neglect of the last year and the hard winter.  While not in "garden tour" shape, it's at least not completely embarrassing if someone drops by.  I have a lot of old roses to trim back yet, and some projects to do, but drastic weed safaris have brought the weeds under control, particularly in the soon-to-bloom daylily beds.  I have trimmed back the roses that were severely damaged so a random stranger would conclude that the garden is not totally abandoned, but there are  still some roses with bare tips that will need to be trimmed after blooming.  The picture at the left is the last remaining bloom of 'Chapeau de Napoleon' which I brought in for Mrs. ProfessorRoush to enjoy.

Speaking of unhappy females, my dear Bella has taken to hiding in the house as I come in from outside on the weekends when I'm home working.  We first noticed it last year and we finally realized that she had connected her every-other-week baths, which she doesn't like but tolerates, to me coming in from working outside.   I often take the opportunity to bathe her while I'm sweaty and dirty and before I clean up myself, and Bella recognized it faster than Mrs. ProfessorRoush and I realized why she was hiding when we looked for her at bath time.  Pretty darned smart, that dog.  In this picture, she's simply exhausted from following me around in the hot sunshine of Kansas.  You know she's pooped when she's too tired to even try to play Frisbee!
 

Still Here...Until the Icepocalypse

ProfessorRoush hasn't slept in, self-defined as any prone position of my body after 6:00 a.m., for years, but I had plans to make it until at least 7:00 a.m. this first morning of a three-day weekend.  Unfortunately, Miss Bella decided that she needed to protect me against the meanderings of monsters sneaking about the prairie and she moved up from the bottom of the bed to sit on my chest, facing the door and huffing to indicate her alarm, around 6:30 a.m.  When she didn't stop, I got up to prepare defenses against a home-invading horde of Huns and found that my mildly obese mutt was correct in all ways except for the home-invasion.  This particular horde of Huns was perfectly content to keep grazing around the mailbox, undisturbed by the barking Bella behind the glass storm door.  Perhaps they were expecting delivery of a late Christmas package and awaiting the mail truck.

We are expecting an ice storm here sometime tonight, and while I am happily anticipating the enforced solitude and the early garden pruning that the storm will initiate, the rest of Manhattan seems to be fearing that the end of civilization is upon us.  A quick trip to the grocery store for sliced ham on the way home last night revealed that the neighboring population had cleaned out the local supermarket of all bread, milk, sticks of butter, and, to my surprise, every package of lunch meat available.  I came home, amused and complacent in the knowledge that we have enough dry cereal and pasta in the house to tide us over until planting weather.  I'm even more secure that we can make it to warm weather after this morning's sighting of potential food on the hoof.   If they are going to eat my roses, the least they can do is hang around for dinner.

I'm quite serious about hoping that we get enough ice tonight to flatten the garden.  At the end of next week, temperatures are forecast in the mid-50's and I'm in a perfect mood to bulldoze and start over anyway, so que sera sera.  I miss you, Doris Day.  What a beautiful voice and bubbly actress.  Once upon a time, movies and television programming was more interesting than a group of profane idiots arguing over who should or shouldn't be sleeping with whom.  

Snake Ninja

Well, that respite didn't last long.  My winters in this Kansas garden seem long and harsh, but I number among my few blessings that the winters here are also relatively snake-free.  I say relatively because there is always the chance that lifting a rock might expose a hibernating little milk snake.  I actually saw my first snake this year, a small foot-long, pencil-thick, rat snake, about a month ago when I picked up a bag of mulch that had been lying in the yard in the sun for a week.  That one was pretty sluggish on the still-cold ground, although I presume it had taken shelter under the bag because the plastic-bagged mulch was warmed by the sun and beginning to compost.

 Two weeks ago, however, I spotted this rather large common garter snake (Thamnophis sirtalis) stretching out in the open grass while I was out with Bella.  It was interesting that my nose-driven, curious and crazy dog did not notice this snake at all, dancing oblivious within several feet of it before I called her away.   Can dogs not detect the scent of snake?  I've seen Bella follow the exact track of another dog through our yard more than a half hour after the dog ran through it.  But she can't smell a snake several feet away?

If you've read this blog for any long period, you know of my snake phobia.  I hate them, but since I hate rodents more, I don't kill the snakes.  Well at least not the non-poisonous ones and I have yet to run across a poisonous snake in my yard, although I'm sure there are plenty of Copperheads and Rattlesnakes in the vicinity.  Thankfully for my mental stability, I most often find either rat snakes or these pretty orange-black-yellow Common Garters.  This guy is likely an old one.  Wikipedia lists their maximum length as around 54 inches and although he didn't stand still for measurement, he was at least 48 inches nose to tail.  Based on my reading, he may be a Kansas record, but now I'll never know.

As I've noted before, frequent noxious exposure has conditioned me to moderate my response to the sight of a snake and I was calm and collected as I spotted the snake and got the clear picture above.  As I went in for a closer shot of the head, however, the snake moved with ninja-like reptilian swiftness and I found myself looking at a coiled, ready to strike, four foot long snake from about 2 feet away.  Mildly startled, I produced this moderately blurry image from an elevated position of spontaneous levitation.  The snake was not moving, but I certainly was.  Or perhaps the image is just blurred from my heart rate, which went from 60 to 200 faster than an Indy 500 race car.  My primitive brainstem doesn't seem to care that my highly evolved human cerebral cortex knows this snake is nonpoisonous.

Discretion being the better part of valor, I chose at that point to stand still and watch from about 10 feet away while the snake uncoiled and swiftly slithered across the yard and disappeared into the irises, leaving me panting, and at the same time, a little sad.  I had great hopes for the irises this year, but now they'll just have to survive summer as best they can on their own.

Fanatical Frisbee Fido

In this modern age, where self-proclaimed exercise experts abound and continuously expound their unsolicited and dubious wisdom through all forms of media, scarce any gardener will be unaware of the purported health benefits attributed to digging holes in soil to the point of painful arches or the lugging about on a regular basis of various potted plants and bags of organic materials weighing between 6 ounces and 20 tons.  Not to mention the aerobic benefits of sudden spurts of increased heart rate from snake-sightings and the mental stress that is purged alongside the profanity hurled at various garden plagues ranging from late frost to drought to hail.  Yes, gardening is generally regarded as good for your physical and mental health.  Why then, do others seem to want to keep us from gardening?

Many who revolve in the immediate vicinity of a gardener seem not to recognize the health benefits of gardening or, alternatively, they believe their own fitness regimes will benefit you more or are more important than the needs of your zinnias.  Take for example, my constant gardening companion, the intrepid Bella.  The lovable pooch is a frisbee fanatic.  Her morning routine for Mrs. ProfessorRoush and I is 1) wake us up by licking us enthusiastically chin to ears, 2) ring the bell hanging from the front doorknob so we will open the door and then stand outside in the chilled air sleepy and barely clothed while she pees, and 3) throw the frisbee as far as possible across dew-soaked ground and as many times as possible or until the neighbor catches us in our sleeping attire or lack thereof.   Sometimes she skips steps one and two and just wakes us by banging the frisbee into our face.

And it goes on all day.  Every time I turn around, she's waiting patiently, frisbee in her mouth or at her feet, for me to notice.  I'll be planting a shrub, step backward, and trip over the frisbee.  I'll be watering a container, feel eyes on my back, and turn around and there she'll be, frisbee in mouth, pupils wide with excitement.  I come home from work, ready to garden and gain some physical activity, and I have to play frisbee before I can fire up the lawn mower or pick up the pruners.  If, for an instant, rain or shine, she comes upon you sitting down or perhaps even moving slowly, her solution to your inactivity is to go find her frisbee.  The dog is as fanatical about exercise as Richard Simmons and just as bat-crap crazy.

All of this might make more sense if she was a Golden Retriever or a Labrador Retriever, but Bella the mostly-Beagle is a stubby, short-legged, portly, thirty-pound ball of obsessive-compulsive canine cuteness.  She doesn't actually want to play fetch, she wants the frisbee to be thrown for her, but when she brings it back, she fights you for it.  She teases, dropping the frisbee from her mouth but always keeping a foot on it, never willing to let it go without a battle.  So we get exercise at both ends, from throwing the frisbee and from wrestling it back away from her.  Some might call that a win-win but that "some" would only be Bella.

In the meantime, I may not be gardening much but I'm getting plenty of exercise.  In fact, you could say I'm bedogged by the doggone dog until I can't do my gardening.  Deep down, though, I suppose I don't really mind.  My exercise time is better spent increasing the rate of tail wag in a happy pooch than it is in growing alliums for hail to destroy.  

My Garden's Got Game

Until today, the sometimes dense ProfessorRoush has been under the impression that his garden has gone into hibernation for the cold days ahead.  Because of my "in-while-its-dark," then "home-while-its-dark" work schedule, my garden wanderings have become limited to weekend treks during the few hours of sunshine and tolerable temperatures.  Primarily, I get out into the garden for a few lovely minutes to exercise the portly Bella and make sure the trailer hasn't been stolen.

I was far wrong, however, about my garden being in hibernation.  While the plants may be biding their energy, a check of my game camera shows that there is plenty of game visiting my garden.   At least I can say "my garden's got game" with a straight face now.  In fact, I just realized that the number of larger mammalian bodies moving through the garden is greater now than at any other time of year, even without any attention from humankind.

From October 31st through December 3rd, my game camera has recorded 19 separate periods of invasion by large-furry tailed rats, some occurring over several hours time, with no discernible pattern as to time of the raids.  Early morning, late evening, middle of the night, all random.  On the camera, as shown in some of the photos here, I can distinguish at least 7 individuals, ranging from the beautiful and proud 10-point buck in the first photo, an 8-point buck, a buck with two broken stubs for antlers (left), an unknown number of does numbering at least two (several pictures have pairs), and at least two different fawns.


Interestingly, the ice storm seems to have affected their daily pattern as much as mine.  The only daylight photos of deer that I captured were taken in the days while ice was on the ground.  Perhaps they were desperate for food that wasn't ice-covered, or perhaps they feel safer moving loudly in the daytime than when they are alerting night predators with each ice-cracking step.








My garden's game is even playing games in the darkness.  The photographic evidence suggests that Follow The Leader is pretty popular, and Hide And Seek pick-up games are everywhere.  Look at the photo to the left;  Can you see the fawn standing in the bushes just behind the legs of the doe pictured here?  I'll give you a hint; locate the light-reflecting eye in the bush and then look for the hind legs to the left of it.


The only damage that has occurred to my garden seems to be part of a Purple Smoke Tree toppled by the ice, so I guess I won't get my dander up about damage that I can't find.  The deer can just have what rose rosette disease hasn't already taken and I'll pick up the pieces next spring.  Bella and I can still enjoy the garden, romping around in the sunshine as we did today.  I'll say one thing for sure; for a mildly obese dog, that Beagle-Border Collie mutt can run like a deer!

Housebound Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving, yes, and outside the wind is howling and the rain is coming down in sheets.  We had planned to visit my son in Colorado today, but a bad forecast and a winter storm watch convinced me that the return trip tomorrow might be a dangerous thing, and so, here we sit, Bella and I, staring out the window into the storm.  The photo to the right is from a happier moment, yesterday, when we took advantage of the last warm day to play in the sun.  Bella likes to hold the frisbee with her paws and doesn't give it up easily after she retrieves it.

Thankfully, my fall garden-related chores are essentially complete.  Hoses are drained and stored, peonies and irises and daylily beds hacked down, and the lawn mower oil has been changed, blades sharpened, and gas preservative run through.    Out the back window, the garden has entered dormancy and has turned to sienna, ocher, and umber, colors that are enhanced when the fall rains come to the prairie as you can see in the garden and distant hills below.   I wish I had not yet cut down the tall native prairie grasses in the foreground (see the bottom picture below), but in the midst of this dry fall I had given up on seeing any moisture and I wanted to stem the incursion of the field mice and rabbits this winter.  And "plant" the seeds of this year's penstemon.

Along with the fall chores of the cultured garden, one of my annual chores is to clean out the eighteen birdhouses that I've placed on the the periphery of the twenty acres I call home.  The trek up and down the property provided a perfect opportunity for me to photograph the house and gardens from the back hill, a clear Kansas sky presiding over the scenery on a gorgeous fall day early in November.  This is an overview that I don't think I've shown on this blog before.  The hill in the foreground falls away to a farm pond, hidden out of the bottom frame of the photo below, and then rises again to the house and barn.  The overall garden looks small from this vantage.

My "bluebird trail" and the Professor-Roush-customized bluebird houses were unusually successful this year, perhaps due to the extra moisture of this past spring.  Thirteen of 18 houses appeared to have fledged bluebirds, containing the thin grass nests characteristic of the species.  Four other houses, all near the woods and pond, contained the deep stick-formed nests of wrens, and one decrepit old commericial house contained only a dead wasp nest.  Thirteen bluebird nests is a PR for this little spot of land, a moment worthy of contemplation and celebration.

On the morning of the bluebird-house-cleaning, the back garden was just waking with the sun, long shadows aimed west, and somehow duller, and ready for winter.  Seen here, below, you can see the shoulder-tall height of the native bluestem that I have since mowed off.  I am always torn between leaving them unmown to capture the moisture of the winter snows and to witness the joyous rusty tones they exhibit when wet, but one of the reasons I cut them down is so that the seeds of the forbs among them drop closer, spread only by the whirring mower and hidden in the debris in hopes of increasing their density.  Spring penstemon and fall echinacea are always welcome and appreciated here in my prairie garden.   Now if only next spring would hurry up and come along.

   

 

Morning Serenity

At last, we're blessed here by a cool morning, a hint and promise that autumn will soon return.  The cool air tightly hugs the rolling contours of the Flint Hills, mist implying mystery, humid air dissolved to fog, dew droplets draped over the prairie.

The view above is to my west, a view that greeted Bella and I this morning as the sun rose and the clear blue sky broke into radiant pinks and yellows.  Just across the road, the prairie begins, seemingly endless to the horizon, evidence of man's touch only in the stripes of mown hay and the distant aquatic totem pole that supplies water to us and the hordes to the south.
 
If you're wondering about the stone in the foreground, prominently placed at the beginning of my neighbor's driveway, this closeup may satisfy your curiosity.  My neighbor has some deep connection with the old Lee Marvin movie, Paint Your Wagon, and the inscription is from the movie.  I like what he's done with this bed, the 'Tiger Eye' sumac, low sedums in the foreground and tall ornamental grasses behind, but I don't think he is yet aware of how tall the 'Tiger Eye' will get or how much they'll spread into the surrounding buffalo grass.   Mrs. ProfessorRoush believes that my neighbor spends more time working in this bed than I do on my entire garden, forty times this size.  He's changed the "perennial" planting almost every year in a search for the perfect combination.

The donkeys, Ding and Dong, were also out, begging for treats across the fence.  Bella and the donkeys are wary acquaintances, but prefer to maintain a nodding acknowledgement at limb's length, content to send unsubtle warnings that closer contact is unwelcome.  I'm torn about keeping the donkeys over another winter.  I adore their unique personalities, but I am fretful over their safety and comfort on the prairie in the lean, cold months.    












Bella loves these morning walks around the yard, patrolling the perimeter and searching for intruders, mammalian or insect, harmless or evil.  The heavy morning dew destroyed the stealth of this morning's scouting survey, our course conspicuous across the sopping wet grass.  But the tracks are telling, meandering Dog and lumbering Man, moving forward in the same direction and with the same purpose, checking the cave environs and beginning the new day ahead, together.

Bird Feeder Raids

I woke up yesterday a little early, the sun still under the horizon, and as I peered through the blinds, I received a shock as I sleepily assessed the quantity of remaining feed in the bird feeder.  This brazen boy, the beginnings of some velvet nubs on his head, was picking through the sunflower hulls cast down by the birds, presumably in search of some left behind proteinaceous morsels.  I can't imagine what compulsion drove him to bypass prairie and garden to pick at the shells merely 20 feet from the house, but whether desperation or bravery, there he was.

I grabbed the camera and took a few shaky photos, hampered by the dim light and the telephoto lens, my pounding heart and my still sleeping hands.  Each click of the mirror and shutter on the SLR seemed to stretch out the seconds as I prayed for him to stand still and my hands to steady.  A few pictures, a few precious seconds, and he began to amble down through the grass to the greater garden.  Now, suddenly, there were two, a plump doe magically appearing in my visual periphery.

As I followed them, now outside and accompanied by my trusty sidekick, Bella finally noticed my attention to the silent intruders and she shifted immediately to guard behavior, ready to fend off the invader at the slightest sign from me.  A few warning barks, and the moment passed, Hart and Hind turning tail and tearing off towards the nearest horizon.  Even in my disappointment, I couldn't scold a dog who has such a graceful natural stance as this.  If I put any training into her, she would make a mockery of the best dogs at Westminster, don't you think?   For a genetically-confused cross between a Beagle and a Border Collie, she certainly a lot of Pointer in her, doesn't she?

Why, oh why, surrounded by the bounty of the still tender grasses of late spring, are this pair of furry rats drawn into my garden?  Are they jealous of the extra time and money I'm spending to keep a single scarlet cardinal around for the pleasure of Mrs. ProfessorRoush?  Do they come for the rosebuds, to gather them while they may, and then stay for the party?  Are they merely another tool of Mother Nature, a warm-blooded stealth fighter designed to raze the unnatural garden back to Babylon?  Run, you cowards, run!  Bella is on guard.