What a long cold spring it’s been. Except for this last Wednesday through Friday when we had instant summer and broke high temperature records three days in a row. It was 88F/31C here Wednesday! The previous record set in 1931 was 83F/28C. Maybe the most ridiculous thing about it all is that today it’s been snowing. The plus side of our 3-day fake summer is the ground being too warm for the snow to really accumulate.
I’ve not posted lately because the last two weekends have been rather pleasant spring weather which let me get out in the garden and do all the pruning. There was a lot of pruning! I also set up the stakes for peas with the intention of planting them this weekend. Ha! But I am hopeful that Tuesday evening will see that happen.
Up until yesterday, the chickens have been ranging through the garden living their best chicken lives. Their dust bath wallows are so numerous it looks like I have been setting off little explosives all over. Perhaps it is just as well the weather has been so cruddy this weekend because the chickens are now banished from the garden for the duration of the growing season.
The garlic is up several inches, and while the chickens don’t bother that, the sorrel is up and they do like that and will eat it down to nothing. The herbs are sprouting and Sia loves scratching in the herb spiral and will kill them all. So garden banishment.
I love walking around the garden to see who is waking up. All the currants, the honeyberries, gooseberries, serviceberries, elderberry, aronia, bush cherries, and roses are budding. Professor Plum, whose top we cut off because of rabbit, still shows no signs of life. The Professor is generally late to bud anyway so I am not despairing yet.
The seeds indoors are doing well. I was hoping to have moved the onions out to the deck during the day by now. They did get some outdoor time in the late afternoon shade during our mini summer, but if the weather forecast is right, it looks like most of the upcoming week will be cold with several chances of rain/snow.
The mini chocolate bell peppers are doing great and the cape gooseberries are small but strong. The marigold seeds I saved from last year’s garden have not done well. I have made two plantings with only two sprouts. I am trying one more time and if the additional seeds don’t sprout I will blame last year’s drought and buy some new plants/seed. The habanero peppers never sprouted but I am not surprised because it was a free seed packet from last year and, if I recall, none of them sprouted then either.
Yesterday I added to the melange of pots two containers with Arachne muskmelon seeds. If I were planting Minnesota Midget cantaloupe I would direct sow, but these larger melons need a little longer season than direct sowing will give them. I’ve not grown this variety before and will have to make a valiant effort to save them from the squirrels. Come time, we’ll be making a giant vat of pepper spray.
I’ve gone through the Friends’ garden sale catalog several times and my list is close to complete. James and I are making a game plan for the day of the sale. Last year it was the final time we drove our car before we sold it a few days later. This year we will be biking and I discovered during some preliminary route planning that the place we had planned for breakfast requires a long roundabout path making it essentially inaccessible. But we have another plan! It requires we be a bit more flexible than years past, but we can make it work. The Big Sale is May 12th and I will definitely have more to say about it!
Reading
- Book: White Noise by Don DeLillo. I am so glad I saw the movie first, otherwise I am not certain I would have enjoyed the book. As it is, I am about 70 pages in, and wow, these people are weird. But also, they are completely serious which makes them absurd and sickeningly funny.
Listening
- Podcast: The Great Simplification: Kim Stanley Robinson: Climate, Fiction, and the Future. It was a good conversation until the end when they started talking about young people and how they have so much work to do to not only survive climate change and the collapse of civilization as we know it, but also to find ways to thrive and create solutions. I got really pissed off because conversations like this are adults capitulating. Sorry kids, we fucked up the world and are still fucking it up, but y’all are so bright and energetic and care so much, we know you will find a way to fix it. Buh-bye, and good luck! Except the adults don’t give the young people any power and just sit in their comfortable chairs watching it all burn and apologizing. Makes me so angry! Grrr.
Watching
- Ted Lasso. I love Ted. But I’m glad this is the final season because I think if it went on any longer it would start to lose its charm and that would just be sad.
I read White Noise thirty years ago because a friend who is slightly older told me it was a great satire. I wasn’t that thrilled by it, although thought it was okay. Recently I watched the movie in the wake of the New Palestine train disaster and thought how terrible that the satire has essentially come true.
Boy do I agree with what you say about older people not giving the younger people any power.
That’s at least half of what’s wrong with our country–old people are running it. They need to retire while there might still be time to mentor someone younger.
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I recently came across a conspiracy theory regarding the White Noise movie, the Palestine train derailment, netflix, and Norfolk Southern that was like someone was playing six degrees of separation. But the sad part is, I’m so cynical about things these days that for a brief moment I thought, huh, if this were true I would not be surprised.
And yeah, I’m not trying to push older people out of work or say they have nothing of value to contribute, but really, if they are just going to throw up their hands and say the young people will save us but not give the young people a chance to do anything, then they need to go.
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I don’t know what happened, but when I read, “Come time, we’ll be making a giant vat of pepper spray,” I started chortling. I just pictured you arming a militia of feminists with pepper spray. I’m glad you’ve been outside. We had similar weather in Indiana. In fact, it’s snowing right now, but we had the windows open yesterday. I’m always brokenhearted when the early summer comes because everything blooms and the freezes and dies. A few years ago in Michigan everyone was celebrating summer come early until it froze and the orchards died and the price of fruit skyrocketed.
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It has been a chilly spring so it’s lovely to read about the new growth popping up in your garden and happy chickens. Hope that Professor Plum is revived by pruning and warm weather. I’ve noticed the attitude Kim Stanley Robinson talked about from other people, especially those who have spent their lives in the grip of consumer frenzy and wasteful living. It’s like ‘well, we’ve had our fun – good luck kids, but we refuse to change.’
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Exactly Jule, good luck kids but we refuse to change. I have people in my family like that and it’s so hard to not always get into arguments with them!
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Long cold spring here — and record rain. Everything is very stunted, except, thankfully, the daffodils. The tulips are just starting to bloom, which is exciting. Everything else is like, a month late. I have started some kale and I think I might put them out this weekend, when it might reach 60 degrees. They are hardening off on the deck and seem to be doing OK, so I think they’ll survive if I plant them in a few days. I think I will start some lettuce indoor today — I was going to direct-seed, but I think it’s still too chilly. Oh well! Peas are juuuuuust starting to come up. The chickens are soon to be banished at our house too, it’s always a sad day. I wish I could come up with an easy way for them to rotate through the yard but all my attempts at moveable fencing has been too complicated. Maybe a small chicken tractor? I don’t know. They’ve got a few more weeks, anyway. I put up chicken fencing around the salad and bean beds, which works mostly. They seem to ignore tomatoes and cucumbers so maybe the chickens can have an extended season since we’re nowhere near ready for those yet! It’s hard to be a chicken.
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Has spring arrived for you yet? It’s trying here but we keep having setbacks. Heh, poor chickens, they still have it pretty good though. If you have space for a chicken tractor that would be awesome. I just don’t room for one since everything is either a planted bed, or a path.
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I love to read about who is waking up in your garden! I’ve been enjoying what little planting I’ve been able to do so far (flower seeds and a few plants – hyssop and scarlet sage.) I am so excited to see my milkweed plants sprouting up again! I was afraid that the bitter cold in December had killed them.
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Yay for your milkweed plants coming back! I don’t know what variety you have, but here there are extremely hardy and there’s a reason for the “weed” part of their name 🙂
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I’m so tired of this weather I’m starting to give it agency and intent… but it’s almost May. Which may or may not be warmer, but at least it will be summer and not spring. Maybe it will stop snowing.
I had no idea they made White Noise into a movie. I have a really hard time picturing that. I mean, nothing much happens. Most of the book is in Jack’s head. I want to read it again now.
And thanks for the head’s up on Stan’s interview with Nate Hagens. I had that one saved for later. Maybe I’ll skip that hour now. Besides, I loved the book and sort of love Stan (have for decades actually, fan-girl-esque). Don’t want anything to break up that innocent romance. 🙂
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White Noise actually made a pretty good movie. They focused mainly on the toxic event and it has the best after credits scene that is so utterly absurd it sits up there with one of the best ever in my opinion 🙂
The interview with Stan is fine right up until it gets to the end. So maybe you can listen to it but just cut it off when Nate starts asking his usual wrap up questions.
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