Second Place Feels Like a Winner to Me!

So....does anyone remember how I was terrified to can my first jars of garden produce?

How I was afraid I'd poison my whole family....picturing them writhing on the floor in the throes of botulism poisoning....

Bravely channeling the spirit of my Grandma Rudmann, born and raised on a farm in the valleys of southern Germany, armed only with The Ball Complete Book of Home Food Preservation and Preserving the Harvest, my husband's grandmother's speckled canning pot and a shiny new utensil box set from Walmart, I proceeded to can two jars of peppers, several jars of pears, and two jars of pear butter.

And my family liked it. They ate it. They actually asked for more.

My first canning project, 2009

This is year three. I am proud to share with you that two of my canned produce items, my pickled beets and pickled peppers, took second place ribbons each at the Five County Fair. (The rainbow-colored ribbons go to all participants - it's like saying, "thanks for being brave enough to show off your stuff.")

I couldn't wait to show my husband my ribbons when I got home from picking up my items on Sunday.

It was the end to a perfect fall weekend. I couldn't help but think of my dad.  I spent many brisk October weekends as a child at the Long Island Chrysanthemum Society Shows at Farmingdale Community College.  I remember helping him pack up all his ribbon cards and the occasional bright silver trophy or two.

Placing my little jars on the counter with their ribbons put a big, goofy smile on my face. I did it.

I came, I saw...I canned!

Five years ago I was working in a cubicle farm at 2 Penn Plaza, a gigantic office building right over Penn Station and Madison Square Garden, in New York City.  I was bored, stressed and overworked.  I was tired of the rat race. I yearned to write again but every day was a drag. By the time I came home at night, I was so tired that I couldn't imagine doing anything creative. My garden consisted of several shady beds in my in-laws garden since we didn't even own our own home; we rented rooms from my in laws. To say that I was unhappy with my life was an understatement.



But there was light at the end of the tunnel. We'd found the perfect land in south central Virginia in 2005.  It was so covered with pine trees and brush that my husband kept asking doubtfully, "Are you sure about this?" And as I looked around, a little voice inside of me said, "This is the place."  I was sure as sure could be.

We bought the 17 acres and had three cleared.  We built our dream house. My elderly father in law moved with us.  My husband helped me build a fenced in vegetable garden; 10 raised beds, a nice stout fence around it, a shed we painted to look like a country cottage. The steep area next to the driveway that he felt he couldn't mow safely with the riding mower I transformed into a blowsy, "wild" flower garden as my friend Ilsa called it when she came by last week for the book group meeting, with winding stone and gravel paths and arched rose arbors and a bench to sit and watch the butterflies.

I grew not only enough produce to feed us throughout the summer, but enough to can almost 40 jars of peppers, beets, carrots and pickles.  I have bins of potatoes in the basement and sweet potatoes from the harvest of 2010, all 79 pounds of them.  I have grown and stored onions and garlics too.  We planted 30 fruit trees.

All this in four years.

Those shiny red ribbons are more than second prizes in a county fair. They're confirmation of the right choices I made and the hard work we - not just me, but the "we" of our family - put into our lives.

I try as often as I can to share these stories with you because I want to encourage everyone reading this to do what Yoda told Luke Skywalker to do - "Don't just think. DO."   Don't waste your life in a cubicle farm when you have a dream in your heart.  Don't rest content with life as your parents scripted it for you if your mind and heart tell you otherwise.  God has a plan for your life, but you've got to listen and act.  You can make your dreams come true. I am doing that one day at a time.

It's not that there won't be fear at making great changes like we made. There was fear, and many moments of fear thereafter.  Fear that we'd made a terrible mistakes and that we wouldn't fit in. Fear that I'd never make friends like I had in New York. Fear that working from home would keep me isolated and that I would never make new friends. Fear that my business wouldn't succeed, fear that we'd use up all of our hard-earned savings.  There's been times of plenty and lean times too, but I have learned to just trust the flow of life and enjoy the moment while prudently planning for the future.

If you think you can, you can, and if you think you can't, you can't, or something like it Henry Ford once said.  What is holding you back?

Five years is not a long time but I look back at my life and it is like I am a new person, with a new life, yet I maintain a connection to all that was good in my old life. I still miss New York City and the smell of hot chestnuts roasting in the carts of street vendors near Christmas. The constant clang of Salvation Army bells and the sway of subway trains while the muffled voice of the conductor barks the next station. I miss the beautiful area I worked in on the upper west side of Manhattan, the free Lincoln Center concerts on Wednesday and bringing our brown bag lunches over to Alice Tulley Hall to listen to performers run through their programs while we happily ate our peanut butter and jelly sandwiches along with the rest of the workers who loved classical music.  I miss running out for Indian food at lunch, or "street food" from a pushcart, the delicious $1 rice and beans made by an immigrant, legal or not, from his push cart. I miss the weird synchronicity that only living and working in Manhattan makes you appreciate; running into a friend on the subway I haven't seen in over a decade only to find out we will now be working for the same company in Manhattan, running into an old grammar school buddy on the A train during rush hour, waving madly to a sibling I see crossing the street who I didn't even expect to see in the city  at all that day, only to find us in the same block hurrying to separate destinations.


Two red ribbons marking the new place and new chapter in my life.  Am I sorry they aren't blue? No, not at all.

Red is also my favorite color.

And there's always next year....because I'm not going anywhere at all.

Four years ago, bare clay.  Today, blooming. Bloom where you are planted.

Fall Color in the Garden

Have you ever noticed that autumn seems to have her own color palette? From the golden yellow leaves dotting the trees to the rich, dark purple berries hanging off the trees on the edge of the woods, fall's palette is rich, deep and strong.

I'm enjoying the annual display of garden mums now. The bright pink daisy mums with the yellow centers are from plants purchased at the Cooperative Extension's spring plant sale back in 2010. I bought a small 4" pot and it's turned into an enormous mum that people sometimes mistake for a shrub. Next to it, the smaller dark pink colored pom pom mums from Lowe's, now in its third year in the garden, seems small by comparison.

I've still got zinnias blooming and marigolds, but most of the other annuals and perennials are finished. That doesn't matter much now, as the understory trees crouched below the loblolly pines flanking the garden are all beginning their transition. Looking out from my office windows towards the garden is like looking at an impressionist's painting, as if a master swirled a brush daubed in ochre, crimson, and burn sienna across the back of the canvas.

Even the vegetable garden gets into the act at this time of year. Have you ever noticed that fall vegetables are also richly colored?  I've got acorn squash, with dark hunter green skins and rich golden flesh, butternut squash, and many hued cabbages coming into their own now.

I love fall for its color.  I especially love Virginia's fall season. It lingers longer than I thought it would. I thought the south would be low in color in the fall but boy was I mistaken.

What's blooming in your fall garden?

Wondering About Wonder

I walked Shadow around the flower garden today, and noticed with surprise that the lavender border I planted around the roses is blooming again.  Most years I get one beautiful show of lavender in June, then nothing for the rest of the season.  This has been the oddest fall temperature and plant-wise since I moved to Virginia. It's been very rainy, with five inches of rain in one week, and cool. Perhaps that has something to do with it? Perhaps the lavender thinks it is spring again? I can't quite figure it out.

We have an odd vine that is growing out of the driveway, and it has set fruit. I'm betting it's a stray cantaloupe. I am careful not to compost the seeds and I did not grow any this year, but every once in a while a seed clings to the compost bin or to the rind, and my best guess is that a squirrel carried the seed with him across the driveway and accidentally planted it. The gravel driveway has made a neat little micro climate, and the heat radiating up from the dark gravel must be keeping the melon toasty warm during this cool snap. I wonder how long we can keep it alive? Every day we go outside and check out little melon. We guided the vines back into the flower garden so that the car won't run it over every time someone drives in and out.

In the vegetable garden, the tomatoes seem to have finally cried 'uncle' and given up. They're flopping this way and that with nary a tomato in sight. Shelob, the giant spider named after the spider in the Lord of the Rings series of books, still holds court in the tomato bed. She turned in the opposite direction, however, with her back facing the sun instead of her abdomen facing the sun, and she's turner her web now so that instead of it on a direct north-south access, it's slightly angled east-west.  Another thing that fascinates me but to which I have no answer. Did she sense the windy days we have had over the past week, with winds coming from the east, and change direction so that insects are blown into her web?

There are so many questions I have about my garden. Why did we get gigantic 'fairy rings' of mushrooms this year, not just in our yard, but in the neighbors' yards too? I'm talking gigantic 10-20 foot circles of perfectly formed mushrooms, the likes of which we have never seen before. Why was this a great year for peppers and a not so great year for tomatoes? Why did the spider angle her web different?  Why is my lavender blooming in September? And why oh why are all the dogwood trees already turning colors, and the under story trees, as if they sense an extra cold winter on hand?

I think that if you love a garden and you have even a modicum of curiosity, you will never be bored. There is always something to learn, explore and wonder about. It seems like every day as I walk to get the mail or just walk the dog, I stumble over another mystery, raise another question. 

"I wonder" has become my mantra.

Summer Is Winding Down

Summer is winding down here at Seven Oaks...a few days ago, we walked on the High Bridge Trail and noticed red leaves on the sumacs. Today, looking out my office window, I see some of the underbrush trees already turning shades of gold and red. This morning while I sat on the front porch with Shadow, I needed a sweater.  First time since April.

Shadow's nemesis - the beeping, belching yellow school buses - are back on the road during her early morning walk. In Prospect, new deliveries of donated furniture are starting to show up at the fire house in anticipation of the fall auction, another sign that fall is here.

I'm canning peppers, freezing tomatoes, and readying the garden beds for the fall crops of vegetables. The flowers are at their peak, and I'm noticing second flowering on some of the spring bloomers, the dianthus and a stray pansy or two.

Last year, I felt like summer rushed by all too fast. I worked too many hours and didn't take time to enjoy any time off. This year, I don't want summer to end. Each morning, the light seems more gentle, and each evening darkness falls too soon.

We have a few more weeks of summer yet to come, but I feel like already it is winding down. How about you? How do you tell the seasons in your garden?

My (New) Home Town

This weekend, I had company staying with me. I got a chance to show off my new home town.  We hiked the High Bridge Trail and enjoyed gorgeous country vistas thanks to two inches of rain on top of three inches last week. The fields are emerald green, the wildflowers blooming. We saw Passion Flower and wild Rose of Sharon growing along the trail, as well as many beautiful butterflies. I hope you enjoy  glimpse of my new home town...and why I moved from New York City to rural Virginia....

View from High Bridge Trail, Virginia

Follow up on the Lightning Strike

The Farmville Herald, our local newspaper, ran a story with pictures about the lightning strike on my friend's farm.  Here is the article.  Yes, Farmville is a REAL town...it is a wonderful town, our local town, so stop laughing at the name. 

The picture at left is the oak tree that was struck. I am now very careful during lightning storms.

Thank you to the Prospect and Pamplin volunteer fire departments!

Gardening in Harmony with Nature

One change I've noticed in my behavior since moving to the country from the city is that I'm starting to adapt to nature's rhythm and timing. It's as if I'm becoming more in tune with the seasons and gardening in harmony with nature rather than fighting against it.  Instead of trying to force the vegetable plants earlier under cold frames, I'm waiting until the soil feels warm to the touch; instead of ticking off dates on a seed planting calendar, I'm walking around the orchard and noting the swell of the pear and peach tree buds and planting the cool weather vegetables accordingly.

Nature has its own timing and pace. Yesterday afternoon John and I took Shadow for a walk.  The sunlight was warm but the breeze was cool. We walked past our neighbor's huge cattle farm. It is several hundred acres of rolling green hills dotted with a large herd of pure and mixed Black Angus cattle.  There's one mama we nicknamed "mean Mommy" not because of her behavior but because she has white markings on her face that make her look like she's scowling all the time.  Well, Mean Mommy had her calf this week. A tiny, fuzzy little future bull frolicked by her side.  Each day this week we noticed more and more calves joining the herd. You can spot them a mile off by their spindly little legs and furry baby coats and their silly bovine behavior.  They jump and leap for joy, and just as suddenly collapse in a heap of exhaustion, snuggling up to whichever cow is closest while Mama gazes patiently from across the field.

John asked me if I knew whether cattle gave birth during specific times. Did they have more babies at night or during the day? I had no idea.  Watching the newborn calves at play, and listening to the trilling burble of bluebirds returning to the fields after their winter hiatus, I began to realize that all around me nature unfolded her patterns according to her own plan. We think we've got nature all figured out though, don't we? We learn every day about new advances in science that do miraculous things.

Yet I can't help but marvel at the soft fuzzy muzzle of the calf, the delightful song of the bluebird, the daffodils breaking the hard clay soil among the apple trees in the orchard.

I find myself watching the weather reports, noting the moon phases, and planting according to both - but more based on weather than anything else.  Yesterday I spent a few minutes and planted beet seeds, broccoli rabe, Swiss chard, various lettuces and radishes, all to take advantage of another weather front moving in that promises a day and a half of rain.  Rain; we live by this rhythm of water, the soft sound of rain and the way it nurtures the garden.

Gardening in harmony with nature makes me slow down. This spring, I feel more connected to the gardens here at Seven Oaks than ever before, as if I am slowly but surely coming to know a little bit of this land, and it of me. 

Upcoming Cooking for Crowds Class at Cooperative Extension

Dana at the Cumberland County, Virginia, Cooperative Extension Office sent me an update on their forthcoming programs.  Sharing with you the following information on a class called "Cooking for Crowds".




From Dana -

"I wanted to let everyone know about an extension workshop coming up in February called “Cooking for Crowds” for quantity cooking.  The workshop will be held on February 5, 2011 from 9:00 am to 12 noon OR February 16, 2011 from 6-9 pm at the Cumberland Extension Office.  There will be a $10.00 fee per person or organization.  Participants will receive a manual, certificates of completion, posters, thermometers, and chlorine test strips.  The instructor will be Jane Henderson, FCS Agent with the Amelia Extension Office.  Please register at least 5 days before the scheduled class by calling Linda Eanes at 804-492-4390 or by email at leanes@vt.edu."

So there you have it folks.  If you cook for church potlucks,  big gatherings like barbecues and family reunions and the like, you may want to take this class. Keep everyone safe and get your certification for 'cooking for crowds'.

Tracking the Elusive

My husband found these tracks in the woods.

Last night as I took Shadow out to the edge of the woods near the compost pile, we both stopped, startled.  It was pitch black, cold, and there's still enough snow on the ground to necessitate boots.  As I stood with her, I could hear clearly coming from the direction of the compost pile the crack and gnaw of sharp teeth on something. I'd put out the compost earlier in the day, and included in the batch of scraps were walnut shells and other assorted nuts. Now if you know anything about buying those yummy bags of nuts in the shell around the holidays, you know you can NEVER get all the meat out of the shell - not even with those sharp pick things they include in nutcracker sets. I'd had some walnuts with an apple as a snack in the afternoon, and the apple had a huge bad spot in it, so about half had also gone out in the compost, along with a bunch of shells that still had meat in them.  Shadow and I listened for a while.  The skitter of claws on the stone edge of my compost pile, the rustle of leaves (when there was no wind) let me know that our unseen visitor had fled back into the forest.  I began talking loudly too, in the hopes of scaring away whatever wild critter it was so I wouldn't have to deal with 70+ pounds of lunging, hunting-crazed German Shepherd on an icy hillside.

This morning Shadow and I were out before dawn. I led her up the snow-covered driveway and as we got to the curve near the edge of our property, I saw even more deer tracks in the snow.  Even immediately after the snowstorm this weekend, I saw plenty of deer tracks crisscrossing out of the woods.  They always use the same pathway through the woods, emerging and crossing the driveway.  There were other tracks too; the two parallel big feet tracks of a rabbit hopping towards the big pile of brush, which would make excellent cover; and more interesting, tracks I think are of a fox.  Near the rabbit, of course....

The snow helps us track the elusive.  We see prints of what has gone before us in the night time.  The snow has also brought forth many creatures, like our guest at the compost pile, seeking additional sustenance.  I know that the opossum love to eat fruit scraps from the compost pile, and sometimes after I put out pineapple cores and tops I'll find one dragged about 10 feet into the woods, gnawed on by sharp little teeth.

I love thinking about the mystery of these creatures, the lives of the forest dwellers who shyly rest in the shadows of the pines by day and emerge by night, seeking food, eluding predators.  We hear the owls hooting from tree to tree on some nights, and in the summer the whipporwill serenades us from the woods.  I see bats swooping and circling the fields. I have seen red foxes playing at dawn in the winter; one year they ran through the garden and had a merry game of chase on my compost pile while I watched in astonishment; by the time I got my camera, they were gone.  And one night, shortly after we moved in here and I couldn't sleep, I was standing by my kitchen window when a creature appeared from the woods, walking slowly and steadily past the house. I thought at first it was a large dog, and in the moonlight it had a distinctly canine appearance. It was only when it stopped near my kitchen window and looked at me did I recognize it for what it was; a coyote.  I had seen them in the wild out in Montana, loping along the railroad tracks, but never in my wildest dreams did I expect one to visit near my kitchen at 5 a.m. in Virginia!

The snow reveals the hidden lives of the forest dwellers.  We see the clues in the tracks of the visitors.  This week the temperatures will go back into the 40's and 50's, and while I am glad that I will be able to drive more easily, I will be sorry to see the snow leave.

Today's photos are actual pictures taken on our property, although from storms past  - they are not stock photos.  

Cattle on our neighbor's farm.

Vegetable Garden Winding Down and Thinking Ahead

I don't know whether this time of year makes me sad or happy. On the one hand, the vegetable garden is winding down. Tomorrow's task list includes taking out the tobacco sticks (long sticks with pointed ends that were using to harvest tobacco in olden times; I got a bunch of them from a neighbor who was cleaning out his barn and I use them as tomato stakes), removing the dead tomatoes and peppers, and trimming back the herbs. I found a few wayward carrots and those will need to be pulled too.  I also found my onions. I'd planted a bunch but thought they'd all died. Lo and behold, after cleaning out the beets a few weeks ago, I found a few shoots, and left them alone.  They're still rather small so I may leave them over the winter and see what happens.

Beans have fascinated me for a long time too, not just the green beans typical of the suburban garden but the plethora of heirloom beans that were once grown by Native Americans, European settlers and more throughout North America. Many of them are easy to find in the supermarket - kidney beans, white beans, navy beans, black beans - so I probably won't grow those. But what about the yin-yang bean with its amazing coloration that looks like the Chinese yin-yang sign? Jacob's Cattle bean, once a staple food? There are dozens of beans like this and I spent quite a while last night on the Vermont Bean Seed company website, thinking of what to plant.

I know that I will plant broccoli rabe next spring. I missed planting it this year and I enjoy it even if my family has yet to grow to love the bitter taste.  And...it goes well with beans....

Can you tell I'm getting a wee bit obsessed again?  Yet it's this interest, this delving into one topic and following all sorts of routes and side routes of information that has kept me interested in gardening all these years.

So tomorrow is clean up time in the vegetable garden. I will redraw my garden plan so that during the winter I can remember where all the bulbs went - I tend to lose them from fall planting to spring blooming. If time permits, we'll add another 200 daffodil bulbs to the orchard lawn, and move more truckloads of compost into the vegetable beds.  Typical Saturday!

What I Learned About My Garden This Year

Cinnamon basil in the herb garden

It's cold and rainy out today, and the forecast for the weekend called for temperatures in the twenties.  We hit two yearly milestones this year; first frost and the first time we used the fireplaces in the house.  Both occurred on November 1, marking an end to summer.

I look back and feel as if the gardening year flew by.  I look ahead with pleasure to the publication of my latest book, Attracting Birds to the Garden, which is in the galley proof stage now, meaning it's getting closer to reality, and work on the next books in the From the Garden series.

Sometimes when you're so immersed in the daily realities of gardening you lose track of what you've accomplished.  I felt like this year I had more failures than successes.  The drought and extreme heat really did take their toll on the gardens, but I did try some new things with success.

The frosts this weekend will kill what's left in the vegetable garden. Before the plants are but a memory, I wanted to share a few notes from my 2010 gardening adventures, both indoor and out, and just general adventures from the farm.

Sweet Potatoes
It was my first year growing them and I had no idea what I should do.  I thought I'd killed them at first. Instead, I harvested a bumper crop. I realized something very important, too. Root vegetables grow very well in my garden.  Next year, I plan to try a few more, including some unusual varieties of potatoes.

Carrots
Carrots love my garden. I love carrots. It's a match made in heaven.  Once again I harvested a bumper crop of long, sweet, juice Nantes-style carrots. More please!

Cantaloupe
Once again we had a bumper crop of cantaloupe, but they all came in at once and we got so sick of eating them that many went to waste. Now that I know they do well despite droughts and heat waves, I want to try a few different kinds and stagger the planting dates so the harvesting dates may be a bit staggered, too. That will keep me from getting sick of them!

Moles
Shadow found a mole digging in the vegetable garden. I ran and looked them up, fearing I had a new creature bent on eating everything in sight. I learned that moles are harmless, except for the roots they disturb.  Shadow's attentions discouraged the mole and she left the garden to live next to the shed, but I learned a lot about wildlife.

Bluebirds
The bluebird house Phil made for us attracted its first nesting pair this spring.  I could sit in my chair inside the house in my plant room and watch the parents feed the babies.  It inspired me to write Attracting Birds to the Garden; those baby bluebirds gave me such pleasure and joy every time I saw them.  It was a delight.

Groundhogs
Did you know they can climb trees? I didn't, until Shadow chased one straight up a pine tree.  That fat, furry rodent hung by his claws to the trunk, chattering its teeth menacingly while my dog went crazy at the base.  She could be a good hunting dog I suppose.  She is wonderful for keeping critters from the garden!

The Gardening Library

You may be surprised to learn that I have few gardening books in my home library.  The ones I do have tend to be reference books: an Encyclopedia of Trees and Shrubs, a pictorial encyclopedia of Annuals and Perennials, a reference guide to iris and roses.  I also have a battered, stained copy of Crockett's Victory Garden, my dad's gardening bible. He used to read it in the bathtub, fall asleep, and drop it in the water. I'd find it spread out on the furnace in the basement to dry.  My copy has wavy, water stained pages.  I have a few organic growing manuals, mostly for commercial farmers, and books like Clara's Kitchen and Five Acres and Independence, two books on self sufficiency that I love. 

Recently, however, I've been hankering for some good gardening books.  This Friday marked the town of Pamplin's first library book sale. I love library book sales! In Floral Park, the annual library sale was one of the highlights of the year for me.  I'd find many of my favorite horse books, for instance, now retired from the library shelves and offered for sale; for a quarter (hardcover) and a dime (paperback) I'd pedal home with a bicycle basket filled with books.

Pamplin's town library is located in an old train station depot, and half of the building was open to the sale. Picture a train station straight out of the turn of the last century, complete with an old rusty pot bellied stove in the corner, brick walls, and sanded wide plank floors.

We found reference books for our respective writing, and then I pounced on some gardening books. I came home with a new encyclopedia of flowering houseplants, a large volume on vegetable gardening, and a really interesting book chronicling the lifecycle of flora and fauna on a farm.  The author's purpose  is to encourage people to learn the plants, animals and natural cycles on their own farms.  Now that's someone whose book I will enjoy.

There's nothing like a library book sale to find new treasures. Some people do not enjoy used books, but half the fun is opening them and finding mysteries inside.  For instance, the previous owner of the houseplant -encyclopedia must have had many problems with her plants, for typed on some yellowing 1970's style stationery was a log of her house plant's health, what she did to rescue it, and the results. Unfortunately, the results trail off in February, so I can't tell you whether her log abruptly stopped because her plant recovered or if it ended up on the compost pile.

Old Fashioned Customs

When I was growing up, my mother and grandmother always sent home grown vegetables with my dad to work or bouquets of flowers with us to bring to the teacher or up to church during the week. Home baked pies or cookies often accompanied someone to a meeting at school, work or church. Sharing was expected and many afternoons the doorbell would ring around 4 p.m. and Mrs. Allen, a dear friend of my parents and a former home economics teacher at the local high school, would be beaming at me from the porch, a piping hot apple pie in hand. This was what I grew up with and what I carried with me into adulthood.

Sometime in the last 10 years, however, the tenor changed whenever I'd bring something homemade or home grown into work. The first time I noticed this was at a certain job in Manhattan. I remember one of the editors poking at the tray of home made sugar cookies I'd put out in the break room and making a joke about me being a Martha Stewart wanna be. A few years later, I brought home made banana bread to another company. People made more than a little fun of it and I heard some snickers.  Someone actually told me to my face that I was weird. (Well, I am, but for bringing in snacks?)  That didn't stop them from devouring it, by the way. And it did come out pretty good.

What's changed? I'm not sure, but here in the countryside, people remain as generous with homemade, home grown and home baked things as always.

I walked into a local shop and the clerk had a big watermelon on the counter behind her.  That's not at all what her shop sold so I commented on the gigantic behemoth.

"Oh that," she smiled, "One of my customers brought it in for me. Isn't it a doozy?"

Can you imagine bringing a home grown watermelon into the local dry cleaners on Long Island, Manhattan or another major city? They'd probably call the police and assume you'd spiked it with poison or something.

Here, they were planning to dig into it and invited me back later to partake of it!

Weekend Visitors

One thing I still cannot adjust to about country life is how people treat hunting dogs. They spend hundreds of dollars to buy these dogs then let them run wild or abandon them. Deer hunting with dog packs is like the national sport here in the country.


This weekend, I was in my office working on Saturday morning when I spied two hounds trotting down my driveway. They were lovely liver and white mid sized hounds, an old female and a young male. Both had collars and radio tracking collars, a sure sign a hunter was near. Trouble is, it's not deer hunting season, and we don't allow hunting on our land. We guessed someone was exercising or training his dogs nearby. 

John went out to see if the dogs had any identification on them. The female was so friendly that she came over wagging her tail and whining for pats and attention.  The male was shy and would not come over. We were able to get the name and a telephone number off of the collar.

We decided to let the dogs alone and hope they would leave of their own accord.  Because they had identification, we assumed they were not wild or abandoned. If someone was exercising his hunting dogs on the neighbor's property (which is a huge several hundred acre parcel, and we know that the locals love to hunt it and have permission to hunt it) chances are his dogs just wandered over.  We don't mind if they leave of their own accord and in the fall it is not uncommon for a small pack of dog to trot through the yard, nose to the ground, as they follow a scent.  We just leave them alone. They're dogs. They can't read No Trespassing signs.

Yet this weekend, the hounds showed up and decided to move in.

The female plunked herself down on our front porch and took a snooze. Did I mention that Shadow hates other dogs? Shadow barked, whined, slammed herself against the windows, and generally went ballistic. I spent Monday cleaning dog nose prints off my dining room and kitchen windows where she spent Saturday shivering, whining and slobbering on the panes of glass, trying to kill the hounds peacefully sleeping a few feet away.

Those two hounds drank water from a dirty flower pot on my front porch, slept on the front porch, back deck, and my driveway, and refused to leave.  By 9 pm when it started to rain and they were still hanging about, I called the phone number on the collar to ask the owner to come and get his dogs, but got an answering machine.

The next morning the dogs were spotted by a neighbor who said they had crept away to the property across the road from us.  I finally got a return phone call from the dogs' owner around 3pm on Sunday afternoon, a good 36 hours after the animals first appeared. He said he would activate their radio collars and pick them up and apologized that they were a nuisance. I assumed the owner picked up his dogs. He said he had seven, which he let out on Friday. I talked to him on Sunday and he seemed totally unconcerned that his dogs were running loose across busy roads.

I just don't understand any of this.  These were valuable, purebred hounds of some sort.  The female had been injured while she was running around. She was limping badly the last time I saw her.  This isn't the first time we have seen packs of hounds roaming our land, running down the street, or crossing the highway.  We had a wild hound living in the cattle field for several months. He limped on three legs. The fourth appeared to have been broken, perhaps by a car, and set badly.  Animal control finally had to euthanize the poor creature. Is that any kind of life for a dog?

Our neighbors who have a large farm say that several times a year they pick up abandoned hunting hounds on their property or have to call animal control to come and get them. Many times the dogs are starved, frightened, or so unsocialized that they won't come near humans. The dogs can be dangerous too, for they form packs to survive and can then hunt down livestock.


Call me sentimental, but I don't think it is right to allow dogs - the kindest, best natured, most giving creatures on the planet - to roam free where they can be hit by cars and get into all sorts of trouble just for the sake of exercising them for a sport.  I don't understand why people pay hundreds of dollars for these purebred animals only to abandon them or treat them so casually. It makes no sense to me.

This is one area where I retain my city sensibilities...I still don't understand this mindset when it comes to the hunting dogs.

In the (Gardening) News

Howdy from Seven Oaks! This picture was taken in October....me and my gal, Shadow.

Well it's snowing again today...haven't gotten out to Lowe's for bird seed (that's Monday's adventure, hopefully, along with a trip to the accountant and Wal Mart. Boy, I sure know how to live.) So unless you want to hear my whine about snow, and how I'm behind on my seed starting, and how I can't even go walking in my beloved woods to get my fill of nature...which is usually what keeps me going until gardening season again....let's have some fun instead.

I'm a freelancer writer and marketing consultant by day, mild mannered gardener by weekend/night/every spare moment. So why not combine the two?


You can read my latest gardening writing here....MainLineGardening.com, where I'm a weekly blogger/columnist. I focus on flowers for MainLine. They have amazing gardening products on their site, by the way - really unique items imported from England.




I write the weekly gardening column, Organic Gardening with Jeanne, here:

Bird Watching

Since the snow storm, I've kept an eye on the wild birds around the area. I wish I had birdseed on hand but we ran out. Hopefully I can buy more over the weekend (if it doesn't snow again!)

We left the heads of the sunflowers that grew along the south side of the house in a big heap right next to the foundation. Truthfully, my father in law took them down but left the heads for me to clean up. He forgot to mention them to me, and then John told me, and I just kept forgetting about them. I meant to hang them up on the trees on the edge of the clearing by the vegetable garden. But leaving them in a pile near the warm spot where the furnace and dryer exhaust pipes breathe warm air into the frigid days was actually a good thing. The birds have found them, and they are enjoying them. Pierre is also enjoying the show - from the safety of the windowsill. Poor guy. Lucky birds that there's a pane of glass between him and the gathering flock!

The robins, though, leave me puzzled. I've always thought that seeing a robin was the first sign of spring. Maybe that was a Long Island/New York City thing? Do they even migrate? Right after the snowstorm, I saw dozens of red breasted robins up in a tree on the roadside, and more flew up from the sanctuary of a huge juniper bush where they huddled under the boughs for protection from the storm. Yesterday when I walked Shadow, I noticed that they were all scratching in a meager patch of earth that was uncovered roadside by the melting snow. I'm wondering if they're hanging out near my neighbor's cattle fields because the cattle dung has insects in it? Anyone know whether robins migrate? If not, what do they eat around here when it's so cold? I thought they were only insect eaters?

We've also figured out where our flock of bob white quail hide! There's a huge brush pile off to the side of the driveway, directly opposite where we see the quail. After the snow, we saw a clear set of tracks leading from the brush pile and out into the woods...the quail appeared to hide in the pile, then after the storm, bobbed their way back into the woods. It's been fascinating to try to figure out all the animal tracks in the snow, but I'll be glad when I see the earth again under all this snow and ice.

After the Storm

Two weekends of snow and ice in south central Virginia...according to my friends and neighbors who have lived here their whole lives, this is almost unheard of. The storm began on Friday and didn't let up until yesterday afternoon. We ended up with freezing rain and sleet, snow, more rain and sleet, and then snow flurries....the total amount of snow was only about four inches, but it fell on top of about two inches of ice. That's what we measure on our driveway, anyway. Another weekend watching Mass on EWTN - there's no way I can get the car out and up the hill.

We lost power only for a few hours on Friday night. The electricity went off around 10:30. John called it in, and the recording at the power company said it was a problem at the substation. We breathed a sigh of relief. That's easier for them to fix than if a line went down on a back road somewhere in the middle of an ice storm. Sure enough, around 1 a.m, the power came back on. I was never so glad to hear the hum of the furnace amidst the constant hiss of sleet against the window panes.

On Saturday, I worked in the morning, and then we curled up in front of the fireplace with our books. I have been rereading my favorite mystery author, Phil Rickman. I made a pot of French onion soup. It's the first time I made it from scratch and it came out terrific. I felt inordinately pleased with myself. It was one of the recipes that intimidate me - it sounded much harder to make than it really was. I even had a set of those fancy onion soup crocks with the lids. A neighbor back in Huntington was throwing them out and John snagged them for me. So I made dinner as if we were at a fancy bistro and served it in the fancy crocks. It was so much fun! It was just what we needed on a cold, stormy winter's night.

This morning I snapped these pictures of our typical walking route. Enjoy this tour of our winter wonderland, after the storm.

Remember my flower garden? Here's what it looked like today...


Dawn peeking through the woods...


The vegetable garden, far to the right of the shed, all covered with over a foot of snow from last week's storm...and then some from this weekend.



There were flocks and flocks of robins everywhere. They were hiding among the bushes and trees near the road.

The farm across the road at dawn...cattle eating big rolls of hay...


Back at our driveway...thank you to the county for plowing. A convoy of work trucks passed me heading towards Pamplin around 7 a.m. Thank you to the people who plowed, salted, sanded, fixed the electricity and kept us safe.



...and rounded the last turn of the driveway, heading east towards the house and a hot cup of coffee, my adventures over.

Snow, Sleet, Ice, Iris and Primrose

Well, we're getting weather this weekend, which is the forecaster's way of hedging his bets. The ABC television station out of Richmond had one forecast, the NBC station another, and the CBS yet a third. Looking at the pretty map of the state of Virginia and all the color-coded bands indicating snow, ice or rain, our tiny part of the world appears to be right at the spot where all three colors or weather fronts meet, making it your guess or mine whether we'll see another foot of snow, a nightmare mix of snow, ice and sleet, or some sleet and then lots of rain. I'm guessing we're going to get some mix of sleet, ice and snow. No matter what comes out of the skies, I'm also guessing it will be the second weekend in a row where everything shuts down - it's going to be too dangerous to drive anywhere. We took a long walk yesterday and I got to drop off a thank you present at Mr Coleman's. And on the way back, I was rewarded by the sight of the flock of Bob White quail in the woods next to our driveway again. I don't know how they do it, but by the time I called John to come and see them, they'd bobbed and hopped out into the woods. You'd think a flock of brown birds the size of pigeons that hop up and down a lot would be easy to see in the snowy woods, but they vanished as quickly as they appeared. I hope they can find food.

I've taken to browsing my gardening catalogs like magazines. Schriner's Iris Catalog arrived yesterday. I flipped through it several times, just drinking in the pretty pictures the way I used to do with the fall fashion issues of the women's magazines years ago when I had to dress the part of up and coming executive. I've already picked out two iris to try but I won't say which because I keep changing my mind.

Then something was nagging at me. I couldn't figure out what. It had to do with the date. What? Birthday I missed? Something due at the library?

No - time to start my primrose seeds! I first grew primrose from seed in 2000, and we had a lovely patch of English primrose along side the house back on Long Island. They returned year after year and grew so beautiful. I'd never grown primrose before, and I enjoy them enormously. I "met" English primrose back in the early 1990's when I worked at Martin Viette Nurseries on Long Island. They were the first harbingers of spring, those flats of English primrose and the larger plants we'd have for sale in the greenhouses by March. As always, I look for ways to save money, so I sought seeds to grow my own plants rather than purchase started plants from the garden center. It took a while to find seeds, but Swallow Tail Gardens had them, and I bought a package. It's time to actually start tunder the lights in the basement!

So even though we're getting another whack from Old Man Winter this weekend (and it looks like yet some other system brewing for next week), spring really is just around the corner. And that patch of ground next to the front walkway, still covered by snow, is begging for those primrose!

A Knight on a Farmall Tractor

We got 14 inches of snow on Saturday and awoke on Sunday to a winter wonderland complete with crystalline blue skies and pines covered in fluffy white snow. Church was closed, roads hadn't been plowed yet, and no one was going anywhere fast, so we enjoyed the unaccustomed luxury of hanging out in our pajamas until 10 drinking tea and reading books.

But reality intruded and we knew we had to get out and start shoveling. Our driveway is about a quarter of a mile long. I figured that if I shoveled for two hours a day, I could clear a path to the end on Sunday so we could get the mail and if necessary, I could call a friend to pick me up to get essentials if we ran out. By Wednesday, we'd have it clear enough to get the cars out for grocery shopping. This was important, since another storm is predicted for next weekend (although in typical weatherman style, they are still calling it a "rain, sleet or snow event" - great way to hedge your bets, guys!) We've got enough food stocked up to last a while but it's always nice to have milk and fresh fruit!

So John and I shoveled snow while Shadow played and made herself a snow cave to sleep in. She really needs to be an Alaskan or Maine dog. She loves the cold. She seems happier outside in the cold than inside by a roaring fire!

We had 1/3 of the driveway cleared and called it quits for the day. It was really funny because as we were shoveling, we talked about our options to handle future snowstorms. Should we get a snow blower? Invest in a plow to attach to the new truck we are saving our pennies for? How much would that cost? Is there another way, and is it worth it? We keep hearing that these two snow storms are just freaky, that this never happens here where we live....but how do we know? Shoveling by hand a quarter of a mile of driveway gets old...really fast. (But I did get an amazing aerobic and strength training workout.)

I said to John, "If we could only shovel or plow it down to an inch or two, the sun would melt the rest....that's all we need. Just a little help."

We called it quits and went inside to hot tea and an Alfred Hitchcock movie marathon. We were sitting in the living room watching "Rear Window" when we heard a peculiar noise. We both ran to see what it was but nothing....and the noise grew louder...an engine noise, to be sure and something else...

Then to our amazement, a man sitting atop an ancient Farmall tractor appeared at the top of the driveway...PLOWING!

We ran outside. "Who is it?" John asked.

He was an older fellow with a weather beaten face and a cap pulled low over his forehead and farm coveralls. His Farmall tractor was well used, a rusty red color, rattling and clacking away on all cylinders, but that workhorse was just piling the snow up and out of the way like magic.

He pulled up and we shook hands with our knight on the Farmall tractor. It was our neighbor (well, in the country I have learned that anyone within five miles is your neighbor - he's about half a mile down the road) who owns the neighboring farm

"Driving by," he said, "Saw you hadn't been plowed out yet. Thought that snow would collect real good down here. Sorry I didn't get here sooner. Had to get gas for the tractor."

And with our heartfelt thanks, he nodded and drove off, plowed and plowed some more until our driveway was perfectly clear.

I had such tears in my eyes I had to go into the house. It was like a scene from It's a Wonderful Life. Since when does a perfect stranger haul his farm equipment out and drive down the road plowing out total stranger's driveways?

Since we moved to Prospect, that's when.

Thank you, neighbor.. You are our knight on a Farmall tractor. We really, really appreciated it.

Calm Before the Storm

Yesterday was the last warm day before the impending storm. John changed the burned out light bulbs in the patio garden area. We have pretty lanterns lining a pathway that loops around from the garage to the patio, and several bulbs needed to be replaced. Shadow was "helping" him when suddenly he disturbed some mice that were wintering over behind the heating unit. There's a bit of tall grass there, and the warmth from the fans must be very enticing to the mice. I looked out the window to see Shadow zig zagging around and around the heating unit, her tail held high like a plume, as she barked excitedly and chased the mice hither and yon. John was yelling at her to stop (he was afraid she'd hit some of the big electrical wires connecting the unit to the house) and laughing all at the same time.

We then went to the vegetable garden to see what survived the last snow, so we could monitor what survived THIS snowstorm expected tomorrow. My spinach is the only green showing in the vegetable garden. I planted seeds in the fall, and the spinach was about an inch high when the December snowstorm came. The snow has melted, and the spinach was thriving...it's now about 2 inches tall...but tomorrow we are expecting another foot of snow, and the temperatures will plunge. So I bid my little patch of green farewell until the next thaw.



We did something unusual yesterday. It was 55 and sunny. Around 3pm, we put our work aside, leashed up Shadow, and took a long walk along the country roads. We needed to feel the sun on our faces and smell the rich earth from the pastures to fortify ourselves against yet another winter storm.

Wish us luck...the Richmond, Virginia weatherman said yesterday "Snow will fall like lard." Which is really a strong, albeit disgusting, visual image.

When is spring, exactly?

(photos today are of the vegetable garden, but taken in October...and Shadow racing through the orchard while the first snowflakes fall, but picture was taken last March)