THE GARDEN IN MAY - JUNE

THE MOST AMAZING thing about the garden in early June is the fragrance. I won’t bore you with pictures of the honeysuckle, we have all seen more than our share of honeysuckle, I am sure. In the winter, on warmer days, I can spend hours pulling it out of the camellias, off of trees, out of the gardens. It truly grows like a weed here. But, depending on the severity of the winter (northern people – stop laughing, right now!) the world smells so wonderful starting usually the beginning of May with Honey Locust, the Fringe Trees, honeysuckle and magnolias. What a joy it is to step outside on a still cool morning and breathe in the sweetness of the southern air. I realize every morning of my life how blessed I am to not be in a city, not be caged in an apartment, to be free to walk on my small acreage, fill my eyes with the beauty planted there and to even enjoy the weeds – or at least the weeds we call honeysuckle. Better than that, I have the joy of growing my own food and each day I love to go out and see how much bigger this is or that… maybe pick some strawberries, blueberries, or later on, some beans, cukes or tomatoes. It doesn’t get better than that.

This year i decided to indulge myself with some plantings I normally don’t have the time to mess with… i doubt they will winter over in my little greenhouse, but who knows? Every year is a new experiment. Here are a few of my plants and a lot of my weeds.

 

This hosta is so big, a neighbor argued with me and insisted it is an elephant’s ear. That is a yard stick  standing in it… so it is nearly 4 feet tall. Behind it is a blue hosta which is almost as big, but not quite.

Right in front of that hosta are these plants and the new birdbath. i finally found a couple straggly strobilanthes… that’s it behind the pink Astilbe and Heuchera.

In the back yard, flowers grow in and around the veggies. On the left, just below the Adirondacks, are some potato bags. All the way on the right is a 4x4 space with cukes and tomatoes.

potatoes (in the pots) tomatoes, basil, peppers, and pansies. Qwan Yin and geraniums are tucked in the huge English Daisy plant. Who’d believe I cut that better than in half a2 years ago. On the right, potatoes (redskins), miniature roses, violets, iris, pansies and dianthus.

 

From the other side, this shows the clematis. Finished blooming under that is a deep red peony and not blooming yet, phlox. Out in the side yard, a rhododendron is in bloom.

Out front, the window boxes have impatiens that wintered over, geraniums (ditto), new coleus, and a couple new blue things – i can’t think of their names. And a close up of the mountain laurel.

I have a hanging petunia and a hummingbird feeder (being filled) in front of Rusty’s bedroom window to keep him occupied when he isn’t watching puffins or hummers on the computer. Pix of that on the next posting!

Hope you enjoyed my garden, disorganized as it is… but it is fun and something in bloom in every direction. Yes, it is a lot of work for me, but I can’t describe the joy I get from it. The lilies are just starting to bloom!

PROMISES

AS I WALKED thru the garden this morning with my basket filled with the last of this year's peas (already???) and blueberries, I noticed the progress the other veggies were making. For one thing, the tomato plants were at eye level. So lets have a little guessing game, see what good gardeners you are...Answers tomorrow (if I remember it!) OK, we will start with an easy one....1. 2. 3. 4. 5.. I also saw the strawberries were not finished yet. There are also some exciting new happenings in the flower department - do you know what they are? 1. 2. Yesterday was a day of serious trimming. The redbud was hitting the roof, so I took my mighty 8 foot chain saw and added the middle 4 foot extension. I am so proud of myself... the cuts were perhaps a bit sloppy, but I did all of this myself except for one branch I Tom Sawyered out to a friend who just happened to pull in my driveway to ask a favor. (That'll teach him! LOL!) Actually, the mighty little saw impressed him. The part of the tree on the right was butchered by the power company. Maybe the redbud grew faster toward the house to compensate. I don't know. Sadly, I had to also remove a very large Althea (Rose of Sharon) that somehow just died over the winter. I have waited and waited, but, nothing, and all the others have been in full leaf for over a month. sigh. A friend just read this over my shoulder and said maybe I needed to include the term "Tom Sawyered out" to my quiz.
Ah, the wind has come up, the temps are dropping. I am grateful for the temps coming back down into the 70s. More rain, perhaps? Another day that I will not have to drag the hoses around the yard? I can handle that. I like a good breeze; keeps the mosquitoes away. They have started biting. I used to complain about that until someone told me how bad they were in Alaska in the summer time. Hard to imagine!

SOME THOUGHTS, SOME GRATITUDE

It has been a crazy couple of weeks, but that is not a complaint… not even really an excuse for not staying in touch, but time has been short for blogging with so many other things to worry about. I have tried to keep up with some of you in private emails as blogger is being uncooperative again. Once again, storms have changed people’s lives. My cousin lost their cabin on the Susquehanna River up near Wilkes Barre, PA. But, that could have been their primary residence, so while a serious loss, they still have their home and all their belongings. And no one lost their lives – most important of all. Check off that little box on your gratitude list!

Normally this is a hectic time of year anyway, tons of things to do as summer winds down, a dozen events going on before it gets too cold, sometimes having to run from one event in the morning to another in the afternoon or evening. I feel like my friend, Ralph, bless his heart, who is running for Senate again and is trying to be in 5 places at once and still maintain a practice at Children’s Hospital. As I listened to his schedule yesterday, I just shook my head wondering how he does it all. But, he is much younger and in better health and has a team making all his arrangements. I am feeling my age! But keeping going keeps me going. Does that make any sense to you? I know if I quit and put my feet up, I won’t be getting back up.

My auntie up in the Wilkes Barre area had to be evacuated. This was not an easy thing to do as she was one of the hard heads who stayed in her house back during Hurricane Agnes (39 years ago) and had folks coming by boat bringing food and water to her thru the 2^nd floor window. But, for some folks, Lee brought more flooding and destruction than Agnes. The river went up to 43 feet. It was a shallow muddy puddle when I crossed it this summer to see her. But, as of last night, she is back in her apartment in her senior apartment building, full of praise for her son and DIL for treating her like royalty (which she is, of course!) My only regret is I was not up there to do anything for her – BUT, my house (up there) is on the other side of 2 rivers with lots of flooding creeks in-between Wilkes Barre and White Haven.

Here on the shore, actually, up in Delaware, one little town received 14 inches of rain in about 6 hours. I have been in the Seaford area when it was under water, drove home from PA in 9 inches of water on Route 13 just before they closed it. Talk about timing! That was June, 2006. We saw cars with water up to their roofs in parking lots, drove past houses with water up to the front doors. So sad!

Anyway, it is very busy here taking care of my own commitments and worrying about family and friends. So, if I neglect you a little bit, forgive me. I will catch up maybe sometime in November!

I hope you have made out all right in the storms!

HOT ENOUGH FOR YA?

I WAS JUST looking thru my pictures to find some stuff for a Newsletter........ and I kept passing these shots. ..............sigh.......... It is 94 at this moment. Humidity is probably 250%. It is like breathing soup. Gardening anyone? It is too hot today, but it was buried in snow then. So, I decided to reminisce. We do that as we get older, right? Just thought you might like to think back along with me...

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A NOT QUITE SUMMER MORNING

The calendar tells me that it will soon officially be summer. The thermometer says it is here and has been for a week. The refreshing chill of the morning is history, it seems. I miss needing long sleeves first thing in the morning. My world, so drab not too long ago, is now a contest of greens – each plant is trying to out-green the other. This is about as green as it gets – the end of May. It does not take long for the heat of the summer to dry things up, coat the leaves with dust and make folks grateful for their air-conditioners. I have a love/hate relationship with my air conditioner. I am grateful for the comfort it brings, but I hate to have to use it. I long for my Pocono summers and dream of the Maine island summers of my youth. I have been so fortunate to have spent my summers sampling the climates of many different areas. How lucky is that?

The desert areas of Turkey are about to go back to being deserts. They have been blooming like crazy this year, so I have been told. It is a long, long time since I lived in Turkey, a long time since I saw the beauty of the desert in the spring. Interestingly, I did not mind the dry heat at all, so different from the stifling humidity here. The normally dead looking brown earth gets covered in blankets of beautiful colors and delicious fragrances. If you have never had a bit of desert experience, you don’t know what you’ve missed. Ok, backing up – I am not talking about what my father called “the serious desert,” the sand deserts, the huge blowing, shifting dunes, but the miles and miles of “scrub or barren” land, land that looks like it would not grow anything most of the year… land with cactus, sage, the tumbling tumbleweed type of landscape. Oh, but that month in the spring, sometimes it lasts a bit longer, but that month of awesome flowering, of color, is a month of pure magic.

Here, far from the desert, the air is heavy in the morning with fragrances from so many sources. A visitor once said it felt like you had to push your way thru the sweetness in the air just to get to the car. We have magnolias in bloom, honeysuckle, and the locust trees are just finishing. Even holly trees are fragrant during most of May as they pollinate and make new holly berries. The air is also heavy with the sounds of birds, baby birds begging to be fed, parents fighting to protect their nests, robber birds like crows scouting around to steal eggs or even unguarded babies. Then there are the grackles, the noisy, noisy grackles squawking at each other in the mulberry trees, bragging about what ever grackles brag about – or perhaps they are complaining. Is that what it is? Their noise sometimes grates on my nerves; I hate to admit it.

The grass is wet with dew; strings of pearls hang from the bushes as the spiders wait for breakfast to blunder by. My shoes get soaked as I wander thru the yard in the morning looking at all the beauty around me… late peonies, irises, roses. Even the honeysuckle, a truly invasive “weed” in most cases, is beautiful in the early morning light. Delicate. Beyond fragrant.

The Mountain Laurel has been blooming. I am always amazed that it has survived another year. Friends laugh as I have brought rocks from PA to put around them to make them feel more at home. (We have NO naturally occurring rocks here on the shore. But you can now buy them at garden centers!)

The garden is coming along. The bees are having a good time with all the flowers on the squash, zucchini and cucumbers. I spotted my first cukes of the year this morning – about the size of a kosher dill. They will be ready to pick later this week. I have my first tiny tomatoes, not much bigger than a pea, but there they are. I can almost taste them. I ate my first homegrown lettuce the other day. Best salad I ever had! And we cooked MY peas for supper. I wonder why that gives me such a high!

I guess it is good that having this garden does give me a high, because the work is almost too much sometimes. But I keep in mind the fun of going out and picking enough beans for dinner. And then picking beans (or cukes, or tomatoes) to share with others. And folks covet my produce. They know I do not use any chemicals – no pesticides, ever!

This morning, when I opened the back door, can of Tuna in my hand for Punkie and Spook, I was hit with the almost over powering scent of almost summer. I had to walk out into the yard and just breathe the smells in. I thought of folks in cities who breathe in the fumes of vehicles, exhaust, garbage, that tarry smell of black top in the sun… I thought about the sounds that they hear as I listened to my birds fussing, begging, or just singing their morning songs. Are they thanking their idea of god for another day? Did someone just say thanks for the drink in the bird bath out in the yard?

Then I heard another noise… a soft leaf rustling sound and the snapping of tiny branches. I quietly walked out a bit further. There was a doe standing on her hind legs pulling a branch down from the mulberry tree, chomping down as many berries as she could while the birds fussed at her for eating all their berries – like there isn’t a whole tree full? Or maybe even several trees? The mulberry trees are so heavy with berries this year, I actually had to cut some branches off where they were hanging down into my garden. I stood there, barely breathing, glad the wind was blowing in my direction watching the doe eat when I noticed movement closer to the ground. She had her fawn with her. At first I thought it was my cat, Punkin … no wait, it WAS Punkin, oh where is my camera when I need it! Punkin sat there and watched the doe eating from the tree, the fawn eating (?) the berries that had fallen to the ground.

The bad news is that this year’s new supply of mosquitoes has arrived. I am SOOOOO allergic to bug bites. I hate using sprays, but I pay a huge price. Yesterday, I tried working out in the yard in long pants and a long sleeved shirt. I didn’t last very long. I had to wait until around 7 to go back and cut grass and finish my chores.

It is hard to believe that there is still over 100 inches of snow on the ground in some mountainous areas out west. From my CoCoRaHS coordinator this morning:

As of a few days ago we still had some CoCoRaHS volunteers with snow
left on the ground. Two of our stations in CA, where snowfall had been
so great that it buried residential power lines, still had over 100" of
snow remaining on the ground earlier this week. Here in Colorado we're
waiting for the warm weather to finally arrive and when it does later
this week -- look out. We have huge amounts of snow left in our
mountains -- from 25 to as much as 90 inches of snow water equivalent
(SWE) still up on the slopes in the northern portion of our state --
much, much more than usual. With the sun nearly overhead and the summer
solstice right around the corner, the snow will be melting fast (1-2" of
SWE per day when it gets warm) and the rivers surging.

Friends out in the Midwest can’t even get into their gardens – the land is just too soggy.

Here on the Shore, we are in a state of moderate drought. We don’t need the floods others have been having, but we sure could use some rain. Go figure. How is your garden growing? Still have snow? Is your garden under water? Or do you have to go out there and water every day?

MORE FROM THE MOUNTAINS – STAINED GLASS

THERE IS A GREAT little place up in a village called Bear Creek about 10 miles from our house in White Haven (PA) where I love to go for breakfast or lunch. It is called the Bear Creek Cafe. All I can say is, I have never been disappointed by their food.

They do a lot of great container gardening – a nice way to keep people from parking in the real convenient spots. They have NO handicapped spots that I could find, and dropping someone off out in the street is risky at best.  

The Cafe also has a nice little gift shop where, over the years, we have spent considerable amounts of money. This year, however, we found the prices were just a bit too steep and the selection too limited to spend much. Plus the music got on our nerves, so we cut the shopping short this summer.

Part of the fun of eating here is, besides the excellent food, the scenery is also terrific. If you are lucky enough to get a window seat in the back, you get to look out on a great little creek splashing by as well as some nice trees and wildflowers. But, we got stuck in the lower part of the cafe this year, so I took pictures of their stained glass windows instead. Enjoy!

The furniture is also interesting… not overly comfortable, but interesting. Then again, I don’t think they want you too comfortable as there is often a waiting line to get seated. Of course, that is good for shopping… as I said, it is also a gift shop.

Then, the good thing about it being so crowded is it drowns out the music which we have always found to be most irritating. If it were not for the excellent food and view, I don’t think I could sit thru it. It was the same CD playing over and over this year as last year, and the kind of music that is not to everybody’s taste. Next year, we might see if we can eat in the gazebo. Hopefully they don’t have speakers out there. We usually go there several times and take friends with us, but, one visit was it for us this year.

I guess I am getting old and crotchety, and obviously there are enough people who can tune out the music, but it is a serious distraction from an otherwise great place to eat. We left this year with  contented tummies but splitting headaches. 

SO WHY DO YOU GO UP THERE EACH YEAR?

So why do you go up there year after year?

Well, several reasons. First and foremost, it is the only chance I get to visit with my Aunt Kathryn, now age 89. She has been my rock in the storm of my life since I was a kid. She protected me from my mother and step-father – enough about that – and well, she just has always been there for me. She took us in when my step father lost yet another job, fed us, and gave me the love that I so missed after I was no longer living with my grandparents. She taught me to be strong, to be a survivor, and to come out of life’s garbage dump smiling. Her life was not always easy, either. She raised 8 kids, but I am here to say I was “her first" even though her sister gave birth to me. I preceded her family by 3 years, long enough to create a loving bond that has never diminished a bit over all these years. I still call her a couple times a week.
I also get to see my cousin Leigh and his wife Carol. Leigh has been more like a brother than my own actual brothers who, in today’s world, are related to me but not to each other. Ain’t divorce grand? They probably don’t even know each other’s names. Leigh is Aunt Kay’s oldest son.
For a few years now, I have stopped in Chadds Ford on my way up to the Pocono's… getting too old to make the trip up all in one day when the traffic is so bad. Plus, I get to make a quick visit to the Brandywine Museum (of which I am a member) probably better known as the Wyeth Museum (Andy, NC, and Jamie Wyeth) and to get in a quick visit with my brother, Shaw, and his wife.
And the other reason I love to go to the Pocono's, I get to visit my favorite places, namely Hickory Run State Park, and Rockport, which is part of the Lehigh Gorge state park which runs for miles along the Lehigh River some of which used to belong to me and my family. Ever hear of Eminent domain? “Hey folks, we are gonna make a park here, hope you don’t mind, but we are taking your river front property, but you can visit it any time you want to, after all, it is right across the street from your house!”

First, Hickory Run… confession, these shots were taken last year – much more rain… this year the water is down to a mere trickle in places as you can see in this year’s picture of my favorite road.... Yep, that is my van on the right. The road goes thru the creek (pronounced crick up there)... as you can see, last year is was a real tire washer, this year, not so much.
Rockport…
Frances Walter Dam… from up on top of the dam. See where the road goes into the water? Ya don't want to try to drive thru this one however... This is from the other side of the dam looking down the Lehigh River.

I won’t even mention the fact that it is usually a good 20 degrees cooler up here than down home, and this year that was a huge difference as it was in the low 100s while we were gone.

Hmmm, trying to figure out why the date is wrong - and the time!
It is Aug 1st, 8:20 AM... go figure...

AND THE NEW LIBRARY (in maybe 8 months time…)

I just posted pics of the White Haven (Pennsylvania) library as it is today, nestled in a coffee shop (Coffeeworks on Main St in the basement of the old hardware store that only we old timers apparently remember.)  See previous post. But this is where it will be this time next year when they finish renovating this building. The outside is quite impressive, isn’t it? This is called the Engine House Project and this is an effort to rehab a former Lehigh Valley Railroad engine repair shop into a multi-purpose library and Heritage visitor’s center.

It has been used for a few fund raising events and programs, but you can see the inside has a lot of work left to be done. check out the beautiful stone walls.

White Haven has a lot of tourist potential as it is in the center of an area that includes 3 state parks (Hickory Run, Lehigh Gorge [which took some of my land] and Nescopeck, all within 6 miles, the Gorge being within feet of the bldg) and welcomes over 400,000 tourists annually. Interstate 80 runs thru one side of the town and 940 goes thru the middle. White Haven is 4 miles from the NE extension of the PA Turnpike and is on the Lehigh River which separates White Haven from East Side, where my house is, on the East Side of the river. East Side is in Carbon County and somewhere in the middle of the river is the county line, with White Haven in Luzerne County which is known as “the Gateway to the Poconos.” 

The library that will be housed inside these walls will meet the needs of children from Crestwood, Weatherly, and Hazleton school districts by providing hard copy resources, literacy programs and state of the art communications technology. But I bet people will miss the coffee! Think they will at least have an espresso machine???? a Starbucks vending machine????

Train and history buffs will appreciate the magnificent structure as it is believed to be the last railroad repair shop still intact in the Commonwealth of PA. I have known the building all my life and I am still impressed. It cleaned up good, as they say.

“Green” people will appreciate the fact that the building will be climate controlled with geothermal wells… a bit ironic (a double pun, that word) since the railroad was practically invented to move coal from the area and the coal was used to make iron that previously had been imported from England. Did you know the FIRST rails for the FIRST railroad were made out of WOOD? Funny, they didn’t last long. Did you know that people laughed when Josiah White tried to get people to burn those black rocks he found in these hills? They were very different from the coal found in England, big shiny black rocks that were slow to ignite, but burned much hotter than wood, hot enough to melt the ore to make iron. The railroad was first made to move the black rocks to the canal locks he built on the river. If you are interested, you might want to read a book that is both interesting and boring all at the same time on Josiah White, for whom the town was named. He was the founder of Lehigh Coal and Navigation and the Lehigh Valley Railroad – whose logo is on the building. 

The Project is a true community, grass roots effort, with the White Haven Borough council members voting to purchase the building in 2002 in response to hundreds of signatures (including mine) asking them to do so on the community’s behalf.

The library has been in existence, in one place or another, for 13 years, most recently in the coffee shop, so you can imagine how exciting it will be to have ALL the books unpacked and on shelves and available to the public. You can learn more at www.whitehavenlibrary. Years ago, my step mother (a librarian) used to drive 28 miles one way to Wilkes-Barre to check out a stack of books to last her a week or so, to help her survive “this god forsaken back woods place.” This was back when she had just recently been evacuated from Saigon with the rest of the American dependents and found herself in the old family home. I guess it was too quiet for her… no bombs going off day and night, that sort of thing… sigh. Anyway, she started back then to push for a local library, but nothing happened for many, many years. She gave up and moved to Bradenton, Fla. Fortunately, others kept up the fight, but it has been a struggle. That ride over the mountains to WB was a rough haul in the winter! Trust me.

Train buffs will recognize the brick pattern in the parking lot. Anybody want to guess why it is there? What it once was? (that is a clue). Both the circle and the straight section????? See the tracks currently in use just a few feet from the parking lot and building, like mid point in the picture?

A view from the entrance to the parking lot.