It's (Gonna Be) the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown!

This year Larry decided we should be pumpkin ranchers.

In search of a garden goodie that would not take a ton of maintenance yet yield an easily

Yikes!

salable product, he planted all pumpkins in the front garden.  Their leaves have now exploded, literally filling the garden, and blossoms are visible.  

The blueberries out back, after doing squat the last few years and being afflicted by some sort of creeping crud last season, are bearing beautiful fruit.  Larry also planted a few beets, cabbage for his sauerkraut (oh, the humanity) and basil because what’s summer without fresh basil and mozzarella salad?

This past winter’s long, icy grip is a not very distant memory.  When the sweat is running down my back, I remind myself of how I couldn’t get close enough to the woodstove last winter.  I will not complain about the heat this year.  Not once.  It’s become a personal challenge.  Anyone who hears me do so has my permission to slap me.

Our big news is that we’ve put the house on the market in anticipation of Larry getting a job transfer and moving to warmer climes.  In an effort to look more mainstream, we mowed our yard this year.  I admit, it does look nice.  I left a few pockets of wildflowers, where they were actually in greater population than grass or weeds.  They provide pretty bursts of color.  I wouldn’t exactly call what we have a lawn, more like evenly cut green stuff, which, from a distance, could pass for a lawn.  To my dismay, it all grows pretty fast.  I’ve gotten back into the lawnmower groove, which is good exercise.

The front of the house has been power washed, scraped and repainted, and the porch has been reroofed to match the rest of the house (kudos to Larry for working like a dog on all this).  Rehab projects take forever when you’re chipping away at them on weekends.  The painting of the porch seemed like the never ending story and I wouldn’t wish painting lattice on my worst enemy.

When it was done, though, Larry couldn’t stop admiring how much better it all looked.  “We should have done this years ago,” he said, and it was hard to disagree.  We didn’t because we were always too busy working out back on pastures, which have gone by the wayside this year.

And we still have our Final Five chickens.  Tough old broads, they are.  They’ve become fixtures, following us around and gracing us with one to three eggs a day.  

I’m enjoying the yard more this year – futzing with my perennials and doing small yard projects I haven’t had the time to do before.  I don’t have the niggling guilt in the back of my mind that I’m not doing enough with the horses, because they’re out of my equation.  I’m getting the itch to ride again, but it’s not a burning desire.  At least, not yet, not here.  I’m not sure where I’m at with that right now.

Meantime, we’re enjoying our summer immensely – watching the gardens grow, giving the house some long overdue sprucing up, enjoying our time together right here, right now.  And oh yeah, we need to cracking on firewood.  So I can huddle up to the woodstove next winter.

It's Not Easy Being Green

The beginning of June usually marks the start of peak growth season. I had just put down an initial bed of mulch around my three front flower beds and the perennial bed I planted last year. And then I broke my leg and it rained and turned hot. Things grew. And grew.

Larry is the anti-lawnmower man. As in, he hates to mow. In the 10+ years I’ve known him, I’ve never seen him use the lawnmower. It was part of his incentive to rototill the entire yard and plant wildflower seed when he first bought the house. It’s been successful in varying degrees. The front of the house has fared the best, with really beautiful growth, but last year the backyard bore more grasses and weeds than anything.

Regardless, I've always mowed my little paths through the jungle - across the front of the 

Front yard flowers - my perennial
bed is in there somewhere

house and around the gardens, which gave things some semblance of order and neatness. Last year I put paver stones around two of the front flower beds and erected little pioneer fences behind my perennial grasses and the new perennial flower bed.

But this year I've been stuck in a chair watching the grass grow. And the weeds grow. With no taming in sight. Larry had his hands full helping me out, taking care of everything house-wise and working. I didn’t have the heart to whine to him about the yard.  He enjoys his vegetable gardens; the rest of the yard, who cares?

This spring Larry bought a 4' brush hog attachment for the tractor for the back pastures. It sat next to the barn, waiting for its maiden voyage into the back 40.

As the yard grew exponentially with the rain and angst began to show on my face, Larry  

Stupid chicken! Get out
of my flower bed!

offered to mow around the house – with the brush hog.

I didn’t want to seem unappreciative. I didn’t want to discourage him. But I could not quite visualize how this would work. A 4’ brush hog really isn’t destined for footpaths around the house. It's not a finesse tool. I had visions of everything within a 50’ radius of the house being mascerated, with flower heads flying everywhere.

Larry hooked the brush hog up to the tractor and started it up. I heard him drive behind the house, put the brush hog in gear, and lumber along with the occasional hair-raising sounds of rocks being chiseled. The man was undaunted.

He came around the side of the house, by the garden. He got close to the fence, mowed the high vegetation there. But he never came around to the front of the house.

An hour later, the tractor went quiet and Larry appeared, sweaty and with little green bits of vegetation sticking to him. "Well," he said, "That was kinda like using a 20 pound sledge to hammer in a finishing nail."

 

Back garden

Minutes later, to my shock, I heard the lawnmower rev up, and he made a very quick pass across the front of the house. This weekend, he weed-whacked along the back garden fence, which was all but invisible behind tall grass. He spent hours weeding in his gardens, making the wonderful vegetables he grows suddenly stand out and shine.  I managed to get on my hands and knees Saturday and weeded three of the flower beds, which was very satisfying.

 

Front garden

Things are still a little rough and shaggy looking, but as Larry says, "Hey, it's the Adirondacks."