Erin Go Braugh

St Patrick's Day parade. Photo courtesy of Rockford Register Star

Wishing you all a happy and green St Patrick's day.


My mother's maiden name was Brennan. Her great-great grandfather immigrated to the US from county Galway in the 1800's to work on the railroads. The Brennan clan has a colorful history reaching far back into Ireland's past. Songs are still sung about one famous (or infamous) Brennan in the late 1700's. A harsh time when England invoked cruel laws on the country and Ireland relinquished its parliament.

This is the legend of William Brennan, Ireland's Robin Hood. Willie was the son of a tenant farmer on the banks of the Blackwater who witnessed his family's eviction from their home. His mother was forced from her sick bed and soon after died. Brennan resolved to protect the poor from such tyranny and revenge his family for the terrible injustice (or so the legend goes).

He gathered around him other men with similar tragic stories and took to the hills to begin robbing the rich and helping the peasantry. He was much beloved by the locals because of his aversion to killing and his generous character.


Tis of a famous highwayman A story I will tell;
His name was Willie Brennan, And in Ireland he did dwell;
And on the Kilworth mountains He commenced his wild career,
Where many a wealthy gentleman Before him shook with fear.

Brennan on the Moor,
Brennan on the Moor.
Bold, brave and undaunted
Was young Brennan on the Moor.

A brace of loaded pistols He carried night and day;
He never robbed a poor man Upon the king's highway;
But what he'd taken from the rich, Like Turpin and Black Bess,
He always did divide it With the widows in distress.

One day upon the highway, As Willie he went down,
He met the Mayor of Cashel A mile outside the town:
The Mayor he knew his features; "I think, young man," said he,
"Your name is Willie Brennan; You must come along with me."

Now Brennan's wife had gone to town, Provisions for to buy,
And when she saw her Willie, She began to weep and cry;
He says, "Give me that tenpenny"; As soon as Willie spoke,
She handed him a blunderbuss From underneath her cloak.

Then with his loaded blunderbuss, The truth I will enfold,
He made the Mayor to tremble, And robbed him of his gold;
One hundred pounds was offered For his apprehension there,
So he with horse and saddle To the mountains did repair

Then Brennan being an outlaw Upon the mountains high,
With cavalry and infantry To take him they did try;
He laughed at them with scorn, Until at length, 'tis said,
By a false-hearted young man He basely was betrayed.



We are finally snow free. Temperatures in the 50's, even reaching into the 60's on a few afternoons, have melted all but the monster piles of filthy snow in parking lots. Maybe the luck of the Irish will bring an early spring and keep those late season snow storms away. Wherever you are, hope it's sunny and warm and things are starting to green up in your gardens.

"Mom always loved you best."

Do any of you remember that famous line Tommy Smothers used when he got into an on stage argument with his little brother Dick. This time of year I feel that way. Not about my mom or my brother and sister, but about Mother Nature and the gardeners in warmer climate zones. In the mornings, visiting my friend's blogs, I see photos of blooming crocus, daffodils, Lenten roses and sometimes annuals or even flowering trees. Looking out my own window I see snow and mud under a weeping sky the color of pewter.

In the northern states the daytime temperatures are getting into the 40's . The soil which is saturated from the melting snow turns to a quicksand like mire. Rural roads are closed to heavy vehicles because the underlying ground cannot support the weight and the pavement will crumble. When I kept horses here, I would walk behind the barns to fill the hay racks and my boots would be literally sucked from my feet. What a horrible sensation to stumble out of your boot and end up stocking footed in frigid mud two feet deep.

The deep snow is slowly melting from the garden beds.

Have I convinced you all that Mother Nature really does love warm climates best? After battling months of deep snow, treacherous ice, and brutal cold, it is this transition period that is hardest on us northern gardeners. The next month will seem like an eternity. We look with envy at the beautiful photos from southern gardens, we look outside at our own gardens and we think this doesn't seem fair.

The wild flower bed beneath the lilacs.

Yesterday, I walked down the drive looking at my garden. A lot of snow has melted in the last week so about half the garden is now visible. I would have liked to cut down some sedum stalks but didn't dare step off the pavement for fear of churning up mud and compacting the soil. Another month or more before I can start cutting back rose canes, removing dead foliage and thinking about moving plants. A minimum of two months before we dare to put out tender annuals.

Strawberries hidden under an insulating blanket of snow look pretty much the same as they did in November.

I'm hoping Mother Nature will relent a little this year and give us an early spring. It doesn't happen often but occasionally we will get unseasonably warm temperatures in April. Even in years when April seems almost perfect, we must be very careful. Nature has a way of playing cruel tricks in the north. A seventy degree week in late April spurs gardeners to rush their favorite annuals into the gardens. Then in May we get just one or two nights when the temperatures dip into the 20's and annuals and even the flower buds on shrubs are killed.

So back to the Smothers Brothers, I thought they were hilarious back in the 70's. I don't see them often anymore but still get a kick out of their off center humor. It helps to have a sense of humor if you are a northern gardener. If you can't laugh along with Mother Nature, she will surely drive you insane:)

I apologize for the snafu that caused this blog to show up on the blog rolls way ahead of the posting. Operator error:)

Everybody have a great week!

Khlem Arboretum

I want to thank everyone of my friends who kindly wished my father a speedy recovery. Altho we still don't know the cause of his illness, he seems to be doing better. He is spending a few weeks in a therapy center getting his strength back. We hope he will go home soon.



The last of my stash of photos from the Council of Rockford Gardeners garden walk June 17, 2009. Khlem Arboretum my last stop on the tour that day.

If the name Khlem sounds familiar, you are probably familiar with the family that has maintained a presence in the nursery business in Illinois for over half a century. A little history about the arboretum. Landscape architect William Lincoln Taylor established this 155-acre site in 1910. My Taylor used the land to introduce and study rare trees he wanted to use in his landscape business.

In 1968 the Khlem family bought the land and maintained the plantings, then in 1990 they decided to donate the land to the Winnebago County Forest Preserve District with the stipulation it be used as a forest preserve. A team of arborists inventoried the site and determined that it contained an assortment of rare plant life unlike anywhere else in the US.

A singularly unattractive education center was built and a maze of roads, parking lots and paved paths now overwhelm the once natural landscape. In spite of the 'improvements' the arboretum still has much of it's original charm.

I was really taken with this birch birdhouse. I may try to copy it for my home garden.

When I think of Khlem's, I think of peonies. The family has hybridized some lovely varieties. The arboretum features a large formal peony garden.

The water features are my favorite. This is truly a lovely place to sit and soak up the restful atmosphere.

These shallow bogs contain some lovely plants. They are also a favorite bathing and drinking spot for birds.

Water rushes over the rocks and falls into the lily pond.

A bridge crosses the creek and enters the wooded area.

Just a very brief message to say I will be off line for a while. My father has been in the hospital since Tuesday, February 16. The doctors seem baffled and his condition isn't improving.

Right now, I can't seem to work up much inspiration for blogging. Hope to be back with good news soon.

An interesting visitor

This is Diddle, so named because of his scientific genus Didelphis virgiana. Diddle sometimes shows up in the evenings to vacuum the areas under the bird feeders. He cleans up the seeds and hulls the birds miss.

As a young child, I never remember seeing an opossum around our home which is odd since we lived in a very rural area. Probably our collie, who always had the run of the place, kept them away. My first encounter was at grade school. Somehow one had gotten into the coat room of the old country schoolhouse and our teacher promptly called the sheriff. The deputy walked up to it, grabbed it by the tail and handed it off to his partner in the patrol car. Holding the opossum by the tail out the open window, they told us they were going to drive it down to the woods and let it go. We all stood at the windows watching the little creature hang limply out the window as the sheriff's car drove slowly away. Some of us waived goodbye to it as children will do:)

Some very interesting things I learned about opossums:

They are usually nocturnal and seldom seen in warmer months but will come out to forage for food during the daylight in winter months.

From a health viewpoint, opossum's immune systems are better than most animals and they groom themselves like finicky house cats. They are unlikely to spread disease, in fact much more unlikely than dogs or cats. Opossums have a great natural resistance to rabies.

They are not territorial and tend to wander. They shift den sites frequently throughout their short lifespan (1-4 years).

Learning and discrimination tests rank opossums above dogs and and put them at about the level of pigs.

They will eat almost anything including rats and mice and they consider slugs and snails a delicacy. They are immune to viper venom and will sometimes eat snakes.

They don't attack and seldom bite. When confronted by an enemy they sometimes hiss and show 50 fearsomely pointed teeth. If that doesn't discourage the attacker, they go into a shock like state which often makes the attacker believe the animal is sick or dead.

Opossums have opposable 'thumbs' on their hind feet.

They are the only marsupial found in the US or Canada.

In a letter, Captain John Smith gave us the first English language description of the opossum in 1608. "An Opassom hath an head like a Swine, and a taile like a Rat, and is of the bignes of a Cat. Under her belly she hath a bagge, wherein shee lodgeth, carrieth, and sucketh her young."

According to some sources, the name opossum comes from "apasum" an Algonquin Indian word meaning "white animal".

Possum Crossing by Nikki Giovanni

Backing out the driveway
the car lights cast an eerie glow
in the morning fog centering
on movement in the rain slick street

Hitting brakes I anticipate a squirrel or a cat or sometimes a little raccoon
I once braked for a blind little mole who try though he did
could not escape the cat toying with his life
Mother-to-be possum occasionally lopes home . . . being
naturally . . . slow her condition makes her even more ginger

We need a sign POSSUM CROSSING to warn coffee-gurgling neighbors:
we share the streets with more than trucks and vans and
railroad crossings

All birds being the living kin of dinosaurs
think themselves invincible and pay no heed
to the rolling wheels while they dine
on an unlucky rabbit

I hit brakes for the flutter of the lights hoping it's not a deer
or a skunk or a groundhog
coffee splashes over the cup which I quickly put away from me
and into the empty passenger seat
I look . . .relieved and exasperated ...
to discover I have just missed a big wet leaf
struggling . . . to lift itself into the wind
and live

Whole Lotta Shakin' Goin' On

Couldn't resist that old Jerry Lee Lewis song title:) In the midst of our latest winter storm, we had, of all things, an earthquake. Winter snow storms we get a lot, but earthquakes are rare here. I was asleep at 4:00 am when my bed started shaking and the drawer pulls on my old highboy began rattling. It wasn't long before the TV newsmen were on the air giving us details. A 4.3 magnitude earthquake was centered in Virgil, IL near Dekalb and NIU. The disturbing factor is that no one knew there was a fault in Virgil even though NIU has very sophisticated seismology equipment. Luckily, a relatively small quake like this does almost no structural damage.

The sun is shining today, something we haven't seen in a while. The snow is pristine and glittering. The beginning of a beautiful day.

A couple photos taken on the farm. Ever wonder what happens to apples that don't get picked? No, you probably haven't given it much thought. This old apple tree in the pasture used to provide shade and treats for the horses. Now the deer enjoy the apples they can reach and the ones that fall to the ground.

The birds must not find these berries very appealing.

I hope you all have a wonderful week.

My Town

All the fun and excitement of the holidays is over and February looms cold, gloomy and cheerless. February on the northern prairie is as bitter cold and snowy as January. In the south, you are turning the corner toward spring but here it will be March before we see even a little improvement in the weather.

One really pleasant note to start the month. I actually won something. That never happens. Jamie and Randy at Creating Our Eden (Use the following url if the linky doesn't work http://jandrgardenblog.blogspot.com/) had a drawing for a really nice bird feeder. I can't believe that I could be so lucky. An absolutely perfect prize for a wild bird watcher such as myself.

If you don't already know Jamie and Randy, stop and visit their blog. Be sure to check out the archives and see what an amazing job they have done constructing their gardens.




This is primarily a garden blog but this time of year garden topics are hard to find. Maybe today I'll just mention one of the more interesting things about my town.

Rockford has a tiny natural history museum that used to be located in an old house on the banks of the Rock River. Burpee Museum has grown quite a bit in the last few years and one of the reasons for its growth is Jane.

Jane is an adolesant tyranosaurous rex discovered, excavated and cleaned by staff and volunteers from Burpee. It is extremely rare to find a young example of a T. Rex and Jane is in wonderful condition. A very interesting story surrounds the finding of Jane. In the summer of 2001, a team from the Burpee museum had been scouting in Hell Creek, Montana for unusual specimens to bring back to the museum. On the last day of the expedition, the toe and leg of a large dinosaur were found protruding from the banks of a creek. Time had run out so the team 'hid' their find with rocks and dirt and returned to Rockford hoping no one else would discover the amazing find before they could reorganize and apply for permits to excavate the site.

While Jane was alive, the Hell Creek area was a flood plain

The team returned in the summer of 2002 and began to excavate Jane. Enduring weeks of blazing heat, torrential rains that turned the area to a sea of mud, swarms of biting insects and poisonous snakes, the team carefully uncovered Jane's skeleton from the surrounding rocks.

Finding the jaw bone gave the team a pretty good idea of what kind of dinosaur they had discovered.

Jane is a favorite with children. Kids love dinosaurs but Jane is extra special. She was a youngster herself and the kids must identify with her. Buses unload daily at Burpees doors bringing school children to view her.

All photos courtesy of Jane's web site.

You can read more about the discovery of Jane at this site: Jane, the diary of a dinosaur

SNOW ART

The Rockford Park District has an uncanny ability to know when the January thaw will occur and select that exact time to host the annual snow sculpture event. This year sculptors worked in temperatures approaching 40-degrees F. On the day of the judging, it rained. I felt so sorry for all those who had worked so hard to create art that lasted only hours.

So here they are, the crisp details already dripping off:

Where the Wild Things Char

Vagan til Valhalla II

Save our Home

Refuge in the Shadow of His Wings

Mr Toad's Not So Wild Ride

Mommoth Masticator

How Many Buffalo Does It Take To Change A Light Bulb

Happy Together

Fish Out of Water

Who Are You


Happy Together was a crowd favorite and mine too.

More June garden club walk

Talk about curb appeal. This pretty bank of rock, perennials, daylilies and shrubs runs along the highway for about 200 feet. Simple but elegant.

When visiting gardens for the first time, I tend to photograph unusual things that catch my eye.

In the photo below, a thrifty gardener created an old fashioned well from chunks of used concrete.

This succulent tower was made from an old 60's style kitchen chair frame and a piece of wood to give height to the back. Wire mesh encloses sphagnum moss and holds the plants in place.

A Toad Hall resident sits in this sunny garden.

This is a catalpa tree. Very striking.

WINTERLUDE

We have had so much snow this winter and not much of it has melted. Last Friday the snow was over the tops of my Uggs:)

Northern Illinois isn't alone when it comes to bad weather. According to the national news, two thirds of the country is experiencing unseasonable temperatures, snows or floods. There is some good news in the forecast. The jet stream has shifted and temperatures are supposed to be on the rise for most of the country.


White are the far-off plains,
And white the fading forests grow;
The wind dies out along the height
And denser still the snow,
A gathering weight on roof and tree
Falls down, scarce audibly.
The meadows and far-sheeted streams
Lie still without a sound.

~ From Loreena McKennitt's Snow

A panoramic view of the fields around my house.

Winter is taking a toll on wildlife. Deer, rabbits, and birds are not able to dig through the deep snow to reach food. I have hundreds of birds in the yard where I ground-feed to make sure the doves, cardinals and juncos get their share.

The house finches are constantly pushing and shoving to get a better seat at the table.

I thought seeing some scenes from warmer days might cheer me up. Here are a few "then and now" pictures. The snow photos were taken Thursday.


The wren house with it's tiny resident carrying home dinner.



Much less inviting now with a thick covering of snow.


Colorful helenium Mardi Gras on a bright summer day.


Now just a collection of twigs.


A clump of miscanthus amoung the glowing maple leaves.



Now only a few brown stalks remain to catch the whirling snow.


Cats have the most wonderful imaginations. Perhaps today Toby sees himself as a snow leopard. Leaping into drifts, tunneling, rolling, never bothered by the cold. I had to cut his snow time short when he refused to stop harassing the birds.