We had a brief warm spell the other day tucked tween the bitter cold, snowy
days and they were teases to the hopeful promise of true spring. I know
better. Mom's Nature has a sense of the sharp wit about her, and at least in
Eastern Tennessee (and middle Tennessee where I am from) there are plenty of
"false spring" days to drive one either mad or at least give reprieve for
brief moments, depending on your mood at the time.

The temps were in the low 60's, almost balmy. Enough so that my silly
Cornelian Cherry tree tentatively started plumping out the many blossom
balls on the tree limbs and twigs in hopeful bloom. As I pulled out of the
long driveway that is tucked between the two pastures of my neighbor's land,
I stopped at the entrance to gaze across the hill tops and saw in the
pastures a hilarious sight.

I haven't had time to go cow pie picking of late, and I tend to let them
accumulate in the pasture's fields until I have enough to warrant a haul
down the driveway. They dot the ground like mounds of dark promise to me.
The gardener in me never snurls up my nose at the idea of cow poop. I almost
embrace it. (I don't actually EMBRACE it, but you get the idea, I get
excited when faced with cow manure and getting as much for free that I can
haul over the electric fence to my waiting garden cart).

There before me, surrounding every "pie" that I could distinguish was at
least 5-12 male robins......... each of them having a buffet feast. They
were gorging themselves as fast as they could plow into the thawed flop of
the red worms I knew were inside them.

You could almost hear their mouthful's conversation. Eyes bright and shiny,
turned towards me for a brief moment, they turned back with hardly a
moment's hesitation in their feast.

What better place for a worm to be? The flop heats up all cozy warm in the
freezing temperatures, it's also a source of food for them, the little
composters, and nature does it's part in turn from there. The robins were
hilarious. There were so many pies, filled with so many worms, and the word
had gotten out to a flock of early arriving males...... it was almost a
free for all. They were so hungry and distracted, though, that they weren't
fighting with each other and I sat there for a good 15 minutes just watching
the scene before me.

These are the early bachelor's that come at the end of winter, up north, in
hopes of settling down in his own area where there is ample food for a wife
and fledglings to raise up. As I sat there, they didn't even stop their
picking and tossing the worms up and catching them to feel threatened by me.
I think Rose thought me insane as I sat there laughing, not driving on to
wherever it was we were going that day.

That was at the start of this week. We've since dropped temperatures, had a
snow, and facing another winter warning for tonight. I have increased the
birdfood in the many feeders I have hanging in the pawlonia tree, put fresh
suet out, and Miz Mary sprinkles cracked corn and black sunflowers on her
sitting boulders around her house near those pastures.

Back in the fairy gardens, the fairies have loosened up their grip on some
of the bulbs, and I have started seeing green noses poking thru the brown
leaves in spots. and since I have raised beds, there are more up in these
warmer soil than the bulbs that are in the ground. The cold temperatures
have made the larger, older hellebore leaves turn a deep green burgandy,
with the younger leaves a pale lime green at the center of the plants.

Sedums are now resembling the tightly curled fists with pink rimmed knuckles
at the base of the stems that have survived the snows and rains and winds.
All the hens and chicks are tightened up in various shades of burgandy,
plum, or red tipped lime green, and all the white veined arum leaves stand
out like islands of foliage in seas of brown leaves.

I sat that afternoon on the edge of the fig bed and looked at the lime
spirea and the tips of the twigs were all flushed pink like a young girls
cheeks when told a secret. Every bush I stopped and searched revealed that
they are all ready to burst out with flowers and leaves come the true warmth
of spring.

The Scotch broom is amazing to me. Screaming, St. Patrick's green it is,
leaning eastwards since the jack pine fell on it, it refuses to be shaped
yet by my unskillful hands.

I wander about like some lost loon...the empty, dark tomato beds cry out for
bulbs, sleeping perennials, ANYTHING. I will fill it's empty belly this
spring with teasings of returning plants, to open up spaces in my beds up
front. This year is going to be a lean one. I will depend on the generosity
of friends who are sending me roots, rhizomes, seeds and tubers of extra
perennials they have to share with me, and in turn I will share the
divisions and daughters and children seeds of the season.

My friend, Dian in Oregon sent me a quart ziploc bag full of gaillardia
seeds. I will try again to grow them. Tomorrow I go out and sow these
seeds to lay in the cold soil, stratifying and waiting for the perfect
moment to germinate. Helen sent me some seeds of poppies she gathered in
front of a Chinese restaurant one day. I am dusting the strip next to the
cleared out fence with those, and will have to watch for the insidious
return of the japanese honeysuckle we tediously picked off, cut away and
unwound from the woven chain link fencing.

Already the temperatures are colder than they were this morning, my
arthritis in my fingers warn me a front is moving in, and the sky has
changed it's clothes from a cheerful blue with white cloud streaks to a more
somber gray white that darkens to that familiar sky that promises snow.

Thanks for the time, friends. Stay warm and think crocus and snow bells and
aconite.

madgardener up on the ridge, back in fairy holler, overlooking a snow dusted
English Mountain in Eastern Tennessee zone 6b

Hey mad,

How did you know I was lost??? hehe

loony


I wander about like some lost loon...

then come on over here and keep me company while the snow keeps
falling................
"loonyhiker" wrote in message
...
Hey mad,

How did you know I was lost??? hehe

loony


I wander about like some lost loon...