Favorite Things About the Fall

Fall color on the farm. 

 I love fall. Next to spring, it's my favorite season. Last night after a hectic day at work, I took a stroll in the flower garden. The colors at this time of year are spectacular. The understory trees interspersed with the loblolly pine we grow on the farm are all turning rich shades of crimson, gold, orange and umber, and even the shrubs are adding to the colorful cacophony. The peony bushes at the end of the main pathway in the garden are turning shades of yellow and brown, the dogwood is red-tinted purple, and the butterfly bushes' leaves are turning silvery-gray.  Seedpods hang heavily from the marigolds, and I thought of my father in law, Jack, as I passed among the marigolds last evening. He used to spend so many hours collecting the seeds for me; I have coffee cans full of seeds still in the garage. I'm just going to let most of the seeds stay where they are, and reseed the same areas.

Fall dogwood. 

I love fall...I love the leaves, the crisp morning air. I love the fresh turnips I'm harvesting from the garden, and the growing spaghetti, butternut and acorn squash. I love the scary movies on television and look forward to them every year. Vincent Price, Bella Lugosi, and all the rest of that group of actors always makes for a great horror movie, I think. I love the apples and pears available at the store - my two favorite fruits - and keep a bowl full of apples in the kitchen.

Turnip harvest.

The only thing I dislike about the autumn are the ladybugs. Yes, once again, swarms of them are getting into the house. This happens every year in the country, but some years are worse than others.  I've been sitting at my desk working all afternoon and getting bombarded by cranky ladybugs. Those darn things hurt when they whack you in the heat, neck and arms. They bite. Yes, they bite. I guess I would too if I were flying along and suddenly whacked into a human being. Some people think ladybugs are cute, but after dealing with the annual invasion now for several years, all I can say is enough already, ladybugs. You've had your chance.

And yet...zinnias continue blooming...with the occasional visitor.

I Learned a New Word - Derecho

I have lived through hurricanes and a tornado while living on Long Island. Since moving to Virginia, I've added to my list of experiences an earthquake. Now I will add a new experience: derecho.  Yes, I've learned a new word.

Last Friday, temperatures soared past the 100 degree mark.  Around 8 p.m, we turned on the Weather Channel and saw that nearly the entire state of Virginia was outlined in the yellow "thunderstorm warning" box.  We didn't see any clouds on the map, so we decided to just check back later and make sure the electronics were unplugged before retiring for the evening.  We lost one computer several years ago when we forgot to disconnect the phone line from it during a storm, and from that experience gleaned only that which experience teaches.

Around 9:45 I took Shadow for her last walk, and the air outside was hot and still.  The colorful garden flag my friend Joan gave me for my birthday just hung limply from its post, and the American flag on the porch was still.  I went upstairs to get ready for bed.  A weird noise seemed to be coming from above me, and I figured it was the sound of the air conditioner turning onto high speed.  But the noise increased and I ran downstairs to see what was happening just as my husband shouted for me to come down.

We were hit with a derecho- a wall of high velocity wind that precedes thunderstorms.  The winds by some estimates were 60-80 miles per hour and they sustained that speed for about 10 minutes.  It was an awful sound listening to the howl and shrieking of the wind hitting the house. It was unrelenting. Usually during a storm you get gusts, but not this. It was like a wall of wind just hit the house and kept coming.

And then the power went out.

We stood by the windows and watched big bolts of lightning touching down to the south of us.  But there was no rain and eerily enough...no thunder.  Just lightning.

Saturday was hot, sticky and without electricity, telephones or running water. And of course - no air conditioning.  As temperatures soared beyond 100 once again, I had flashbacks to hiking in the desert Canyonlands of Utah many years ago. So hot you wanted to lay down in the shade and nap....

The reports on the radio were grim.  We thought we'd be out of power for many days, but fortunately, Dominion power restored service in just about 20 hours from the power outage.  I keep praying for the rest of the people in the state who don't have power. 

It happened so fast!  And in the end, it could have been much worse.  We could have been stuck in the 100 degree weather for days on end without relief of air conditioning.

Derecho. I learned a new word this weekend.

And I also want to urge you to get your bad weather preparedness stuff ready.  I used to laugh when I'd see that info back when I lived on Long Island. On Long Island when the power went out, you just complained because you were missing your favorite TV shows.  The water system kept working (gravity fed) and the supermarket was a block or two away.  But out here in the country, you have to be prepared. If a big tree fell over the driveway, for example, we have to be ready to remove it.  We have to have water for when the electric well pump won't work.  We have to have dried food that will keep several days.  I have a friend from Miami who jokes about "hurricane dinners" of Ritz crackers and peanut butter.  It's food like that in the pantry that will at least keep you full until you can get the power back on and fresh food again.

So...derecho.  I learned a new word. And respect for derecho!

Weeding After Weeks Away

I meant to write that essay on Sunday, but decided against it.  It's not that I didn't want to sit down and write - I did. But the weekend passed in a hazy blur of chores, and I was studiously avoiding anything that might trigger reflections, musing or blathering about September 11.  So I decided to follow the Shaker maxim of "Hands to work, hearts to God" and work I did, giving my heart some room to pray.

Saturday morning, I tackled the weeds in the flower garden. Now that might not sound like such a big deal, but the flower garden is large and the weeds are strong. Plus, they've had nearly six weeks to grow unchecked.  In early August, my sister came for a visit, then we had a weekend 'off', then two weekends in a row, John's sister and her family were here visiting. The next two weeks? Hurricane Irene, followed by yet another weekend of rain! So this really was the first sunny weekend for weeding.

I spent two hours pulling weeds, and finally got the edges of the garden at least into law and order. I uncovered one poor azalea that had been smothered by crabgrass and managed to give myself a great unidentified rash on the arm. It was itching so badly I feared something dreadful, like poison ivy, but I knew I hadn't seen that particular evil one in the garden.  I must be allergic to another weed. I wear gloves, but the rash was in the crook of the elbow.  A bit of soap and water, some first aid spray, and I soldiered on.

You can really see in just these few weeks how fall has crept into the garden. The marigolds are at their peak. Some grew up in the cracks between the sidewalk in the little pathway leading from the garage to our back deck. I don't know what they live on - they are growing in pure sand, and underneath, a bed of hard packed clay. Yet they thrive. I don't have the heart to pull them up in the spring. If they are tough enough to grow under those conditions, they are plants to be admired.

Leaves are starting to turn golden on the tulip poplars along the driveway.  I spent time taking pictures of mushrooms, in all their glory. We found several perfect rings of mushrooms growing in the lawn which my husband dubbed "Shroom Henge."  It is amazing to watch each mushroom (fungi? what is the proper name anyhow?) unfold daily. Some start as small baseballs, then suddenly grow up on stems as thick as a man's wrist. The baseball unfurls into an umbrella with what looks like a car filter underneath. Then the umbrella collapses, the mushroom shrinks back into the earth, and the cycle continues. I am slightly in awe of them.  I don't quite understand them.

After grubbing about in the garden for hours, I was ready for some indoor house-wifey tasks. Saturday afternoon, I canned eight pints of pickled peppers, which is good because the family keeps eating them faster than I am able to can them. That's a sign they like my recipes!  The pickled beets are also disappearing from the shelves.  I keep eying the pressure canner in the Lehman's catalog. Maybe next year....

Sunday church, then off to do the shopping, then the afternoon filled with house cleaning. I finally curled up on the back patio to read the latest issue of Countryside and Small Stock Journal, only to get dive-bombed by a bee jealously guarding "his" part of the patio. It got so bad he actually chased me inside. It was either that or he was going to be a dead bee...

So honestly, although my heart wanted to write, all I managed to do was curl up in my big fat armchair last night and watch the weekend reruns of my favorite TV show, Monk.  My garden is neat and tidy, my peppers - all 13 pounds of them - canned, and my house sparkles.

That, I think, made up for the lack of essay.

Woods here at Seven Oaks

Lightning DID Strike

I got an email on Sunday from my friend Patty.  She lives about 4 miles away on a beautiful 100+ year old farm.  "Hey Jeanne," she said, "You know that big boom you heard the other night? That was lightning striking...it hit our farm."

I called her yesterday afternoon. The story is absolutely chilling.  Without her quick thinking and the rapid response of both the Prospect and Pamplin volunteer fire departments, this story would not have a happy ending.

The big boom I heard?  It was a horrendous bolt of lightning that struck a massive oak tree in her field. The electricity jumped to her electric livestock fence and used it to travel through barns, outbuildings and into her house.  Her smoke detectors alerted her and she was able to get her family out of the house in time and grab her kitchen fire extinguisher.  The fire department said that if not for her quick thinking and her use of the household fire extinguishers, she would have lost her 100 year old farmhouse.  The full story is going to be in the local newspaper this week and I will share a link to it once it's out.   Thankfully,  even though such a massive amount of electricity went through her hay barn and livestock barns, neither hay nor buildings caught on fire and all of her livestock are fine.

Patty wanted especially to thank the wonderful people at both the Prospect and Pamplin fire departments. Not only did they arrive within minutes, their professionalism and care for her and her family was wonderful.

Listen, everyone reading this: Install smoke detectors. Check the batteries regularly and replace them.  Test the detectors to make sure they work. Get a fire extinguisher and check it.  I sure hope lightning never strikes your place, but if it does, those things DO save lives.

Without those things, my story today might not be the glad story of a safe family and a saved farmhouse.

When Lightning Strikes

Last night, I had the scare of my life as lightning struck directly outside of my bedroom window. We'd had a few rumbles of thunder, but they were far away, and after a brief shower all was quiet. Hubby had just stepped outside to check something and was downstairs locking the front door. I was in bed, reading. Everything happened at once - there was a sizzle and crackle, like in the old Frankenstein movies when the electricity moves between the gizmos in the lab, a bright flash, and the loudest bang I've ever heard.  I don't know if it actually struck the ground, a tree or what.  Luckily for us we were all okay.

Pierre the cat proved that his training works.  Anytime there is something scary in the house, such as a stranger, a big noise, or a storm, he runs for the basement. Hubby also has him trained to return to us with a certain tune he whistles.  We whistled for him and there was his little furry kitty face, peeking around the basement door.  In the event of a big storm, he's the smartest one of all of us and takes shelter right away in the basement.

Shadow the German Shepherd dog is not afraid of thunderstorms, but that bang was too much for her, so she ran into the bathroom where I found her curled up between the sink and the tub. She looked at me with accusing eyes as if to say, "Make that loud noise go away!"

It was the only time all evening that we heard such a loud bang.  I was more frightened by the fact that we could have been struck.  Each of us had stepped outside during the thunderstorm to grab something the wind was carrying away, or just to check something.  The thunder minutes before had been a low rumble, the kind that sounds like it's miles away. Then suddenly - bang. It was right there.

Here's the eerie coincidence. Now, it's a common phrase to describe a once in a lifetime event as a 'lightning strike.'  I was on the phone with a friend yesterday.  He was upset because he is getting audited, which is very stressful indeed.  I asked him if he had made a mistake in his taxes and he said, "No, not that I know of. My attorney keeps saying it's like lightning striking - a once in a lifetime thing, and very unusual to get chosen for an audit."

That phrase had been going through my mind all day yesterday.  Like lightning striking.

Now I REALLY know what that phrase means!

Today's picture is from Morguefile, a photo file sharing website.

Natural History of a Farm

I'm reading a fascinating book called The Old Place: A Natural History of a Country Garden, by Merritt Gibson.  It's a large paperback book filled with illustrations that I purchased at the Pamplin Library fall book sale, a used book among the gardening books that caught my eye.  It's available on sites such as PaperbackBookSwap for a trade but Amazon has it listed at the weird price of $84.50.  I say weird because it's neither rare nor hardcover - just an intriguing book.  If you can find a copy online used or at your library, it's worth a second look.

The author lives in Nova Scotia, Canada, and has an 18 acre farm that dates back to the late 1800's.  The best part of her farm is the mixture of habitats.  She's got an old house, stable and pasture, but she also has riverfront and tidal marsh areas, woodlands and more.



Each chapter of the book takes you on a nature walk to examine the plants, insects, birds and natural habitat of The Old Place, the name of her farm.  I love taking the imaginary walk with the author.  What I love best is that her suggestions for nature watching are exactly what my own mother taught me many, many years ago.

As a child, I used to always note certain parts of our tiny urban/suburban garden and the gardens on my way to school.  I used to watch the privet hedge that separated our property from Mr. Hoffman's; sparrows would nest there.  I'd watch for the first blush of tender green shoots on the oaks and maples, the tinge of autumn gold. On my way to school was a wonderful house set on a corner that had a post and rail fence around the property. The owner had planted a different rose at every post and trained various climbers up and onto the fence.  I remember one luscious white rose. The blossoms had such a strong scent. In June, I'd stop and inhale the rose fragrance, delighting in the early morning light playing among the roses.

Gibson describes similar experiences on her farm, and she has wonderful suggestions for noting the natural world on your little corner of the world, whether you live on a farm, garden in an urban backyard or a suburban habitat.  The suggestions she gives that I want to incorporate in my life include:

• Planting a mixture of habitats to attract different wildlife - we did this here at Seven Oaks by clearing only 3 acres of the timber that grew here, and then planting that with a mixture of grass, orchard fruit trees, flower gardens and different evergreens.  Everything is still very small and growing, but the goal is the same as what Gibson has on her farm that's had over 100 years to grow; mixed habits attract wild birds and provide forage, food and shelter for many different insects, birds and animals.
• Visit one or two spots regularly, at different times of the day, to note the wildlife.  I do this by walking among my flower garden and sitting comfortably on my porch in the mornings and nights watching the garden.  I also do this when walking Shadow. There's a spot along the road that runs in front of my house that has junipers, cedars, persimmon trees, dogwoods and arbor vitae growing naturally along a fence line with an open cattle field beyond, and on the opposite side of the road, woodland bordered by junipers.  This is one of my favorite bird watching spots.  I've seen beautiful indigo buntings, bluebirds, vireos, wood thrushes and many, many more wild birds here.  The butterflies play along the wildflowers growing along the water runoff ditch next to the farm too, and while I do not know enough about them to identify them, the butterflies and wildflowers also provide a changing panoply of color each season.  So pick a spot in your yard or garden and make it a habit to visit it daily.  You'll be amazed at what you see!
• Visit the garden at night.  I haven't done this because I still have my city-girl fear of running into wild animals, but I suspect that during the summer I can safely take a flashlight and walk among my plants.  The author interested me in the many moths that feed at night. I want to see them! 
• Keep a journal.   I want to train myself to keep a wildlife journal. We often ask one another, "When did we see the bear?" "When was the last time you saw the hummingbirds?" If I log it into a journal, it will be both a guide and a resource for future years.

My sister gave me a CD that has various bird songs on it with their identification.  My next little winter garden project is to challenge myself to learn a few more so that in the springtime, I will know my neighbors better.

Each year I challenge myself to learn a new star constellation in the night sky; my challenges to myself this year will be to learn a new birdsong, and to find a good guidebook to Virginia wild flowers so I can be like Merritt Gibson, knowing the names of every little bit of beauty in her farm.  I want to know them all by name and treasure them too, just like she does.

What do you do for winter gardening fun?  Do you also like to learn all the wild things growing and living on your property?

Gorgeous Greens

My neighbor Joan invited me to pick greens at her house last weekend, but due to wakes, funerals, travel and such yesterday was the first day I was able to make it over.  I brought her several garlic bulbs which delighted her; apparently her garlic didn't grow too well this year, so the little bag of six bulbs, with their full, lush cloves was a treat for her.  We picked greens before the men headed out to tour the farm and their poultry house and Joan and I sat down to tea and catching up.

Greens are a treat here in the south, but up north on Long Island where I am originally from, very few people know or enjoy them. I think that's also because very few are available in the grocery stores. You can buy bags of prepared kale and spinach, and sometimes find Swiss Chard at the store, but you have to really search the farmers markets and little vegetable stands to find other types.

We walked down to one of their three lush and well tended vegetable gardens. The greens grew near the house in a bed of red clay liberally amended with goat and cattle manure that made the perfect soil.  Joan handed me mustard green, field greens, and bunches of greens whose names I did not catch, while Mel picked perfectly globe-shaped turnips. The turnips glowed in the twilight with a purple beauty and a healthy, rosy light that you don't find in months-old, heavily waxed turnips at the store.  With Virginia red clay soil still clinging to the turnips, John bagged them for the trip home. I think only a gardener can appreciate the beauty of the scene; the rich, red soil, the perfect purple and white spheres of turnips with the lush green leaves above.

Once we returned home, John chopped the turnip tops off for me and we put them in a big stockpot of water overnight to keep them fresh.  I'll cook them tonight, along with our home grown sweet potatoes and pork chops for the fellas.  The other greens are bagged, awaiting their turn in smoothies and salads.  I feel so blessed to have generous neighbors! I could not get over how beautiful their greens were out in the field.  I'm inspired now to grow my own next year. I told Joan about broccoli rabe, and she seemed puzzled, so now I want to grow double - just to share it!

Fall Color on the Farm

Early this morning I was chatting was a pal and she mentioned she would love to see our tree farm.  Then a short while later, a friend who lives in southern Florida emailed me, bemoaning the lack of seasonal color in her area.  So I got the bright idea to capture "fall on the farm" here.  What does fall look like on a timber farm? Well since most of the trees we grow are pine - they don't change color! But the understory trees are another story altogether....

View looking east from the driveway - the bits of white are the supports for the fruit trees. The orchard is to the left.

Woods

Sumac explodes with color

Not much is blooming in the flower garden, but the background trees add color!

Shadow, Destroyer of Plants

Dogs and kids destroy things that are precious to us and we may get angry but we forgive. Shadow's been running to the construction site next to our driveway to visit with friends of ours who are building a house.  She loves the men working there but gives us a fright when we can't find her - and last week, the neighbors down the road showed up with her on the end of a leash, claiming she'd been across the street nosing around someone's property. So her days off leash while John mows the lawn are over, at least for now.


We've taken to tying her up on the front porch. It's shady, cool, and she can watch us as we work in the garden. John ate his breakfast on the porch this morning and left Shadow tied there.

He came back an hour later to find that she'd dug herself a nice little hole in the dirt. Problem is, the hole was in my flower bed, and she'd rolled her 70+ pound self right onto my Heuchera "Palace Purple."

I'd planted those there because they reminded me of my mother! She too had planted Coral Bells along the entrance path into our tiny backyard garden. I loved to pick the flowers as a child. They remind me of her. I'd placed them specifically in that spot in her honor, and placed the angel statue there too.

Argh.....John was afraid to show me the smashed and broken plants.  But he did.  He said, "I have good news and bad news. The good news is you can see your angel statue really well now!" The bad news was delivered by handing me half of the Purple Palace plant like a bouquet of flowers.

I took the bashed stems and stuck them into the moist soil. Let's see if they grow.

In the meantime, Shadow is giving me a wide berth....John was surprised at how calm I actually was, but honestly, can I really yell at her?  I wasn't there to teach her not to dig in the dirt.

It reminds me of times when I was a kid and did really bad stuff. Like the time I glued (not taped) my coloring book pictures of Donald Duck to the wood paneling in the basement play room.

The day I sold my dad's house, there were still two white ovals on the paneling from where the paper had stuck. Over 25 years later!

So really, how can I yell at my big, hairy, sweet and dumb beast?

I Plan to Hide Under the Covers

...and take my cues from the black bear. Hibernate. You know you're in for trouble when the Weather Channel's meteorologist, with a happy gleam in his eye, announces your forecast as "very interesting." His voice takes on a more excited pitch as strange maps showing front lines, cloud formations, and places where such things will "collide" in the atmosphere flicker on the screen like dreadful oracles. Weather was never this exciting in my youth except when snowstorms meant school closings.


According to the best predictions, a massive storm that's now out near California will rumble down south, slam Texas with ice, then sneak in through the back door into the southeastern United States. Just as this nasty trick occurs, an icy blast of Canadian air (gee, thanks our neighbors to the north) will hit the California traveler, creating a band of snow and/or ice over our region Friday and Saturday.


Ice is bad out here in the countryside. Very bad. Not only will it take down trees, but it will take out power lines. No power means I have no water. We did buy a generator, but a small one to keep essentials like a space heater and the refrigerator going. I have been stockpiling drinking water all year in containers in the basement for just such an occasion, however.


So my Thursday might be spent (depending on the updated forecast) filling bathtubs with water, charging the laptop and cell phone batteries, and making sure all the flashlights, lanterns and candles are where the rest of the family can find them (for I appear to be the only one in the entire household who can remember this fact.) For the uninitiated into country life, filling the tub with water is so that you can dunk a bucket into the tub water, draw a bucket out, and dump it into the toilet tank to flush it.

I'm actually better prepared than before, which is usually a sign that nothing will happen. It's like taking an umbrella when it threatens to rain; umbrellas ward off rain very well. I've got paper plates and cups and disposable utensils (so we don't waste water washing dishes if the water isn't working), enough canned food to feed an army, Ritz crackers and peanut butter (somehow a staple when the power is off), a propane stove and grill for cooking, and a pantry stocked with pet food (Pierre the Portly breathes a sigh of relief and pats his chubby tummy). Batteries in the radio and a pile of unread books. MP3 player charged? Check. Hey, I might be snowed in, but I plan to be comfortable.

I think I will take my cue from the black bear and hibernate if it snows a lot. I will dive under a thick comforter with a stack of seed catalogs and dream about warm weather, digging my hands into the dirt, and watching hummingbirds buzz on by the geraniums on the porch.

The photo below is me and my Shadow girl in the road here taking our walk after the snowstorm of March 2008 .

Slow Transition to Fall

It's starting to dawn on me that summer is over. Last night at choir practice, I was delighted to see not just the handful of college students who return to herald the change of seasons but two entire rows of college kids eager to sing with our little group at St. Theresa's. I haven't sung with this many voices in an actual choir in over 20 years, not since high school. It makes such a difference when you lose your way in the music to actually hear other voices singing the notes...and it's just fun to be around the college kids as well as my friends. There was a new energy among us too.

So the first sign of fall is here: the return of the Longwood University and Hampton-Sydney students. It's like migration patterns among wildlife...the students flocking back to Farmville.

The hummingbird feeder needs less frequent refills. They've either started heading south for the winter or there are wild plants blooming now which they prefer.

Gone are the green crickets, replaced with the mature big ones that Pierre loves to chase and Shadow snaps and eats. Shadow's lush long haired coat has begun to shed. The last time she shed like this was March, and her spring coat came in. The undercoat is now pulling out in tufts and I imagine she'll grow her thicker fur now for the winter. She should be an Alaskan or Maine dog with that coat - Virginia winters aren't usually that bad!

Walking Shadow yesterday morning up the driveway towards our road, we rounded a turn and stopped short. Standing not fifteen feet away was a buck (male deer) complete with antlers. They're back too, present every evening in the yard eating grass, with small bands following them around. Shadow barked and he fled for the woods, where I hope he'll stay on our non hunting property for at least a few weeks.

The last of the melons are in and the vines are dying. The corn stalks have died completely and I'll remove them this weekend. I'm still picking and freezing green beans and harvesting herbs. Tomatoes anyone? I can't pick them fast enough and my family can't eat them enough. Soon they'll be gone, but next year I'm going to register with Ample Harvest so that my extra vegetables can be used by the local food pantry.

I don't have many fall blooming flowers, so I'm enjoying the last of the helopsis and echinacea, the morning glories, impatiens, petunias and salvia - my old standbyes. The marigolds in the fall are my favorite for by this time they've attained bushy golden perfection, and they last well into November.

Fall...apples, pears and crisp Sundays watching football together while I do my counted cross stitch (the only craft I can complete. We'll leave the quality to the imagination). Cozy sweaters and curling up in front of the fireplace with a good book.

And bulbs. Fall bulbs. Masses of them. Bushel baskets of them. I can't wait to show you what I'm planting this year!

Today I plan to knock off work a bit early and go for a walk to enjoy the last long days of summer. I hope you find time to do that, too.

Home Again

I'm so glad to be home again! I had a great long weekend at my sister's house on Long Island. It was my niece's college graduation, and next weekend another niece graduates high school. I am so proud of our "girls". They are all bright, intelligent and beautiful women who will make their mark on the world some day. The picture today is me and my niece, Melissa, who is also a writer and who was the party's honoree. She graduated from Ithaca College.

Taking the Amtrak up to New York City and stepping back into the swirling rush of people at New York's Penn Station I felt as if I'd never left. Ever the same on the Long Island Rail Road. I didn't get out into Manhattan as I had originally planned. I wish I'd had time to see my former coworkers and hit a few places I love, but that's life...another time.

Taking the railroad back into New York City to catch the return Amtrak train meant I was back amidst the New York City rush hour crowd. I looked around the 6 am train and knew I was on Long Island's "South Shore" compared to the train line I used to take on the "north shore." If you've ever read Nelson Demille's book, "The Gold Coast", that book is set on the North Shore of Long Island. The North Shore is old money, stock brokers and Manhattan business people. The South Shore has the gorgeous beaches and more working class neighborhoods. I grew up South Shore and moved to the North Shore when I married.

The 6 am train from my sister's South Shore working class Valley Stream neighborhood were mostly Hispanic and African American workers. A few Orthodox Jews in prayer shawls and yamulkes getting on in Queens. Construction workers, welders, electricians. Union patches on their jackets and lunch pails in hand and lots of friendly swear words floating on the morning air. A few office workers and women in hospital scrubs with medical ID's hanging from lanyards around their necks. Everyone clutching deli or Dunkin Donuts coffee cups.

My old train from Cold Spring Harbor....North Shore commuters...that same 6am train on another track. White men and a few women in their 40's and 50's with an occasional African American among the crowd. Clutching expensive brief cases, three-piece business suits, silk ties. Starbucks extra tall coffees in hand and reading the Wall Street Journal or the Financial Times. Sleeping people and people on Blackberries and Treos checking email.

I love them all.

They are the face of New York. They are the faces of my childhood. They are my history and roots.

But my heart lifted when the train came back near Richmond, Virginia, and I saw woods, streams, and a pond with little turtles passing by the train window. Cattle fields and elderly ladies on the train dressed in their traveling finery. "Y'alls" and "Have a good day now, ya here" and lots of "Jesus be praised."

If Long Island and New York City are my roots, these people are now my branches and leaves and flowers.

I am home. Truly home.

Gardening posts resume this week!

Ode to an Iris

Here she is. My iris.

Blooming officially May 2. In New York, her blooming date was around Father's Day, so my guess is about right...we are about one month ahead of the season on Long Island.

This iris traveled from Huntington, Long Island, New York in a plastic bag with a little dirt in November of 2007 when my father in law sold his home and moved in with us. We planted it along the driveway before the garden was planned. I just stuck it in the dirt and hoped for the best. Last year we had a lot of green and one flower or two. This year, she's a mass of thick blossoms.

My father in law can't remember where he bought it, or when. "Oh, years ago," he says with a shrug.

We got a few blooms from it on Long Island. It had a coveted spot of sunshine in a little square bed on the lawn that houses my iris and the daylilies.

In Virginia...it is thriving. It is just soaring. It seems to love its hot, sunny location.

Irises LOVE this part of southern Virginia. I have never seen so many irises since moving here. All along the back country roads you see huge patches of thick iris growing at the ends of driveways, along farm lanes. Everyone's got an iris or two. You can even find ads in the newspaper from people who divided their iris and have plants to give away - they have so many, they run classified ads to give their plants new homes!

Our town, Prospect, is a ghost of its former self, with many of the old Main Street buildings boarded up or turned into apartments. There are a few large Victorian or turn of the century houses along where the old railway line used to be. I drive through Prospect on my way to church on Sundays just to look at the irises. At the corners, along the front lawn, edging the railway side of the street are enormous clumps of iris, some measuring three or more feet in diameter. Most of the irises are white, but you will see some blues and purples among them. How long they have been growing is anyone's guess, but some are clearly decades old.

One of my goals for the garden is to plant one or more irises every fall. I hope to build a collection along the edge of the woods...and knowing how iris seem to love Virginia, I believe that one day I'll have some real show-stopping clusters too.

If anyone has a guess as to which variety of iris this is - especially given the strong grape-soda pop smell of the flowers - let me know PLEASE. I would love to add more.

Here's to iris!

A Country Weekend

"Pure country" described this past weekend to a T! Although the weather didn't cooperate, with overcast and showery skies, we still made it to an amazing auction. An estate was being auctioned off including a beautiful 136 acre farm, a wooded parcel, and a huge amount of antiques and household items. It was our first 'real' country auction and we were there only to watch and learn. Yes, it was tempting to bid...I had my eye on some boxes of Depression Glass that would have looked beautiful in our kitchen...and a few pieces of furniture that needed refinishing....but I think I prefer yard sales and antiques malls. At least there the price is firm and you can't succumb to "auction bidder's fever!"

After the auction, we went to Poplar Forest, Thomas Jefferson's retreat near Lynchburg. I was disappointed because I thought the house would be a mansion with furniture and grounds and stuff. That's more my 'thing' as I love to tour old homes and see how they're decorated. The house had been in private hands since Jefferson's grandson sold it, and they of couse changed it around to suit their tastes and add indoor plumbing and such. The conservation group that bought it is restoring it to Jefferson's time. The architecture is neat, of course, as the house is an octagon. That's where John got his inspiration for our octagonal rooms, including my office, where I'm writing this now. I can't look at an octagon and not think of home, which is a weird association to make.

A skunk visited the woods by the compost pile around 6am. Pierre and I smelled our visitor together, all the way up from the office. By 7, the smell had dissipated, and now around 10 am it's gone entirely, but it sure is unmistakeable.

Thanks to all the rain we have an incredible diversity of mushrooms and fungi growing in the woods. I've never seen so many! They are truly beautiful works of nature.

Country Life Crashes into City Life

Yesterday was a prime example of how my 'old life' and 'new life' crash.

We are in the midst of an unseasonably warm spell here in southern Virginia. The ice storm that is making life hell for everyone in the midwest, and is slowly encroaching on the northeast, hovers just north of us, pushing all the warm air onto the south.

And with the unseasonably warm weather comes...ladybugs. Not just the occassional "Aw ain't it cute!" kind of bug. I am talking SWARMS of the nasty beetles. We live on a loblolly pine farm, remember? Apparently ladybugs LOVE loblolly pines. A neighbor told us that the state dropped ladybugs by the millions onto the timber farms in the '80s and '90s to control an aphid problem. I've never seen an aphid, which must mean that the ladybugs are doing their job.

But as soon as the temperatures hit 65, the nasty bugs wake up. And they are nasty! When there are many of them, they poop everywhere. My house is less than 2 months old and my office paint needs to be touched up already because the darned bugs are just pooping everywhere.

And the smell. It is so strong it makes me nauseous. This is what happens when hundreds of these beetles invade your office.

And they bite. I had one fall into my shirt yesterday. I leave it to your imagination where that darned bug bit me. Suffice to say he did not live through the experience.

Here is some great info from Frugal Living on dealing with ladybug swarms if you are interested:http://www.frugalmom.net/garartladybuginfest.htm

But life in the country goes on. In the midst of trying to work in the middle of the ladybug invasion, both UPS and the mail lady drove up with packages. The mail lady finally brought the beautiful shades for my office...insulated to keep the heat down...and to keep the light off the computer screen....I am very grateful for those shades! The UPS driver brought the first of two shipments of trees. We are planting around 20 fruit trees and about 40 ornamental trees and shrubs. John, my father in law Jack, and I spent two hours yesterday afternoon and got the ornamentals in and the fruit trees under moist cover until today when John can plant them. I heard a deer crashing through the millet last night as I put in some hours after dark (and after the ladybug swarm had been disposed of for the evening!) in my office working on a client project. I only hope the deer don't find all the new shrubs. They look like tiny twigs anyway, and with all the warm weather, the grass is growing nice and green and moist, so I am hopeful that Bambi and her ilk will prefer the grass and leave our orchard alone.

So, my 'city life' of marketing consulting crashed head first into 'country life'. Flexibility was the key. I simply flexed my schedule, and joined John and Jack outside to plant the trees, leaving the ladybug swarm in my office. Then, when the sun went down and it cooled outside, and the bugs settled in for the night, I removed them with the vaccuum hose, and was able to sit at my desk in peace and quiet and do some work. It's nice to be able to work without batting ladybugs out of your hair!

And even better, working with John to have our rural dreams come true is amazing....the orchard is a long-held dream....and yesterday, my McMurray Hatchery catalog came, and we spent time last night while watching TV looking at the variety of chickens and turkeys available. We found a good place for the chicken coop yesterday, and John has begun talking about ideas to build it. The plan is to build the coop over the winter, then get our first batch of chickens in the spring.

Rural dreams, projects from my former city life....life at Seven Oaks goes on!